Mucking Out the Duck Pond

Mojo Memories of Mucking Manure..

 The Girls had a chore ahead and the day wasn't getting any younger, grandpa mumbled under his breath, "Kids can't be laying around watching Sally Jesse trash tv, go water the birds" Summer was hot in Oklahoma and watering the animals was a crucial element in the circle of life on a farm. Birds are messy creatures. They poop in their own watering source, and as a 14 year old kid, it was my responsibility to help grandpa keep the animals fed and watered with fresh, clean water, everyday- sweltering heat & frozen temps included.

 

The girls ran out of the house choosing to find their own chore to focus on for the afternoon. It was hot out already and the pond was looking a little like an oasis.

 

Out back in an enclosed area surounding the grandparents house was a duck yard full of ducks, geese, peacock, foul of all sorts, coming and going as they pleased. Grandpa was a DIYer and made all sorts of shallow concrete water ponds for the animals drinking and bathing pleasure.

 

The one in the imediate enclosed back area was a managable size and the girls proceeded to jump in and muck it out by the bucket full. It was green and slimey and the smell was indescribably foul. Just picturing the memory can bring back the exact odor and the funny day of slinging it on my best friends face, hair, backside.

 

The laughter and hilarity is what I remember most, not the horendous chore of cleaning out a green slimy body of poop water.

 

The end reward after all that disgusting poop wrangling was a sparkling clean cold body of water on a very hot summer day that could be floated around in like a mermaids menagere full of squacking animals and endless towering sunflowers. Floating on weightless backs gazing up at the blue sky and fluffy white clouds. That was a memory that stuck and is revisited time and time again. I never cease to smile when going back to those endless summer days where I explored the land and talked to the animals, just like grandpa did while alive and here on this earth.

 

These memories shape my view and keep me centered. I think of building my own ugly concrete duck ponds for my kids and grandkids to muck out and make a memory of their own. Living with and raising animals teach children more than most realize. Farm life lessons last a lifetime in some instances carry on to the next generation.

 

Education come in all shape and form. Events in our lives serve as educational tools.

 

I can remember planting a sprouted potatoe from grandma's kitchen pantry. We did not have food gardens at the grandparents house, just animals. We farmed exotic animals as pets and hobby, anyways, this potato soon sprouted green leaves from the dirt in the area I buried the sprouted spuds. I suddenly became the family food farmer. I was about 11 when I earned this very cool title. The plants continued to thrive as the area had great soil. Reflecting back the soil was rich and fertile from not spraying any poisons and from birds shitting all over the place. I could stick my little arm into the soil all the way up to my elbows. The earth at that farm was rocking with green magic!

 

I was the eldest grandchild and I pretty much had a say in whatever projects were being done. I worked hard for my grandpa because he was the neatest man alive. Handsome in a Elvis Presley kind of way. Sparkling blue eyes, high cheekbones, and a grin that probably took a few women's breath away. Grandma was a looker as well. Tall, graceful, a smile that could light up any room, anywhere. Grandma was fun. She danced around the kitchen cooking and cleaning imitating a can can girl and kicking high up into the air. I thought this was very amusing and funny and it always made me laugh so hard watching this grown up lady have fun taking care of her family.

 

This was a time in history when women seemed more chore oriented than the men. Just an observation from my personal memory of the times. In my family the women did everything. They ran the family pawn shop 6 days a week, did the grocery shopping, then came home and cooked for masses of family, people, kids, and babies and cleaned up the whole mess of life after that. I remember all the men just got their plate made for them like the kids. We all danced around grandpa's chair and he held court like a king. He was a king. Grandpa's birth sign was that of a leo and he was king of the jungle in our family circle. He was a stinker who played endless practical jokes with no one able to resist the humor in his quest to pull tricks. Jalapeno oil rubbed on the ice tea glass rim, fake howls from behind the tent while grandaghters camping in the backyard, postal mailed beetles to bug phobia daughter, unexpectedly unplugging the phoneline while grandaughter talking.

