As I have written about before, I like to keep busy. I might even say my desire to DO things and go go GO is maybe a little OCD or ADHD or one of those maladies you hear about all the time. Perhaps it is in my DNA, but I like to DO. I’m not really good at just hanging out without a chore.
Part of my DOING nature is all the planting and growing and weeding and harvesting and preserving and then cleaning out the growing area. Then there is organizing what seeds and such are left, cleaning and storing the useful pieces to start growing again in February. The farm provides many avenues of chore and profession. One could literally never have nothing to do here.
Even though there is nothing growing on the farm in the winter, now in early December my mind is busy thinking of the next planting season. I am eagerly awaiting the seed catalogs and fussing over the remaining plants I have set up under grow lights. I am trying in mostly vain to keep fresh herbs growing in the basement along with some baby trees and such.
During the growing season I have several friends who enjoy coming to the farm and taking produce home. One friend in particular who I adore, will take one GIANT zucchini every year and several handfuls of the hot cherry peppers I grow specifically for her. She will take them all the while lamenting about all the WORK I am creating for her. Once her zucchini has been made into whatever she is making and her batch of hot sauce is done, she feels very accomplished. I tried giving her more produce later in the season and she always says NO. TOO MUCH WORK. She did come to help me when I broke my wrist though. She wanted to help pick berries but let me tell you, a berry picker this woman is not. She kept yelling over to me in my patch that she wasn’t very good at this and was so HOT. After an hour I came to see what all the fussing was about and saw about 7 berries in her container. See the blog I did about the tribulations of a professional berry picker. Picking berries is indeed a lot of work and greatly unpleasant work at that.
Another friend messaged me about a whole slew of green peppers she grew and asked what to do with them. We also talked about juicing celery and the comment came up again about all that work. This is from a friend who has 14 horses and a big family and a real job and I thought that maybe people consider the domestic tasks more work than the usual or too much to do after all those other things are done. I wonder.
Years ago, when I co-owned the hardware store with my ex-husband, I was mesmerized by this new paint the True Value paint factory was making. It was magnetic paint. Now, I had seen the chalkboard paint, but this was different. As soon as I heard about it, I thought of all the fun you could have by making walls magnetic. From early learning of the alphabet to creative artistic ways to hang teenager’s posters and more, this seemed like an AMAZING thing to me.
To help promote this paint, we arranged to have a table set up in Heinz Hall during a Sunday matinee performance of Scooby Doo. I considered this an entire audience of thousands of low hanging fruit who would be as wowed as I was and with their kids in tow. How could they NOT want to buy this paint? Boy was I wrong.
EVERY SINGLE PERSON who picked up the gallon of paint immediately put it down, said TOO MUCH WORK and squashed my naïve thoughts that this was going to be a lucrative item to sell. We transported a truck load of that paint to the home show, different schools and barely sold any. The metal in the paint to make it magnetic made each gallon weigh probably 20 pounds or more. People were not interested in lugging around gallons of super heavy paint and doing the work of painting. People usually paint when it is necessary, not just for something cool to do. Hmmmmm….. what a huge disappointment this was for me.
Are people lazy or do they believe they have a finite amount of energy and enthusiasm within them and when they have reached their perceived limit, they just shut off? I wonder.
What is work? Is walking your dog every day work? Someone recently told me when I asked about the family dog and if he is getting walked that dad said he is “too old for that.” I asked who is too old, dad or the dog? I was told dad. WOW. Dad is young and in good health. Is the act of taking the dog out regardless of heat, rain, snow or even great weather too much work? This disturbs me on so many levels.
I’m judging. I know this and honestly on the dog issue, I don’t care. If you have a dog, you have to walk the dog, EVERY DAY and more than once please. You should actually ENJOY the walking too. On the cooking and everything else, to me it comes down to the fact that I truly enjoy the domestic things and I think many people, men or women, just don’t get joy from homemaking. One of my ex-husband’s friends once said that I have always been a bit strange. I guess I am a bit DIFFERENT than many, but so what? My uniqueness has brought me so many amazing experiences. 😊 My response to calling me strange is saying, “I’m receiving what you are saying. I accept your kind gift.” I fly my freak flag all the time and proudly at that. I’ve never been accused of being ordinary or lazy! Strange is just fine!
