Where the wild ducks are

  Whether we look far away or close at hand – from France to the people of our hearts, we long for peace. We long for hope.

For a few days of solitude, I’ve come away to a quiet place. Perhaps I will find headspace to write again.

I’ve watched the wild ducks gather at the bottom of the lawn. In a puddle spread before the shore a family of mallards nibble and nibble on something under the water. Roots? Chickweed? They ruffle their tails and preen their breasts, comfortably relaxing into the soggy grass as if into a hot spa. A female scolds a male and he sprints from her clacking beak. After the ducks depart a pair of crows splash into the puddle and then sip their bathwater. A black squirrel runs up and down the oak with mouthfuls of leaves. I see she is building a winter nest as she shapes them into a ragged clump. There is healing in these observations. I waken to more than despair and “forethought of grief.” I do. I am almost happy.

The Peace of Wild Things

When despair for the world grows in me

and I wake in the night at the least sound

in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,

I go and lie down where the wood drake

rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.

I come into the peace of wild things

who do not tax their lives with forethought

of grief. I come into the presence of still water.

And I feel above me the day-blind stars

waiting with their light. For a time

I rest in the grace of the world, and am free. – Wendell Berry

Mallard Family eating in the rain.

Vacation Envy

Sunday. Today after church, a friend, a mother of five kids, a five-month-old in her arms, the rest racing around the lawn, told us she has vacation envy. They didn’t get one this summer and it seems like everyone else we know is texting, Face Booking, and talking about where they’ve been. It was a great rant one I understood too well. I stood there thinking – from Nantucket to Provence everyone in the world is hiking sensational mountain ranges, biking through fields of leaping lambs, eating Gruyere, and sleeping within the sound of whippoorwills. Except for us.

She went on to say she’d just finished reading Ecclesiastes “and that’s where I am, ‘everything is vanity.’” She roller her eyes and grimaced. Then she concluded God must be at work because her attitude shifted when she thought of a “stupid old 70s song* – ‘if you can’t be with the one you love, then love the one you’re with’ I’m trying to do that she said, if I can’t take a vacation then I’m trying to be where we are and somehow love it.

I wrote something similar to a friend. “I’m doing okay. A bit tired. Okay, maybe a lot tired. Am looking for some sweet spots in the Lord in the midst of these weeks. I know they are there. Hoping not to miss them because I’m feeling sorry for myself.”

One sweet spot had to be our youngest granddaughter sitting next to me reading her favorite book: Max & Ruby. We’ve read it so many times she has it memorized or “rememberized” as she puts it. Her ways delight my soul. After hearing it so many times she understands “Grocer” – a word not commonly used anymore, but the context has taught her without me explaining. The ways of children both delight and instruct. Her honesty. Can I have this book, she asks? No. I want it to be here so when you come back we can look forward to reading it together. When I die you can have it. I will leave it to you in my will. What’s a will?… and on we go.

Another sweet spot. I made two jars of naturally fermented pickles. It’s the way they used to make them long ago. You don’t need vinegar. You just put the cucumbers in a jar water and salt, garlic and dill, leave it on the counter and in three to five days a wonderful, crisp tart pickle. It worked! Love them.

 

Garlic Dills naturally fermented.

Please don’t stop telling me what wonderful times you’ve had. You need times away from the crush of stress. You need times of pure refreshment and joy. God will get us (me) to where we need to be. Eventually.

Our next week will bring its stresses. Some of them we know. Some we anticipate. Others are still unknown. When Denis and I talk about our days, we have a tendency to stew about the future. The words of Jesus echo in my head. Words I heard growing up about not worrying about tomorrow because tomorrow will worry about itself. The Message translation gives it a different punch:  “Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now, and don’t get worked up about what may or may not happen tomorrow. God will help you deal with whatever hard things come up when the time comes.” (Mt. 6:34) 

*Stephen Stills “Love the One You’re With” 1970.

