it rained again II new area pix

it rained again II pix

it rained, again II

by Art Nichols

After the good rain we had everything started coming out of the ground. The first starts to pop out of the ground was the corn, within a day after the rains we could see the tops poking out of the ground. Then, after that day everything else started popping up, seems like every time we walked out the door there was some new life. After seeing what the both of us could do in the time it took for results to show, Tilly and I decided to go full throttle.

Looking back to practically 30 days ago it doesn't seem like much labor for all the rewards. It seems too good to be true. What else is in store for us?

It rained, again.

by Art Nichols

Much has happened since the last post of mine. So I'm going to start by mentioning the highlights in order then go back and give the scoop on each highlight one by one.

1. Successful starts in the first garden prompts me to start a new area for more veggies.

2. Our Work pays off and our one of our first goals is reached. Our farm stand idea is accepted and permission is given to start-up a farm stand.

3. Everything is popping-up out of the ground and our vision that was dreamed up is coming into focus, bringing more than Tilly or I ever dreamed.

My family

by Tilly Nichols

Today moms husband Johnnie came to me after the bible study at church, and had tears flowing from his eyes. He grabbed my shoulders and told me in tears said "you two better not let me down" And at that moment it hit me if he lost faith in us, who knows if it would ruin his "faith" as a whole. This 80 something year old retired military man, who was raised right here in this valley I now farm, was looking to me to hold his faith safe....what a responsibility. Now if people counting on me or believing in me was all I needed to do well, I 100 times would have made different choices. I have let so many people including myself down. This time though I was brought to tears...I went and stood outside the church in the shadows and realized 2 out of the three conversations I could hear were about us, and how we symbolized a new faith for some of these aged parishioners, and I realized I cant lose any faith in myself and I owe a bit of non dissapointing sucess to the world. So many have lost faith from my actions and now I have to chose to restore faith...in others lives, in my own... one thing clearly came from tonights bible study and events with the church parish.... I am a part of a family now. For this I am greatful, and I pray tonight I won't disapoint them, myself or my God.

My program starts with this.

by Art Nichols

This is a picture of baby olives. My program has to have certain vital essentials to it and if I give myself responsibility Id follow through with flying colors. I'd like to think that I would at least not let myself down. Here is what I know if I don't have anymore interest in my program than just me I wouldn' t feel so bad when I let myself down. Whom to go to then? Family? Im a professional at letting my family down. Friends? Anyone I know let one another down is more common than it to be. For me it took me going out to find someone who had similar interests and we came up the program together.Her name is Tilly and I love her.

Me and Arturo

The Gate

by Tilly Nichols

This is the Gate.

The word used in reference to drug recovery sounds so metaphorical, and I guess in the Art and Tilly Program.. (hehe you don't mind Mr Nichols do you?) is has reached a metaphoric level too. I could imagine if we were on Vacation in Cabo for a month or something we would find some form of La Puerta to fill in. The gate to us is mereley a gate that is a short didtance into the fields where we have become accustomed to walking to sometimes several times in one day. Not through, but too. We have a metallic sharpie I hide by the trail, and we mark off every trip we take there. It sounds so cool though. A recovery program called the Gate.....sounds familiar so I googles it and heres the answer google gave......wait to save time just note how many hits it got....Results 1 - 10 of about 342,000 for the gate drug recovery. (0.15 seconds) .

Every major philosophy has a metaphoric "gate lesson" so I looked to the bible this morning for a thought to carry with me for the day.

Lesson - Matt 7:13-14; Matt. 6:24

Matthew 7:13-14 Enter ye in by the narrow gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leads to destruction, and many are they that enter in thereby. For narrow is the gate, and straitened the way, that leads unto life, and few are they that find it.

Life is like a road. When you came to church tonight, you took a road to get here. There were other streets that you could have taken, but you wouldn't have ended up here. You had to follow a certain path to get here. If you'd taken a different road, you would have ended up somewhere else.

Jesus said that the choices we make in life are like picking which road to take. He describes two roads. One is wide, and flat, and easy with a wide gate at the end. The other is narrow, and rugged, and difficult, with a narrow opening at its end. Most people take the easy road, and few take the narrow one. But Jesus said that the wide and easy road leads to destruction, and the straight and narrow road leads to eternal life.

When we have to make choices in life, we have to base our decisions on more than what is easiest. Often what seems easiest or most appealing is the worst choice we can make. Satan wants us to sin, so he makes sin look good. But we have to know where our decisions will lead us. We have to look at the consequences of our decisions.