Grandpa loved throwing rats, snakes, possum, and anything he could catch barehanded onto the sqeamish.

 

I developed a curiosity to the animals instead of fear but he alway got me on the surprise factor in his sick twisted humor exploits for fun. At one point I imagined possum as cute creatures who gave their babies mama boat rides upon her back. So very cute in my Ranger Rick magazine script of the time. No, a possum is a giant, wirey gray haired rat monster with knashing teeth and claws that cling to flesh and tank top material.

 

Insisting on going with grandpa meant you could be put in a life endangering predicement. On that particular day we were picking up hay at Jody's place, from Jude and Jody's Furniture. We loaded the hay and grandpa found a nest of possums. He threw the surprised momma possum onto my quickly fleeing back. Momma possum was snarling and hissing, I was running, my feet barely hitting the ground, flung that sucker off my back. Jeez! Grandpa laughed so hard I feared for his health. The ride home was silently chilly as I tried to stay mad at this smiling giggling gloating old man. Dinner that night was full of tales of the flying O'possum.

 

There was more laughter a million days ago when I was a child. I hope to pass what my grandparents passed to me. Laughter, love, nature, free to be

 

I have some spuds ready for my eldest grandchild, Mercie, age 6, ready to be planted on her weekend visit to her father, my son. I am going to give her the title of family food grower ;)

 

 

 

my emotional garden

The garden is where i go to think things out. It is where i receive inspiration and thoughts sent my way empathic. I call it higher powerish, these feelings that arise in my garden. I talk to it, it silently talks to me. No words needed. The earth is alive and speaks through expressions of beauty and awe inspiring visual and sensory nutrition for the absolute raw core in my soul.

I grew up in a barn, well, not exactly in a barn, but my grandparents had a couple of really cool barns, and I lived in them. I kept house with the chickens and horses. Me and the farm dogs set out every morning to do the chores of watering and feed all the animals. Grandpa had thousands of animals. He was a regular St Francis. The animals just trusted him. We started the day cutting up fruit, boiling eggs, dicing carrots, celery for the parrots, monkeys, etc. We had this crazy African Grey parrot named Snoopy. He would imitate grandma calling for grandpa...Grrrraaaaannnppppaaaaaa sounded just liked her, he could also cry like the grand babies. I had almost a dozen younger cousins that were always crying about something or another. LOL Grandpa was the king of sustainability. Back then I called it trashy. He utilized everything free. The barns had chicken coops made from recycled doors in all different colors. We drove to the Braum's outlet in OKC to get day old bread once a week for free. A whole pick up load. I would sit in the back on a tower of cookies, Hawaiian bread, rolls, teetering above the bed line flying down I-35 Highway. Grandpa had me ride up there so we didn't lose any free animal food LMAO
We also crushed cans. A huge amount of cans. I was the eldest so I would have the younger ones stepping on the cans to flatten them out and toss into the truck. Grandpa ran a pawnshop in MWC across from Tinker Air Force Base. The ultimate junk hunters destination! His heart was back home on the land though in Choctaw. He didn't move fast. Just shuffled along doing his own thing. Wheeling and dealing, taking care of the animals in between. Shooting snakes at the pond was always an exciting event. Grandpa had this little 22 Luger, that my husband now owns, and I'm so happy we have that piece of history. I can remember him putting on his jacket, this same sheep skin and leather coat, then his hat, then his gun. That was my cue to slip on some shoes, QUICK!

Every nice Spring day brings back days on that farm in Choctaw. As a child day's in the garden stick around to become beloved memories and imprinted feelings that can be drawn back up at will with the life that Spring flings like color paints across a canvas.

Hello Grampa I sure miss you today I remember you loved the tulips and you let me run free and wild on the land

GARDEN SPIRIT..