Cast Iron forever

In the week before our daughter and her family arrived from Tennessee, I wanted to recondition some of my cast iron skillets because she and one of our grandsons has celiac disease. If cast iron has been used for cooking food that has wheat, like pancakes, French toast, or grilled sandwiches, just minute traces of gluten can make them sick.

I've found a way to recondition pans that works very well and is so easy. I place the pans in the oven and send it through a cleaning cycle. The temperature is high enough to burn the impurities off the iron and leave behind a kind of rusty residue. In the end I have a clean oven and cast iron that is ready to be wiped out and seasoned. 

I chose three of my favorites to re-condition before Sember arrived. (Really, I love them all! They are wonderful to cook with when they are properly conditioned and seasoned.) A very small 6 inch skillet, a medium 9 inch pan and a large 12 inch skillet that is great when you are cooking for a crowd and doing a lot of sauteing or stir fry. It is also makes a great oven-baking dish.

This is what the skillets looked like after the oven was done cleaning. Very nasty, but that's exactly how they should look at this stage.

End of oven cleaning cycle.

I laid out newspapers on the counter and got to work on the next step.

The small 6 inch on right needed reconditioning the most.

Notice all the gunk has turned to a rusty ash. That's good.

I take paper towels and either vegetable oil or shortening and begin to wipe them out. You can see how much comes off with the oil. This continues to clean and condition the surface. You will already feel how much smoother the surface has become now that all the gunk has been burned off.

It doesn't take a lot of effort to see it begin to shine up.

Almost done wiping.

 

A little discoloration on the paper towel after the majority of the residue is wiped off is okay. The next step is going to begin the re-seasoning process. This will continue to seal and smooth out the surface as the oil is baked on. Apply oil or shortening to the sides and bottom as you see below. Make sure it is completely coated and rubbed in. Then return the pan to the oven for two hours at 350 degrees. 

I used canola oil.

Done!

When you take the skillet out of the oven. Let it cool down and wipe it out again. It should look beautiful and ready to be used.

I have learned that the more you use your cast iron the better it gets, until it finally has a silky non-stick surface that rivals any teflon. You can see that the large one above needs to be used more in order to get it in even better shape. The other two are perfect. In fact, they are so well seasoned now, I can even risk the big No-No and scrub it with a little water and soap if I've made a messy batch of scrambled eggs with cheese, for example. After I've washed it, I simply dry it out and rub in a little olive oil and it will be fine for the next time I use it. 

The most common way I clean them is by merely wiping them out with a paper towel. If it needs more than that, I often dump in a tablespoon of coarse salt, rub it around with a paper towel and that will clean and smooth the surface. You may wonder if this is sanitary enough because you aren't scrubbing it with hot soapy water, but remember this: every time you use a skillet or Dutch oven you will be heating the pan up to a temperature that is way beyond the life of any bacteria, so you'll be just fine. I know that some people are also concerned that no matter how much you wipe the surface with oil when cleaning up - it may still comes away discolored. That is normal with cast iron. It's just the nature of it. Insignificant amounts of iron may be picked up by food, but it becomes a source of an important mineral in our diet and that is good, too.

Another wonderful thing about cast iron is its durability. Whatever you own now has every chance of being around a hundred years from now and can be passed from generation to generation and that is pretty cool sustainability, don't you think?

Time to change

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It is snowing this morning. The first day of “Daylight Savings.” Daylight Time used to change when Spring was firmly established in flowers and light. Today, ironically, it is still winter. Snow falls straight down in heavy-cotton chunks. Theirs is a quiet, passing beauty. The kind of snow-fall that doesn’t last. Quickly it fades to small flakes and then disappears altogether.

I am thoughtful this morning. Considering changes. Time, weather, place. What to make of unwelcome changes?

Yesterday, driving from Lincoln to Rochester meant passing through most of Iowa on interstate highways. First miles and miles east to Des Moines on I-80 and then up, up, north and north through the “fruited plains” on I-35 until at last the bluffs of southeastern Minnesota gently rise.

