elainegrey

Yesterday's unseasonable and unsettled weather translated into unsettled moods. I went out at 8am in my house dress to finish pruning the apple trees of the original owners. At some point the branches were all cut back to the trunk. Not a formal pollarding, as i imagined when we arrived, but a brutal cutting back. I assume it happened at the same time as a number of other trees were cut from the landscape, leaving logs and tangles of branches in the woods.

At Meeting, there was a period of bright sunshine with mellow temperatures in the 70s. The forecast had called for rain all afternoon, but it wasn't raining -- what to do with the afternoon? Work outside? In the garage? (The mower needs the blade changed, and then the used one sharpened. And then all the tools could use sharpening....) Then there were Yule gifts to wrap and prepare for shipping. And my sister's birthday...

Christine was not in a particularly good mood due to Drama with some colleagues on one of her projects. She fixed lunch while i called my parents, and got weirdness -- there's some kerfluffle going on and it's hard to tell if it's a real kerfluffle or my mother is just confused kerfluffle.

I wish we had our second car.

My sister, when i reached her, said she would call when she got home and we could come over & give her a birthday hug then. That left us with an unsettled evening plan.

While i was on the phone the skies cleared. It looked glorious. Christine and i ate lunch on the back porch as it grew overcast , then we went to follow up with a cup of coffee and sat on the front porch. This would get me closer to doing some yard work. The temperature fell as we were sitting there, and then the wind suddenly came up, roaring, and i asked, "Do you think it's going to rip open?" I was answered by a brief downpour of fat raindrops. In we dashed to close things up.

It was still slightly warmer outside than in, so i sat on the back porch and read the internet. The temperature fell another five degrees: that sent me back inside.

--== ∞ ==--

In wrestling with sending Yuletide greetings, i find myself shying away from sharing news of the move. Yesterday i said to myself, "The move was traumatic." I think i need to be honest with myself about that, and then perhaps i can move out of this odd relational isolation i am in.

I have disappeared from communities in which i was deeply integrated, and i have been ignoring that pain. It's not to say i don't love the relationship i am building with the land, but it asks for very different listening from me. And how i answer the land back? Sweat and some blood: no tears yet.

I suppose the tears part is nagging me: The herbivores are going to come for my garden and any fruit and nut trees i plant. It will be hard to communicate to them that if they just wait for the trees to mature, they will have even more food than the bark and twigs.

But... here i notice my tendency: go off and research some detail about planting, not deal with the emotional wound of my own transplantation.