Plastic, Rocks, and I
I’m having a crappy day, so I indulged in a bag of chili-cheese fritos. I usually keep a bag on hand since they are out-of-this-word fantastic crumbled on a salad, […]
Nature
A New Enlightenment?
There’s been a hiatus in my postings. I had a mastectomy and have been slow to get my energy, and perhaps more importantly, my focus back after a summer of […]
Late Summer 2021
The oak leaves have their mature deep green, leathery appearance. The fog has a gray cast, rather than the golden hue it somehow gathers in the spring and early summer. […]
Looking green!
Greener and greener! The garden is beginning to produce! I started most everything from seed, so it lags behind other gardens a bit, but the wait has been worth it! […]
When it breaks down
The repercussions of overdoing it this Spring have trickled down well into Summer. This Spring, the busiest time of year for my gardening business, I also bushwhacked and established a […]
Last day of Spring, First EVER National Juneteenth
I wish I had kept up with the blog better this Spring. So much happened, but working so hard, I would be up at 5:30 and in bed by 7. […]
Rehumaning
Yup. After about a week of being eaten alive by bugs; shredded and impaled by raspberries, blackberries, gooseberries, Devil’s walking stick, locusts, and greenbriar; endured thousands of demands from hungry […]
Under Dinosaur Skies
Much about the times is difficult for me to accept, process, reconcile, and so on. The politics. The environmental rape. The selfishness of maskless morons. Racism. Nationalism. It has all […]
Feral
The dynamics of isolation are complex. As an extreme outlier on the introversion scale, as well as a practicing hermit, I’ve found myself alone for some significant time. I can […]
The Efficacy of Ego and the Dissolution of Self: Part 2
See Part 1 Considering humanity through history, it’s a big thing. What we call History- it’s characters and narratives- is a thin, subjective braid of what events and people have […]
The Efficacy of Ego and the Dissolution of Self: Part 1
See Part 2 When I grew up, I was most strongly influenced by my father. He was a thoughtful, quiet man, who believed his children were obligated to be the […]
A busy busy spring
I took on too much. I foster baby wild birds and release them back into the wild each spring. This is the fourth year. The first year, I had 6 […]
Eastern Phoebes and a Black Cat
I have a pair of Eastern Phoebes nesting in the eave of the shed. I will take this as a sign that parts of the compound are being integrated fully […]
Improvements to the grounds
Gardening! It’s been a hectic couple weeks with soil and earth deliveries, the fencing contractors, and moving garden to the new site. The current location of the garden is the […]
Vandals
Differences among people’s world views can be challenging and enriching to overcome. Some individuals take their worldview seriously, others float through life in a less anchored way, perhaps not even […]
Steaks and Lollies
Organisms have an intimate and complex relationship with food. We not only literally take it into our bodies, but also we assimilate it into our own being. Additionally, it triggers […]
Rooting
Plants have a distinct quality from people that is shared with more strictly segmented life, such as some worms and some invertebrates. In many cases you can lop a limb […]
Wildlife List Spring 2021
Wildlife spotted at Mons Domus this season. Birds American Crow1 Slate Junco1 Chipping Sparrow1 White breasted Nuthatch1 Mourning Dove1 Carolina Wren1 Black-capped Chickadee1 Downy Woodpecker1 Hairy Woodpecker Tufted Titmouse Pileated […]
My Wren Friend
This Winter has been all about Juncos and Nuthatches. It’s a huge flock. There are a handful of chickadees and three doves that regularly partake in the peanuts and sunflower […]
Life in a Green Commune
Photo credit: Wikimedia Volvox are gorgeous organisms. They live somewhere between the individual, a group, and are a beautiful manifestation of physically efficient geometry. They are often abundant in deep, […]
An Argument for a 5th Season
It’s the end of February and the mountains of PA have seen one of the most generously snowy winters that we have experienced in years. It reminds me of my […]
How big is a soul?
