community

These pictures are all of the lovely Kaleigh. First up is at the Earth Awareness Fair (did you know we live on the Earth?). It was, unfortunately, held inside the convention center, which meant concrete floor and fluorescent lighting, and not much passing by traffic. It was a step down from the park, but we still met a lot of interested and interesting people. Kaleigh had a terrific time hanging out with Lynn Young Buck in the tipi. Lynn taught her the uses of many things in the tipi, and Kaleigh even figured out the low-tech pump drill. Lynn let her dress up in a buckskin dress, and you can see how proud she was. At one point, Kaleigh hid behind a seat in the tipi and asked Lynn to pretend she didn't know where Kaleigh was. Lynn said she shrieked, "Where is my child? Has the white man stole my child?" We laughed our butts off about that one.

The second picture is Kaleigh at the top of the ladder. Don was cleaning out gutters yet again, and installing some kind of gutter guard to prevent the millions of tree seeds from clogging up the gutter. Kaleigh likes to climb ladders. You can't see it in this picture, but her prehensile toes are gripping the ladder rung.

The last picture is of Kaleigh's painted face. This was from the opening day of the library's summer reading program. She didn't wash her face for days after this, but it slowly degenerated into Kaleigh looking like she had a dirty nose.

So, spring is here and almost gone it seems. We have a nice big full garden this year. While we are not nearly close to growing everything we eat, we are getting ever closer. We've been steadily eating onions, peas, and pea pods out of the garden. The mulberries are ripe, and I've already made a carboy of wine. The raspberries are just starting to ripen. I am making feralberry wine today out of the mulberries and raspberries. The small currant bushes also have ripening fruit.

Although the area has seen a lot of rain, our house has not. Even the west side of Springfield has had considerably more rain than we have. I don't like watering for many reasons, primarily because I don't like paying money to put chlorinated water on plants. But water I have. I want my plants to grow before hot and humid summer gets here.

We've had a return of community, it seems. Friends have been stopping by and hanging out in abundance. We've made tentative plans to have a few friends camping out and helping out this summer. I like the idea of collectively working in the yard and on the house, and preparing and preserving food. It's almost a return to the "good old days" when all of our friends were unemployed. I miss it.

In other encouraging news, Springfield is having a tax auction sale in a few weeks. Vacant lots are selling starting at $600. Some lots even have houses. Our neighborhood has many vacant lots, and we're encouraging any and all to come and live and garden here. It would be wonderful to have beautiful gardens all over the place here, entertaining the ideas of community and sharing and caring.

carey