I like to iron. This one really throws people. I like the hot steam that comes out of the iron, the creases coming out of the fabric as I apply pressure to the tool. As I iron tablecloths and napkins, I remember the meals I have served and start planning the next one. I get true satisfaction from seeing those linens all lined up waiting for their next trip to the dining room table or even the coffee table and couch if we are eating casual, which we often do. I am not a “save the good stuff for special occasions” type of girl. Use the good glasses and gramma’s china now and the good towels and soaps. And yes, create more work for yourself by having to hand wash the china and crystal but try and enjoy that work. When I am cold, nothing warms me up like handwashing dishes. Seriously.
So, after I finish this blog, I am going to make a huge batch of Fire Cider. I ordered little amber bottles yesterday and in about 2 weeks, when the fire cider is good and fermented, I will bottle all this homemade medicine and give them out for Christmas gifts to loved ones along with elderberry wellness syrup, mushroom extracts and who knows what else. I am going to call it Marsha’s COVID-19-Free elixirs or something like that.
Kathy Lee Gifford has a new book out and when she was interviewed on the Today show the other day she said, DO WHAT YOU ENJOY DOING AND FIND A WAY TO GET PAID FOR IT. I am still in the figuring out how to get paid stage, but I am certainly WORKING at all this culinary, farming and creative stuff and spending these winter days (after I hike the dogs) really learning about all the healing powers of herbs. Hopefully by next year at this time I will be a full blown certified Herbologist and will hang out my Good Witch shingle and take on clients. I will start charging for all the free advice I currently give. But in the meantime, help a sister out and buy my book for you or someone you love. The healthy recipes and no nonsense talk about good nutrition are bound to inspire you to do a little bit of new work! I hope so anyway!!! http://My Healing Cookbooklet: Recipes for Restoration and Good Health: Cassel, Marsha: 9781734711905: Amazon.com: Books
I have always been a person who likes to do more than one thing at a time. To me it has always seemed efficient. It never occurred to me that perhaps being constantly active in body and mind might be too much and not really healthy. What I mean is, in my daily life of farm, house, work, animal chores, volunteering, errands etc., my mind and body are constantly active on what I am doing and what I need to do. In the efforts to get all the things done I want to accomplish in a day, I am constantly busy. From the moment I wake up, I am on the go.
I stage items to move about the house while whisking pet hair on the floor with my foot and will scoop that up on my next trip by. I water and transplant plants, check on the gardens, harvest produce and herbs, preserve everything, clean out garden beds and endlessly weed……. Clean out the chicken house and gather eggs, water everyone and clean those containers, take out or stock canning jars in my she shed, check on the drying herbs there, then go next door to the garage and pull beef from the freezer for dinner and 100 other things that just need done. I am not alone. I am sure anyone reading this can relate to the endless “to-do’ list.
I am so far behind on my reading that I always have a stack of magazine including the latest editions of Mother Earth News or Mother Earth News Living with me in the bath. Every book and magazine I own is water logged.
For the last decade I do butt scrunches while I watch TV or drive so as to be exercising while I ‘waste” time. My mind and body never really STOP and I move around at breakneck speed. This year it caught up with me.
This year I turned 52 but honestly don’t feel any certain age. I am not sure how 52 is supposed to feel but I have tons of energy, rarely get sick and my body feels like it did in my 20s. I go to the gym 4 or 5 days a week consistently year-round, and hike my dogs for about an hour pretty much every day. I cook all of our meals from real, unprocessed food, take high quality supplements via pill or powder form every day, drink lots of water, power and care for my body by consuming herbal teas and lots of natural remedies and I try to sleep enough though at times, sleeping is difficult for me. I don’t sit for long periods of time; I move my body all day long at chores and schedule errands and volunteering for after the gym. Last year I got a pair of Traq shoes which keeps track of those steps and one day I walked over 14 miles in just normal activity. I think that is a lot. That is a little above average for me but I am on my feet A LOT. I like to joke that the only time I sit down is to go to the bathroom and eat dinner.
After all the planting was pretty much done in late June, I was getting the farm ready to host our annual Summer Solstice Party. We save our cardboard and paper refuse and burn it several times a year. I store all that on our lower back deck and wanted it all cleaned up for the party so was taking trips back and forth to the burn pile. I slipped on one of those trips and fell down injuring my right middle finger. I could bend it so splinted it and went on working. There was much to do.