About thirty miles west of Des Moines traffic suddenly slowed, came to a stop. We could see the road ahead was clogged with cars and trucks idling in the rain. An accident.  Someone’s tragedy unfolding far ahead; who we would never know. As we approached the standing point, some vehicles were making a k-turn, passing us on the shoulder and exiting the wrong way up the on-ramp. One questioning glance from Anita, and we were doing the same. It was a satisfying crime. A justifiable change of direction. We quickly followed a line of traffic heading cross-country. Along the back roads, we had time to call up Google Maps and decided to follow the perfectly paved Iowa county roads, straight and smooth, skipping Des Moines and Ames altogether.

A map of Iowa hints at its history – a perfect grid of right-angle roads. Rich, black soil precisely divided into sections worth millions. One mile on a side, 640 acres within the square. Farmland that made the lives of men and women who raised crops and animals to feed hundreds of others. Often there is still a stand of old trees on one corner of a section, remnants of a homestead, a house that might still be lived in, if it’s lucky, but the out-buildings –  the out-buildings. All dying, sinking back into the ground. Barns three stories high with an elevator still sitting beneath the haymow door as if one day the farmer was raptured, or died or moved to Arizona. Round barns, barns with graceful cupolas, hipped roofs, angled roofs, stone, oaken, bricked, square, reflecting styles of German, Norwegian, Dutch immigrants.

Iowa barn in winter

Not as many of these places are seen from the heavily traveled interstate, but on back roads they never leave your sight. County after county the quiet is eerie. In the stillness of winter the machines are gone, the land is dark, the buildings are broken, blackened, faded red. Granaries, barns, coops without an animal or human in sight.

Perhaps one reason American factory farming troubles me is because I feel alienated by it. I want to be wholly restored to land and creation. I want us to be careful caretakers of, not just the earth, but of people. I mourn empty places that were once alive with chickens, cows, horses and pigs. I want to repopulate them with children and dogs and tire swings. Restore a garden. Perhaps it is true Home I wait for – that impossible place of meaningful work and unbroken restoration God will bring about one day.

Tomorrow, I will be more settled. More distant from dying places I can’t fix. I will focus on my desk and maybe I’ll think about the small patch of urban earth outside our back door. Flower and seed catalogs are here and we need a few more climbing roses and stone walls for them to thrive upon.

February Blues

We waited weeks for six days last October when we could spend time at a quiet place on the north shore of Lake Superior. Finding time to rest, taking time to come apart for renewal and refreshment has been one of my long-winded topics. I tire of too much muchness. I don’t think it is just me, I suspect many of us suffer want in this area. Sometimes we need to be way away.

Back of Morning Light

We have been at this place before and I long for it. Long to be away from the busyness of my life. Selfishly, in the days preceding, I hold my breath and pray that no one will die, forcing me to cancel plans. We arrived at “Morning Light” late in the day and turned down the track that winds through birch and bracken, scattered black spruce and fir, tawny grasses growing thigh-high right up to the car doors and up to the back of the simple cabin which is all dark and closed. The air is filled with the resinous scent of pines and poplar trees that have dropped their leaves in drifts. Only one small window shows on the second floor, but when you walk through the back door, through the darkened entry hall, it opens to a view of the entire horizon from east to west. Light floods from skylights and the bank of floor-to-ceiling windows across the front. Even gray days cannot staunch the light.

Morning is breaking

The first morning, as I woke, from our bed I could see a faint, faint line of light on the other side of the world and quietly moved to a living room chair with a cup of hot tea to wait for dawn. The morning stars were still visible. How to describe this, this pre-historic daily show with colors that flare and spread? If you name them they sound commercial. Artificial. Yet they pre-date the earth. God-made lemon-yellows and melons began pushing against the dark-violet sky. They stain and slowly creep up the sky like water-color paint seeping across paper. Then, suddenly fire appears – the bright oranges and reds of a blast furnace burns under the line until the round globe of sun springs above it. It’s rays blaze my retinas. I close my eyes and still see it clearly. Now it touches my face and how is it that it does not burn but only comforts?

