What, you think I'm getting lazy?


Well fine.


I've been doing things, you know.  Like being lazy.
I've been doing Sit Spot Field Journals, Plant Journals, playing guitar, bass, dulcimer, drum kit, and less kalimba than ever in the past few months.  I am constantly on the lookout for work, which is difficult to come by in this economy, and even more difficult when a bicycle is your only means of rural transport.  On weekends we go to the Food Bank (because we're poor) or Food Not Bombs (because we're community participators that are poor).  Food Not Bombs is neat, since there's no pyramid structure, legal entity, or judgement.  It's food provided by local stores, it's all organic, and it's all brought to a central location and at approximately 130pm it is fair game for everyone there.  Today we also dumpster dove a lot of chocolate out of the Theo brand chocolate factory.  They leave that dumpster unlocked with the perfectly edible (but broken and therefore unsalable) chocolate.  They do this intentionally because they want us to be happy.  We know this.  I've been going to thrift stores and actually succeeding in finding the right wool clothes for this wet season.


And that's really what's been going on.  It's the wet season now.


The way the forest speaks so gently through the rain is a gift.  I have been spending time at my Sit Spot, crawling over moss and under tree stumps and laying in the drizzle filtering slowly through the trees.  Walking these woods in wool in the rain is not cold, is not wet, and is utterly enchanting.  Water droplets hang pregnant on the moss edges of logs and mushrooms rise in colonies of hundreds, creating domed cityscapes along the moss carpeted canyons.  When I return to the farm after my roamings, the crossing of the creek feels warm to my feet.  


So, one fanciful day, while poring over the fallen logs in layers, I spied some interesting mushrooms.  I crept closer and began to detail them in my notebook.  Size, color, gill or ridge shape, bruise color (if present), substrate & location.  You know, ID specs.  [Brown cap 2-6 cm, yellow/brown gill-ridges, no bruise color, fiberous, thick (not hollow) stem.  Spore print (from after I got home) is White! Growing on moss, attached to dead wood underneath]  So there I am, looking at these mushrooms very carefully, noting with chagrin that someone has placed one on the log next to them.  This mushroom is obviously human picked and placed.  While writing I see movement over the edge of my page.  Two feet away from me there are two logs crossing the one I am sitting on.  A chipmunk jumps up onto the far log and looks.  It is very close to me and hops towards me onto the other log.  This chipmunk is reddish/grey, with black and white stripes down its back.  The stripes were very beautiful and dramatic.  This was a dark animal and the prospect of it continuing its hops right onto my foot, leg, or arm was pretty exciting.  In the one second or so that it took before jumping, I took in its features and shot a thought like a bullet through the otherwise calm, quiet environment (that had led it to so casually jump up onto the log and expose itself to long sight lines):
"HOLY CRAP THIS THING IS ABOUT TO JUMP ON ME!!!"


The chipmunk halted IMMEDIATELY as that thought was processed, turned, fled over the second log, hooked around the first, and ran away behind it, hitting a fern which shook loose water.  It was gone.
I never moved.  I didn't even breathe.  I did nothing other than think as loudly and abrasively as possible right at it.  I will endeavor to not make that mistake again.

Not my photo.  This Townsend Chipmunk is lighter than the one I encountered, though it is cute. 

This is a highly detailed and easy to understand diagram of my encounter, recorded immediately following(wrinkled paper from raindrops).  Note mushrooms to the left (and one on the log, picked), note the chipmunk's visible movements (shown by dots) and its hidden flight (shown by dashes).  My perspective does not include my arms, hands, shoulders, face, hair, nostrils, or eyes, as that is getting entirely too metacognative for a Sunday night.

So that was a piece of the kind of observation and detailing that I do often, and honestly it doesn't scratch the surface.  There is so much I have written that I will not transcribe here.  I may start scanning pages and describing them so that more specific wonders like this can be detailed here.  It is so easy to be overwhelmed at the amount of information that could be shared.  I also grapple with sharing the practical, tutorials I could produce here.  Realistically, I'd rather point you to a book or online resource (for something like friction fires, shelter-building, herb harvesting, tincture-making, permaculture design, mushroom hunting, etc. etc. etc.) rather than rewrite something that has already been done so well elsewhere.  We'll see.


So, goodnight from Sunday land.


Oh, and here's the update from the dunes and two weeks of class since then:  I cut my foot open, separated some rib cartilage, submerged in the Pacific Ocean, made new friends, ate wild mushrooms, played horseshoes, and learned everything about permaculture I need to know to know that I know very little, mostly recovered in the foot department, then I mostly recovered in the ribs department.  There it is.  Three weeks of school.  That's all.
I am working hard on my Plant Journals, due Tuesday, and will be attending to this blog in the break time on Monday.  The dunes writeup is pretty much done(like it was a week ago).  Subsequent weeks are close.  There will be more, and I have been railing against this medium in favor of more experience (and private decompression) time as of late.  Things are about to even out again.  We have all been talking about how since the Dunes trip we've felt crazy and perpetually active and scattered.  There is ALWAYS something to be doing here, and the persistent feeling that one could be more productive all the time.  The rains are cooling me down and evening me out, though, and I find that encouraging.
ps
I rode my bike into Sultan yesterday.  Thanks, Joe Mason.  Your bike works great.


happy monday, everybody.