In this wonderfully diverse country of ours, there are many things to disagree about. But on one thing, I think we can agree.

The White House is a good place for a first puppy.

Why? Because puppies need a lot of staff support and the White House staff is just about big enough for the job.

To prove my point, let’s stop to analyze staffing needs for some ordinary cats and dogs, say those here at the farm. In our office, we need six people on the day shift and four people on the night shift to minimally take care of the needs of the resident two dogs and three cats.

First there is the staff needed for door opening. During the day, these door opening demands fall squarely on whomever is closest to the door (Sophie) or whomever is most attentive to May May’s various methods of getting our attention (Jane). This is important because May May takes at least twenty sixth trips outside each day to see what has happened since she was last outside four minutes before.

And the cats? They need at least one more trip outside than May May each day, because let’s face it, cats are the real alpha dogs in any household.

And door duty at night? We all take turns. It’s Jim’s job.

As far as the first puppy goes, he or she will be blessed with door people at all 412 doors in the White House. That’s an actual, certifiable, fun fact about the White House. There are 412 doors for the first puppy to get people to open. Not a bad gig for a dog.

In addition to the pleasure provided by having so many humans waiting to open so many doors, the first puppy will also have the pleasure of truly gourmet canine cuisine. Here at the farm we need a battery of imaginative chefs and nutritionists for canine and feline banquets. Sadly, we bumble along with a reduced staff of just two of us, me and William. And dinner ain’t always pretty as a consequence.

But the first puppy will have five full time White House chefs at his or her beck and call. Five. That should be enough.

At Green Hope Farm, we need at least three people to supervise the dogs’ lunchtime walk and at least one person for their afternoon run. Our dogs frollick in the woods, not in the well manicured Rose Garden, so theoretically we have less pooper scooping to do than the first puppy’s people. But Jim’s contention is that May May and Riley save everything for the most visible spots on our lawn. So we let nature take its course it’s Jim that scoops. At the White House, there will be a multitude of available staffers assigned to walk and run the first puppy, as well as follow behind with a pooper scoop.

In winter, our dogs and cats need lots of windows to look out and lots of couches to jump on. Even the beds have come into play lately, because May May has begun to sleep on a guest bed. She actually puts her head on the pillow (Please don’t tell our Thanksgiving guests this or they may bring their own sheets….or decide not to visit).

The first puppy will have 132 rooms in which to find the most comfortable couches and beds and ample staff to clean the sheets or slipcovers when the first paws are muddy. The first puppy will also have 147 windows from which to admire the view. Sometimes the first puppy will be watching things like the presidential helicopter take off from the south lawn. Sometimes the first puppy will just be checking out the squirrels. Again, there will be ample staff to clean any windows drooled on during squirrel or helicopter observation. Here, the window washer is named Jim and there are squirrels but no helicopters.

In the country, we worry about our animals getting eaten by coyotes or fisher cats at night. No one Jim does not sleep until the cats are in for the evening. We depend on well trained whistlers Jim to gather our feline troops at dusk. For the dogs, we depend on well trained leashes handlers Jim to take the dogs out one last time at night, then bring them back in too. While there are probably not a lot of coyotes on Pennsylvania Avenue, I imagine the first puppy will also need a last call in the gardens before being ushered into the safety of the White House each night. Last time I checked, the White House had a lot of people handlers on staff. Some of them will be lucky enough to now morph into the much easier job of dog handler.

On winter evenings we gathered around our woodstove with animals flopped on top of all of us. For the first puppy, there will be 28 fireplaces to choose from for quiet family evenings. Probably like here, the first puppy will prefer lying on the male head of household when particularly wet or muddy. Probably like here, this will happen especially when the male head of household is particularly clean and dry, say, ready for a state or PTA dinner.

So to sum up. White House staffing for the first puppy should be ample.

BUT, were Jim here he would want to add his own caveat to my conclusion.

If he were to send a memo to President elect Obama, it would read, “Even with a staff of thousands, you are going to running the country AND be in charge of the first puppy.”

