Going Home Again (Part Two)

 I wrote previously about my experience of returning Back East and the realization that no matter how far I spread my branches, my roots will never budge. I am now preparing to take the trip once again. This time the Hubby and all three of the children will be joining me.  This is the “Part Two,” the part that I have struggled to type. It is difficult to write because I have not yet formulated my thoughts concisely. I have been mulling this over since my trip in October, and I will soon be returning with the same questions still unanswered.

My roots   are buried deep in the rich fertile soil of the Appalachian foothills. For generations, my family has toiled along the river and in the hollers, carving lives out of those coal-rich, money-poor hills. I lived along the Ohio River in Eastern Kentucky until I was 12 years old, when my father was transferred to the Midwest by the steel mill that employed most of the town.

My memories of Appalachian life are filled with hard work, long days, meager earnings, and time spent with family. As a child, I remember dewy summer mornings collecting strawberries from the garden for breakfast, and long afternoons sitting on the porch swing, peach juice mixed with mud dripping off my elbows, while my grandfather rocked in his chair, swatted at flies, and complained about the starlings.

I remember sweet tea, brine-soaked cucumbers, and days working in the blackberry briars rewarded by a warm cobbler-filled belly in the evenings. I remember dancing on the lawn with my cousins in spontaneous celebration of the first thunderstorm after a long drought, and I remember the anticipation of watching the first snowflakes landing on the autumn leaves. I remember weekly trips to visit my grandparents in the city; the tiny house overflowing with people, cigarette smoke, coffee, and laughter. I remember hushed voices and murmured phone calls, and I remember assuming that if someone didn’t show up to a party, they must be in the hospital. I remember the long trek up a steep and winding road to bury my maternal grandfather, who had been incapacitated by stroke years before I was born.  I remember pain and tears, and I remember the lovingly handmade “Care Bear” and “Cabbage Patch Doll” I unwrapped at Christmas.


I remember that I never once considered how much money my friends in school had because none of us had much. We all survived and that was enough reason to be glad. My elementary school gave boys leave during tobacco harvest, so they could work alongside their fathers in the fields, and tradition commanded that fifth-grade girls dressed up in their church clothes to serve the sixth-grade boys their elementary graduation breakfast. Tradition was the custom, and the oral tradition was deep and rich. Storytelling was an art form, and music was the natural manifestation of stories told animatedly on the front porch.

And now, I return. I am so fortunate to have the opportunity to drive along that winding gravel road to the head of the holler to hug my grandparents once again. I sit on the porch swing, watching my cousins’ children play ball in the yard with my own.  Yet, when I drive into town, I now see the poverty that I didn’t see as a child. I see sorrow and pain. I see the manifestations of a decade of torment caused by a culture destroyed by substance abuse. I see pain clinics and once proudly maintained trailers buckling from years of neglect. I see children orphaned by addiction.

Appalachia has a long history of hard work with little reward. Short lives punctuated by injury and illness have, in the past, been a way of life that drew families closer and created a sense of communal responsibility for the welfare of one another. Yet today, I see industry chewing up and spitting out the Appalachian people, feeding upon their pain and their desire for something better.
 
Much like the company store of the past, big pharma and “pain clinics” have targeted the downtrodden Appalachian people as a captive market, wrapping them up in the endless cycle of addiction and need. The proud struggle of the past has become a desperate and angry poverty today. People once toiled in their gardens after long days in the mill to provide food for their families. Today, whether I will be able to speak with a cousin on the phone will depend on whether the copper wires supplying communication have once again been stolen to feed an addict’s Oxycontin habit. 

Do the Appalachian people have pain? Without a doubt. They have always had pain, but no one took notice until there was a profit to be made. The solution offered is hence market-driven, and the true needs of the Appalachian people are ignored while children are orphaned and the murmurs and whispers are now of death by overdose rather than early natural illness brought on by years of hard labor.

It pains me to see this transformation. It hurts to hear of the brutal abuse of my brothers’ best friend’s corpse by other addicts after his overdose. It hurts to watch loved ones enter prison or be injured in acts of drug-fueled domestic violence, but I remember. I remember hot sticky days filled with dirt and sweet fruit juice dripping down my chin. I remember laughter and strength in the face of insurmountable challenges. I know the spirit of the Appalachian people, and I understand that spirit still remains under all the pain and brutality visible on every street corner. I remember, but my children don’t.

How do I frame their experience of Appalachia in a way that they can understand their roots? Their roots are as deeply entrenched in that soil and that soul as are mine, yet all they understand are the whispers and murmurs that so-and-so is in prison or so-and-so overdosed. All they understand is that their cousins didn’t get Christmas presents this year because their mother spent all the money their grandparents sent for them. They don’t know why yet, but soon enough they will understand what drugs are and what they can do to an individual and a community. How do I tell them to be proud of a culture that seems so ugly today? How do I tell them to be proud to be second generation urban Appalachian, when I can no longer lay claim to the culture I see there? How do I make sense of this transformation as an outsider looking in, and how do I show my children the beauty masked by torment?

This must be why they say, “You can’t go home again.” I know where my roots lie, but they are buried in so much grime that it is difficult to navigate the way back. I can’t forget my past, though, and I can’t let that grime distance my children from their heritage. For me, the way home is in my bones, but how will I show them the way?  I still don’t have the answers, but I can only hope I will when they are finally old enough to ask the questions.

Confessions of a Child Protective Services Drop-out

It seems that every week, you see stories about children being unfairly ripped from the homes of their parents for some incomprehensible reason – like accidentally forgetting to pay for a sandwich. Within the hour, you’ll see another story about a child whose loved ones begged and pleaded for help from the state, and those pleas fell upon deaf ears until it was too late to save the child. You see stories about children being abused or neglected in foster homes and stories about children suffering tragic consequences after being returned prematurely to an unsafe family of origin.  All of these stories have the same tone – the state agency obliged to protect the welfare of the child failed, and the consequences of that failure were fatal.

The media gobbles up these stories and spits out sensationalist headlines and biased opinions. Why? Because these stories combine two elements that grab public attention and incite outrage and cries of injustice – combining child abuse and failure of public officials is the coup de grâce of news media.