Today will be busy. There is a wedding on the Rancho, seedlings coming up, a 30 day sobriety cheesecake party, weedwhacking so we dont get snakebit, and house cleaning to be done etc....but sober, strong and yes even religious is all in our program.... and here I am blogging, studying the bible and getting back to life on El RANCHO ALL TO SOME SPANGLISH FREDDY FENDER AND HANK WILLIAMS. LIFE IS GOOD!

The Art Nichols Program

by Tilly Nichols

OK, here's my program....I um slept and looked for my unglued crown I apparently swallowed during the night, convinced my boyfriend of 7 months that he could sleep without one load of meth to slam, "to relax him to sleep".....um yeah....we needed meth to sleep 30 days ago....and a good half gram if you wanted us to be able to get out of bed....god, we were gross....legends but gross.....reached a celebrity status drug use....and then there it was...I hit that point here ya see? I just felt it take over me....I was sick and tired...goofed up with the lie...the lies the drugs told me, the lies I told myself, the lies I spewed to anyone nearby, the lies they spewed back at me...the sickness, the poison all came to9 light ....yeah while coming to terms with having swallowed my crown....I was scared, sad, angry, hopeful, awestruck, tired, hyper, breathless, and any possible combination of emotions for the following few weeks. So that's how I became the 1st follower of the ART NICHOLS program....but thank god art forgot to tell me there were rules...I'm a rebel ya know, and rules ain't my thing right? Who knows...see I don't know what my thing is these days....I'm like a child....just learning to feel, and plan and dream and cry.....like I was asleep for 5 years and just woke up ....catching up with all that passed when i was asleep....but I was awake....too awake....in fact I never slept....see how backwards that shit is.....wow.....but see the face of sober me in this picture? That's one of the rewards of my sobriety, cuz you know how I wrote yesterday about not having pictures of me back then? I was sucked in, and bony faced and wrinkled and pale....my hair and nails brittle and breaking....yuck....now look...and the whole 30 days here on the art Nichols program...I never knew there was rules principles and foundations....for me3 the art Nichols program was

1. I want to be well

2. My kids need me and my ex is winning when Im using.

3. HOLD ON TO ARTS ARM AND WATCH THE WORLD SPIN BY

4. Breath

5.Dream

then came the farm.....see I don't even remember thinking up the farm....I remember weeding, to make mom happy...then getting even muddier....we were asking for yard chores and in a moment of "GET THESE HYPER SOBER FREAKS OUTTA MY FLOWERS mom took us to the nursery for some plants of our own....a few succulents, some nasturtiums and pumpkin seeds....then Art gave me a few tractor rides and they reminded me of pumpkin patch hayrides behind tractors in hay fields by the pumpkin patch when I was small.....then I hit a soft spot in the art Nichols program...a dream I guess he already done dreamed.....I did remember him telling me that before...along with a plan for a t4Ree farm he and him mom had discussed years back...and then whiz pop whirl, 30 days of delusions or as I prefer to call them ....affirmations of grandeur.....haha...and we thoguht up the RANCHO BE DAMNED FARM STOP<>

we have become plant obsessed, fallen in love with a newborn owl, and buried it, gone back to church with a vigor, and earned moms trust and satisfaction....we've grown closer, gained weight and shown ourselves...this program of ours is a winner.

The Art Nichols Program II

by Art Nichols

Today, as I was clearing a new spot for planting, I thought about the first day Tilly and I decided to incorporate agriculture and farming into our program. I call it the Art Nichols program

This program is a kinda make the rules as you go program. Its original format was:

1 DON'T do any more drugs

2 Rely on someone else for support

3 Have faith to do what you want through Jesus Christ, in God

4 Walk to the gate

This time the Art Nichols program was more, co-produced, so to speak. The very second Tilly and I decided to go through with going on the wagon, we both constructed the foundation of our program. Likewise, when items were added to the list, the addition was made with both of us creating, revising and agreeing on the new rule. Both of us probably thought at that moment we would have to hold each other to these rules at times, it goes without saying. Then we added:

5 Have a goal and work towards it everyday this was to relieve some of the urge to fall off the wagon.

6 The most special part of this recipe for the both of us is planting, sowing seeds, and taking clippings.

All of these items is what created, our "baby" as we call it, grow some vegetables for a farm stand and even if we don't make money we use all the work we do to go towards being able to have a larger scale pumpkin growing business next year and what we hope is the real kicker start a year after year Christmas tree business.