Four weeks later it was still REALLY sore and I had my annual doctor’s appointment with a physician I have had for decades. She examined the finger and said it will eventually heal. Tendon/ligament damage but no bones broken. I asked about a bone density test and she said not yet. I went on my merry way.
Several hours later I was rushing around as usual and needed to retrieve some light bulbs I had stored in our pole barn. I didn’t take the time to secure the ladder and box that I stepped on to reach them properly and, on the way down lost my footing and fell backwards onto the ground with the ladder whacking me on the head. I heard a snap and felt PAIN.
I looked at my dangling right wrist and knew I had broken it. I ran into the house to my husband who was working in his office. I said I think I broke my wrist. He looked at it, ran from the room, got ice, sat me down and said we are going to the ER. I broke both bones of my right wrist and had to have surgery to repair the one and now have a plate and screws in my body.
Being a farmer, I was devastated that work as I knew it would have to STOP. This was July 23rd, a VERY busy time on the farm. For two weeks I had to lie down and do basically nothing while the gardens grew, the chicken house got pretty icky, the meals were very basic and I SLEPT. I had NEVER been able to nap in my life unless I was ill, but I couldn’t stay awake now. I made a little bed on my screened in porch with pillows and a sheet and started reading the Harry Potter books on my settee. Every day I napped for 2-3 hours and when I resumed the dog hikes VERY carefully, I had to take TWO 2-3-hour naps daily. The dogs and cats were good company as they will take every opportunity to nap and I got through 5 Harry Potter books.
After two weeks I returned to see the surgeon. They removed the cast and the doctor said I could wear a splint now. Yippee. This was much less restrictive. I had several follow up appointments and each time the doctor has been really pleased with how fast I was healing. I was on weight restriction of course but as soon as I finished the physical therapy, I could do pretty much everything! I resumed as much farm work as I was able and accepted help from friends and neighbors.
Last week, in mid-October, after my gym class I took two big boxes of gifts I needed to post. I could have taken them in one at a time but no, in usual Marsha fashion, I piled them both in my arms and was quickly walking to the door. People were exiting and considering we are living in the era of Covid-19, though everyone was masked, I moved out of the way to give them some room to pass and stepped off the sidewalk rolling my right ankle like I had never done before. Down I went like a sack of potatoes, boxes flying and I watched my ankle instantly swell. The urge to retch was really strong and I was in intense pain. At this point I cried a bit too as I was feeling like I broke my ankle this time and if that would be the case, I was REALLY screwed. A wrist was hard enough but this injury would stop the dog hikes and the massive running around the farm. I had a bit of a pity party right there on the ground.
While I was laying there with my head in my hands, one lady did stop and ask me if I was ok and in about ten minutes, the urge to vomit passed so I got up and hobbled into the post office, mailed the packages then went home. Mitch was getting ready to leave for his annual camping trip with his childhood buddies and I presented my bruised and swollen ankle to him for review. He went and got the athletic wrap, tightly wrapped it and brought me some ice and Advil, kissed me and left. The pets gathered around and looked sad. This was one day Bandit and Bubba were not getting hiked. We have 6 fenced-in acres, go walk yourselves. Mommy is possibly broken AGAIN.
So, I lay there and Googled ankle injuries and agreed it was probably a sprain. There are 3 degrees of sprained ankles I now know and I thought I was a 1 or a 2. I did not rush off to the ortho and all my friends were chastising me for this.
After the first 24 hours I pulled off the bandage and had a look. Lots of swelling and bruising but it seemed stable to walk on. 72 hours in I had my regularly scheduled final post-surgery follow up with Dr. Welker on my wrist and I asked him to look at my ankle. He examined it and said it was a sprain and if it isn’t 100% better by Thanksgiving I am to return. Ice and elevation and rest to continue and I am doing all that. As when I was newly injured on my wrist, every day during that first week, I simply HAD to nap.
Again, I am healing remarkably fast and people keep commenting on this. I am 11 days in and back at the gym.
