Jupiter

Just wanting to say i made an error last week.
I am looking up to the heavens again.
For Christmas i got the stargazing calender from Stan Shadick. As i have been out of touch with the stars for a while it needs some practice to get into again, and like HTD says, we move so fast...

Anyway the evening star i look at every night, high in the Southern sky is Jupiter!

Venus,who i will search for tonight, is more to the West.

And as we are talking stars now, every morning when i visit the outhouse, which is open to the sky, right in front of me is Leo, my own constellation.
Now on January 3, according to Stan, there is Meteor shower to the left of Leo. i think. Stan says after midnight, below the handle of the Big Dipper, in Bootes.

The after midnight thing, i think is for Eastern Canadians.....so in the early morning i will just look for Bootes, which i will find by looking at Leo, going up towards the Big Dipper (Ursa Major) and from there following the handle (to the left) towards Bootes. Which i hope to recognize as such. Voila! falling stars called the Quadrantid meteor shower.

in consonance

'in consonance', or 'consonant' what i am trying to say; today's photo harmoniously goes with want i want to say.
so what i wanted to say or actually ask; have you read the comments underneath my post lately? They say so beautiful what i am trying to say and more. I just love it, thank you.

This morning someone also send me a beautifully video clip about someone looking for what's wrong in the world and they found so much that is right.

I think we are on the right track, things are changing.

We seem to be moving towards valuing more our spiritual side, caring for each other, communicating, joy, beauty, going inwards, etc.

Not becoming a millionaire but feeling like a millionaire. Together, now this moment.

So i climbed under the branches of the tree...... and you joined me :) thanks

do with less

Again i think that is not necessarily a bad thing. We might find out in delight, what treasure that beholds.

Over Christmas i skyped with my cousin Gerda, and i just got a wonderful email from another cousin. (you find Gerda on my blog list at Le Vertige)

Both were talking about what i am trying to talk about. Gerda mention how it is amazing how little her new life style really costs, how they live on little money very happily.
She and her partner decided to move from their both busy jobs, living in a buy city in Holland to a remote place in French. The choice was actually, to change life were they have more time together. She said all that came from it is what they have now, and they are loving it.
The other cousin is coming to it in a different way. It is just that there is less for her husband and her, and she too seems to be very content with that.

And i.... ahh i, i am so much more complicated than other people appear to be :)
I just live this life of freedom, and it comes cheap.
But often i am stuck in it somehow, knee deep in mud (that is actually tomorrow's story:)

But i do realize, more clearly than i like, that whatever i would change ,if i would run off to NY or LA, i would still be me.

No matter what, where or how, there is me, and that is a glorious thing actually.

Peace on Earth

My photos don't really correspond with what i write.
I want to write about Peace on Earth and i show the sky, well it is a pink cloud at least.

I do believe in Peace on Earth.
maybe we have come along way in that direction, maybe not.
When i look one way, yes. when i look the other way, no.

This weekend i thought we need a vision, many people say a change is inevitable, things can't go on the way they way they do. Often it sounds like we have to do with less. Which feels like suffering. I do believe that shift doesn't mean we need to suffer. I do believe we will prevail. Of course we all do, i think nobody truly believes the world is going to end, or that our society is going to fall apart.
I always think if anybody believed that, they would now act differently. And nobody i know really does. We all try our best, we always have.


Alexander is studying Applied Health. As a young adult i love it how he sees things so clearly. He does learn in school that it is proven that when people believe that something is good for them, their recovery is faster. I was happy that he learns that in school.

I definitely believe in that, That we all have our own unique way, that if we believe in what we do or are, we will find peace in that. I don't believe there is one truth.

But it is not that simple for me.

Alexander says, mom when i administer a drug, that drug is effective, it is just that when people believe in the fact that you administered the right drug to them, it works better.

hmmmm ahhhh isn't that kind of scary? Have religions and governments not just done that? Make people believe there truth is the truth.
Yet i feel Alexander is right, and i am proud of him

And i hope for a world without drugs, really! eventually

Our bodies the miracle that they are! Everyday our heart keeps beating our blood flowing etc etc.

ps
i stepped outside and i see one star shining brightly, it's Venus!

Back to the light

I think we are always going towards the light.
It seems we are programmed towards that.
I like to say, we all just want to be happy. There is no doubt in my mind about that. That even when people seem to go about that in harmful ways.

