From Seed Back To Earth
Or so the story goes

I am practically holding my breath. This whole dying thing is much quieter, more private, and full of anticipation than I really knew. I suppose it must be tenfold worse when it's a person and not just a cat. Yet, I have to say, I really don't know if the death part is all that different. Sure, you will miss some people more acutely than you would a loved cat, but, the dying isn't really different. I find myself wondering about my own death. I can't tell you how many times I plotted and planned for it when I was much younger. Now that I don't really want it, it has a different taste in my thoughts.

Will it be quick? Will it take ages? Will I have to watch my loved ones watching me endlessly for the last breath? Will I be able to crawl away to die alone? I used to think that the worst must be to die alone. I don't think that any more. I can see that my cat doesn't want us to bother him too much. He has periodically dragged himself out to lay inert near us, and then stumbled back to the privacy of dark corners. Right now he is in the office which is where he will die unless I physically move him. He is not dead yet, though his breathing is slow and shallow and he can no longer hold himself up at all.

I told myself that if he was still alive today I would call the vet to make the appointment to put him to sleep. But part of me feels that it would be cowardly of me to do that. He seems quite at peace, just breathing. That's all he's doing and it almost seems like he's meditating. He's in the ultimate essence of self as he's preparing to die, because that's all he is now, a being, breathing. He doesn't even look like he's waiting.

If I die slowly without pain I will tell Philip not to call the vet for me. I will crawl into the closet where I will cease to worry about corporeal concerns and just breath. (And pee on the towels, probably.) A simple beautiful part of life. It's the first thing we do when we exit the womb and it's the last thing we do before we leave. Breathing is the essence of being. I understand why it's so important to our connection with the universe.

I'm lucky to live in Oregon where I can, under certain circumstances, be assisted in putting myself out of misery when I get to the end of my life. It makes me feel comfortable knowing that I have the option.

I don't think Ozark is much aware of us now. To move him would be to interrupt his privacy. His last quiet moments here on earth. There is no way of knowing how he feels, what his kitty brain registers but I'd be willing to bet it isn't full of regret or sorrow or other things us humans indulge in.

Life and death really are the great equalizers, aren't they? We all unfold limb by limb (if we've got them) until we reach some kind of apex in life, and then we all begin to gradually fold back inwards. Some more quickly than others. Like the life of a flower. Donald Trump will one day be exactly as a blowzy flower about to drop all it's petals and his wealth will be meaningless. Unlike Ozark he may feel regret. We all borrow bodies, whether they belong to ants, to melons, to humans, or to birds, and then we shed them.

What I find humbling is the extreme selfishness of those who are being left behind by another being. We have all these expectations and demands, we feel we have all kinds of rights when it comes to us and our loved ones. We feel outrage when anything we love dies. We are hurt. We are lonely. We miss who and what we miss. We have longing. We have needs. We want death to work out a certain way so that us, (the ones not dying), can get through it as easily as possible.

I find myself impatient of this whole dying process. Why is Ozark hanging on so long? What is he doing? I'm going to have a ton of cat piss to clean. I want to start cleaning now but aside from the great inertia I've been experiencing lately I know I won't do it until Ozark is finished. I wonder if I should go dig a grave now? Or later? Will he die at a convenient moment for us to dig a big hole and bury him? What if I have to have his dead body hang around for a day? Will I really ever be able to go through this again? Maybe we shouldn't ever get more pets. It's going to be even worse with Chick because she's so much bigger. Oh god, what if I have to watch Philip and Max go through this? What if I'm the last one standing?

I guess if that happened I would have no problem dying alone.

Then I listen to myself.

And I wonder what my rush is. What's my discomfort? Is it that I'm worried that Ozark is in pain or that I am in pain? Every time he tries to stand up I feel like I would like to die in his place if only he would not make me see how he can't walk, how helpless he is becoming as his body is shutting down. Maybe it scares me because I wonder if that's going to be me one day, trying to get my bladder to a toilet and falling down like a drunken sailor instead. I suddenly think that maybe I was wrong in thinking that the worst way to die is in an accident or by being murdered. Would that be better than to slowly shut down while everyone around you just holds their breath and waits?