If these failures are so appalling to the public whether the state acts or fails to act, then why do they keep happening? Why do they happen over and over again in agencies all over the country that are run in fundamentally different ways? No one has a perfect answer to that question, but I'd like to offer my experience as an insight into the challenges of that work.

Here’s my story in brief: I was working as a sexual assault advocate in a large urban environment, where our biggest challenge was a particularly aggressive gang, whose modus operandi was to brutally sexually assault the female companions of their rivals with blunt objects as a means of retaliation. There were plenty of other terrible things that I laid witness to each day, but this group was particularly challenging, in part because if the woman I comforted while a nurse stitched her back up ever revealed who caused such suffering, she and her loved ones were in imminent mortal danger. I recall at least a dozen victims, and the detectives and I never got a single name, description, or even an answer to a follow-up call. I saw this time and again, and there was little I could do. Getting up to this every day was exhausting because, essentially, the very idea of seeking my help would cause these women more harm, and I became a threat rather than an advocate. As a pregnant woman, the physical risks I incurred as part of this investigation led me to daydream of greener pastures. I wanted to move on to a place where I could really make a difference in an immediate and direct way. I wanted to protect people who needed my help, and I wanted to work in an environment where the little person I was carrying inside me would be less likely to be harmed as I went about my daily business.

I accepted a position as an abuse investigator in a rural county nearby. The pay was good, and I saw direct ways in which I could make a difference when a case passed across my desk. So many of my former clients had bemoaned their caseworkers and the system in general, but I had seen the nitty gritty. I had heard the stories of the mothers whose children had been removed, and I had helped them fight to regain custody of their children. I had been on the other side, and I thought I could bring new perspective that would perhaps alter outcomes for children and families.

I was assigned to the Special Investigations Unit, which meant that we only received the ugliest of cases and our caseloads were much smaller because of the complexity of the cases. My max caseload was nine per 30 days. I started my first case on a Monday, and by Friday I had 18 cases. The reason? There were only four of us taking the “ugly” cases, and that was my fair share of the flood of cases pouring in. There were no tax dollars available to increase the number of caseworkers in the SIU, so that’s what we got.

Now, here I am thinking that I can make a difference. I want to complete thorough investigations, and ensure that the children whose cases left my desk were treated in the most advantageous way possible.  Within that first week, I met a little girl who tearfully told a cousin, and then me, that her father had sexually abused her. After the interview, I asked the father to leave the house until the investigation was complete, and he obliged.

Two days later, as I sat in their home, the little girl’s mother told me the financial woes they were experiencing because of the change in the household. They didn’t have money to pay the electric bill. She didn’t know where their next meal would come from. Why? Because this little girl told this story about her daddy.

That day, when I talked with the little girl, what did she say? Can you guess?? That’s right. She made it all up, and she was sorry. She was just telling stories, and everything got out of hand. Of course this made me uneasy, so I arranged another interview with a pediatric forensic psychologist. I watched via closed circuit television as she tearfully recanted and said she was sorry, and she just wanted daddy back so the lights would stay on.

This was one of about 20 cases on my supposedly 9 case max load. I had 30 days to close the case, and I had no substantiation that anything had happened. The little girl admitted to lying. My supervisor pressed me hard for a closed case, and I had 19 other families who needed my time and attention, too. What could I do? I inquired, and we had no funds to provide emergency assistance to the family. What were my options? I closed that case. Dad went home, the lights stayed on, and the little girl learned never to tell anyone what happened behind closed doors.

That was only one of the gut-wrenching cases that I witnessed during my time there. Like any other public agency, child protective services caseworkers must adhere strictly to the law. Unlike many practitioners responsible for life and death decisions, though, they are bound to do it in as few hours as possible because there is very little financial support for what they do and so very many children and families in unsafe situations.

I lasted less than four months in that position. During that time, an infant died in a house fire intentionally set by her mother. A child whose case had been closed as “unsubstantiated” only a few weeks before. The caseworker was fired and sued. The supervisor was demoted. Did this change anything about the way cases were handled? No. How could it? In most of these cases, there is little direct and documented evidence that any harm has come or will come to these children.

In good conscience, I was unable to continue to work in life or death situations where the institutional goal was to close each case within 30 days per state statute, rather than to ensure the safety of children first and foremost. I left my position feeling deeply remorseful, and it took me quite a long time to recover from the grief I felt for some of the children I met.

A year after I left, a child was severely abused and killed in foster care. The caseworker was blamed because she failed to conduct routine checks on the home as mandated. Yet, she had dozens of foster homes on her caseload, and this child was placed nearly two hours away from the agency. There is no money for overtime, and there is only so much that can be accomplished in 40 hours per week.

There have since been huge organizational changes to the institution where I worked during those tumultuous months, and I certainly hope things are incrementally improved. However, after reading case after case in the news media, in which caseworkers are blamed for child mortality, I am left with the sense that we cannot improve dramatically upon the outcomes for child victims until we fundamentally change our perception of the causes of child mortality.

Caseworkers are asked to do the impossible – both in terms of the amount of time required to discover the truth about the history and wellbeing of a vulnerable child, and in terms of their ability to predict the future. How can they be expected to accomplish either consistently in a culture that vilifies them at every opportunity?

When you hear a news story about a shooting, and it is mentioned that “The police had been called to the residence on multiple occasions,” the immediate response is not to blame the police for failing to adequately intervene. There may be some question about police response, but the implication of that statement is that this troublesome situation had been out of control for a long time.

We cannot continue to vilify the individuals responsible for protecting vulnerable children and expect them not to simply follow the letter of the law – make the requisite contacts, collect the requisite evidence, tidy up the file in case of future lawsuit, and move the problem off their desk and out of their mind.