April Showers

by Tilly Nichols

The sun has returned on the Rancho. Enough looking back on times that will puzzle me for plenty of days to come, and now is time to celebrate the sun. Since the rain we have noticed the mini corn patch is up. There are definately mighty max 100 lb pumpkin babies, although I m not sure which one is them, and a tiny nastursium sprout, oh and sunflower babies. I added coffee to my routine. I remember coffee being a stimulant before I ruined my system with toxic household chemicals claiming to be my wake up call haha. I better eat with it though, my system is acting all virgin to everything. I am 30 days clean tomorrow, and I feel about 9 years old I tell you. I am so thrilled about the baby plants, but for some weird reason its reminding me of the owl baby. sigh.

No pictures?

by Tilly Nichols

So as me and Art go backwards to tell our story, I couldn't help but notice one thing. I thought, "Hey, I should post some pictures of us when we were high. A sort of Before and After type thing", but then I remembered a marvelous twist5ed irony called the Dope LIE! See I have no pictures of when I was high. In fact I have little to show for my high...maybe a half a poem scrawled on a phone bill, for a phone we couldn't keep turned on for more than a month, or maybe a pencil drawing of some nameless face on the back of a place mat..... I have my memories though right? Well maybe a few....but when I really think about the great high times, they all ended in scenes like the one a few months back, when Art and I partied my whole check away on a grand tour of casino emotional roller coasters....oh man....the puddle of tears we woke up in, all junked out, engine running in the parking garage of some casino 150 miles from home and no gas or money as usual....not the first time we found our fun in creating drama to no end....the sick and twisted drama ewe wove like blankets around us...but they did little to keep us warm, camping in the CDF parking lot a month earlier, the last time we pulled this trick haha. Or don't forget him begging for a needle or an issue while I sped out of the driveway without him, leaving him alone while I tore off with his friends, and the dope....simply because he was so doped out he was trying to go to town barefoot haha..wow...the "bite marks" from when he scraped my hand "helping me open the car door" after pushing me down..... typical dope hate So then back to that big dope lie I lived, I am onto it now....I see what I fell for and the weakness I posessed when I believed it....and Where did I find the truth...when did I see the light? How did I find my way home? Well I decided Art was a junkie, and he had to change or I couldn't be with him.... haha....and I couldn't expect him to quit alone...so I let another lie fix the first lie....sick aint I....then once I cleared up for a few days, I saw the real picture....the sickness I saw in him when he begged and screamed for a needle, my dope....it was only a mirror to the sickness I saw within me.....thank God I cared about him so much...because I never would have seen my own disease......so much has changed......28 days and strong.

28 nights ago

by Art Nichols

Within my last 24 hour period of fast-drug use I had Slammed a big issue in the casino once smoked the crystal pipe 3 or 4 times scraped up everything with residue and then consolidated into one syringe load. Then got so depressed that i was crying at the end of the road trying to wave down cars so I could get a cigarette to smoke. On top of having my girlfriend leaving me at home twice, once after I pushed her and slammed her hand into the door, cutting one of her fingers, and secondly me throwing the keys at her car as she spins out of our yard in it in angrily after me yelling. Plus having not one but two- "people on the couch", with a side order of at least 2 or 3 32 oz. beers, passing out after making spaghetti, then, being woke up to someone who brings some cocaine over and then doing a 15 unit shot of that just before going to look for some crystal. Following up with picking up someone and bringing them over to my house whom my girlfriend told me I cant have over and doing another 10 cent issue with her. I remember drinking gin and juice a few times and having a couple swallows of some new flavor yagermeister. The real bad one was i came within inches of doing a syringe load of stuff that i did NOT know what it was, I had found it on a plate in the bathroom, and thinking it was crystal pulled it up in a syringe and put it down because I was not sure what it was. I went as far as calling my friend to see if my girlfriend who had just ditched me at home was still with him to ask her what was on the plate. Turns out she already dropped him off so after I hung up the phone i licked the plate and after deciding that whatever it was it was not dope, then squirting it down the sink drain I started questioning my sanity. It turned out to be left over stuff from hair mousse. I finished out the 24 hour period with a 10 cent issue(just enough to make me comfortable enough to go to sleep) in-between my girlfriend and I arguing about everything.........we agreed on one thing that 24 hours ..............

SOMETHING HAD TO CHANGE!

It was then that we decided to quit slamming crystal, quit crystal all the way around and quit doing crazy stuff.