Why should I be in a hurry to get this over with? Death is just another one of those facts of life that humans have become increasingly detached from. People used to die at home because there was nowhere else to die. Their families would have to dig the grave, prepare the burial clothes, and then prepare the body itself. All of which I'm going to do for my cat.

When he gets around to dying.

So I was asking myself what my real discomfort is and I suppose the answer is that it pains me to see an animal I have known for over thirteen years, and loved unreasonably, become incapacitated. I am powerless to help him.

Then I look at him just turning inward and I recognize this as a universal process. This is, what is. There are a million ways to die and I think that this is one of the most peaceful ones.

I really don't like this whole dying thing. But I want Max to understand that it's natural and not something to turn his back on. So I'm not turning my back on it either.

It's weird though, I have had the urge to take a couple of last pictures of him but I cannot let myself do it because it's already too late. It would be like photographing someone while they were on the toilet, or while they were vomiting, or crying. I just know it's not right. It's a line I can't cross. So I have gotten the last pictures of my kitty. I am trying not to constantly bother him. I am trying to be mature and let him pass in peace. I'm trying really hard not to gather him up in my arms for a last snuggle. I know he doesn't want me to do that. I know that all of that is just for me at this point. A selfish desire of the living.

I want to write about other things. I'm ready to make pasta and take pictures of it (I got my camera back). I'm ready to talk gardening. I'm ready for all kinds of levity and offense, but I can't seem to move on from this topic until Ozark does.

All for a cat. Who started as a tiny seed. Just as I did.

I want to know what other people think about death, about the process, about your own hopes? I want to know what makes you most uncomfortable about seeing a pet or another family member die? Do you feel only blinding sorrow or have you found a philosophical view of it as well? What comforts you the most when you have lost a loved one? Do you fear it? For yourself? For others?

It shapes us all. I'm looking at it now. I think that life without death is like a run on sentence and eventually the eye wants a period. The mind wants a period. It offers rest to everyone.

Jane Austen Didn't Smoke

I rented the movie "Mansfield Park" this week. Not the one that was done in the seventies, but the more recent one featuring Jonny Lee Miller as the parson-bound hero. Yeah, more on that later. First though, I just want to make a complaint against all modern film makers of historical stories in which they feature the cigarette as a symbol of women's liberation. I'm not saying there is no chance in hell any woman smoked a cigarette before the 1920's, because it would take some exhaustive research to prove that, and I may find that buried under a thousand tomes in which women in history never touched tobacco, is the one story, the one biography in which a woman in the early 1800's indulged in smoking.

But here's the deal: smoking tobacco was not a widespread indulgence in the early 1800's for anyone. Snuff was regularly indulged in and perhaps sometimes even by racy women (though this is debatable) , but you would have been mighty hard pressed to find cigarettes anywhere at that time. Now, assuming you could find it, you wouldn't, as a "modern" 1800's liberated woman even think of smoking a cigarette to show your freedom from convention. Smoking as a symbol of your free spirit and staunch independence did not find it's place amongst women until the 1920's.

In "Mansfield Park" the character Maria Crawford is supposed to be a liberated, somewhat wild, "free spirited" woman of questionable moral center but solid social standing. Uh huh. So in this version of the film she is shown playing pool and smoking a cigarette. I've seen this slipped into some other modern versions of historical stories. It's supposed to help us relate our modern sensibility to a much more complicated and archaic sensibility that I guess the directors don't think modern people are capable of understanding without these little suggestive devices.

I really hate it when film makers try to jazz up perfectly perfect classic stories with their modern humor. As in the miserable Gwyneth Paltrow version of Emma in which the quiet humor Jane Austen wrote into the original story was dumbed down in an effort to make it funny to modern audiences.