The problem of child abuse and subsequent child mortality does not begin and end with the caseworker. This is a community problem. One we must each accept responsibility for. One we must each acknowledge as a reality in our neighborhoods and our schools. We must each offer love and support to children and to struggling parents. Doctors and midwives should adequately screen for domestic violence and postpartum psychological problems. Pediatricians should ask how new parents are coping and listen genuinely to problems and concerns. Neighbors should ask if parents need a casserole when their colicky baby is keeping them up all night. Teachers should let their students know that they can confide in them if they are worried. Everyone should be aware of community resources for parents struggling emotionally, economically, or spiritually, and be willing to offer help if needed. If we each provide the opportunity for parents and children to reach out for support, no one potential intervener would be singularly responsible when tragedy happens.

None of these things require the state to incur additional financial responsibility, they can be done in a matter of moments, and they can mean the difference between life and death for a child who may never see the overworked and undervalued caseworker everyone expects to swoop in and save the day.

He Who Howls When The Whole World Whimpers

In Friday’s post, I drew comparisons between revolutions past and present. The main observation in that post was that revolutionaries speak the truth that everyone experiences but few voice openly and many fail to notice until the truth is spoken. Revolutionaries speak this truth even at times when it may be politically or personally dangerous to do so.

This may seem off-topic for a blog primarily related to natural parenting and homesteading, but I disagree. Growing up in a family where the personal is political naturally leads to conversations about why we breeze right past the grocery store aisles with all those food products in the alluringly bright boxes. It has also led to amusing conversations, such as the one about the origins of bologna after a classmate revealed the contents of his lunchbox to Mr. Drama.

Granted, I had to console Cowboy on his second day of Preschool when he discovered the existence of “really colorful fish crackers and apple juice,” and listen to this three-year-old’s lament that we don't have those things in our home. In an age-appropriate way, I tried to acknowledge the disappointment while drawing attention to all the great things we have at home that others may not.  Sometimes, I think it resonates. At other times, I’m not so sure.

When Mr. Drama’s second grade teacher told us during parent-teacher conferences that she felt proud that he trusted her enough to whisper his excitement about attending an Occupy protest the night before and that he’d really prefer not to win the Food Drive first prize – a class pizza party – because he’d rather not eat all that processed wheat, I realize that he understands the lessons we’re teaching. When we told him that we’ll have a “China-free” Christmas, he enthusiastically accepted the idea because he understands that locally produced gifts are of higher quality and keep our dollars where they are so desperately needed – close to home.

My children are not sheltered from society. They are taught to appreciate their neighbors and lifestyles other than our own. They go to school. They play sports. They explore their world. They watch television, they eat candy on Halloween, and they whine and moan when it’s time to clean their room. They are normal kids. Yet, when they ask, “Why?” I explore that question with them. Often, I don’t know why, either, and I tell them that. Because no one holds all the answers and sometimes it’s just more fun to come up with your own. Sometimes there are no easy answers, and it’s important to be comfortable in the realm of the unknown, too. When I look to the revolutionaries who have shaped our world, they are the ones who saw what no one else could see and spoke what no one dared to speak. They had the courage to howl at injustice while most of the world passively accepted it.

He who howls

I want my children to see the world for all its beauty and all its flaws. I want to provide a safe space for them to explore the high desert ecosystem outside their doors and the social hierarchies within their schools. I have no intention of teaching them to view the world as I see it. They have different eyes, different lives, different experiences, and a different truth. I want to provide the safety for them to speak their own acquired truth in our home and in the face of injustice. I want them to never stop asking why and never give up on their own dreams of what could be. Whether one day they become revolutionaries, engineers, geologists, or janitors, I want them to continually seek a better understanding of what is now and what is possible. I want them to feel that naming and exploring the current reality is the best way to move forward, both as an individual and as a citizen.

America

Today, I stumbled across some youtube clips of interviews with the leaders of the Beat Generation. I can’t seem to pull myself away from them. I am primarily fascinated by an interview and conversation between Allen Ginsberg and Neal Cassady (famously known as Dean Moriarty from “On the Road”).  These men were the brilliant and bizarre bearers of knowledge and new ideas that shaped American society during the 1960’s and 70’s leading to everything from “free love” to successful anti-war and civil rights protests. At the time, Ginsberg’s thoughts and writings were punished with brutality, outrage, and imprisonment. Yet, he continued. He did not continue because of disrespect for the American way of life. He continued because he believed deeply in the principles upon which this country was founded and saw the freedoms and individual liberties promised by our forefathers trampled upon during the McCarthyist, Cold War, Lavender Scare, Jim Crow Era, which led the government to impinge upon rights of free speech, free expression, and actively and enthusiastically persecute anyone unwilling or unable to conform to the American “norm.” – The white, Christian, middle class, law abiding, two parent nuclear family.

Ginsberg, and others like him, continued to push the boundaries and explore the criminalized idea that, perhaps, there were other ways of being. And he and his contemporaries suffered greatly for it. Granted, they seem a bit unhinged, even in this video, and certain lifestyle choices were no doubt questionable. However, these men helped to pave the way for civil rights for ethnic minorities, gays, and (as sexist as they may have been) women. Few revolutionary ideas come in a neatly wrapped unassuming package. Or, perhaps they do, but without outlandish delivery they fail to gain notice.

What struck me so profoundly in watching this series of clips are the similarities between that revolution and what is taking place in America today and how similar government response has been. Ginsberg, Burroughs, Kerouac, and Cassady first met in New York City, eight miles from Zuccotti Park, where a few dozen protesters assembled peacefully on September 17, 2011. The former group would soon be known as the Beat Generation and the latter has grown into the Occupy Movement. As the ideas of each group spread, the government and the media have been forced to take notice. The responses first range from disregard to demonizing and finally to silencing by force.

At both these times in our history, most Americans were hungry for a change that was not going to come from those in power. In both cases, Americans were trapped in a position of being ruled individually and governmentally by fear rather than by reason. And in both cases, strength and will to change came from a small group of individuals with lofty ideals that America can be something other than what it now is.

During this day of contemplation, I read Ginsberg’s poem titled "America." I’ve linked it here.  With a few name changes (Muslims instead of Russians, and Somalis instead of Indians, for example), this could have been written here and now.  In fact it reminded me of another poem of sorts, a song written by K’Naan, a Somali refugee, coincidentally also entitled “America”. The lyrics are linked here.

