I love you more.....

We say I love you in many ways, so that our people can hear us and that maybe they can hold the words and the feeling of that love in their hearts when we are apart from one another.  We add hearts, and emoji to our conversations to show it, and we remember love from lost ones too. Dried flowers hang or are displayed in a vase, given with love from long ago.

The simple "I Love You" is sometimes overused, or maybe it is heard so often on television or in the world even that some of our people arent able to really hear and feel us say it...... so we try again in a different way.

At our house we say things like; 

I love you more than the sky is blue and than the moon is full.

I love you to the moon, to the ground and all around, 

There among the stars....

and sometimes

I love you to mars, and beyond all the Universe has for stars.

Hubby always says "I love you the mostest!"

Sometimes the I love you is not a spoken thing, it is a "love you" bite from your sandwich.  When we were little our mom would make our lunch sandwiches and take a little bite of each - she called it the "love you bite". (I'm pretty sure it started as a tiny bite of a delicious sandwich, but...) I did the same for my kids - still do if I am making them a sandwich.  I found that I really missed that when I was grown and before I had kids. 

Or sometimes it is a sweetheart cutting heart shapes in your apple when he takes the core out to make your lunch!  Not my idea here but I sure do love it!

I also want to know how he kept that apple from turing brown on the inside!?!  Must be love!

There are also the love songs, sent somehow, from somewhere in the Universe to soothe a borken heart or to fill it with love and make that love known....

Yes, that is 43 hours and 20 minutes of music, sent with love from above somehow.  It's a short list as I don't always recognize the song he sends so I can add it to the list.... still working on that.  Maybe he thinks I need to broaden my horizons some?  Is this a test? 

And still sometimes it is a hand forged sign to hang for all to see and to remind you that now matter where you are or where your people are, and no matter how the cold and snow have seeped in, that you are loved!

Thank you to my Reedo for this one!

Especially in this holiday times, when things get hard for a lot of people, and when it seems dark (and it really IS dark in Alaska this time of year), we've said it bofore and I'll say it again; 

LOVE YOUR PEOPLE!

Blessed be and may you see the love and the light in everything and every day!  I love you more......

Tomato Problem - end of season roundup

 If you havent read it already - start with this one first "Tomato Problem"  I always end up with a plethora of tomatos in the greenhouse and all around the farm (yes- I sometimes let them just grow in the compost pile).  Every year I say I am going to grow less tomatoes - it never works!  Luckily, they arent  making it mandatory for me to grow less tomato plants!

Im giving you the annual tomato roundup for the season - you can use it to plan your next tomato adventures - or what not to grow!

I try to save a tag from each plant as I close up the greenhouse so I will remember what I liked and didnt.  The prescription jars I wash out well and use to save seeds or other small items.

I had 26 tomato plants this year in the greenhouse - I said at the beginning of the season that I was only keeping about 18 max!  As I have said before - I HAVE a TOMATO problem!  There are not meetings for this type of problem that I can find!  Im working on it - but Ill probable figure out how to fit more in next year ayway..... Who doesn't love tomatos?

This is part of the tomato harvest at the end of this season.  It snowed on September 17th, about a foot here in Big Lake, and thinking that the season was over I started to close up the greenhouse.  It hasn't snowed more than a 1/2" since then - of course!

Here's the "whats what" for this year:

Bush Early Girl;  This tomato is once again at the top of the absolute favorites list!  It produces prolifically all season, bright red, medium sized tomatos.  It doesnt care if it is in the greenhouse or outside, it produces!  The tomatos are delicious and can be used for anything that you need a tomato for.  Good enough for salad and sandwich slicers, they also make great sauce or cookery tomatos.  These are good storage toms too and freeze delightfully!  This one will definitely be in the lineup for next year.

Sweet Tangerine;  This was the first year for us growing this variety and we are sold on the flavor and the texture for sure!  This golden/orange tomato is medium-large and produces fairly well for the start to the middle of the season.  It seemed like it got a little worn out at the end of this season, but our weather wasnt really cooperating for the end of summer here - gray and gloomy and not tomato producing weather for sure.  These never lasted long enough in the house to see if they store well, but they are great for eating and cookery both.  Definitely will be part of my tomato problem next year.

Green Sweet Tangerine.  Great size, taste and texture.  They turn a beautiful orange color when ripe (which I forgot to photo).