And he’s got a point.

PS St. Jim asked his sixth grade class what they would name the first puppy if they were in charge. Their suggestions included Lincoln, Liberty, Abe, Freedom, Springfield, Rosa, Selma, Tubman, Harriet, Martin, Hope, Robinson, Lucky, and Mr. President. Let’s face it, that last choice is probably the closest to reality. The first puppy will be in charge of everyone at the White House. Just ask May May when she wakes up from her nap in time for her home cooked dinner. She’ll agree with this assessment.

It’s an Upgrade.

Three words I dread.

This time they spilled from the lips of thirteen year old Will. Our early era fax stopped working a few weeks ago and the consensus was that this had happened because our fax was too old to be fixed and that a new fax was necessary.

This all proved to be not true.

The old fax , the one I understood, was fine. It was a problem with the phone lines. The UPS computer shares the phone line with the fax and to use technospeak, the UPS computer hogs the line.

But this fun fact was discovered AFTER Will and Jim had treated “me” to a four function fax gizmo more complicated than the control panels on the first five cars I owned.

And after untold hours trying UNSUCCESSFULLY to get this new fax to work, while listening to fax calls from you get cut off, I went for a 1957 solution. I unplugged the UPS computer phone line. Now it gets plugged in once a day when we send our day’s end data to UPS.

Now we get crabby messages from UPS about our communication problems, but we also get faxes from you again. Whew!

Out in the fall gardens, I understand my tasks better.

Enjoy the seed pods.

Mulch.

No technospeak necessary.

Many have asked for the Angels’ suggestions for Flower Essences that would support us to navigate this current collective paradigm shift about finances and the source of our security.

The Field of the Stars collection was the heart of the Angels’ suggestions today. Whenever a new collection arrives here, it is always a timely arrival. Never was this truer than with the arrival of these Flower Essences from the pilgrim trail in Spain.
I thought I would share the Angels suggestions from this collection. My two cent comments probably belabor the point, but that’s my job!

Santiago was one of the Angels’ Flower Essence suggestions. This mix is “for the moments when we experience false endings, created by our culture or society, when the internal journey is ongoing”. That sums up the global monetary situation in a nutshell. This financial crisis will pass. We will endure. Here is an Essence offering to help us know this and know that the grace of this financial crisis is that it pulls us towards a closer relationship with the one unchanging source of support in the cosmos, the God within each and every one of us.

Another Angelic suggestion, the mix Manzarin offers its keynote of discernment. Manzarin supports us to find “the ability to look below the surface of a situation and feel into its energetic core, to breakdown the external worldview and be energetically discerning about what are true gifts and what are red herrings”. What an excellent tool for the present when the red herrings pile up faster than I can spell bailout. Real calm comes from experiencing that all is well, not just hoping this is so.

The Angels also suggested the mix Belorado “for faith in the emptiness before the dawning of authentic community”. Belorado supports Manzarin in its dismantling of our old fears and building of faith in what is being born underneath the surface chaos. Belorado also reminds us that the stock market is not authentic community nor stocks authentic sustenance, even though we have been encouraged to believe these things. Closeness with other people, closeness with the God within, and closeness with nature are true community. As we collectively turn away from the ersatz, what goodness and joy we will find in these experiences of true community.

Arzua and Hontanas were two other Angelic Flower Essence suggestions. Hontanas encourages us to treat ourselves with tenderness and Arzua helps us open to receive loving support when we feel vulnerable, even when this support comes from unexpected places. The kind of paradigm shift that we are being asked to collectively make is an intense one. We are going to have moments of intense vulnerability as we are called to change our culture’s values and also change the way we live. These two mixes encourage us to be gentle with ourselves and each other, while also promising us the serendipity of gifts from unexpected places, and I don’t mean Walmart.