I truly believe that all the efforts I put into taking care of myself every day of the year is to credit my fast recovery. Since I started deeply delving into growing food organically, raising chickens and bees, growing mushrooms, growing herbs for teas, tinctures and herbal extracts and exploring healthier ways of eating, I am not only preventing illness but fortifying my body so it is strong and healthy and able to concentrate on healing. I also have a grateful heart and I think that is also helpful.
I need to and am going to make a conscious effort to slow down and take my time. It won’t be easy for me, but what has happened to me in 2020 has truly scared me. I did get that bone scan and while I don’t have osteoporosis, I do have osteopenia. I already take the recommended dosages of calcium and vitamin D3 and ingest lots of collagen, magnesium and Triflex for joint support, but I need to take my speed through life below 70 MPH. I believe I am doing a really good job at caring for this body but I will be a senior citizen in three years (OMG, really?) and taking careful and slower steps are becoming necessary.
I want to become a real natural healer and expert with herbs and through attending several Mother Earth News fairs, know just the teacher I want to contact to reach that goal.
Winter is coming. The pace of life around the farm is slowing. Now is the perfect time for me to get a deeper understanding of all the medicine growing right outside under my healing ankle. #naturalmedicine #herbalremedies
For a great many reasons, the year 2020 will stand out in everyone’s minds. We don’t need to beleaguer the points about the horrors of trying to avoid and hopefully survive a world pandemic, the economic devastation, the great loss of life and restricted activities worldwide. Those are all serious things. I’m going to talk about one thing in particular that has affected me and lots of my people, the great canning supply shortage.
In March and April when things were getting locked down, I already had hundreds of peppers, eggplant, tomato and lots of herb seeds started in little four-inch pots in my indoor greenhouse which is the guest room closet all outfitted with grow lights, aluminum foil coated walls and fans. I buy all my seeds during the previous fall and winter to I can leisurely organize them, get the planting calendar all filled in and dream about where I will plant everything this year. This activity sustains me through cold winds, snow and ice.
As I am pondering the coming planting season, I usually get ideas about adding this or that to the growing and I have 3 seed purveyors that I like to buy from. When I went online in April to get a few things I was puzzled by the “out of stock” notifications on like EVERYTHING. That is when I discovered that if people are going to be home, they all of a sudden decided to put in a garden. Every store I went to, every online shop I checked out, everyone, was pretty much picked clean of every seed in America. WOW. I thought to myself, this is getting serious.
Now, if I was as smart as I think I am, I would have at that time went to a different aisle in those stores and bought all the canning supplies I would need for the season, but I didn’t. Honestly, I thought sure, people will grow some tomatoes and cucumbers and make some home cooked meals, but they are not going to go through the considerable effort to can and preserve all that produce. I was wrong.
Now because I have a great many friends who know I can, I am the grateful recipient of a large amount of quart canning jars. Throughout the past two decades, many moms and grandmas (sorry if this appears sexist) are giving up all that work and I am always pleased to take the jars. There is one friend in particular who’s mom Beverly in one giant heap pretty much filled my pole barn room with jars. Of the hundreds of jars were these really old ones with glass lids and I knew immediately that I would make bath salts with essential oils and house those in there for gifts and for sale. The older jars can’t withstand the heat and pressure of water or pressure canning, but are still great for other storage and simply beauteous.
At times over the past decades, I have attended estate sales where the folks had passed away leaving piles of jars and canning things that smell like musty old basement or barn and I have happily paid a few bucks and took them all home. I actually LOVE that stench of old, falling apart boxes that mingles with dirt and grime, mouse poop etc. It smells like HISTORY to me.
So, I always have lots of quart jars in storage ready to be filled, but I was short on jelly jars and the small mouth lids that go under the bands and make the seal to preserve the valuable contents. I like to give my dad easy jobs, so I put him on the case. I told him to call every store he could think of and find me some small mouth lids, jelly jars and any plastic reusable lids that he can find. I use those to store the dried herbs I save for teas and medicines and for the yogurt that I make for the chickens. He came up completely empty and gave me the helpful advice of next year to stock up. Uh, thanks dad.