Velvet Red;  This was our first year growing this one and although the plant and the leaves are beautiful, I cant call it a favorite.  Although it has good flavor, I found the texture to be a bit dry and pithy.  Great for cooking, but probably not a must have annual.

Sungold; Always a great producer and tasty!  I call this one my "breakfast tomato" because I have no problems eating a handful of them when I check the greenhouse each morning!  It is great at any time of the day and also freezes well and is a delightful addition to pasta sauce and any other way you want to use it!  A bright pop of tomato flavor without the acid backwash that some of the others have.  It is an every year greenhouse and outdoor staple.

Chocolate Cherry:  Perpetual favorite!  Huge producer and although it takes up a bit of room with its viny habit it is worth it for the flavor and beauty of this tomato!  It also qualifies as a "breakfast tomato" and it stores, freezes and cooks up well!  Yum!  I have trouble choosing between this one and Sungold as favorites!

Cherry Sweetie; Great flavored tiny red tomato, a little on the lines of the Sungold, but although it is a heavy producer, this tomato splits easily (well before it is red), and if you jostle the vines too hard it falls off them green even!  I wont grow this tomato again, it takes up too much room (even though I grew it in hanging baskets) and the unpredictible nature of the plant makes it not a favorite!

Austins Red Pear;  This is a small pear shaped tomato and was new to us this year as well.  It also won't be a keeper as far as my greenhouse goes.  Although the flavor is good, the texture does not make it a good eating/snacking tomato but it is a great cooking tomato.  Doesnt take up too much space, but also doesnt produce enough to make it worth the space.  It may be a late season tomato also and didn't have tine to get going before it got cold again?  Might try this again to see if it was just a bad summer for it.

The Austins Red Pear are there in the center right, the pear shaped ones that are just turning red.  The bigger pink ones are the Pink Beefsteaks ripening up!  There are a mix of all flavors including the Chocolate Cherry and the Sungold too. Of this box I had only a handful that were not ripe withing a couple of weeks.

Pink Beefsteak;  I love this tomato!  It is a fun color and great flavor!  It is sometimes mis-shapen, but it is a good sized tomato and can be used for any use!  We had BLT sandwiches with this one a number of times and were not disappointed.  We brought the green ones inside (see above box picture) and they ripened up nicely in a box in the kitchen.  It is also a semi-determinite plant so it doesnt take up a lot of room or demand a lot from the grower.  Definitely will be on the list for next year.

Pink Beefsteaks on the vine.

Container Choice;  This also was a first for us this year and I was not overly impressed.  It grows great in a container but the Bush Early Girl produces more in the same space and are a little bigger, more "tomato" flavor plant.  I may try it again for "try it" sake and to see if a different summer makes a difference.  Ill keep you posted on that!

We did not have the Brandywine or Brandyboy tomatoes for this year and I can't remember why.  They are both great varieties as well.  I just didnt have the seed or couldnt find the plants - and i was trying to not have such a tomato problem too!  Will probably pick them up again next year.

Cuke;  Snows Fancy Pickle - This has been my favorite this year for Cuke's!  I had started out with 4 Tasty Jade and two Marketmore cukes.  I got a few off of each of them and then they just died off!  I started again with this "Snows Fancy Pickle" and got a plethora of Cukes off of them!  They are tasty, firm and a great size for pickling or just eating.  I love them for lunches to take to work and for sandwiches - replace your lettuce with thin slices of this cuke and they are delicious!  I will definitely grow this one again!

If you haven't seen it before, or lost track of it, click here for the blog with the Pasta Sauce recipe made from all the tomatoes you are saving!  It is so delicious!

As the days go by, almost getting brighter again, may you be blessed with summertime dreams and tomato delights!

Beautiful Fireweed - Alaskan Super plant!

I know it seems that spring just came to our Alaskan Burg but there is snow on the mountains - "Termination Dust"!  Meaning that the termination of our summer is coming quickly and the snow is moving down the mountains!  The only saving grace is that it is time for harvesting and foraging!  One of my favorites is the beautiful Fireweed!

Fireweed is another one of Alasks's "super plants".  It is rich in Calcium, Fiber, Vitamin A, Magnesium, and Potassium. I add the fireweed leaves and flowers to my detox tea for joint inflammation relief, and it is said to have some pain relief properties as well.  Fireweed leaf can also be used as a woundwort to help in the healing of wounds.  It has also shown effective for migraines.

