Passenger | Hell Or High Water

September has been such a busy productive month, I have been enjoying the new fall weather and getting all my harvesting done.
I feel very grateful for such energy and excitement in getting things done before winter.

I love the changing seasons, even though I will miss summer so much in the darkest hardest days of winter...It's all a wonderful cycle of life in learning how to adapt to new things for each season. 
I am heading up tomorrow to the mountains for my mom in her ladies retreat again, this is the 3rd year so I feel like a pro at getting ready and to get through the weekend without any sleep.
I can see her smile and sing or cry. She needs this retreat, it is her world, her faith and her struggles that bring us all there under pine trees, under the bright stars.....
I will be grateful this year that her sisters are coming with us too.
It's such a powerful gift to be a woman.
 I am able to assist/help my mother which gives her some independence for the weekend of only women.

I am so empowered by the fact I have come through this woman, my mother.  Only now to bring her through to being able to retreat among her christian friends again.

I am so amazed that I can do this, I am right where I'm meant to be.

Pet Sitting

      

             In the summer of 2015 our home had no AC, our struggles were in getting a good night sleep and so I slept a lot out in the living room on the couch. I had my cats and dogs to worry about while also never crowding my husband as he studied in law school. I was impressed by how creative I was in creating a cooler home as much as possible. My husband's friend who often spent time chilling out at our place late into the night would ask "How do you guys stand it? This heat isn't letting up!" 

In that Summer I was very busy, up early cooking for the day ahead and since all the windows and screen door stayed open I had to be able to touch Oscar when he barked out into all hours of the night. A family of 6 raccoons woke us up one night, Oscar had been asleep at my feet on the couch then his fear of "what the hell is that?" has it's own kind of bark that I shot up to my feet to investigate. Not having AC did allow me to be a bigger part of nature, sometimes I would go out into the back yard on the grass and sleep as the dogs would join me, we were clearly miserable with bugs and night life all around us as we tried to find some cool breeze out there. 

When my husband Tony and his buddy were sitting around the fire pit one night with beers I was bringing out my blanket to sleep and they were both laughing at me. I explained how this house is very much like camping!  Then Tony's friend asked us to house sit for the weekend as the temperatures were reaching over 100 degrees, he added "You will have AC and HBO." I was a bit worried at first packing up my 3 dogs to merge with his 3 dogs for 3 days......

It was wonderful to notice as all the dogs met in their backyard for the first time that the greetings were playful and happy! Not one single dog fight, not one single growl in the whole pack for the whole weekend! I was very impressed and very grateful.

It was like we were just one big family, every dog had it's own personality, it's own way of being yet they all seemed grateful to be together like that. I would lay on the grass outside or on the floor inside so they could play over me or nap on my back, it was such a fun weekend with them like that!

It was such a hot hot summer weekend too, we were up early and outside before the heat kicked in, then we would napped away the afternoons in the magical AC, I loved just being there resting so much! Having those 6 dogs in my arms all at once was truly wonderful! And I knew I would remember it always.....

Yesterday one of those dogs passed away, the first one of those 6 pups on that weekend together.....Our friend's dog Otto.

I've been in tears, lost in memories of him, sweet little Otto who shared my pillow with my little Sidda as our 3 heads snuggled in for a good night's sleep I knew life was simply perfect in that moment of time. I knew it then for I smile now in remembering....

While my heart always knows that these little souls don't last forever, that's why being with them as much as possible is so very important. I will always remember that weekend of togetherness, for it was one of a kind, 6 dogs like that for 3 days in happiness of perfect peacefulness! Otto, Ernie, Andy, Oscar, Sidda and Minnie with us for the weekend was a wonderful time to cherish!

6 dogs moved around as I read in bed, I looked up from my book to see my husband Tony shaking his head "Look at this, they are all right beside you at once, I guess there's no room for me." I laugh back saying "I know I love it!" He chuckled while saying "Don't get any ideas, 3 dogs is enough I can just see ya thinking "If 6 dogs can get along so well then we can find more!?!" I nodded cleverly.

Tony laughed as he left to go find his own place to sleep then eventually Otto would go find him so they would share the couch together. So that Otto had to make sure we were all together safe through out the night in his home, in his good watchful care.

Goodbye to Sweet sweet Otto.

