the magic of hands

Long Time No Write

2011-12-07T14:21:00.001-08:00

Well, actually, I have been writing, just not here. Poems and such. More on that some other time. The matter at hand is that, quite simply, I've spent a good month rearranging the furniture of my daily living, so to speak, and energy is now flowing differently through many rooms. My studio, for example.

I actually about dreamt this months ago, a lovely dream wherein I had a spacious apartment in New York, and I had rearranged all my furniture, and gotten new pieces. The most memorable was a massive apothecary chest, worn with use and time, which stretched from the table where it sat to nearly touching the high ceiling. Curiously in writing this I described it first as an alchemist's chest, and though I'm not sure if such a piece of furniture exists, I'll gladly take that rendition of the piece.

As part of this waking-life rearrangement, I've serendipitously acquired a new tool for time management, the Autofocus System, which balances both the rational list-making mind and the intuitive energy-sensing mind. You can read all about it on Mark Forster's website, as he is the man behind the magic. But I'll give a quick synopsis of how it works here.

Basically, it's a big list. Everything you need to do, right there in one lined, regular-sized notebook. For some people it would probably make sense to have a “home” notebook and a “work” notebook, but since I work at home such an approach really won't work for me. Anytime you think of something you need to do, you just add it to the end of the list. So meditate might be right there next to change out cat litter. But also on the list will be creative and recreational activities—just whatever comes into that sweet meadow of your mind.

This next part is really the fun part. Because first you review the list, a page at a time: first scanning it, and then considering each item on the list. And you wait for something to click. You're waiting for the feeling that this item is the thing to do now. You put a little dot by it, and get busy. If you work on it for a little while and feel the energy waning, you cross it off your list and write it again at the bottom of your list. This works well for me on so many levels. If I only have so long to work on a task, that's okay, it's still there, on my list, and I can come back to it whenever I am ready for it. Also, larger tasks are naturally broken down into manageable little blocks. Such a difference this makes for me, as I get overwhelmed so easily!

There's another part of the process, whereby you dismiss tasks that have been sitting for too long. Instead of dismissing one item at a time, however, you dismiss an entire page, so whatever items are still left on it are simply marked with a highlighter, and that's it. You are done with a page.

If you are interested in actually using the Autofocus system, please visit Mr. Forster's website. He has a video there, and written instructions that explain in detail the system he has developed.

Coming Soon: a new website, a painting in progress, and some words (or more likely, a lot of words) on the balancing act of homeschool and creative work.

The Studio Light is On, the Doctor is In

2011-09-15T19:58:00.001-07:00

Suddenly my life feels manageable. It is an amazing feeling, one that I haven’t felt in a very long stretch of time. As in years. And years.

Last week my second eldest daughter–twenty-years-old and five months pregnant–moved out when an apartment opportunity that could not be missed opened up for her. There was the great chaotic heave of a move. My sister-in-law came for a visit, and I brought out the mismatched accommodations of my home . My brother-in-law, who has been a long-term interim resident (figure out that one, I haven’t yet), left for Michigan.

By Tuesday, at the dinner table, it was the four of us: me and Jay, McKinley and Renee. Just us at the table. It was rather surreal. I realized I’ve not a clue how to cook for just four people.

Today creative thoughts and ideas swirled around in my head and they were not tagged with the weight of frustration, which has been my state of creativity for…a Very Long Time. These ideas –about last night’s dreaming, stories, paintings, and how they all fit together–they were not mired in the realm of That Which I Can Never Accomplish, no, not at all! They whisped about in the blue sky of mind, forming and reforming as they collected a growing energy throughout the day.

Now I am in my studio. I am listening to Bach. There is a breeze rushing the darkness beyond my windows. I am wearing my creativity like a well-worn sweater, the soft one that fits every curve of your body and warms your skin perfectly. The one you find in the bottom of your drawer after you thought you’d lost it. I glow with playfulness. I am the light in my windows.

Creative Mother Journey, or lack thereof

2011-07-24T21:08:00.001-07:00

Do you ever feel like you are tromping through thick mud? You remember a time just a short while ago when things fell easily into place. You were eager. You felt your own power, your place in the world. Now, not so much. At all. Things are not desperate, these are not dark times, (which often hold their own pearls of light after all). No, it's more like a sky of high gray clouds that never rain. After a few days your head feels muddled. Only I've been muddled for what seems like weeks now, and I've begun to get a bit exasperated with it, bored with my own excuses.

Excuses for neglecting my creative work. I know I am not alone here. We mothers are naturally, perhaps even biologically, inclined to sacrifice vital parts of ourselves for our families. Some of us. I do see others that amaze me with their creative discipline an accomplishments. Sometimes, like say earlier this week, I spread a little blame around to family members (saying my marriage has more traditional gender roles than I'd like, or that my kids require more supervision and direction from me than they actually really do), but in the end I'll take the blame for it. I know it's only fair and after all it's really more empowering to acknowledge that I am choosing this for myself. That's something I can change.

On the backdrop of my own malaise, however, is the exciting prospect of our road trip to Glacier National Park. We are leaving within ten days! I've made packing lists and lists of what needs to be done before we go (which is a lot, because not only are the peaches hanging like fuzzy orange lanterns from the trees, begging to be harvested, but the tomatoes are also considering other states besides green. And we've been getting rain and hot hot sun). So I'll be a busy little bee, humming along. There's something very exciting about taking a big trip. It certainly seems to stir things up a bit, and it helps me see the end to the trail of mud I'm squelching through. Between traveling and reinstating some key daily practices (writing, meditating, moving), I think you'll be hearing from me very soon.

Working in the Spring Air

2011-04-21T07:15:00.001-07:00

I spent most of yesterday afternoon on the deck of my studio. Ah, the spring air! The new green leaves! Here is the view I soaked in:

And here is how my piece progressed:

Today is another gorgeous spring day! Who knows what treasures it will hold?

A Perfect Sunday

2011-04-19T06:55:00.000-07:00

A Sunday in which I totally lacked motivation and feared I might languish into nothingness became a quiet day in which I painted a mandala:

I like the spots...can't decide if I'll take it further with my Micron pens or not.

Later Renee and I did some laundry, and then I took a great nap (halfway on the pile of laundry). After waking I pulled out the sewing machine and made some napkins from some thick, luscious fabric from the community free room:

I had fun making the fringes! (sorry for the dark photo...silly iPod camera)

Later I had a lovely visit with a friend, tidied up, and enjoyed a dinner grilled by my husband and assistants. And after all of that, the Moon rose big and brilliant above Pine Ridge. We decided to take a moonwalk down to the river. I got up on the swinging bridge and watched the water dance with light. I live in a beautiful beautiful place, and I am so very appreciative of my life!

Paintings, Cards, and Earth

2011-04-12T20:30:00.000-07:00

October Hawthorns

I've been slammed with a lot of work lately--tax prep (whew, that's done!), hosting a baby shower for my oldest daughter (yes, you read that right!), and getting pieces framed and ready for the OOAK Gallery in Micaville, NC. I also have work now in the TRAC Galleries in both Burnsville and Spruce Pine, NC--cards, prints, and originals. More on those in a bit. The piece above is hanging in the OOAK Gallery, and I really do love the vivid color and lacy branches of this piece. Also in that gallery is "Bluets" a tiny painting of blue-faced joy:

Bluets

I've also spent a good bit of time recently getting my cards ready. I found a wonderful and luscious rag paper for them and I'm really pleased with the results. The images are lush and crisp and the paper feels like velvet. They are lovingly packaged in little sleeves of a biodegradable plant-based plastic alternative, and come with a 100% post consumer waste recycled envelope. Soon I'll be opening up a new Etsy shop--themagicofhands.etsy.com-- (it's empty right now) and you will be able to purchase them there! It's all part of my big plan to take over the world with magic and beauty.

**********************************

All of this work has thrown me off-center a little bit, and I've still got some deadlines to meet. But Monday and today I was able to slow down just a little bit and get my bearings. I transplanted kale and cabbage and collards into the garden, then mapped out my planting schedule according to signs of the moon (see thealmanack.com). I got a small bit of time in the studio. I read some cool stuff with my kids, and played math games. I cleaned.

And all the while I asked myself, "Where is my joy?" Which is not to say that I an unhappy, but that after several weeks of stressing about an assortment of things, I feel the need to get centered, find my North Star, and adjust my inner workings accordingly. And my center is without question my relationship to the earth, the ground that I walk on, the earth that feeds me and adorns my world with beauty.

So tomorrow is Wednesday, the weather forecast fine. I'm hoping for one of those magical days of sunlight and exploding green. I want to walk barefoot in my garden, survey the new strawberry patch, weed another herb bed. I want to walk down to the river and find wildflowers, toothwort would even suffice. I want to fill my day with beauty, and let Spring's magic flow through me. Then I can move on to other deadlines, other obligations, my compass set.

Dreaming of Pens

2011-03-16T20:22:00.000-07:00

I dreamt awhile back of Radiograph pens. I'd never used them before, and when I woke up all I remembered was that I had purchased a few in my dream life. It took me several weeks, but I finally purchased one (and later a set) in waking life. I've been having so much fun with these pens! This is a page of pinecones that I drew with the very thin 005 Micron pen. I have more pinecones saved up to add to my growing collection of pinecone drawings, but I'm so busy with other projects, that those prickly fellas might just have to wait for their portrait session.

And here is a little pastel painting I started today of those darling bluets that I love so much. I can't decide if I love them because they bloom in such cheery groups, or because they are that wonderful periwinkle color that makes me so happy. Hopefully I'll be finished tomorrow!

Mandala Fun

2011-03-09T07:02:00.000-08:00

I purchased some small landscape bound journals for McKinley, Renee, and myself, and we have really enjoyed making drawing a daily practice. I've been fascinated with pinecones lately, and after I have a few more nice ones I'm going to make a small set of pineocne notecards for my Etsy shop. But I've also been playing with the compass a lot, and last night I had a little mandala fun. I really enjoyed the structure of the mandala form paired with the organic feel of watercolor.

Handmade Valentines

2011-02-09T20:21:00.000-08:00

The hens are laying again. The weather eases, just a bit. I begin to imagine leaves, flowers, the lush smell of spring--even though it is months away. I can't help it. You would think that the older you get, the more jaded you become. But every spring seems more a miracle to me than the last.

My daughter's birthday was this past week, and since her birthday is so near Valentine's, we had a little Valentine-making birthday-cake-eating party today. Three homeschooled girls came with their moms. While the girls cut out magazine pictures, drew hearts, and glued buttons and roses and ribbons on brightly colored paper, we mommas sat in the kitchen sipping tea. Kerry asked why we chose to homeschool, and being the rebel I am I made a case against the public schools, listing fault after fault. We delved into this only a little bit before the men showed up for some of that cake: Jay, his visiting brother Rick, Bert, and Andy. Ah, homemade chocolate cake and buttercream frosting. Time flew by, and the girls gathered up their Valentines and headed home, their mommas no doubt planning supper on the drive home.

Later McKinley (who had not participated in the very girlie Valentine making) presented to Jay and I a homemade card, of which he was clearly very proud. Even more than proud, it clearly made him happy to share this expression of his love for his parents. "Love You" it said in well-executed red glitter letters, with a blue felt heart above, decorated with silver glitter. Inside he had written more, carefully, sweetly. The three of us hugged, warm, hearts full.

That's why I homeschool. For all the extra hugs I get (and I do get them!) every day. It's really very selfish of me.

January Gray

2011-01-08T21:08:00.000-08:00

A gray January morning is not an enticing thing, unless one is considering how fine it is to stay in a warm bed. Indeed, much of the day I lingered in my delicious bed, drinking coffee, dream journalling, playing with my iPod, writing a letter. But the gray did not lift. The snow fell, and the temperature did too.

Then I heard about the attack on Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. Later, that a nine-year-old girl had been killed, a judge, an aide, others. I hope that my country is united in prayer for her, for these families that have suffered such terrible loss. I know my country is united in prayer. I know that the people who hate are outnumbered tonight.

I listen to Matisyahu sing "One Day" and burst into tears.

I go about my gray January day, minor lists made, an easy dinner, some laundry folded. Night comes quick. Cold presses through the windows. I keep praying. Tears keep falling.

Easy December

2010-12-03T10:39:00.001-08:00

Ah, December has arrived--a chaos of cloud and bright cold, wind and dark, dark, dark. After the flurry of Thanksgiving activities it has been delightful to fall back into an easy routine.

And easy it is! I've been spending my mornings journaling, meditating, and reading Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire to the kids. Jay makes breakfast, and then we've been cutting paper snowflakes, doing extreme dot-to-dots and putting together puzzles. In the afternoon I go up to my studio and make a fire in my beautiful woodstove. When it's warm enough to ease away from the stove, I work on this:

October Hawthorns

detail

It's time to start thinking about Christmas cards! I'm planning on hand-making cards for family members (shhh....don't tell them)! What are you doing for Christmas cards?

about Sunday

2010-11-22T07:59:00.000-08:00

One of the curious things about being self-employed with continuous house renovations is that there is always always always something that needs to be done. Maybe it's work in the shop, or painting that needs to be finished, or a kitchen counter that needs to be installed. Maybe it's something that can't wait, because your wife has run out of patience and needs that cooktop installed NOW, or maybe it's something that isn't that pressing, but has been bugging you and the weekend is a perfect time to get these little things out of the way.

OK. I am talking about my husband here. Because he is a dynamo of energy, a man who is driven, who gets things done, who has a full plate and puts more on it. Which makes it hard to play on the weekends.

This is something I've been wanting to change in our family dynamic. I think more than anything weekend playtime requires a little more foresight on our part. We are very spontaneous people. We don't make plans, and more often than not when we do they are overridden by some familial obligation or disturbance. For instance, this past weekend we had planned to go to the School of Americas protest at Fort Benning, Georgia, but a constellation of events made that trip too difficult an undertaking. So instead we went on Saturday to see Harry Potter at our local theater ($5 a head!) and on Sunday we went up the mountain for a long and luscious hike.

Renee wanted very much to take a nap on this moss.
I had to be quick to snap this photo--
it was the one moment McKinley wasn't trying to give Renee a wet willy.

Clearly hiking is good for the soul!
(That's Mount Mitchell in the background).

It was a lovely weekend. Not too hurried, and filled with good times. And with a little bit of foresight and our usual spontaneity, we can make it our family practice to recreate on the weekends. Now, on to Monday and math practice!

A November Parade

2010-11-19T20:11:00.000-08:00

Mid-afternoon and the angle of the Sun is already obtuse. We, however, are not. After some fine teamwork in Jay's shop and a late egg salad lunch, all of us amble down the lane to the road: three dogs leashed, one girl on a bicycle, two rambunctious boys, one intern, and a happy husband and wife. We are our own parade.

We stride along, slowing with our numbers the sporadic cars that approach us. A neighbor's Jack Russell, fierce and sharp-toothed Betty, doesn't know what to do with such a crowd, and so she attacks at all angles. The big dogs get annoyed with their leashes. They'd like to set this little one straight. I, however, know a thing or two about Jack Russells, and urge them onwards. She might be one-fifth their size, but she makes up for it in sheer tenacity.

As if the fighting spirit is catching, the rotting windfalls from the apple trees further on become ammunition for the boys, who get carried away, hurling their tree-gifted missiles at the innocents. They move from apples to acorns and back to apples until we all get annoyed with them and hurry out of their range.

But it doesn't matter. The sunlight is caught in the upper branches of the oaks. The air is brisk and fine. The dogs trot loyally by our sides. It is a fine Friday afternoon.

It has been a full week: the woodstove was installed in my studio, my last writing class met on Wednesday, and Jay had a very productive week in the shop. The kids have been doing great, and on so many levels--piano, math, art, and reading--and they are happy, engaged, and creative.

The kitchen renovation, begun in May, is finally nearing its end. The fridge had been installed in the outdoor kitchen, and was finally moved back inside. We had talked about getting another fridge for inside, but the one we already have is a Sunfrost--a highly efficient appliance--and even if it isn't as efficient as it used to be, or as new-looking, it still knocks the socks off of most refrigerators in terms of its energy appetite. This matters to me! So we decided we would just keep the one we have, inside. Come summertime we'll cook outside again, but the fridge will stay inside. And by then it will be covered in cork tiles. (Since it's not magnetic, it's always been a little tricky to have an artful refrigerator. But I discovered some stick-on cork tiles this week on one of my rare Wal-mart excursions, and I will cover our dear old frugal fridge with cork, and then we will give it the fine artistic treatment it deserves. Just another simple thing to make life grand).

And this evening Jay installed the Fisher & Paykel cooktop we purchased off of craigslist. I made hot fudge to go over ice cream tonight, and in the morning I will make Chai for breakfast. I will sit in my nearly complete kitchen and watch the morning light grace the crowns of the oaks, lighting them golden. I will go and wake my children, kissing the tops of their bed-tumbled heads.

Hot Mama Turns up the Creative Heat

2010-11-14T17:57:00.001-08:00

In the last light of dusk, as a soft rain considered its possibilities, I walked up the hill to my studio with McKinley. Jay, our niece Emily, our intern Andy, and our neighbor L, were already up there, and had been working for most of the day installing the custom, handmade woodstove named Hot Mama into my studio. Inside everyone stood around the corner where the woodstove stood, a black pipe rising up and disappearing neatly into the wall. Emily had gathered a pile of twigs and sticks in the belly of the stove, and McKinley, reading my mind, announced that I should light the first fire.

And so I did. The sharp strike of a match brought forth the burst of flame that licked hungrily at the wood. There was no second match. The fire grew and its warmth radiated to our skin as we stood around it, admiring its beauty. Denali turned off the lamps, and the apple-shaped window of mica glowed red in the darkness.

There is no small significance to this fire. So many people have stood around me and supported my creative life. Carl Davidt made this stove for me, so inexpensively as to be considered a gift. He is a metal sculptor who has been a good friend for many years, and I can feel the love that went into this stove. Emily, Andy, and neighbor L, have put in many hours helping out around Berrytown. But my husband's support has been unwavering and his encouragement consistent. Watching that apple glow, feeling the warmth from the fire, my own creative fire was rekindled. So many times assorted frustrations have given me an excuse to back away from my creative life. Now, with all the support and love warming up my studio, I don't think I can do that anymore. The space swirled with possibilities and mingled with the smoke that had escaped from the door of the stove. I breathed it all in.

The Names of Birds

2010-11-13T13:57:00.001-08:00

Yesterday Renee and I were hanging out upstairs when we heard a kabonk. It's rather amazing how quickly our brains can decipher the meaning of a particular sound, in this case the kabonk was immediately deciphered as the sound a bird's body makes when it decides to fly headlong into a window. This interpretation was affirmed by the sight of our little black cat hurriedly slinking toward the same window. We dashed outside but were a little too late, so we chased the sweet feline around and within seconds (thanks to Renee's opportune slap on the kitty's back) we had retrieved a small olive-green bird with a splash of yellow and brilliant orange upon its cap.

It lay in my palm dazed, its claws curled and eyes closed. "Is it dead?" Renee worried.

"We should know in a few minutes," I replied. "Quick, get the cats inside." McKinley had joined us and he grabbed Frost, terror of the bird world, while Renee grabbed the slinky Spark. They were hastily thrown into the house.

We were lucky, and the bird even more so, for slowly the little thing regained the use of its legs, opened its eyes, and then for some minutes perched calmly in first my hand, then McKinley's, and then for a long while in Renee's. I ran inside to get my bird book and my camera. Alas, my battery was dead. But I quickly confirmed my suspicion--the bird was indeed a golden-crowned kinglet--and the cutest little thing we had ever laid eyes on. We all remarked upon its lovely yellow cap with near-neon orange feathers underneath. How festive his headdress, how endearing his thin black mask! And then, with a flurry of olive feathers, he whisked himself into the air and flew into the pines.

