A Fundamental Need for Calm in Everyday Ramblings

Even though I have a bunch of bright colorful spring flower shots I chose this one today because of the sense of calm it brings me. This was in our Forest Park last Saturday morning, a moment after a pretty steady climb where we paused and gave Frida some water. The trails here are narrow and full of roots and on a nice day in Portland, lots of people!

We were going to hike a less populated trail but Mrs. Sherlock was mapping out a hike for the urban hikers in the Trails Club and there are all sorts of criteria for those. I haven’t heard yet how the hike went but I can imagine everyone enjoyed the fabulous gardens on the way up.

My hope is that we can go to a new garden for Mrs. Sherlock tomorrow morning. That is the plan anyway; we will see what develops.

We are in drought conditions, which is fascinating considering there was a flood watch this morning. The snow pack is melting rapidly and filling the rivers to the tops of their banks and then some. Mostly it is the Columbia River; our local river (The Willamette) is pretty much controlled at this point. There is no rain in the forecast.

So this brings me to the bucket.

When I was in my 30’s and living with Mr. POA in San Francisco is our hippy rental in Noe Valley there were drought conditions and our water allocation was based on the previous year’s usage.

The problem for us was that the previous occupants, a young professional couple, very ambitious had lived there. They worked long hours and showered at their gyms, which meant that basically we had no water allocation. So we got very creative and of course never flushed with fresh water and we had buckets everywhere.

My namesake Noko, the cat, drank out of said buckets. We tried supplying fresh water but you know, she was a cat, and bucket water was much more interesting.

So when I moved to Portland I brought Noko and my buckets.

Mr. POA did not get brought.

Later Noko developed a kind of cancer and died when she was only 10.

We think she may have licked up some anti-freeze out in the parking lot but I also always wondered if the plastic chemicals leaching from the bucket (and her plastic food bowl) played a part.

So I use ceramic or glass to store food and feed the cats and I have not captured any gray water since. With climate change and the incredible hardships folks have faced in South Africa in terms of water shortages I have been thinking about drought again.

When we were at the beach I got to talking with Most Honorable about my bucket dilemma. I asked if he knew of any buckets that would be safe. And that led us to BPA free food storage buckets.

I interacted with Google on this subject and found the Bob’s Red Mill (where I buy my oatmeal and quinoa and granola and…) has a really cool food storage bucket available for under $10.

Yesterday my bucket came, stuffed with the food I had ordered, black turtle beans and nutritional yeast, and yes it has a lid. You can stack them.

This morning I captured my shower runoff and used it to flush later and I am a happy woman doing my tiny little part to make the world a more sustainable and abundant place.

Now if we could just instill that idea in disaffected 17 year old males intoxicated by ideas of violence and access to their father’s personal arsenal…

Thoughts and prayers are not even close to being enough. Not even in range, you might say.