Lindsey Stirling - Lost Girls

            I have been inspired lately looking back over my life, when I was 22 years old I stopped attending church every Sunday and every Wednesday, I found salvation outside of "salvation." 
Back then I was very aware of how hard it was for me to ever be hypocritical, I didn't lie very well at all in fact I was often annoyed by the constant lying that went on in the church community. Everyone was afraid of such group judgments, I am in awe that I found my way out, without shame without guilt I knew who I was and what I struggled with.
 I knew that if God is love then being trapped in a fake world such as religion was not where my love can grow!
I never once felt like I had a made the wrong choice, I look back in such awe! I look back ever so grateful that I escape so young!

Freedom is the most amazing feeling in the whole world!

I explained to my beloved girls just the other day as we sat catching up over the last 22 years of our lives since we graduated from high school in that same crazy church, I can admire my time there as a refuge until it wasn't a refuge anymore.

I explained to them both as we shared our hearts and our hugs. I said "We didn't have the words for how it was, how trapped we were. We struggled in fear, in needing to be accepted by those around us, we wanted to be strong women in a religion where the men ALWAYS came first. Therefore we found safety in our sisterhood! I am always going to grateful for that! We had the kind of friendship that can last a life time! We helped each other feel safe, and to be loved just as we were! Even long after I left that faith system I carried your sisterhood with me, and I'm ever so grateful for it."

U2 - Stuck In A Moment

As this cool morning greets me, as I take a deep breath of the changing weather into fall, as September brings clear skies from all the fires in August and I look proudly out into my big back yard I see all my hard work coming together. Next year it will be even more easier in maintaining such landscape and if I keep it at then it will mature all together.

As this year was the first to live here fully, I can see my strength grow from my sadness a little more each day.
I can see how comfortable I am now in my brother's home.
I have been so grateful for this place every single day!
I get stuck in a moment all the time so being here is my new refuge, helps my re-focus to come back to this real time.

As the cool morning smells so magical, as I am reminded of my childhood farm from the ripening apples and peaches on the trees along the back fence, I whispered to myself  "You've got to get yourself together, you've got stuck in a moment and you can't get out."

Derek's Peach Tree

It's September 1rst again, on this day one year ago we moved into Derek's home.

One year ago on this very morning I got up early surrounded by boxes and freshly brewed coffee, with pets going in and out under the lovely fresh morning sky. I cried.

I cried so much, for so long as I could see him in the sun light beams in his very own kitchen again. I wished he was here more then unpacking any box or doing any project!

"Dearest Brother it was never suppose to be like this, not ever like this. Come home, Come home."

I walked out to his beloved peach tree drinking my coffee in my deep sadness and looked back at my new home. I will do whatever I can to keep this place as nice as possible and as well kept into the future! 

I will live side by side with his stories, his things and his fruit trees.

I will honor him, I will talk to him as if he is just right here again and I will cherish these days of such great pain, great sorrow and great memories.

One year ago feels like a really long long long time has passed by now but it's just 12 months.

I am realizing after every death I face I simply loose time, that 3 weeks will honestly feel like one day.

I am understanding more on how and why old people were like that when I was kid. They would be completely surprised by the fact I remembered it was a month since last I saw them but they would say "I thought it was last week." I would laugh at them thinking that was funny to think that but now I do that all the time.  A friend texts me and when I finally reply I feel like an hour had gone by but really it was weekend! Then I laugh at myself and wonder if we survive more tragic things will we loose complete understanding of time in the end?

I love these peaches so much! I set up my morning with music and I pull my hair back as I tie my apron on and spend the whole lovely day in the kitchen creating such magic from my brother's peaches!

Derek arrived at my home in Boise on such a lovely August night in 2016 with a box of such huge and beautiful peaches, He had baked a fresh peach pie as well saying he could get me more next week if I was going to be out by his place in Meridian and I laughed at his excitement as he shared how he was fixing his place, how he loved this peach tree in his backyard and I suggested "Well then maybe we could have Thanksgiving at your place this year and see it all?" He nodded and smiled replying "Yeah maybe if I can get it in shape."  Those peaches were so good, and we talked about all kinds of recipes for them that night.....I was truly thrilled to bring food over that Thanksgiving and have us all together. For I was very happy that holiday Derek had baked a Peach pie with huckleberries that I truly loved as our last holiday unfolded.