Renee was completely taken with this experience and recorded it in her journal with a fantastic drawing. She exclaimed on several occasions how much she loves birds, and I'm glad she came to the realization of her genetic heritage, for not only does her mother love birds, but her grandmother loves birds, too. Many we know by flight patterns and feathers, or by their raspy calls or fluted song. As a child I sat with my mother in front of the big picture window in the breakfast room and watched the myriad birds come to our feeder: greedy blue jays, flashy cardinals, rambunctious chickadees--with our handy blue bird book she taught me the names of every bird that came to our feeder. Now it's my turn to do the teaching.

Bellwort, nearly done

2010-10-29T15:34:00.000-07:00

I've only time for a quick post, since it's past dinner-making time, and everyone is eager to eat some chicken pot pie from the rooster that was harvested today. Thankfully many hands can make quick work of dinner prep! But before dinner I wanted to quickly post a photo of a piece that's nearly done.

This lovely flower is a bellwort, a Spring ephemeral that blooms both in my garden and in the moist Appalachian woods around my home. I am particularly enamored with this demure flower with its lovely twisting petals. It should be finished in a few days, along with a commission I've been working on!

Unschooling Imperative

2010-10-20T11:29:00.000-07:00

I'm taking a no-holds-barred approach to homeschooling these days. I feel that it is imperative that we succeed, that we stretch ourselves to our limits, and then reach beyond even that. Of course, it should be noted that, as with life, I measure our success by the amount of joy we feel.

This measurement of success is so unlike anything I experienced in school that it feels almost reckless at times. In all my years of schooling, no one ever asked me after a test or completed project how happy I felt about it because of course I didn't, with a few exceptions. Happiness just didn't enter into the equation of education. But I can't imagine what could be more important to a human being of any age than happiness. I consider joy to be the primary indicator of whether or not I am doing a good job as learning facilitator.

I suppose that most of us, myself included, have made the assumption that education can't be an inherently joyful process, but I am here today, doing what I do, to challenge that assumption. I remember clearly that the few exceptions of joyfulness that I experienced in school all revolved around things I loved to do. There was the literary magazine, the cartoons for the newspaper, the story-writing, and endless stacks of horse-drawings, their anatomy refining bit by bit. So I have to pay careful attention to what really engages my children. Here's what it looks like, so far:

Sleeping late; Reading poetry, prayers, or meditations; Talking about the night's dreams; Reading Harry Potter in bed, sometimes for hours, while they finger-knit or snuggle; Jumping on the trampoline (while practicing multiplication facts); Playing piano; Crafting in our craft lounge; Reading beautiful books together; Watching Dragonball Z, then writing about it in the Dragonball Z Journal; Having interesting discussions about ethics, sustainability, and politics; Drawing; Trips to the skatepark; Playing Super Mario Brothers Wii, Quarto, Qwirkle, Made for Trade, or another of our many fascinating games; Looking at photographs on the web or in books; Sewing projects; Hanging out laundry together; Watching movies together; Snuggling in the evening

We also practice math daily, five problems a day in their notebooks. I myself am practicing the method used in Japanese schools, where the word problem is presented first, as a group project, with manipulatives. After spending good money on assorted math books I've observed that we can make more headway with this minimalist hands-on approach. I also have a little guideline: math, reading, and two other things, every day. Those two other things usually take care of themselves. Often we look at news photographs, talk about our favorites, and point out where they are on the globe. Today we looked at the book "Love Thyself: the Message from Water III" by Masaru Emoto, and talked about how our emotions can have a powerful but invisible impact on the world. A few days ago we watched Joel Burns' message to gay youth, wherein I burst into tears when I explained to McKinley that one of the boys that committed suicide was just three years older than him. Last night we pulled out the sewing machine.

Anyway, like I mentioned earlier, it's imperative that we stretch beyond our limits. More joy! More joy! Here's what I think more joy might look like:

Walks to the river; Stargazing; Dream journals; Game nights with friends; Getting friendly with the sewing machine; Going on bicycling outings; Getting that microscope working!; Setting up the pottery studio; Making Christmas presents, Cooking snacks, cookies, and breads together; Traveling; Enjoying podcasts and new music together; Girl outings to the Tea Shop

And of course, just when I think I've got it all planned out, my kids remind me that they are the first and foremost authorities on what makes them joyful. Yesterday they spent a good part of the afternoon working on their treehouse up in the woods. I can't imagine anything better than that.

Blaring Beethoven

2010-09-20T11:42:00.000-07:00

Though yesterday started downtrodden, it quickly became a fabulous day. I immersed myself in creativity--writing in the morning, working in the studio in the afternoon, and in the last hours of the day I drove up to the Blue Ridge Parkway, which is just some ten minutes from my home. I rolled down the windows, opened the sunroof, and blasted Beethoven's piano concerto no. 5, the second movement of which has always been pure magic to me.

I hiked a ways down Bald Knob Trail and sketched some tall Red Spruce trees, their tops ladled with the last golden light of the day. Then more driving, more Beethoven, more golden light. I drove to where I could watch the sun set--something which is impossible to see from my own home. Ah, the disadvantages of living at the foot of a mountain.

I sketched and then took some photos of a lovely grouping of hawthorn trees, some fruit still clinging to their thorny branches. Since I am no photographer I was not able to capture the golden quality of the scene. But I had fun messing around with one of the photos on my trusty computer, and rather like the result, though I won't be able to even glance at this modified photograph while I work on the painting, as it will influence my memory of the scene.

This was a sorely needed artist's date! When the moon is nearing full, I'll take my kids on a late night drive on the Parkway. We can bring blankets and hot chocolate and listen to the Pastoral Symphony on the way up. Once outside, we will listen to the owls.

Studio Gambling

2010-09-11T18:21:00.000-07:00

I've been journaling every morning this week. It's been a long time. Curiously, the thrill of technology is what has enticed me back into the practice---we got a Smart Pen for my husband on his fortieth birthday, and he has kindly given me one of the special notebooks and let me use his pen. It lets me save image files of whatever I write in this notebook onto my computer. I'm not sure why I am totally thrilled with that, but suffice it to say I love technology. And the process of journaling every morning has definitely kindled my creative fire.

But technology is like alcohol. Moderation is key. We've been having a little trouble with that lately. We've been getting a little drunk off Facebook, Netflix Instant Watching, XBox, and Wii. Yes. We partake of all these things. Should we be in a 12-step program? Can we moderate our relationship with technology? I've been wondering if we need to take a step back, give the Waldorf "no media" principle a try.

I'm not there yet. I'm a homeschooling mother, and an artist, and a writer. I also garden a lot. I have a little chart to keep track of how I spend my time, and I have charts for McKinley and Renee as well. Sometimes, however, I simply must spend a large block of time on something that requires my full attention. Which means shutting the door and telling my kids they can make do on their own. And, oooh baby, technology makes that easier.

The other night, though, I made an announcement: "No screens for a month! No laptops in the house!" Computers could be in the shop and the studio, but not the house. My laptop included. The Wii and the XBox were going to jail, since they're Evil.

But this is what happened: intense negotiation. McKinley had just purchased a used Spiderman XBox game. The thought of not being able to play his new game was driving him mad. Our compromise? The XBox and Wii could be kept up in my studio loft.

Oh boy. Have I lost my mind?

Maybe. This is my gamble. I don't get enough time in the studio. There's a certain gravitational force to my home, and usually I don't have the energy to get past it, to the outer atmosphere of my own creativity. I think mothers everywhere can relate to this. This morning, my kids were hounding me to get up to the studio, because they wanted to play their new games! Is this a good thing?

Like all gambles, I don't know how this one will play out. We've started this on a weekend, when I'm more lax about how they spend their time anyway. McKinley is away at a friend's and Renee is happily trading reading for Wii time. How will things pan out on Monday? Will we all climb the short, steep hill to my studio and delve into assorted projects? Or will it be a relentless battle to engage them in anything other than technology? Because what I want for my children is their full engagement with the world, the thrill of living an every day affair. It's the same thing I want for myself.

Boneset Harvest

2010-09-01T19:56:00.001-07:00

Last night was cool enough to warrant two quilts, a delicious weight over my body in the morning. This afternoon was hot enough to warrant a dip in the river, though by the time we got there it was already late afternoon, and shadows stretched long over the bright water. The water was vigorously cold, but tolerable and delightful all the same. We swam for just a little while, then moved to the last spot of sunshine on the shore, soaking up the warmth.

We were surrounded by the herb boneset (Eupatorium perfoliatum) in full bloom, and so we gathered a full bouquet of the spreading clusters of creamy white flowers. I tinctured it this evening. It will be ready in time for whatever flu-like illnesses plague us this Winter--according to Medicinal Plants of the Southern Appalachians it "stimulates immune response, helps reduce fevers and eliminates excess respiratory congestion." Author Patricia Kyritsi Howell writes that boneset was once perhaps the most commonly used herb in the eastern United States. I am particularly pleased to add this herb to my little apothecary.

I have yet to harvest elderberries, although it is definitely time. They droop dark and lush from the shrubs. When cooked with honey they will make a thick purple syrup that is wonderful for coughs in particular, and whatever ails you in general. Peaches are still coming in. And there's goldenrod and mint to dry for tea this Winter.

It can be overwhelming, all this harvesting work, but nothing gives me such joy as making medicines. Peach preserves are sublime, but a half-gallon jar of boneset tincture has a different kind of magic to it. One is sweet, and the other healing. I think I'm drawn to the healing, though let me assure you, I have my sweet tooth, too.

How the Rain Fell Perfectly on my Skin

2010-08-19T19:01:00.000-07:00

It is evening. Dinner has been eaten, and the children are cleaning up, or so we hope, in the kitchen. The katydids fill the forest with their pulsing chatter. I'm listening to them, and to Eva Cassidy singing "Kathy's Song." I can't decide which is more beautiful. I'll take both.

Yesterday I picked peaches. I missed a bunch, now rotting on the earth, making for some really happy ants, and thought of James and his giant peach. I realized I shouldn't really feel guilty about the lost peaches--I couldn't get to them for several days before hand. Then I reached into the branches and picked until my bucket was full. I knew it was the day to can some peaches. I ended up making peach preserves, keeping the skins on, which made the preserves a rosy golden color. Very pretty.

We opened a pint jar this morning and spread it over pancakes. I used yogurt instead of milk in the pancake mix, which makes for a nice tangy pancake, and the peach preserves complimented them perfectly.

Later in the afternoon I went to the garden with my box of seeds. The clouds were clotting, the breeze brushing tangles out of the air. Far off to the north I heard thunder like the drum of the storm, pounding the air over and over. Sky preparations were underway.

I cleared out a small space--half of a vegetable bed--and spread a mesclun seed mix over the soil, then sprinkled more soil over that. Then I cleared out two rows in the bed below that for beets, pushing the straw mulch up against the calendula plants that have sprawled out from the center of the bed, thrusting my hands deep into the soil, breaking it up, my hands appreciating its rich texture of life.

I gathered what I had weeded and walked over to the chicken coop to give it to the chickens. The rain began to fall, a steady, easy rain, the edge of a storm, patches of blue still in the sky. I stood under the big poplar in my bare feet thinking, "somewhere there's a rainbow" but I didn't bother to look. The rain was falling on my seeds, and falling on my arms, on my earth-covered hands, and on the clover at my feet, on the peaches weighing down their branches, and on the blue roof of my home.

There is something perfect about this very imperfect life, there is something about the rain, falling perfectly upon my skin, and upon the land that I love; there is something that opens up the sky and lets beauty fall where it will, which is everywhere, if you are paying attention.

The Three Q's

2010-08-17T08:17:00.000-07:00

There's a particular podcast I go back to repeatedly when I am frustrated as a homeschooling mother: Krista Tippet's interview with Adele Diamond, a developmental cognitive neuroscientist, on Speaking of Faith. This particular episode, titled "Learning, Being, Doing: a New Science of Education," explores how play, sports, music, reflection, and memorization nurture the brain.

Nurture the brain. I love that phrase. When I first listened to this podcast back in November of 2009, I knew nurturing the brain was my primary goal as a homeschooling mother. And I learned that the part of the brain that needs the most nourishment is the prefrontal cortex. Evolutionarily speaking, it's the newest part of the brain, and the most fragile, and it is responsible for our ability to "pay attention, problem solve, collaborate, and work creatively. Facility in these skills, research shows, is a stronger predictor of success, even academic success, than IQ."

And here's what jumped out at me and lingered in my thoughts for days after: Joy nurtures the prefrontal cortex, and stress, even mild stress, shuts it down.

So when I am fighting with McKinley to just finish his math worksheet, I am not nurturing the brain. But when we play a game of rummy, or use math by baking cookies, we are nurturing the brain. Honestly, though, we can't bake cookies every morning. And rummy will only go so far.

How does one incorporate joy into math practice, other than the obvious baking of cookies every morning? I'm more of an unschooler than not, but I do believe that self-discipline and daily practice are important.

Make it fun, keep it short, but do it every day. That's my goal. Especially for math.

To accomplish this I have an assortment of tools. I don't buy into any curriculum (although we will be doing Singapore Math this year). What I do buy are lots of logic puzzles, analogies, reading detectives, and math puzzles. It's clear that these engage the brain and promote high-level thinking skills. A lot of times we snuggle up together in my bed and do a few in the morning or evening. Mindware is a great resource for these types of workbooks.

Last year I designed a weekly chart to help me keep up with our daily tasks, and I will be using these again this year. I am not a super-organized person, so these charts really help me keep on top of things. I use them more as a guide than as a rigid structure. I also redesigned them so that I could include a more rounded account of all our activities---chores, movies, games, etc.

And we play games! I've discovered that my three favorite games of all time all begin with a Q. There's Qwirkle, which Renee will play with me if I take it easy on her, but nobody else will (because I won't take it easy on them?). I've introduced Qwirkle to a lot of friends and family, and they've all gone out and bought the game. It really is that fun! Then there's Quarto----a recent purchase that is quick-playing game, perfect for after dinner. It is billed as "the most awarded game of all time," and I'll believe that. It certainly teaches one to pay attention. And Quinto, an older game that I can't find anymore (there's a new game with the same name that otherwise bears no similarity). In Quinto there are number tiles, from 0 to 9, and each player draws five tiles from the pile. Each player must lay down up to 5 tiles on the board, in crossword fashion, and each row must add up to a multiple of 5. There's lots of math-thinking in this game!

I suppose we have officially begun our homeschooling year, because Renee has been carrying around the Perplexors workbook, doing logic puzzle after logic puzzle, and not only did McKinley break out the chess game after dinner last night, but he also asked for some math and cheerfully did some reading before indulging in his Star Wars video game.

Now I need to design a weekly chart for myself, so I can keep up with all the things I need to do!

It was a Private Conversation

2010-08-15T20:56:00.001-07:00

I am having a conversation with my husband. Right now. I say to him, "You have too many projects going on and you are making me crazy."

"What are you talking about?" he spurts. "We've got plenty of time to get everything done!" He is near-preacher-like in his tone of confidence.

"You used to complain that you never got to lay in your hammock and do nothing. 'I just want to do nothing' you would say, over and over, 'And I never get to do nothing'...but look at what you do! Arghh! We've got the cob oven, the cement floor, and the wall replacement--and all need to be finished yesterday because of your birthday party! It makes me crazy!"

"I know, I know!" his voice rising with energy. "I want to get to the point where I can just lay in the hammock---but I've just got too much to do! I have to run around with my hair on fire! It's just the way I am!"

My husband is bald.

In eleven days, the esteemed Smoky Joe, handyman extraordinaire, will lumber up our driveway in his big two-tone truck. He will smoke a cigarette he rolled from Bugler tobacco, drink a stout cup of coffee, then begin tearing down the western wall of our house. There will be a huge mess in the house and yard.

In fifteen days, we will be throwing his fortieth birthday party. And before that, we need to finish the cob oven so that we can cook the pizzas for his party. Oh, and remember that whole demolition, tear-down, chaos everywhere, trash in the yard, wide open spaces in the wall part? Yeah, so that's all supposed to be done (and cleaned up?) before the party.

And never mind the whole cement floor thing. That's at a pausing point, as we can stain and seal it after all this other rigmarole, but there's still a layer of cement dust on everything and also on the nothing in between everything. I've cleaned up most of it at least once, but you have to clean it twice, maybe three times.

And apparently the date for the demolition could have been scheduled a bit differently. Apparently when Smokey Joe's right-hand, left-hand woman called to set the date, maybe we could have NOT picked the 23rd, but say, rather, the 30th.

Then he says to me,"All you need you to do is pick out the f*cking windows and the color of the floor. That's all I need you to do! It's not so tough!" He says this, not crudely, but joyfully, a ringing happiness as he realizes that this is all I need to do.

They say that the things you love about your partner are later the things that make you crazy. What they don't say is that the love and the crazy go together. It's not a linear thing. The longer you are with someone you love, the crazier you get, and the more in love. Yes, I want to strangle my husband. But, damn, I love him! I love the fact that he's got so much that he wants to accomplish. I love that he always has a new idea. I love that he knows how to solve a thousand problems, with ease, that would take me forever to figure out. I love that he brings me coffee, in bed, every morning. (Please note that I did not say that he never complains about it. But really, it's very rare.) I love that he is dedicated to changing things up, making things better, people freer, his home happier.

I love that he's bald.

Happy Birthday, my wonderful husband. I love you!

Gearing up for Another Homeschool Year

2010-08-09T18:35:00.000-07:00

Well, it's that time of year again! The school buses are lumbering down the road, which is my signal to start making some definite lists and plans for a new homeschool year. Then we can ease into a full schedule in September.

I've been thinking about what it means to do something every single day. Our piano teacher encourages her students to practice every day. She told us how a famous pianist remarked that if he skipped a day, he could tell a difference in his piano playing. If he skipped two days, his family could tell a difference. And if he skipped three days, the whole world could tell. For awhile we practiced piano every single day, and the results were dramatic. I've seen for myself how much easier piano practice is when it's done every single day, and how difficult it can be when several days are skipped. I want to apply this to our home learning.

So I've been rummaging around for ideas of how to practice math, reading, and writing every single day. The math isn't all that difficult. We are moving to Singapore Math this year, and we can just work on it every day, with just a few problems on the weekends. The kids might balk at this at first, but curiously, the more they practice the less they balk. When we were practicing piano every day there were a few days I forgot until it was past bedtime, but we would sit down and pound away at it, and it wasn't nearly as difficult as I expect tonight's practice will be. (While I should be optimistic about this, my previous experience tells me a drink before piano today might not be such a bad idea!)

So math, check. Reading, that's not really difficult at all. But writing. Writing. Last year I had them write in their journals every day, just a little bit, determined by their skill level. This sounds good, but the reality was more of a rushed practice in simple sentences. I'd rather them engage in writing, find it fun and challenging at the same time. I'm thinking of having them keep a blog. We started this last year, but I opted instead for the handwritten journal. I think this year, since there will be enough laptops about, we might each do a blog entry every night, maybe post a photo and write about it, or just say "today I....". A sort of diary. Post links to Facebook. The cool thing about facebook and blogs is that they generate comments. Which leads to more writing....

We shall see if this works! There is a level of discipline which I was cultivating early this Summer but which disintegrated in the July heat. I can see it coming back, and I am hopeful! In the meantime, I still have to:

Administer the Singapore Math placement tests
Order the appropriate books
Sort out what "short classes" we might want to do (videography, pottery, garage band?)
Get set up with Rosetta Stone SPANISH
Redesign our Homeschool Calendar, which helps us keep track of what we are doing, and what we are not doing
Subscribe to Home Education
and plan a Homeschooling Meeting for my fellow homeschooling friends!