Though clearly written in very different styles by intellectuals from vastly different backgrounds, the message is the same. America has let us down. It is not now what it was founded to be. And as a government for the people, by the people, and of the people, we, the people, are responsible for making it what it should be.

Going Home Again (part one)

My recent trip Back East was both exhausting and exhilarating, and the physical and emotional toll of the trip was more than I had anticipated. Though still recovering, I am finally able to reflect for a moment on the experience.

During this trip, I had the joy of reconnecting with many loved ones who have been separated from me by time and by distance. I looked into the eyes of people who watched me grow up, but who have never seen me grown. I walked alongside folks who loved and protected my young self during pivotal moments but who have not stood by my side as I ventured along my path as a Woman. These are people who laughed when I felt joy, cried when I felt sadness, cared for me when I was sick, and whom I knew I could always call when I needed help. Yet, as happens far too often in our increasingly socially fractured society, we all have moved on and accepted that those relationships are part of our past. However, when I look into those eyes, with a few extra crinkles at the corners, or wrap myself in arms that have carried many burdens since I last felt their warmth, I am amazed at the comfort, the truth, and the rawness of that connection. Though we have not experienced each other’s daily lives, we still know the core person looking back at us across the table.

There is something so incredibly grounding in being reminded of the depth of our roots. Yes, each of our past relationships has been fractured, whether through the pain of shared experience more easily left forgotten or simply by the length of time between phone calls. Regardless of the impetus for lost connection, these relationships meant something to each of us. They were deep and fulfilling, maybe at a time when we were searching for truth in a chaotic world. Each of these relationships reminds us of a place we’ve been, a time when we’ve shared ourselves vulnerably with others, and a time when we’ve been accepted wholeheartedly for the people that we are.

To return and find myself still loved in much the same way as I was a decade or more ago leaves me feeling like I haven’t truly ventured so far from where I’ve been. More so, it implies that wherever I venture from this point onward, I still have the same roots. I cannot escape nor will I be cast away from my past life.  This has been an experience of self-exploration, of recognition and acceptance of past experience, and of the power of human connectedness. I am who I am today because of where I’ve been in my past, and I now have a greater sense of self because I understand that more wholeheartedly.

Desolation

Dharma Bums by Jack Kerouac is one of those books that I pick up time and again, and each time, there is a new kernel of truth in it for me to enjoy. I have worn my copy completely out, and it no longer has a front or back cover. This week I picked up this book while I was preparing to leave my New Mexico mountain for the Midwest. I am taking the two littlest kids with me, and I will be flying out and visiting family and friends from Chicago to Appalachia.  When I picked up my sad little naked book, the first thing I saw were the closing paragraphs. And once again, this little book made me realize something that I’d been ignoring in my frenzied and anxious preparations.

"I don't know when we'll meet again or what'll happen in the future, but Desolation, Desolation, I owe so much to Desolation, thank you forever for guiding me to the place where I learned all. Now comes the sadness of coming back to cities and I've grown two months older and there's all that humanity of bars and burlesque shows and gritty love, all upsidedown in the void God bless them, but Japhy you and me forever we know, O ever youthful, O ever weeping." Down on the lake rosy reflections of celestial vapor appeared and I said, "God, I love you" and looked up to the sky and really meant it. "I have fallen in love with you, God. Take care of us all, one way or the other."

To the children and the innocent it's all the same.” – Jack Kerouac (Dharma Bums)

I am leaving my mountaintop. Albeit for just over two weeks, but I’m leaving my chickens and my dogs, The Hubby and Mr. Drama, the sunshine, the firewood, the clothesline, the deck, the stars, the moon, and the howling coyotes. 

The last time I did this, I felt like a fish out of water. I had planned a trip to Chicago, and I flew out of Albuquerque, into O’Hare, took the train out of O’Hare, and an hour later, I was standing on Michigan Avenue. Men with briefcases and women with stiletto heels were darting around me as I meandered meekly down the street, soaking in the humidity like a dry sponge. I looked into the windows of Fur Dealers and Jewelry Stores looming several stories above the street in glittering buildings, and my head swirled.

I found my way to my hotel room, hopped in the shower, and then spent the next hour digging the high desert sand out of my toenails and applying a lovely coat of polish. In retrospect, I think I was trying to give myself a bit of camouflage.  I was convincing the world (and myself), “See, I’m not a sun-drenched, earth-baked, mountain mama. I am metropolitan.” And I have the toenails to back that claim up.

At the same time, there was a heaviness and a sadness, as I looked out my hotel window at the lake front apartments with tiny balconies from which to view the water.  It was almost surreal as I realized that everyone can’t have a wild world to explore everyday. They can’t walk out their front door and find themselves surrounded on every side by raw unbridled nature. Even in the cornfields and lawns of the suburban Midwest, everything you see has been touched and sculpted by man. Men have even decided which spaces to designate “Green” and have planted trees to signify such.

Here, I can walk out my backdoor and pick up a big hunk of petrified wood, a geode, obsidian from ancient lava flows, or a dinosaur fossil, none of which have probably been touched by another set of human hands. The only signs of humanity are the numerous arrowheads and pottery pieces left by ancient native people.

Most people would look around my home, discover that there isn’t a franchised business for 20 miles, the only signs of life are cacti and rattlesnakes, I don’t have a maintained road or trash collection, and call this desolation. And I owe so much to that desolation. I owe that feeling of freedom, of quiet, and of connection with nature. I don’t think I could quantify what I have learned any more than Kerouac did sixty years ago, but I can express my gratitude as I head back into civilization with my hands tucked in my pockets to hide the dirt under my fingernails.

It’s been a crazy day, so what’s for dinner, mama?

Today was particularly eventful in our household. We’ve been having poultry predicaments for a few days. This resulted in us moving our meat birds (set for slaughter soon) up to the front of our house, directly outside my bedroom window, and eventually to a friend’s coop.  The reason we moved them was because our egg layers are showing signs of illness, and we’ve decided to treat the whole egg-laying flock with antibiotics for a couple of weeks. We didn’t want to give the meat birds antibiotics so close to slaughter, especially since they are new to the flock and show no signs of illness.  We had to buy eggs today **gasp** because we can’t eat our hens’ eggs for around three weeks.

