Plumbing

 Blessings Darlings!

Yup, we have plumbing issues.  Spent lots of time figuring it out, two trips to the hardware store, etc.  When it became clear that fixing it would involve removing the kitchen sink ... and that the Chubby Hubby is really not at all good for fixing this stuff (I at least always know where the master water shutoff valve is, and use it before doing work) ... we're calling a plumber on Monday.

The sink and faucet work, but the sprayer is kaput.  I'll have to fill a plastic container with water to rinse dishes in, to reduce the amount of water I'd end up using to rinse them without the sprayer.  Not horrible, but wasteful and inefficient.  And ... we can afford to have it fixed right at this time.  Which will certainly be a better job than we would have done.

But THAT was my day today.

Frondly, Fern

Sun moves into Virgo, Fern spends day sleeping.

 Blessings Darlings!

I'm under the weather today.  Slept most of the day.  Had weird environmental and political dreams.

In totally mundane stuff, the sprayer on our kitchen sink isn't working.  The Chubby Hubby has twice tried to fix it and failed.  Today I ordered a replacement for pickup, which is supposed to be in stock at one of the two close by big box hardware stores.  They've acknowledged the order, but apparently not pulled it from the shelf and brought it to the desk yet.

I'm hoping that we'll get some blessed rain tonight.  It's been dry lately - not unusual, we're usually dry in August, but still ... dry.

Here's hoping that tomorrow I'll be more useful!

Frondly, Fern

Crab Rangoon Day.

 Blessings Darlings!

It was a grand night for stargazing last night.  Alas, I saw no meteors, but the temperature dropped down low for perfect sleeping weather.

Woke up refreshed today, AND before my husband came by to wake me up.  Laundry done and on clothes line.  Crab Rangoon mix made, and tested.  Will make more for dinner.  Had full shopping list ready for the Spawn when he went to the Big City to shop.  Cleaned out the fridge.  Did more of the eternal chore of dishwashing/putting away.  Did some reading ... and, yeah, some book buying.  Bad Fern, Bad!

Washed the kitchen floor.  Made more crab rangoons, and dinner.

Just busy lately.

Frondly, Fern

Busy busy busy

Blessings, Darlings!

Busy day today.  Defrosted the big freezer.  Organized shopping for the week.  Made salmon piccata.  Plan to make crab Rangoon tomorrow. Got propane delivery.  Lawn care done. Loudly done. Still going thru' the papers on my desk - maybe will be done by end of month?  Maybe by the next dark moon?

Spawn took his piece of salmon out of the pan before I added lemon and capers, and put pesto on his instead.  He approved of this taste.  So now he will eat one type of cooked fin fish happily.  Rah.

I stepped on the scale yesterday and today (multiple data points).  I've not gained weight during the pandemic/staying home.  OTOH, I've not lost any, either.  

Last night Katrina Messinger challenged us to go to bed 1 hour after dark.  That would have been, um, 10 minutes ago.  I'm running a little late.  I'm going to run off and do tonight's offerings and go to bed.

Frondly, Fern

Dark moon. Dark days. Dribble Dinner.

 Blessings Darlings!

I had planned to defrost the freezer today, but life intervened.  Had to go out to stores, had to cut the Spawn's hair before he goes back to in person college.  I'm seriously pissed that college will be in person. He'll be going out every day, getting exposed to Covid 19, and then have to decontaminate when he gets home.  Tomorrow he's scheduled for his pre-class Covid 19 test.  Today in my county we had a 1.12% increase in total cases, which is a 22% increase in active cases. 

Snarl.

Tonight is Dribble Dinner - BLT's, with fresh juicy home grown tomatoes.  So very messy, so very very good.  Avocados were on sale, so I might add that to mine, replacing the mayonaise with mashed ripe avocado.  And hot sauce.

Dark moon right now, new moon in a few hours.  

I'm going to end this here, and work on going thru' some of the pile of papers on my desk.  Because I fear a landslide.

Frondly, Fern

Pollinators by the cloud!

Blessings Darlings!

We have hit the time of year, where I can tell you the time of year by looking at the 'island' in my kitchen. Said island is covered with Too Many Tomatoes to Eat, and Too Few Tomatoes to Can.  And I only put in 2 tomato plants this year - and only let two of the dozen volunteer tomatoes keep growing.  So far I've only gotten tomatoes off of the volunteer plants.  One of the volunteers is a Cherokee Purple, one is a Brandywine, so I'm thrilled.  They are my favorite types, and it's not surprising that they volunteered since I did grow them last year.  But I threw seeds/etc from all the tomatoes we had over the year, store bought and home grown, into that compost pile, so there was no guarantee that they'd be my favs.

So I added a diced tomato to my leftovers for breakfast.  The Chubby Hubby is having a big salad with a full tomato in it for lunch.  Tomorrow we'll feast on BLTs.  Previous years I was able to give tomatoes and such away to coworkers.  This year, not having any coworkers, we're going to have to be on Tomato Eating Overdrive.  Which is replacing the Yellow Squash Eating Overdrive we had been on (and I still do have a few of them left to eat, too.)

Everything blooming here has a heavy cloud of Black Wasps around them, especially the spearmint.  The black wasps are great pollinators and feed their larva on bugs that would eat my garden, so they are win/win.   They don't get the great press that honeybees get, or even that bumble bees get, but they are every bit as helpful and easy to live with.

Frondly, Fern

Dreams and food talk.

 Blessings Darlings!

I had one of THOSE dreams last night.  I was working a job where the Upper Management had suddenly changed all sorts of things, but given me no training in the new stuff.  Including the new software.  Frustration ensued.  I tried to go to my supervisor for help, but even SHE was forced to work the cash register at this point and couldn't take time to get me to the point of being useful to her or customers or to myself.  Extremely frustrating.

Or, as they say, welcome to 2020.

Friday night we ordered from the better of the two local Chinese restaurants.  This will be the 3rd night we're eating the stuff.  Big portions, good (not great) flavor.  Way more meat in each of the main courses than needed.   So we've taken to adding their dishes to the vegggies and sauce stir fry leftovers from what I made earlier this week.  With garlic or hot sauce added for fun and variety.

One item did NOT have too much meat - in fact didn't have enough meat.  The Crab Rangoon.  That I'm going to make a batch of on Wednesday or Thursday, and do it RIGHT.

Really, that's all for today.

Frondly, Fern

Day of Dreams

 Blessings Darlings!

We're finally getting rain!  Of course it started while we were out at the BLM protest.  But just drizzle then -  later in the afternoon it was REAL rain.  

Other than that, I really took today off of everything and napped.  Weird dreams, even for me.  In the first set I was, sigh, back in college with high anxiety doing my old bad adaptive behaviors.  Second set of dreams, the anxiety theme continued after a short very interesting high-tech 'narrowing search area for stuff that is somewhere in this huge body of water' part.  

That's it.

Frondly, Fern

Detailed garden update.

 Blessings Darlings!

Today ... like most days this week ... the forecast has been 'today will be much cooler than yesterday was'.  Today ... like EVERY day this week ... the forecast LIED.  It's still hot and miserable out.

My plan in the garden this year was to try to match most of what the garden produced with the amount of veggies that we eat fresh, other than my experiments with growing potatoes and dry beans.  I'm doing okay at that goal!  Yay!  Not all of the success has been because I planned well, tho'.

We haven't gotten ANY tomatoes from the plants I purposely put in yet.  We're eating the ones off one of the volunteer tomato plants.  I have no idea what its genetics are, but it's putting out about 8 oz round fruit.  Hell, one of the plants I bought and planted (pink brandywine) hasn't even set fruit yet!

I've only planted two plots of green beans this year - we had WAY too many green beans for eating last year, and I didn't want to mess with canning them this year.  I only planted the second plot late, two weeks ago, so we've not gotten any from that plot.   But since I wasn't after beans-for-canning, I planted my favorite bush beans this year - Contender beans. Last year I planted my second favorite, Tendergreen beans.  Both produce for a longer period of time than green bean varieties for selling or canning, such as Jade.  Now every few days, altho' I expect that patch to be played out, I still harvest at least a pound of beans.  ALMOST too much for us.  The second plot has half the number of plants in it (and can be protected from frost, since I did plant them a little late.)

When we get a cool day, I'll harvest the potatoes, and evaluate that harvest.  I put in 15 seed potatoes of Yukon Gold.  I'd rather have put in some russet potatoes, but this was the only option at the store at the time.  Things got SERIOUSLY sold out due to folks suddenly gardening due to Coronavirus this year!  I didn't to a great job of making sure that the potatolings were covered by straw to protect them from the sun over the season, so I'm sure that I'm going to have a problem with some of them being too green to eat (the green produces toxins), but it's still going to be interesting.

I lost the one grey squash zucchini to bacterial wilt, but got 3 squash off of it before it died.  The ONE yellow crookneck heritage squash has been producing more than we've been able to eat.  This is with using it for stir-fries, raw slices for dips, zoodles in place of pasta, and just cooking and eating it as a 'regular' veggie.  The plant is now dying off, slowly but very surely, so we won't be getting much more from it.  My husband is grateful for that.

