Fri, Sep 29th - 6:39PM

It's our 44th anniversary today.  I had almost forgot about it.  We have been so busy with many other things.  My husband did forget about it 'till I reminded him.  He asked me what I wanted to do.  Neither of us was really in the mood for much.  After a few suggestions we hit upon our special treat for the day. 

We decided to go to that world famous Irish restaurant.  It starts with Mc.  Usually there are golden arches around it.  Does that mean there is a pot of gold at the end of the arches?  You guessed it.  We went to McDonald's for hamburgers and french fries.  While some might laugh, it is special to us because we almost never go out to eat.  I usually cook everything from scratch, rather than using anything ready-prepared.  And also, when we were young and could not afford anything else, McDonalds was our only treat.  It was kind of nostalgic. I hope to look forward to at least twenty more visits to McDonalds.

Wed, Sep 27th - 11:18AM

The Silence

I’m reading a book, “What We Ache For,” by Oriah Mountain Dreamer.  It’s about how to cultivate the creative process.  Any author, artist, musician, or sculpture needs to nurture the creative process in order to come up with new material.

One thing that Oriah has said I have also found to be true.  A creative person needs empty time in order to recharge.  She periodically takes a Sabbath of rest.  It can be any day of the week, but when she declares a Sabbath day she will do no work, nor make commitments of any kind to anyone.  She won’t even think about problems and possible solutions.  She will spend the day doing absolutely nothing. 

Lately, we have been using Sundays as a Sabbath of rest.  Since we will be moving out to our country property as soon as things are done, we have quit the church we went to here in town.  We are too exhausted from all the hard labor to go the new church up there so we stay home and do nothing but rest, read, pray and recuperate.  For the present time this is right for us.

I read somewhere that the Quakers routinely practice a day of silence.  I imagine that means that members of a household don’t talk to one another that day.  How blessed, I expect nothing of anyone, and nobody expects anything of me!  I wonder how that works out with young children in the family?   Still, it’s a good idea.

Originally, when I signed up for the writing course I am currently taking, I was expected to write one devotional a day.  That sounds nice, but I can’t do it.  In order for me to come up with worthwhile stuff, I need to spend much time in silence.   Lately, there has not been enough of that time, so I write one a week. 

I should turn one of my blogs into a devotional page.

Sun, Sep 24th - 11:13AM

My husband and I came upon a splendid thought this morning while having our morning cup of coffee.  I was lounging around on the couch, grumbling and complaining about all my aches and pains from yesterdays stump removal work. (My husband can’t do that kind of work due to arthritis.) I grubbed up one stump to make a smooth path for our mobil home to be brought in.  There is another one, bigger than the one I removed, that also needs moving.  I really wasn’t looking forward to it.  I cut the mesquite tree last week.  But the stump that was left was going to be a real challenge.  The tree had been cut down to a stump sometime in the distant past with 101 suckers coming out making a mesquite thicket out of that one tree.  It was difficult enough removing those 101 trees, crawling under the thicket to get to the individual trunks.  The trouble is, there is so much resin in that stump that my saw didn’t seem to make much of a dent with each saw stroke.  That and also instead of growing straight, the stump laid on its side for about a foot before it went straight, not an easy angle to get at.

We started tossing idle words around.  One thing built upon another.  I don’t remember who said what, but all of a sudden the whole idea was there.  Buy a bag of charcoal brickets,  heap them over the stump, light them, and burn that ######stump out of there.

Ask me about my book.  Better yet, have a look.  http://www.authorsden.com.aliceelewis

Mon, Sep 18th - 9:06PM

As we were coming home from working on our country property today, a car coming from the other direction was motioning for us to slow down.  We were traveling slowly enough, considering it's a dirt road which dips up and down through canyons and dry washes.  Why was he telling us to slow down more?  Well, as we came over the next rise we found out why.  A herd of Brahim cows was ambling along the road, eating the wild grasses on the side.  Ugly and fearsome beasts.  I don't know why the Hindus revere them.  I was afraid that our car suddenly coming upon them would cause them to stampede.  Their horns are weapons to respect.

I guess we will encounter them frequently once we actually move out there.  This is open range cattle country.

Then, not more than a mile farther down the road, we found a truck parked at the side of the road with the hood up, an obvious sign of distress for any traveler is this back-country.   We stopped to see what we could do to help.  The old man coming from the other side of the truck was a  'Gabby Hayes' look-alike with hair and beard a bird could build a nest in, toothless, fingernails as long as rooster talons and shirtless.  It turned out there was nothing we could do to help him.  But could he talk!  When he saw my husband's deformed, arthritic hands, immediately he had a cure that supposedly cured his daddy.  That cure is also supposed to be good for chickens and for growing a good garden as well.  Holy Cow!