The whole beauty of period pieces, for me, lies in how unlike modern times the stories are. The enchantment is to be taken to a time when women didn't wear g-strings to the beach. I don't want to see a period film in which all the characters are exactly like modern people. Society and it's expectations have changed dramatically, what value is there in a period film if all it does is dress modern people in antiquated styles of clothing? All the fun is gone out of period films for me when directors don't understand the material they are working with, or understand it but don't think it's good enough for us liberated people of the twenty first century.

So, when I see women smoking in period films set in the 1800's, I get really annoyed. Such a lazy cheap device.

About Jonny Lee Miller... I thought his version of this character was a little milkier than necessary, yet he was good. Unfortunately I had a very difficult time keeping Angelina Jolie's face out of my brain every time he came on screen. As in: what kind of man marries Angelina Jolie?

In other news, my cat has crawled away and I can't find him. It didn't occur to me to lock his kitty door to keep him inside but I'm afraid he may have exited stage left for his final and private scene and while I would be relieved if he has finally let go of his poor poor body (he hasn't eaten in four days, yet as late as 5:45 am he was tottering around the hallway, mostly still alive) I don't want to have to search for his body in the yard, because, what if we don't find it until the dog does?.

We've been spending lots of time snuggling up to his bony little body and telling him how much we love him and last night we all sat in the bedroom watching Scooby Doo (I suffer!!) and it was such a nice family moment. Ozark on the bed with us all. I had hoped that Ozark would die while in our arms or in our little circle of warmth because I didn't want him to die alone. But perhaps most dying beings do prefer to die alone. Is it, after all, the most private moment in our lives?

Oh, back to blithering about idiotic things... can anyone actually imagine Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt still together as old people? I can't. I can't even imagine them being old separately. Will Angelina still be adding to her zoo of children when she's seventy?

The sky could not be more blue out there this morning nor the air more frigid. It's a gorgeous winter day. I think winter is the best time to be born and the best time to die. What to do on such a day? I have a feeling that it will, at least in part, be spent digging a grave. I have all these random things floating around in my head waiting for a chance to air and all I can talk about is grave digging and crawling away to die. Typical Angelina. My blog sure has been a dark place to come lately. Where's the levity gone to? I wonder what other dark events await me?

The queer thing is that even though my blog still wears it's serious colors, I feel so much lighter inside. (Except for the agony of watching my tabby die). I mean, I do feel that something has opened up in my life and let the doves out. I feel as though a new beginning has finally unfolded itself in the light of day and is no longer a tight bud of unknown possibilities waiting for spring under the dark cover of winter. I feel like the blade of a daffodil breaking through cold hard ground in midwinter. Carrying with me all the potential for bright yellow scented hope.

I can't tell anymore if my lack of desire for travel is because the idea of traveling with my child makes me so anxious and exhausted I almost want to crawl right back to bed, or if it's because it feels like all the adventure I could want is right here, under my nose. Is it anxiety or contentment? There is an expectation amongst my peers (it feels like) that any person of real character and culture desires the chance to travel far and wide. I've been to Israel, Paris, New York, (plus many other states), and Scotland.

Time to go get dressed and look for my cat.

Update: I found the cat in my bathroom cupboard- STILL ALIVE. I believe he has hunkered down there to die unseen. So I will not disturb him there but will lock the kitty door in case he gets another weird burst of life. He can barely walk but clearly he is reluctant to let go of life. This is getting a little tortuous for me. But I have promised myself that unless he appears to be in pain I will not call the vet. The vet is unlikely to be available today anyway. I'm trying not to let myself be a coward about this. I do not like death at all.

The Expected Guest

How does one go about watching another being die? Are we supposed to wear a certain face? A speakingly sad posture? Is there an acceptable voice modulation specific to using around those who are not long for the world? How do you talk to them? What do you say? Do we walk through rooms in whispers? Do we allow any light to crack through the grim shadows growing long?

I knew my cat was dying before we did these last tests, just to be sure. So when I found out today that my cat is definitely dying, I wasn’t surprised, but I was surprisingly sad. I say surprisingly because I’ve been preparing myself for this news for two weeks now. Honestly? Longer than that. I don’t know if it was obvious from Ozark’s growing body hollows or from his face, but I saw it coming. It’s not really a mystery I think. He’s been changing pretty seriously over the course of the last six months.