And i try to drop my fear that i somehow am withheld from that birthright, or that i somehow have to suffer to reach that light. Or to think that i am spoiled somehow because i do live so beautifully, and am so well loved.

For all i know, you might think i suffer, because we have so little sunlight in winter in the Yukon, even if i tell you we don't, we have a lot!

It's all a mystery to me....

What makes you happy? Are you generally happy, or do you have happy moments?

What is it that makes you feel happy?

When i just now, step outside and look at the upcoming sun, breaking through golden clouds on the horizon, the blue sky above, promising to be a deeper blue today.
Yes that does make me feel good.

money

Alexander is home for Christmas!!
Well he came home, he is already off to mnt. Sima to snowboard.

Often when i think, that i have to live less in the money world, i think that i am going to suffer. I hope the opposite is true. Actually i believe the opposite is true. I think we will have more time for Joy. I just did a load of laundry, using the water we showered in, that is always a bit of extra bit of work, but now we have to haul less water, for us having to haul less water, the savings seems obvious. In our society we often don't see the savings, and i keep wanting to draw your attention to the hours work put in by our society to make us being able to just open the tap.

But i wanted to talk about the irony of snowboarding. Snowboarding is an expensive sport, and only because there are some very generous rich people in town, we do have a new skilift on the hill. Thanks thanks thanks!

I sometimes think if i was rich , i could really make a difference.
As these people were able to give money for the lift and for many people to have fun and live a healthy lifestyle. And bless your heart if you are putting on your cross country skies this morning and don't even need a lift.

But i am rich money wise! (compared to most people in the world, not compared to Canadian standards, i wrote about it a few weeks ago.)
And i feel that i did make a difference, together with many of us. we have now an abundance of local produce in the regular supermarket, and more and more things that we can buy organic. That is only possible because many people will spend the little extra, for products they believe in. Obviously we can grow food here in the Yukon and Canada is able to grow an incredible amount of food without the use of pesticides and chemical fertilizer. There are so many things we can do to make a difference.

I forgot what i was going to say next...
tomorrow :)

words

I feel a little at loss for words, not really knowing what i am trying to say here.
the cold air brushing my skin
not happy not sad

as i don't have a regular job to go to,i am not well read, nor intelligent in the ways of the world.
as inside my house the fire is hot
there is water
there is food

i tell myself, it's okay, just hang in there, it doesn't matter

and so it does, it does matter
even if i do not know if we will be happier like maybe Thoreau was when living in the woods(thanks anonymous)

today someone questioned me why i do not lace my boots...

today someone was not happy with me

today someone told me he has a dream

3 very different people,

3 ways to explain what i feel
so i will start with lacing up my boots.

Staying close to what really matters.
Someone thought, i thought, it will be handy if we can rid of laces, brilliant! but that is where the trouble starts, no matter how handy it is to not have to lace up boots.
I think all these short cuts in life can take us farther away from what we really want, and like to show to you that they do.

I'm the worst for wanting things NOW. So i tell my self to stand still, and wonder what really matters. Because all these fast fixes we live with today, they involve a great many hours of work and take our resource in too great of an impact.
Now zippers of laces it maybe doesn't matter so much (well actually two people commented on it, so it mattered to them) But to flip a switch for heat, instead of cutting our own wood, there is no doubt in my mind! that behind that switch there is a lot more intelligence, labor, rules and regulations, etc. Maybe not directly carried out by you but indirectly, they are. A wood stove so simple (when living in the woods)
And i tell you after contemplating on the porch, getting chilled, wood heat is lovely.
I know not everybody has the possibility of wood heat.

But i want to urge you to look at your actions when you do have a choice....
realizing what really counts...

first things first

Thank you for the comments i am receiving!
I want to get to; what are the essentials?
But first i want to say again in better wording what i sense is going on.
I think our lives would improve if we stop chasing that dollar. And really there would still be the same amount money. The trick is to distribute it more evenly, but that is the one of the problems now anyway, at that society doesn't have much success in our current system and it is said the gap is widening.