Turnip and beets were about perfect.  Put in 12 or 15 of each of them.  Rutabagas ... I don't do well with those.  They didn't survive transplanting.  The 'volunteer' dill - I had one scrawny plant last year, so I just let it go to seed, and it gave me 1 plant this year - is doing well, but I'm letting it seed itself again.  If I get enough plants next year, and put in some Jade or other canning beans, I'll use some for dilly beans.  And maybe for dill pickles - this year I've not gotten any cucs yet but do hope I'll get a few from my late planting.  I've gotten enough basil for fresh use (barely) and to dry some for the winter, but not enough for the Spawn to make and freeze pesto.  Parsley has stayed alive, but not grown enough to harvest and use.  I've harvested lots of spearmint, oregano, thyme, and sage.  Rosemary is ... limping.  I'll be happy if it survives the winter.

The one bell pepper is doing okay, but not great.  The hot peppers are producing tons of peppers - I might skip growing them next year, and just smoke or dry these.  Next year I want more sweet peppers and maybe some shishitos, I really loved those last year.

Postal Pearl Clutching - A Guest Post!

 Blessings Darlings!

I have a wonderful, intelligent, diverse, and interesting group of friends.  One of them spent years and years with the US Postal Service, spending her last years as a Postmaster of a post office in Illinois.  While I may have seen her delicately crochet a noose (she IS a delicate flower of womanhood), I've never seen her go postal and shoot anyone.  Yet.

Being of sound mind, I asked HER opinion of all the stuff going on at, and being posted about, the post office.  Here's her informed opinion:

"I'm getting really sick and tired of the fear mongers. Y'all know they've been doing this for years. Unused and underused machines have been removed and relocated all the time.  Collection boxes are routinely reviewed on volume of mail and removed if the volume doesn't justify having it.  Mail is still being processed and still meeting delivery standards  Folk just got use to having that package get there next day at no cost and that isn't happening. I don't remember folks clutching pearls and public outcry when they were closing facilities and removing machine in 2012 or any other year. I firmly believe this administration is trying to destroy the USPS.  But they are doing it by brewing distrust with the service   This is all being reported in a manner to cause the public to lose confidence in the USPS.   Mail early and buy a couple of books of stamps instead of clutching pearls."

 I'm going to add that a shit load of folks are ignoring the huge increase in package delivery that the USPS is doing right now, and how simple volume is slowing some delivery down.  It's JUST like how delivery times increase in December for Christmas and due to all the fucking Christmas and New Year cards, as well as shipping of packages.

All vote my mail ballots have to be postmarked the election date, of course.  Depending on your state, they might have to arrive by the day before the election, or up to 10 days or so after the election.  Here's a link so you can check the rules in your state.
https://www.vote.org/absentee-ballot-deadlines/

Frondly, Fern

PS - She adds "I've checked the union sites and nothing on them concerning collection boxes or machines being removed"

Really save the children

 Blessings Darlings!

In the past couple of weeks, my timeline, and groups that I am in, have been inundated with QAnon-based #savethechildren stuff, focused on 'stranger danger' and international conspiracies at the base of child sexual trafficking; with panic over books on good touch/bad touch or helping children identify grooming from family members being FOR grooming children for sexual abuse; with people who think that dolls and other toys that change color patterns when wet are ... somehow grooming kids for sexual abuse.

Yes, child sexual trafficking exists. But it is the smallest part of child sexual abuse.

Your children are at risk from your family members WAY the heck more than they are from strangers.

If you want to protect your children from sexual abuse, give them autonomy over their bodies. That they don't have to obey everything adults tell them to do. That if something makes them uncomfortable that it is safe to talk to you about it - AND that you'll stay calm during the talk. FFS, don't set them up so they feel they have to fucking protect YOU.

Want to help children who have been taken from their families, are being sexually exploited and tortured? Then work to help get the kids out of cages at our border reunited with their parents. ICE hasn't just taken them from their parents - they are holding them in inhumane conditions, they are being sexually abused by the workers AND ICE SAYS THEY HAVE NO POWER TO STOP THAT, at least 1500 of them have gone 'missing' ... ahem, etc.

Here's a list of groups to work with to help stop ICE and save those very real very exploited children

https://www.aclu-wa.org/pages/5-things-you-can-do-fight-immigrant-families And, of course, join the ACLU

https://www.nnirr.org/drupal/border-groups

https://www.bustle.com/p/7-organizations-fighting-human-trafficking-supporting-survivors-20117978 

Yes, this is not a list of EVERY good organization.

Focus. Do useful stuff. Save actual endangered children.

 

Frondly, Fern

Look! Up in the Sky! It's a Bird, it's a plane, it's ... the Perseids.

 Blessings Darlings!

Picture this:  The Interwebs, August 2020.  Someone spellbegs.  No one replies.  16 hours in I give her a LMGTFY.  She objects - googling is lazy. 

Baby girl, spell begging is lazy.  Asking folks to share their research, their sigils, the spells they've created/worked is lazy.  Googling is the beginning of doing research and NOT being lazy.  I point this out, and she blocks me.  Still having gotten not one single other reply.

Gods, people are stupid lately.

In other stuff ...

The land here is still abnormally dry, and the temperatures have been hot.  The lawn care folks are ignoring this, and mowed the barely grown lawn today, so it now looks like dead grass.   Most of the time I spent in the garden today was on removing dead baby squash, now rotting, from the yellow squash plant.  It's not as if that will remove all grey mold spores - not at ALL - but I feel better for having removed that slimy crap.

I have about 2 pounds of green beans from the garden in the fridge, and 3 yellow squash, and a lot of Swiss Cress, along with several home grown tomatoes, so the garden is serving us well.  I can harvest the potatoes anytime, too.  Which is handy since there is now a bloody potato recall due to lysteria or something.  It also affects some citrus.  I'm pissed about that aspect.  And this is why I keep those dry lemon and lime powders around - Simply Lemon, Simply Lime.  Because I love citrus, especially in iced tea.  And this is iced tea season here in the northern hemisphere.

Speaking of the seasons. the Perseid meteor showers are going on, right as I type.  But only visible on the other side of the planet right now, since it's daylight here.  They peaked here shortly before dawn this morning.  But if you watch the skies tonight you'll almost certainly see stragglers.  Or meteors not from that group - August is a peak time for visible meteors.  

 Two states have hit new highs in Covid 19 deaths yesterday.  Rah?  I had more masks as part of my Walmart order, but Walmart didn't fill that part - said they were out.  So Spawn went into the store and got them (because they were NOT out of them), and got the alcohol, bottle brush, and peroxide that Walmart had said they were 'out of' as well.

My car is in the shop.  I'm late in getting it its inspection, and it needed an oil change.  It failed the inspection, so I need to shell out money for front brakes and such. Work that we can afford because I saved what I could from that weekly $600 Covid 19 stimulus money I was getting with my unemployment.  So this helps keep the local economy moving.  Rah?

Tomorrow I hope to take all the comforters in to the laundromat and wash them.  Before the bulk of the students return to town.  I have saved quarters for a year to do this.  And watch - I've not been to the newly build laundromat yet, they probably don't use quarters and want you to put money on a card.  Stay tuned!  Such wild adventures I have.

Frondly, Fern

August Life in the US update.

 Blessings Darlings!

So, back to more mundane daily life-during-coronavirus.  I'm enjoying a bit of hypomania and the higher energy levels.  House is getting more deeply cleaned, two blog posts I'm really proud of, reading is being done without me falling asleep, etc.  Yes, folks - the pillows are in the wash even as I type.  Maybe it's not hypomania, maybe this is what 'normal' folks without anxiety and depression feel every day.  Whatever.  

I'm trying to incorporate a second daily offering in my life, an offering of some of my coffee to The Morrigan in the morning.  Been meaning to do that for a week.  Last night I put a sticky note on my coffee cup.  This might be just the thing I needed - I MIGHT now be able to do an offering before I actually have my daily coffee! 

But Coronavirus drags on, with more than 5 million infections in the US.  Schools are opening, masks aren't begin worn, infections spreading there, lots of students/staff getting quarantined.  The Spawn's college starts again 2 weeks from today.  We know that one class will be online.  The other 4 are all supposed to be In Person. I have invested in more masks.  Hospitals still full, respirators still fully utilized, deaths still up.

Sturgis is full of bikers going around mask-free, who will infect each other then spread out across the country.  There might be many a Harley on sale cheap in a few months.

Economy still fucked, because folks don't want to become ill or die.  My job is GONE.  The hotel is going to be a dorm for the local college, so the college can do only one student per room.  The dorms do not serve meals.  I worked in the kitchen.  My only job options right now are McDonalds and Dairy Queen, and maybe the Food Lion is hiring.  Both would require lots of exposure to, ya know, people.  For minimum wage.

Grocery prices are still way up, especially for meats. There are new episodes of contamination of lettuce every few months.  We're getting by on Swiss Cress from the garden instead of lettuce. This will be more of a problem come winter, of course.  I don't have quite enough veggies to not have to buy any, but maybe I'll do better next year.

The Chubby Hubby's birthday is coming, and there's really no where to take him for the day.  Museums?  Surely you jest.  If it was MY birthday, we'd hike.  But MY birthday is in December.  His is on the anniversary of the National Park Service, later this month.

While the Spawn and I were getting our Coronavirus stimulus money, we saved most of it.  The govt might start it up again, but Constitutionally money stuff has to start in the House.  Not as executive orders from POTUS.   At any rate, we could save a lot and did save a lot.  We'll be okay for a while, unlike lots of folks.  Most renters here in West Virginia are delinquent on their rent.  

Here in the US we haven't even had the national conventions leading to the election.  But this election has already dragged on for ever.  And the stupid push against voting by mail, especially during the pandemic is, well, stupid.  At least here in WV - a mostly Republican state, so POTUS is okay with it here - I can order my vote my mail ballot online TOMORROW.  And you can bet your ass that I'm going to.  But if I had to vote in person - I'd be there, with a chair, drinks, food, umbrella if needed, etc.  I . am . going . to . vote.

