I am alive. I am reading but not posting,

The moving has been done for a month. I am surrounded by boxes. I am getting rid of stuff or repurposing things that have been at/in the ranch house for oh so long. It still is overwhelming. Also saw what the renters have done to our house and we are delighted with how they honor it.

We had wonderful help (and I hope I remember everyone)
Donna the duck lady
Suzle and Jerry
Jack Bell
Cathy Sullivan
Randolph Fritz and Kier Salmon
Holy Outlaw (amazing what can be done with 5 1/2 inch floppies)
Marion White
Janice Murray
Glenn Hackney
Cousin Paul was simply amazing
Husband and I are so fortunate

We are almost done packing up our house in Seattle. Fans with jobs are renting the house. It's been easier than I thought it would be.

(I'll skip what comes before, now.)

I find being cut off from a writing community harder and harder to take. It has been gradual, and I have not published any fiction or literary work in a long time. It stacks up on my hard drive, never escaping since I have no readers. I have tried workshops. A couple of years ago, one came through a friend who is a newbie writer with talent and a few sales. The most active member was a woman romance writer who was seeming rewriting Greg Bear’s Vitals. For everyone else it was social. A very uncomfortable group for me, so I was gone. The previous workshop was a nice social group but lousy workshop. Long ago I had been in two workshops that helped me, so I have a basis of expectation. I had wanted to go to Clarion, but one of the unfortunate outcomes of restarting Clarion West was being told I was not welcome to even apply. Yes, there are other workshops, but life went on and I didn’t apply. The week to week workshop workout might be good for me. Unlike Greg Bear (who I am thinking about because of the great party), I never took the full-monty risk to just do it. I’ve known Greg long enough that I remember when success was not certain, but he soldiered away. As you can see, I’ve been thinking about farming, writing, and dying. I’ve been thinking a lot about this since Bob Doyle died.

Today, were he alive, would be my father's 95 birthday.

[Note: I wrote this last year, but it is still current given our weather. I have been asked by a few people to post what I write for an APA. This is one of my APA writings. It is part of a memoir I am writing about our farming experiences. I have not gotten bold enough to start writing about the bad stuff, my fears, and such. Please be patient with newsy things.]

Weather has made us what we are. We make our plans based on it. We talk about it, read about it, and watch it. Weather determines if we are flooded out of our homes or live a mucky albeit safe life in the mud. While you would not know it here in Kitsap County, chilled under the miles-thick cloud blanket, this year, 2010, has been the hottest year worldwide recorded since 1880 when the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) began keeping records. That does not mean that 1879 was hotter, only that no records were kept before 1880 by NOAA. This year, three areas experienced cooler than normal temperatures: Scandinavia, southeastern China, and the Pacific Northwest.

The food we eat, locally grown or imported from some far-flung place, depends upon the weather. When the temperatures vary beyond of the range we consider normal, our food crops die. For tens of thousands of years, the weather has fluctuated very little. During those years, we humans developed agriculture, domesticated animals, and gave up the nomadic hunter and gather life for one of home ownership, grocery stores, and relative leisure.

Since we became vegetables farmers, our lives have revolved around germination tables. We have built and will continue to build structures to trick our food crops into behaving as though the temperature is warm enough. Because our temperatures in Kitsap have been cool, we build our structures out of plastic in hopes of capturing and amplifying the heat of the day so that our plants think that they are living in Paradise. If the temperature commonly becomes too hot, farmers will be building structures to keep the crops cooler.

The ideal temperature for plants to germinate is between 65 and 85 degrees Fahrenheit (F). Vary too far from that temperature range and our food crops do not grow in great numbers and produce adequate amounts of food. Within that range, each plant variety has its own ideal germination temperature.

In many areas of our country and around the world, a salad with delicate lettuce is a rare treat. Lettuce likes to germinate between 65 and 70 degrees. Between those five degrees, the greatest percentage of seeds will germinate, and within that range the greatest number of lettuces will survive to maturity. Lettuce, like most plants, will germinate and grow in less ideal temperatures, but at 32 degrees it becomes a slimy mess, and at 88 degrees it crumbles to dust. Sudden fluctuations in temperature, such as last week’s 20 degree temperature drop, stresses plants and makes them bolt — produce seeds and die — so that they fulfill their biological destiny of next year’s plant. This hold true for all plants including grains we use for bread and livestock feed. Even Okra, which germinates and grows at the highest temperature given high humidity, will die above 110 degrees.

For over half a century, we have been eating off the highway and shipping system, and worldwide weather conditions take on a new meaning. When we read that Summer daytime temperatures hold steady at 90 degrees, we know that the crops are dying. Less food will reach the grocery stores worldwide.

A quick list of optimum germination temperatures
for common vegetables
 75 to 85 degrees F Corn
 75 to 80 degrees F Beans  and Tomatoes
 75 degrees F Carrots
 70 to 85 degrees F Squash
 70 to 75 degrees F Kale, Kohlrabi, Spinach
70 degrees F Peas
 65 to 75 degrees F Lettuce, most Brassicas
 60 to 70 degrees F Onion, bunching

Most plants grow best in their germination temperature range.

I had planned to add something more personal, but all that personal stuff keeps happening and so I don’t have much time to write. In the next issue I will regale you with our big vet day, AKA the castration party.

Up at 4:30 a.m. for no good reason, I came downstairs about 5 so that husband can sleep. I've started stuff, decided to do the cover for an APA I'm in and compose my essay for the CW Write-a-Thon.

