Stacy Witscher

Jeremy - I haven't looked into anything yet. My grandson died so we've been dealing with that, but I will post when I'm able to get back to it.

Thank you Trace, and everyone else who's been there for me in this difficult time.

We had a simple thanksgiving dinner last night, and my daughter was able to toast her son. Thanking him for being a part of our lives, if only briefly, and acknowledging how he made us all better people. She is determined to honor his life with giving back to others, and creating a better world, as am I.

Just to provide some lightness, which I desperately need at this point in time. I named our property Foxglove Farms because I love alliteration, and it's play on words. I'm known as Foxglove in certain circles, and I'm farming, but I'm not farming foxgloves.

I grew cape gooseberries as a perennial in the SF Bay Area. There it was easy, no pests (other than the occasional rat), self-seeded readily and delicious. Mine were very sweet with an acidic back note, reminded me of mango. The best way I found for harvesting was to put a sheet or tarp under the plants and gather the fallen ones every few days, because you want them to fall off the plant. Here in southern Oregon, the plants and fruits were covered in red shouldered bugs, which don't really harm the fruit, but are disgusting. And the ground squirrels would take them before they would fall.

While not about intentional communities, we are experiencing something similar with the death of my grandson. Lots of people are coming and going, and while we appreciate them coming, it's draining. Everyone wants to talk about what happened, and for many, this is their first time to our property and they want to talk about that and our plans. We are finding that we have to take time for ourselves, away from everyone. Thankfully, everyone is understanding of that at this point. Given the tragedy, we are not judged for expressing our needs. I think that it would be a better world if we were all comfortable with expressing our needs. I think that Pearl said it best, "No is an acceptable answer".

I took a land steward class from the extension office here, and one of the great things about it was so much information from local agencies and how they can help. So here, we have the Jackson Soil and Water organization, that I'm going to try to get a grant (usually matching) for rainwater harvesting. So possibility reaching out to your extension office,  they may have some ideas.

Dale - thank you. I know that I'm not always going to be able to help her, and am fortunate to have help. Both of us, currently are feeling extreme guilt for any moment that we are not despondent. We are trying to balance the pain, and trying to stay busy.

We will be planting a linden tree with his placenta and ashes so I doubt that my daughter would ever want to leave our property, but we often feel like this place should be scorched earth.

The only comfort we have is that we had him, for a while. There are many people in this world that never get that, never get to have that kind of love. He was our sunshine, and a blessing in our lives.

I view showering as an indicator, nothing more. When I had my breakdown years ago, I barely got out of bed for 5 years. Generally, I could only manage one thing a day, typically I chose to feed my kids (teenagers). Every couple weeks, we would get take out, so I could shower.

My experiences with hospitalization, partial hospitalization and IOP (intensive outpatient program) are that hospitalization and partial hospitalization (day programs) were mostly babysitting, and provided little real in depth therapy. They were always worried about triggering others. IOP was a life-saver, with a nice mix of check-ins, coping technique teaching, and small group therapy.

I moved out here, so as to live in an environment that I don't need to be sedated to survive, now I don't know if it will be enough. And my daughter and I are very different people, with different diagnoses. All of my kids have borderline tendencies, because they were raised by a borderline mother, but they are not borderline. My daughter needs to be around people to stay out of her head. I'm not a people person, other than children, and now he's gone.

I know that I'm all over the place, but that's as good as it gets right now.

My daughter is bipolar. She struggles to deal with everyday stuff, now with the death of her son, I just don't know if she will make it. She has an amazing therapist, that she listens to. I'm hoping that will help. I am extremely grateful that she didn't try to harm herself when the sheriffs were here. Her being locked up wouldn't have helped anything. We don't leave her alone ever, right now. But everyone's around right now. I'm afraid for when they all leave. We are working on getting her back on medication. She has been off of it because of the pregnancy and subsequent nursing. Although they never really came up with anything that worked well. She doesn't have much mania, mostly depression with short rapid cycling manic episodes. Hopefully we will find a good psychiatrist for her, her therapist is helping us.

I have always hated the holidays, as a child, it meant abuse. Now, with my grandson dying a few days ago, there will be no celebrations, nothing to be thankful for. We will be having his memorial service instead.