This is Derek's peach tree coming back to life, back to harvest time once again!

The Call of the 4 Wheeler

            

         In the summer that I was 10 years old my mother had us 3 kids staying with her in the small cottage on her parents huge orchard farm. We filled the cottage with sleeping bags and suit cases, with lawn chairs and pillows. It was a really fun place to find a small frig in keeping our milk cold and cooking every night over the fire pit. The 3 of us kids took turns doing the dishes and once in awhile we would go back to our home in Meridian Idaho to do our laundry but mostly we lived out on our Grandparents farm for that wonderful magical summer!
...and my mother was the happiest I had ever seen her to be.
    
    For it was the summer of 1989, My sister Dana and my brother Derek had their corners of the big bedroom setup like their own bedrooms as we moved in. I liked piling up pillows all around me as we slept on the brown carpeted big bedroom floor. We kept our clothes bags in the closet and our shoes by the back door. Our mother setup her bedroom in the living room next to the kitchen and that door went out into our fire pit eating area. Mom took a twin size bed and made it into a couch by the front door yet we weren't inside all that much. We usually sat around the fire pit every night before bed, after roasting some marshmallows of course!
      Since I was 10 years old I decided it was time I kept a journal, because I noticed that we were having so many adventures every single day and everything was brilliantly exciting on the farm, I knew my record keeping was important and that notebook filled up with drawings of my stories, with misspelled words in telling my excitement and in pressed wild flowers among the pages, by the end of that summer it was completely full with one last drawing of me and my dog Savannah walking down through the old apple orchard. She had become my very own dog by the end of that magical time in my life she lived another 8 years with me, so in many ways the summer of 1989 changed my whole life, made me very much the person I am today, a happy pet loving person who still gets excited to roast marshmallows over the fire pit after being outside all day!

That summer of 1989 had my Uncle Dan my mother's only brother coming out to work on his parents farm every morning, he would drive up the hill to the big blue work shop and jump on the 4-wheeler. It was understood if he saw us 3 kids come running to the gravel road he would swing in to let us pile on and head on out in to the orchards to collect his gophers. Uncle Dan had a great system in trapping gophers, he had a bucket attached to the 4-wheeler for all those rodents he caught in his many traps, He always carried a shovel and sometimes when he would pull the trap out of the ground between the fruit trees then the gopher would hiss and I would squeal as he would try to not get bit! He made all kinds of jokes, took on all kinds of pathways through the trees, short-cuts on the farms, as we kids learned to hang on tightly through every morning's trap check list, he would re-set them in freshly seen dirt piles that the gopher just made. It was a crazy mess of damage that one single gopher could do to the irrigation ditches and to the root systems of an orchard. Uncle Dan trapped hundreds in that summer alone, it was a welcomed sight to the ditch riders to see his collection of tails and they paid him for it too. I was in awe of learning so much while riding along side of Uncle Dan, he made it all look so easy zipping in and off of the 4-wheeler. I would grab the handle brake if we began to slide down the row after he jumped off to capture a gopher and I would lean as far away from those ugly creatures whose front teeth stuck out like a shiny knife! Uncle Dan sure loved what he did, showing us the inside guts or how they clawed around under ground with their long fingernails. He only had to tell me once that they can bite my finger off with snap so I should never put my hands on their head! Of course holding them by the tale seemed just as scary to me so I only ever just watched on and sat as far away from the bouncing bucket on the 4-wheeler. I would look down it saying "I sure hope they are all dead!?!?"
Sometimes in the evenings before Uncle Dan headed home we would jump back on the 4 wheeler with him to see if he had caught anything during the day, but it was mostly in the mornings that we were the most excited waiting to be picked up, the fun adventures of riding on the 4-wheeler through out the 3 farmlands and just being apart of Uncle Dan's world was great motivation for us to be ready at the curb! His fast driving, strong digging and catching those ugly things through out the morning would come to an end with his loud whistle out towards his dogs wherever they were as we started driving back home, he would drop us off at the cottage again where our mother was in relaxing in the heat of the day just as we were getting thirsty, for we had sun kissed heads and we told Mom all about our morning's journey as we ran through the sprinklers, we were in such wonder by all the new things we discovered on the farm!