My CW W-a-T goals are modest to the point of embarrassment, but I had to be realistic about how much time I have to devote to this.

Right this moment I feel whiny so I wonder if I should include such negativity in a memoir.

The first of the employees are arriving, it is now 6 a.m. I am still in my night clothes, but they can think me slovenly or eccentric, I have given up all pride.

The cats are all right. The first time they met the big girls, Gracie wanted to chase Coco, and Chica just wanted to be friends but by the time she had wiggled over to them, they were down the hall and under the guest bed. The words “kitty, kitty, kitty” set Gracie off in a frenzy (well as much of one as she can muster at her ancient age of about 12) of seeking the cat to chase. I don’t know what she would do if she caught one. I don’t want to find out for there lies a trail of tears. KC lives on our bed, travelling down the hall to the guest bedroom and the bathroom. We keep the cat world in the bathroom. This bathroom was made from the nursery no more recently than sixty years ago, but less than 80 years. It is long and thin, with those tall double hung windows so popular at the end of the 19th century. The cat scratch post sit in front of the north window looking out on the backyard. The cat box, the cat dry food feeder, the water, the wet food dishes are all there, but not very close to the cat box. I put a rug in front of the cat box to keep those pebbles of litter from migrating up the hallway. CoCo has ventured down stairs, but not outside. My picture is one of Coco's baby pictures.

The cats arrived at the ranch last night about 9 p.m. The older cat, KC, was more than happy to come with me. The other cat, CoCo, was dubious. However there was no singing in the car. Whew.

We left them in the carriers while we ate dinner, and the dogs looked and sniffed. The cats growled. The dove cooed and the cats had a reason.

We put the cats in the upstairs bathroom, which used to be a nursery decades and decades ago, so it's a nice sized room. They were possessive of their carriers. The dogs slept in our bedroom as they usually do.

I am worried about jealousy, so I'm working slowly with them all. I reasoned that the cats were already upset, so the no reason to upset the dogs and kick off a wave of resentment against the cats.

This morning I got the cats settled in our bedroom while I was doing some computer work, and then someone left the kitchen door ajar and the dogs all came up stairs. Cubbette is really jealous. She is in the "she's my mommy not your mommy mode." The big girls are a bit jealous but not as bad. The cats are jealous. The cats are alarmed by the dogs, but seem to have figured out that they are harmless.

At this moment, the dogs are downstairs and the cats are under the bed. I don't get why they are under the bed. I am here for them. Sigh.

I am awake at 1:34 a.m. not because I have watched too many tsunami (not a word I wanted to learn to spell) videos, but because today I am moving my cats to the farm. I have explained it to them, but they seem to be clueless. They will be moving into a house that is 70% the size of this one. The house animals include 1 chihuahua they know well, 1 husky, 1 setter/retriever/etc., and a white dove. Plus some days, including tomorrow, a border collie with much enthusiasm. Some days there is a sweet but strange woman staying with us. She is an apprentice.

I have no idea how to deal with this. I am worried I am taking them to their death. Yet the current situation has ceased to work. One cat is 16 years old, and has been the velcro cat for the past 3 months when I've been here. It got much worse this winter. The other cat is 7 years old, and likes to go in and out, but when I'm here she's stuck to me, too. I like to work here, and the two of them fight over me, so I work on the bed so that they each have a spot. Last night they woke me up every hour or so. From the little nerps they made, I think they were saying, "She's really here."

I am not here much. Friends, very good friends, have been checking on them, but a few minutes every other day is not enough. Friday when I arrived I found the older cat limping and the younger one had suffered diarrhea, and you can guess what needed to be cleaned. These problems may have started sometime within the 48 hours they were alone. I have asked too much of my friends who need to not be doing this.

So why should this be a problem? Let me count the ways: coyotes, (wild) dogs, eagles, hawks, minks, owls, and who knows what else. There are geese, ducks, chickens, and cattle. I think they can hold their own against the Ferrel cats. I know for a fact these girls have yet to see most of these.

I will be taking cat hair covered throws and blankets. They may not get their old cat box, but they will get all their dishes, brushes, cat food, the really big scratching post, and such.

This just the beginning. Before the economic meltdown, Husband and I thought we could take care of both. Now we recognize that we need to rent the house. It's not the best, but I love it, and I'd like to visit. Not sure how that's going to work.

I haven't been posting much because farming and its associated tasks take all my time. In fact it soaked up so much of my time that I missed years of visiting with Bob Doyle. He and his wife had moved half-way up Mount Rainier, or so it seemed to me, and we moved to the middle of the Sound. Now, he is forever gone. I saw Bob a few weeks ago at VM Hospital. He was sort of conscious, but really non-responsive. The end of the story was telegraphed to me. The foreshadowing was thick even last May. I spoke with him a few times for a very few moments, and then he was too weak to go on. The last time I talked with him, I think he forgot he was on the phone and laid it on the hospital bed. I heard someone come in and speak to him, then hang up the phone.

His wife asked that only a few people be told, and so I only told a few people. I suspected that there were others with the same mandate. My heart goes out to his wife. Their marriage was much too short.

chiefwirehead shared some memories of travels with Bob. I will think about doing that but it will be later. Right now there is a hole in my heart to be filled with Bob stories. Bob was a wonderful person, and the world is poorer without him.