I think our lives would improve, because there will be more leisure time. Now we work work work at senseless jobs (sorry) I babysit kids, because my employer needs time for herself , because she looks after kids for people who work on problems that are created because our roads are to busy, he has to drive these roads to do that job, his wife fixes cars, that he needs to get to all these job, they all have houses, offices shops that need to be cleaned/maintained, because they are to busy etc etc

You get the point right?

I actually think we can still have our flat screen tv, (if you think that truly makes you happy) if we do cut out all jobs that are none essential.

A tv might be essential you know, ( i like to watch a movie :) nevertheless with an old screen tv. which i actually like better.

but what bugs me too, that we have so many fully functioning places to live, Don and i have a shop, an apartment above it, we have tents, we have a camper.
We can only live in one thing at the time.
Today we did express we would like to camp out right were we saw the Bison tracks, under a tarp...
And oh i forgot, we often work from our own home, but also have fully functioning buildings were we can work that stand empty while we sleep.

Of on limb again :)

But after essentials i hope with your help to get to some sort of solution.

freedom

I do sometimes feel stuck in life, so what is freedom?
Freedom for me maybe; when i realize that this is where, who, etc. i really want to be, this moment.

When skating i felt it.
Just before i was struggling to get my skates on, while Don was long gone walking on the the ice, wondering why the struggle?

When you feel your struggling to make money, but you feel that it pays off.
I am not going to suggest any longer that we as a society could change. Maybe all is perfect ( and i mean that)
And after al i am fully aware that i can live this life of a lush, because for example i wear clothes that somebody bought for me (my clothes are mostly hand me downs) and i realize that i benefit from an infrastructure that is made possible through people that find that important. etc.

Happy to feel the freedom of skating on 70km long skating rink :) how spoiled am i?

I like to become more aware of what it really means that i wanted to skate today. How much struggle am i willing to put in for that (and i don't mean frozen fingers and laces)

I know that now a days we put as a society an incredible amount of working hours in, wasting an incredible amount of our resources, for what? to feel free?

Here in these posts i also want to show you that the scale has tipped in my view, what if we slow down building/maintaining bigger roads, bigger offices, creating more laws, whatever? (i know i am not informed or educated enough to get my point across, but sorry i can't wait for that)
Nowadays as a society we work more hours then ever to give us that feeling of freedom.

hmmm what do you think?

what if

Michael send me this yesterday

From Buckminster Fuller...

We must do away with the absolutely specious notion that everybody has to earn a living. It is a fact today that one in ten thousand of us can make a technological breakthrough capable of supporting all the rest. The youth of today are absolutely right in recognizing this nonsense of earning a living. We keep inventing jobs because of this false idea that everybody has to be employed at some kind of drudgery because, according to Malthusian-Darwinian theory, he must justify his right to exist. So we have inspectors of inspectors and people making instruments for inspectors to inspect inspectors. The true business of people should be to go back to school and think about whatever it was they were thinking about before somebody came along and told them they had to earn a living.

This was written in 1970
sigh
i think about this a lot
sigh
and will today write some of my head spinnings about it

I would like to go to the bottom of why we work sooo much

i will go to the bottom of my jobs, first one of my jobs for regular income;
i clean someone's house
he can't do it, because he cooks for people who work
who work for the government mainly (this town pretty simple)
the government supposingly works for me (as being a citizen)
well that was short! :)

haha maybe i am an anarchist after all, because now lets get rid of the government, i am really in no need of so many people working for me, who am i being so special?

So now i have fired all the government workers in town, say some 10.000 people, now all that money that is saved, salaries, cost of offices,etc etc
Well the salaries they can keep, people gotta live.
but all the money saved from their expensive offices, they can now just pay me, and i do not have to work, and they can pay my employer, because he now doesn't have to cook lunches for all these government workers, and being home he can keep his own house in order (i actually know he is very good at that, i clean a fairly tidy house)
or is it that these government workers just love to go for lunch, but they still can right, because i had them keep there salary, so my employer still has to cook, that is if he wants...


you know i find it hard to describe my logic, but i just don't get it. It seems to me many of us could live the life we want, because the money going around would be the same...

Really and to be serious, i hope that one day i will look at, what is essential? and go from there.

Because i am sure that we can all live the life we really want, and still be looked after when needed.

I hope some of you understands what i am saying and can add something...