Frondly, Fern

To see or not to see, that is the question.

 Blessings Darlings!

I am not a visually-oriented person.  Ask me to 'visualize' something and I'm going to have a very hard time with it.  Or fail.  Ask me to describe something I saw, I'm likely to fail.  This extends to my use of makeup (I don't use it), my taste in museums (I focus on reading the information more than looking at the actual objects), the type of meditations I find the most 'to my tastes'.  As a result of this, while I'm old and have been doing all sorts of metaphysical stuff for a long long time now - 'visual' stuff is not something that is usually part of my practice.

Today while meditating, I kinda got a breakthru' of sorts.  I was sitting there, doing the mantra I learned 40+ years ago when I took a Transcendental Meditation class.  The mantra is the beginning of a prayer or invocation to a Hindu Goddess, but I don't know the prayer/invocation or recall who the Goddess is.  And I'm not going to claim that I'm consistent about meditation, or of even doing mantra meditation every time, or THIS mantra meditation when I do mantra meditation.

Yeah, I'm a Bad Witch.

Anyway, suddenly I realized I could 'send' and 'see' the energy from the mantra going thru' my body.  And I could change where they mantra was centered and sending that energy from - it DIDN'T have to be from my throat.  It could centered in any of the major chakras (It's not like I tried centering it on my thumb, or my shoulder, but I didn't think of centering it from my feet.)  Hey, , afor ME this is a breakthru', and one that I've gotten in my mid 60's.  I'm extremely chuffed!

I did a quick practice of doing it in all the levels of my auras, using Ivo Dominguez, Jr.'s  "Emerald Heart" exercise, which rocked.

The point here is less the 'technique' or 'visualization', and more that we all have things that we suck at, visualization being one of mine.  And that it's okay to not be good at some stuff.  Find your best ways of working, and rely on those for the most part.  BUT - keep practicing at the stuff you suck at, too.  Because you may or may not get better or get breakthru's, but then again you just might.  I'm here to give you hope that someday you might suck less at it, just like me.

Frondly, Fern

Picture attributions!

http://clipart-library.com/clip-art/body-silhouette-outline-18.htm

<a href="https://www.freepnglogos.com/images/sun-rays-31014.html">sun rays png image download pngm from freepnglogos.com</a>

 

Splunking thru' records and check stubs

Blessings, Darlings!

Tis hot, sunny, and humid out there today.  I've worked the garden, hung laundry, visited the farmers market.  Glad to be home.  

By necessity, by the end of Covid19 being a crisis I'm going to become adequate at cutting the Chubby Hubby's hair.  I did it for the second time today.   Rah.

Splunked thru' records and scant hints, and figured out where to take the Smart Car for it's required however many miles inspection.  CH didn't record the name of the place last year when we bought the car. I'll call them tomorrow and set things up.  Also need inspection - we're overdue on that by 9 days at this point.  Oooops.  We just don't drive much now, and almost NEVER use that car.

That's it for today, really.

Frondly, Fern

That time of year.

 Blessings Darlings!

I'm a bit antsy and disorganized today, so this blog post might be as well.  

Did the laundry thing, did the dishes thing, did more tomato bondage, did the coffee thing (mixed up a week's worth of the half-decaf mix we use regularly), added stuff to grocery pick up, etc.  Talked with spawn about masks for his school year, since at this point most college classes will be in person.  Decided to get more masks, even if not N95's, and add extra filters to them.  

I see an Official Sign of Fall Coming:  the cattle farmer is putting grain out for the cattle.  And, right now, she's stacking a bunch of bags of it in the shed for future use.  She moved a couple dozen head more into the pastures here, and even with the rain and more growth of the pasture grasses, they now need to also get round bales of hay and grain.

 I got about half way thru' my list today.  I'm chuffed - it was a long list.  Maybe I'll watch that video on cutting men's hair before I crash.  Tomorrow I cut the Chubby Hubby's hair again.  And in about 2 weeks, I cut the Spawn's.

Frondly, Fern

Witchcraft shouldn't be a sales funnel trapping stupid people.

 Blessings Darlings!

I'm not a nightmare person.  I virtually never get them anymore, since I'm old and I just face and deal with problems in my life.  That said, I certainly get dreams full of frustration, or things that anger me.  THAT is the type of dream I had last night.

The Chubby Hubby and I were at some big hotel.  I assume that we were there because he had a conference there, since we have a long history of staying at big hotels for that.  We spouses (almost all women, since these are high tech conferences, and women are still ... ahem ... sidelined as much as possible in tech) are encouraged to 'enjoy the amenities'.  So in the dream, I tried to.

What I discovered was that while their 'self care' center said that services came with your stay, the services were stupidly minimal.  Skin care!  Only of your hands.  Sitting thru' videos of what they offer ... for pay ... was one of their 'free services.'  

Fundamentally, all of the 'free amenities' were ads.  I walked out - so angry that I changed from my 'draping' for all the services (like in a spa) where everyone could see my fat pasty white ass, rather than in a dressing room.  Then thought about dinner.  I looked at the big posted menus, and got even more pissed that all the options for food there were over $50. 

Now, I totally know what triggered this dream.  Yesterday I watched the first 'educational unit' in the FB group of the woman who made the meme I trashed all last week.  It's a fucking sales video, not an 'educational unit', for her $900+ course.  On having a daily practice.  Bitch, I don't need a course on getting up, drinking some water, brushing my teeth, meditating, moving a little, and eating a healthy breakfast that costs over $900.  For that price, you'd best be here pouring me the water, cooking me the breakfast, and bringing the ingredients for that breakfast.  And she's calling this witchcraft.  I'm calling it a sales funnel aimed at stupid people.

Putting on my marketing hat (and I actually do have quite a lot of training and experience at marketing) it's really clear that this is yet another person who is working the Clickpages model.  If you ever get a chance to watch one of Mike Filsaime's rants about Clickpages (and I like Mike's stuff on marketing, but don't 'love' his stuff) check it out.   And for best digital marketing ... go with Ryan Diess and his DigitalMarketer.com (I get no $ from referrals, just from using the system).

Frondly, Fern

In the kitchen with lots of veggies.

 Blessings Darlings!

Welp, I HATE the new interface here at Blogspot.  It does less than the old one. It gives less info than the old one.  We hates it, we do.

Anyway, it's before 10 am.   Dishes done, garden done.  Will roast home grown veggies for a pasta dish to have with dinner soon.  Maybe I'll roast some beets, too.  Or at least some turnips.  The harvest is on, for sure.

 Yup. Spent the day cooking and cleaning.  More focused on the cooking than the cleaning.  Also paid the bills and ordered a fill for our propane tank.  

That's it.  Life just ... goes on.  

Frondly, Fern

Endless Unemployment Wednesday

Blessings Darlings!

Today has been a boring day.  Gardening/harvesting, first full meal salad based on the Swiss Chard, housework, husband spilling coffee ALL over a counter full of stuff, etc.   Spawn made dinner - breakfast burritos.  Tomorrow the left over enchilada sauce will go on the pasta/veggie mix we're having with dinner. 

Spawn did the pick up from Walmart, and the rest of the shopping.  We'll still need milk again this week, but that's no real problem.  Interacted with folks from work online, all hoping we hear that we'll be going back, and no one optimistic. 

Onward towards tomorrow!

Frondly, Fern

Today is for the birds.

Blessings Darlings!

Yesterday I did the "Juno Rite for Finances" from Jason Miller.  Things clicked really well while doing it - no candles blew out, the chanting came naturally, and within minutes of finishing rain started.  As I mentioned yesterday, we're on the Edge of Drought here.

After that rite, I cleaned the part of the patio that is protected by an overlay of roof.  I was given 'word' to put up a second altar out there, but I don't know why yet.  The area needed sweeping anyway, tho.  Today the back is full of swallows flying around, so I cleaned the bird poop (softened by the storm) from under the swallows nest there.  The babies are now living in the air just like grown birds.  The wasp nest is still in heavy use there, of course.  I'll knock that down around December.

While doing the preparation for yesterday's ritual, I realized that the wine in the kitchen had been open, but not used, since March.  Which means it was vinegar at best, and I don't need yet more wine vinegar in the house.  It was painful dumping it, but ... that's life.  I meant to use it for daily offerings, but have been using whiskey instead due to Reasons.  Obviously I've not been doing much cooking with wine for the last 5 months, and instead of wine I've used dry Sherry.

Today is being a Day With No Energy.  Did dishes, worked with the drying herbs, had conversations with Spawn and Chubby Hubby, cut up a lot of fruit, took lots of stuff to the compost bin, watched the swallows, listened to the wrens.  Will do more in the kitchen after dinner.  But not doing a whole lot of stuff today. 

Frondly, Fern

Lughnasadh, Pandemic, economy, garden - SSDD

Blessings Darlings!

Now, back to life during Coronavirus.  And now a rapidly weakening hurricane.  And protests continuing.  And the President talking about delaying elections.  

