I am fasting today in solidarity with the Small Island States and African nations and 350.org who are all trying to get a meaningful treaty out of the Copenhagen climate talks.

Since the diagnosis of cancer, I have noticed that I feel really bloated often, especially after eating. So I am taking advantage of this to lose a little weight (5'4" and 198# is not a good BMI). I've lost about 3 pounds so far. Surgery is the 28th, so I won't lose a ton.

Well, we got the arctic deep freeze the day after we broke the record for snow (around 18"). So, the streets are snow/ice covered and slippery. At least everyone is driving sensibly!! That means that I crawled along on my gazillion errands at about 20 mph. Oh, well. . .

The OB-GYN doc referred me to an oncologist. The oncology clinic will be calling me to schedule an appointment with the doctor. After that, things happen within a week or 2 (assuming that surgery is the desired treatment).

The good news is that I probably won't have to shovel snow this winter. The bad news is that Ken is having some health problems that might prohibit him from shoveling as well. The good news is that Erica said that if we fed her, she would stay with us and shovel the snow (and probably carry the laundry down the stairs).

Last night Ken & I went to a fun event at church. We had Indian food and watched a Ballywood movie (Om Shanti Om) that was a lot of fun. We were going to learn some Ballywood dancing, but it was pretty late after the movie. John (Rebecca's husband) worked for a school for street children in India, and the evening was a fundraiser for the school. Perhaps we can extend the fundraiser to another night just for the dancing. That would be fun.

And on the way in to church, I heard an owl calling. Owl is asking me to be wise and pierce the veil of illusion to see clearly, and pay attention (and some other positive things that I don't remember at the moment).

Life goes on, and it will be as long or as short as the Universe decides for me. I am doing the things that I feel I was placed here to do, and I have a great family.

It appears that I have Stage I endometrial cancer. I see the OB-GYN tomorrow to discuss my options, which will probably mean surgery in the near future. The good news is that, caught early, there's a 95% 5-year survival rate after surgery.
A curveball . . .

Another in the continuing saga of "growth" (aka learning) for me for this
year.

We put in a rain garden in 2005. I didn't want weeds to grow in the rain
garden, so we put down landscape cloth (or whatever you call that stuff
that's not quite plastic, but prevents things from growing through).
Recently, I got to thinking that the leaves have been accumulating on top of
the cloth all this time, and the plants don't have a way to spread. So,
today Ken and I pulled as much of the darn stuff as we could (pulling a few
plants up in the process--but mostly ones whose roots grew above instead of
below the cloth). There was between a half inch and an inch of soil on top
of the cloth, and it was much nicer than what was underneath (clay, etc.).
And I found mycellium running on both sides of the cloth in a few places.
Yay!

Lessons learned.
Feed the soil.
Don't use landscape cloth.
Welcome "weeds". Rename them as friends.

so . . . we had a nice, quite Thanksgiving. Kate & Abe & Raksha (their dog), and Erica came over in the afternoon. Cooking was somewhat collaborative. Abe wanted chestnut dressing, so he made it. Erica won't eat turkey, so she & I made this great middle eastern sweet potato stew that we have on holidays if we don't have turkey. The bakery made the apple pie (totally awesome, called Pie in a Bag). And I made the pumpkin pie from pie pumpkins that we got through our veggie share. Ken walked Fonzie (to keep him out of my hair). We played YamSlam and watched the movie "Up" and the new Star Trek movie. It was a fun, relaxing day.

I'm excited because we planted 2 highbush blueberry plants in the back yard under the red pine tree last Saturday.  We were finishing up planting as the Trick or Treaters were coming around for Halloween.  It's so nice to have kids coming around again for Halloween.  I had put a sign on the door asking them to come to the back for their treats.  Anyway, I look forward to blueberries sometime in the next couple years.  One of our neighbors has a couple bushes, and she told me that I'll have berries if I can beat the chipmunks to them. 

I also hope to put some raspberry plants back there.  They don't need to be coddled quite as much as the blueberries (which need acidic soil).  Yum!

We need to get the atmospheric carbon down to 350ppm.  Right now we're around 390ppm.
Yesterday was a day of action worldwide to publicize this.  There were about 5000 actions in over 170 countries around the world.