Thanks Michael, i will try to write about this a little every day
as keeper of the wild places in my own heart.

for jb

found

The dog found a home.
Thanks to wonderful neighbours.
I made several phone calls to see who was missing a dog. and posted notes. To no avail. So i phoned this one neighbour for help in this situation. And all she did was take the dog, and make the rounds. Less then an hour later she phoned, where ever the dog came from, she found him a home!
I love the community i live in. We might be small in numbers, but everything i need is always here.
And i learned from this, is in a situation, any situation, to take action in the direction of the preferred outcome. Simple as it may sound.

lost dog

There is a lost dog hanging around my house.

A smallish, youngish, longish hair, shepherd cross,
no collar, quite friendly.

Please come and claim her if she is yours.

intrigued by ice

what makes me freeze
what makes me flow
bubbles of laughter
that will always stay
it's your reflection upon me
how we mingle
a leaf here
some moss there
i think the world of you

for Logaen

salt flats

salty water doesn't freeze that easily
tears shed long ago
the pain still lingers
and now the sun is out
i know that i am blessed
that i had something
something special
that i cried about
salty water extra ordinary

occupying ice

I know there is this movement happening, i really am sorry to say i don't know all the details and what it really stands for, what comes to my mind is that we are the 1% money richest people of the world. I understand the way i live, among the 1% richest of the world, that 1% is also ruled by 1%.
Now really, i actually fit in somewhere around the 13% looking at this link, but i have married a 1% man!
Global Rich List
(that is my husband is in the 1% of the world, not the 1% of the 1%, too bad:)

Now really that i am part of the richest people of the world is what i feel very humble about, and if i was brave enough i would take action for the 99% that has less than i have.

the picture i posted is ice flowing in water through ice

single phase Itron 120/240 volt 200 amp meter

This is the meter i have now, (i don't know if 'they' refer to this a smart meter.)
Yukon Electric is trying to answer my questions. Thank you!
The man said: they are phasing out the spinning meters, and replacing them with digital ones, he did not know why. (that is just the way it is)
i googling again, am now totally lost
????

Does my new meter saves energy, how much?
Or is it in any logical way better for the environment?
Does a meter has to be replaced every ten years?
This new one, does it emit radiation?

Yukon Energy alert

I have been phoning Yukon Energy this morning and yesterday. But both people did not know anything about a new meter installed at my place recently.
Well there has and they did drive up in a Yukon Energy truck.

I don't like my new meter. Already as a child and later my child, we liked to watch the little disk spinning, and feel pride for conserving when the disk barely moves.
Now there are numbers...
This week i asked the man who comes read the meter, a minute after he took the reading, if he remembered the numbers he wrote down, he did not. Now as i read on the Internet, this new Itron smart meter is supposed to make us more aware of the power we use. ( by watching the numbers i suppose)
Personally i found watching the spinning disk made it very clear. Now i have to watch numbers.
Also i read on the Internet, that this new meter emits radiation, Very small amounts, but to me nevertheless...
Also i read that the the meter itself is NOT more energy efficient.
Also i read that there is NO data that it actually makes people conserve energy.
Also i read that it is all a very expensive project (to replace all meters)

Ahhh on the good side, on Yukon Energies website, i did find that i can now submit my own readings (which is also possible with the old meter)
The people from Yukon Energy i talked to, didn't know about this either. Yet i am sure i will be successful in entering that program, so the meter guy doesn't have to drive out to my place, which is far out of town, he drives a big truck ( to take a reading? yes)

Yes i realize i chose to live this far out, i chose to hook up to the grid. Yet i hope i can do my best to make as little as possible of an impact on our planet.

And here are some SLOW growing lichen......





Love to hear what you think!

today

the first day where the thermometer is not going to show above freezing

you know i love this

But it is always a bit disconcerting.
And we don't want him/her to become a regular visitor.
It has been a few years though, since we had a bear right in the yard.
I assume we have less bears hanging around , because our yard is relatively spacious and not much to hide behind.
Now i did cut up that deer last week and buried some scraps. Yes, that's were it was, it found my buried compost...

autumn

This autumn started long time ago, it seems to last forever in it's glory, wonderful frosty mornings now, quiet today, yesterday gusts of strong wind, taking the last leaves, and picking up already fallen ones, great yellow swirls.
As my stories still go to 'What's up Yukon' they sadly don't end up here anymore.
Here some photos from a hike in August.

sweet smell

thanks Cicero :)
The discussion on artsnet, is full on this morning
And i wonder if the deer eat sweet clover, now who would want to up root the deer?
The deer are slowly coming farther North.


this is fireweed seeding

invasion

What invasion? i don't see anything wrong...