 

Lake Superior is cold and empty. This is its appeal. Nothing. Nothing. No boats, no yachts, no humans, only an eagle drifting and a few low-flying ducks pumping past inches above the waves. Sky and water framed by a tortured spruce and the shoreline of boulders and rock cliffs. No distractions, just the endless rollers, breaking, breaking, breaking. My mind and heart feel scrubbed. Scoured. Cleansed.

Warmed by the sun

 

That night a storm blew in and the next morning I couldn’t see beyond the white foam of the first breakers. The wind blew and rain beat against the windows. God, tracking me through storms. I could stay here forever. I think.

Longing for wholeness

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Bumble bee visiting a giant zinnia

     Today while I was in the backyard admiring the zinnias once again, I caught this bumble bee visiting one of the blossoms. I’m certain their season is nearly over, as fall is here. We almost turned on the furnace this morning. I know these gentle, bumbling pollinators are becoming less common as their environments become increasingly toxic. It was odd to come across a woman from the tenth century who teaches us more about caring for God's creation.

     Hildegard of Bingen’s (1098-1179) term for the grace of God inherent in all living things was viriditas, or greenness … Hildegard’s holistic approach to God and humanity is relevant today, particularly to those longing for wholeness and healing for all of creation.

She wrote, “we shall awaken from our dullness and rise vigorously toward justice. If we fall in love with creation deeper and deeper, we will respond to its endangerment with passion.”

Resource: Common Prayer by Claiborne, Wilson-Hartgrove, & Okoro.

Putting it away

Shredded cabbage, salt, natural fermentation, glass jars equals sauerkraut

As I begin today I am keeping in mind that tomorrow is Sunday and it needs to be a day of rest for me. It isn't as much obligation as necessity. I am tired. When I say this, I am aware that some schedules don’t allow Sunday to be that day for you. I understand. It often doesn't work for me either.

Today there are some letters that must be written. A bill to pay. A chair that is being taken apart to be recovered. It is in an ugly state of undress right now with many, many more staples to wrench out of the wood frame before a new fabric can be put on. I must make several phone calls I’ve been putting off. I have a large bowl of shredded cabbage that has been working overnight. Today it needs to be put in sterilized jars to become sauerkraut. Most urgent of all there is a box of perfectly ripe Colorado peaches (the best I’ve tasted in years!) that need to be dealt with. They can’t wait. So peach jam. Peach/Hot pepper jelly. Frozen peaches for smoothies. A peach cobbler for supper.

But tomorrow, I’m putting all that away from my hands and mind. I will be attending church, napping, reading a book, going for a walk, and snacking from the refrigerator and pantry.

Ruth Haley Barton puts it well, “The first order of things is that we are the creatures and God is the Creator.  God is the only one who is infinite.  I am finite, which means that I live within physical limits of time and space and bodily limits of strength and energy.  There are limits to my capacities….I am not God.  God is the One who can be all things to all people.  God is the One who can be in two places at once.  God is the One who never sleeps.  I am not.”

(From “Delicious Sabbath: FromObligation to Invitation” by Bill Haley, The Washington Institute for Faith)

Restore my soul

This morning I woke to the sound of nothing. I could see the sun had risen and our small bedroom window framed the barren, black branches of an oak. Denis was still asleep when I left the room to make coffee.

Two days ago we left behind most of our work and some of our worries for a retreat at a far place. Kaufman’s little cabin sits at the end of a grassy track on the tip of a small peninsula ringed with oak, white pine and balsam. The lake was still this morning with little ice panes growing out from shore.

For the first two days we haven’t said much. Just existing side by side, eating, sleeping, slipping away the hours with reading and walks. My soul is being jake braked like a semi truck. The mind and body protest a little when you stop that fast.

I’ve tried to prepare myself for this away time by remembering my own advice:  You should do everything you can to include regular rhythms of rest in your life. A day, a week, or longer. Not only does this honor Jesus, it honors your body, your heart and whoever lives or walks beside you. You will be more whole. You will see that, amazing though it is, the world will survive without you. As Tim Keller points out, “At some point you will have to trust God and honor Jesus – who is Lord of the Sabbath – by practicing Sabbath and risk “falling behind” in your career.”