This is the Irish holiday of Lughnasadh.  Depending on your POV, it could be about the harvest.  I see it as the funeral games honoring Tailtiu, Lugh's foster mother.  She died from overwork, clearing the land for agriculture.  So for me - it's ALL ABOUT THE FARMWORKERS.  Of course, the farm workers are not being protected from Covid 19.  http://www.ncfh.org/msaws-and-covid-19.html

Speaking of Covid 19, since the US fucked up the last 6+ months, and didn't put any organized efforts into control, we're hitting new highs in cases and deaths daily.  According to Dr. Birx (the Coronavirus Response Coordinator for the White House Coronavirus Task Force since February 2020) it's too late to talk about 'hotspots', it's now widespread - it's everywhere.  There is no sign of when it will end.  It might well take years before it's under control.  And ... darn few of us are going to trust vaccines that are rushed on to market, especially since the govt is going to release them even if they are only 50% effective, and there haven't been long term studies on side effects. 

The 'Covid stimulus' money that had been given to those of us on unemployment - an extra $600 per week - has now ended.  Our congresscritters are at a stalemate on replacing it with anything, especially anything that helps people instead of corporations.

Agriculturally - my area is between 'abnormally dry' and 'moderate drought'.  This is likely to change tonight and tomorrow, as we're getting rain from the remains of hurricane/tropical storm/tropical depression Isaias.  We have flood warnings for tomorrow, then a day off, then more rain from it.

My first planting of green beans is almost played out.  The second planting was totally eaten, probably by returning voles.  Swiss Chard is doing well, I have beets, and today I picked the first two tomatoes.  The yellow squash plant is on a break, which is nice so we MIGHT catch up on eating the harvested ones.  I harvested the first of the potatoes today, too.  

That's the 'quick' summary.

Frondly, Fern

Witchy Wellness part LAST. Finally.

Blessings Darlings!

Here we are, at #25, Devotionals.  Welp, around there HERE parts - as I keep saying - Witchcraft isn't a religion.  It's a skill set.  Just . like . knitting .   You don't have any devotionals to do to be great at knitting.  You don't have to do any devotionals to be great at witchcraft.

And they ain't part of 'wellness', either.

#25 Skincare.  Look, bathing regularly IS a wellness issue.  Common sense says to wash what is dirty, and moisturize what is dry.  As pointed out a few days ago - ashiness is not 'spiritual'.  But FFS, you can witch just fine with dry skin or zits or whatever.  Being moisturized or not has no impact on your witchcraft.  Zero, zip, nada. 

We're skipping line items that we hit earlier, lumped in with other ones.  So ...

#28 - Trust intuition.   How about DEVELOPING your intuition before trusting it?  Like learning to drive before trusting your ability to drive?  And while this IS witchy - it's not Wellness.

#30 is Meditation,  which I did mention before.  But I want to give it a bit more time, especially since this is the last thing we're going to cover (the last list item I covered DAYS ago).  Focused mind meditation is wellness, and is witchy.  So focus on that candle, or your walking, or that mantra, or follow that sound, whatever.  Don't confuse this with guided journeys, or pathworkings, or 'meditating to stop abuse' or whatthefuckever. 

Whew.  Finally.  Done with this crap. 

Let's summarize my points:  Wellness has a definition.  Witchcraft ... has a lot of definitions, but most of them are at least in the same ballpark.  "Witchy Wellness" is a stupid concept.  Especially when you set too many goals for too short a time.

2 to 4 goals a month, some of them to add things, some to drop things, is a good monthly 'goal total'.  And quantify those goals, make them measurable, so you can tell how you are actually fucking doing.

That's it, my dears.

Frondly, Fern

Witchy Wellness, Part 8. The bullshit goes on and on.

Blessings Darlings!

Yes, this does feel like it's going on for ever.  The meme had you doing things every day for a 31 day month.  If you think that my commenting on it is overwhelming - holy fuck, what must it be like trying to DO this?  I'll tell you - it would be overwhelming and impossible, it is set up for failure.  Even with days thrown in to 'soak'.  Now - back to analysis!

#21 Connect with nature.  Oh, I'm sure that she means hang out with plants outside.  Maybe with a stream or river.  Barefoot, if possible.  And, yes, being out in open green spaces is related to actual wellness.  It could be argued that such acts are witchy.

Statements like this have some level of implication that you aren't already surrounded by nature.  Humans are totally a part of nature, after all, and I'm pretty sure she doesn't mean throw a pot luck party (in times of pandemic safety) and connect with other humans.

This isn't 'realize your role in nature', either, tho.  It seems unlikely that she's asking you to check your impact on the environment.  To stop eating as much meat (I live in a cattle grazing area, on a beef cattle farm. Ground too full of boulders to plow.  If the focus is to farm (and this is permanently protected farm land) beef is it's best use.   To use less electricity, AC, heat, buy less things, etc.   I could go on about this for days. Probably for a full book, mostly filled with how I fall short on this.

Back to 'connect with nature' ... if you're not doing it by joining Sierra Club and working to actually protect the land, and 'just' going for a walk somewhere green that you didn't have to drive TOO far to get to ... I'm going to suggest that you Give an Offering first, before you expect Nature to connect with you.  Humans are an animal that leave garbage everywhere, so bring a couple of garbage bags and pick up trash, THEN work on connecting.  Carry the trash out when you leave. 

Next up is Crystal healing.  Crystals are lovely, and can be witchy useful.  Alas, the vast majority of them are unethically and taken from the earth, rather in violation with the previous point.  Also - not only are you not going to learn about crystals in one day, or understand how to use them for healing in one day, you're unlikely to be able to buy them all in one day.  We're got yet another task that will take a whole bunch of time, added to a list of other tasks doing the same thing.

Seriously check if any crystals you buy are ethically sourced - no slave labor, no strip mines, etc. 

I'm certainly not saying that I have zero crystals.  Heck I have a gallon bucket filled with quartzites, from chips to ones bigger than my fist.  All 'gifts' for working my garden with hand tools - I dig, they are in the ground.  It's a quirk of this neighborhood.  But I'm not out buying crystals of unknown origin. 

Next us Love your body.  Okay.  Again, an ongoing challenge that might take oodles of time.  It's another thing that shouldn't be on a 'monthly challenge' to a internet full of folks in varying states of health and different stages of their lives.  Some of us are going to have to start with 'stop talking negatively about your body' or 'tolerate your body'.  Then go on to 'accept your body'.  And this shit is going to take lots of time for most folks. 

That's it for today.  There are only 3 or 4 items left (I'm not sure if I'm going to do Meditation again, since I touched on it in another post earlier).  I might get to finish this tomorrow!  Yay!

Frondly, Fern

Ashiness is not spiritual: Witchy wellness, part 7.

Blessings Darlings!

Side note - we finally got some rain this morning.  Might get more tomorrow.  Today was very hot and nasty humid.  Tomorrow might be cooler.  One hopes.

Now, back to our regularly scheduled rant!

#15 and #16 - Herbalism and sound healing.  Nice things to work with.  Regular Herbalism isn't witchy, of course.  But neither regular nor magical herbalism is going to be learned and thus used quickly.  FFS, actual herbalism will require deep knowledge of astrology, the Greek humours, etc, which are anathema to the person who came up with this.  Sound healing ... is very relaxing.  But appropriated and used incorrectly, which the person says she's against. 

How odd.

#17 Soak.  I don't know if this is about epsom salt or spiritual baths.  Really, just soaking in water tends to feel good, but that doesn't mean that it actually has a health value OTHER than feeling good.  No evidence that the magnesium from epsom salts enter your body to relax muscles.   So it ain't 'wellness'.

Spiritual baths are great.  But you will need to know how to wake the ingredients.  And some training in ingredients for different conditions, and how often to use them for best results.  Training.  Not reading some .... unseasoned flatbread author's book or web site.  I don't have this training.

It doesn't mean that I don't soak in a tub with brewed herbs and flowers in it.  But I don't pretend that I'm doing conjure or Hoodoo when doing it, or that it's going to have that level of effect.  It's going to smell nice and relax me, for sure.  That said, knowing that I'm going to have to really scrub the tub before and after (the Spawn is formally in charge of keeping the tub clean, but  he ... doesn't put in the appropriate elbow grease.  I love him.  He's GREAT.  He usually does a perfectly adequate job on cleaning bathrooms, but he is not good about cleaning the tub.

BTW, for your cleaning ease, if you're adding herbs, BREW THEM FIRST, STRAIN THE LIQUID, AND ONLY ADD THE LIQUID.  Removing the 'tea' leaf detritus from the tub if you don't do that first is a total drag.  Flowers and flower petals aren't depressing to clean up.  The herb crap IS.  Or at least put them in a cloth bag and put that in the tub.  You'll thank me later.



Oh, moisturize after your spiritual bath.  Ashiness is not spiritual.


#18 Sexual Wellness.  Accepting and making decisions about your sexual expression is totally a wellness issue.  Alas, virtually everything out there on this ... discredits asexuals and those who choose celibacy.  It's all about accepting and expressing.  And of course, because all her points are on a meme, we again have no idea what she is aiming for here.  I'm guessing that she isn't talking about 'sex magic' or 'this spell requires celibacy for a month before doing it' since she's calling it wellness, not power.

Yes, sex magic can be a part of witchcraft.  Celibacy can be a part of witchcraft.  Neither is necessarily a part of witchcraft. 

That's it for today.  More tomorrow.  Probably.

Frondly, Fern

Witchy Wellness, more BS More ... typing.

Blessings Darlings!

We're at least half way done with the meme, let's keep going on kicking it to the curb!

Massage:  I adore massages.  I don't see them as witchy, or critical for wellness.  And they cost serious money.  Wellness should never be something that only the well-off can get.

Mindfulness:  Having focus is a good thing.  Depending on what you're focusing on.  It's not really much different than her later item, meditation.  