Rainy Reminising

by Tilly Nichols

Today is rainy on El Rancho Be Damned, and testing my patience a bit. Since quitting Meth 26 days ago, my entire existence has been based mostly on the farm. You know this whole thing is odd on so many levels. First off, I thought I would die without dope, and Im better than ever and Im only 26 days clean. The other part that is weird, is that my whole life I hated outdoor chores. I would just wanna die as a kid if my parents asked me to water the garden...and other than a few afternoons making myself clean yard on the rez so the kisd wouldnt get snake bit, I was never one you'd find doing outside stuff. I did always love tweaking out on hkes but make a sensible reason for being outside and youd never find me there. If something needed to be done and I was most likely in the kitchen. Thats where my niche has always been. Ands thats where I am today. The familiar scent of Tilly cooking fills the rainy Rancho...you can feel the slight anticipation and irritation from fence to fence today. Even the cats and birds seem all to ready for the cold to break and farming and Freddy Fender Tunes

to resume. But then all are soothed by the swirling evidence of Arroz con Pollo, and Old Movies

this is art?

by Art Nichols

Hi my name is Arturo Nichols everyone calls me Art. I've done everything, like that commercial that the rock group KISS. Yeah thats all ive ever done is what Id tell you if I just met you. Usually when I met someone for the first time the conversation usually topics around, Music or drugs, because, I look like a fat Jonathin Davis from the rock group KORN. As far as for breif descriptions thats the best one for me with the least amount of words. Next I'd probably start listing them off starting with crystal, LSD, heroin, cocaine, and I' save some of the other more illicit drugs for later on in the conversation. Next i would tell you that Id been playing music all my life and can do anything musiucaly. BUT- That was 26 days ago.

Now im operating my first organic farm.

Let me take you back 4 to 5 weeks. Generally speaking, my Method of Destruction, or MOD, was party all the time. Why not I currently reside on what I call a Rancho in Southern California, in a town called Alpine, which is known nationally for the 'Best Climate'. Im known by the practically the whole town, Id like to think that if someoene was talking about me they would say "yeah old Art he's one of the good old boys hes honery likes to do drugs but have you heard him sing?"

Now I would hope someone would say "Art yeah he is still the same but guess what hes doing? Him and his girlfriend stopped doing all the hard shit and are starting up a farm stand - they're growing vegetables!"

If someone was to tell me that 26 days ago i would have died laughing.

The Baby owl died today.

by Tilly Nichols

The day ended somberly on the Rancho. We have been watching a mama owl nest in the tree by the shed for weeks and finally her eggs had hatched. The other day we saw a perfect adorable baby white owl wiggling around up in the nest. To me this owl symbolized rebirth, and the fight to regain my parental rights. Even Mom and Johnnie were excited by this baby bird, so when Art and I found its tiny body below the tree getting firewood this evening, it was a blow to all of us. The death of the baby owl left its gloom on us this evening and weve decided to end the work day early, and take the Lords day in rest tomorrow as well. We are both feeling introspective and a bit nostalgic.....maybe we will share some memories and drink tea and bloody Mary's and build the blog tonight and tomorrow. Church tomorrow too. Mom seems so happy with us and I feel much better with her frrling good about us being on the Rancho at all. This is signified, by an onslaught of gifts, ranging from costco meatballs to sioux pottery and family heirlooms. They even gave us the hillside AND a new hose to cultivate that much more land. So many seeds and hopes are laid in the ground and tonight I had to calm the thought that "What if everything we touch dies, or what if Moms fears are confirmed and this labor of loveand symbol of our sobriety just withers or even worse the seeds just dont come up....the nastersiums are only a a week behind moms and nothing yet,when will we see life anew? When will I be sober long enough to see my kids.? When I go to court will the judge see how hard I am trying to do right and help me? So many big questions raised by this tiny owl.

Breaking Ground 2

by Tilly Nichols

I stuck my toe under the bathroom door, not happy that i for once hadn't left for my usual weekly all about me trip to the ghetto. For once I did what I said, meant what I said, and came back, within daylight at that. I arrived to a house full of rif-raf, and I had brought an unwelcome carload of my own rif-raf, and I detected a rif-raf -off. Mine against his, me against him, myself against the world, and then as I stuck my toe under the bathroom door it hit me.....What the hell am I doing? And there I was too, at the ironic crossroads....and realized....The one thing that that had brought us together was nor tearing us apart......mind you, this was 22 days ago, so its obviously going well...theres no new broken electronics or bite marks in the Rancho, and theres a lot of things coming up....in every way you use the term......

breaking ground

by Art Nichols
21 days ago, i saw a leopard skin vans toe wedged under the bathroom door. The way Tilly peeled out and I threw my keys at her when she left, I didnt expect her back, at least not this soon...she's usually a week yeah? So I invited over the only people or shall we say person she didn't allow over to the rancho the minute she left. My thinking was ,seeing as how she was probably going to go get high, I wasn't just going to go to sleep right? Well, right or wrong, there was that toe under the door and I knew , " This is it I'm in trouble" . Both of us were at the point in our nearly year long rollercoaster relationship, where we relized maybe we had to change. Its ironic that the one thing that had brought us together was about to be the one thing to drive us apart.