I have also been known to add it to a favorite flavor of tea when I am running low to make it last a little longer.  It works well with just about any kind!  Delicious!

Fireweed is an amazing plant.  Some here say it is a weed as it will grow pretty much anywhere and it is hard to get rid of if you should try.  I don't really try to get rid of it because I like it for its telling of the season and for its many uses as a food, medicine and tea plant.  It is called Fireweed because it is the first plant that grows after a forest fire, adding beauty while holding the soil and preventing erosion when the rains come!  

Alaskans tell how long the summer will be by how soon the fireweed blossoms and how far up the stem the blossoms open.  When the blossoms are bloomed at the top of the stem, fall is upon us and snow not far away.  When this happens in August and Sepgtember- there is generally crying throughout the community - "We are NOT ready"!

Fireweed blossoms dry beautifully and can be used in tea or to make jelly!  Fireweed Jelly is very tasty and makes a beautiful gift, especially with a loaf of fresh bread.  Read on for a recipe for the jelly.

Harvest the flower petals when they are almost fully open.  If you harvest too early (before the flowers open) they are a little bitter and I don't think as tasty.  If you are harvesting whole plant

then take the flowers off as they are, but if you are only collecting flowers, then just pluck the ones that are almost fully open and dry them in the sun.  I have found that in my dehydrator they lose a little of the color so I prefer to sun dry for that reason.  Store them in a cool dry place - I use a reusable container with a lid.

We are a little past the fireweed flower stage for this year - but make sure you plan to gather some next summer!

Below are fireweed leaves in one of my big glass bowls.   Harvest the clean dry leaves by "stripping the stems" - basically just running your mostly closed hand down the stem and letting the leaves fall off.  I like to wash them off with the hose while the leaves are still on the stem and hang them to air dry for a bit before stripping them onto a clean sheet or large towel.  Let them wilt for 12-18 hours and then place them in your fermentations bowl.

To make fireweed leaf tea (and it really tastes almost like a green to black tea) you have to bruise the leaves in the bowl.  Some like to roll 4-5 leaves at a time between their hands in the traditional tea leaf manner, and I have done this method but I mostly just bruise them good (because - yes Im usually short on time and rolling is time intensive).  Rolling probably bruises them more and they turn out looking like the traditional rolled black tea leaves.

Cover it and let it sit for a few hours, then bruise the leaves again and let it sit a few hours more.  Don't tear them up - you just want them bruised before you dry them.  Once you have done the process a few times the leaves should start to look black.

Here they are after just the first bruising treatment.  They will settle in the bowl a little as you go.  Give them a stir once in a while after they have turned dark colored and leave them to ferment for 48 to 72 hours.  I have accidentally left mine for a week once and it seemed no harm.

Once they are dark colored and you can smell the wild on them, its time to dry them.  

Fireweed leaves cannot be done in a dehydrator as the leaves need to be bruised and ferment or the flavor and benefits arent the same.  I have done it (when I left it to ferment for a week), but I could tell a color and flavor difference.  Take the time!  Store it also in an airtight container.

But also as winter comes and the fireweed blossoms end and go to seed, it floats like cotton across everything, blanketing the fall pictures with the white that will be winter, just like the Dandelion does in the spring.

Here is a fireweed all bloomed out - to the top and sending its fluffy snow cotton seeds out to the universe.  The end of summer, yet beautiful still.

As with everything, there are some folks who are allergic to the Fireweed, and it can cause some havoc with those folks.  Please be aware before you use it for anything.

FIREWEED JELLY

8 C. Fireweed blossoms

5 C. Water

Juice of two lemons (apx 1/4 C)

2 tsp finely ground cinnamon (optional)

5 C. sugar

2 packages SureJell Pectin (1.75 oz each)

Start your water boiling for water bath canner, and prepare your jars and lids.  

Put the fireweed blossoms, lemon juice and water and cinnamon in another pot and simmer gently for 10 minutes, strain in a colander lined with cheesecloth or a dishtowel.

Rinse the pot and add the juice back to it and bring back to a boil.  Add the sugar and the pectin, bring to a rolling boil, and cook for 1 full minute.   Remove from heat and immediately ladle into hot jars.  Place the lids and rings, wiping off any that spills on the rim of the jar first.  Place your jars into the water bath canner and process for 10 minutes.

Allow to cool on a towel on the counter and listen for the "pop" of the lid sealing!  if a jar or two doesnt seal, refrigerate and use first.  The jelly should gel nicely within a few hours.

