The Buying Season is Upon Us

The "Holiday Season" is fast approaching.  Because we live so far from most of our family, it begins a bit early, to allow for shipping time.  I have begun the process of choosing things, mainly for the kids of the family, we don't really purchase gifts for EVERYONE anymore.   However, in the current money situation it seems that most people are not buying in the same way.  I know I have made jams and jellies to share with friends instead of purchasing "stuff".  It already seems like the retailers are desperate to get every dollar. There was Christmas stuff in the stores before Halloween this year. There are coupons flying around and sale signs everywhere.  Is it just me or does it seem like there are more sales earlier in the season than in the past? Well, for us we won't be using credit to buy presents.  We have all of our debt paid off and I refuse to step back into that trap. So, this Christmas we are making more, buying less and canceling extravagance.   Last year we purchased a permit to cut down our own Christmas tree from BLM.  It's $5, for a tree that is less than 12 feet tall and has to be growing within 20 feet of another tree.  The Bureau of Land Management gets trees thinned that are too close to existing trees, they get $5 for BLM and we get a tree and  an adventure.  We can go into the woods behind our house and tromp around in the snow and choose a tree, not a perfectly sculpted tree, but a lovely tree all the same.  Last year we found a 10 ft tall tree and it was wonderful.  Then we hiked out to the car, drove home, made a fire in the wood stove and spiked some hot cocoa to warm up.  Makes me wish we had kids to drag along, but it was a really fun day anyway.  It took a lot longer than going to the tree lot, and finding a tree that is under 12 feet tall is a challenge.  We have a stick, when held over head is 12 ft, because when you are out there in the woods, trees look smaller and you can end up getting a tree that's 30 feet tall and realizing that it won't fit into the house once you get it home. Well, I'm looking forward to the Holidays, but it's weird having a Christmas Eve with just my dear husband and myself.  Being so far from the family is difficult this time of year, when a crowed living room, a tree too large, tables of way too much food, more people than the room can hold and kids yelling and running amok, is what Christmas Eve has always been with our crazy family.  I miss the chaos of our family Christmas.  So, on Christmas Eve I'll be calling the family, when I know the chaos will be at the highest and talk to who ever has a moment to hold the phone, just so I can hear the lovely sound of my family being loud and obnoxious on Christmas Eve. I can't wait.

Fall is Here!

Fall is officially here.  The leaves are turning and there is a crispness to the air that refreshes the soul and an Autumn light that makes every one's completion look good.  I love this time of year here.  We never really had a Fall season in the bay area. It was like someone flipped a switch on October 31, all the leaves dropped off the trees and on November 1 it started raining.  Here Autumn is a longer passage.  Right now the leaves are really yellow, orange and a little bit of red.  Not many of the leaves are falling yet, but there is a trickle of leaves that make a tittering noise as they filter through the branches to the ground.  We take a walk in the afternoons up the "Gulch" near our home and it's truly lovely.

I have been harvesting our garden, canning and getting ready for the cold weather.  We have had a few days of frost and our garden looks a little bleak around the edges.  The tomatoes are gone and the squash.  We have yet to dig up the sweet potatoes. The cabbages, carrots, beets, onions and spinach are doing well.  Hoping to hold out for the fall a little longer before we have to put the garden to rest.  

We tried introducing the chicks, who are now looking more adolescent than like chicks, to the rest of the chickens.   It did not go well.  We are now down to 3 chicks.  Not sure what happened, but our rooster, "Bob Noxious", got after one of them. He is normally a fairly gentle rooster. However, chickens have a brain about the size of a chickpea and it's difficult to figure out why they do what they do.  It would be just our luck that all of the remaining chicks are going to be roosters....jeeze.  

We went to the local Volunteer Fire Department spaghetti feed yesterday.  It really was kind of cool to show up and see so many of our neighbors.  We actually new people. We sat with the new pastor, his wife and children.  They are really great people and not hypocrites, which is terribly refreshing after our experience with our last church.  It's starting to feel like we are part of this community.  We had a nice time and that spaghetti wasn't bad either.  

CyberPixy's Corner

Good morning,

Just sitting with a cup of coffee...really good coffee and thinking about how I ended up here in Southern Oregon, with 4 cats and a plethora of chickens a big garden and a very different life than I was leading in the Bay Area.  Now we are 12 miles from the nearest town, if you can call it that, that has a population of about 2000. Let's just say that the "traffic" is not a problem. I do miss things about where we came from, my family of course, but most everything else is food related. Sourdough bread, local REAL Mexican food, citrus, avocados, exceptional restaurants on every street corner that are opened until 3 am.  Then there are the events and happenings that, by the local people here, are considered very strange and scary. Renaissance fairs, costume parties, critical mass, burning man, Seaman Group, Cacophony Club shenanigans, drag queens and so many other things.  Some times I feel like I'm from another planet. 

However, I have found a small group of friends, here in the woods, who have open minds and a sense of adventure.  This has made me feel more at home here and we have made our own events here, like the Winter Solstice party that we had at our house, where we made Gloog (a Swedish, fruity, spicy, hot alcoholic beverage) and lit it on fire to celebrate the season.  But I do miss the bay area's wild, crazy people and events. Halloween is coming and I know it will be another year of creative drought, this area has no sense of costume and revelry.  I have missed dressing up for things. At my current job there are no costumes allowed, the area doesn't have Halloween events...just a little too scary, I suppose.  My only outlet is to have my own party but our group of like minded friends is still a bit small for that yet...maybe next year...

Well, I know we moved here to be closer to my sister, to be closer to my husbands family, to get out of the rat race and to get our debt paid off.  I believe we made the correct decision for us, we do really love our life in the woods, with the creek in our back yard and being away from the MULTITUDES of people.  We have found a place here and made friends. Our jobs are not horrible, my husband and I are healthy and life is good.