Mazarife, another Angelic suggestion offers a keynote of joy, explaining that it is “for realizing the potential to create oases of color and joy in the bleak stretches of our lives”. Yesterday, I sat with my dear neighbor Teddy enjoying a late afternoon cup of tea. At eighty seven, she has had her fair share of physical aches, pains, and difficulties, yet unexpectedly we got laughing ourselves silly at this crazy thing called life in a body. May Mazarife help us all to find more and more oases of love and unexpected silliness.

Lavacolla was another Angelic suggestion. This mix is for helping “the body clear its emotional field of any clutter that remains from past and finished energetic work”. How marvelous to know humanity is finishing up with this collective illusion that our safety lies in the consumption and possession of things. How wonderful that we are ready to move on from this mindset. Yes, it may be a rocky transition, but it remains a wonderful thing that we are collectively ready to make this paradigm shift.

Trabadelo was another Flower Essence mix that cropped up. It’s for “finding the courage to acknowledge and let our old patterns go, even as we are unsure of what our lives will look like without them”. We can’t know for certain what this world will look like after this weaning off from our collective fifty year shopping spree, but I think even a void might be better than more shopping.

Sahagun has the keynote surrender and helps us break down the behaviors triggered by fear that cause us to push our physical and emotional selves beyond balance”. This one could also be called, JUST TURN OFF THE NEWS.

Fisterra with its keynote of birth was the Angels’ final suggestion, offering “to support all the physical and energetic systems of the body through a transition where the soul is at the end of a long process of laying down a major paradigm of this or many lives”. Yes! Bring it on!

The trail to Santiago is one that millions of pilgrims have traversed. Once it offered support for the paradigm shifts of individual pilgrims, but its message of late is that it is ready and able to support all of us on our collective spiritual journey. It wants us to know that while we are collectively called to make radical changes right now, we are never asked to do so alone. The trail and the divinity holding the trail in form are always there to support us.

The death of the old and the birth of the new is messy, but these Essences help us feel the promise and goodness of this transition we are in. The Essences also remind us we have choices. We can freak out in the face of all this confusing news or we can keep the faith and take care of each other as we wait to see what wonderful new paradigm of community is being born. Isn’t this the very thing a lot of us have been waiting for, for a long time?

It was dog heaven this weekend, one long walk after another.

These were the days that become the whole memory of the season. The sparkling air revealed the leaves at their autumn best.

There was an Indian summer warmth that left some of us happily barefoot.

On Sunday, when we hit the woodland paths for another leisurely loop, we heard guns on both sides of us.

We had thought we had a bit more time before full tilt hunting season, but the muzzleloaders folks were out in full force.

As quickly as we could we returned to the nearest road, singing very loudly.

No more trail walking until after hunting season.

This is not such a deprivation as all that. The view on the roads is not such a shabby sight.

This past weekend brought victory with the cider press. With all the replacement pieces finally in place, the behemoth grinder crushed whole apples and made apple pulp or pomace about five times as fast as the old grinder. We had four gallons pressed in about an hour. This left time for lots of long delayed victory toasts and…….other projects.

I am not sure I will ever have a cosy relationship with this wheelbarrow, but I am back hauling composted manure and bark mulch with it.

I move around it gingerly though. This was, after all, the very beast I took my bone breaking flip over.

Yesterday after hauling a lot of manure to build a new flower bed, I filled the bed with crocus bulbs. Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of them. I ever so carefully planted clusters of different color crocus bulbs so that, next spring, they would look artfully scattered in a pleasing arrangement of different shades of yellow, white and purple Flowers.

I awoke this morning to find a skunk had ripped up the whole bed during the night. He had left his lingering scent and very few bulbs. I poked these forlorn stragglers into the earth again. As I did so, I felt a lot less smug than yesterday afternoon when I lay on the ground looking at the ziliions of crocus bulbs all so precisely placed for planting and crowed a little bit. That had been a short but misguided moment when I thought myself so on top of the bulb thing.

Perhaps Sophie and Lizzy’s daffodil bulb planting today will go better. If not, its going to be time for a war with a skunk.

Like anyone ever won a war with a skunk……