So, we’ve been dealing with sick chickens, and one of our dogs has been faking an injury for several days because I hurt her feelings (that might be another blog post in itself). Overall, though, we felt like we had things under control.

This morning started out rather uneventfully. My second-grader, Mr. Drama, left to ride to school with the neighbors. I hung a load of laundry on the line and drove Cowboy to preschool. Then, as Sergeant Princess and I head back in the door, we are followed by Opal, the hound dog pictured in the last post.  I turned around, and there she stood, staring blankly off into the distance covered in dirt and blood. She reminded me of the baby rabbit we found injured on the road a couple months ago, which we tried in vain to save.  I looked her over, and it was clear that a wild animal had attacked her, and she needed veterinary care. While she wasn’t critically wounded, I worried about all the infectious microbes she may have been gifted along with those bites. The morning was a frenzy of logistics in trying to get an immobile and wounded 6-inch tall, 55-pound dog into a minivan and to the vet’s office. Roxie valiantly refused to leave her companion’s side, which is very sweet, when you are not trying to figure out how to get a 6-inch tall, 55-pound dog into a minivan without furthering injury and while wrangling an oblivious toddler. The added complication of repeatedly removing a spry and agitated shepherd from the van was a bit more than my patience could bear at that moment.

Luckily, Opal was not severely injured. The doc looked her over and determined that she had been bitten by coyotes, first in her (ahem) lady parts and then by another coyote in her side as she fell over. The most care the vet gave her today was irrigating her lower eyelid which had been packed full of soil during the scuffle. He believes that her extremely loud bellow was the key to her survival. He actually thinks that terrible hound sound sent the coyotes running like a couple of thieves bolting at the sound of a car alarm. She is just stunned, and the vet aided her emotional shock with a healthy dose of narcotic pain relievers and a dash of antibiotics and said, “See you in the morning.” The afternoon was spent checking on all the sick and wounded animals and working through the list of things I had intended to complete during the morning hours.  Before I knew it, Mr. Drama was home from school, and I hadn’t really thought of dinner.

I seriously contemplated the box of packaged beans and rice hidden away in the cupboard, but I thought I could do better in less time. (It would take 25 minutes to cook up anyway).

Here’s the spaghetti dish I came up with instead:

Diced garlic, onions, mushrooms, and zucchini, sautéed with olive oil, rosemary, thyme and wilted basil.

Wilted basil sounds like some fancy culinary thing, but the truth is, I had great intentions to start my own herb garden, and purchased a basil plant, which I have wholeheartedly neglected. It is dying a slow sad death, and wilted basil is what it has left to offer me.

After I sautéed the veggies until nice and soft, I added a can of organic stewed tomatoes with Italian seasonings. After learning about why commercial tomatoes taste so bad, we purchased a boatload of canned organic tomato products from Costco to use when farmer’s market tomatoes are not an option.

I added a bit more rosemary and thyme and allowed it all to simmer for about 15 minutes, while I cooked the pasta.

Though we really like to start from scratch with most things, we haven’t purchased a pasta maker (YET). So, we settle for Organic Spelt pasta. This stuff is great, and the ingredients?—Organic spelt flour and water. Yep. ZERO sodium, and 9 grams of protein per serving.

I tossed the cooked pasta with the veggie mixture, added a bit of parmesan cheese, and voila: another additive free, nutritious vegetarian meal that enticed my children to eat three bowls each. Total cost was probably about $6 for the family, and prep time was less than 30 minutes.

Around the House

I thought it might be fun to take everyone on a virtual tour around our house to give those who haven’t visited us an idea of some of the things that we do to promote sustainability. Most of these things we’ve done for free, or almost free, with only a couple of major purchases.

The first major purchase we made was an investment in solar panels. We had them installed in February, and we haven’t had an electric bill since. In fact, since we are still “on-the-grid,” we are a solar energy producer, and we get a check from the electric company every month. The largest check was around $120.  When you factor in the loan payment to the solar company, we have a net cost of about $10/month average for electricity.  Sorry, I’m not brave enough to climb up on the roof during the little ones’ nap, so I don’t have a picture of the panels, but this is a picture of our new electrical box system. 

And this is the component that we can watch tick backwards as we produce more kilowatt hours than we use. It’s all a bit industrial looking, but there is nothing better than listening to the whirl of that inverter while I’m hanging clothes out on the line.

I haven’t really used our dryer since May. I refer to it as the “diaper fluffer” because I like to toss our cloth diapers in the dryer for about 10 minutes, so they aren’t too stiff after hanging on the line. I wash diapers twice a week.

The second real cost we incurred was a chainsaw, which was The Hubby’s Father’s Day gift. It is the gift that keeps on giving!  Here is the firewood he’s collected and chopped since then.

Our goal is to rely solely on firewood collected from downed trees on our property and on adjacent properties. We have permission from the owners to remove downed trees. It is actually quite beneficial to remove lots of fallen trees because it reduces the risk of a quickly spreading wildfire.  We had the propane tank filled, but I hope not to use any at all this year.

This is our wood stove (with a lovely piece of The Hubby’s recycled can chicken art on top).  The wood stove is actually much kinder to my skin and everyone’s sinuses than the furnace. We have a couple of tea kettles on top, which we keep filled with water and a few drops of essential oil (I love tea tree oil), to keep the air moist all winter long.

And here is the piece we found from a thrift store that welcomes the ladies (and gentleman) home.

That’s the door of the chicken coop, and below are pictures of the inside, the chicken run, coop foundation, and exterior. The Hubby constructed the entire coop from materials we already had lying around, except for the poured concrete floor. Coyotes will dig under a coop to get to the chickens, but with rebar through the vents and concrete and stone foundation, our ladies are safe and sound all night long.

The stone stairs The Hubby constructed with stones found on our property, fortified with a little more cement.