Many years ago, when I co-owned a big True Value hardware store with my ex-husband, one of the departments I maintained and ordered for was the canning supplies. Ball jars are now made by the parent company Jardin and like many types of supplies, their glassware and bands and lids are all made at least a year in advance and there is as much as there is. I don’t know if they knew the whole world would be canning 6 months after the pandemic began so they could start new production to keep up with demand this year, but unfortunately they ran out which means all the stores they ship to also ran out. Those shelves are empty my friends but I look every time hoping against hope there will be more than an errant salsa or pickle mix on the shelf. I would bet even Megan and Harry couldn’t manifest canning supplies if the royal ones were in need.
I drove three hours to my Amish store and get some lids but there were no jars and even pectin is hard to come by this year.
I was also able to trade some wide mouth lids, which I use less frequently, and 2 jars of already made jam for some jelly jars and lids from a neighbor’s garage. That should keep me going. I am done with jelly making for the year. I still have pumpkin to can and potatoes but I should have enough for this season.
Speaking of pumpkin, I hear canned pumpkin puree in in scarce supply now too and another thing I was amazed to see gone from store shelves is tapioca and corn starch. There seemingly wasn’t one box left of anything to thicken pies and gravy. As I stepped back I saw WAY in the back on the top shelf one lonely package of Arrowroot. After I spotted it, my five-foot two body climbed up the shelves and snagged that last package. Thickeners are needed for many, many dishes and yes you can use flour, but I like tapioca for pies and cornstarch for gravy. What is everyone doing with all of that I wonder?
So, what next will be in short supply. There is once again toilet paper (the good stuff too), flour and yeast availability which is good. I have learned how to make natural yeast though and we have a terrific flour purveyor 7 miles away so I’m covered there. I should have enough canned supplies to get us through winter which is also good. I’m just wondering what else I will find astonishingly gone from shelves soon. I just hope everyone doesn’t join me on my medicinal tincture work and clear out the liquor store of Everclear grain alcohol. Maybe I better stock up now!!! You just never know.
The year 2020 has been different, odd, crazy, and full of unexpected circumstances. We started quarantining in late February, before the mandates were issued and though prior to the pandemic we were not the type of folks who go out a lot by any stretch of the imagination, we did go out occasionally. A few times a year, we would hit a karaoke bar and dined out here and there probably a couple times a month, mostly Asian food of some variety.
We truly didn’t have to alter our lives too much with this pandemic. Perhaps we already lived a bit in quarantine since we “bought the farm” in 2017. It certainly seems that way. Even with the restaurants soon going to 50% capacity, I have only dined out once since March to meet a girlfriend for some Mexican food. I just like to be home and cook and farm and it is probably safer that way though I am concerned with the fate of all the bars, restaurants, hotels and everyone being affected financially.
I am a born entertainer. Now, not in the way that I invite people over to my house and sing to them or something, (though that has happened). I like to cook for people and gather folks who don’t know each other and watch everyone engage. I especially like to watch first time guests enjoy the sights and sounds of nature at our farm and covered back deck area and watch them look around our groovy hippie house! Hospitality is my thing. It started with cooking dinner for my first boyfriend’s coworkers and friends when visiting him in Cleveland while I was still in college and has evolved to a whole experience that I like to give people. I just adore readying our house or chalet for guests, putting out linen napkins, preparing plates of all sorts of yummies and libations, lighting my oil lamps (see a previous blog on the secret of life which is also about people) asking Alexa to play something in particular that I know they will enjoy and then sitting back. I just love people.
Even during Covid, I don’t believe I have curbed my desire to talk to strangers. Usually it is ME engaging with others, but here is a story about two folks who came to me and because of them both, I am grateful and hopeful for the future.
This summer, while dining on some takeout from a favorite Thai restaurant outside the restaurant, a really BIG young man came up to talk to Mitch and me. He had just eaten his takeout in the car and came to speak with us, telling us he was kind of new to Pittsburgh and wanted to meet some people. So, we had Bryan over to the farm for dinner the very next day and when I broke my wrist, he volunteered to help out in any way. Soon Bryan returned to the farm with a lady friend and they helped Mitch work on a fencing project while I cooked and healed. I feel very certain we have made a lifelong friend. Coach BAM is so awesome!