Aromatherapy:  Yes, scents trigger all sorts of things.  Some of them trigger the asthma of my husband and son.   Using them in witchcraft can be great.  Being aware (back to mindfulness) of their impact on your is a good thing.  Personally, I'm more into open windows than adding chemicals to what I breath.  Everyone's mileage varies.

Oh, dear.  #13 is self care.  Baby doll - everything about Wellness is Self Care.  Why the fuck is there a line item for it?  I mean, duh.  Not a damn thing witchy here.

And now to lump a whole lot of things together.  Recharge, Reflection, mental health day, retreat - all different words for pretty much the exact same thing.  You want to pretend that they are witchy and not human?  Whatever.

Enough for today.  Probably more tomorrow.

Frondly, Fern

General catching up

Blessings Darlings!

On top of the attention that I've been giving that latest 'list', life has been busy around here.  A lot of extra money came IN for a change, instead of going OUT, which is always nice.    I've been spending lots of time dealing with the garden - I'm being buried in yellow crookneck squash, and the beans are coming in from the first planting.  The second planting is being eaten, probably by voles, so I'm going to have to vole-treat the garden again.  Bacterial wilt has hit the grey zucchini and the volunteer spaghetti squash.  The potatoes are about ready to be harvested.  The Swiss  Chard is now at the point where it can handle all our sandwich 'lettuce' needs, and maybe an occasional salad as well.  Tomatoes are still all green, tho, and I fear that they are all determinant and will all ripen at virtually the same time. 

I need to plant the fall crops of beets, radishes, turnips, and rutabagas.  But it's really hard clearing nasty weeds when it's so hot and humid, and too much of my useful time is spent watering the other veggies. 

At dusk and near midnight (after the nightly offerings) I sit outside as much as I can, discussing things with the various Spirits/Gods/ancestors/etc.  Great stuff, but the pollen I'm exposed to then along with the pollen from the garden work has been killing my eyes.  I might be driven to allergy eye drops, but washing my eyes every few hours seems to at least make it less bad.

I'm seeing odd stuff in the skies.  One was probably just a satellite reflecting sunlight.  The more unusual was a 'fleet' ... well, 6 ... planes, not in formation, but 'in a row' over a few minutes around 11:30 pm, all flying west or west/southwest.  That's not normal, especially now with less air traffic.  It's not like I'm living on a flight path in and out of O'Hare any more.  It's not a normal thing here - and as I said, I'm out there every night watching the skies now. 

Why am I watching the sky?  Because we're in the summer meteor time.  Not peak Perseids yet, but it's time to start watching for them.

Life  in these unusual times keeps going on.  Statistics on cases and deaths from covid 19 are no longer being published by the CDC, and no one trusts where the data is now going to.  States are admitting to new highs in cases and deaths, but HHS (does it stand for the dept of Health and Human Services or Happy Horse Shit?) claims that both are not increasing.  Okay, Boomer.



Most jobs lost due to Coronavirus shut downs are not coming back.  This is the last week when unemployment is being supplemented with Coronavirus stimulus money of $600 a week.  That's been making a huge difference in my financial life, since I only get $170 a week from unemployment.  Since the Chubby Hubby is over 70, he's getting social security retirement money, but that doesn't pay all our bills.  With the 'regular' unemployment, there will be a gap between income and what we have to spend each month.  We have the savings to cover that for rather a while at this time, fortunately.  I really do NOT want to work again until it's actually safe to do so.  That isn't going to happen for ... quite a while, I fear.  I'm sure we don't have that much money saved.

There are still protests daily over the police killings.  The police have responded by calls for them to stop being abusive by increasing their abuse of citizens.  And teaming up with Federal hired hands to dole out even more toxic gasses and 'non lethal' weaponry.  It's a shit show.  Mayors who aren't reforming their police force complaining that the Feds are attacking protesters ... when the feds are doing exactly the same things that their own police have been doing. 

While all this is going on, and I'm writing e-mails and calling congresscritters, I'm still sitting in my back yard, watching the skies.  It's totally surreal.  Wars and rumors of wars, but not where I am.  Mind you, the next city over, Martinsburg WV, has had monthly protests for YEARS now, over the police shooting of a schizophrenic black man there.  So it's not FAR away from me.  Links to the story below - the courts have finally done a little (the ending of qualified immunity is BIG).  But it took over 7 years of protests to get this far.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/legal-issues/family-of-man-fatally-shot-by-police-reaches-35-million-settlement/2020/07/21/da918e9a-cb6c-11ea-bc6a-6841b28d9093_story.html

https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/u-s-appeals-court-rejects-qualified-immunity-in-police-shooting-writes-this-has-to-stop/2331918/  

I wish I felt that things would improve soon.  That a safe and effective immunization would be found fast for the pandemic.  That institutionalized racism would be dealt with.  That the police would be reformed and get the KKK out of their ranks.  That we'd get a sane and honorable president.  That people would get science savvy and not be dickheads.  I just don't see an end to this shit show.

Welp. that's it for now.

Frondly, Fern

Witchy wellness bullshit, part 5

Blessings darlings!

I'm going to lump a lot of stuff together from that meme today.  Because all the exercise things - stretching, cardio, sun salutation, and moon salutation fall under 'exercise' and the last two are 'exercise plus mindfulness', mindfulness being yet another bullet point.

Yes, exercise is good.  Why she doesn't have weight training on here is a mystery, since it's also fundamental to wellness.  But there is nothing witchy about exercise.  Our muscles are set up on a 'use it or lose it' basis.  So ... use it.

But ... her FB groups and her web site talk about how bad appropriation is, and here she is appropriating yoga from the Hindu religion when she wants folks to do the sun salutation.  The moon salutation is a modern 'plastic shaman' addition to the western appropriation of yoga.  Appropriation once removed, shall we say.

Let's have a digression!  I've heard that while taking yoga is appropriation from the Hindu religion ... that working with chakras is different - that chakras are from Indian Medicine, not the Hindu Religion.  I don't know enough about the roots of working with chakras to know if this is the case or not.  Someday I might look into it.  Or maybe one of you will.  Who knows?

Next up is ... #8 massage.  Yes.  Massage.  I don't know why.  I don't know what makes this necessary for wellness or for witchery.  I call full bullshit.   We're going to combine this with #24, 'love your body'.  You don't need to love yourself/your body/your mind/etc for wellness.  You can view yourself totally as a machine, to be kept in good working shape, and that model works extremely well for wellness, too.  Better in some cases, because you KNOW you're not going to be able to run a car when it's out of oil or gas.  

Which brings us to #9 Fruits and Vegetables and #22 Greens.  IMO - greens ARE part of the vegetables group.  But ... whatever.  Apparently she feels she should be eating more of them.   Certainly it seems that most folks 'should' be eating 5 half cup servings of them a day.   Again, physical wellness, not WITCHY wellness.

We're about half way done!  Yay!  More tomorrow, Gods willing and if the creek don't rise.

Frondly, Fern

Witchy Wellness part 4

Blessings Darlings!

Welcome to day four of trashing that '31 days of witchy wellness' meme!  And ... having gotten into the FB group for the person this comes from - she seems to want folks to purify daily.  Which fits into why she has zero shielding or warding on her list.  TOTALLY not my approach.  I prevent, rather than say 'get sick, then heal'.  Because fuck THAT.

Today we'll start with two different line items, "Morning Routine" and "Evening Routine".  I am ALL FOR routines.  The less decisions you have to make each day, the better for most folks.  Especially those of us with executive dysfunction. BUT ...

This is another case of 'dividing this into 31 days is stupid'.  The only two things she's had you do is 'Commit to doing' and 'purify'.  Are you doing that stuff daily?  I mean, I suppose she could have you doing it daily.  Is she now saying 'do them every morning'?  If so - why wait till day 3 to say that, and why give it a full day when you have at most 2 line items?

#4 on the list is 'Hydrate'.   Probably a fine idea.  Not a witchy idea at all, mind you.  I'm kinda experienced at starting and stopping this one.  It's not a 1 day thing.  It's a lot of work to get in the habit of drinking .  It will take between 3 and 6 weeks to get this one down to a habit.  Even if part of your morning routine is to chug a pint or two of water upon depending on your job ... both extra trips and extra time away from your 'work' might be issues.  

#5 is "Sacred Space".  I'll have to make some guesses about what she means here.   Maybe it's create a permanent area in your house for you to do your magic/meditate/ etc in.  Maybe it's making your whole house a sacred space.  Maybe it's declaring yourself/you body as sacred. I have no idea.  Hell, I don't even know what she means by 'sacred'.  But the dictionary definition of sacred - 'holy' - isn't necessarily a part of witchcraft.  Witchcraft is a skill set, just like knitting, which can be done by folks of any, all, or NO religion.  Whatever.

Are you supposed to do 'sacred space' once, or daily?  No clue.  I mean - I assume that your morning/evening routines are supposed to be daily - is everything on this list daily?  Unless you are creating AND destroying sacred space every day, you don't need to do it daily.  Why would you have to?  I suppose it COULD be 'see everything you run into as sacred' ... but 'mindfulness' is a different day, so that seems unlikely.

That's it for now.

Frondly, Fern

"Witchy Wellness" part 3

Blessings, Darlings!

So, still looking at the witchy wellness list I posted the last two days, still ripping it to shreds.

Second on the list is "Purification".  What the ever loving fuck?  What type of bullshit is this?  No actual 'wellness' list would EVER have 'purification' on the list.  First - you have a liver.  Second, you have kidneys. Those organs handle all the physical purification you need.  No fasting, no 'cleansing tea', no coffee enemas, nothing else needed.