In return, they earn their keep with faithfully provided eggs. This is one of our four laying boxes today.

Here are a few of the Cornish Crosses that The Hubby purchased from a kid who raised them for the fair. They are pretty terrible birds to have around, but I hope they’ll be delicious. The Hubby and Company will be sending them off to “Freezer Camp” after a backyard ceremony sometime in October.

Just in case any predators dare challenge the chicken fortress, though, we have Roxie, the fearless mutt who will take on anything, except a bobcat apparently. For that battle, she called in the reserves (aka The Hubby), who learned that he needed to keep an arsenal handy to throw at any stubborn predators ready to attack. The current arsenal consists mostly of strategically placed horse shoes (also found on our property).

Roxie’s other back-up is the not-so-fearless Opal. Really, though, what would a homestead be without one worthless old hound dog?

There are lots of other great things I’d love to show, like the piñon trees that are just beginning to open their cones and share their nuts, and the prickly pear, whose fruit we plan to use for jelly and wine this year. Perhaps there will be a Part Two to this post, if anyone is interested. (Are you interested?)

It’s a wonderful wide world out there, and when you’re working with your surroundings rather than against them, it’s amazingly simple to feed (and provide heat) for a family of five for (almost) free.

Hope

From Part One: Life

By Emily Dickinson

HOPE is the thing with feathers           

That perches in the soul,           

And sings the tune without the words,           

And never stops at all,           

 

And sweetest in the gale is heard;                   

And sore must be the storm           

That could abash the little bird           

That kept so many warm.           

 

I’ve heard it in the chillest land,           

And on the strangest sea;                   

Yet, never, in extremity,           

It asked a crumb of me.

 ----------------------------

When dealing with a stubbornly elusive disease that has no name and no seeming boundaries, there are moments when a person doubts her own strength and fortitude. Can I really get up and do this again tomorrow? Am I ready for the next symptom to emerge, whatever it may be? But as night turns to day and my own little chickadees begin chirping for breakfast, as sure as the rising sun, my feet find the floor, my hands find the skillet, and I begin another day as Mom. I manage to get up, get dressed, and do what needs to be done. I am not a strong person. I am not especially resilient. Even so, I still manage the day to day, while continually searching for meaning, reason, and answers.  Honestly, there are times when I don’t know how or even why I do it, but I still do.

And then, there are days like Friday. I went to an appointment with Doctor #7, only to be told that the latest round of bazillions of expensive tests reveal that I am the healthiest 32-year-old woman on the planet. Even as she’s telling me this, she and The Hubby are watching hives forming across my chest, which I can’t see.  I’m running a low-grade fever, and I can barely muster the energy to complete my thoughts verbally. How can any of this make sense? She tells me that she isn’t giving up, and I shouldn’t either. She’s going to find a doctor who can figure this out (which she assures me will not happen in New Mexico), and asks me to schedule an appointment in three months. Three months, really? Okay. I can do this for three more months. I guess.

The Hubby took me out to lunch to process the appointment. She assured me that I do not have cancer. There is absolutely no way that my labs could be that perfect if I had cancer. I have something to celebrate the day after my 32^nd birthday. I go home, pour a glass of wine, and get the table ready for dinner.

At 6 pm (on a Friday), the phone rings and it is Dr. #7. She’s found a study that she wants me to participate in at the National Institutes of Health. [sorry, this is a bit technical but important.]   They’re studying physical urticaria. Urticaria is a fancy term for hives, and physical urticaria describes hives caused by external stimuli (touch, cold, exercise, etc.). The study began to investigate a disease called Familial Cold Auto-inflammatory Syndrome (FCAS). FCAS involves an auto-inflammatory response that causes fever, fatigue, joint and eye pain following urticaria caused by exposure to cold. They’ve isolated a gene mutation that causes FCAS, and the protein that is resultantly over-produced. There is a medication that can stop this overproduction and prevent the auto-inflammatory response. They’re trying to discern whether this same gene mutation is also responsible for other types of physical urticaria. If so, this medication should prevent the symptoms.

I am truly stunned. I had begun the weekend coming to terms with yet another fruitless round of lab results and three more months of waiting without a diagnosis, this time without so much as another test to run or an idea of what to do next. A few hours later, I am looking at a list of symptoms that closely mirror mine and an eager team of researchers who are seeking out people just like me.  If I am accepted into the study, all of the testing conducted by the researchers will be free of charge, and I will receive recommendations for treatment from the most avant garde researchers in the United States.

This is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul. This is the thing that lifts me up when I doubt my strength. This is hope. It is not resiliency, strength, or fearlessness that propels me through difficult moments. Hope is the beacon that wakes me in the morning and reminds me that I’ve been gifted another day to live and a beautiful family eager to share my future. 

There are still many unkowns. It is quite possible that this path leads to yet another dead end, but I’ve been reminded that there are always new paths to try, even if no one knows about them yet. Hope is the thing that leads pioneers into the unknown. Though I’ve been a reluctant pioneer in this voyage, I am still heralded on each and every day in my unending quest for better health and clean laundry by that feathered thing called hope. And to think, it’s never asked a crumb of me.

The Feminist in the Cherry Print Apron

I am a Feminist. Not a pants-suit wearing, ‘breaking down the boys club’ Feminist, but a  ‘Let’s tear down the current social structure and start the whole thing over again’ Feminist. I graduated from a conservative liberal arts college, where I was the annoying chick who raised her hand in classes to remind the frat boys that it is actually a felony to have sex with a really drunk girl. (I’m still not sure how I managed to make this a relevant comment in every non-Women’s Studies class I took.) From there, I jumped headlong into a career of social justice advocacy, spreading the crazy notion that every woman has the right to be happy, safe, and comfortable in her home and community.

And yet, here I am – a mother of three in her early Thirties, staying at home to cook meals, tend chickens, and hang dry laundry. Any day now, a cherry print apron I ordered last week will arrive. By all appearances, I could be the best friend of my grandmother in 1955 pre-Second Wave America, standing by her man because that’s the only choice she had. How is this a Feminist lifestyle? If Jerry Falwell could agree with a Feminist about one thing, it would be that it isn’t. Most would either say that I talk the talk but don’t walk the walk, or that I’ve forgotten my ideals altogether and conformed to societal norms of what a woman should do.

