On this morning I have a steaming cup of caramel toffee joe in a muh painted with fruit and vines. The sky is at pre-dawn, with the light burgeoning but bot yet in the sky. The air is wet from yesterdays rain, and the air smells like damp stone and green things, while a small murder of crows that has come to the area lately sit upon the lamppost to send their call. One cat sleeps on the blanket I crocheted, where my feet would be were I still with her.
Yesterday I cleaned my Altar well, moving some of the elements into different paths, then cleared the blankets of leaves from the front garden plants' beds, to let them know that the time for sleep was soon over. The worms that I grew and seeded there before have done well and small earthworm babies abound. A TitMouse ( small mouse, larger than field mouse, smaller than common mouse, fawn on top, cream under) has died by the pot of lemon balm, well, one of the many pots, so I buried her among soil and leaves. She had no injury, perhaps she froze?
My Sister Fallon had surgery but the growth on her throat was benign and the operation was a grand success, and I teased her for the morphine they gave her that made one of the least confused beings I know be confused. Her comment was that she'd smack me later when she wasn't drugged to her eyeballs. :)
The black Sevenknob candle I ordered was not what I expected, but it can still be used, once it is cleansed. Instead of black, it is a white candle that has been simply DIPPED in a coat of black sealing wax. I so rather cast my old candles...if I could find a knob mold, that is.
I ran into an old Pagan friend last week who seems to be doing well in a mainstream job, and I am very glad. His supervisor, a Christian, knows he is a Satanist-Pagan, but she also knows him as a kind and helpful guy who escorted her safely to her car once at a Wal Mart where she was being harrassed by some punks.
I have been running into more Pagans of all different "flavors" lately, at the market, old friends, at the garden store and even at a gas station. It's good to see, yet we must still be cautious in many ways. They still burn us, they just have more imagination and burn us in other ways.
2 Toms have been battling on my roof lately. It sounds like a stampede as they chase each other back and forth, usually in circles across the roof. One of them fell from the roof, but was lucky to have landed in the grass out front rather than on the rocks in back, or on the trees. They are Molester Cats. My ladies are both fixed, unable to add to the burden of unwanted kittens, but these two toms still try to rape my poor ladies. Both were given to me, one was rescued as a baby from a ditch in a storm, her fur caught on a bush and drowning. The other was from her second home, who didn't want her because when she is unhappy with a person, she pees and poos on their stuff. Her first owner was an old woman who spoiled her but died. She had her front claws removed then. Her second owner had no patience when she go angry and peed on everything, so now I have her, and she is her own cat. I have found she loves tuna, but cannot eat it. She has a tendency to get urinary tract infections and tuna does that to her. So she gets cranberry pills ground in one of my pestels added to her food, which seems to help. She loves cream or milk, but cannot have too much of it or she gets that bladder thing and sits for a long time in the box for a few drops. She either is getting a cold, or is starting to take up snoring as a hobby, so I have already ground fresh new peppermint shoots to rub on her nose and add to her food. Usually she doesn't mind the mint, but when she does, I just put a drop of eucalyptus on her fur under her neck .
The crows are calling again now that the sun is up. I had thought we would have more rain, and a wet and cold winter when the ants raided the lemon balm and peppermint so badly, eating holes everywhere and bringing some of them down to little nubs! But so far, it has been mostly just cold. I used to like the cold and snow, until I froze my feet and butt in Wisconsin, while I was there. No I can't tolerate too much of it. I think my feet were damaged.
I was thinking about my old stallion, and wishing I still had him with me. Oh he was a terrible handful, so studdy, but once he had his burst of energy and started to settle a bit, he was wonderful, at least for me. He never tried to trample me or bite after that first attempt when we met. I'm sorry I had to crack him across the face, but that is what you have to do with a horse, or they can kill you. He never tried to hurt me that way again! And I miss my PooperDog. Very very much. I am in-between jobs and want another dog, since I have the time now to train and teach him or her. I miss my dog. This Oestara I will return his ashes to Mother. He came to me in the Spring, he will go from me in the Spring. His ashes sit among my family photos, so that even there, he will be surrounded by those who know and love him. The cats, they still do not use his doggie beed under the printer table, or touch his Patrick Star pillow. The beds he had in my room and the kitchen are in the back yard on a chair under the patio roof.
The crows are silent. But a blue jay is singing his call.