Enjoy!

This batch I used dried flowers instead of fresh and some of the color was lost, but it is still beautifully honey colored and the flavor is exquisite!

May you be blessed with a fine fall that provides all you need for the winter!

Little Garden Wonders

There is a lot of magic that happens here on the farm, and not just the kind that makes you think your house might be haunted!  Wicked Raven survived the Millers Reach Fire back in 1996 but it burned off all of the organics, and what wasn't burned off was pushed off with a dozer prior to the fire by the owner at the time - trying to save the house!   We have a few areas where nothing will grow at all, including lawn grass!

You can see the bare spots behind the mower in this shot.  This photo was about 5 years ago and still nothing grows there!  We have lots of sand and gravel and tons of clay!

So it is always very special when we find delightful "little garden wonders" throughout the yard!  Things that come up despite the harsh conditions and the lack of water that occurs - we dont generally water the yard - the weird water people (us - mostly Hubby) think its a waste.

This year has been amazing for little garden wonders coming up randomly and deliciously all around!  the above is an Alpine Aster that came up in the space that is currently occupied by the "fake deer" that is actually an arrow target!  It has also been used this summer as a 4 wheeler track through the middle of the yard.  Dry and barren and with wheeler tracks.  So beautiful!

This is either a random Lovage herb or a sweet cicely - Im leaning more toward Lovage but, my sense of smell is still not working the way I need it to due to an ongoing sinus issue so I can't fully determine what it is.  I found two more of these after I took this shot, just out in the middle of the yard.  

So I moved them into the herb bed over the septic area.  It will be fun to see what they turn out to be!

I also found this little pink fungus in that same area - this little patch of pink is actually in the middle of a driveway area where the grass has grown up through just gravel!  Aren't they cute?!

This little patch of joy is "pussy toes" (Antennaria - probably "Neglecta").  It is a small and delightful little plant that grows in little "fairy circle" formations all around the yard.  It is hardy as all get out and it is such a special delight to find.  For some reason it is very uplifting to the spirit whenever I am discouraged!  It just makes me smile and breathe away my cares.

Can you see it?  No?  All you see is a puny stick sticking out of the ground?  Thats because that stick is marking one of the most tiny of garden wonders!

It is the beautiful blue Campanula Alpina!  Even the clover head is bigger than this tiny flower!  Ahhhh the blue delight though.  This one is also growing in the middle of one of the barren patches of lawn, where almost nothing else grows.  It is so small that the mower doesnt even touch it when the grass does get mowed.  It is a treat to see for just a few weeks a year.

Many of you will recognize this little garden wonder!  Cranberry plant - we call them lowbush cranberries, but some folks call them Lingonberry.  I love to see these growing around the yard - mostly on the edges of the tree line or in slightly mossy areas.  The little pink flowers are so happy, and when I can smell them properly they are a delicious scent, fresh and clean and bright berry smell.

This treasure though, this treasure!  Coral Root Orchid - Corallorhiza (probably Wisteriana). No leaves, and a very dark brown and green color - almost obscure.  I had no idea what it was - I had to put it on the Facebook and be the butt of many jokes thinking I was kidding about not knowing what it was!  Luckily there was that one guy..... lol!  I found it when I was yarding out underneath an apple tree - the Duchess - she of the one apple fame!  I very nearly pulled it out with the weeds, but I had only recently been tromping around a neighbors hay field edge and had found a lovely pink plant that was a bit like this one.  (See below).

Pink Pyrola.  Liverleaf Wintergreen. This little garden wonder came right out of the forest and into the yard among the cranberry plants and the star dogwood.  It is growing near my strawberry hugelkulture and the honey berries at the edge of the yard and I had not noticed it until the trek around the neighbors field - I came right home and trekked around my yard and found this one!  It has become one of my favorite delights of all time.  After I noticed this one I was able to find a few more around the property in different areas.  Popping up and giving a bright spot in the middle of the desolate places!

Take a trek to the "not so wild" magic places in your yard and see if you don't have some little garden wonders at the end of your rainbows!  Or just on your rough edges!

Blessed Be!

Grief Gets Out the Big Knife - the 5th year

Today is 5 years since we lost Rye.  This will be a long post, as I go through remembering the years so far that we have survived since his death.  Loss mothers, please read carefully, and maybe with a friend.  This one will be hard.  This is a "holy shit" post.  It is a bomb. All the ones about Rye are for me though it seems.