And so that summer came back to me on the day Derek died.
As I drove in tears down the freeway, as my heart pounded to see my family right after this tragic news. The summer of 1989 will always be far better then the winter of 2017.
The year I was 10 will always be apart of me, it will always be the best kind of joy from my past!
So in that very same cottage on February 25, 2017 as I rushed in to find it was full of extended family as my mother sat in her wheeler chair surrounded by hugs and tears, she exclaimed happily "Oh look Debby is here, that's good! I knew you should come." Maybe she was in shock, but I hugged her quickly trying to take it all in, then her brother my Uncle Dan embraced me with "Hey, Little girl." as we sobbed over Derek's sudden death, as I said sadly "I sure wish you could just be zooming down the hill on your 4-wheeler once again to pick us kids up for a new adventure instead of going through this." I suddenly realized that there is such a thing as "The Good Old Days." after all.

The early summer morning had the clock reading 5:30 am as the wild rooster crowed loudly by our cottage window, Dana shot up from her bedding exclaiming "I'm going to kill it!" Derek and I shot up right behind her from our 3 beds on the floor, we shot out after her saying "No, you can't kill it!" Derek shouted out after Dana "It's MY rooster, you can't touch it!" Dana charged the rooster away from the bedroom window and we all chased it out into the near by peach orchard, laughing by the end of it all. Our mother wasn't getting up yet so we entertained ourselves among the cotton wood trees and the pathways around the farm as the sun rise was so beautiful and the wide open sky greeted us with the endless possibilities ahead for our new day!
Then shortly after breakfast as I was washing the dishes I heard the sound of Uncle Dan coming down the hill and I yelled out "Hey Mom I'll finish these when we get back!" Derek shot up from reading his book and Dana came running down the small hill from the above us, THIS was the call of the 4-wheeler, the sound of the motor roaring out towards us. We came out from all directions to hop on those thick strong wheels shooting us out into a new summer day, into the farm land, into the horizon of the clear blue sky, into our soon to be wonderful memories!

Derek's Apple Trees

It's turning into harvest time now as I wonder what kind of apples my brother had in his backyard here as I walk around these trees and try to clean up the base of them.

I will keep learning and discovering more as I live here on fruit tree care along side what varieties I have inherited. I am making a scrap book of information, of each corner of this property.

I should have it well put together over this winter and be ready for next year! I want to have good apples next year to share, to harvest those cherries before the worms get in as they did this year.         

It was shocking to me in coming home from a weekend visiting my Cousin Henry in June to fine all the cherries brown on Derek's 2 cherry trees, how shocking and surprising to me because they look AMAZING when they were still green....

I wish my Grandpa Ansil Graber was still alive to walk around this huge back yard with me and advise step by step in tree care for each one of these 5 trees. Derek's 2 cherry trees are HUGE, and Derek's 2 apple trees are really wild looking, and of course Derek's Peach tree the one he loved sharing with the rest of us is looking old and struggling. I feel like I am running out of time in my responsibility to care properly and wisely for these trees.

My Father who worked along side my Grandpa came over on Mother's day with his own education, his awareness in these fruit tree problems. I wanted to write down what he said as he talked fast but then I thought I would take him up on his offer to prune this fall/winter and start my proper spraying schedule for next year.....as I am battling the bugs, blight and worms already!

Derek's apple trees are the same apple from what i can tell looking over the fruit, everything way up high I give happily to the birds all of nature needs to eat I know!

My mother was explaining how to make apple sauce the other day in cutting around the worms or bird damage. I realized I need to get organized on all my canning equipment and setup a shelf in my pantry for can goods in this fall season, such planning and doing will be magical and fun for me!

As I was talking to a fruit tree expert in the local garden nursery last week he said sometimes apple trees can be to far gone to bring back to a good tasting apple again. I sure hope my trees that were once my brother's trees are not yet lost to the wild again. I have watched many documentaries about the history of the apple as we know it today and I am in awe!

I suppose if all else fail I will go back to making the original hard apple cider again with these trees, for the possibilities and the wonder of it all brings me such joy while missing my brother every single day! 

My husband said to me with a chuckle "When you left to help your Mom, your Dad kept talking about the issues with fruit trees and I had to tell him that he needed to talk to you instead because you are the one who does all of this care taking, this gardening and I had no idea what he was saying!"  I smiled proudly with the nod of my head saying "Well I am a farmer's daughter, and a farmer's granddaughter! I feel very much at home on these topics!"