I'm already excited, and a little anxious! It's how every school year begins, no matter where you go!

Studio Update: Trout Lily Brings Spring and Organization

2010-08-09T10:59:00.000-07:00

I finished another piece Friday night---this time it's of a trout lily. For your viewing pleasure:

Trout Lily Brings Spring
5 x 7"
pastel on board

Now if you don't know trout lilies, let me introduce them to you. They are tiny little things, and they bloom very early---one of the earliest blooms I find down by the South Toe River. There I find hoards of their tiny slips of leaves, mottled and coated with a fine reflective sheen, but very few flowers. I'm not sure if these colonies of leaves sans flowers are just too young, or maybe they don't get enough light to bloom, but I know there are other places where I can find the yellow flowers, their petals peeled back in exuberance. I'm still hoping that one Spring I'll walk down and find those patches of dappled leaves hosting crowns of blooms.

I'm pleased with this painting, and wish I could capture the magic of pastels for you to see, for the original has far more luster than what you see here. Pastels are so divine, and I am really enjoying working with them on Ampersand's Pastelbord. This week I am doubling up--I have a commission I am starting on, and I also will be painting the lovely bellwort. Now there's a fine lady of a flower!

And how will I do this, and harvest potatoes, squash, can peaches and beans, and visit with my mother and sister, and go to a birthday party, and plant turnips and beets? Well, I'm not entirely sure, but I have been utilizing Google Calendar to keep track of all the assorted tasks and deadlines that I have, in the studio, the home, and the garden. It has really helped manage my time better. And this morning Jason and I had a great planning session, delegating tasks to our energetic intern and reluctant kids. Let's hope we can keep it up and make time management a joyful morning practice! Along with coffee, of course.

Stalled Labor, Creatively Speaking

2010-08-04T08:18:00.000-07:00

Last night I dreamed that I sent a story I wrote off to a contest, and while it didn't place in the contest, it did receive positive feedback from two of the judges. One was a handwritten note, signed in a precise and sophisticated hand, and the other was a small inspirational card that looked as if it had been pinned to a bulletin board for a long time, with several pinholes, the edges worn soft as velvet.

It's no surprise I dreamed about writing, since I went to sleep thinking about a story I have been stumbling over, trying to write. It's like a stalled labor. Someone is going to have to cut this thing out of me. It feels just like that, raw and messy and stuck so bad it just might kill me.

I have to drum up some energy to deliver this story! If nothing else, my dream compels me to do so. I don't have to win a prize, I don't have to write an earth-shattering story, I can just bring it forth and let it live its own mediocre little story-life. To not finish it would mean another small death, another blow to my creative confidence. That is something I know I can't afford.

So thank you, dream judges, for the votes of confidence when I had none. Perhaps now I will find a way to push through my own resistance. Isn't that something we all have to do?

Studio Update: Summer's End

2010-07-31T10:06:00.000-07:00

I worked past midnight in the studio yesterday, and rose late this morning to calm clouds and breezes. This is a distinct change from the weather of late, and most welcome. A few days ago I noticed another distinct change: ironweed blooming, a high cluster of deep violet blooms, and I know that means Summer's end is upon us. The whirring of crickets reminds me of that too, and I embrace the shifting days. I am ready for cooler nights!

There's another shift in my life, one I can barely explain, except to attribute it to the workings of Mystery: I have been working regularly in my studio! For me this is a dramatic departure from my usual stance of "mother-and-frustrated-artist." Not only have I been working in the studio, I've also been lining up exhibitions, events, and workshops to which I will be applying. Really, this is an amazing development! Finally subscribing to The Pastel Journal no doubt has something to do with it, as it is a wonderful resource for the pastelist, but there's something else at work here.

Last Sunday we performed a despacho ceremony, which originates with the Andean people, and which we did under the direction of our passionate intern, Andy. I'd never heard of it before, but ever since he arrived in early July he'd been talking about doing a despacho. It was fulfilling and intimate and luminous. And it has everything, everything, everything to do with that dramatic shift.

What else can I say about that? I believe meaningful ceremony is the raison d'être for humanity's existence upon the Earth. Not the only reason for being, but high, high up there. So there will be more Ceremony in my life. More fulfillment. More intimacy. More luminosity.

Speaking of fulfillment, here's the piece I finished last night:

Wake Robin Rising from the Earth
4.5" x 6.5"
pastel on Ampersand Pastelbord

More finished pieces coming soon! Yay!

Prescription for Rising Heat

2010-07-22T06:20:00.001-07:00

July is a strange month. The heat rises quickly. Long, bright days filled with the whir of bugs bend time. The garden calls in the lush heat, and I answer, covered in soil and sweat in a matter of minutes. The laundry hung to dry gets washed again in a sudden rain. By late afternoon I am usually spent, and it is time for a swim. We walk across the road or ride down to the rope hole and fall into the dancing water. Its wild cool invigorates our bodies.

I have a litany of chores singing in my head: pick beans, weed, freeze beans, weed, plant the Fall Garden, harvest the bee balm flowers, the hyssop, the mint. I have plans for the land: more blueberries, more raspberries, a greenhouse, rabbits for meat. In the tangle of beans and heat and weeds it is pretty easy to lose sight of why I am doing this. It is easy to forget the joy of it all. But the River always reminds me. Unfailingly she wraps me in her liquid embrace and I am brought back to myself. Deep is the water, deep is my joy.

Book Review: The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery

2010-07-21T08:18:00.001-07:00

4.5 out of 5 stars

The Elegance of the Hedgehog was a challenge to read, in the most delightful of ways. Discussions of Japanese cinema, Anna Karenina, and the meaning of life and Art bloom upon the pages, but never slow the book or its characters' developments, which gain a careful momentum, unfolding perfectly. Its resolution so beautifully makes use of the ideas and images that run through the book that I felt as if the author had performed a magic trick.

Perhaps my only criticisms of the book are first that the cast of characters--the tenants, and their concierge, of an upscale Paris apartment--is a bit unwieldy at first. But even this reader's minor frustration with names eased into satisfying revelations of character recognition.

My second criticism centers on the relationship of our two main characters with each other, which feels a little underdeveloped. When they meet rather late in the book, their congruence is immediately understood by the reader, who has come to know them intimately. It seems, though, that they should have had a little more time to spend together before the book resolves itself with each testifying to a unique love of the other. But this small mis-step is almost like the "jerky little steps" Japanese women take as they slide their feet from their shoes--"this affront to the sacred rhythm of life, this defiant movement of little feet, this excellence born of constraint, is a paradigm of Art."

Perhaps this is how we recognize Beauty--immediately, outside of time, open-hearted--and when we are struck in this way we are indeed forever changed. This lovely book is a testament to those moments of Beauty that give us meaning and joy, and indeed it becomes one such moment.

This is my favorite book I've read this year, and I hope to reread it again. Several times I came across lines I wanted to quote, but I was so engrossed with the book I couldn't put it down to make those notes. And later I couldn't find the lines! I'd also like to research some of the Art discussed my the Madame Michel--which would certainly only deepen my appreciation of this marvelous book, which is itself as elegant as the hedgehog.

Book Review: Sarah's Key by Tatiana De Rosnay

2010-07-21T08:14:00.000-07:00

3.5 out of 5 stars

Here is a book that tackles a difficult subject from history, the Vél' d'Hiv' roundups of French Jews during WWII, weaving together the story of one of the children of the Vél' d'Hiv' with the story of a middle-aged journalist. The shared ground of their lives is the apartment where both have lived, separated by sixty years. Technically the journalist does not ever live in the apartment, her mother-in-law does, but she has been moved to a nursing home, and the apartment is to be renovated by our journalist's architect husband. Like the author I have a love for old houses and the stories they can tell, and aspects of the plot are well-crafted, but ultimately the novel is flat-footed, and it's characters lacking spirit.

Spoilers Commence:
My first thought after finishing Sarah’s Key was that the ending dragged on far too long. Julia’s continuing obsession with Sarah and her son seemed unrealistic in light of the changes she had made in her life. She had a baby, and made a huge move across the ocean. These were delightful accomplishments, positive mid-life upheavals. So her whining and dark introspection don’t seem to fit.

In fact, Julia never seems to claim her power or sense of self throughout the whole book. First she gives it to her husband and when the marriage ends she seems to wallow in a mild depression. Mild depression may not be the best way to end the book, and the suggested romance between her and William seems a bit contrived to me. We want to see some sort of inner transformation in our characters, but it feels at the end that Julia’s transformations are mostly outer ones.

Of course, this is a book of two stories, and Sarah's is dark. I felt at times when reading her story that writing about such dark horror is a near-impossible task when you are seeing it through the eyes of a child. I felt great relief when her story shifted away from the camp, and I find it fitting that her narrative stops when she discovers the body of her brother--part of Sarah died at that moment, too, and her remaining story can only be told by those who knew her after that. The journal entry in French, decoded by Julia, was a well-executed plot device.

But Sarah's story is secondary to Julia's, and while it’s clear that Sarah’s story has an impact on Julia's life, it isn’t the pivot that propels her into her new life. The baby does that, and the author tries to connect the baby with Sarah via the date of the abortion, but this seemed contrived to me. It’s as if the plot grinds against itself here, and in its resolution—perhaps a little better writing could have helped these two sections of the book flow a little better.

I guess that would be my main criticism of the book—the writing lacked luster and power. The story has a lot of potential, and Sarah’s story, which seems more carefully wrought than Julia’s, is historically important. I would have liked to have seen more emphasis and imaginative writing about the apartment and the key—these are the two physical objects that connect the past to the present. One is the title of the book, but it’s appearance is very limited. It’s also such an archetypal image—a key—and the author could have worked with it a lot more, maybe bringing it into the ending somehow. It is, after all, in William’s possession.

In the end, Julia names her daughter Sarah: “An echo to the other one, to the other Sarah, to the little girl with the yellow star who had changed my life.” But it is exactly that change that I don’t feel. I felt the friction in her marriage, and I see that her life has changed, but how exactly did Sarah change her? I just don’t feel that transformation.

Up next: The Elegance of the Hedgehog, by Muriel Barbery

The Fullness of Summer, the Welcome Bed

2010-06-28T21:22:00.000-07:00

On Sunday I went to the Useful Plants Nursery Summer Plant Sale and bought a marvelous assortment of trees and shrubs. While I was gone, Jay pulled up the old floor downstairs, which was a hodge-podge of hardwood flooring, parquet, linoleum, and tile. Now it is down to a bare slab. Later in the day when the Sun’s heat began to fade I went into the garden and picked five quarts of blueberries. The bushes were falling over themselves with blueberries. I ate a bunch, froze a bunch, and there’s still a bounty of blueberries to harvest. So begins the last week before our annual beach vacation.

There is much to do. I can't think about the floor, and I won’t even try to put my new trees and shrubs in the ground until I get back, but I certainly can wax euphoric about my nursery purchases. I think I’m most excited about the Hybrid American Chestnut. The American Chestnut was the crown jewel of the Southern Appalachian forests, but a foreign blight wiped them out by the 1930’s. Well, not entirely. There are still chestnut stumps that produce shoots, but the shoots are killed off by the blight before they ever mature. The two chestnuts I purchased are American chestnuts crossed back with Japanese and Chinese Chestnuts to produce something close to the original tree.

I also purchased some American hazelnuts. If I had done more research before my purchase I might have bought the European hazelnut, which produces a larger nut more suitable for the home orchard, but now I’m excited that I will be able to produce nuts for our family, and for the wildlife. American hazelnuts are vigorous plants with a tendency to colonize an area, so I’ll have extra plants within a few years that I can plant back in the forest for the deer, bear, grouse, and squirrels on my mountain. By the way, it’s your mountain, too, as nearly all of it is National Forest Land.

There’s nine new blueberry bushes, which means I have now about twenty-five blueberry bushes, though not all are producing berries yet. To go along with the blueberries, I now have two Aronia bushes. These are a native berry extremely rich in athocyanins and antioxidants. Don’t even begin to think that’s enough berries for me! I purchased two female sea berry plants, which have slender silver leaves. When they are loaded down with their bright orange berries, they will be a marvelous sight.

And then there is my Vitex tree. I thought it was Vitex agnus-castus, of which I already have two small plants, but it’s actually something I’ve never heard of before: VItex negundo. Regardless, this small tree absolutely called to me. She has a supple, curvaceous trunk rising to nearly six feet with lacy leaves and delicate lavender flowers. She really does have a lovely shape. This is the information they had about her: A veritable medicine cabinet of a plant. The leaves are anti-inflammatory, anti-bacterial, and analgesic and are applied externally for rheumatic conditions, bruises, injuries, sprains, sores, and skin infections. The seeds and leaves contain valuable medicinal compounds are used internally for chronic bronchitis, all emaciating conditions, to improve memory and eyesight, rejuvenate hair, alleviate loss of appetite, and to manage skin diseases and excessive bleeding during menstruation. The young stems are used for basketmaking. The leaves are insecticidal and used to repel insects in grain stores. The fresh leaves are burned with grass to repel mosquitoes.

While I dream about blueberry pie with a hazelnut crust , or chestnut stuffing for Thanksgiving in two or three years, right now I have Narrowleaf Echinacea, Golden Sage, Passionflower, Valerian, and Bloodflower that need to go in the garden, as in yesterday. Fortunately the hot and dry weather has broken with a thunderific rainstorm. I’ll pull my bolting lettuces and feed them to my rabbits tomorrow, making way for a bed of herbal delights. But for now, my soft bed of pillows calls, and I will answer, for I have much to do tomorrow—putting straw around the potatoes (and purchasing said straw), taking artwork to the frame shop, setting up a trellis for my poor beans, and some other things I’m quite certain I’ve forgotten about, but will remember at some juncture.

Summer's Parade

2010-06-24T09:34:00.001-07:00

June has swept me up in her hot parade and I have so enjoyed the celebration I can hardly believe we are near its end. My second eldest has graduated from high school, and the party that goes with that has long since passed. The garden is marching along happily, though the week and a half I neglected it to prepare for the aforementioned graduation party has certainly left me with lots of work to do now. Solstice has pulled all the Summer flowers into blooming, and they are so different from the flowers of Spring. Bold, big, and warm-colored are the daylilies, the butterfly weed, the bee balm, and the elecampane. Forgive me for not having photographs. I've been too busy to take pictures.

Yesterday I worked in the hot Sun weeding my long row of onions. By the time I was moving along to mulching them a big cloud strode along and offered me some shade, for which I was most appreciative. Then I gave the onions a nice long drink. Last year's onions didn't really bulk up, so I need to stay on top of the watering this year. I am looking forward to thick, juicy onions to stash away in my pantry. I've also planted a row of green onions, which should overwinter nicely, unless we eat them all up this Autumn.

I'm still playing catch-up on my garden list. I need to fill in the trenches of my potatoes, and also giving them a good watering. I know July is just around the corner, but I'm going to put some zucchini seeds in the ground and have some by late Summer to devour and to freeze and to pickle. I'm also going to plant a whole row of basil to put pesto away for the Winter. There is simply nothing so uniquely delicious in all the world as basil (though I am also quite fond of cilantro), and I've got a good set of plants already. Just not enough to put a bunch away for the Winter.

And yes, that is what I'm thinking about. Putting lots of food up for the cold. If nothing else, the garden has taught me about two things: consistency and timing. For a garden to be successful, you must give it consistent attention. Daily attention. I have two gardens--a row garden and a garden of vegetable beds and perennial herbs and flowers. That's a lot of attention for one scatter-brained woman. It's exactly what I need to teach me how to be grounded and focused. As for the timing, well, you really do have to think ahead, plan, and basically be on top of things. I rather infamous for having none of those skills. So you see, the garden is just the teacher I need. Since I have two gardens, I guess I needed two teachers. Some of us need more help than others.

And of course, the garden has taught me so much more. This Spring I did not get any spinach in the garden, or other such greens, but The Lady of the Garden knew my need and filled the garden with lamb's quarters. Many a meal have we had of this wild and delicious green, and yesterday I harvested armloads. Tonight I will lightly sautee' them and then stash them away in little freezer bags. Come the cold I will be making stews of potatoes and lamb's quarters and sausage, and marveling again at the wild abundance of Nature, which is perhaps the greatest lesson of all.

Of Poisons and Peaches

2010-06-04T21:21:00.000-07:00

This Spring I made it a few times to our local Farmer's Market, which for me is a major accomplishment since I usually do a lot of nothing on Saturday mornings. But I'm so glad I made it, because I met Wilma, a fascinating mountain woman, and bought some currant bushes from her. Now the currants are starting to turn red. Renee checks on them daily, hunting the red jewels for her own pleasure. I'll be lucky to get any!

When we brought the currant bushes home, my husband told me they looked like the berry bushes that used to grow in his backyard when he was a kid. His mother caught him eating them one time and scolded him fiercely, telling him they were poison. Poison! Poison! Poison! The other day he plucked a crisp red berry from the bush and popped it into his mouth. "Yep, those were the ones that were in my backyard," he said. "I loved them. They were so tartly delicious. I'm so glad we have some now!"

It's easy to think that his mom was being a bit harsh, but the truth is, she just didn't know. Better safe than sorry is not a bad motto, though are there are better ones. Seek and find out, for one, though that's a little easier now than in the 70s, I'd say.

Consider if my husband, as a child, had been attracted to this plant instead of red berries:

poison hemlock

He would not be with us. This plant is Poison Hemlock, and I found it last week growing by my chicken coop. Though it looks like many other innocuous plants--Queen Anne's Lace in particular--it is deadly poisonous. I read that it can kill you even if you are just handling the root, if you have a cut on your hands. I don't know if that's true, but I do know that it's poisonous enough that I washed my hands after breaking off a leaf to smell. I thought it might be dill, which is in the same family (Apiaceae) as hemlock, but I wasn't looking closely enough.

I've educated my kids about hemlock, starting with two years ago when I saw it flowering down the road by the creek. Last year it was blooming on our river land, right by the path, and every time I walked by it with them I'd say, "There it is, the poison hemlock! Be careful! That plant can kill you, quick!" Now they are afraid of yarrow, Queen Anne's Lace, and any other plant producing clusters of white flowers. I have pointed out hemlock's smooth stalk and compared it with the fuzzy stalk of Queen Anne's Lace, but I think for kids these things can get all mixed up in their heads. Learning the difference between what is poison, and what is not, is knowledge that develops over many, many seasons. Be respectful of each plant, I tell them. Some are so poisonous they can kill you, some are so rich in medicine they can heal you. No plant ever poisoned someone that was just looking at it, so learn to use your eyes. I'm still learning that. And trying to figure out how I want to destroy this plant before it goes to seed.

Meanwhile, the peonies in my garden are tumbling over themselves like girls just become women, tossing their beauty about recklessly, littering the path with a carpet of pink petals. I feel like peonies are the ultimate flower, the way they burst open with frills and scent and color, and then just can't stop, falling over with the heavy delight of being a flower.

The valerian is flowering, and one plant has a stalk over six feet tall! Looks kind of like hemlock, oddly enough. The root of valerian, where it's medicine dwells, has a powerful stink-foot smell, but the flowers are sweet and clear. I'll be gathering the seed this year, and planting more valerian this fall. Do you have any seeds from your garden you'd like to trade for some valerian seeds?

Soon the flowers of May will be gone, and the lilies and bee balm and elecampane will begin flowering. I have really enjoyed my native columbine, which was a volunteer in the pot of another plant I purchased last year. It has bloomed profusely, and its blooms are smaller than the more domesticated columbine. I'll be passing some seeds from this plant along to a friend of mine, who gave me some of the volunteer columbine plants from her garden. They were so cute--little deep purple doubles! I'm wondering if the native will cross with these unusual samples from her garden to make even more interesting varieties of columbine.

