The trees are alive with toilet paper

I just want to share with you some of the planet-destroying, oil-drenched items and packaging that we have found we can happily live without. Bathroom items mostly. The shit that we all get suckered into buying, 'cause you need it.  Little pots of goo, really. So here goes. Make-up, hair products of any kind even shampoo and conditioner. No more dyes, spays or gels either. Sun screen, nail polish, tooth paste, razors (for me, Dennis still has to look presentable), shaving cream, hand sanitizers, perfumes, deodorants, if in doubt, wash. Ointments, bug spray, cotton swabs... I could go on, I've seen what people hoard in their bathroom cabinets.

Why didn't I just tell you what I do have in my cupboard?  Toothbrushes, dental floss and toilet paper.   But now we can add toilet paper to the list of things we live without.

See, the other day during a walk in the swamp with my baby and our water dog, nature called out to Dennis in more ways than one.  Old man's beard. It was hanging from every tree on every branch. And when he came back out from hiding he was raving about his most excellent adventure. This amazing ass wipe. "Better than toilet paper, absorbent, durable." So the obvious question? Why do we use toilet paper then?

The walk turned into a collection. With the sun shining and gleaming off each beautiful strand. We excitedly collected enough for a few days. Yep I've since been using it and I agree. It even works well for a chick and a pee. It's green too. No really. Not the Sheryl Crow, one-square-per-use kind of green, that's just gross. But we don't even have to kill our trees to wipe. The trees just grow the stuff for us.

What have we done with the store-bought, dead-tree variety? Our 15 year old quickly claimed it when we shared the good news with him. He told us that he would be buying the toilet paper from now on.  But ya wanna know something funny? When I went out to the outhouse this morning I saw that he'd already been dipping into the green shit.

I'm just waiting now to see if it can handle a blood flow. I'll keep you posted.

Shitty morning

Actually it didn’t snow. We’ve been having Merry Christmas (sweet as an apple...) mornings when we want to see the summer comin’. But yesterday the sun shone. Which is why I went walking. This, you see, is going to be literality. With regard to shit. 
Herman Drescher, our buddy down the road, organic farmer, fumer over GMO atrocities, had given us a number just the day before for free manure. So that was kind of on the list I would have had if I but made ‘em. Go to the poo place and get some. 
But first things first cause it’s Tuesday. Sleep-in day after start early/work late day. It’s the day after production to any who have ever played the weekly newspaper game. So I get to walk my dog.
We went the sun way, of course. Down alongside the open fields that were ours too in the childhood commune hippy days. And the snow’s goin so fast now, gone in the fields. So we ditch the road, the dog and I. And Rufus too. The black lab, the white man and the little black cat with the walkin’ blues.
There are a lot of reasons to look up while we’re walking down the field. The mountains, the treetops and the sky. At some point I look down though and if I may once more be literal: holy shit. Twenty pounders. Daypack loads of pure manure. It’s a minefield. A gold mine.
I’m going to be a little later than my normal Tuesday late. I need my wheelbarrow and I don’t need Drescher’s buddy's number anymore.

A forest line

 I love clothes lines. I love the freshness. And I love where my line (our old climbing rope) is situated. Down in the gully near the water source and near my toilet plunger ready to go to work. Yep, I said toilet plunger. It is an amazing washing machine if you provide the muscle.

 In the old days with four to six small bed wetting kids the muscles needed were enormous and the 'fun of it' sent us to the local laundromats. I can still hear the soul-destroying dryer's whir.

Now. With just myself, Dennis and one big kid, albeit a piggy one. I can't think of a more Zen like way to do a batch.  Don't even have to wring it out, the water is way too cold for that. Drip dry, that's what I say. Talk about a small, small footprint in the world of laundry. Something to smile big about.

This little dude was bellowing for more sunflower seeds. I walked around the tree to see if in fact he did need more. Sure enough he had cracked them all open. Yup, I'll go get you some more, for a few pictures I told him. Just hang tough. It turns out he loved the attention and forgot about the seeds.

 

Tammy Stranack

Back to bush time

What did you find there? Did you stand a while and stare? Well, lemme tell you. I stayed. I saw. I saw some more and looked around. A lot. Because home on the range has gotten a little strange, in the unusual sense. At least in the daylight hours. Which is to say I've had to go down to the lowlands, down to the town, and take me a job. A strange and innovative way to top up the coffers to the level still required as this project, which is to say, this fine life we are livin' gets under way. So I thought I might as well get a good one and do shit that I love to do. Which has all been a little engrossing for the past couple months, involving those oft cited evenings and weekends and the required willingness we often see attached to them. But it's all coolin' off now and this weekend I got to get back out on the spring mud and participate in home a little bit.  Tick a few things off that list that rides to town in my head every morning and updates every evening as I pull up the driveway. A bit of an adjustment though, it turns out, to go from going places and doing other things while thinking about the list to being here and actually damn well doing something. Where to start? With the first step, as my old friend Ken Chapman used to say. Which first step? Which project? Which of so many things I've been dying to do. So I stared some more. Looked around. Finally took Tammy's advice and quit worrying about it. Went with the stand around and the stare. Sure enough, focus followed. Elsewhere fell away. The late snow quit, the sun warmed the good spring mud and some shit started getting done.                    
                                                                                                                                                       -D

He's my Whiskey Alexander                                                                                                                               Tammy Stranack