Is death any different for animals than it is for humans? I don’t really think it is. I think that when it comes to death we’re all pretty much on the same plane. Or, we would be, if humans didn’t constantly muck every simple process up and make it into something we can’t talk about, can’t face, can’t approach, or even admit to.

I will admit, without qualms, that if my child’s kidney was failing I would absolutely put him on an organ donor list whereas I will not do that for my cat. However, it is more natural to just let go when the body shuts down than to desperately stay the moment of truth indefinitely. Even for humans. I understand why we do it. I do. But I will tell you that if I get cancer I will try to treat it within reason, but I don’t intend to live the rest of my life doing chemo and just hanging on to hang on.

There are so many different ways to approach death. I know that for most people it’s important to fight for your life no matter what that really means. And if anyone suggests they don’t want to fight any more? Others jump into action full of fear, indignation, desperation, as though death was something unnatural. Often it is avoided temporarily at immense cost to everyone involved, and most of all to the being who is closest to the “other side”.

If I say I know for sure that I wouldn’t want a transplant for my heart if it was failing I’m willing to bet that anyone within earshot would vehemently deny that I could know what I would do once in that situation or that I would definitely decide to try for a transplant. Maybe, but I looked death in the eye when I was fifteen and it wasn’t a fear of death that kept me from killing myself. Fear had nothing to do with it at all. I wasn’t afraid to kill myself. I first didn’t do it for the sake of a friend. And later I didn’t do it because I realized that I was only seventeen and I might be able to build a good life on the one flicker of hope I had left. But if my heart was dying? My loved ones might want me to do anything to save myself, but I think I’d like to recognize when my natural time has come, and face it with grace.

I haven’t been so good with the grace lately, but hopefully my own time is far enough away that I will have time to develop more elegance of the heart.

You can’t ask a cat what he wants in his last bit of time on earth. He can’t tell you how he’s feeling, if he’s in pain, if he would like you to stop injecting him with huge quantities of water that pool around his legs before being absorbed into his body. You can’t ask if he’s too warm or too cold or just wants you to sit with him all day. You can’t ask if he would like you to just let go or try giving him the rest of the antibiotic even though the answer is still death, and soon.

People don’t like talking about death.

At the vet’s office I was handing Ozark over to get his blood taken and I started to say “Don’t worry, you’ll be alright” but stopped myself and said to the vet and his assistant “I can’t actually tell him that, can I? Because he’s not OK.” And turning to my sick cat, said instead “Well, Ozark, we’re just trying to find out how we can make you feel better.” It doesn’t seem right to lie to an animal. Even though they can’t know our language well. I don’t think animals would lie to us.

What I’m hoping is that he’ll die quietly on his own, and soon. I don’t really want to have to choose to put him to sleep. Although I kind of think that I might like someone to do that for me when life has definitely already closed it’s doors on me and I’m just waiting for my body to let go.

He hasn’t eaten since yesterday. He didn’t want food this morning and didn’t want any this afternoon. I think he’s letting go.

I think people need to talk about death more. People need to accept the inevitability of it. No one has a right to something that is a gift. All this talk of “Right To Life” bothers me sometimes just for the inherent arrogance that that implies. Life is a gift with a use-by date. We get life on condition that we will at some point die and make room for others to have their turn. Some of us have shorter turns than others.

I wish I could know what Ozark would most like right now. I’m just uncomfortable with death waiting in the house. A thankfully rare guest at our table. I’m uncomfortable because no one’s ever told me how to approach it. No one’s ever told me how to care for the dying. How to behave or prepare for it. We don’t talk about these things in our culture so that all of us are caught unprepared.

So I will watch. I will tell Ozark the truth. And we will give him love. And hopefully we will know when the moment has arrived to make decisions and be able to make those decisions with courage.