And last, but certainly not least, is a branch from one of my peach trees. It's going to be a peachy summer, I'd say!

A Wednesday Gift

2010-06-02T16:41:00.000-07:00

Head on over to my website for a chance to win a little giveaway from me:
http://woodbyrd.com/wordpress/blog/

Pitch for a Shift

2010-06-02T16:35:00.000-07:00

Yesterday afternoon Jay and I sat at the table stripping mint leaves from their stalks, arranging them in assorted patterns on the dehydrator trays. We were both a bit worn with the day, and so I had made some mate latte tea. I had mine with honey, and that, along with the crisp scent of mint, seemed to be lifting the tired fog that engulfed me.

We talked a bit about his work, and then I made my pitch.

"Let's try something new," I suggested. "Let's make our midday meal our main meal of the day. Before then, we can all work together, in the garden, on your carcycle, whatever. After the meal, you can go to your shop, I can go to my studio, and the kids can have free time."

I had this idea that morning, as my children fought downstairs with a vengeance. I was trying to get a small task done, and had left them to their own devices. Of course this was a recipe for disaster, but only a minor disaster, the type to which I am somewhat immune. I need some sort of shift, I thought, as Renee screamed at McKinley at the top of her lungs downstairs. There has to be a way for us to move more into the life we desire with less stress and more beauty. There just has to be a way!

As it has been, our life very loosely resembles a traditional set-up, whereby Jay goes to work in the morning, albeit just next door, and usually around 10 am, and I stay at home with the kids. That is about where the resemblance ends, since "staying home with the kids" might mean swimming in the river, or it might mean discussing the current crisis in Gaza, as we did yesterday. Still, being the only one with the kids for most of the day means that when I can break away to the studio, I usually don't have the energy. Making dinner at the end of the day usually takes what last bit of energy I might have had.

So in our constant quest--sometimes joyful, sometimes not--to do everything, we are attempting a shift change. We'll try it for a week and see how it works. Today was the first day, and oh, today!

We started the day with coffee, as usual, sitting at the table in our outdoor kitchen. I woke the children by reading some of "The Island of the Blue Dolphins" to them. Reading with them in the morning, rather than at night, has proven to be the trick to getting my children from sleep to wakefulness without yelling. Then we read together from "Opening Doors Within," which is a daily meditation book by Eileen Caddy, one of the co-founders of Findhorn. Breakfast was followed by jumping on the trampoline, and then into the garden we went, weeding and planting 8 butternut squash plants. The clouds came and cooled us from the hot Sun, and then the rain began to fall upon us, big thick drops, sporadic and delicious at first, and then a torrent. We rushed to the house, wet and laughing.

For our midday meal, Jay and Renee made a stack of handmade tortillas (thirty-two to be precise), while McKinley made hummus, and I made a frittata.

I sent McKinley to the garden to take pictures of the row of butternut squash and the limbs of our peach trees, which are laden with peaches. We have so many peaches that I'll be making peach preserves, peach chutney, and peach pie come August. Anyway, here's the pictures he took:

Baby Butternut

Rose

Baby Peach

My Marvel of Venice beans are coming up strong, and the arugula I planted with the kids a few days ago has made a fine green appearance. We've been getting good rain this week, so the other beans I planted, and the sunflowers, should be showing pretty soon. The garden grows, the river warms, and summer really is upon us. With my husband joining me in the garden, I feel like anything is possible!

Will Trade Virus for Stress

2010-05-27T19:51:00.000-07:00

The Strange Virus has left. I slept in a little this morning, figuring I deserved it, then shuffled the kids off to piano lessons. There was much moaning about this from McKinley, who is 9 going on 17, thanks to the influence of his older brother Bert. He wants to play guitar, and thinks his teacher is lame.

Rather, she is incredible. And McKinley isn't so bad at the piano game, either. When he sits at her piano, which admittedly sounds angelic compared to ours, his fingers begin playing all sorts of things he's picked up from the aforementioned brother. He does this in between actual pieces he's playing for his lesson, and he does this whenever his teacher has momentarily paused in giving him guidance. It's maddening for me! "Lesson manners!" I remind him, but she just smiles back at me. She understands, she tells me, she had one like this, so full of life and energy. And today she asked him the title of this one thing he's played over and over until my ears hurt.

"You won't like it," he tells her.

"That's okay, what matters is that you like it," she smiles, ever so generously.

"It's Death Clocks Thunderhorse," he rambles off, then makes some heavy metal air guitar motions. I roll my eyes.

"Okay, I'll see if I can find the music for it, so you can learn to play it CORRECTLY," she smiles again, this time her evil-piano-teacher intentions revealed to me by the glint in her eyes. McKinley is oblivious. She's very good.

Renee got back from her four-day trip to Washington D.C. with friends on Monday. The highlight of her trip was seeing baby ducks at the Botanical Gardens. No surprise there. She was also very impressed with the hotel, a Holiday Inn, because the kids ate free for breakfast AND dinner. There was also a pool, and she had packed three swimsuits in anticipation of this, only to be deeply disappointed that there turned out to be no time for swimming. Instead they walked all over the place looking at museums.

I had told her that when she got back I would take her to a pool so she could go pool-swimming. Poor thing, she's grown up swimming in a mountain river. Now all that she wants is to swim in a pool. Go figure. But I came down with the dreaded Strange Virus, and was out for two days, during which not only did she have to entertain herself, but she did NOT get taken to a real swimming pool. Now that I could walk up the stairs without my head swimming, it was time for me to take her to the pool down the road.

This I did not want to do. There was so much that needed to be done, I'd missed Monday going to Charlotte to pick her up, and Tuesday and Wednesday with the Strange Virus. My day had already been set back with the rescheduled piano lessons. Since she also wanted to make some chocolate chip cookies (this girl is always planning something) I thought maybe we could do the cookies today, swimming tomorrow. Much girl-grief ensued with this suggestion, which escalated to a small argument in which I got testy and she got upset, crying, "I'm sorry, Momma," which is really code for, "I'm sorry but will you please give me what I want anyway?" So I called the pool. They're not even open yet. And of course she doesn't want to go swimming in the river, which is right across the road and absolutely divine for swimming in.

So we made cookies instead. I had become stressed. I was thinking about my garden. How I'm always behind with planting. How the weeds are everywhere. She wanted to make the "Best Ever Chocolate Chip Dip Cookies" and I wasn't even sure what she meant by that. We got out some cookbooks, reading over different recipes. This one used three sticks of butter. No, thanks. This one used ricotta cheese. Whatever. Like I just happen to have ricotta cheese in my refrigerator because I might want to whip up some homemade ravioli or lasagne or chocolate chip cookies. OK. Next recipe. Double Mint Chocolate Chip Cookies. Score! Renee LOVES mint, and we have lots growing, well, everywhere.

Renee was really into making the cookies. She did a great job, and enjoyed herself thoroughly. I enjoyed helping her. When we spread the dough onto the cookie sheet, she revealed her secret plan for what a ""Chocolate Chip Dip" cookie would be--one that had a chunk of chocolate hidden in the middle! I was impressed with her innovation.

After the cookies came out of the oven and had been appropriately devoured, she changed into a scarf wrapped about her and began singing about her cookies. They were magical cookies she had decided, and she talked with me at great length about this, peppering our conversation about belief and magic with outbursts of glorious song. "This is just the best day," she told me. I had reverted to weeding the front flower bed while she sang to me and was now covered in wretched grass pollen that made me feel as I was on fire. "Yes, it is a beautiful day," I told her, "and I'm going to go inside and relax for a minute or two."

I washed off and laid down for a little while. I was not in the best of moods, regardless of my delightful daughter, regardless of how the rain came up while we were cooking in our outdoor kitchen, a sudden breeze wafting over us, regardless of the peonies, geraniums, and borage I had picked from my garden and set on the table earlier. Sometimes we are just in a foul mood, no matter what beauty befalls us.

So I went to the garden, chiding myself as I transplanted collards and basil and rhubarb, the last of which I put at the back of the garden where it could grow big and unfettered and perhaps form a sort of border against the weeds that inevitably encroach upon my garden. I checked on my lettuces, which are doing swimmingly well, and my broccoli, which is looking good. My tomatoes were stunted by a late frost but are coming back. And I still have more tomatoes to put in the garden. Also in the ground are potatoes and onions. And the beans I planted a few days ago. So maybe things aren't so off in the garden department. And the peonies are blooming. What could be better than that for a May afternoon?

Studio Update

2010-05-26T17:28:00.000-07:00

I've been sick for two days! In May! This should not be allowed. There is simply too much to do and too much beauty in which to partake. Hopefully tomorrow I will be feeling better. Yesterday I did not really leave the bed, but today I did manage to trudge up to the studio for just a little bit.

Sunday night J and I hung out in the studio (my clubhouse, he called it) listening to Anoushka Shankar and doing freestyle yoga. It was a rather lovely way to celebrate that at least one part of my studio is completed enough to enjoy. The rug is laid out again, the wifi hooked back up, and new shelves are in the corner holding my assorted technological equipment. Here's a look at my technology corner:

Next on my studio agenda is to finish a large piece that has been set aside for quite awhile. Here's a detail shot:

That's a pink ladyslipper, in case you're wondering. I'm inspired to finish this piece by my new goddess statue that I purchased off Etsy. I really love this woman's work, and hope to have more of her figures! Here's a shot of the White Crackle Raku Goddess in her temporary location in my studio:

You'll see why she's inspiring me to finish the pink ladyslipper piece soon!

Garden notes, without weedy pictures

2010-05-23T18:25:00.000-07:00

Today the Moon was in Libra, after a stint through Leo & Virgo, which are barren signs. While it would be ideal to be weeding during such barren times, such has not been the case. So today I tried to make up for lost time, weeding (because there is SO much to be done) and also planting Marvel of Venice Pole Beans and some luscious Johnny Jump-Ups I purchased at one of my local greenhouses.

Libra is "a moist, fruitful airy sign. Good for grains & root crops. Especially good for flowers," according to The Almanack.com, whose monthly almanac I save to my desktop and check frequently. I intended to plant more potatoes today, since the Moon is in such a good sign for them, but alas, I spent a good portion of my day helping with the new floor in my outdoor kitchen. More on that tomorrow.

Even with all the weeds the garden is gorgeous. I'll get those potatoes in the ground. Plus lots of other stuff. My white peonies are blooming, and my pink peonies are about to. I really love my peonies!

This morning I got up at six--a very strange occurrence indeed--and picked this bouquet from my garden:

Studio Update--a finish!

2010-05-22T08:45:00.000-07:00

"What Lives in the Crowns of Trees"

You know the story of the Tortoise and the Hare, right? In fifth grade I played the Tortoise in the school play, and either I was exceptionally well-cast or the role stuck. I work slowly and carefully. So finishing a piece has always been a bit of a big deal for me!

I will be posting the deluxe image of this piece soon, and plan to offer only five prints of it, so let me know if you are interested and I'll reserve one for you.

In other studio news, the remodel of my studio continues. I have a hand-crafted woodstove to install. She was made by the illustrious sculptor C. Andree Davidt, a good friend of mine, and you can see the love he put into her. She's called "Hot Mama" and I can't wait to put her in my studio! Here's a simple photo of her:

"Hot Mama!"
The center of the apple is a solid sheet of Mica from our beloved mountains.
It will glow red when there's a fire.

I also have a brand new white floor in my studio, and built-in shelves! Look for photos soon, plus pics of the beginning of some new pieces of Appalachian Ephemerals.

Wet Afternoon

2010-05-17T17:41:00.000-07:00

I have been planting all afternoon. Tomatoes, lettuces, parsley, rosemary. Weeding, too, because the garden is overrun. And all the while, the peonies are about to burst open, the lupines are a crescendo of color, the native columbine is a festival of salmon-red lanterns, and the blue comfrey is a cloud of buzz and blue. False indigo, sweet blue flag, and the outrageous perennial poppies are blooming, too.

While I plant I am planning. Squash in the back of the garden. Cucumbers by that fence. Narrowleaf echinacea under the currants. Then other things. Pavers for the outdoor kitchen. And screen, too. Construction trash carted away. Mulch for new garden beds along the driveway, which I will narrow to a path.

In the thick of it all, another burst of rain moves through. The goats, tethered to stakes in the blueberry field (yet out of reach of the blueberries), bleat wildly. The goats hate the rain, but I do not. I love the colors of Spring thickening into Summer, bodies of mist stretching up the mountainsides, the dark, wet shadows teeming with Life.

The Moon is in Cancer, so I keep planting, and then lay out seeds for tomorrow: bloodflower for the monarchs, collards, tat-soi. High over me, a kingfisher rattles and rattles, circling over the garden. I grow curious and watch her antics. Soon her partner joins her, and they chase off a pair of some other bird–starlings, I hope. The sky is tinged with pink. I say a prayer for my mother, then turn back to the work at hand.

Flowers from my Tailpipe

2010-05-05T20:22:00.000-07:00

First, I am totally sickened by what is happening in the Gulf of Mexico right now. I can't even write about it. It is very, very, very bad.

But it has certainly spurred me to action, along with my super husband. You know, we drive. We all drive. We drive everywhere. I bring my own bags, I carry my own water, I buy local first. But I drive. All that other stuff is just a drop in the bucket, except maybe the buying local part, considering that otherwise food is driven across the country. I haven't done that math on that one, though I'm sure someone has. But I know what's going in my gas tank, and even though it is sometimes regionally produced biodiesel, 95% of the time it isn't. And even when it is, it's not like flowers are coming out of my tailpipe.

I see the connection between my driving and so much destruction--wars, climate change, environmental degradation, and now, full-blown catastrophe. And I am tired of living this way. My parents raised me to be honest, and this does not seem honest. That so much should be sacrificed so that I can go where I want to, exactly when I want to, at a high rate of speed & in supreme comfort just doesn't seem just.

So, with my husband's super powers, we are going to sacrifice the high rate of speed and supreme comfort for something else. And we are going to do it with this:

(photo from americanspeedster.com)

You can find out more about this carcycle from this website: americanspeedster.com This model is the Sidekick, and it should be noted that it can be retrofitted with an electric motor.

A friend once told me that for the cost of the bail-out every mid-sized city and up could have had high-speed rail. Imagine. And keep imaging! For months I've been driving and imaging how wonderful it will feel to be able to travel joyfully, with flowers coming out of my tailpipe, instead of thoughts of war and unjustified privilege. This carcycle is our first step into that dream. Only I think we'll put a bubble machine on the back of it, instead of flowers. Just for fun.

Obviously, there's more to come on this one!

Spring Wildflowers by the River

2010-04-14T08:01:00.000-07:00

Renee found this trout lily for me, and surrounded it with sticks and precious rocks she found in the river so that I could take this picture.

And finding the first Bluets of Spring always thrills me! Such small and delightful flowers, always blooming in happy bunches.

Ramping up the Joy

2010-04-10T06:21:00.000-07:00

When I started homeschooling McKinley and Renee, my idea was that we would spend a lot of time following our bliss. I also knew enough from my experience with homeschooling my three older kids that the vision and the reality would not often meet.

But that is changing. There are a lot of reasons for this, or maybe not. Jay and I are getting up every morning and listening to something inspirational, usually something to do with the law of attraction. We had a practice of this some years ago and the happiness we sowed was reaped almost daily. So there's that. Also I have been exercising on my mini-trampoline on a daily basis, which seems to have a very beneficial effect on my whole being. I'm calm, more organized, and have more get-up-and-go energy. And flaxseeds are awesome, I eat them everyday!

So there are all these little changes, simple, beautiful things, that have also brought about a richer life experience for all of us. Today would be the perfect example of this. We read together in the morning (The Invention of Hugo Cabret), had a great breakfast, and then played with our new compass set, making designs and coloring them in with the brilliant color of Berol Prismacolor pencils.

Daffodil Surprise

Later in the afternoon we went down to the river, where I found this serendipitous clump of daffodils blooming. They were happy to be photographed. Renee meandered about, chatting me up with her delightful observations.

Our Patch of Ramps

Then we rediscovered our patch of ramps, as we do every Spring. and dug some up for dinner! Ramps, or Allium tricoccum, are a wild member of the onion family, with a strong garlic onion flavor. They appear in early Spring and are an Appalachian favorite. We also discovered that the mint was sprouting and collected some tops of mint as well for our first cup of fresh mint tea this year.

Ramp it Up

McKinley had his own ramp to show off! I love the look of determined exhilaration of his face. He made sure I got this photo, arguing with me a bit about whether the flash should be on or off, and what settings I should have on the camera. Nine-year-old boys are something, I'll tell you that!

The Fruits of the Day

And here is our ramp-corn-cheddar quiche, along with some of our drawings from the morning, and a quart of delicious mint tea. The banana cookies are not shown, but I can assure you they were delicious. And my house is still clean.

Domestic Wednesday

2010-04-07T16:58:00.001-07:00

We had a big spring-cleaning weekend, culminating in an Easter dinner with family and friends. I just love when my house is clean. Today there hasn't been a lot going on, and so I did a good bit of Etsy shopping and another good bit of house-tending and kitchen craft.

We've started eating smoothies every morning. I was wanting to find an easy way to eat flaxseeds, and after a little experimentation I found that just grinding them up in the trusty coffee grinder and throwing them in the blender with some yogurt, frozen raspberries, and agave syrup for sweetening was just about perfect. I might throw in a banana, or some blueberries, but that’s the gist of it. And it makes a great breakfast! The flaxseeds are just superb for your health, packed with Omega-3’s and lignans (lots and lots of lignans) that promote estrogen balance. That estrogen balance is what I was seeking, for uterine fibroids, and so far the effect has been marvelous, darling, just marvelous.

All that smoothie making makes for a lot of yogurt! So I started buying the milk at the store and making yogurt at home. It is so incredibly easy, and so much cheaper! And in the end you have these lovely jars of yogurt just waiting for you.

Jars of Yogurt and Flaxseed

Here's the basic recipe for making yogurt:

Fill a large pot with hot water and put in your jars, a big spoon, and a whisk. Bring that to a boil, so your yogurt jars and preparation utensils are nice and sanitary. You can use any jar for making the yogurt, but half-pint, pint and quart jars make it easy to know how much milk to use. The milk will convert tit for tat to yogurt--you won't have any by-product.

Measure out your milk, and put it in a pot over a high setting. Stir it now and then. You're going to want to bring your milk just to a boil, when it starts to rise up and foam, and then take it off the heat straight away. This is the hardest part of making yogurt--waiting for your milk to boil. The purpose of boiling the milk, by the way, is to kill off any other bacteria so that only your friendly probiotic bacteria will grow.

Let the milk cool in the pot until it's lukewarm, or about body temperature. If it feels hot to you, it's still too hot. When it's warm, take about two tablespoons of yogurt for every four cups of milk, and whisk this starter yogurt into the milk with your happy, sanitary whisk. I do not measure my starter yogurt--I just put in a dollop and stir--and I think the stirring may be more important than how much yogurt you actually use, because you want the bacteria to be well-spread throughout the milk.

Pour the milk mixture into your sterilized jars, which should be warm enough to handle by now. If not, just set them out and let them cool until you can handle them easily. I used to ladle the milk into the jars, but now I just pour it straight from the pot into wide-mouth jars. Much easier. Put on the lids.

Now you need to put your jars someplace warmish. In the winter I put them in the warming closet of my woodstove, and in the Summer I put them on top of my hot water tank, because in Summer the utility room gets really warm from our solar water heating system, which is housed there (and on our roof). If you can't think of a warm, cozy place for your yogurt, just fill up a hot water bottle with hot water and snuggle it up to them, then put them in a "cooler" or some other small, insulated spot. I always wrap mine up in a few layers of towels.