They haven't posted the photos from our action in Madison, but it was a lot of fun.
We gathered people on the grassy hill at the state capitol near the State Street entrance and formed the numbers 350.  Then we chanted 3..5..0.  We had the kite photographer take pictures.  He couldn't use his kite because it was too windy, but he had a 30ft poll for his camera.  The pictures should be fun.  We chose that location because of all the folks at the popular Farmers' Market.  The weather cooperated.  It was cold & a little overcast, but not raining (which it had been doing the 2 days prior).

anyway, it was fun (no speeches, Yay!)

I am also experimenting with extending the season for ogranic food.  I have frozen a ton of strawberries, blueberries, and raspberries.  That's nothing new.  But I have also purchased a food drier and have dried cherries, bananas (won't do this again), and tomatoes.  This will be interesting.

I have learned and done a lot in the last year.

I learned that there are "weeds" growing in my yard that I can eat, like wood sorrel.  That was a scary concept at first--something that doesn't come from the farm or the grocery store can still be edible & have nutrients that are good for me.  I had my first introduction to foraging.  My neighbors had morels growing in their yard the day we did the walk-about with Vince, the foraging dude.  Vince showed us how to tell the difference between real and false morels (it's not hard).

I attended a Transition Town training and learned about community resilience.  I want one of those.  I am dedicating my life to bringing this about.  A very important part of the TT process is to have a community visioning workshop with a group of people diverse in age, occupation, race, gender, etc. to dream about how we want to live in the future, given that resources are finite and running out.  It's about being proactive and creating something that we want and that could be awesome to live in, even with more "work".

I spent the entire summer watching the grape vine along my fence and testing to see when the grapes would be edible.  I've never done that before.  It's tuning me into the seasons more.  (I learned first-hand the expression sour grapes.)  I picked a bunch of grapes for E's birthday at the end of September.   They were good, and they were even better about 2 weeks later.  These grapes are small and have seeds that are almost as big as the grape, so maybe next year I will figure out a way to cook them (jam? juice?).

I learned that the plant for one of the tinctures that I use daily for my psoariasis is an abundant weed in these parts.  I will have someone help me positively identify it, and then get some seeds and grow it in my own yard.  It's the root of the plant, dug in the fall, that's made into the tincture.  I may still dig some this year, but I want to be absolutely sure of the plant before I dig it up.

I learned from the Permaculture Guild that there are people who are willing to share plants (I knew that, but these are plants that I want in my permaculture garden, that I can get free or cheap instead of buying at the garden center).  Some day I will have enough to share with others.  I already shared the wild ginger that really likes my back yard.

I took a Permaculture Design Certification course, and learned why permaculturists are so obssessed with holding all the water that falls on their roof and property (in the soil--so I don't have to water as often, it can percolate through the soil and be cleaned, and it can recharge the aquifer).  Permaculturists are also big on building the soil, and covet their neighbors leaves and fall garden trimmings for making compost.  And Permaculturists are big on multi-function plantings.  I don't just plant pretty flowers or native plants, I also plant food bearing bushes, trees, and perennial veggies like asparagus (I can hardly wait!).  I plant things that have shallow roots to gather surface water, and things that have deep roots (daikon radish, trees) to bring nutrients and water up from deep in the soil, for the use of all the plants.  I plant things together that support each other and grow near each other in the wild--plant guilds (nitrogen fixers, nutrient accumulators, insectiary, medicinal) and I plant vertically as well as horizontally (bushes & shrubs under trees, climbing vines to shade the house, etc).

In the Madison Area Permaculture Guild, I learned how to sheet mulch (where I would use all my neighbors' garden trimmings and leaves, and a boat load of cardboard, plus manure to create beautiful soil, especially over a grassy area that I wanted to turn into a garden).  I learned the benefits of no-till gardening, which is why we sheet mulch.  (Tilling aerates the soil, causing the micro-organisms to go into hyperdrive.  That may be "OK" 1 or 2 years, but depletes the soil of nutrients much faster in the long run.) 

In our Garden Wheel Projects over this year, I also learned how to dig a swale, and why they're important (to hold the water)--and the importance of putting plants on the berm (the "hill" of soil left over from the swale--usually on the downhill side).  Nature abhors bare soil & something will grow there, so I might as well plant something that I want.

