Month: June 2013

Burning Bridges

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

Gratitude List:
1.  Fickle weather.  Shall we have a little shower?  Okay.  So a bit of thunder?  Now some sun and a gentle breeze.  Here’s some lightning and a whoosh of  rain.  Mist and drizzle?  Sure.  I loved the variety of weathers this day.
2.  Burning Bridges.  Well, ours at least.  We went to the commemoration of the 150th anniversary of the day Union troops burned the Wrightsville bridge to stop Confederate forces from crossing the Susquehanna.  Tonight they lit fires on the piers of the old bridge, closed off the modern bridge so we could stand on it and watch, and then lit fireworks.  On the way home, Jon asked Ellis–who was wildly fascinated by all the bits of engineering involved in the process–what his favorite part of the evening was.  He said, “There were good jokes.”  He liked the camaraderie with our friends the Freibergs and the odd Civil War historian.  That warms my heart.
3.  The fridge is working again.  Jon is right–being without it was really not big deal.  We have other working fridges in the house for farm things.  But I was getting really tired of  running up and down the basement stairs just to make breakfast, and then to put it all away.
4.  Break time with the farm crew.  Speaking of camaraderie, I love the conversation and community of sitting around the table eating together.
5.  Bed.  I am tired, so tired.

May we walk in beauty.

The Moon, My Otis, and Spinning the Web

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

2013 June 116

Gratitude List:
1. That moon!  I finally did catch a glimpse last night.   Beautiful.
2. Sweet little Otis (for myotis lucifugus, the Latin name for little brown bat), who roosts in the barn.  May he and his kind live long and prosper.
3. The call of the goldfinch: “So Sweee-eeet!”
4. Getting back to spinning again. Follow the twist up the strand. Release.  Let go.  Trust the spiral to catch and hold.  Magic.
5. Billy Collins.

May we walk in beauty.

Longest Day Is Here!

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

Gratitude List:
1.  Sense of Wonder Camp for Girls.  All those girls: wiggly giggly, serious and silly, poised and awkward and graceful all at once, thoughtful and playful and full of light.  The women who put it together, the mothers and mentors who were there to celebrate their girls.  I felt like I could see the silver webs, like a veil of light, that connected us all.
2.  Leaving a place with a sense of dissatisfaction, not because events were dissatisfying,  but because there were so many people there whose words I wanted to feel settling into the shells of my ears, and there was not time for it all.  I drove home surfing a love wave.  “Oh, and then there was her!  I could have talked with her all night.  Oh, and her!  I just love her.  Right, and then her!  What a tender and kind heart.”
3.  A new green T-Shirt with a Rachel Carson Quotation:   “Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts. There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature — the assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after winter.”
4.  Josiah, though still a little warm, is acting like himself again after a couple days of fever.  He refused the Ibuprofen last night and let the fever do its work on its own.
5.  Longest day.  Summer’s here.  Happy Solstice to you!  May the sun warm you all the way to your bones, fill you with life and health and radiance.  Every day the world begins anew.

May we walk in Beauty.

Tomato Sandwich!

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

2011 June 190
This wasn’t today’s sandwich.  I ate that too fast to even think of a photo.  I think that is a Cherokee Purple tomato.

Gratitude List:
1.  The first tomato sandwich!  That crusty, yeasty brown bread and an Iron Lady tomato with sharp cheddar and mayo and salt.  Oh my, oh my, oh my. . .
2.  Was it Andrea who said something at break today about a man who said that when he was a boy he could hear corn growing?  Like a whistling sound, he told her.  I love that so much.
3.  Life force.  That corn up there in #2, and the mung bean sprouts that Ellis grew this week, how they pushed up the lids, and then grew an extra half inch in a hour this morning.
4.  The old, old woman from my dream last night.  Her name is Grafa.  “Sometimes I wake up in the night and fling off the covers,” she tells me.  “I wake up in the middle of the night just to tweak the energy a bit.”  Grafa–writing or drawing?  From Old Norse or Proto-Germanic (according to Wiktionary), means to dig, to bury, to engrave.
5.  The random way that Joss throws words together or sings a word repeatedly while he’s playing, just for the fun of the sounds.  “My teeth are devious!”  “My foot of God.”  “Nairobi, Nairobi, Nairobi!”

May we walk in beauty.

Good Reminders

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

Gratitude List:
1.  Seeing my cousin Melanie again after so many years.  What a caring and tender soul.  I loved listening to her powerful stories of the children in her lunch line, of the ways she nudges them to be their best selves, to take themselves seriously, to exceed expectations, even when people have given up on them.  She doesn’t give up on her kids.
2.  This Mary Oliver quotation that my friend Heidi posted to Facebook today:
“Sometimes I need
only to stand
wherever I am
to be blessed.”
3.  Oh, that oriole.  Orange fire swooping through the blue.  Yesterday I was riding up the hill on the tailgate of the truck, and the oriole flew along behind, keeping pace with us to the top, then swished into the trees.
4.  Fair trade chocolate with sea salt and caramel bits.
5.  Photographs of great-grandparents.

May we walk in Beauty.

A Blessing and Two Gratitude Lists

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / 1 Comment

First, a Blessing for You, if Today Hurts:
I acknowledge that this can be a challenging day.  If a father in your life is lost or absent, inadequate or terrifying, Father’s Day has to be difficult.  If this is part of your story, my wish for you is that you will find surrogate fathers in your life, people (men and women, even yourownself) who fill the gaps you feel, who support and hold and mentor you, who tell you jokes and honor you for who you are.