Leave the jars for six to eight hours (though I've done less, and more), refreshing the hot water bottle a few times if you're using that method to keep them warm. Sample it at six hours, checking for firmness. It doesn't have to get firm, but the longer you leave it the firmer it will get.

Admire you handiwork!

I've heard that this will work with any kind of milk: rice, almond, soy, and I think it would be a fun experiment to see how these would turn out. But for now, I need to get downstairs to my kitchen corner and make some pizza!

Pizza dough on the rise

Speaking of kitchen, here's the view of my domestic corner of creativity. I'm excited that we will soon be getting tile in the kitchen, and then new cabinets! But even now it's beautiful, thanks to all that spring-cleaning, and maybe, if I keep Wednesdays a day for domestic craft, just maybe it will stay that way. It's a possibility!

The ADD Gardener

2010-04-03T06:45:00.000-07:00

Last week I made my first Spring foray into the garden. It was a bit intimidating. Spring weeds sprout quick, and grass is always my main adversary along the edges of my garden. Besides this, as usual I didn't do a thorough clean-up of the garden this past Autumn, so there was a lot of work in that department as well.

My Garden in March

But none of this deterred me. The air was warm, the Sun was shining, it was time! I grabbed my stirrup hoe and started clearing paths, since visitors to my garden in Spring are usually at a loss as to what is garden and what is not. I purposely have a lot of meandering, curvaceous paths.

After about ten minutes of that, I moved on to cutting out some briars that were growing at the far edge of my garden, crowding out some of my blueberry bushes. Then I weeded out along the edge of one of my herb gardens. It was at this juncture that I realized that I am an ADD gardener. I am all over the place!

To prove the point, Wikipedia defines ADD-predominately inattentive as "characterized by inattention, easy distractibility, disorganization, procrastination, forgetfulness, and lethargy." Now, the lethargy does not exactly apply (all the time), but everything else most certainly does. How many times have I been lost in garden work only to be called by my children to end an argument, for instance, leaving my tools (and even once, painfully, my seeds, which later got rained upon in their sweet paper packets)? How many times have I forgotten about that new plant I placed next to its planting spot, only to find it a few days later withered?

However, this realization has also helped me think of some tools to help me become an even better gardener. Because truth be told, even with my many failings, I really do have a beautiful garden, with a marvelous array of natives, herbs, flowers, and vegetables. Somehow I manage! And every year I plant more, and expand the garden just a little bit, too (that's where the grass likes to grow).

So, for all you ADD gardeners out there, and come one, there has to be at least a few of us, here are some totally untested, hypothetical tips to help you thrive as an ADD gardener.

1. Take a watch, work for a specific amount of time. OK, I hate watches, too. But I did this today, not to combat my ADD-ness, but because I was in a piss-poor mood and said I would just work in the garden for an hour. Curiously, though, instead of getting lost in the work only to be called (or wander) away, I had a set amount of time, and when it was over, it was over, and I knew to gather my tools and other accouterments and call it a day.

2. Consider your distractibility an asset. Yeah, I know there are folks out there that say, "Today I am going to plant three 100 foot rows of potatoes, and then I'm going to weed the kale, and then I'm going to mulch the spinach." And then they do it. They are magnificent gardeners, and I hate them (are you reading this, George?). But they are not us! We are not meant to have gardens like that. Our garden may be more akin to the chaos of Nature, and that is OK. In fact, in a lot of ways its better. Because Nature rocks and rows are kind of, well, boring. So when you walk through your garden gate (if you have one, it may be more like a bit of woven wire fencing that hooks, sometimes, to the corner stake like mine), and you see first that your ladies mantle is sprouting lovely pleated leaves, then by all means, go there and weed a little bit. After that you might want to go check out your greens, see if they are doing all right, and from there you might see that the garden bed next to the greens is overgrown with weeds. And you might do something about that, or you might not, because maybe you aren't exactly sure what to do, but it will come to you in the course of a few days. Don't worry, move along. And as you make your way through the garden, noticing this, weeding that, you are engaged with all of your garden. You know what needs attention, and what doesn't, and you can spread out your energy as you see fit.

My Lady's Mantle's Lovely Pleated Leaves

3. Making mistakes is not only OK, it's a good thing! Well, maybe not leaving your seed packets out in the rain. But we've already covered that with tip #1. So let's move onto why making mistakes is a good thing. Because you learn! You are brave enough to do it your own way, and maybe someday you'll invent something really spectacular like Lasagna Gardening and be able to write a book about it and become rich and famous. And maybe not. But still, being willing to make mistakes is part of every garden, and for every mistake there's a success. Maybe it's all the borage growing like mad in your garden by August and which you could possibly never use all of, but that borage is great for the bees AND it's really beautiful. Next year, don't look so kindly upon those borage volunteers. They get really, really big. Or maybe you have a place where the bigness of borage would be really perfect. You just never really know until you try.

4. Embrace chaos! Let's face it, Nature is wildly chaotic. And sometimes that can be a great advantage in the garden. Instead of rows I have six garden beds and a multitude of herbs and flowers growing alongside those aforementioned curvaceous garden paths. Everything is kind of thrown in together, and I've learned a lot about what thrives and where. Using that information, I might move the bee balm to another spot where it can really take over, or give the nettles free reign of a whole section. I wanted a garden like the ones in the magazines (who doesn't?) but what I've got is my own constant work in progress, that provides me with immense pleasure and challenge.

5. Make your own rules. I have an inner dictum which I follow. I'm not even sure why I do it. But I just don't have the heart to weed something that is flowering. Oh, that's it, you say, this woman is crazy! But wait! There's something to this. First off, for me it is a way to show respect for the Earth and her own way of doing things. And sometimes I just let things flower for a few days before covering them up with mulch or hoeing them away. Or I might just leave one plant of a whole mass of flowering weeds. But it's my of doing things, and it brings me joy. I've learned a good deal about the common weeds from this practice, and enjoyed the beauty of some, such as Ranunculus acris, a wild buttercup with brilliant yellow blooms on long, swaying stems.

Your garden is yours. Let it be an expression of your joyful relationship with Nature, however that unfolds. If the chickweed takes over, by god, then eat the chickweed! If your tomato plants are always stunted, grow squash! If it's too late for squash (though right now it's certainly too early for most of us) then grow lettuce! Whatever your garden is, appreciate the beauty that unfolds, whether it's a peony blossom or the rampant takeover of morning glories. A garden is NEVER done, and is always a blessing.

Studio Update

2010-04-02T11:07:00.000-07:00

I've been really busy, and in a good way! My studio has a new floor, new shelves, and is 75% painted. It's totally chaotic in there, but I've managed to get some work done anyway! Here's a short video collage of my current work in progress, "What Lives in the Crowns of Trees."

I also really need to post about trampolines and angora bunnies, home education and the glories of my garden, and how wonderful my husband is! Soon!

Moments: the Hands of my Grandfather

2010-03-16T07:38:00.000-07:00

His daughter smiled up at him weakly, her face pale and beaming. Her boyfriend handed the bundled sleeping creature to him, its face shut tight against the world. He saw with disappointment that the babe had inherited his nose. The lights flickered a bit, and his hands spread with their own wisdom to cradle the child. (read more)

Moments: The Singing

2010-02-25T15:38:00.001-08:00

The tent was set up, the sleeping bags rolled out. They had eaten macaroni and cheese and sausage. The other campers, of which there were only a few, had turned in, but they kept the fire fed, and they drank their wine as the complexity of a summer night in the Great Smokies wove around them.

Really, she was tired. She was making excuses for going to bed. They were sitting at the picnic table. Everything was damp, especially her eyelids.

At first it did not seem real. A thin high sound, far off. He held up his hand, and their eyes met in disbelief, in awe as the eerie howls of the wolves–red wolves–touched their ears, their ear drums beating to this wolfsong, carrying that wild message deep into their brains.

She looked away from him, into the darkness, the chorus of wailing unhinging her, knots and bindings slipping, her heart memorizing this thrill, this ache of a beauty so rare, this song born in the throat of a small wolf, then thrown into the air, this song that had driven men to gather their guns and their traps, there are no words for the beauty of it, so deep it touches you.

And as quickly as the song had begun, it ended. The night became a scattering of crickets. They looked at each other, but said nothing. The night was finished for her. She went to bed.

But she made a place in her body that held the memory of that sound. She could enter that place, if she walked carefully in her thoughts, as one might enter a temple. It was near the center of her chest, with tendrils spreading to her throat.

There are very small things that change you. There are things so–beyond–that when you experience them they pull you into a place you could have never imagined. What could make her body rejoice like that? What sound had ever made her feel so alive? It was as if the wolves had sang her into creation.

Comic Disasters: our weekend away

2010-02-24T16:06:00.001-08:00

I was so excited at Christmas, because I had planned the perfect gift for my sweet husband: a weekend away in Hot Springs, NC. I made reservations at the Duckett House Inn and the Hot Springs Spa for the weekend after Christmas. And then the weather came.

The Duckett House Inn & Farm

So we rescheduled for Valentine's Day, reasoning that by then the weather would have settled down. This was, as we all know now, a foolish asessment, but we've also adapted to the weather, to a certain extent, and went anyway.

We were so lucky that the bed & breakfast had a cancellation, because apparently there had been a miscommunication between J and the innkeepers about the necessary procedure to procure a reservation, and thus we had none. This was our only luck of the evening.

The sky was sputtering flurries in a romantic sort of way, and so after we got settled in we decided to take a tiny trek on the Appalachian Trail, which runs straight through the tiny town of Hot Springs. The Duckett House is only one hundred yards from the Trail. So we walked down the sidewalk, across the street, and up a long stretch of rock stairs. Then we were in the forest, gaining elevation at a steady pace. It felt delicious to have the heart pumping again, the air crisp with snow, the forest a study of monochrome. We did not get very far, though, because the winter storms had felled many trees, and we were not motivated enough to continue past the chaos of downed pines that blocked our path. We turned around, chatting about camping plans and other assorted adventures. When we reached the top of the rock stairs, I wished for a handrail, for the snow had begun to cover them.

I stepped down ever so carefully, trying to tap the snow out of the tread of my boots here and there. But my precautions were in vain! For slip and fall and roll down the slope I did. At some point in the long fall I thought my glasses had fallen off my face, and perhaps broken, so my first concern after my quick descent had ended was to try and find them. I saw my hat roll down some thirty feet from where I had landed.

"Where are my glasses! Oh, my hat..." I cried out.

"Are you OK? Are you OK?" my husband replied. "They're on your face!" he added.

I apparently didn't here this, because I called out again, "Where are my glasses!" Which left him thinking that I had hit my head really hard and couldn't see straight.

"They. Are. On. Your! Face!" he said, trying very hard to be clear and in control.

I was sprawled out on the slope of the mountainside, almost upside down. One of my ankles was wedged between the stairs and a tree, and the angle of the slope was so steep I had no idea how to get up. J grabbed onto the tree with one arm and reached the other out to me.

"My leg is stuck, can you unstuck it for me?"

He pulled my ankle out of its trap, and then I was able to grab his hand and right myself. I sat down on the nearest step. J eyed me anxiously. "I'm OK," I reassured him, "just really sore on my bum."

He laughed nervously. "I thought you had lost your vision! You kept asking where your glasses were, and they were on your face!"

We laughed some more, and I stood up shakily. We continued slowly down the stairs. On the very last one, J slipped, and his elbow landed with a crack on the rock step. He got up quickly and grabbed his elbow, his face tense with pain.

"Are you OK? Did you break anything?" I asked. There was a certain humor in this situation, and I tried not to laugh, because it did seem quite possible that he had broken his elbow.

But he was alright. And we walked arm in arm back to the inn, sweeping off the bits of forest floor that we had gathered in our tumbles. Weary, but smiling.

Then we went to town to procure some dinner. Let me take a moment to describe Hot Springs. It is very small. There is no grocery store, just a Dollar General. There are several restaurants, however--more than fits the size of the town, because Hot Springs is a destination. They have hot springs! The Appalachian Trail! The French Broad River! And a nice handful of Inns.

So our first stop was to the most luxurious bed & breakfast in town, the Mountain Magnolia Inn, where they also serve dinner. The parking lot was tight, so we were they might not be able to fit us in. But as we walked up the wide porch I looked into the dining parlor. There were certainly plenty of empty tables, but there was a woman in a formal red dress, and over there, a woman in a tiny black dress and stiletto heels. Here we are in our earth-tumbled dress, brushed off but still browned in spots, and me in my rubber (muck) boots. We turned right back around, giggling.

We tried another restaurant, of the more home-grown flavor. They closed at seven, and the women in the windows eyed us suspiciously. We fumbled with a bottle of ibuprofen and took three each in the parking lot.

Next stop was the Iron Horse Restaurant. The hostess delivered her bad news to us with a smile. There were no openings, but if we wanted to wait upstairs she could seat us at the bar when an opening became available. She could not tell us how long the wait for that would be. We had a soak reserved at the hot springs for 9 pm, and decided to stop in after our soak for a bite to eat.

We had some time to kill. I suggested we drive across the river and down River Road, but J misses the turn and we start going up the mountain. "You have to turn around, or we will have to go all the way up the mountain!" I worried. So he pulled onto the opposite shoulder when it seemed wide enough to facilitate our turning around. We couldn't make it in a U because there was lots of mud waiting to entrap us, so we were going to have to do a 3 point turn around. Write after we crossed onto the shoulder, a car appeared, making us angle our necks back to wait for it to pass. And then another, and another, and another. Some forty cars passed on what had been an absolutely desolate road only moments before. We did manage to see the humor in the situation, and also decided to go straight back to our room and gulp down some wine before some other mischief crossed our path.

At 10:14 (after a delightful soak) we walked back into the Iron Horse Station--now an empty restaurant. Kitchen was closed. J suggested we drink a stout beer for dinner. I tried that, and quickly found myself starving and just this side of drunk. We hit the sports bar, hoping for a plate of the nachos we saw being served as we walked into the smoky rockin' establishment.

"Sorry, the kitchen is closed," piped the waitress.

I began to feel desperate. I am, truly, an eater. I looked at my husband. Would he taste good? The people next to us got up to go, leaving a half-full plate of cheesy nachos with slices of olives. J looked at me, his eyebrows raised. "No," I said. "No. No. No."

We pleaded with the waitress. She offered to bring us a basket of chips along with our beer. I devoured the super salty chips, drank more beer, and decided that I while I would not succumb to general weakness due to lack of food, I would most certainly succumb to drunkenness. This actually made the general pain from my fall less...memorable...and the disasters of the evening more comic. It also blurred the disturbances of having a common bathroom right on the other side of your bedroom wall.

Fortunately the tide shifted the following day. We lucked into a two-hour soak instead of just one. The sky was blue. Lunch was extravagantly delicious. And when we got home later that afternoon, I curled into bed and had a delicious nap. There's no place like home.

J & I after our 2 hour soak at Hot Springs

Moments: The Air

2010-02-20T17:30:00.001-08:00

She walked along the trail, her dog pulling so hard on his leash that her gait was a dance between pulling back and moving forward. Every so often she would tire of this game and jerk hard on the leash with a harsh demand to her dog. It changed nothing.

The air was cool, and the moisture from the rain was lifting, swept up from the dark firs. The low clouds were thinning enough in places to show the last blue of the day. She was glad for her sweater, and for the movement of her body. She pulled the mountain air into her lungs in long, slow breaths, relishing the scent of the firs mingled with rain-soaked earth. No wonder Boris pulls so hard on the leash, she thought, this forest is thick with new smells for his fine nose.

The trailhead sign said the hike to the overlook was 1.2 miles. She had grabbed a little flashlight, just in case. She had considered not stopping, continuing on to her aunt’s house some two more hours down the road, but it was so rare that she came this way, through these mountains, so rare that she visited her aunt anyway, that she couldn’t pass up the opportunity. The storm was clearing and the light was fading. She guessed she had forty-five minutes before dark.

The clouds continued to lift, the dog continued to pull. The trail went over ledges of rock that jutted out of the earth, and there were puddles everywhere, on the trail, even in the little dimples in the gray rocks. Some of these caught the turning light like jewels. Behind the clouds the sky was turning yellow, and everything that could hold light seemed to want a piece of this sunset.

She began to quicken her step. She thought it would be marvelous to reach the overlook in this light. Her shoes were wet, and her toes were catching the cold. Boris’ slick red coat quivered with excitement. They began to run together, two animals, their breathing quickened, their bodies alert to the changes in the terrain, the movement of air across their faces stimulating. They had found their music.

The trail steepened, their gate slowed. They began to climb up the rocks, the dog clambering up, his claws scraping at the rock, she searching for footholds. Their eagerness did not dissipate. The light had become golden, and a cathedral of clouds opened up above them. The air was imbued with reverence. She breathed deep and hard, pushing herself to reach the pinnacle of the trail.

And then she was there. The trees thinned, and the wild blueberry bushes that had lined the trail parted. She was standing at the edge of a cliff, looking out onto dark green slopes stretching out far beneath her, licked with remnants of clouds, that shifted over the trees, then rose before dissipating in the clearing breeze. The Blue Ridge mountains stood as giants on the horizon. And everywhere there was golden light and above clouds holding the gold and laced with pink. The last drops of rain, caught on pine needles and grasped by the points of blueberry leaves, hung like tiny orbs of sun. The air was alive with light. Its cool movement kissed her cheeks.

She would not think. She would not try and photograph it. She just stood there, breathing the beauty into her body.

Moments: Lunch Hour

2010-02-19T16:25:00.001-08:00

Will was tired, his head was full, and it was only lunchtime. He decided to walk to get lunch. The Greek restaurant down the road was not really that great, but it was March, the Sun was brilliant, and the air was warm. All of this might help clear his head a little.

Work had become impossible. The new girl mangled every thing her hands touched, but Peter, his recently divorced supervisor, was absolutely smitten with her. When Will mentioned that perhaps the long list of blunders Amanda had committed might mean something, Peter had responded that it meant Will hadn’t trained her properly. Later Peter had taken Amanda out to lunch, and this made things achingly clear to Will.

Now one of his most important clients had lost money because of Amanda’s bungling of phone messages–the simplest of tasks! He would have to figure a way around it. He rubbed the back of his head, ruffling his hair and massaging his scalp with his long, nimble fingers, as if his hand could sort out the thoughts in his head. But lately nothing had this skill. Everything was a tangled heap of rubbish.

Things were even more complicated at home. His teenage son seemed to be getting into some kind of trouble. The boy had only just sprouted the first prickles of a beard when an unquenchable rage had stirred within him, boiling over at the slightest of disturbances. His wife seemed to only make matters worse, digging her heels in and engaging with this snarling animal their son had become. It seemed to Will that the best thing might be to give the boy some space. Let him turn his music up, let him slam the door, punch the wall even. But his mother kept harping on him, letting nothing slide, until the boy wouldn’t even look either of them in the eye.

Will just wanted some easy distraction from all the conflicts of his life. Yet even these minor storms kept his eye off something bigger, something deeper, that watched him from the shadows. He’d felt it in the center of his chest for a long time, this lurking presence, but couldn’t figure out what to do with it. Sometimes he thought a drastic change would fix things, something that would make him feel alive again. But then he realized he had no idea what might make him feel alive. This sent him into a despair that he’d rather pretend didn’t exist. His life had become a painful exercise in maintaining mediocrity.