I became fascinated with mycellium and mushrooms (their fruits).  Mycellium has immense potential for filtration and remediation of toxic soil.  I helped the Permaculture Guild build a mycofiltration area between Edgewood campus and Lake Wingra.  One of the science professors will monitor water quality below the mushroom beds.  I'm excited to see the results.  I also learned that mycellium can jump-start a garden.  That's a fascinating concept.

I went out in my yard in a hard rain to see where the water was flowing (and figure out how I could capture it).  During the same storm I also went to the mycofiltration bed at Edgewood to see how it was working.

I am planning a permaculture garden for our front yard (that's where the sun is).  It's still bumping around inside my head, but it will probably involve a deck on the front of the house, to enjoy the garden.  Ken has wanted for a long time to cut down the 2 arbor vitae and all the yew bushes in front of the house.  I'm OK with that if I replace the arbor vitae on the SE corner of the house (where it gives us significant shade/cooling from the heat blasting off the driveway) with an apple tree guild.  Eventually the tree will be big enough to shade the house, and it doesn't matter if it doesn't have leaves in the winter.  Next summer I will host a Garden Wheel project to construct a swale and berm in our front yard to capture the water from our downspout and maybe my uphill neighbors' as well.

In April I put in a 9' X 6' permaculture garden next to the kitchen door, that my friend Kate designed for me.  It was wonderful all summer, attracting birds and insects.  I learned to chop back the comfry and lay it on the ground as "fertilizer".  And I learned that many of the plants that have other functions (grass suppression, nutrient accumulation, etc.) also have medicinal functions.  A friend came over & showed me how to make a tincture from the yarrow.  Yarrow is good for fever, intestinal ickies, and wound healing (external).  Apparently I have to shake this jar of yarrow & alcohol daily for about 6 weeks & then decant off the liquid.  I'm starting my herbal first aide kit, acquiring the books and knowledge to support that (although I already had a few books about the medicinal qualities of herbs).

It's been a year of buying and devouring books also.

Ken's 60th birthday is on the 13th.  We are having neighbors & folks from church over next Saturday--although all I've gotten so far is regrets.  We only set it up this week (had trouble pinning Ken down on what he wanted).

WICEC (Wisconsin Interfaith Climate and Energy Campaign) state-wide conference is next Sunday & Monday (11 & 12).  I'm on the organizing committee.  It's in Stevens Point.  It will be fine, but the committee is driving me nuts with all the loose ends, and "let's talk about it in the car on the way home" (2 different cars, that is).  Nuff said.

Ken has 2-3 day trips each of 3 weeks this month.  In September I think he either didn't go anywhere or had 1 trip early in the month.  He said it felt like vacation.  He's in use-it-or-lose-it mode with vacation at work, so we're planning a trip to New Mexico in November.  It's a beautiful state and when I drove through it in one day (5th largest state in the country), last year with Erica, I wished I could linger & savor.  Now we will.  We're taking the train!!

A friend from the Permaculture Guild is coming over this week to help me make medicinal tinctures of yarrow (good for wound healing, reducing fever, digestion issues).  This will be my first time.  Yay!  The yarrow is growing in the permaculture garden that I put in this spring, so I will have a steady supply of it.  I also need to have someone show me what Yellow Dock (Rumex Crispus) looks like for sure, because that's a tincture that I take daily for psoariasis.  Wouldn't it be nice if I could make my own medicine.

And unfortunately, I got myself on another planning committee this week.  There's a big world-wide event to publicize global warming called "350".  That stands for 350 parts per million of carbon.  That's the number we need to get down to (from ~380) to avert climate catastrophe.  That event is Oct. 24.  I said that I would call a couple state politicians (who are environmentally minded) to see if they would participate.  But we don't want any speeches, so I'm not sure if I will get any bites.  I plan to rent a polar bear costume, so we could offer to take a group picture with the polar bear.  I'm not holding my breath that we will get any press.  This is a really hard press town.  Another march/speeches at the capitol hardly rates a blip on the media screen.  Our event will be a little different, but I'm not sure if it will be enough.  At least it will happen during the very popular Farmers' Market, so we'll get people taking our fliers, if all goes well.