 Grief is an interesting character in our lives - it is always present, for us at least, and it changes sometimes on the daily to keep us on our toes.  We feel like we have to be "on" all the time - game face on, emotional barriers up, "lucky" or "special" clothing like a cloak of protection -on!  I want to be present, really, fully present, for Reed, for Chad, for my family, for my job, my business, for all of it.... but on these days these huge loss days - the milestone days- I cannot even be present for myself most of the time.  I tread water and get through the day and remember why I stay here, and that I do not want my mother to feel the way that I feel.  I try to remember all the love that Rye brought to our lives - all of us, and what he left behind for us to hold onto.  I try.  I also struggle to keep my head when I think of all the things we are missing.... Your friends are buying homes and having kids - grandkids, some of those kids are starting hockey and starting school this year because they are 5 now.  It hurts to want to be so happy for them, but to have it split my heart in two that I do not have that because you are gone.

The first year you think is the hardest, because you really have done nothing harder in your life like what you have to survive in the first year after the loss of your child.  The first year is like little razor blade cuts all over your heart, and sometimes your whole body, like death by 1000 cuts every day, groundhog day style.  But you also have the "grief fog" that blankets the mind and keeps everything from being sharp and clear like you used to be.  Grief lets you sort of float along the path shrouded in fog, scared and confused, and not knowing what to do or which way you are going, but the cuts are manageable, most days. Manageable.  You also have people who lie to you and tell you that the first year is the hardest!  I understand it..... they have to keep us going somehow, so they lie about how it will be..... even if they know better.  It is done with love - always remember that.  

The second year, Grief gets out the big knife!  The fog lifts and the knife cuts drive deep into your heart, mind, body and soul with no fog buffer to blanket the loss feelings, and some of the memory clarity comes back so that the loss is felt with vengeance.  Holidays and birthdays are hell.  There are no celebrations that can blanket or mask the pain and the grief.  There is no sound loud enough to drown out the screaming inside your head.  You just ride the bloody waves of cuts that no one can see and try to keep from drowning in it.  Trying to keep your head above water and not bleed on the people who didnt cut you.  Once again simply surviving.

People will leave your life - they will just leave you.  Friends and family, loved ones.  There will be people that you just have to let go of - they will leave your life and you will not know why.  Let them go with grace, fully knowing that for you it will feel like you have been abandoned.  Grieve this, and let them go.  There will also be those who are there for you no matter what.  They will hold your hand, stand with you, and help you make hard choices and do hard things.  They will help you to see the good things left here for you, and help you make new memories while remembering past ones. They will lift you up when you think you can't go any further.

I write the pain.  Sometimes I write what I think other people can handle at the moment.  Sometimes, like today, I write the pain so deep that it is like fingernails on a chalkboard.  It seems as though loss parents write a lot.  We fill pages and pages, and books of our loss and how we survived, filling it with the stories of our pain and our successes both large and small, for sometimes, the small ones feel big to us.  Finding joy however fleeting, feels huge every time.  Joy of any size or duration is a win!

There may be more people gone from my life after this.  Some will sugarcoat it - or try to.  I will not.  If you arent able to handle the hard that is me now, and my truth telling,  I will forgive you.  I know how very hard this road is to travel, and how very hard it is to travel it while not understanding the depth of the pain and loss that we feel.  I know that it is hard to wait for someone to be ready to travel further down the path towards healing.  We feel like we are always out of sync with each other - never on the same path at the same time.  Sometimes for us, healing feels like we are leaving behind our child who has really gone ahead of us.  It still hurts the same.

Year three is a little less - the big knives are still out, but the deep diving cuts are further apart and sometimes in between the huge rolling waves of grief that still come crashing out of nowhere and leave you parked (hopefully) by the side of the road, or lying in a heap on the floor bawling until there is no more moisture in your body to cry out, there is a space of sunlight and blue sky where the memories dont try to kill you. But sometimes the dry heave cry begins - dry sobs punctuated by screams and silent screams because there is still pain trying to get out of you that has no where else to go except out - or deeper in - which is a dangerous place my friends.  That is the place where the dark shadows of love, loss, memories and the flames of what is left of your soul live.  Sometimes it is the holding place for all of the losses at one time and if you are not in a place where you can cry it out and you have to keep it in (think High school cafeteria or ice arena full of people), if festers and makes the light in your game face go out.  The struggle to stay on the planet for the others becomes the highest priority above all others, and you can't explain this or you will scare the hell out of your loved ones still here.