He turned the corner, and walked along the edge of the park. There were a few walkers on the paved trail, and a mother with two small children in the swings. The air smelled slightly of daffodils and green. He remembered being sixteen, that wild and restless hunger for sex, food, and danger. The overwhelming pleasure of having a girl. He wished he could bring all that desire back into his body. He did not blame his son for hating him.

A fire truck wailed in the distance. He could see it storming down the long stretch of road. He stopped and watched it grow larger, until it was right there beside him, a massive rush of air, the sirens pressing against his heart, ringing in his ears, the thunder of the engine moving through the soles of his feet. He turned and watched it go past him, then disappear around the bend, a red and hungry monster seeking out the fire.

Writing Project: Moments

2010-02-16T15:39:00.000-08:00

I have started a new writing project, since every time I start to write a blog entry, I bore myself! So I'm trying something different.

I take pleasure in writing about those moments in our lives that are small and subtle, yet hold some kind of magic, as if a window has opened inside us, and thus expanded our awareness of our world. Even so, these are just moments, so delicate and fleeting that they live on the periphery of our memory.

My goal is to write an ongoing series of these moments, micro-fiction of 500 or more words. I'll put links here, and keep them posted at my web page.

Here's the first two:

"February Woman"
There were Lego pieces everywhere. Tiny bits of plastic color spread across the carpet, on the bathroom counter, on the stairs. It had become such a habit for her to gather these pieces and toss them in the bucket that she was mindless in the task...

"View from the Window"
The girl’s bedroom was pink. She did not ask for it to be pink, nor did she like the color. It was her room, though....

under the down blanket

2010-02-10T07:44:00.001-08:00

On a morning like this--and there have been many this winter--I wonder exactly why I should get out of bed. I am fortunate that I can stay in bed! My appreciation goes out to all you folks that take care of things when the weather is obscene.

Despite all the snow and ice, this winter has not been particularly disturbing. This is because usually we have frequent, blisteringly fierce winds. Winds that run head-first into the north side of the house. I'll be barely asleep and hear them coming like lions. When they hit the house shudders. On nights like that, I don't sleep well. I worry about the winds ripping off the solar panels, or knocking down trees. I worry, and I worry well. So yes, the El Nino affect has been relentless, but the winds have not. I've slept, and I've slept well. Something for which to be thankful.

We heat with wood, and we ran out--it's just been so cold. Even our old-time neighbor wise in the ways of mountain living has run out of wood. So for the past few days J has been taking down, sawing up, and sledding to the house a few standing dead trees from the forest. We also have been experimenting with lower house temperatures at night. J is not fond of this experiment, but I read an interesting blog article about the Japanese method of keeping warm (basically they don't heat the whole house), and thought we could stretch ourselves a little bit more. Maybe this will help the wood last until May, which is usually when I light my last fire.

Spring seems forever away, though the transition began at Imbolc, which according to this archeoastronomy site was February 3rd this year. The other day I got eggs from the hens for the first time in months. It was so nice to have pink, turquoise, and brown eggs again. Simple pleasures are the best. If the snow and ice will hold off a bit, then in two weeks or so I bet I can find the first signs of Spring--maybe a little chickweed in the garden, or crocus blades cutting through the dark earth. I always feel like once I get past Imbolc I can shrug off most of winter's despair and start seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. Even if I'm still dependent on my down blanket.

a day of advancements

2010-01-20T21:03:00.000-08:00

I've been trying to find ways to get my kids to write.

I remember as an elementary-aged girl, I would write and write and write. In second grade I got to write my first book report, in which I mostly rewrote the whole book. I remember this clearly. The book was, "A Pony for the Winter," and my teacher had to take a moment to explain to me that I needed to work a little more on summarizing. When I was in sixth grade I would take my weekly vocabulary list and instead of writing one sentence with each vocabulary word, I would write entire stories that used all the vocabulary words.

McKinley and Renee are not that thrilled about writing. I tried a few tricks and then just told them they needed to write a certain number of sentences per day. Getting them to do this was difficult. And really, anything that's difficult or stressful shuts down the prefrontal cortex, which is exactly the part of the brain we really want to nurture and enliven. So today I tried something new. I remembered this morning on my walk what my sister (who is an awesome teacher) told me some time ago about writing: sit down and write with the kids.

One project this week was for them to pick their native bird and write a story about that bird, writing a little bit each day. Today is Wednesday, and things weren't looking so good. Renee had been writing these ridiculously short and simple sentences, and McKinley's story revolved around a bird-hunting incident that incorporated a lot of onomatopoeiae (I had to poke around a bit to get the plural of onomatopoeia).

But today! Oh, today! We sat down and I decided I would write a story about my native bird, which was the white-breasted nuthatch (since McKinley picked my real favorite--the pileated woodpecker--before I got a chance). I decided I would write three sentences each for Monday, Tuesday, and today. By the time I had finished writing, I had found a flock of white-breasted nuthatches (which, as far as I know, doesn't really happen) all under a crowned nuthatch perched in the crown of an oak. This definitely got their attention! And I kept it by having them tell me their story. I would write it down, and then they could copy it. (They really didn't like the copying idea, but I explained to them that doing things with our hands builds neural connections, and so they at least understood why they had to copy what I had written down).

Renee went next, gradually weaving together a story about a chipping sparrow, and by the time she had written three sentences for each day, she didn't want to stop! Then it was McKinley's turn, and he, too, didn't want to stop! And of course, their sentences were elegantly structured, not simple sentences or attempts at making "BOOM!" a sentence. Because we all know how to speak, and if we can just get our voice down on the paper, we are on our way into the world of writing.

At the end of it, McKinley said, "That was fun, Mom! Let's do it again tomorrow!"

***********************************************************************************

Kitchen chores have long been a source of bickering in our home.

Last week my friend Nicole began a series of cooking classes for a gang of homeschoolers at my house. At the end of the class, after we had all eaten a delicious bowl of handmade pasta and sauce, it was time for clean-up. On thin slips of paper she wrote out the assorted chores: washing dishes, washing pots, drying and putting away, sweeping, wiping down the table and counters. Then each kid drew a slip of paper. There was no bickering, and the kitchen was clean in a swirl of towels and eleven to seven-year-olds.

"This is marvelous," I thought, "because no one can get angry about the chore they drew. It's a matter of chance, and all the chores are pretty evenly divided!" I resolved to try it after dinner.

Well, that was nearly a week ago, but I finally got those slips of paper stashed in a hand-crafter McWhirter goblet, which I then placed in the center of the table. Tonight after dinner everyone except the cook (me) drew a chore. All the older kids (the workhorses) were delighted to have one simple chore to do, and the littles were eager to do their part. Renee's chore for tonight was "Clean the Bathroom You Use," and up the stairs she trotted to my bathroom, proceeding to put it in fine form.

***********************************************************************************

And to top off the day of advancements is one that seems ridiculous! I love my goats, but I hate to trim their hooves. It is such a pain, and their hooves grow really fast. But I noticed when the snow on the ground got rather gravelly, it also perfectly wore down their hooves.

So I have decided to start taking my goats on my walks. One goat a day, in rotation. Today was my first trial of my theory that walking on the road would wear down their hooves, and I was pleased to see that my theory was correct. Now I just have to figure out the right amount of walks to trim foot growth.

***********************************************************************************

We've had three or four really deliciously warm days in a row. Most of the snow is melted, and lots of rain has fallen, so the ground is really wet. In the morning and in the afternoon a skim of fog rests just above the ground. It is enchantingly beautiful.

Silly me, I had a camera on me and I didn't even take a picture of it!

Joyful Announcement

2010-01-19T08:07:00.000-08:00

I've been thinking about the people of Haiti with a heavy heart. Today I read about this Etsy shop, where craftspeople can donate their items, and all the profit from each sale is donated to Doctors Without Borders. Immediately I submitted one of my prints. It should be posted there within twenty-four hours.

But my thoughts didn't stop there. I have been struggling with my career as an artist. A lot of that struggle has to do with my finding time and energy to work, but there's also the struggle of getting into the marketplace. In truth, I am not so concerned about making money, as my husband's income is usually more than sufficient. I am more concerned with giving something to the world, and have been struggling with how that works in the marketplace. Truly my work is gifted to me, and it feels so incredibly right to turn around and gift it to someone else.

So. I've made a decision. Now I work, in my own small way, for the people of Haiti.

From henceforth, my website gift shop and my Etsy shop will now donate 100% of the list price to Doctors Without Borders. At some point I may redirect the funds to some other organization, but at this point it will all go to Doctors Without Borders. Shipping fees will cover my shipping costs, and since there's usually a little bit left over from that, I can probably cover my Etsy fees, too. All other costs I will absorb.

I want to thank my husband Jason for being such an excellent provider, leaving me free to give. In a sense this endeavor is his gift, too.

I hope that anyone who purchases one of my prints will display it joyfully on their wall, and that it will signify the love and connection of humanity, which is so much more powerful than despair and fear.

the good life: cookies and a warm studio

2010-01-06T19:38:00.000-08:00

Dinner tonight was, well, hardly. We ate a lot of cookies first. Then Renee did do a bang up job on some devilled eggs (twenty-four to be precise). And we had all eaten some of Alex's cabbage potato stew earlier, for a perfect late-afternoon-early-dinner. So there was plenty to eat, but we didn't all sit down and eat together, which is our daily ritual. In fact, we usually sing the Johnny Appleseed song before eating. But it seems in the dark of winter these rituals can fall by the wayside. I've theorized that this is the entire reason for Christmas--rituals that hold us together in the dark time of the year, thus keeping us from sinking into depression. Regardless of ritual, we ate, and we are happy.

The chickens are also happy, and the goats are restless. I've been daydreaming about a real barn. One building for all my animals. Then I would get angora rabbits, and maybe even a miniature Jersey milk cow. I'd definitely prefer a cow over goats, certainly for the whole butter thing (goat butter is possible, but complicated I've read), but also because I am a Taurus, through and through.

I was thinking about my astrological nature today as I freed the wood pile from the ice and snow. It was a job that needed to be done--our woodshed is getting low, and this wood that was delivered a few days before the snowstorm needed to get stacked and in the dry. Not that the ice is going to melt anytime soon. Just that the wood needed to be in the dry and near the house. Normally I leave such tasks to my teenagers, but there seemed to be a sense of urgency to this task, and urgency gets my Taurus energy in gear. I grabbed a shovel and scraped off ice and snow and pried pieces of wood out of the ice. Then I threw them across the way for Bert to put them on a sled and pull them up to the house. It was satisfying work, and I'll be pleasantly sore in the morning.

I also managed to get up to the studio for an hour or so this afternoon. I was inspired to do so after reading about the artist Gabriel Shaffer, who has an opening at the Blue Spiral Gallery in downtown Asheville tomorrow (Hmmm, maybe I should go?). I particularly liked this from the bio on his webpage:

Gabriel Shaffer is that rare artist who fiercely explores his own vision and refuses any easier life as a compromise. Gabriel’s talents are born out of an endless reservoir of ideas and a necessity to share what he cannot control. He has no choice but to paint, and generously offers his viewers realms beyond immediate understanding.

By the way, check out his website, and this article about his work is also interesting.

As I walked the slightly treacherous path to my studio (the boys have been sledding down the hill, so getting up it requires paying close attention to each foothold), I thought about the phrase "he has no choice but to paint." I thought about my own creativity, and how I have often enough sabotaged myself. Opening the door to my studio, I decided that being a mother makes the pursuit of other things more difficult, which is alright, but no excuse.

The studio was delightfully warm, a surprise, since I'd turned the heat on, but only to fifty degrees. Fifty keeps things warm enough without sucking up fuel. The kerosene has to be hauled up the hill, which is a total pain, so conservation has many benefits. Everything is massively cluttered right now (I'd take a picture but it would be embarrassing). But I'm very close to having my shelves painted and ready for stuff, at which point we can lay down the flooring and really start to tie up the loose ends on the building.

I sat down, turned on my Radiolab podcast (which is, as usual, worthy of an entire post), and set to work. It was delightful. I think I'll do it again tomorrow.

Screw the cold, I've got tincture

2010-01-05T17:31:00.000-08:00

The free-range chickens are no more. We lost three in as many days, and first blamed it on Alex’s new puppy, but since she muzzled him and the chickens were still showing up dead, their mortality is no doubt from the cold. So we rounded them up today and closed up the coop. They are caged chickens now, and better off for it, too.

I love taking care of my animals, though sometimes I forget this in the stress of the day, Today I prepared a special warm sugary drink for my nearly frozen feathered ones, and then hustled them all into the coop, with the help of Bert and J. It’s cold enough that they might still freeze—one hen in particular—and our extension chord is frozen under the ice, so we can’t put a heat lamp in the coop with them. But I think they’ll be alright. I’ll bring them more hot sugar water before dark, which will help a lot.

After the chickens were all snug, I went and checked on my goats. Their noses and ears were warm, so they were alright. I’ve kept them locked up since the snow hardened, which upsets them, but not as much as my coming in for a visit and not giving them more grain. Goats are absolute gluttons, no matter how adorable.

Even though the windchill was a bitter 2, and my feet were more frozen than not, I enjoyed the husbandry tasks of the day. This is usually the case. I like working outside, and even the more raunchy tasks like mucking out the goat barn give me satisfaction. I’ve just always wanted to have a little farm. But the truth is that nothing is fun, even things you absolutely love to do, when you are overwhelmed.

And yes, I have been overwhelmed. This is no big news. But I also think that being overwhelmed is more of a state of mind than a product of one’s outer life. Maybe? It might be the wrong time of year to seek a calmer inner state, but the holidays are over, and it’s a new year, so screw the ice and screw the snow. I’m going to follow my bliss, with a little help from my half gallon of St. John’s Wort tincture, which I crafted in the warm days of July. Here’s to happy flowers!

Merry Christmas!

2009-12-26T08:14:00.000-08:00

Our Christmas cheer was thwarted to some extent by a vicious stomach bug making the rounds through our family. But it seems to have run its course, thankfully, and so I now have a spare moment to post this year's Christmas card. I hope your Christmas was filled with joy!

It has been snowing all day, a thick and magical snow, and this morning, after a glorious snowball fight wherein everyone was appropriately pummelled, an idea came to me. I’d been fretting about what to send out for Christmas cards, since I’d not found anything inspiring in my shopping, and also since I was running out of time. Today had to be the day for Christmas cards! But the snow was falling and calling to us!

That’s when the idea came. We could build a snowman! I could photograph it and it would be our Christmas card. So build we did. Thanks to our good friend Lee we were able to roll huge snowballs to make up our snowman’s body. Lee also fashioned the pipe our fine snow fellow is sporting. It was tremendous fun, and everyone participated. Together we made the perfect creation to spread our joy for the holiday season.

We hope our Berrytown Snowman brings you joy, and that your holidays are blessed with love.

--the Berry’s

work in progress #2

2009-12-08T18:43:00.001-08:00

work in progress, progress in work

2009-11-25T08:44:00.000-08:00

Two weeks ago I was scheduled to attend an art market, but my plans were thwarted by a minor emergency. It's quite true that, emergency or not, my creative endeavors are often thwarted--by sick children or a busy husband or my own lack of energy--and that this has been a source of ongoing conflict in my relationship with my husband.

His contention has been that I am responsible for the true origin of these creative blocks, and I can acknowledge that there is truth to this. But I have held that he bears some responsibility for this as well, because he often makes himself unavailable to the family, and to me, because of his work load, much of which is truly unnecessary and unprofitable. He is a man of many endeavors, one of which pays the bills. And while I can get up to my studio while the kids play, there is also this strange magnetic quality to being a mother. They are drawn to me, they sense my absence and seek me out, with crises and questions, when I am in the studio. So his presence is very helpful. My husband and I have gone round and round about this, with my frustration and his defensive only growing.

The afternoon of the aforementioned failed art market attempt, I was outside catching Abby the leaping-over-the-fence goat in my nice jeans and heeled boots, stewing over the fact that once again my creative energies had been thwarted. Above me in the forest I could hear a murder of crows cawing madly.

They're after a hawk again, I thought. They are very close. I should go see.

They were directly above me, on the wooded slope where my studio sits. I walked up the path, and within minutes I could see them all, crows and hawk, perched in the tall oak by my studio door. The crows were aggravated and flapped their dark wings, as if they were generating a storm around the hawk. As I drew closer, the hawk alighted and flew out of the forest, crows pursuing. In its fierce claws dangled a snake.

This was all significant. Consider the Hawk, Lord of the Skies, fed by the Snake, Daughter of the Earth, and harassed by the Crows, mischief-makers and denizens of the Shadows. I gathered my supplies and sat down and sketched the scene I had just witnessed.

Since that event, my husband went on a five day vacation with our friend George. While he was gone, things shifted at home. I went for a not-so-annual physical and was prescribed thyroid medication. The result of taking said medicine has been that I now have the energy not only to get up to my studio in the afternoon, but also the energy in the evening to clean my house. It would be fair to say that this has transformed my daily life.

Also while he was gone our son Bert decided to homeschool. High School had become a daily adventure in failure, and when he was home in the afternoon all his stress came out--on us. Now he is his laughing self again, and we are working together to find the learning opportunities that best fit his bright and capable self.

Last but not least, little Renee dreamt on two consecutive nights that she was flying. After the first night I told her that if she realized she was dreaming, she could take control of the dream. So on the second night when she found herself flying right outside the bedroom windwon, she decided to go flying over the river. Yesterday evening, while in the studio, I realized that this was a scene I must paint for my daughter.

Before J left on his mini-adventure with Goerge, we revisited once again, and not pleasantly, the conflict surrounding my blocked creativity. I explained to him that it was like we were both juggling so many balls, and for me to be able to pick up my creative work, I needed for him to put down some of the things he was juggling. This analogy seemed to communicate my perspective to him in a way that heretofore I had been unable to accomplish. I think that this newfound understanding, coupled with his time away and my thyroid medication, has helped us get over this hurdle, and I have gotten BACK in the studio.

And so this week, I began to paint that scene, of the hawk and the crows:

Check back after Thanksgiving for more updates on this piece. And have a warm and heart-filled holiday.

of sylphs and crescent moons

2009-11-22T12:05:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was endowed with a profound yet subtle magic.

Badger came to visit, with his Dad. They stood in the doorway, tall as giants and as gentle, too, mirrors of each other in spirit, one in his youth, the other endowed with the silver crown of age. They were on their way to a family reunion in Chapel Hill and made it a point to come and visit Berrytown. Badger is a dear friend, the kind of friend whose presence enlivens your soul, and so it was a very good thing indeed that he and his Dad made their way to our door.

I had the house clean and lunch was in the oven: roasted vegetables and quinoa with corn. While the vegetables finished cooking we walked down to the river in the slanting gold of the Sun on a November afternoon. It was a little parade: my daughter Renee, Badger, his dad Mac, me & my canine shadow Oscar, and Frost, the magical white cat (the link takes you to the story of why he's a magical cat). As we walked I told Badger about my new year-long project of painting a biodynamic farm throughout the cycle of one year. About how Gerda the milk cow inspired me with her presence. About how in biodynamic farming a cow's horns are thought to receive cosmic energy. And how a cow is perhaps the keystone of agriculture, for not only does she pull in this cosmic energy with her horns, she also eats the grass of the Earth and then eats it again in a meditative way, digesting it in her four stomachs, and then revitalizing the Soil with her manure. Badger and I are both Tauruses. We talk about the crescent moon, and the horns of a cow, both being symbolic of receiving cosmic energy, a subject near and dear to our hearts. Here, for visual import, is Badger's Facebook profile picture:

Renee and Mac hunted for golf balls in the river (there is a golf course upriver), Renee going so far as to step into the river, trying to fetch the gleaming white orbs from the golden brown river bottom. This proved somewhat difficult for her, as the water was no doubt bone-chilling and the balls were at a depth beyond her reach. Badger and I stood on the dry, cluttered stones at the river's shore and talked about Rudolf Steiner, who was the founder of biodynamic farming, as well as founding anthroposophy and Waldorf education.