The connection to others who dwell in the dirt is what garden spirit means to me. It is a peaceful easy feeling that comes over one when exposed to nature. I'm personally addicted to it and fiem in frustration when Winter steals my outdoor adventure comfort factor. Now that it is mid March the birds are singing loud, calling to their feathered friends, hey there, frogs are a peeping in some unseen water source out back, it is like a symphony of perfect hear candy.

Every day the visual treat of Spring brings new leaves unfurling slowly, shiny and new. Watching nature wake up is better than cable! Fruit trees and early Spring bloomers are budding out all over in naked abandon, pop, pow, bam! Oklahoma has the redbuds, forsythia, tulip tree, dogwood, and sand plums showing off their seasonal best floral display- showing at all local forests state wide this week. I remember my Hort professor teaching us that Spring has arrived when the oak tree buds are as big as mouse ears. LOL I've always used that as my official guide as mother nature knows best.

Gardening by the correct moon phase has been a little project I've got going and am trying to stick by and chart findings, special notes, discoveries. There is a great chart on The Farmer's Almanac and I check it every morning before planning my daily farm chores. Today I will be sowing seed and planting seed beds for flowers and herbs. IF i had my beds prepared I would be sowing cucumbers, pole beans, peas, etc. But it's not. Working with what I got here. Building a dream on a dime is a challenge!

Workshops are still in the works. I have the ideas, the room, just building the gardens now so that we have actual materials one can grow to work with and demonstrate from. Ordering heirloom seeds to plant, sell, grow today from the Sustainable Seed Exchange where we are new members. This is project dear to my soul. Heirloom seed equals food freedom, simple as that! We can't eat gold or diamonds or pretty baubles but we need nutritious food to feed our bodies properly and that is getting hard to do with today's food situation. I have been in the heirloom hobby for 20 years because the names have always fascinated and intrigued my curious mind. So many stories, history, and tales go along with each and every seed that has been passed down and saved, generation after generation, it is amazing and amusing. Saving seeds and collecting interesting varieties will thrill me to my dying days... I know this and this fill me with hope for the future days in the garden.

P<3ace out from OKC in an organic green witch garden

Green Witch Organic Life: Small & Local

Green Witch Organic Life: Small & Local:           I have no disillusion that the dream farm I'm building is not likely to land me on easy street anytime soon. I also know farm...

Small & Local

    
     I have no disillusion that the dream farm I'm building is likely to land me on easy street anytime soon. I also know farming and agricultural careers are difficult at times facing weather, insects, disease and weed competition. I even realize the amount of energy it takes to produce an organic community supported farming system. You might even be wondering "Why does she do it?"



Following that Path Now!

     I'll tell you some of my reasons, and they are many. First and foremost the passionate act of growing any life form is powerfully addictive. Humans react to the simple act of care and nurturing of living things. Gardening compels one to invest time and effort to achieve even more growth and perhaps fruit, flowers, herbs, and ornamentation from plants. We are given so much from our neighboring plant world. Food, fiber, building materials, dye, medicine, atmospheric oxygen and even shelter from the elements. Some grow plants for the beauty alone. Plant life, here on this planet earth, is as exciting as it gets visually. The colors, shape, form, variety, texture and colors are endless. Many grow certain plants for the taste and aroma they impart to the food table and or the garden beds. Whatever the reasons are that drive people to plot, plan and plant their way through chilly and wet muddy spring cultivation, hot steamy scorching summer temperatures, and unpredictable fall garden forecasts, they always bring people together.

                                                                                                       

 

As an herbalist I understand the power and sacred essence of plant medicines. Before chemical cocktails there were healing or physic gardens. A potager garden included culinary food, spice and herbs for eating fresh, drying for winter use, and for medicinal remedy. I believe there needs to be a resurgence of this type of resourceful garden. An organic gardener can grow many useful plants that can ward off a costly Dr.'s visit. Learn to heal your body naturally with food, herbs, and spices. Prevention is the key to a sustainable life. Keep your body healthy with nutritious organic non- gmo & processed food and that body will resist the disease that comes naturally from genetics and the aging process.