There’s never an ideal or best time to go away. One must intentionally leave things that cry out: “Deal with me NOW or else.” I need to see that leaving those things is a matter of obedience. In doing so we acknowledge that it is God who calls us away to a place where, surprise, surprise, we find freedom in Sabbath rest.

I know how difficult this is for many. I think of mothers with little ones, for anyone with a loved one in crisis, for employees or employers whose careers require everything. My prayers are for you.

If you’ve read this far, you’ll know I’m away and understand why I can’t give you Honeysuckle updates. I know how disappointing this is and how severely crippling this will be to my blog hits. Anita has promised to post to my blog mid-week with photos of the babies. We are missing their eyes opening, their ears lifting and the change from naked little bratwursts to furry creatures so cute you could eat them.

The rhythm of rest

After market on Saturday, after sorting the vegetables, and fixing a late breakfast, I decided to stay away from the office. When work and office are at home it can be hard to leave it alone. Survival means doing things that need no justification. We should watch birds. Nap. We should make things. Something beautiful from stone or wool or flowers. Unnecessary. It should have no reason to exist other than to please the looker. It’s part of rest and restoration.

I remembered a neighbor lady whose entire yard is ringed with hydrangea shrubs. I wondered if she would part with some of those enormous round blossoms that turn minty green and rust in the fall. Kismet! She was in her yard when we drove past and generously let us have as many as we wanted. (We keep a pair of clippers in the car because you never know when you’ll find weeds that must be gathered, like teasel or cattails.)

For years an old butter churn sat in the laundry room, falling apart, gathering spider webs. I had no use for it, but couldn’t get rid of it. I don’t know why it took so long to understand it could hold a fall arrangement on the front porch. I glued parts together, tightened the screws and waited for it to dry. I put a brick in the bottom to hold it down when the wind blows and stole some of Honeysuckle’s sawdust bedding for ballast. I didn’t have much to work with. The fragile mounds of hydrangea blossoms needed contrast so the dark cattails tucked in among them lifted the design, but it still needed something. I couldn’t think what until I spied a small set of deer horns that had hung on a nail in the garage for years. Somehow it worked. The creamy hardness of the horns hanging down. Their pointy-ness. The jest of it. It’s part of rest and restoration.

Breathing

Yesterday was first full day of vacation at cabin on the North Shore of Lake Superior. Last night’s supper menu: Half a smoked whitefish. Rice crackers. Carrot sticks. I think I can top that tonight without too much strain.

All day I did nothing, unless absolutely necessary, like going to the bathroom. Didn’t make the bed or cook or wash a single dish all day. Denis did – not the cooking; the other stuff.  I did manage to fling the head with its sunken eyes, skins and fins attached down to the rocks at the water’s edge. We timed it to see how long before the gulls found it. They love carrion, you know. There wasn’t a single one in sight. 12 minutes. Five of them showed. today. Trying not to hurry much. Or at all. This morning saw a big buck lying in the woods just outside. His antlers were framed by bracken and tall grass. A bald eagle flew past the window. Nice.

More on Parking in the City

I just paid a parking ticket. It made me quite unhappy to send the City of Rochester $32.00 for parking in our neighborhood. Shifting the blame, however: it was not I who left the car parked on the street overnight in a zone that says “No Parking M-F 6am-9am and 3pm-6pm. Except Sat. & Sun.” But I did purposely leave the ticket buried on my desk illogically hoping it might be forgotten by the authorities. (The idea of not being able to park on the street outside our home anytime we want annoys me to say the least.) That was May 10^th. Silence until yesterday when a letter arrived from the City Clerk advising Denis the penalty has gone up twice and not only will more penalties be assessed, they will issue a warrant for his arrest and they might impound his car, too. For a Parking Ticket? I fantasized pleading “Not Guilty,” but what argument can you make against a permanent street sign? (unlike the SINGLE, temporary, pound-in-the-ground one I own)  English is not my first language? I take this very personally.