"I've got his book How to Know Higher Worlds to read on my break," he told me in his deep baritone voice.

"Are you serious?" I laughed. "I'm reading it too! I just started it though, but isn't it true, what he says about devotion and reverence? How essential these qualities are to Life, and how absent they are from our culture!"

Suddenly I was bubbling with words. I had to tell Badger about the book The Kingdom of the Gods and about the string of events that let me to this book. How I picked The Findhorn Garden up off the shelf one night, for some easy bed-time reading, and found myself reading again the communications from the Nature Spirits. I was struck with the magic and importance of their existence. How had I forgotten this?

I told Badger about how the next day as I went about by work it occurred to me that I might ask the Nature Spirits to help me find my cat Mandolin, who had been missing for over a month. It was just a thought, like a breeze passing through, and I raised my flag in that breath of air and asked that favor. Twenty-four hours later I was walking down from my studio and McKinley runs up to me. "Johno found Mandolin! Johno found Mandolin and he brought her home!" Walking next door to thank him, a monarch flew in front of me. I asked the Nature Spirits for this I thought. And now a monarch dances on the path before me! It landed in the grass, and there was Johno. I gave him a great big hug.

"But wait, there's more!" I laughed. Because after this I asked the Nature Spirits to help me find a calligraphy pen that I'd lost back in early Summer, and twenty-four hours later, in the course of the day, there it is. And then, in the course of a conversation with my sister, about rats in her backyard no less, the subject turns to fairies. And she has a list of books someone gave to her on the subject, right there on her counter. Three books: The Secret Life of Plants, The Secret Teachings of Plants, and The Kingdom of the Gods.

The first two books I have. I've read most of both of them, though a thorough reading of both seems required at this point. The last book I've never heard of, and so I order it.

Now, standing by the river with Badger, the sycamores standing in the sky, the Black Mountains stretching behind us, I tell him about the watercolors in the book, watercolors of tree-spirits and mountain gods, of oceanic gods and healing angels. I can sense the spirits shimmering in the tops of sycamores, and the mighty goddesses chanting high above us at the mountain peaks. Everything seems infused with Life.

an illustration from the book

"I think when you get that kind of cooperation like that, it's definitely a sign that the Nature Spirits want to work with you, " Badger says. "Human beings are meant to be a bridge between two planes."

I think about biodynamic farming, and humans creating something that otherwise wasn't possible by being truly present--to the meditative work of creating biodynamic preparations, for instance. In my mind an image appears of the human chakras that I saw just the day before, energy moving up from the Earth, through the rainbowed body, illuminating the star-like crown chakra. And of course, Cosmic life-force enters through the crown chakra, moving downward.

It's time to go back. Badger rolls up his jeans and steps into the river, retrieving three golf balls for Renee, who receives them as treasures. We walk back. By the time we are at the mailboxes I realize that Frost the magical kitty has not joined in the return parade, and so I set back to find him. The Sun is low in the sky, bathing a field with gold. I pause for a moment, in the solitude, searching the grasses for my cat. A thin-bodied breeze rattles a small patch of the goldenrod standing brown in the field before me, then moves through me, the body of a sylph caressing my skin, moving around me, and on through the sycamores to join the river, and I am present to the moment, to sentience of air and golden light and river, knowing I am blessed and guided in a world filled with more Beauty than I have yet imagined. The task before me, I know, is to imagine it, feel it in the depths of my bones, and then paint it.

Job Description

2009-11-15T07:29:00.001-08:00

Summary
The artist is responsible for maintaining a healthy, receptive relationship with Nature and her Daemon, so that she might bring into being creative works that are both relevant to the evolution of humankind and healing to the relationship between humankind and nature. Though this is her larger goal, it must also be performed on the stage of her own life and is thus always in that context. The artist must make her work available for to an audience to complete the cycle of creation.

Core Practices
A relationship with Nature is best nurtured with significant amounts of time spent outside. The artist is expected to keep a garden and take daily walks. Night walks are especially beneficial to a receptive relationship with Nature. The artist must attune herself to the spiritual elements of Nature, and find ways to honor them.

The artist must also maintain her own physical, emotional, and spiritual health. Walks in the woods, journal writing, and meditating are essential daily practices.

The artist must then transcribe her experiences, both inner and outer, onto a substrate. This act brings into form the energy of her relationship with Nature, exploring that mystery while never caging it. The process of creating the artwork also makes this experience available to others. She must spend significant time alone in the studio engaged in this process.

The artist should make her process open and available for others. She must keep adequate records of her creative process, both with photography and journaling, which should be posted on her website. Any stage of her process that she feels must be kept secret should later be discussed in depth once she feels the particular piece or project is complete.

Studio Practices
The artist must keep her studio clean and free of clutter to insure the flow of her work. She should not allow other personal work to infringe upon her time or space in the studio, though she may allow visitors as long as it is conducive to her work.

The artist must experiment with other media from time to time so that she may keep her work fresh and evolving on a physical level.

The artist should always keep fresh, inspiring music and podcasts available in the studio. This increases stamina and mental engagement in the work.

The artist should utilize the loft of the studio for dreaming, which often provides guidance and material for her work.
The artist should keep an altar in the studio dedicated to her Daemon, thus acknowledging that she is one figure in a collective creative process. The altar should be kept clean and replenished with found objects from Nature.

Office Practices
The artist’s office is where she produces prints and other material objects derived from her studio work. Because this space overlaps with other non-artist functions it is essential that it be kept clean and very well-organized.

In keeping with her commitment to the healing of the relationship between humankind and Nature, the artist seeks out and utilizes the most eco-friendly materials and equipment available to her.

The artist designs assorted materials that make her work available to a wide-range of people. Whenever possible she produces her materials by hand, holding the intention that the work blesses and inspires others. She markets these using internet technology, as well as other word-of-mouth methods. She keeps good business records and replies to customer’s communications quickly and thoughtfully. She maintains a practice of writing thank-you cards to customers.

Physical Requirements
The artist is engaged in work that is rooted in the second chakra. She must therefore remain attuned to the health of all her charkas, but most specifically the Sacral chakra. She must regularly partake of herbs that she feels will strengthen her body. She must remain active and strong.

Compensation
The artist must practice gratitude for any and all compensation received, as it is indicative of a creation cycle well-completed. She must not become focused on one aspect of the cycle, and must maintain adequate energy in each aspect. To that end, a growing level of energy in each aspect would naturally increase her compensation.

Welcome, November

2009-11-04T18:40:00.000-08:00

I began a year-long project yesterday, when I visited Green Toe Ground, the biodynamic farm of my friends Nicole & Gaelan. I didn't get to spend a lot of time there, but I got some nice photos Gerda, their cow, and more importantly, learned a little bit more from Nicole about biodynamic farming.

I got this wild idea to do a year-long project of paintings exploring biodynamic farming back in September, when I attended the annual farm dinner at Green Toe Ground. Now this farm dinner thing is absolutely magical, and not something I would ever want to miss. First off, Nicole and Gaelan can cook. And all the food is so impeccably fresh--you're eating right on the farm!--and more than fresh incredibly delicious. Definitely some of the best meals I've ever had have been at Green Toe Ground Farm. Plus, the South Toe River winds below you, the tents are set up, and the candles are lit. What better ambiance could you ask for?

But there's something else about their farm, more subtle, but growing, it seems, year by year. Something perceived in a different way, something I can't quite put my finger on, something alive and harmonious. This year that something kept pulling at me--I kept turning around in my chair, looking out over their fields, wondering.

I'd already fallen in love with Gerda, their cow, on the walk to the farm dinner. We were passing the barn when my friend Whitney suggested we say hello to Gerda, who had contributed so much to this meal. There she loomed in the dark of the barn, a massive figure, her presence filling the space. I was mesmerized. Standing next to her, I offered her my hand. Her thick, coarse tongue caressed my hand. When we left she bellowed--such a tremendous noise--and that was it. I was in love.

So over dinner I determined I would paint Gerda, and over the next few days my fascination with their farm sprouted into an idea. I could follow the farm for a year--beginning with Samhain, the traditional Celtic New Year--and paint the farm over the cycle of the year. I want to capture that aliveness and harmony that I felt so clearly the night of the farm dinner. I also wanted Nicole to be a part of this project, having read her accounts of farm life over the years, and asked her if she would contribute some of her writings to the project. She agreed. So at the end of the year we'll put together a small book of my paintings and her words. It's going to be a magical year.

Witch Hazel

2009-11-01T17:35:00.000-08:00

witch hazel, blooming along my road

bloom, close-up

Home Education-a snippet

2009-10-20T11:08:00.000-07:00

We're in our third month of home education with Renee and McKinley. McKinley swears up and down that he never wants to return to school. Renee misses her friends sometimes, but LOVES being able to sleep late. We've also been able to make room for extra activities: piano, soccer, and a homeschool co-op in Asheville. After co-op on Mondays we buy discount groceries at Amazing Savings and then go visit my sister and her son, who is the same age as McKinley. I've really enjoyed visiting with her on a regular basis.

This morning, piano practice came before breakfast. McKinley went first. His initial resistance to piano is melting a little, and his fingers seem naturally adept. At times he will say he doesn't want to take piano, but he also pestered me to get lessons, so he's just going to have to deal. Besides, playing piano has always been such a blessing to me. It may be that they receive the same nourishment, if they just stick with it.

Renee followed McKinley. At first she was cheerful, but she despises my correcting her, collapses with frustration, and covers her ears when I try to sing a particular part of the piece she's learning. By the end of her practice she is alternating with whining and crying, and I'm having none of it.

We're learning piano by the Suzuki method, and at the bottom of each practice sheet is a little Suzuki quote: "When nurtured by love, much can be accomplished." I don't think this is what he had in mind--this battle of wills between Renee and I--but I'm not going to let up on her. I feel like she needs this sort of challenge. "Use your third finger," I say repeatedly. "No, it goes like this," I remind her again. "Tuck your thumb under there," I say as a demonstrate. I keep my cool, she doesn't. She's as stubborn as me, and doesn't want to be told how to do something. I don't want to break the stubborn-ness, but there are times when it really doesn't serve her. Or me.

After breakfast we studied a photograph from the book "Earth from Above." This is an all around great book. There's 365 photographs, with a paragraph or two to provide more information. We find the location of the photo on the globe, read the paragraph, and then study the picture for more details. Today's photo, for instance, was of a small village enclosure in Mali. McKinley found Mali rather easily, and then Naba, the city which was nearby. There were fix or six round adobe huts with thatched roofs and some other assorted buildings, all surrounded by a rustic fence comprised of scrap wood. Closer inspection revealed children playing in a tree, a donkey ("Look, Mom, it's an ass," grins McKinley), a cow, a woman carrying something on her head, and rows of grain on the outside of the enclosure.

Then a walk in blazing Autumn sunshine. We practiced our times tables as we walked. At one point they started getting their answers correct, and after that they wanted to quit. I pushed a little bit, and then had them ask eachother math questions. They did this for a little bit, asking harder questions than I had asked of them, and then became distracted with the creek, the changing leaves, the zippers on their coats.

At the creek they built dams with rocks and leaves. The sun was brilliant and it was very pleasant. I think tomorrow I will bring my journal and write while they play. It's such a lovely spot.

Back at home we did a few pages in our math workbooks while listening to Mozart. Then they read independently for thirty minutes while I made lunch. Now they are playing the wii, and in a few minutes we will depart for piano.

It's just a snippet of a day, and of a journey we are taking together. So far, so good.

last pumpkin

2009-10-17T06:39:00.000-07:00

pumpkin blossom

The forecast skipped frost and headed straight to snow. I went out to the garden yesterday to see what I could harvest before the cold. I had abandoned gardening since September or so, and walked with some trepidation through the gate. Everything was beautiful, in its own chaotic way. I'll have some winter greens to harvest, and I discovered that the valerian that I'd planted had done rather well after all. I put one pumpkin in my basket, lots of curling red cayenne peppers, and a bunch of wild mint. The mint is drying in my dehydrator right now, smelling lovely.

Autumn Colors

2009-10-13T16:06:00.000-07:00

I'm having lots of fun with my new camera, and I've lots to learn! I took this photo today while Renee and McKinley collected moss for McKinley's very cool vivarium.

flu & fluff

2009-10-10T20:28:00.000-07:00

So this is my third day of having the flu--h1n1 in all likelihood, but who's to know? I'm not paying to find out. And really, there's little reason. It's not that bad, as far as flu's go (flus? that just doesn't look right), but it does seem to be dragging on forever--the aches and LOW energy. I've done nothing but surf the net for three days straight now. I am not much smarter for it (though I have learned a lot more about the thyroid and iodine, as well as vitamin b6), and I've gotten only minimally better at Bejewelled Blitz. Though I did have some moments of hysterical laughter over on youtube watching the fail blog videos.

McKinley and Renee are sick too, and J seems to be on the tail end of it. He's been sick since Monday, but was only down and out for one day. The rest of the time he's been operating at about 30% capacity. Poor McKinley was sick for his ninth birthday! What a bummer. He's been a good sport about it, and both of them have been marvelously un-whiney. They just sit around and play wii, (Thank the heavens I decided to get one of those! It's indispensable at a time like this!) or curl next to me and roast with fever.

Perhaps tomorrow I will have the energy to step out on my deck and take some pictures with my new camera. Or not. I'm not too worried about it. I mean, what can you do? You've got the flu, so you wait.

Back to bejewelled. Stay well!

happiness

2009-10-07T18:03:00.001-07:00

Naming Trees

2009-08-25T20:00:00.001-07:00

Last night, somehow, the conversation with Renee and McKinley turned to talking with trees. McKinley was disbelieving that communication with trees was possible, and Renee said, "No, they don't talk with words, they just flash it into your mind." This delighted and astounded me.

Today we measured the circumference of some of the trees behind our house. We set up a little graph and put down the species, if we knew it, or our best guess if we didn't, along with the circumference of the trunk, and a name that we came up with for each tree. The largest was a Northern Red Oak, which Renee immediately identified, though I was having a hard time finding the leaves they were so high up and mingled with other leaves. It measured 128.5 inches around. Because it stands above our home, like a guardian, we named it Grandfather Oak. Also of note were the two deciduous magnolias. I wasn't sure what the name of the species was, just that they were deciduous. McKinley named the first one "Bigleaf." Turns out there actually is a Bigleaf Magnolia, Magnolia macrophylla, though I think that this particular tree is the magnolia species more prevalent in the Appalachians known locally as Cucumbertree--Magnolia fraseri.

McKinley also spotted some marvelous mushrooms, so I ran down to the house and got Peterson's Guide to Mushrooms, and found a match: old man of the woods. Then we found another cluster of them, and began seeing mushrooms everywhere. Hopefully we'll get a chance to draw some of these Old Men tomorrow, as well as collect more data on our trees. We've only got so much time for green leaves, and I want to do some leaf rubbings, especially of the Cucumbertree--the leaves are extravagantly large. (Next Spring I simply MUST paint one of these trees in bloom.)

OK. That's all for now.

the Divine Peach

2009-08-04T19:02:00.000-07:00

We planted Winterwunder lettuce today. And finally I planted my little goji berry bushes, which I got months ago and have only now the clarity on where to put them. Then I began cleaning out the garden. The borage plants have fallen over completely and lay like clouds of blue flowers across paths and garden beds. I chopped them at the base and took them to the back end of the garden to compost, hoping they would bless the soil there with borage cheer, for this is one of its fine qualities. The paths are overgrown with grass and weeds, and I wacked away at those too, making good progress. I have lots of green tomatoes, and baby butternuts, too. It’s rained so much I wonder if these have gotten the sunshine they need to ripen.

Already I’m planning for next year. There are a few herbs of which I’d like to grow a more harvestable crop—valerian, butterfly weed, nettle, and Echinacea come first to mind. There are areas of the garden that need to be revitalized, and as always new places to grow things. And still there’s many herbs to be harvested before August 7th, which is, according to archeoastronomy, the exact date of Lammas. After this there will still be things to harvest, but the window for herbal vitality will be closing. Then it will still be the season of elderberries and elecampane roots.

The more I gather from my garden, the more I harvest from the fields and slopes around me, the more I find myself woven with mystery. Yesterday we ate our first peach of the season. I haven’t eaten but one commercial peach all year, and this made it all the more remarkable. What alchemists plants are! To take the same soil and sun and rain and make each its own miracle: leaves fortified with iron, as with kale, or gold flowers endowed with medicine, as in calendula (which is the queen of my garden right now), or the sweet perfection of a peach. I can’t help but think that our culture of mass-produced food has taken away not only the vitality of our food, but also our own vitality, for what can compare to the experience of eating something as rare and fine as a peach grown on your own land? No matter how perfect the South Carolina or California peach, it is just a peach. It has traveled from some unknown tree to your kitchen. But to know the tree, and the miracle of its fruit, which has survived late Spring snow and wind and grown from a hard green pebble to a robust blushing fruit, and then to eat that miracle—there is nothing like it. It is precious and joyful and fine.

And it is the peach chopped into bite size pieces to share with Renee, and the bee balm flowers dried and now stored in a mason jar, smelling of heaven, and the St. John’s wort tincture sipped by my worry-minded husband till he tips over into cheerfulness—all these gifts and thousands more have become my rituals, the means by which I know the divine.

Tonight’s dinner: vegetables with lentils over pasta, splashed with ume plum vinegar and sprinkled with feta cheese. The vegetables were onions and carrots, grilled artichokes and sundried tomatoes, plus yellow beans, basil, thyme, and chard from the garden. The lentils were seasoned with miso as well, which rounded out their flavor nicely.

I hope tomorrow to have enough half and half to make homemade peach ice cream. Yummm.

Late Summer, Autumn Comes

2009-08-03T08:06:00.001-07:00

In my calendar, which is rooted in the old Pagan wheel of the year and informed by ancient Chinese medicine & philosophy, Autumn is at hand. I could sense the transition days ago, as the light tilted golden in the late afternoon under clouds that had given rain on and off all day. There was, quite simply, something in the air, a barely perceptible shift. But last night, with all the windows open, the air had tiny teeth of cold, and now it is not so difficult to imagine what is sure to come, the thinning of the green, the yellowing of September, the rush of October, and then, the bite and howl of Winter.

It makes the last days of Summer so precious. We went swimming on Friday at the Rock Creek swimming hole, a half a mile’s walk from our home. It’s deep, and mostly shaded, and the water comes pouring off of Mount Mitchell, so it is cold. Here Renee began swimming about on her own, and gleefully wrote in her journal which we made together, “I learned to swim!” We went crawdad hunting, and discovered a monster six-inch crawdad, which we all tried to catch, but his pincers were so intimidating that we were all too hesitant. The horses from the neighboring field came stepping down to the rocks, their hooves cluttering about on the stones, and McKinley stood there with his hand outreached for that soft velvet treasure of a horse’s nose. There is something magical about this swimming hole. We don’t go so often, because it is so cold, but when we do, there is always a gift to be received.

There is a lot going on here, as always, but with Winter approaching, certain projects are receiving more attention. Last Summer we started the project of renovating the North end of the house, which includes the main entry, the pantry, and a bedroom. The whole thing had to be gutted—only the roof was salvageable, and so one year ago we ripped out the walls and the flooring and the windows, dug a new and adequate footer, built a half-wall of block, poured a concrete floor, and framed in the walls. But we ran out of funding for the project, and couldn’t get windows. J spread Tyvec on the outside, covering the frames for the windows, and we insulated it, too, but for a year the space has been dormant of any real activity. Until now. Windows will be here in a week. The pantry is framed in, as is the bedroom. Drywall is hung on the ceilings. Now there remains some plumbing to be attached to our woodstove, as a back-up source of hot water. The woodstove is on the other side of the bedroom wall, and the pipes go from the woodstove through the wall to the utility room, where the radiant floor pipes and the solar collector pipes and the storage tank all come together.