Year four; we still have grief and pain, but we now have the 6 or 7 stages of grief that we can recognize - but sometimes only after we have had a meltdown or had a serious anger event that should not have been an anger event at all.  "you sure do give that guy a lot of power over you!" someone said to me when I was having a bad anger day.  I had to stop and think for a minute... the thing I was mad about was trivial and should not have set me off - but on an "anger" day the small stuff scorches the soul and sears the brain and sometimes the anger comes out in strange ways - trivial ways- always keeping you on your toes.  They toss you around and float from day to day changing from anger to depression, to acceptance and finding meaning or sometimes all of them in one day!  I have found though still that I have "days".  Anger day, depression day (week really on this one), trying to find meaning week and so on through the stages all mixed up and in no particular order.  The only one I dont seem to have come along very often is "bargaining".  There is no "deal with the devil" or "bargain with God" that I could make that will bring Rye back, so I guess I have "accepted" that part.

If you have not learned about the "stages of grief" you should - even if you haven't had a loss like this- it is very interesting.  These apply to every day life items as well as people loss events too.  When the Middle School fell down during the earthquake in 2018, many of the people from that building (who transitioned to our building) had very eveident "grief stage" emotions.  This was also true too when Covid cancelled school; especially graduation, sports, Prom, and on it goes.  We had a building full of grieving people, all at various stages of their loss or story!  I have read the book "On Grief and Greiving" by Elizabeth Kubler Ross and David Kessler a few times now - trying to tread water through this loss that causes so many other losses with it.  There is a new book now that that is a follow up to that book called "Finding meaning, the sixth stage of grief" by David Kessler, and I am also working on one by my friend Cathy Abeyta "Living in the Frequency of Joy".  She also is a loss mother and has marched this road that I am on.  Reading is still hard for me but it helps to see that I am able to recognize (most of the time) the stages of grief, and that others in my boat are rising up and floating a little higher through things that might work for me too.

Click on the book for the link to her site.  

I am trying to make space for more joy, and to rise, shine, and fake it less.  The exercises in this book are giving me good reference points to focus on from someone who really knows this path.  I was stuck on chapter four for about four months.  It is hard work to try to heal something that cannot really be healed but I am grateful for the reminders and the ability to recognize where I am on the path and to feel like I am moving in a positive direction at least part of the time now.  I try to uplift others and to remember that all of us have greif of some kind.  I am trying to be gentle with myself and with others every day.

I am able to go through pictures and remember the good.  This first vacation where Rye "Pat the MooCow!"

A friend said onetime that she had been in attendance when the mother of a friend of hers had come to see her dead child and how she would never forget that sound - that sound that the mother made is etched into my friends soul now.  I know exactly the sound because I have made the sound. The sound of my soul being ripped out of my body while I am still alive.  It is an unimaginable sound unless you have heard it before or made it.  She will never forget how it sounds and I can never forget how it feels.  Excruciating.  I had a dream about Rye the other night, and in the dream he was about 10 and he was handing me rolls of toilet paper from behind me (of course it was TP?!?) and making a little game of it, tricking me and giggling when he handed it to a hand I wasnt expecting.  I turned and tried to grab him and hug and hold him, and when my arms went through him, that sound came out of me again, that soul wrenching sound of loss.  His smile disappeared, he looked horrified and then I woke, he was gone and I was dry heave crying in the middle of the dark night -once again missing my child.

Before I became a loss mother I did not know how to scream.  I actually failed a self defense class for women because I could not make a scream sound.  I could yell really REALLY loud but could not make that scream noise.  I can scream now.  Silent screams and screams that drown out thunder storms with lightning.  Screams that can be heard over the fireworks on New Years and the sound that a mother makes when she has learned that her child is dead. 

We are at year 5 today.  Exactly.  5 years since you were taken from us.  Stolen like the breath from our lungs when hit with a two by four across the back.  Abruptly and without explanation, defying all of the things we had been told.  Good comes to those who are good.  If you are healthy and in shape and take care of yourself you will have a long life.  Lies. Lies. Lies.  The full weight of the knowledge that we are expected to be "over it" by now sits on our shoulders like the weight of ten worlds, but the truth of it is that we never will be.  This "weight" is our forever and ever without end.  Others forget; that moment when my heart was torn in half and I had to start loving a child in each realm, balancing the love on each side, but I cannot ever.