Ask me about my book.  Better yet have a look at http://authorsden.com/aliceelewis

Sun, Sep 17th - 6:08PM

Flying Rabbits

Fooled ya!  Rabbits don't fly.  But what I saw Friday was really an eye-full.

In the past, whenever I saw pictures of a creature dubbed "jackolope,"  I thought someone was trying to pull my leg.  There ain't no such thing. Rabbits don't stand three feet tall, nor do they have ears longer than a donkey's.  Then I saw one.

Not a jackolope as in the caricature pictures I have seen, but an antelope jackrabbit.  I checked it out in my field guide.  It stands two feet tall and has extremely long ears.  It came bounding across our property from the reparian preserve and disappeared down the dry-wash on the other side.  From my vantage point, as I was clearing mesquite brush, the ears looked longer than his body.  What a funny sight.  I got to thinking that if he were capable of flapping his ears, perhaps like "dumbo the elephant' he could take off flying.

What will I see tomorrow?  I have been told that peccary pigs have been seen in the area from time to time, also bobcats and mountain lions.

Ask me about my book.  Better yet take a look at http://www.authorsden.com/aliceelewis

Sat, Sep 16th - 5:05PM

Snakes on the Desert

Last week when we were returning from our new country property, we came home the long way, around the east side of the Catalina Mountains, on non-county maintained dirt roads.  Talk about an adventure!  We were traveling through wayout west open cattle range.  You never know where the road is going to be washed out from the still present monsoon season.  Usually by this time of the year the summer rains are over.  Not this year.  We encountered one wash out we had to puddle jump.  We made it. 

Then further on, a five foot long red heater hose slinked out of the roadside mesquite brush and raced across the road, only to disappear in the crucifixion thorn brush on the other side.  At least it looked like a heater hose.  I had never seen a red snake before, nor one that zipped so fast.  When I got home I had to check that one out in my National Audubon Society Field Guide.  Its official name is Coachwhip, also known as Red Racer.  Both names are very descriptive.  It was mostly red, although some are pinkish or brownish.  It certainly was a racer.  The undulations as it raced across the road resembled the crack of a buggy whip.  It is non-poisonous. City dwellers are never lucky enough to catch a glimpse of this creature.

Then, yesterday when we were on the way home from the country we encountered a rattlesnake.  Dumb snake.  It should know not to cross a road, even a dirt, country road.  Someone had run over it, crushing it.  But it was not dead yet.  Its tail was still whipping about and rattling.  We drove over it a couple more times to put it out of its misery.  My husband thought to stop and cut off the rattle for a souvenir.  I convinced him not to.  What would we ever want a thing like that for?

One snake I would never want to encounter is the Western Coral Snake.  It’s deadly.  At least a rattlesnake has the courtesy to warn you with its rattle before it gets mad enough to strike.

Tomorrow I will write about the flying rabbit. J

Ask me about my book.  Better yet go to http://www.authorsden.com/aliceelewis

Fri, Sep 15th - 8:07PM

IN TRAINING

How did Paul Bunyan get so strong?  I found out today, one ax stroke at a time.

In order to open up a pathway for the mobile home to get pulled into the lot of our new home out in the country, I have to do a lot of tree trimming and tree cutting.  I’m not a very athletic person.  It comes from spending too much time at the computer, and before that when I was a seamstress, too much time at the sewing machine.  That is changing.  I am becoming a Paul Bunyan in training.  My husband is disabled.  And we can’t afford to hire out everything. So guess what!  That leaves me. 

I cut one mesquite tree down, and trimmed another one.  Then I hauled the brush far enough away so it won’t interfere with any of the construction that will be going on.

After that, I transplanted two barrel cacti, one pencil cholla, and one small prickly pear.  They would have gotten destroyed by the truck which will bring the house in.   I’m a gardener, but transplanting barrel cacti presents a unique challenge.  You can’t touch the darn things.  Those barrels weren’t little either.  Each one was about the size of a bushel basket and weighed a lot.  One was in bloom.  To surmount that obstacle I laid a large shade cloth near the barrel.  When I had dug it up, I rolled it with my shovel onto the shade cloth, and then dragged the cloth to the new area where it was supposed to grow.   I don’t think the barrel liked laying on the cloth with it’s blossom end down, but so what.  It could suffer a little.  That would be better than getting squashed by a big truck.  Prodding it with stick and shovel I managed to get it nestled in the new area.

I wonder if the original Paul Bunyan was sore when he first began his career as super woodcutter

Tue, Sep 12th - 1:03PM

GRAPEFRUIT

I'm about ready to order my first trees for my orchard, for the new place we are moving to, out in the country.  Two of those will be Ruby Red Grapefruit. 

