OK. So I was sitting down by this one river today .....

............ with my kid. Just sitting there watching the water churning in the little dam. And I was looking across the river at the graveyard on the other side. And I got to thinking.

So I was telling her "Look at that. Nothing but death. Huge headstones, fancy coffins, toxic chemicals leaching into the ground and into the river and families still living that probably can't afford the debt of it all. It's all death. It's not natural. It shouldn't be that way."

I don't like it.

So I was bouncing ideas off to my kid.

What if instead of being pumped full of chemicals, imprisoned in a box and buried under an ugly carved stone...what if everyone was sent to an oven and cremated. And then instead of the void spaces of land with headstones looming over the toxic chemicals... what if there was a place of life. A garden.

It would be a place of life. It would be a place to walk and pick and eat and tend to life. It would be a place to remember the ones who are gone from us. It would be a place where the life that is gone is given back to the earth to nurture new life to be. A garden.

We could all still be buried there. Our families could pay a fee to mix our ashes with compost and plant a fruit tree or a small plot of flowers or a small plot of food. And there could still be very small stone markers or even monuments but they would have to belay beauty and life. Statues? Head busts of people smiling? Carvings? Something to remind us of how full of life they were when they still walked among us.

This garden of life would be born out of death. It would be a community garden. Anyone could come to walk the paths, pick the fruit, eat the food, smile with cherished memories. People with no one buried there could come to pick and tend to the garden if they wanted to and reflect upon the cycle of life and death.

All would be welcome. None would be turned away. A place of sharing, of community, of stopping to listen to the words of someone with tears and sitting with them to tend their plot of life in memory of a death until their tears fade away. A garden of nurturing both the dead and the living.

I wish to see a place like this. I hope that one can come into being. I really think my idea has possibilities. My kid thinks so too.

So since I came up with the idea I told her that's how I want it to be for me in thirty something years. Send me to the oven. Get my ashes in a shoebox. Don't let them talk you all into one of those ugly overpriced urns that no one wants to be stuck with. And stick me under a fruit tree...maybe with some plants around it. I'd like it that way ... well, not that I'd know any different but I like the idea of it.

It's weird the stuff a person thinks about when looking at a graveyard. I like my idea though.

Deer this year

Yep. Ain't he a big one? My stepfather got two deer yesterday. It's been exciting here with that big buck being got. This buck is well known in the area and everyone was out trying for him. A lot of people drove by slow to see the buck hanging in the yard here. Some people stopped in to get a good look at him up close. He was big, real big. We butchered him today. He gave us a lot of meat. It took us most of the day to process the meat.

Tomorrow we will butcher the small deer.

Yes. This year's deer hunt was exciting. I've watched that buck pass through over time and every year he evades the hunters. Of course we are all happy for the meat and proud that our family got him yet.... we don't fool ourselves, it is sad to see the 'Master of the Wood' come down. Now one of his sons out there will step up to take his place. It's time.

My kid.....

....is gone to her friends for the weekend.

I'm bored.

sigh.

And more good news for me

I have the money order and it's going out in the mail tomorrow and my new furnace motor will be paid in full. Yes!

So I was telling my Mom about my motorhome madness ...........

.........this morning and my ideas about how I think I could do some traveling and make it work.

So if I bought a motorhome, a small one, I could be living in that and going places. I could go slow, maybe one state per month to spread out the cost of the gas. Mom said that is what she thought about doing too.

But then I was telling Mom that I can't lose my Minnesota residency, my kids, my life, my health care, my medicaid, my kids, my family, my doctors, did i mention my kids? Well anyways, all of that is HERE. So I have to have a home to come home to. So.... I was kind of thinking if I could figure out a way to get a little motorhome, I'd like to leave my trailer here because it's my little house, my home. Then I wouldn't have to stay away from my kids. They might be grown up but they are my kids! anyways, Mom said that would all work.

And so I was rambling away at the mouth about ideas I've had and Mom is smart about a lot of that stuff and she knows about traveling. It was just nice to bounce my ideas off her. Of course a smart mother is an asset to have when they mention that 'you'd have a place to leave your rocks and bring more back to.' Yes. That's my Mom. She understands. (GRIN)

Fun for Me

So after I found me a used computer monitor for 5 bucks today I hit the highway and kept going another few towns away.

I went to my favorite rock shop. I got the grit I need for tumble polishing my rocks. And of course I got to wander around and look at stuff in there. I just love that. So fun.

So tonight all three of my tumbler barrels are back up and doing their jobs. Yes!

Bummer for me

My spiffy fancy flat screen computer monitor died. I was in the middle of a game of mahjong and it just blipped out and the screen went black. And it would not turn back on. And my neighbor the retired farmer who now does computer repair checked stuff out and the news was BLEAK. Arg. I'm bummed out. I really liked that monitor. It weighed almost nothing and took up only a tiny bit of space.

But I lucked out. I went to the thrift shops over two towns away and I got an ancient monitor for 5 bucks and it works! So here I am... on the internet. haha!

Only thing about this new-to-me old monitor is that it has a tiny screen and it is very blurry, hard to read printing on it. Still though, it will get me through till I get a better one someday.

Can you believe my luck? How often can a person say "I'm going to go hunt for a junker monitor?" and then find one for 5 bucks in less than an hour? I was pleased. I thought I did pretty good.