If you have liver or kidney disease, by all means get real treatment for those problems - but 'purification' isn't the treatment.  If you're drinking so much that you are damaging your liver, stop that.  Got hepatitis?  Get treatment if you can afford it (some of that treatment is really pricy).  Eat the diet your doctor gave you for kidney disease.  Take your blood pressure meds.  DO . NOT . 'PURIFY'.

And if she's talking about some 'spiritual purification' ... that's bullshit, too, unless you're doing some Christian stuff.  For Pagans, about the only thing that going to make you 'impure' is if you recently killed some of your relatives.  Did you do that?  No, not likely. 

Just Say No.

Frondly, Fern

"Witchy Wellness", part 2

Blessings, Darlings!

So, to remind you of the meme that is spawning my posts right now, here it is:

"Fitness" is generally seen as having 3 components - physical, mental, and spiritual.  "Witchy Fitness" at MOST would be spiritual, assuming that you see witchcraft as a spiritual path and not a skill set.  I see it as a skill set, so ... yeah.  Ain't nothing 'witchy wellness' at all IMO.

Now onward to the individual steps/days!

#1 - INTENTION FOR WELLNESS

I'm guessing that she means 'send your intention out into the universe'.  Maybe.  Maybe she means 'set formal goals'.  But since the rest of this is "These are MY goals, work on THEM" ... this is kind of foolish.  Never commit to following someone else's goals.  Not as a person, CERTAINLY not as a witch.

If you want to set your 'intent' for 'wellness' ... you need to take more than one day.  You will need to figure out all aspects of wellness you want to work on, then decide on a FEW as your priorities.  Then look at what you want You will need to figure out how long it will take to do those steps.   You will want to break it down into your OWN damn goals and dates for achievement.  You WILL probably know at least one or two things you want to do already.  Like - most folks want to do daily or twice daily meditation, and don't do it.  You certainly can start doing this  while deciding on the rest of your goals. 

Now, if you were looking for 'witchy' wellness, some of the possibilities for goals (and this is NOT by any means an exhaustive list) would be 'identify things you'd like to do in your daily practice,' 'Identify things you want to do at least weekly,'  'Identify things you want to do at least once a month', "attend at least one local ritual/event" "select some spirit/entity/demon/angel/God to build a relationship with so I can work with them," "Build that relationship," "Do shadow work" "improve the success of my magic," "get so good at grounding that you could do it in a busy airport/trainstation/where ever/whenever in one breath," "get really good at casting a circle," "memorize a top 40 list of chants/invocations/songs," "learn to shield," "Ward your house," "Clean and keep clean your house,"  followed by 'incorporate those things, one or more at a time, into your practice - but not all at once. Or even in one month. Probably not even in one year'. 

And look at these things realistically.  Do you have 3 children under 5 years old?  Most folks in that situation aren't going to get a whole lots of 'wellness' - or other goals - accomplished.  What's your work schedule like?  What's your mental health like?  Don't set yourself up for failure by  being unrealistic. 

You're making lifestyle changes here for most of these goals.  You want them to stick.  You need to both focus and let them take root.  I have ONE magical goal for this year - to improve the return on my magic.  To do this, I'm taking ONE course, and doing the damn work.  Whether the Coronavirus shut downs have helped or hurt me in this is debatable, but I'm SO glad I didn't pick more than this.  Yes, doing this includes doing a lot of different smaller tasks.  That's true for all goals.  I mean, you can see that in the list of crap in that meme.  Three of the things are variations on 'put the right things in your body' - hydration, fruits and vegetables, and greens.  A full 8 of them are mental health related. 

At any rate - pick a couple of goals, and write them down/send them to the universe/burn them/whatever.  Take some real time and give it some real thought.

Frondly, Fern

Bullshit wrapped in unrealistic aims dipped in 'witch talk' and sprinkled with glitter

Blessings Darlings!

I should post about coronavirus, and about the mercenaries grabbing folks off the streets in Portland (mercs provided by Betsy Devos' brother!), and all that.  But, no.  I ran into stupid today, and I'm going to be posting a full series of posts on this.  Because there is just SO FUCKING MUCH material in it to cover.

Now, there has been a whole lot of stupid around late, as we all know.  Folks saying that masks cause carbon dioxide levels in the body to rise, or that they don't stop spread of disease because 'pants don't stop farts', the hexing of the Fae, etc.  But now I want to introduce you to this here post/meme thing I 'met' today, that people are sharing in FB Witch/Pagan groups, a 'dump it in the group as a goal/challenge for all!' thing.

It's bullshit wrapped in unrealistic aims dipped in 'witch talk' and sprinkled with glitter.

I hardly know where to begin in my analysis of it.  But since I actually AM, by both education and work history, a Health Educator, I'll have at it.
 

I'm going to start with "wellness as a 31 day challenge".  Wellness is "an active process of making choices toward a healthy and fulfilling life."  A process is not something for a challenge, 31 days or no.  You don't put a life-long process in place in one month.  You set smaller goals along the way.  Those goals are going to be measurable.  They are going to be no more than, say, 3 major changes at a time.  Trying to do 'everything' in a month is a set up for failure.  

I took a little trip to the web site and such of the person who created this meme.  While this is being presented as 'what everyone should do', this is in fact what SHE wanted to do (this originated several years ago, apparently).  She took her time, decided on what she thought SHE should work on ... and promptly challenged everyone to do the same thing.  I did a cursatory check of the Instagram page she was supposed to be running this on, and found no real info - but I don't have Instagram, so only saw about half of the things shared to this part of her account.  I HAVE asked to be let in her FB group, because I want to know how much of this challenge is still a part of her life.  

 
In wellness, one size does NOT fit all.  Hell, no where in life does one size actually fit all.  

Second ... what the fuck about this is 'witchy'? Did I miss invoking a demon to do this shit for you?  Eating your veggies, and drinking water is NOT 'witchy'.  It's human.  It addresses biological needs of bodies.  Doing stretches are things that even cats and dogs do.  It's not part of their spiritual schtick.  It's not even part of their religious schtick.

Tomorrow - if I don't get drawn into politics or coronavirus instead - I'll start on the items on that there list.  There are important 'wellness' things missing.  And some of them are the same thing, divided ... probably to get up to 31, so it could be one a day for a 31 day month. 

Bounty

Blessings Darlings!

I haven't planted much stuff this year.  Like, only 2 summer squash plants, one of which is already dead of bacterial wilt.  Less then 1/2 the amount of green beans I usually plant.  I only put in two tomato plants, but a lot of others volunteered and I'm only letting 3 of them grow.

But not only do I still have too many summer squashes (I have NEVER had a yellow crook neck squash produce like this before) but the green beans have gone SNEAKY.  I thought I only had 'new born kitten' sized beans.  Instead, they were hiding some fully ready ones.  A half pound of fully ready ones.  I'm shocked.  And awed.  And overwhelmed at the return in my garden already this year.  Obviously the garden likes that I'm using cow manure to build it up. 

Which is a good thing, given that my old job at the old place probably isn't coming back. 

Rain is staying north of us, at least so far, today. So I removed a lot of Johnson grass.  And I transplanted in more Swiss Chard, finally, and watered it myself to make sure it was cared for.  It's steamy and windy out, but that doesn't mean that the rain will come to visit today.  All the lightning is up at Hagerstown.  UPDATE: We got a sprinkle of rain, not enough to count for rain ... but we got a wonderful rainbow!

Spent most of the last light pulling zoysa grass from the garden, so I can transplant the cucs in tomorrow, Gods willing and if the creek don't rise.

Frondly, Fern

Contemplating candles.

Blessings Darlings!

Since I'm currently doing one daily offering shortly before midnight each night, and it's the 'big formal one' of the day, one of the things I'm offering is the light from a candle.  I don't want the candle to burn TOO long, and I do this offering outside, so I don't want the wind to blow it out on windy nights.  Therefore, I use Hanuka candles, bought in bulk at the grocery store on half price after Hanuka.  44 candles in a box, assorted colors, burn at least half an hour.

But that wind thing is still an issue, even with pretty protector I put over the candle.  The problem is that the candle holder raises the candle too high for good protection.  When I dare to go into stores again I will likely look for a taller one ... or shorter candle holder ...

I COULD maybe get away with using a 7 day candle for this - those jarred candles are 'recessed' enough in the jar that they might not be blown out by the wind.  But ... I'm doing this outside.  I'd light it, let the offering burn for a while, then put it out again.  Sounds fine, until you realized that this is summer, and bugs are attracted to flames.  The hot liquid wax would end up with the bodies of the dead bugs.  NOT the offering I want to give. Maybe I'll be able to use them in winter. 

Update - I did some spelunking in the Conjure Cabinet, and found a lower candle holder, AND it allows the protector thing in it as well.

I was going to make crepes for dinner tonight, filling them with the leftover chicken and the wild greens (lambs quarters and spiny hogweed) I harvested yesterday.  I made the filling, which is wonderful.  But making the actual crepes seemed like work, so instead we're having it over egg noodles.  Everyone is happy this way, too.

Yesterday we got a little rain.  Under 1/4 inch, but with a glorious rainbow.  Suz, of course, filmed the rainbow and I didn't.  Today no rainbow, but a lot more rain.  With lots of thunder and lightning.  I won't have to water the garden for ... maybe two days.  The whole landscape just went 'Ahhhhhhh'.   It's a wonder filled thing.

Frondly, Fern

Lots of gardening today.