I’ve always had an interest in consciousness, self awareness, and how the brain seems to have a sense of where the self ends and where the rest of the universe […]
Digital Bouquets
I enjoy occasions to give. But as I have aged, most people in my circle have all the things they want and to take up more space risks imposing oneself. […]
Joy in Painting
When young, I gravitated to clay in school and the muddy hole that I had dug in the back yard for fun. At university, I studied portrait sculpture and soil […]
Chickadee
We did actually get a good bit of snow over the past 48 hours, hard to say how much total because it is fluffy and considerable drifting has piled it […]
Snow Day Prep, and Latin with the Starlings
There was much to do this past Fall. I was getting the main structure ready for occupancy inspection and had to shore up the 250′ fence, in addition to the […]
Mons Domus Deep Space Observatory is OPEN
An important part of my monasticism is the regular observation and appreciation of nature. I’ve invested in a microscope and a telescope to help open my eyes a little wider […]
The Protean Loneliness Machine
Some time ago, just under 4 billion years, relatively early in the planet’s existence, some bubbles gained certain unusual capacities involving the regulated shuffling of electrons and sustained frothiness. Distinct […]
The Lichen Diaries
Lichens are cool. Seriously. They are a mashup of individuals from two different phyla of life: Plants and Fungi. Imagine a whole body merge with a portabella or an eggplant. […]
The Qualities of a Snow Day
Having always lived in the northern tier of states in the US, snow days have been a part of my life since I was a child. After 53 years, I’ve […]
Connections
Social connections do a great service to an individual. Extroverts are happier and healthier than introverts, and often find it easier to integrate into the workforce. Being connected had advantages […]
The Mitochondria Problem
It’s an odd project- developing an iconographic language for science. Science already has its languages; maths, taxonomies, chemistry, geometries, and so on. The issue is that these languages have proven […]
Attempted coup and the mouse in my car.
Filters are important in most monastic endeavors. Selectively permitting the passage of information, and selectively permitting the information to be of impact. A matter of scale in the importance of […]
The mouse in my car
About a quarter century ago. The windows of my car were smashed in an act of vandalism. It took me a good while to scrape up enough cash to get […]
Making room for the rest of the week
Mondays are my days where I clear out business so I don’t have so much to worry about the rest of the week. Today, I picked up meds, took care […]
Resolutions 2021
New Years has always been a favorite time. It’s kind of like a birthday- a fresh start, a new cycle, but one where I’m willing to spoil the opportunity for […]
Gwen
Although Lady Gwynhyvar died of spleen cancer right before Mons Domus was built, she was with us in the Shed as the project started. I met Gwen at the animal […]
Horus
Horus was adopted from an absolutely horrendous rescue in Tennessee back around 2010. His mother was vicious and feral and gave birth to a litter on the way to the […]
Wildlife List Winter 2020-21
Wildlife spotted at Mons Domus this season. Mammals Whitetail Deer Groundhog Gray Squirrel Opossum Unidentified rodent living in my car. Chipmunk! First noticed returning on March 11 Birds Junco- daily […]
Winter
To celebrate the Solstice, managed a taste of Chartreuse, a liqueur made in an ancient French Monastery. Its flavor is derived from some 100+ herbs, and if anything can taste […]
New Eyes for the World
My eyes have been changing for about 5 years. I shift reader prescriptions every six months or so. The process of getting old eyes has made me more aware of […]
A Guest
For safety during the Pandemic, my son is staying in “The Shed” some of the time, where I lived when I was building the house. He’s a good guest, offering […]
This is for the Birds
I need a lot of windows. I knew this after living in a couple homes that didn’t have enough. When I designed my house, I thought about monastic life, and […]
My First Hermitage
It was in 1991. I was in Lakewood, Ohio with a literally mangy rescue dog. Milton had passed mange on to me, and so we were both in recovery. I […]
A New Winter
Winter feel like it has finally arrived. It’s cold enough out to stoke the fire in the wee hours, and we’ve had snow in several different varieties already this year. […]
Carbon and Celibacy
Monasticism is almost universally earmarked by sacrificing excess. In Christian Monasticism, one of the ‘excesses’ to get the boot is sex. To forego sex is to deny the carnal, in […]
Loneliness Prevention Plan, kind of.
Solitude can be peaceful, productive, and empowering, but there’s little to gain from loneliness, and much to lose. Loneliness erodes confidence, self worth and can lead one to compromise in […]
With little more time.
A few days into the big media reduction shift, I’ve found I have some extra time. And I realize that I should update my routine. Here are somethings I’m thinking […]
Wildlife List Fall 2020
Wildlife seen at Mons Domus this season Mammals Whitetail Deer Groundhog Red squirrel Gray squirrel Eastern Chipmunk Birds Junco House Sparrow Catbird (released) Purple Finch House Finch (released) Gold Finch […]