Excerpt from, Infinite Possibilities, by Mike Dooley called "Somewhere in Paradise Right Now":
It's easy to take ourselves an our incredible world for granted. So begin by noticing the magic everywhere, in your own back yard and splashed around the world. Right now, at this very second, no matter what time of day it is, somewhere in the world thundering waves are crashing at sunrise on the sparkling white sands of a tropical beach. You can almost hear them if you try. And at this very moment, there are dolphins leaping into the air, beavers building dams, and eagles soaring just beneath the sun. Somewhere right now, there's lava running down a mountainside, a new island is rising from the sea, and snow is falling silently on a countryside. Somewhere else right now, two strangers are meeting after an unpredictable yet not so accidental sequence of events, and a wonderful adventure is about to begin for both. Somewhere else, someone is healing from a horrible disease that he was told he could not survive. And right now, very possibly in your own town, someone is realizing that she's finally created enough wealth to never have to worry about money for the rest of her life, while others are laughing hysterically with friends- so hard that it feels like their sides are splitting. And as you read this very sentence, somewhere a newborn baby is filling its lungs for the first time, and the very same love that's beating its tiny little heard is beating yours, sent from a Universe that adores you, that claims you as it's own precious child, and that yearns for your every happiness.
-Mike Dooley-
Reading that, while eating my famous fish, rice and bean burritos, was a great way to start the day. After breakfast, I was time for me to do some field work on the Egg-Mobile. Jim decided in needed a trap door for the chickens to go in and out of so that the pigs don't go in and eat all the grain. He drove over to the trailer with the tractor's bucket loaded with tools, and cords and a gas powered generator.
I got right to work and was finished by around 12. While I was working Asher made some moves for a couple of the chickens so I got my chance to tackle him, I didn't bite him though. Not that I relish the opportunity to tackle dogs, but I like having the experience so that I know if I need to in the future I can discipline other 80 pound puppies! Also while I was working, if I ever dropped a screw, a chicken would steal it off the ground and run off with it! It happened very fast the first time, I was so shocked I didn't even make a move for the screw. But the second and third time I was trying to grab it, and they still got it.
Here is the completed door. It may not look like 3 hours of work but it was. I had to screw in some trim boards, cut out the chicken wire, attach the hinges to the top trim board, and then attach the door to the hinges, and then make a latch for keeping it open, and one for keeping it closed.
I am reminded at times like this that although it is a great accomplishment for me to have completed this, a skilled handy man, or woman, could have whipped that trap door out in under an hour probably. Someone like my dad, Granddad, or Jim, but for me, the majority of the time spent on it, was thinking through things that are second nature to accomplished craftsmen. Another big part of my time is spent correcting my own mistakes. I often feel that if someone ever wanted some information out of a carpenter or a construction worker, and wanted to subject them to psychological torture, they could put them in room of tv's that had a live feed of me slugging my way for 3 hours through a project that would take them no time at all. But I am not discouraged in the slightest, I know that this is just a learning curve and that I am having to make up for lost time that I never really had the opportunity to do this stuff during my school years. I know that I can be an accomplished handy man someday, but for now, I am learning all of the little tricks of the trade the hard way.
I was going back to my barn, after dropping the tractor off by the hay barn, and I heard some distressed bleating from across the farm. I jogged over to check it out and sure enough, Stellaluna, the little brown goat who likes to climb everything and who also got her neck wrapped up in the old electric fencing, had poked her head through a hole in the barbed wire fencer, and then couldn't get it out. Her horns were effectively functioining as the barbs on a grappling hook and she was stuck real good. I went up to her, more cautious then last time because I didn't want her to freak out and lacerate her neck on the barbed wire surrounding her. So I walked over to the other goats, casually and pretended I was ignoring Stellaluna. Then I slowly backed up to her, and sprung on her, clenching her body between my thy's to immobilize her, somewhat, and grabbing her head so she wouldn't swing it around going berserk and cutting her self. She still went a little berserk and ended up cutting herself just a little, and after maybe a minute of my efforts to immobilize her, she either got tired or realized I wasn't trying to hurt her. It still took me a good 5 minutes to extricate her from the fence because she wasn't letting me get head into the right position to get her horns clear of the wires above her. Finally I got her free and then she, and all the other goats took off!