Jaya is a young woman who would talk with me while checking out my purchases at Tractor Supply. Every time I came in there, you could see her smiling under her mask and she was always so sweet. We would chat briefly and she seemed so interested in the farm that I gave her a business card and told her to contact me. Now, I meet tons of people and have passed out hundreds of cards at supermarkets, gas stations, the post office, etc., and very rarely people contact me. If they do it is usually a man and honestly, he isn’t interested in my cooking, my honey or my blogs. I find many people puzzling, but Jaya took me up on my offer and sent me an email, started reading my blogs and soon we had her over to the farm. I had no idea it would be an hour drive for her to get to us, but she didn’t seem to mind.
During her first visit, I wasn’t sure how old she was and told Mitch, a young lady is coming to the farm. She could have been 16 or 21 and of course that didn’t matter. I just had no idea honestly. Well, Jaya is a 20 year old artist and studying to be an art teacher. She is beautiful, kind, smart and such a talented painter. She seems interested in learning everything I can teach her!
We talked and talked and ate a bit but mostly talked and I began thinking as I watched her, this is the daughter I never had. Conveniently, she could use a local mother figure too so visits with Jaya are just THE BEST. I have taken her hiking, shopping and exploring Pittsburgh, we have painted together, we have had her and her boyfriend (who is an amazing guy in his own right) over for dinner and I can’t wait till the next time we get together. I have so many ideas!!!!! This is going to be a lifetime of fun and I am hoping opportunities to offer advice, help out in ways she may need and be a maternal figure to this amazing young woman.
Because I could also use a mother figure, I will leave you with one more new friend story from the Covid-19 era in my life.
I had my first ever surgery right before the lockdown in early March and the nurse Molly who cared for me while I was being prepped was just so sweet. She saw I had brought a copy of Mother Earth News and a Better Nutrition magazine to read and before they wheeled me in, she wrote her mother’s name and phone number on my MEN magazine and told me her mother and I are two peas in a pod, to CALL HER. So, I did.
We had one chat on the phone then started emailing and we became pen pals. I have never before and may never again meet a woman who has all the same interests that I do. Heck, she even grows elderberries and when we finally did meet in August, after 5 months of sharing farm successes and failures, and talking bees and healthy herbs and foods and husbands, I just knew that she was my soul sister. I mean, SHE GAVE ME 2 GALLONS OF ELDERBERRIES (see previous blog on the trials and tribulations of a professional berry picker) and has bees living in the WALLS OF HER HOUSE that she will not harm. I am working on a way to have them move themselves to a new spot that is a bit more convenient for both her and the bees. That day, we exchanged many handmade and home-made things and she has inspired me to work with colloidal silver. Stay tuned for more on that.
We have been to England to visit a man we met eating a chicken wrap and drinking a Guinness at Quaker Steak and Lube, 300 feet from where we met Bryan. I have made friends with Russians and Bulgarians and folks from other cool places by just saying hello.
You can wear a mask and still not shut yourself off from meeting new people. I challenge you to open up yourself and you never know who will come on in and move into your heart! I’d love to hear about those encounters. Write me, call me, text me… #secretoflifeispeople #putyourselfoutthere #makenewfriends #betheinspiration
Earlier this month I was asked to help work the polls during my state’s primary election day. Two of my neighbors who I also know from my women’s only gym have been working the polls alongside a small group of other women for decades now and I was honored to be asked to join them. In all honesty I had always admired the folks who “man” the polls during elections. I often wondered what that job was like. So, I said yes with no questions asked and showed up at 6 am with a soft packed cooler of food and drink and a book. I figured there would be some downtime during the day and I always like to have with me a book I am reading and a pile of magazines I am behind on reading.
I had voted several times in the three years we have lived in Hopewell Township and had casually seen the whole setup in the township building, but now I was going to experience every minute of it.
There were new voting machines to be put into operation and since this was during the whole Covid-19 global pandemic situation, new protocols were in place to keep the community safe during the voting process. We had tape to place 6 feet apart on the floor for people to wait in line, lots of hand sanitizer and wipes for the machines to set out, cotton swabs for people to use to sign their names and also choose their selections on the machines. There were signs to put up everywhere. Mrs. Black was in charge and this is a charming woman in her 80s and I was amazed at her energy. We did what we were told and at 7 am we were ready and opened the polls.
We had an armed constable to keep the peace I guess and a parade of residents came in throughout the day. There were plenty of farmers fresh from the fields, several mechanics in uniform and covered with grease, families showing their young children and grandkids about the whole democratic voting process, couples, singles and people of all shapes, sizes and ages. What I did notice and I had already figured this out from living in this community, we didn’t have anyone of color come to vote. We live in a rural community where there isn’t a lot of diversity. It isn’t an issue, it just is.