Perspective. I need it much. Something or someone to soothe my hostility. My nastiness is easily exposed by lots of things, but indifferent anonymous authority? Arghhh. However I cut this, there’s tons worse things. Especially remembering times when others were far more justified crying “Facist!” Like when I was staying with my youngest daughter and son-in-law. It was winter. They were waiting for twins to be born any minute. There’d been a big snowstorm the day before. The Emergency Snow Parking laws in St. Paul had kicked in and were forgotten until we looked out the window and saw a wrecker hooking onto their old pickup. Shaun ran out coatless in stocking feet yelling, begging them not to take it. But they paid him no mind and simply pulled away with him standing wet-footed in the middle of the street. They couldn’t begin to afford to pay towing fees and impounded-car penalties. Nor could I. That’s a case way more justifiable as Not Guilty, Your Honor. Way more worthy of hostility.

I give a big sigh. There is suffering so terrible it almost can’t be comprehended. Almost? More accurate: can’t.  From children conscripted into war to the death of the Gulf of Mexico. If we had not the hope of Restoration of all things, well, I hate to think. So I should probably let that ticket and my sign go. As one commenter said on my last posting: And what did we learn from this, young lady?

Leaving. Leafing?

After days of rain and gray and even a day in which four inches of snow fell last week, (it’s all melted now) the sun has made the trees on our street blaze with glory. In a strange letting go the above maple tree often drops all its leaves at once. On a windless day in less than three hours it can cover everything beneath it with a layer of radiant yellow. I marvel every time and Denis and I yell at each other to COME LOOK! Then the tree recedes to gray to dead black for winter. Until one day in March, or maybe April, we will waken and notice what didn’t seem to be there just the day before, the faintest haze of color, a sort of burgundy from thousands of buds that wakened while we slept, and then we realize they were sneaking up on us, resting, growing all the while.

Denis has been in Lake Zurich for a week staying with our daughter and Aunt Ruth. I’m going to them tomorrow, hoping to bring a bit of “home” with me. It’s been a hard week with unwelcome sorrows for them. What am I saying? Is sorrow ever welcome? It’s during such times, even though I reject the prosperity gospel, I’m most tempted to pray that God will bring health, wealth, and personal happiness to our immediate family and everyone I love. But in countless ways I’ve found this to be not the pattern or desire God has in mind for us. Again and again, God comes to us in the wilderness, when things look dead or dying, when we are without hope or a way forward, he comes saying, I am your “hiding place from the wind, a shelter from the storm, like streams of water in a dry place.” And as if all this comfort is not enough, and in case we don’t really GET it: He ends with, to you I’ll be “like the shade of a great rock in a weary land.” (Is. 32:2) It fascinates me that each of these scenes represent precarious, uncertain, life-sucking, unwelcoming places. So we turn to Him certain, that in our own sinful and saddened dispositions we will find shelter and hope, and it may not be the kind of shelter or rescue we expect, but we keep reminding ourselves that one day, one day, everything will be restored to the glory God intended for it to have. Just like that maple tree that is fiercely blazing its heart out my window today. Only, it’ll be forever. I like that.

Kitchen Done!

Pretty much. Yesterday Denis installed the track lighting above the sink. It only required one extra trip to the hardware store and only one twelve minute period when I stood on the counter silently holding up the track while he forced one piece to fit another. He was patient, only said one swearword, and I love the sunny, warm light on those old counters. All we have left is painting the cabinets. (We already did the one on the left.) When Kelly walked in the other day looked at the walls and said, Oh! Lilac! I corrected her: “NO. No. Soft gray. I don’t LIKE lilac. Please don’t say that.” Thanks to all for helping me keep the chimney exposed. However, Denis says, when it comes time to sell this house and move into assisted care, and buyers say “WHAT were you thinking?” you, who voted in favor, will need to come buy Toad Hall from us.