I know this is maybe a charged topic, on artsnet a Yukon yahoo group a discussion started about invasive plant species. One party wanting to pull white clover out, a species that doesn't used to grow here, the other stating, every plant has 300.000 seeds that can live 20 years...
I am kind of on Sylvie's side, the White Clover is here and there is not much we can do about that. To me it reminds me of wanting to keep borders secure, so no 'bad' species of people can get in, or worse...
I like to think, when Alva still had his way, i'ld be Spanish.
The weed we are talking is coincidently related to alfalfa ( which probably is also called invasive' here not being a native species)
I' 'd love to be Spanish, and in a way i of course am, having descendent from the people that occupied southern Holland in the 1500, they were under Spanish rule.
(Alva, i googled it is the Dutch name, of this horrendous man, i think it is Alba in English)
Why do we always fight change?
why do we always wanting to change things?

I am an immigrant, i am not native to this country
White Clover, yes it did not used to grow here

I like to think when things naturally change, that is the way it is....

And really White Clover is here because i am here.... in the sense it is brought up by the way of the highway, built by men, and grows along the highway, not at sweet little Moose skull lake, and when it would? who am i to fight it?

vistas

Today i am digging up potatoes.
A friend asked me what i did yesterday, 10 years ago.
I don't know if i have told the story here before.
But here for Rob my story.
Don and i were digging up potatoes, it was a glorious day like today. Don likes to have the radio on in the house, so at one point when we come in the house for a break.
There is this news... Indeed. you know the story.
Then there is this local announcement that Whitehorse is being evacuated.
It appears the States has send an Korean air-plane over to Whitehorse to land under their guidance. Because there was no radio contact with this plane....
I phone the school, which Alexander attends, and indeed i better pick him up.
I walk over to the neighbours, who have a child in the school too. My neighbour not listening to the radio, knows nothing. Why didn't the school notify us? I guess here in Whitehorse they assume everybody works for the government (90% do:) and they now all have the day off, and will automatically pick up here kids.
Anyway. Margriet and i drive in (an hour) and sure enough our poor children
would have been.... they are the last two in the school with two remaining staff members (thanks so much to them!) . In the meantime the plane has landed, and there was no foul play, just it happened that that day their radio broke down.
Long story short it caused for quite the excitement, real time, in Whitehorse. And yes as the plane was considerate a treat, and Whitehorse had a big enough landing strip, and if the pilot had bad intentions, not some many people would have died considering how few people live here.






And to connect this with vistas

let me think about that one, what is my comprehended mental view of this event?

cranberry muffins

growing in the forest

more mushrooms

abundance of Shaggy-mane, in 10 minutes Don and I picked three baskets full.
The top mushroom in the photo is a little inky, preferably we pick them when the are just popping out of the ground, totally white.
I, now, am washing them slightly under running water, put them in ziploc freezer bags, straight in the freezer.

choice

Bear's Head Tooth
Hericium coralloides
Today's prize,
i found only one in my whole forest (and picked half)
It is amazing and it was easy to identify
And it did taste delicious.
And for My dear Christopher and others who worry about me eating strange mushrooms. I do have to say i always do so with the book in the hand, when there is any suggestion that it could be mistaken with a very poisonous mushroom, i won't pick it.

The meadow mushroom for example still puzzles me... and if anybody can help me with a positive clue, like smell maybe, i will be grateful. Yesterday i found one such mushroom but it didn't smell like anything, so i didn't think it would be a meadow mushroom.

the color of fireweed

quite different when high in the mountains,
when autumn is already there
and it is just starting to bloom

Epilobium angustifolium
epilobium meaning flower and pod appearing together
meaning to me, like how i wish to be
she is already ready and done when still fully in bloom

just some autumn photos

elfin creek

mushrooms

i gave updated information in the two mushroom post of yesterday

Alexander

did get hurt again
and his seat broke
and what can i say
Lake Jumping

clavariadelphus truncatus

edibility: good

a common name: flat-topped coral
or club-coral