The Story Of Our Dangerous Pet

One night in 1994 I had a dream in which I found a kitten and in the dream I knew his name was Ozark and in this dream I also knew that this was supposed to happen in real life. I woke up and told Philip that it was time for us to get a cat. The cat had to be orange and we had to name him Ozark. This is when Philip truly got that he had married a mad woman, but because he is always in need of more sleep he said "sure" and rolled over and drifted off into his own cat-less sleep.

Interestingly enough very shortly after this dream I had, a friend called up to invite Philip and I to come look at a large gathering of semi-wild kittens which were the shameful result of her boyfriend's mother's habit of feeding feral cats in her back yard but not getting them fixed. My friend tried to reason with her boyfriend's mother about how she either needed to stop feeding all the strays in town or she needed to take proper responsibility for them. She was feeding approximately 15 feral cats. Many of them were females having kittens.

I told her I would only come up if she could confirm whether there was an orange kitten in the lot of them because I was determined that the cat must be orange and we didn't want to drive two hours for anything less.

She got back to me to say that there was at least one orange kitten there. So we went. We met Ozark. Ozark was the member of a three kitty litter who we realized (over the course of several hours of observation) was abandoned by their mother. No mama cat nursed them or came to see how they were doing. This litter was distinguishable by the fact that they were the only three kittens with orange on them. There were thousands (OK, maybe twenty) frisky semi-healthy looking black kittens and it must be said that our good sense told us to pick a healthy kitten.

But we saw Ozark by himself trying to get at some water. We saw him not get a scrap of food when the gravy train arrived. He was the smallest and sickest kitty there. It's true that I'm a sucker. I couldn't leave him there. He was tiny and had no mama and didn't seem healthy.

So we took his mewling self home with us and we promptly fell in love. We immediately took him to the vet where they ripped us a new one for removing a 5 1/2 week old kitten from his mother. Which made us angry because we would never have taken such a tiny kitty from it's mother before it was ready but we were sure that this kitten would have died if we left him. The vet told us that Ozark was very sick and too young to be weaned and had a 50% chance of surviving the parasite in his stomach, the upper respiratory infection in his lungs, and the infestation of fleas. Which confirmed our gut feeling in the first place.

Ozark is the feistiest scrappenist kitty that ever lived. Although he loved us and would snuggle with us and fall asleep on us and all good kitteny things, he was not particularly affectionate with anyone else. In fact, he quickly got a reputation for being a cranky cantankerous and combative cat.

He is famous for inviting strangers to touch his unbelievably soft belly and then attacking them when they made contact with his fur. When introducing people to Ozark we would always provide ample warning, which many people immediately ignored. It goes something like this: "This is Ozark. He looks cute, he'll sidle up to you, he'll invite you to pet him, but don't fall for it because he will almost certainly scratch you." Or "This is Ozark and he wants to kill you because he finds all humans annoying." Or "Watch out, the orange guy is dangerous." And most importantly "Never ever pick this cat up."

For some reason people often interpreted our warnings to really mean "While Ozark will harm most people- you are clearly special and this warning is not meant for you." Or "Please, pet the cat!" And best of all "Pick the cat up because he only scratches the eyes of people who aren't YOU."

It's amazing we've never been sued. We have a special knack for having pets and kids who come with warnings. We don't care. We've always loved our special needs cat.

In spite of his vicious reputation (his vet files are stamped with the giant red letters: "W A R N I N G", he managed to deal with the "thing" pretty well. Once he finished having a midlife crisis over it.

Ozark with "the thing" that changed his life. This is back when I had a pretty tidy house and even had houseplants. Ozark let us know that "the thing" was barely tolerable to him. We expected Max to be mauled by the cat and were expecting neighbors to report us to social services for keeping a dangerous animal near our kid. Shockingly, Ozark has rarely scratched Max. He has endured a lot of indignity at Max's hands that he would never have taken from anyone else.

Ozark was neutered when he was four months old. We hoped that this would help him to mellow out. Which, obviously it didn't. Ozark not only fought with people, he also fought all the time with cats twice his size. He's spent many an evening at the pet urgent care getting wrapped up or examined for puncture wounds. We really didn't think he'd live to be seven years old.