Blessings Darlings!

I got out to the garden early (for me), did an hour and a half of work before it even hit 90 degrees!  I harvested a lot of weeds for dinner tomorrow, then dug beds for the last planting of beans, filled the trenches with a manure/soil mix, and planted the beans.  Now, hours later, we're getting a little blessed rain.  Very little rain, but at least some. 

I discovered that the inside of Mt. Manure (where Chris dumped the manure in the garden) is really wet, while the outside is dried hard as a rock. I'll deal with that some other time.  Like, sometime this fall.

As a result of the earlier harvesting, I've been spending much of the day removing leaves from stems.  Tedious stuff.  But the greens make such good crepes! 

Frondly, Fern

It's adorable.

Blessings Darlings!

It's 10:50 am, and 94 degrees.  Rah.

I've been as busy as I could be in this heat and humidity.  Garden, housework, having folks block me on FaceBook, the usual. 

Altho' no one has asked, here's my view of the 'witches on TikTok are cursing the Fae, and the Moon, and the Sun" thing.  And my view is "Whatever".  It has the same vibe as that thing the 4th of July - "Antifa is going to Gettysburg to desecrate the cemetery!"  The vibe is 'some one is trolling for reaction." 

If some witches try it - shrug.  All beginners try to do stuff they can't pull off.  That's normal.

Maybe I'll do a blog on 'how to appease beings you've pissed the fuck off' sometime soon.  Not just because of that, but because ... anyone doing magic is more 'visible' to the spirits, and more likely to step over a line with one or more of them, AND GET NOTICED doing it.  It's nice to know what to do in such cases. 

But this WitchTok stuff is ... kinda like putting on masks and crashing a party in Verona, given by a family your family is feuding with.  Normal white kid stuff.  The police will drive them home, no charges filed. 

Frondly, Fern

Herbs!

Blessings Darlings!

The heat advisory continues ... It's 97 degrees at noon, feels like 112.  Spawn weeded the bushes today, to stay in the shade. 

I harvested sage, oregano, spearmint, and thyme.  Want to water the mugwort before I harvest that.  The new rosemary is too small to do a real harvest of, as are the struggling parsley plants.  Basil has been harvested every week, to make sure it doesn't go to seed.  I have potted basil that I'm letting go to seed.  They have all been rinsed clean and are spread out on cardboard to dry.  The dining room smells amazing.

Whole chicken for dinner tonight.  Might spatchcock it, will use a red rub on it.  Will certainly make it outside on a grill rather than heating the house.  I want to serve squash fritters with it, but a dark green veggie will look better.  Especially if I use corn as the starch.  Ended up with leftover rice as the starch, and frozen green beans, since my green beans are probably still 2 weeks away.

That, and other housework, and family stuff, is it.

Frondly, Fern

John Lewis and Rev. Vivian both dead.

Blessings Darlings!

Not only did I sleep most of yesterday, I slept all night just fine.  My last dream was a successful battle, with my co-warriors splitting up the silver.

I am really being buried in yellow crookneck squash.  There's a lot of tempura and ?croodles? in my future.  But it is SO DRY.  Second haying here is going to be sparse. I'm watering the garden almost daily, in small part because the Spawn can't get weeds out of the dry clay if I don't.  And II have no idea what type of fruit of veggies the volunteer in the squash family is.  It's not a crookneck.  It's not a cucumber.  It could be a muskmelon or honeydew, since we grew them last year, or a cross between them.  Or a spaghetti squash.  Time will tell, I guess. 

John Lewis and Rev. Vivian both died in the last 24 hours.  Sadness.

75000 daily new cases of Covid 19, and the Trump admin is insisting on opening schools.

Tempura was great.  But. oh, what a mess!  Guess I'll spent all my time between now and end of day offerings cleaning the kitchen.  SO WORTH IT.

Frondly, Fern

Tacos and Tempura and Summer Temperatures.

Blessings Darlings!

Sluggish today.  Just want to drink coffee and read.  But not outside, where it already feels like 102 degrees before noon.

Garden has been watered, a few hours ago.  Weeding has taken place, by the Spawn.  That's one of his daily jobs.  I've not worked on dishes or laundry yet.  Dinner will be tacos, so that's easy enough, but might need a tomato or two, I think we're low on fresh tomatoes, since I planted late and we're not getting them from the garden yet.  Tomorrow night we're having a Tempura Extravaganza, featuring the squash, the jumbo shrimp, and a few other veggies from the store.  Maybe ... turnips?  I wonder how they'd be as tempura?

Damn!  A bee just flew from the back yard over the house ... looking as big as a military transport plane. 

I ended up NOT drinking more coffee, but did try to read and thus ended up asleep for about 3 hours in the afternoon.  I got all my daily chores done, just no exercise or reading ... yet.  I might get some in. I might not.  It's okay. 

Frondly, Fern

Living the Vida Boring

Blessings Darlings!

Welp, the grey squash, which I love, is very very very susceptible to bacterial wilt spread by squash bugs. The yellow crookneck squash is both a bit less attractive to squash bugs AND doesn't seem to give much of a care about bacterial wilt.  The one plant I put in is producing very heavily, too.  The volunteer squash (which I suspect is also  yellow crookneck) looks like it will also start producing in a week or so.  Some of the peppers are beginning to bloom, but I fear that the only ones that survived are the cayenne peppers.  They are useful, but ... I just used up the last of the sweet peppers that I froze from last year, and would like to freeze a batch of THEM.  I need to check to see if I have more of them that I dried still available.

Humidity is not my friend today. 

I don't feel like I have much to blog right now.  Not that most of my blogs are particularly wonderful, but blogging how life goes on during relatively awful times is ... pretty mundane and boring itself.  And I'm not blogging about things that are HEADLINES and GOING ON IN MY YARD.  We have small Black Lives Matter protests in our area, and because I'm isolating I don't go to most of them. I don't go to the weekly Rockwool protests.  I'm not about to list groups/amounts/times I give money, or every single other 'good deed'/virtue signalling type thing.  I'm not going to bore you or me with the details on my little exercise program, or how I felt exercising this day, and whine about ... exercising.  Because I do that a lot in my life, and no one else should have THAT imposed on them.

So you get lists of what I got done, and details on the garden.  And some other nature notes about birds and fireflies. And squash bugs.

I can't see some future Ken Burns using this for some amazing documentary on the year 2020, or CoronaVirus: The Mini Series, and no one's going to look to an old white woman's blog for Black Lives Matter stuff. 

Welp, that's it for today.

Frondly. Fern

Midnight Music?

Blessings Darlings! 

I forgot to blog yesterday! 

It WAS a busy day, with eyeglass stuff for the Chubby Hubby, appointment with nurse practitioner for me then I went to the hardware store and the pharmacy (which didn't have the drug I needed), and with doing all the usual stuff in the garden, cleaning, cooking, etc.

We will all survive the fact that I missed a day.

I've been hearing music in the middle of the night.  Hard rock, with an emphasis on electric guitars - I hear them, not any base.  It's soft, not very close ... but I hear it just as loud in the house with the windows closed as I do outside.  I have NOT NOT NOT gone wandering to seek the source of it.  Sure, most likely it's a human neighbor.  But ... sigh ... the Good Neighbors could have some hard rock interests.   It's not at all clear how they'd be powering electric guitars, of course.  What IS clear is that I am NOT following strange music in the middle of the night.

The hot weather, bugs, dry weather, and clay soil is doing a number on my newly planted and transplanted Swiss Chard.  I'm going to have to transplant more, and give all of it special attention.  I'm already giving the summer squash bug egg checks two times a day, I'll have to water and bug check the chard at the same times. 

Now, a lot of us are attending meetings via Zoom now, and have been watching/making podcasts for ... years.  Wouldn't you like transcripts?  You can get them, easily.  And free/cheap.  The Otter App does it.  I just whined about no transcripts for podcasts, and ... realized that we have this tool as part of our business.  I didn't PLAN on posting it here, but I'm about it.  We are not an affiliate of theirs, but I DO think that if a lot of folks get the paid version we get some gift.  That said, we use the free version and have never needed the paid version.
Here's the link :  https://otter.ai/referrals/UL62OMEZ

A free account gives them 600 audio minutes per month. 

If they need a transcript of a video, they can upload the video file, and Otter will extract the audio from that.
If they need a transcript of audio, they need to upload an audio file:

Otter lets you import existing recordings in the following formats:

    audio: mp3, aac, wav, m4a, wma
    video: mp4, avi, mov, wmv, mpg


If they need more info, the Chubby Hubby can help.

 Damn, it's hot and humid today.  I should plant a new batch of green beans, but instead I'm hiding indoors with the air conditioning on.

We bought a little table top portable grill.  The guys have finally put it together.  We finally figured out how to light it.  It is now on the 15 minutes 'burn off toxic shit' stage.  I don't know if this has enough BTU power for my purposes. 
Update - it takes at least 4 minutes per side for yellow crook neck squash slices.
Now I have pans of chicken in it.  Because I didn't have time to marinade the chicken and I want them immersed in flavor.  Maybe tomorrow I'll throw drumsticks on = because I don't think I'll have to worry about burning them using direct heat.  Tonight is boneless chicken.

Tonight was also the first evening I heard the screams of the cicadas.  They were the musical accompaniment to the beginning of the firefly show, but they didn't  scream for very long.

Until tomorrow ...

Frondly, Fern

Experimental Dinner Meh

Blessings Darlings!