I bring up diversity because at this time there were lots of protests, demonstrations and rioting happening in large and small cities around the country due to a recent horrible incident involving Minneapolis police officers and an African American man, but there wasn’t even a mention of any of those things here. This reminded me of a Norman Rockwell idyllic drawing of peaceful, caring people coming to cast their vote and visit with their neighbors and friends.
I loved seeing people gathering several feet apart but talking about and celebrating babies being born, showing concern for those who are ill or passed away, passing on information about who might need some assistance and help and everything in between. Many people were discussing the economic issues facing our local businesses. Many people’s businesses had been on a mandatory shutdown and we were all feeling the effects of living a smaller, closed-in life. I was so pleased to meet many new folks and do some networking.
In the 14- and one-half hours that I worked the polls, there wasn’t one incident of anything even remotely upsetting or stressful. Yes, we had some blips with people not showing up on the record and one ballot wouldn’t feed into the machine, but all those minor and few issues were resolved and in addition to the previous mail-in ballots, we had a showing of less than 150 bodies come and cast votes. I learned the we had 600 registered voters in Hopewell Township and I was surprised at finding out who was and was not registered. I have always felt voting is an important responsibility.
In amazing and unexpected news, I was paid! When my friend Minna, who recruited me, announced I had paperwork to complete so I could get paid, I said, “I am getting paid?” Honestly, that had never occurred to me. I thought this was going to be yet another thing someone asks me to do that is a volunteer thing. Happy day! 😊 So, leaving the farm for an entire day was going to put a little jingle in my pocket. Cool.
There were plastic cards we gave everyone as they signed in and they were not surprisingly red and blue so everyone knew who everyone was voting for and in the primary, you could not do any straight party votes nor vote for the other team. It didn’t matter who you cast your vote for, there wasn’t any discussion, argument or anything. People voted and either ran out to continue the rest of the lives or hung out a bit to catch up with neighbors. I loved every minute of it.
When Shirley’s husband of more than 60 years I believe came in, seeing her get so excited and tell us all that her heartthrob was here, just tickled me. I was also excited when my husband came in and I had told the girls to prepare for long rock star hair on him. Since this was near the end of lockdown for hair salons, everyone came in with 3 months of roots and unkempt hair unless they were able to take care of those grooming issues themselves. Again, no one cared about any of that. Everyone was here to do their civic duty.
By the end of the day, we were all tired and even my usual perkiness was wearing off. The last resident came in at 7:58 pm to vote. Then we took down all the signs, packed away all the supplies, printed out the final voting tally, locked up all the machines, gathered all the important paperwork, signed off on everything and went home. I am really happy that I participated in this and was asked to come back in November so I guess I did a good job. Now, I can say that I am one of those people I admired who worked the polls and I was pleased to do it.
I also admired those women who run around in gym clothes carrying yoga mats and water bottles and look sweaty, fit and contented. I’m one of those gals too and look forward to seeing all my sisters from the voting booth at the gym now that this is again a place we can go!!!
I love that I have a community of supportive and active women who do all sorts of things, are so much to so many and are there for each other.
Who knows what adventure awaits me next but I’m looking forward to learning and doing it whatever it is! Bring it on!
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I want to become a real natural healer and expert with herbs and through attending several Mother Earth News fairs, know just the teacher I want to contact to reach that goal.
In March and April when things were getting locked down, I already had hundreds of peppers, eggplant, tomato and lots of herb seeds started in little four-inch pots in my indoor greenhouse which is the guest room closet all outfitted with grow lights, aluminum foil coated walls and fans. I buy all my seeds during the previous fall and winter to I can leisurely organize them, get the planting calendar all filled in and dream about where I will plant everything this year. This activity sustains me through cold winds, snow and ice.
Now, if I was as smart as I think I am, I would have at that time went to a different aisle in those stores and bought all the canning supplies I would need for the season, but I didn’t. Honestly, I thought sure, people will grow some tomatoes and cucumbers and make some home cooked meals, but they are not going to go through the considerable effort to can and preserve all that produce. I was wrong.
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