The scrapping is why he has FIV. Vaccinations for FIV are relatively new and he had already been a fighting trouble maker for many years. We didn't realize they were giving vaccines for FIV until we found out he already had it. It is lucky for him that he has not been fighting in the past two years or we would have had no choice but to euthanize him for the safety of the neighbor cats because it is impossible to keep him inside. He's mellowed quite a bit in the past two years. He still comes with warnings though. Because this is a cat who will take on raccoons.

We take him to the vet today. Maybe we'll come home with a miracle in our pocket. Maybe this decline he's in right now is something fixable. I'm not holding my breath. It's weird though that Max and Ozark have become so close in the past two years since we moved here. Ozark sleeps with Max every night. Max is very gentle with him and doesn't try to sit on him like he does with the dog. Max loves that Ozark doesn't eat his toys. Although Max is a pretty fastidious person in some ways and one way is that he really hates that Ozark frequently vomits in his room. Yet if Ozark wakes up and leaves Max's room (which means we have to let him out, he wakes us up by banging on the door) Max will wake up and not go back to sleep.

Even with a miracle in our pocket we know that Ozark's time here is limited. Such is the nature of FIV. So I thought I would say here, before he's gone, how much we love him. I've been sitting with him and petting his bony back and putting my ear to his side like I've done since he was five and a half weeks old to listen to his enormous purr. I've never met a cat with a louder purr than Ozark's.

Although Ozark has been quite a bastard and has made me want to strangle him, I can honestly say that I think he's one of the best cats ever. Whether we get to keep him for a few more moths or only for a few weeks, or mere days, we will forgive the peeing and the attacks on the dog and love him til it's time for him to go.

Update: Back from the vet now. He either has a kidney infection or kidney disease. If it's an infection there's a chance he can live quite a bit longer if he responds well to antibiotics (FIV can make it hard to treat infections) and if it's kidney disease then he will slowly die and we will give him fluid injections and potassium pills for however long he lives to help him feel his best. The vet says that kidney disease isn't painful (someone here was just telling me that.). We will find out on Monday or Tuesday when they get the lab results. Fingers crossed!

Life In The Fast Lane
Master Gardening and Dying Kitties
(never a dull moment)

Ozark The Emperor

Ozark is 13.5 years old and is dying of FIV which, if you didn't already know it, is kitty AIDS. Ozark is hanging on like a general because that's the kind of guy he is. We've been talking to Max about him dying because the signs that the end is nigh are pretty clear.

He has become very gaunt, especially near his tail where his back bone is so visible that you can count his tiny vertebrae, he has started peeing on any heap of comfy clothes he sees lying on the floor. He has never been a cat who's had "accidents" inside. This cat prefers to do his business outdoors and once held his bladder for two whole days while we made him stay to protect a bandage on his foot- he refused to use his litter box. Incontinence is one of those signs that a kitty's body is breaking down. He's hardly eating anything, and only very soft food. He's still drinking water but not much.

He walks very slowly and holds himself in a defensive huddle. He has started looking unsteady when he's standing up, as though he might topple. I was afraid to check on him in Max's room when I came home from class yesterday because I am sure that at any minute now I'm going to find him dead. I don't want to have to hold his dead body and say goodbye to him. At the very same time, I fear that he is in pain and wonder if I shouldn't take him to the vet and see if they think he's in pain and if he is, perhaps euthanizing him would be merciful. Poor little guy.

Master Gardening Class

I have certainly learned my lesson about writing about local people and events and how even though 99% of the people in my town don't read my blog, the day I describe them on my blog and use pithy observations or use any kind of criticism, they will find their way to it and I will eventually get myself lynched. So. Carefully onward...

Although I expected a largish proportion of older classmates (retirement is a great time to really dig into the garden), at 38 years old I didn't expect to be the second youngest person there. The class was filled with kind, enthusiastic, and eager septuagenarian students. I admit I felt a little out of place (how surprised is anyone to hear that?). Happily there were only a couple people who looked as though they needed an expression readjustment due to perpetually soured features (who knows, could be a medical condition?).