This begs the question—what does it mean to be a Feminist? Feminists vary widely in their political views, believe it or not.  Feminism means different things to different people.  There are a couple things that most Feminists would claim inform their worldview, though. First, the personal is political. Second, one should always consider the dominant social paradigm with a critical eye. It is with this lens that I view my role as a mother.

I do not believe (obviously) that Feminism has destroyed the American family, as many assert. It is not Feminism that has disconnected us from our loved ones. The fact that women can work outside the home and divorce abusive or unfaithful spouses does not destroy family values. The evidence suggests that greater gender equality directly correlates with stronger, more stable societies, and the happiest societies are the most equitable.

Americans have grown increasingly disconnected from our families as our daily lives have become a race to make more money, be more materially successful, and demonstrate our success by having our children excel in 15 extra-curricular activities. We are so busy being humans doing that we no longer allow ourselves to just be human beings.  How can we connect in a genuine way with those around us if we are too busy trying to stay on top? 

Shortly before becoming a first time mother, I heard an anonymous person at a conference say, “Consumerism is a distraction from a void created by itself.” This statement has lingered in my consciousness as I’ve grown into a woman and a mother.  Consumerist society is a snake eating its own tail, and we all lurk somewhere in its belly thinking of nothing other than how big our own portion will be in comparison to the others around us. We never stop to analyze whether we should really be in this mess, what it’s doing to us, or how we might find our way out.

As I’ve developed my parenting style, I’ve come to realize that this is really the most important lesson I can teach my children about living in this world, in this culture, here and now. I do not want them to believe the futile battleground of consumerist America should dictate their own personal goals or ideals. I don’t want my children to believe that the value of their lives is measurable by the value of their shoes. I want them to value others and themselves for the quality of their soul, for their willingness and ability to love, give, create, think critically, and contribute substantively to the world around them. If I can provide this gift to my children, then I will have done my job as a mother.

And I will have done my job as a Feminist because I will have made the personal political, not just for me but also for my children. My hope is to plant a seed that may germinate into a different understanding of what society should value, and how we, as parents, workers, friends, and community members, should define success.

To impact the worldview of our children, my husband and I strive to create an environment in which we demonstrate directly the Quality and value of using our energy and resources to act in ways that are advantageous to our family and our world. So, I’ve hung up my social worker sweater in favor of a cherry print apron. Instead of teaching strangers the practice of non-violent conflict resolution, I’m teaching my children that butchering a chicken in the backyard can be an act of loving-kindness, and how our daily actions can impact the world around us, for better or for worse.

Sniffle-icious

My three-year old Cowboy began preschool last Tuesday, which officially means he’s a Preschooler, rather than a toddler. It also means that he promptly brought home and delivered a nasty germ to the rest of the family. He attended four days of school last week and has missed three days so far this week.

Cowboy, Sergeant Princess, and I have all been stricken by a nagging fever, headaches, and our noses have been turned into extremely productive mucous factories. We are taking it one day at a time, but as the mother of a tiny eighteen month old, who always dangles on the cusp of that slippery “Failure to Thrive” ledge, a day without appetites is a day without weight gain. So, with nagging mommy worry, I set off to find creative dinner ideas to trick picky toddlers, who now have no appetites, into eating a fairly nutritious dinner —all with a whole foods goal and very little energy.

Yesterday, the Hubby stopped by the natural food store for our weekly produce shopping trip, so I had a fridge full of fresh fruits and veggies at my disposal. I was also in the process of making a homemade batch of crock pot yogurt, so he also picked up a starter quart of store bought organic yogurt. Planning this meal, I am aware of three important facts.

1.) A piping hot meal won’t do much to bring down fevers. So, the cooler the meal the better.

2.) With the snotty noses and no real sense of smell to aid them, the only flavor they respond well to is sweetness.

3.) My energy level is in the dumps.

With all of this in mind, I decided that a fruit salad would be just the thing to stimulate the kids’ appetite.

I started prep during naptime by cooking up some quinoa, using normal instructions, and making some spiced walnuts. I used the Betty Crocker recipe for the walnuts, except I drastically reduced the sugar. I used about a cup of walnuts, ¼ cup of cane sugar, ½ teaspoon each of cinnamon, nutmeg, and allspice. I tossed the walnuts first with a single egg white and then with the sugar mixture, then baked on a greased cookie sheet for about 20 minutes.

During nap, I also took my plain yogurt, added a tablespoon agave nectar, a few drops of vanilla, two tablespoons brown sugar, and a bit of cinnamon. Mixed together, it makes a really delicious yogurt sauce. I placed the quinoa and the yogurt dip in the fridge to cool, laid the walnuts on some wax paper to cool, and couched it until the kids woke up from their naps.

I did the next step during the kids’ snacktime, when I’m already in the kitchen without much to do. I just diced up a peach, nectarine, apple, a bunch of grapes, and about 10 strawberries. They are in the fridge chilling until dinnertime. When it comes time to serve dinner, all I’ll need to do is dice up some banana (which I didn’t add early to avoid browning), add the quinoa, and top with the yogurt sauce and walnuts.

The kids will think they’ve had dessert for dinner (I was accused of such by my 7-year-old with a different dinner this week), but we’re looking at a total of ¼ cup of cane sugar, 2 tablespoons brown sugar, and less than a tablespoon of agave nectar spread across the entire family’s meal. We’re also looking at three or four different sources of protein in this meal – yogurt, walnut, quinoa, and (if you count it) the egg white, and all the nutritional benefits of having six different types of fruit in a single bowl. All of this is also gluten-free AND vegetarian! Total prep time was about 15 minutes; total cook time was about 20 minutes each for the quinoa and the walnuts.