A friend of mine told me that her friend's doctor forbid him to eat grapefruit because that would interfere with his cholesterol medicine.

I did some research on that.  Grapefruit does indeed affect cholesterol levels.  It lowers the bad cholesterol and raises the good cholesteral.  Reaserchers in Israel have done tests and proved it to be true.

If eating a whole red grapefruit a day-red grapefruit has more cholesterol lowering ability than white-lowers cholesterol than why in the world would one be foolish enough to take a chemical to do it?

That's why the first trees going into my new orchard will be Ruby Red Grapefruit. 

Ask me about my book.  Better yet, have a look.  http://www.authorsden.com/aliceelewis

Wed, Sep 6th - 7:31PM

50/50

I am in a writing group. We did our first peer critique of each others work on an assignment we did. Half of the people who critiqued me said I needed to do more work on the article, and half said it was perfect the way it is. Where does that leave me? I'm half good and the other half needs fixing? I am submitting it below for your opinions. 

In The Garden

You cause plants to grow for people to use. You allow them to produce food from the earth-wine to make them glad, olive oil as lotion for their skin, and bread to give them strength. Psalm 104:14 (NLT) The psalmist was overwhelmed at all the splendor that God had created. He said, “O Lord, what a variety of things you have made!” Spontaneous praise happens when one is in touch with nature, with the things that God has created. A gardener understands this.

 I marvel at the small seeds in my hand. They seem so insignificant. How could they ever be of any value? But as a gardener, I know differently. That small black speck of a kale seed, if given the right environment will sprout and grow into a three foot tall plant, providing us with abundant nutrition out of just a few of it's leaves. And if I plant an apple seed, I will get an apple tree, which will provide me with enough seeds to plant a whole apple orchard. Who but God could have created such abundance?

When I work in my garden, it is almost like praying. Scientists have discovered that the brain waves of a gardener are like those of a person meditating. I can be stressed by the affairs of life, but stirring the soil, tending to the needs of my plants, picking the bountiful harvest, make all the stresses of life fade away.

 In the garden I am a co-creator with God. And a peace settles around me where nothing else matters. God was the first gardener. Then the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, and he placed man in it. And the Lord planted all sorts of trees in the garden-beautiful trees that produced delicious fruit. Genesis 2:8 The garden can be a special place of prayer. God walked and talked with Adam in the garden. When life gets hectic, it’s time to go back to the garden. If not your own, then find a beautiful spot in nature where you can spend some time alone, marveling at all the things God has created. And in that quiet place in nature, let God talk to you.

Prayer

Dear Heavenly Father, I thank you for your creation, for the trees and the flowers and the food the earth produces. Only you could have made all of that. I praise you. Hallelujah, Amen.

Tue, Sep 5th - 7:05PM

WASHING

I invented an old fashioned automatic wash machine today. 

I had a small load of laundry to do, but my regular automatic wash machine was out of commission.  Since it was already late in the day, too late to bother going to a laundo-mat, I decided to hand wash it.  But I didn’t do it the ordinary way.  That is rubbing soap into it and sloshing it around in the sink.  Instead I put the items in a bucket, added laundry soap and hot water.  Then used my plunger.  That’s right.  I used my toilet bowl plunger to plunge and splash the water up and down in the bucket, imitating the agitating action of a wash machine.  I sat there about ten minutes plunging the contents of the bucket.  It’s amazing how much dirt I beat out of those clothes.

Then I dumped the water out and added cold water to rinse.  I rinsed it twice before I wrung it out.  The clothes came out amazingly clean.

If I had to, I could do all of our laundry this way, although the automatic way is easier.  It works quite well doing it this way. Works is the word.  You have to provide the energy. 

If I had to chose between an old fashioned scrub board and this plunger method I just came up with, I would chose doing it the plunger way.

Ask me about my book

http://www.authorsden.com/aliceelewis

Sun, Sep 3rd - 7:03PM

Confused

Years ago, when I first read, “The Clan of the Cave Bear, I marveled that at one point the clan no longer “saw” Ayla.  I thought, How cruel.  She had commited a taboo and was therefore declared dead.  But in fact, she was right there in front of them, living, breathing.  They seemed to look right past her.  They didn’t “see” her or respond to her in any way.  It did not take long before she chose to leave because she could not stand that treatment any longer.

I had that same strange feeling at church today.  People know we will be moving.  I feel like people are looking at me as though I were a ghost.  It is only a matter of time until we get all the permitting taken care of for the building of the septic tank and other needed stuff.  Then we will move.  I can’t say exactly when, so I can’t tell people when we will be moving.  But meanwhile I have a feeling that people are looking right past me, like I don’t belong anymore.  It’s an uncomfortable feeling.

Or is it me?  Am I acting differently?  I am confused.

Ask me about my book.