After a good lunch break where I had my turkey sandwich on some of the french bakers bread that Tina scored me yesterday I was off to the garden to learn some good lessons. The first thing I learned was from Tina, and she taught me the difference between straw and hay, I had never realized that they were two separate things, but they are! The reason I was working with straw for the first time was because I was mulching the beds Jim has been building over the last couple of days. That task taught me my second lesson. When mulching the beds, my first few minutes I felt that there were plenty of other farm things I would rather be doing, like driving the tractor, or building something, or even fighting Hershey, but here I was spreading out straw. But then I realized that I was going to have to do this task whether I was particularly gung-ho about it or not. So I decided to get gung-ho!! I starting thinking about it, and trying to find ways to enjoy it and what ended up working for me was to put what I was doing into a larger picture. I wasn't just sprinkling straw over dirt. I was helping to nurture and care for the little baby plants that were going to be brave and try growing under the hot Arizona sun and that any bit of help I could give them in their early stages would help a a lot. Not only was I helping the plants out, but I was protecting Jim and Tina's livelihood, this is there sole source of income is these little underground germinating seeds, and that anything I could do for these plants was going to help Jim and Tina feed themselves, there kids and the community. It would be selfish of me to not give my all to this task and help these plants by giving the soil they are growing in more water retention and eventually more nutrients once the straw broke down. It would be selfish if I thought, well shoot, this isn't as cool as ripping around the farm on the tractor, I'm just going to quickly dash through this task so I can get on to something else. Once I was in that mindset, not only was the spreading of straw easy and quick, but I felt really good about the work I had done.
The next lesson I learned was from Jim. I asked him what causes thunder, because I had always wondered about it and either forgotten it if I ever learned it, or just never learned. He said something along the lines of when the lightening strikes it leaves a void or a vacuum where the bolt was because it so hot that it essentially vaporizes any molecules in it's path, and then when the bolt strike is over, the surrounding air slams back together and causes that loud bang. I'm not sure if that's entirely accurate, but it was a good enough answer for me! Perhaps, though, one of my readers has some more knowledge on the subject and knows what I just said to be false, if so, please tell me!
I asked Jim a couple other questions like what causes lightening and what wind is, although I actually did have some prior knowledge of wind being the movement of air from high to low pressure, but he was able to open that concept up a lot more for me. I asked him how he knows so much because rarely do I ask him something and he says I don't know. I did stump him though with a question about the waxing phases of the moon. He said that he just gets all his information as he goes, and that he has a really good memory. He never finished high school and didn't go to college, but he is one of the most knowledgeable people I know.
All that talk about Thunder and Lightening and science got me to thinking, when I was harvesting the round zucchinis. I started thinking about if Jim hadn't told me the answer, and if in fact we didn't have science or any of the knowledge about the natural world. I realized that Deifying nature the way most indigenous cultures did, was in a sense, the logical thing to do. They had no weather balloons or ways of gathering meticulous data, and the classifications that we break down all living organism's into now a days, is something that we invented. They had there own order to the natural world, and their own way of thinking about it. And I stood there and looked up at a massive storm cloud flickering with lightening every 10 seconds it was easy to see myself creating a godlike persona for that element of nature. We called it crazy once upon a time, and thought it was sacrilegious and paganism. Yet it was we humans who invented religion for there to be any "sac-ing" of. :) get it? Sacrilegious? In all seriousness though, on the scientific side of things I think it is quite hypocritical of us to call indigenous folks crazy for inventing different gods, when we were inventing the names of species and seperating them into Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Specie, that we made up!! Who say's that's the appropriate way to look at nature and deifying magnificent thunder clouds and sunsets is the bogus way of looking at nature. Ultimately I guess this is all just me realizing what it was about Biology in school that torqued me the wrong way. I just didn't like how in modern science we classify and analyze everything to the most minute detail. And how a common convention among scientists who, "discover" new species are allowed to name it whatever they want (most name it after themselves). Then again, there are somethings that fascinate me about nature that I'm glad science explains, like what causes thunder for example. I guess, as with most things in life it's about balance.
The final lesson I learned in the garden today was from the Yard-Long bean plants, although it was really more of a re-affirmation of a concept already known to me, but still worth re-visiting. As I was combing up and down the row of beans, looking for a long stringing green bean, a midst a tangle of long and green stringy plant stalks, I started realizing that the more times I shifted my perspective, whether it was looking higher or lower, from one side or the other, the more beans I found and I one case, I was looking deep in the heart of the row and it wasn't until I pulled back to move on that I spotted about 5 beans right at my feet that I had missed because my perspective was too close. The lesson that this, solidified in my mind was that a fresh perspective never hurts, and that sometimes when you are searching for something and can't seem to find it, maybe you are too close to the situation and need to step back a little.
That is one of my favorite parts about being here on the farm is that I learn tons everyday and sometimes it's in the form of me picking Jim's expansive brain, and sometimes inspiration hit's me like a lightening bolt, and some times it's just me, going through my daily chores like harvesting beans or corralling the goats, but I am always learning something and feel more and more enlightened with each passing day!
I have yet to make, or rather, re-heat dinner, and it's already 7:30, I'll be signing off now! Goodnight everybody, or good morning depending on when you read this!
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