The Surreal and Real

This may sound crazy, but do you ever feel as if you are standing "outside" of time?  That life around you is speeding by while you eeever-so-slooooooowly impartially observe events?  That the tasks you do seem to take all day instead of the short time they "normally" take?  I've been having alot of that feeling lately.  Maybe it's stress; maybe it's a part of growing old; maybe it's because it's Autumn and the year is winding down.  I don't know what it is, but the whole sensation is just nuts!  Then, just as suddenly, the opposite occurs -- I speed up while everything else s-l-o-w-s down.  Schwaller de Lubicz in The Temple of Man says that "time is a function of matter".  Sometimes I wonder if our solar system's movement through the galactic ecliptic is doing something to the forces that comprise matter and that affectation is somehow changing time, our perception of it, and maybe even us.  Who knows?  I mean, have you ever had the feeling that you "jump" timelines?  Now, that is weird and while I do admit to having some strange timeline experiences,  my rational mind strongly objects to my emotional heart's insistence that such experiences are possible.  And while I don't believe in time travel, I do believe (again based on some weird personal experiences) that time can be manipulated.   Sheesh!  Strange thoughts for stranger times.  Woo, woo, and hullabaloo -- Halloween's come early!  So much for the surreal today.

In the real world I have been busy doing the last of the canning.  The three bushels of carrots were more work than I cared for because many of them were small and the project took me two days, but I love carrots and that made the work a labor of love. LOL.  I wound up with 30 1/2 quarts. 

And yesterday I canned the sauerkraut.  I got 30 quarts from my two 5-gallon crocks.  Hopefully that will be enough to see us through till next year.  I think I tend to discard too much from the top of the crocks, but when it comes to fermenting food in crocks, it's better to err on the side of safety than your love for kraut!

Tom got a nice little buck when he went hunting with his bow, and I helped him bring it back to the house.  Now he's going out grouse hunting (I call them prarie chickens); I hope he can bag a couple of them.  They are all over the place but seem to especially like the balsams down by the creek.  Yesterday he came home with a surprise:

A big chaga mushroom.  What a find!  I chopped most of it up today and put it in the dehydrator.  I made a pot of chaga tea, had a cup, and put the rest in the frig to drink over the next few days.  I left a chunk uncut and told Tom to ask our friends, Bill and Linda Betz, if they want some.  I bet Linda will know about chaga!

Tonight when I went to close up the chicken coop the wind whistled through the tree branches and what leaves they still held rustled dryly in response.  The twilight sky was filled with cold grey clouds that raced with the wind, and under my feet the leaf covered ground crunched sharply with each step.  Already I felt frost in the air on my cheeks.  It was a true October evening. 

I cannot leave you tonight without mentioning that today would have been my mother's 73rd birthday.  She died back in 1998 from complications of diabetes.  Happy birthday, Mama.  May you fare well wherever you are!