Boxing the Shadows

I mentioned my health problems in my first blog, and I promise you that I haven’t begun writing to the world only to find an audience for my own incessant complaints. However, my health issues have really been a huge impetus for many of the changes I will be writing about, so I think it’s relevant to provide that background. If you care enough to read this post, you’re probably waiting for the BIG diagnosis. What is It? What do you have? --- “Fancy-Unpronounceable-Latin-Term-inoma?” or “Arrogant-Doctor’s-Name-itis?” Why do you need the name? Because that is how we, as humans, understand our world. We need to name things, then lump them into groups, so that we can deal with them in the same way we deal with all the other things in that group. God forbid something doesn’t fit into one of our nice, neat little groups, and we’re required to stretch the usage of our total brain capacity from 10% to 11%.

If I told you I have cancer, it doesn’t matter whether it’s in my Abdullah oblongata or my pinkie toe. Your brain will still tell you the same thing—“she has a potentially life threatening disease that can spread. She needs chemotherapy, radiation, and/or surgery.” If I told you I have dermatitis, you’d think, “Ah. A skin problem. She needs special creams and to stay away from toxins, stress, and allergens.” If I told you I have anaphylaxis, you’d think, “An infrequent, but serious allergic reaction. If she stays away from the allergen, she’ll be perfectly normal and fine.”—This isn’t because You, the individual, want to minimize my health concern, it’s because you as a human have a human brain, and that’s how human brains process and understand the huge amounts of information they take in every single day.

And guess what? Doctors have human brains, too. Doctors look at an array of symptoms, cognitively sort through the data they studied in medical school, and magically (at least it seems that way to us- the uneducated patients) pull out the correct diagnosis. If some of the symptoms don’t fit into the diagnosis drawn from their hat, maybe the ill-fitting symptoms aren’t real, or are unrelated, or are being exaggerated. It isn’t because they’re bad at being doctors. It’s because they’re good at being human beings. That’s why, when presented with my symptoms, Doctor #2 said, “Sometimes, as doctors, when we don’t understand something, we just hope it will go away.” He didn’t really mean, ‘as doctors,’ he meant, ‘as humans.’ Regardless of the semantics, though, I went away-- on to Doctor #3 and Doctor #4.

Yet, I still have to get up and look in the mirror every day. I can’t just hope I go away. I am a human, too, and I struggle daily to deal with the fact that my health problems don’t fit simply and neatly into any obvious diagnosis. I often think I’m just crazy, even though my symptoms are very visible, predictable, and observable. I’ve been told by specialists that I’m not what medical professionals term the “worried well,” but I still worry well.

I have something going on—an unnamed and misunderstood array of symptoms that are very real. I might have all of the things listed above—cancer, dermatitis, and anaphylaxis. I at least have the last two, and a few more “itises and isms” to go along with those. However, the reason that I experience all of those things is yet to be determined. So, I spend much of my time playing what I’ve affectionately termed “Lab Test Whack-a-Mole,” trying to find the underlying cause of all of my daily challenges.

For the time being, I’ve been left to fend for myself against that unnamed and uncategorized thing that drives my poor human mind mad. Since I’ve been left to box the shadows, I might as well illuminate the rest of my world in the ways I know how.

So, while I wait for the answer to come down from on high (or at least from a lab tech’s microscope), I’ve decided to eliminate as many “what-if’s” as possible. One of the places I’ve focused my energy is on eliminating as many chemicals from my life as possible. I’ve found that my skin is much kinder to me when I eat more whole foods, and the more fundamental and additive-free the soaps, lotions, and fabrics I place on my body. And it is also so much cheaper! A little olive oil and beeswax is so much kinder to my blistered and peeling lips than a petroleum-based commercial preparation, which leaves me to wonder what it might have been doing to my skin all this time. It wasn’t until my skin fought back that I ever considered, “Why in the world am I slathering petroleum on my lips anyway?”

And this is how itchy skin, fatigue, migraines, vision changes, a fire engine red face, and a multitude of other bizarre distortions of my body’s normal processes just might change my life – for the better!

Our Journey from Here to There

My husband and I originally staked claim to this blogspot URL with the intention of blogging about our transition from urban-dwellers to mountain folk. We had just bought a house perched on top of a hill and surrounded by the unparalleled beauty of the central New Mexico high desert. Infatuated with all the exciting adventures we had signed up for as we signed away our livelihood to a mortgage company, we wanted to share our experiences with our far away friends and family. However, having real-world adventures often precludes one from having lots of time to sit down and coherently record the details of those day-to-day happenings, so we opted for frequent sentence-or-two updates on Facebook and gave up on blogging before we even began.

We have been living in our lovely little home for a bit over a year now, and we’ve had many of the adventures we had anticipated and a few more that were unexpected. We have fluctuated between 2 and 5 dogs, 1 and 2 cats, 9 and 10 chickens. Harley has begun brewing beer. We’ve fretted over record snowfalls, firewood shortages, record cold, stifling heat, record dry conditions, watched Los Alamos narrowly escape burning to the ground, and praised the monsoon rains. We’ve learned the wonder and danger of having large predators as some of our closest neighbors and discovered the beauty of Piñon Jays, flowering cacti, and the enormous New Mexico night sky, so heavy with stars that it’s almost no surprise when a few seem to fall from their station each night.

As amazing as our surroundings have been, we have experienced incredible challenges during our time here as well. I have developed a health condition that has radically affected almost every aspect of my day-to-day life. In part as a result of my illness, I left my job, which means that we have less available income. We have decided to rise to the occasion and make some lifestyle changes to help us make ends meet. Here’s the surprising part—we have chosen lifestyle changes that actually improve rather than detract from our quality of life. We are learning, day by day, to change what we put on our bodies, in our bodies, in our home, and how we interact with the world around us. In so doing, we are saving money every day. All the while, we’re spending more time together and doing things that have a positive impact on our health, family, and the world around us.

In my mind, I have been working through these many changes, challenges, joys, and hardships for the last several months, and I really think blogging will help to make my thoughts more concrete and help me to define how my life has changed. If it won’t hurt and it might help, then why not give it a shot? I hope to share some of the challenges that have gotten my family and me to where we are now, and what we have learned along the way.