Garden?  Check
Healthy breakfast?  Check
Dinner decided on?  Check
Spawn out shopping? Check (it's Moolatte Monday at Dairy Queen.  Thus, he goes shopping on Mondays as well as Wednesdays)
Dishes caught up on? Check





The Meatball Sub Casserole for dinner was meh.  Fortunately, I only made a half batch.  The meatballs and sauce will be fine on spaghetti.

Frondly, Fern

Morning in the Garden with Fern

Blessings Darlings!

It's a lovely cool sunny morning here today.  I've already been out mashing bug eggs and thinning the Swiss Chard.  No one told me that the Swiss Chard produced two plants for every seed!  Once the seeds I planted in pots are bigger, I'll add a lot of them to the garden bed of chard.  I'm also hoping to keep some going over the winter in a cold frame, for fresh winter greens.  Along with the sweet potato vines that will be going inside the house. 

My parsley isn't doing much of anything.  Just sort of maintaining it's 'barely beyond seedling' status.  That's frustrating.  The Mystery Squash has not started blooming yet.  Not even the male flowers.  Eventually it will become clear what it is.  This week is not that week.  The tomatoes are coming along, especially the larger volunteer plant.  I had to do more bondage on all of them yesterday.

Tomorrow, weather willing, I need to plant more green beans, and work on the sweet potato vines.  I'm beginning to suspect that the unknown squash is going to turn out to be a yellow crookneck, but that's just a guess based on the leaves.

Now that it's 3 in the afternoon, the day has turned cloudy and humid.  We might get rain.  Then again, we might not.  It's been totally spotty lately.
It is now pouring at the south end of the field, where they hayed the other day.  Nothing going on here yet.  Lots of wind, tho'.
Ah, now it's raining pretty well here.  And now it's done.  About 8 minutes of rain.

That's the Sunday that Was.

Frondly, Fern

I put my back into today.

Blessings Darlings!

I'm more functional today than I was yesterday.  I suppose that isn't saying much.  But it's well before noon, I've gotten almost all my minimum level of exercise in, done dishes, and am about to hang laundry.  I've eaten enough to take my meds.  

We got an unexpected downpour last night.  Chubby Hubby was awake during it, but didn't notice it, tho' I talked with him about the local lightning hits.  He was surprised to find water in the basement this morning.  At least I don't have to water the garden today, and maybe there will be more fireflies tonight.  They've been scarce the last few nights.

Mashed a lot of squash bug eggs, and one squash bug.  Cut down a lot of crap growing on the garden fence line.  Did tomato bondage.  Removed the grew squash plant that was rapidly dying of bacterial wilt, will bag it later.

Hot and steamy out.  Want to cool off before thinning the swiss chard and clearing area for next green bean planting.

There certainly were more fireflies tonight. 

Worked a lot in the garden today.  Did a lot with weights.  My back is not thrilled.  I'm going to bed. Or to do dishes then go to bed.  And do evening offerings sometime before bed as well. 

Good night.

Frondly, Fern

Today I slept.

Y'all, I spent the day with allergies and asleep.  That's it.

All Covid 19, all the time.

Blessings Darlings!

Dear Gods, the stupid on FB is bad.  And many of the stupid people are too stupid to be helped.  I've tried.

My state is one of the top states in rate of increase in COVID 19 cases.  Rah.  There are only 2 states where rates are falling - Vermont and some other one.  They keep learning more about covid 19's effect on the body, especially in strokes and other brain damage.  And yet the Trump administration is insisting on opening schools.  Yes, young children learn WAY better in classrooms.  Yes, kids in much of the country have little to no access to high speed internet to access online teaching.  I take issue with the idea that kids dying is better than them missing school.  And that teachers and other support staff dying is better, too.

We need to close everything for 4 weeks.  That's the only way to get ANY control on this.  Close the banks.  Stop foreclosures.  Have the Nat Guard deliver food. Stop rents/mortgages for that month. 

I need some sleep.

Frondly, Fern

Waning moon Wednesday.

Blessings Darlings!

Oh, the moon last night rose as incredible shade of red.  It rose thru' clouds, yes.  It rose during a drought, yes.  It rose during a pandemic, yes. 
At least it still rose.

I'm one week back into daily offerings (the Jason Miller model for them, go read his stuff) and 5 - 6 days a week exercise.  My knees aren't any different (no increase of pain) from the exercise, and my upper arm tendonitis isn't giving me trouble, but I'm using VERY light weights for moves that would trigger the tendonitis.  Go me!

Spawn got the table top grill today - but it had been bashed sometime after leaving the factory.  He's returning it tomorrow, and ordering a non-dented one.

The landscapers didn't come and mow today.  Not that we need it, but this probably means that they'll come and mow tomorrow, so I can't hang laundry tomorrow, either. 

There was some family stuff today that took some of my time, but it's just ... stuff.  The grill was part of it.

Frondly, Fern

Well, fuck, I guess I'm an adult.

Blessings Darlings!

I still don't want to do anything.  I'm still doing things.  Just ... slowly.  It doesn't help that one of today's chores is the weekly cleaning of the fridge, which I hate doing.  But since I AM doing it - I'm defrosting the dorm sized fridge, too.  It needs it.

Did the garden work, did the dishes (well, the sink is now full again since I dumped old stuff from the fridge), planned today's and tomorrow's meal, been finishing up the Walmart pick up order, been working out with weights ... basically, going thru' the stuff on my 'to do' list.  Inventoried our batteries, to see which size to order from Walmart.  Ordered a small, portable propane grill, because charcoal puts too much carbon and particulates in the air, but I want to be able to grill chicken and veggies outside so I don't heat the house.

Welp - I may FEEL like I'm moving in slow motion, but, wow, I'm getting a lot done.  I'm happy with the results.  Defrosting!  Vacuuming!  Clean fridge!  Great weight workout!  Maybe I'll get on the exercise bike!  Okay, I didn't get on the exercise bike. 

That's today's update.

Frondly, Fern

First pandemic Monday in July.

Blessings Darlings!

That sudden windiness at 7 pm was caused by pop-up thunderstorms in various parts of the larger area.  Alas, no rain where I am.  So by 8:30 am today I was out watering the garden again.  And checking for pest eggs. 

The Washington Post - The morning's most important stories, curated by Post editors.

(AP)
Seven-day average case total in U.S. sets record for 27th straight day
Local officials issued dire warnings about the spread of infections, blaming outbreaks on early reopenings and saying the virus was rapidly outpacing containment efforts.
 Ain't we got fun?

I am SO INCREDIBLY PISSED that the US WASTED 3+ months of isolation ... hell, wasted then entire time from the first big warnings about Covid 19 at the end of December/early January until the foreseeable future.  We did half-assed attempts to ask people to isolate, no serious enforcement.  We decided that human lives were less important than money.  And now, no surprise to folks with actual brains, our ICU beds are full again.  Our death rate is HUGE, even with states like Florida refusing to release actual stats on Covid-related deaths.  In 11 more days it will be 4 full months since I've gone out without a mask on.  4 months since I went out for anything other than needed shopping and a few trips to large parks to take walks with my family.   And under our president - who denigrated mask wearing and closing businesses, refuses to put a plan together, has gagged the US experts on infectious diseases, and cut funding for COVID research - and his allies, while I kept myself/my family safe, we are no safer than we were before.  Oh!  As of midnight tonight, masks are mandatory here in WV.  3 1/2 months (at least) later than they should have been declared mandatory.  Wait - it's not a mandate.  It's not enforced.  It's only fucking 'strongly encouraged'.  This is some fucking bullshit.

Oh - and if/when they get a vax for this, they'll be happy if it's only 50% effective. And you can bet that means if it's 50% effective on young healthy folks, not on ... everyone. Cancer survivors with now compromised immune systems? Nope. Folks over 60? Nope. Diabetics? Nope. Folks with asthma? Nope. Lupus? Nope. Fibro? Nope. 

How dry is it? Dust devils swirling in the pasture dry.  This is why I water some things daily (seedlings and the heavy producing squashes.)  

Today is one of those 'hard' days for me.  Depressed, no energy.  But I made my 'to do' list, and am trying my best to work on it.  Paid rent. Paid health insurance.  Worked in garden.  Washed clothes, and hung them on clothes line.  Obviously working on blogging.  Working on exercising ... in small doses at a time.  Dishes are all caught up on.  
It's 96 degrees out, feels like 101 -  and that's not helping, tho' we have AC on set at 81 degrees.   All the cattle - all black angus cattle - are under the trees where it's shady.  Horses are out in the sun, kicking up dust as they walk.  But they look like they are heading in the general direction of some trees themselves.  Fleshy weeds have taken over the garden and pastures, purslane in the garden and spiny pigweed in the pastures.  I might go harvest and cook the leaves on the pigweed next week, and maybe the purslane tomorrow.  

The Spawn found reduced price whole chickens on sale when he went out today (wearing a mask).  I'll stick a can of beer up it's ass, liberally (of course) apply Memphis Rub to it, and throw it in the oven for dinner.  I'll put an insulated car reflector on the oven, too, to keep as much of the heat IN the oven and not radiating OUT of the oven.  It will still end up heating the house, of course, but at least I'll have tried to reduce that.  He had money, so I told him to get the biggest reduced one they had, so we could get the most meals out of one oven use.  I'll throw in baked potatoes for the rest of the week, too, tho' corn will be our starch.

Sheesh - maybe today would be less overwhelming if I didn't have to keep adding stuff to the 'to do' list.  I used the last of the home made laundry powder today, so making more of that is on the list now.

Frondly, Fern