5 years and now the loss sits on my soul like it has always been there - as though I had been born with that thick black smut sitting right there.... but no, if it had been there all along I would not notice it now, surely not.  It would not still hurt so badly, still, now.  5 years of missing a piece of my soul,and knowing that it is gone.  I know that you loved us so much, every day of your short time here on this side.

I also know that you are here with us, still sharing your light with the world and making sure I see the signs.  I have a jar of coins that you send - almost daily - pennies, dimes, quarters with just a few nickels.  You must not have liked nickels! I have over 42 hours of "songs of the day" on my playlist so I have your messages every day.  Sometimes they make me laugh and sometimes they make me cry, but they keep me going every day.  Putting my feet on the floor and marching.  Finding a way through the fog.  We march into another year without you.  

Blessed be on our journey, this side and that.

Mans Best Friend and Maybe an Angels Too

We had to help one of our fur babies across the golden bridge this past week.  It is never an easy thing, and this one felt especially hard since it seems like this is one more connection on this side to Rye that is lost to that other side.  One more angel among the stars.

Ripley was 13 years old and had loved us since she was about 6 weeks old.  Found in the parking lot at what used to be "Steves Food Boy" and is now Three Bears Alaska, by the Cheerleaders from Houston School during the Christmas Bazzar at the mall. 

We had just had to help the boys dog "Zelda" across the bridge a few weeks before, she had cancer around her heart and just couldn't go anymore.  She had been 9 years old.  We got professional, wonderful pictures with her and the boys right before we had to put her down and we treasure those now.  Some of our only "non-hockey" pictures with the boys together. 

(Rye 16 and Reed 9 with Zelda)

We were supposed to go to a fundraiser of some type that night and none of us felt like going because we were so sad about Zelda and Reed wasn't feeling well so he had been home with a sitter.  So we decided to go rent a movie (remember doing that?) and go home.  When we got to the mall - it was packed with people - at least for Big Lake it was, and we had not realized that would be happening - we almost gave up and went home.  

(She loved to ride on the wheelers with the boys - up until the very end)

We went in though, and as soon as the Cheer girls saw Rye they handed the puppy to him and she snuggled into his shoulder and neck, sighed, and fell promptly asleep, as though she had been waiting for him exactly to get there.  It was one of the sweetest moments of our lives and one that I cherish still.  We named her "Ripley" because believe it or not Hubby let us bring her home.  He had never been a fan of a stray dog from the boxes at the store, he would always say "their home is somewhere besides our house" or something to that effect.  This one stayed on Rye's neck the whole time in the mall and when Dad said "get in the car" we didn't ask questions, we just got in the car.  I don't remember what movie we even got!

Here she is with Rye and Spencer, getting ready for Prom in 2011.  Spry at only 2 years old!

And she had to add her own personalized spin to the pictures!  Classic Ripley Pooping Picture!

She was the most loving and wonderful little dog.  She tolerated Brix coming to live with us - almost with easy grace- they had a few scuffles over who was boss, but for the most part she was a good sharer of her things and her kids.  She went completly blind at the end and Brix would steer her around the yard and help her get where she needed to be and kept her out of the road most of the time. She had a toe removed a few years ago due to an agressive form of cancer - we thought she might be lost then, but she recovered and thrived as a three-toed, fourth foot fur baby!

Yoga was her favorite sport - the yoga mat was her favorite spot to nap!

She was also allergic to fish, and it was really ugly for everyone if she got some!  We had to watch every nip of food she ate and all the banks and the coffee store treats too!  She would gladly take them even though they tried to kill her if they had fish in them!  So we bought the special food (even though it wasnt Brix favorite), and the special treats that she could eat, and we pretty much spoiled her (and Brix) rotten with them.

Rye left us Brix as well here on this side and he is only 6.  We are grateful for his company, companionship, and connection to Rye.  An angel still here on this side, Brix is lonely without them though.  He looks for her, and he was mad at me for about a week because he knew that I took her out the door and didn't bring her back.

I am hoping Ripley was able to cross over and see Rye and snuggle once again into his shoulder and say "Oh - there you are  my friend- I have been waiting for you!"

May you be blessed with wonderful fur friends and when they have gone on ahead, may you be blessed with the angels they send! Blessed be!