2011 November 083

Gratitude List for my Father:
1.  . . .who taught me the delight of the Wing-People, how to look for the flashing color of an oriole in the treetops, or the leaf-green flick of a warbler through the wood, how to distinguish the minute differences between hairy and downy woodpecker.  He taught me to listen for their voices.  My aural memory will never be as powerful as his, but he helped me to hone my ear to listen for the sharp whistle of oriole, the whiskery whisper of a blue-gray gnatcatcher, the cluck of a cuckoo.  He keeps the feeders at Goldfinch Farm clean and filled.
2.  . . .who balances heart and head, who values strong thinking and reasoning, scientific thought and processing, but who keeps his heart open to the hearts of others.
3.  . . .who is an example of being flexible and open to new ideas, new people, new learning.  He holds firmly to his ideals, but is not afraid to change his mind.
4.  . . .who treasures his grandchildren.  He thinks about how to honor and bless all their individual differences and gifts.  He teaches them to use their bright thinking minds and their quick, artful hands, to follow their caring hearts.  And always, how to listen for the birds:  “Did you hear that?”
5.  . . .who values his friends.  I’m not sure that our culture has many models for deep and trusting and sharing friendships between men.  I love to observe the intentionality with which my father has carried his friendships, going all the way back to high school, how he continues to build his relationships with others.

2013 June 014
Gratitude List for Jon:
1.  . . .who is a patient and involved father to his children.  Who takes the time in the middle of a busy day to spend ten minutes playing Legos on the floor.
2.  . . .who starts to plot how to make Christmas and birthdays exciting for his children weeks and months in advance.
3.  . . .who respects the bright minds of his children, carefully engaging them in learning–planting and caring for their garden, using tools, building and fixing, drawing and planning.
4.  . . .who makes us all laugh.  Often.  Who loves to see his children laugh.
5.  . . .who enthralls and enchants his children with bedtime stories.

May we walk in Beauty.

And in Memory of Ellis Kreider,
Jon’s kind and gentle father.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

The Busy Season Has Begun

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

Farm season has begun.  I am exhausted, and falling asleep in the recliner in the evenings.  But it’s the best kind of exhausted, the kind that comes from good hard work out in the elements, working with great people, and hanging out with our customers.  It will mean that I will not be posting as regularly, likely only a couple times a week.  I’ll keep working at gratitude, keep formulating poems and ideas.

2013 June 051

Gratitude List:
1.  Harvesting conversations, working our way down a strawberry patch.
2.  Share days.  Those are the days when the shareholders come to pick up their weekly produce.  I love to sit and chat, to talk with people about food and recipes and children and education and spirituality and Reiki and growing older and growing up. . .
3.  Providing beauty and nourishment for people.
4.  Sandra and my parents: I always know that someone is seeing to the needs of my children on these mornings when I am seeing to the needs of the farm.
5.  Jane Peifer, Mim Book, and whoever comes next.  Cycles, giving space for grieving, welcoming the next chapter in the story.

May we walk in Beauty.

Fledging and Farming

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

Gratitude List:
1.  Phoebes are fledging.  I am grateful for the close-up, firsthand connection we get with the natural world.  (I am also stressed out about needing to watch over more young and vulnerable folks in the world.)
2013 June 050
2.  We found where the orioles have their nest.  Just a woven bag of strings and plant fibers hanging out at the very end of a branch.
3.  A wonderful first harvest day.  Again we have a delightful and energetic crew, lots of good energy, and a great community of vegetable-lovers stopping by all afternoon.  The shares were on the small side, but full of delicious goodness.
2013 June 072
4.  We’ve had good rain, but it didn’t rain today.
5.  The way the village raises the children.

May we walk in Beauty.

Bhutan’s Happiness, Poetic Conversations, and Strawberries

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

Gratitude List:
1.  My dear friend Carol told me today that Bhutan calculates the GNP of Happiness.  I thought she was being poetic.  She told me she was serious, and I looked it up.  Bhutan monitors its GNH: Gross National Happiness.  This gives me intense satisfaction.
2.  Here’s the link to my interview with Carla Christopher, York’s Poet Laureate and all-around amazing person.  It was such an incredible honor.  I could have taken up the whole hour just to keep talking with her, thinking out loud about poetry together.  My part is near the beginning, just after Carla’s own amazing poem, but don’t stop there.  There are other really great poets and artists and musicians coming up after.
3.  We are ready.  Tomorrow morning the curtain will rise on season 2013 at Goldfinch Farm CSA, and we are ready to go.
4.  Picking strawberries in the rain.  Really.  It was a blast, and the crew is such fun, and you have to eat the seconds as you go until you get a stomach ache, but you can’t stop eating strawberries because the season is so short, and you have to stock up on strawberry goodness for another whole year.
5.  Finding myself at home in my own heart.

May we walk in Beauty!

Music and Yellow

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / 2 Comments

Gratitude List:
1.  Rising Appalachia.  Great music.  And then the whole train of music that listening to them on Youtube brought me into: MaMuse, Nahko Bear, Estas Tonne, The Agnostic Mountain Gospel Choir.
2.  Singing.  Working out really difficult music in a small group of singers, singing in large groups, four-part harmony, old hymns.
3.  I think the goldfinches at my parents’ house are yellower than anything I have ever seen.  They make the goldfinches of Goldfinch Farm look green by comparison.  They take that shining gold of the sun and they raise it another sparkle.
4.  This quotation:  “Beauty appears when something is completely and absolutely and openly itself.”   ~~Deena Metzger, “Entering the Ghost River”
5.  New ideas.

May we walk in beauty.