It will be clear to anyone who visits Dustpan Alley regularly that my plant interests are intensely focused on edible and flowering plants. I'm not a huge fan of ornamental shrubs, nor am I particularly dying to be able to name every conifer variety that is native to Oregon. I admire the native plant society's efforts to preserve the native plant variety in my state. Variety everywhere is a matter in need of great attention. However, I can tell right now that the Directrice of the program would like me to get very excited about Pieris Japonica which she loves (as does every gardener in Mac) and would be shocked to find out with what venom and viciousness I ripped it out of my front yard. I particularly hate Pieris.

I have only a 10,000 square foot city lot. I must be ruthless about what is growing on it if I am to be a productive urban homesteader. I need edible plants, plants that are multi purpose (like roses that feed the beneficial insects, provide joy in my home as cut flowers, and make medicinal rose hips). Every garden must have things in it that particularly please the insects and birds, because without them, well, us humans will die off.* Yet, there are many things besides Pieris that please both the birds, the bees, and me.

Speaking of my lot size... I have to admit that it gave me great big pangs of unattractive envy that fully 50% of the students have acreage and are there to learn to tame their property. Every other person who stood up to introduce themselves said something like this "Hi, I'm Janet Shrewsbury, my husband and I just bought our dream property of seven acres..." or "Hi, I'm Roddy, I have an acre and a half in Sheridan and I just want to learn what to plant in it..." or "Neiner neiner! I have five acres and my dream farm house and you don't!! You only have a city lot and a stupid boring ranch house!" Oh the pain of it.

I felt exactly like a person who has just quit smoking and is totally at peace with not lighting up ever again but finds themselves suddenly at a party where almost everyone is smoking and the temptation is surrounding you. I have come to a place of peace with the fact that I really do have all I need. Seriously, I have yet to reach the potential of the square feet of dirt at my personal disposal and even if I had, if I need to grow more than I can grow here on my lot, there is a community garden here in town that I plan to support, there are obviously plenty of people with property they barely know what to do with and might be willing to let me farm small parts of it for part of the crop.

Anyway, because I have a limited amount of space, I am not going to dedicate much of it to native specimen plants. I fear that my Directrice and I do not have the same Utopian dream. She assures me that that's what's "wonderful" about master gardeners; that they have all different passions. I hope she means that.

So a part of me is chomping at the bit to get to the part where we learn about pruning fruit trees and growing food, but I have to admit that I am truly a plant geek and I found myself getting rather keenly interested in our discussion of slime molds and the difference between gymnosperm and angiosperm plants. The plant world is full of incredible symbiotic relationships, wild habits, and weird fruiting bodies.

Back to the property issue- I think perhaps it's good that I am not in a position to own a piece of acreage, nor am I likely to before I am myself a septuagenarian, because so many other people out there are in the same boat as I am and would like to know how they can grow more of their own food and take part in rural kinds of activities on their limited space. We can't all have farms or our own meadows to run across in dirndls while strumming "The Sound Of Music" on acoustic guitars. Lots of us would like to figure out how to make a small space yield the maximum amount of food and healthy miniature eco-systems. I'm by no means the only person doing this, but we need a lot more people doing it, talking about how they're doing it, and showing others how to have the wholesomeness of farm life on a city lot.

I keep trying to compile lists of blogs out there that are doing the urban homesteading thing without acreage and my list is still somewhat small so if anyone has links out there to share, please do, baring in mind that I don't add blogs to my list that post infrequently. Here is my list so far (remember, these are people who are living on city lots):

The Tardy Homemaker
These Days In French Life**
Her Able Hands
Wordy Diva
The Apartment Farm
Spadework: From Plot To Plate
Bliss
Homegrown Revolution
City Farm***






*Not as dire a pronouncement as you might imagine.
**I'm not actually sure whether Riana has acreage of her own or not, she does have access to acreage. But either way, I include her because she does things on a scale that anyone can relate to even if they don't have more than a city lot.
***Riana's sister's blog.