Then there’s the Autumn/Winter garden. I ordered seeds last week, and they arrived a few days ago. I’m very excited about this, as I’ve never really had a late season garden before, and would really like to be able to harvest greens through all but the coldest of months. To that end I’ve purchased seed for the most courageous of lettuces, as well as corn salad, arugula, pac choi, beets, scallions, tah tsai, kale, turnips, spinach, and parsnips. And of course, garlic. I don’t have room in the garden for all this right now, so I’ll be planting some of them in flats, and I know there will be a great garden shuffle before it’s all said and done, but what fun it all is!

There are other projects that beg completion before Winter bites down hard. A woodstove in my studio. The South porch enclosed. Assorted painting jobs. And while it seems odd to be thinking of these things when the Sun is blazing, now is the time. September will be too late.

Grayson Highlands State Park

2009-07-22T08:00:00.000-07:00

When I first moved from my Mississippi homeland to the mountains, I had just turned twenty-one. I moved with my first husband, and we lived in a little cottage in the country. Our relationship lacked certain elements to make it a lasting one, but we did do a lot of fun things together--mountain biking, camping, backpacking, hiking. Most people I know in their twenties like to travel around and see new places. We traveled around these mountains. I slept under the stars in Fletcher Fields, biked Bent Creek countless times, backpacked along the Appalachian Trail, camped on the rim of Linville Gorge, and other countless weekend adventures.

Then our marriage ended, somewhat abruptly, and six months later I found myself in love with a single father of three kids. We had a few camping adventures together, but camping and hiking with children was certainly a different experience! We got married, and for our honeymoon my parents sent us to Glacier National Park, while keeping the kids for us. That was an amazing trip.

Then I had two babies, and camping came to a halt, as did most hiking. There was one camping trip, which I remember all too well for the disaster that it was. It was such a disaster that camping did not begin to appeal to me at all for several years after.

Now that Renee is seven, and McKinley coming on nine, I find myself thinking of outdoor adventuring on a regular basis. There are still so many places I haven't seen in these mountains--and beyond, so many hikes, so many rivers. And though it seemed that the fullness of our life here, with business(es) and teenagers and gardens and animals and project after project would trump any such adventuring, at the beginning of the summer I vowed that we would go to see the wild ponies on Mount Rogers.

And so we did! When we got back from our beach trip I immediately began researching and planning. I found a huge tent on Craigslist. I read online all about Mount Rogers National Recreation Area and Grayson Highlands State Park, trying to determine where we would be most likely to see wild ponies and have a positive camping experience (not too many people, good hiking trails, uncrowded tent sites). I started the hunt for sleeping bags and sleeping pads, and I put together a menu and shopping list. And though I wasn't sure if I could really pull it off, because camping with two kids and two teenagers is still quite an undertaking, not only did we pull it off, we had a marvelous time, as evidenced by my sixteen-year-old Bert repeatedly thanking me for making it happen. And considering that as we were leaving he was trying rather desperately NOT to go, this is all the more impressive.

Here we are on the first night, getting ready to devour some of the most delicious burgers ever. Except for Bert, who kindly volunteered to eat The Burger That Fell Into the Fire, only to find it inedible. That's J, Rae, Renee, Bert, and McKinley (not their real names ;) )

Here is that same Chivalrous Fellow, as we started out on our hunt for wild ponies, gladly carrying our lunch & water.

Rae & Renee led nearly the whole way. Here they are checking out the view with binoculars. The highlight of my trip was when Renee came running back down the trail with the hugest grin on her face, squealing, "Wild ponies! Wild ponies! We found them!"

Here is McKinley, being himself.

And here are the wild ponies:

Dappled and Docile, with a Pregnant Mare in the Background. It was foaling season!

Wild Thing meets Wild Thing

A view of the terrain.

The next morning, we visited the Homestead site at the Park. Here my little snapshot camera took its last picture. Now it's really time to get a new, nice camera!

We are already planning our next camping adventure. Even though this trip was not without its challenges (lots of rain, a twisted ankle, a broken Chaco [J did most of the hike barefoot], and lots of bickering), it was indeed an incredible experience. I was really impressed with how all my kids handled themselves. I imagined Renee would do a lot of whining on the hike, but she was in the lead the whole way. McKinley relished the freedom and adventure of being a "Trail Ninja," Bert was enthusiastic, funny, and a good role model for his younger brother, and Renee was the same for her younger sister, and invaluable in setting up and tearing down camp, as well as cooking most of Monday night's dinner.

McKinley says he's ready for a backpacking trip, and we'll be working up to that. Until then, we need to stock up on a few supplies, get some more experience under our belts, and have some more fun!

Timing

2009-07-17T19:52:00.000-07:00

Renee and I set out early this morning (nine o'clock is early, I don't care what you say) for Asheville to purchase the big tent we found on Craigslist. Renee was especially excited because today was finally the day that she would get the stuffed puppy I promised her last week for being brave and going back into the ocean after being clobbered by a wave. We shared a nice bagel breakfast and ran a few errands--brandy for tinctures, bat guano for my houseplants & seedlings, and a fuel filter for my car--before meeting up with the woman with the tent.

With that brandy I started a batch of catmint tincture, which I've found to be a lovely, gentle sleep aid. I also gathered in my basket another harvest of hyssop flowers and a radiant batch of golden and orange calendula flowers. My fingers were sticky with their resin--that's where the medicine is for this delightful herb. Then I bundled them up in groups of seven and hung them to dry over my bed:

Yesterday I put in my handy dehydrator big bursting blooms of bee balm, as well as horehound, sage, and hyssop. This afternoon I put the dried herbs into jars and put some sage on to dry, along with more hyssop and more bee balm blossoms. Walking up to my bedroom the smell of sage lingered at the top of stairs, where all the hot air pools, lingering with a bit of hyssop. Delicious. Hanging in that hot air are also bundles of lavender and smudge sticks of white sage, hyssop, and lavender. Ah, summer.

I weeded some of my garden, and thought a lot about how helpful it is to always be with the Moon. When it's New, I ask myself, "What do I need to sow?" and when it's Full I ask myself, "What do I need to harvest?" Sometimes the answers to those questions have nothing to do with the garden, but I'm well aware that the garden is teaching me timing, something about which I have still much to learn, and the delight of being present to the moment while planning for the future. Next Wednesday is the New Moon, and with it I'll plant collards and other greens. In the meantime I'll need to be cleaning up my garden for that. Every Spring little borage volunteers woo me, and I let them grow, and now, of course, they are massive and falling over with tiny blue stars on fuzzy stems. Plus there's grass and weeds galore from my week at the beach, apparently it rained every day here, and now it's been raining every night. I hear it cascading down in my sleep and nudge J--"Skylight, babe, shut the skylight...it's raining," and he lumbers out of bed and shuts the skylight over our bed.

The past few days have been infused with Summer Joy--bike riding with my boys up Rock Creek to watch them frisk in the water, catching crawdads in the river, snakes and more snakes, the wind whipping up a storm of chokecherry leaves that streamed towards me from the East while I worked in the garden, and the clouds tonight full of faces and figures, edged in pink against a darkening periwinkle sky.

The River, with Snakes and Damselflies and assorted surprises

2009-07-16T13:15:00.000-07:00

In the afternoon light we crowded down to the river. The turk’s cap lilies are blooming now, and damselflies dressed in velvet black and iridescent blue flit among the tall drooping orange flowers. McKinley remarks how much he loves that damselfly blue every time he sees one. We walked on to The Point, where Rock Creek flows into the Toe River. It’s a unique place with rocks piled high by the creek as it flows into the river, making a sort of island. And just downstream of this the river is smooth and wide and perfect for water play.

We swam a little, and then hunted for crawdads and juvenile Northern Water Snakes. McKinley found a snake, and we gathered around and watched it weave among the nooks and crannies of the rocks, coming up for air here and there until it found a secluded spot from which to breathe and hide from us.

The snakes are really gorgeous, with russet brown bands over a creamy gray, and the way that they move so gently through the water and among the rocks is quite captivating. McKinley and I discussed the possibility of actually trying to catch this snake, but the chance never came. And anyway, there were also crawdads to catch, and a jar to put them in, and so, once our snake had found its hiding spot, we began seeking out good crawdad spots, turning over rocks and peering into the gloss of water. We ended up catching seven, I think, and then transported them to our aquaponics tank.

The aquaponics tank is J’s experiment, though it has us all fascinated. It’s a series of four tanks, which are actually blue barrels cut in half. The highest tank is a water barrel cut horizontally, and it drains water into two barrels cut lengthwise. In these two barrels, which are more like troughs, there’s gravel, and plants. The water pours through the gravel and nourishes the plants before it drains to the bottom tank, which is filled with some goldfish, and now, seven crawdads. The fish poo nourishes the plants, the plants filter the water. There’s a pump in the fish tank that pumps the water up to the highest tank, and once its filled, it gushes out to the plants, where it then trickles back down again to the fishes. It’s quite the fun experiment.

When we left the river and headed back up our little lane/driveway McKinley nearly jumped out of his skin. “Snake! Snake!” he yelped, part with excitement, part with adrenaline rush. I ran up to him and found a four foot snake looped about in our driveway. I discovered shortly after this encounter that it was an adult Northern Water Snake, but at the time I wasn’t sure what it was, just that it wasn’t poisonous. McKinley was not convinced of this and kept saying it was a copperhead. Meanwhile the snake was clearly nervous with all these humans crowding around it. Then my dog Oscar, oblivious to what was underfoot, came and stood right next to it, one of his back paws actually half-stepping on it. With this he spun around, gave a good sniff, and became engagaed like the rest of us. This was becoming too much or the snake, who started to move, and I took the towel I had wrapped around me and spread it out. Amazingly it slid right onto the towel, which I then folded over. Of course, the excitement amongst McKInley, Renee, myself, and the dog was over-the-top, and we were all making exclamations in loud voices--except for the dog.

I really have had enough of religion in my childhood, and that was just Southern Catholic religion, nothing involving arsenic and rattlers. And anyway I wasn’t keen on discovering if I had enough God in me to keep any snake from biting me, poisonous or not. I suppose I just wanted to see if I could catch it, and I did, and then it slid right out, within inches of my feet, and I let out a high-pitched scream, which is my biological response to a rush of adrenaline and thereby completely uncontrollable. I also scream for mice, which don’t scare me at all, and roaches, which I find reprehensible.

So the snake escaped its encounter with the Berry’s, and we survived our encounter with a large and docile water snake. The day wound down in its slow summer way, with a fine dinner of beans and garden vegetables over rice, topped guacamole, and the reading of another chapter of “The Horse and his Boy.”

Back from the Beach

2009-07-15T12:01:00.001-07:00

This was our fourth year to vacation with my family at Edisto Beach in South Carolina. To think that Renee was three when we first came!

This year we discovered Botany Bay, which includes two old plantation sites and two miles of undeveloped beach. The beach was fantastic. I want to go back in September and do some painting. I still don't have a good camera, so these will have to do.

Dead live oaks on the beach.

Looking out to the Atlantic

The live oaks there were really amazing.

Now I'm getting back into the swing of things. Sort of, that is. I feel more like things are getting back into swinging me!

in the garden wet with rain

2009-06-17T06:13:00.001-07:00

I wake to cool air and fall back asleep, only to be awoken again to a terrific rainstorm. It's not a bad way to wake up at all--thunder and flashes plus a deluge pleasantly stirs the senses while also reminding one of the deliciousness of the warm bed. And with it being summer, there's no pressure to rise. So I laid in bed and woke slowly. I should also mention the cherry on top of it all was the hot cup of coffee delivered to me by my husband.

At some point in all of this I remember that I had left some seed packets in the garden yesterday afternoon. So today I must plant whatever I can of those assorted squash seeds now lying damp in their envelopes next to some johnny-jump-ups and parsley. And while I'm at it, I should probably rid my garden of some more slugs. All this rain has made them prosperous, and wiped out lots of my plantings.

Ah, the garden. I'm there everyday, and it's really amazing this year. The paths are hoed, and the packed soil feels delicious to the bare soles of my feet. Right now the firepinks and tennessee echinacea are blooming, along with the spires of blue & pink speedwell which were some of the first residents of my garden. All the other echinaceas in my garden are about to bloom, as are the lilies & elecampane. The calendula and borage volunteers were prolific this year, and I've transplanted as much as I could to assorted spots in the garden. They are also starting to bloom, and there really is nothing to compare with the vibrant yellows & oranges of calendula. I will pick as many of their blooms as I can and dry them--but not yet, as they just started and I can't bear the thought of picking the first flowers. There will be an abundance of them soon, nearly everywhere, and besides, the borage is blooming, and I pick the cool blue stars and snack on them while I work in the hot sun. They taste like blue cucumbers. Renee wanders about the garden, sometimes helping, sometimes in her own world, but she picks them too. Between the both of us there's more than enough, and will be, until the cold returns months from now.

Aside from flowers there's also lots of basil plants which I bought at the local greenhouse. They were rather yellow when I bought them, and now they are flush with green and starting to grow. Luckily the slugs don't take to the basil, and indeed most of the herbs, but they do like beans, and I've got lots of those coming up--scarlet emperor & golden nugget--and soon my kentucky wonder beans will be coming up. And I've still more beans to plant, dry beans like jacob's cattle and yin yang. Peppers, lettuces, assorted greens, tomatoes--all of these are doing well. And I'm already planning ahead for my winter garden.

All of this gardening means I've not been in the studio. It makes me a bit restless, but the garden is so delightful, such a pleasure, and one limited, for the most part, to the days of summer. I think I won't regret it a bit, when I'm eating dilly beans I've canned come Thanksgiving. I know I'm not regretting it now. My mom says you do what you want, and every morning I put on my sun hat and walk through the garden gate, smiling.

of cats and wrens

2009-06-12T18:45:00.001-07:00

My cats have been taking advantage of me while I sleep. They meow at all hours of the night--to go in, to go out--and in my sleep I hear them and wake just enough to do as they bid. And when morning comes I'm grumbling, because they do this all night, and my sleep is marred by the turbulence of meows.

But last night! Ah-ha! Last night! Last night I was not so deep in the sleep because I had a cup of coffee late in the day. They started their hypnotizing meows in the thick of the night, but I said, "no, nono, no." I took my glass of water and opened the door and SPLASH! Ha! I got to do it twice, with great relish. And not another meow for the night--they must've let the third cat know what was going on.

I'm putting extra water by my bed tonight. Ha!

And then, the story of the wrens. There's a pair that have set up shop in one of the corners of my house. I'd been guarding their little nest--whenever I heard them kicking up a ruckus I'd go outside. Usually there was a cat to collect, and I'd swoop her up and put her inside. Yesterday we started hearing little cheeps--the eggs had hatched! The wrens were flying back and forth, back and forth, and I was extra vigilant, as were the cats--from the window.

This morning it was much the same, and I had the cats inside early, so the wrens could go about their business of baby-feedings. Mid-morning there was a lot of squawking. I looked out the window and saw nothing, and so continued with my conversation with J. But I noticed that they weren't flying back and forth anymore, and also that I didn't hear them chirping or squawking or anything. It seemed like they were gone, and I began to wonder what might be going on.

Then Renee and I went for a nice long hike, up through the woods to the top of the ridge, through laurel thickets lush with blossoms. Renee would pick them and stick them to her fingers like diamonds. When we came back down we got ready to go up to the studio, and since that walk goes right by the wrens' nest I thought I'd look into it.

I reached up and in and my fingers found a cold lumpy thing, pulling out a tiny dead hatchling. "Oh, a dead baby bird," I said, and Renee sighed, "Oh," with mutual sadness. I reached in again. This time it was another cold lumpy thing, but it moved, ever so slightly when I wrapped my fingers around it, and I cried out, "This one is alive!" Renee got very excited about this, and I was, too, somehow putting aside all the logic that said there was no way that we could bring this tiny, tiny thing back from the brink.

It was SO tiny. It's eyes were shut, but bulged out, and it was mostly naked, except for a dusting of down on top of its head. It was no more than an inch and a half long. Only, I shouldn't say was, because the little thing is alive! We breathed on it to get it warm and quickly made up some sugar water first. It took it, so weakly, and I kept saying to Renee, "It's so tiny, I don't know if we can really help it." But then we looked up on the internet what to feed it (cat food ground up, oats ground up, hard-boiled egg yolk, and mixed with water) and we made some up, all the while holding it in my hand to keep it warm, and breathing on it. Then we made up a hot water bottle, and made a little nest for it in a box, and within a few hours it was cheeping ever so slightly when we opened the lid.

I don't know what a miracle is. I don't know what will happen to this little lump of wren-life. All I can say is that, amidst all that dies, all that falls, all that doesn't quite make it through this world, this morning a cold, blind, naked bird rested in my palm, barely alive, and I breathed on it, and held it close, and took it upon myself to do what I could. And now when it hears my voice it opens its little mouth wide, cheep, cheep, cheeping. That's miracle enough for me.

Paint Out Report

2009-06-09T10:44:00.000-07:00

So I’ve finally gotten a moment to write about my experience with the Paint Out, the plein air competition held in Burnsville, NC every May. This is how the Paint Out works: all the artists arrive between 8 and 10 in the morning at the Burnsville Toe River Arts Council Gallery to have their paper, canvas, or other substrate validated with a stamp. Then they disperse and spend the whole day painting, coming back at or before 5 with their finished works. The pieces are hung on the wall and judged while everyone else grabs a bite to eat ( or in my case runs home and cleans up). Everyone then returns for a reception and awards ceremony at 6:30.

The real challenge for me is to finish a painting in one day. I am so detail-oriented, a bit of a perfectionist, and slllllllllllloooooooooooow. Think turtle here.

This was the third annual Paint Out, and my second go at it. I tried to do it the first year it was held, but my husband was out of town and so I had my kids with me--which proved to be a bit of a disaster. But this year I planned ahead. I knew what I was going to paint, and I’d spend a day doing a study, mostly to see if I actually could finish a painting in one day. Here’s what I painted as a study:

This scene is one I see every time I drive into Burnsville--high on a hill above the two-lane highway, this double-trunk pine stands in the center of a cemetery. Whenever I really paid attention to this tree, I would say to myself, “I need to paint that someday." There’s just something really magical about this tree standing sentinel in the middle of the graveyard.

So I had prepared my paper the day before by painting it with acrylic medium mixed with marble dust, which makes the paper feel like very, very fine sandpaper. This helps the pastel particles stick to the paper. I’d packed my pastels in an assortment of boxes, and laid my pastel pencils in their traveling tray. I gathered all my assorted tools and was ready for the big day.

I woke with a scratchy throat and a lack of determination, which thankfully wore off with the coffee my husband brought me. By nine 0’clock I was set up in the middle of a pasture next to the cemetery, gazing from tree to paper, tree to paper. I worked hard and fast. By noon I was sunburnt, and put in a call for my straw hat, some lunch, and some tunes (hooray for the husband!). By three I was beginning to get antsy. Would I finish in time? By four I realized I would have to leave out the headstones, which grieved me, since they seemed integral to the painting. By 4:45, I had finished:

At the reception I was amazed with the quality of work that was produced, and disappointed to not have received an award. But I knew the instant the judge started explaining why he picked the first place winner that I wouldn’t be on his list. He praised soft delicate edges and values that mingled gently. My painting doesn’t have a soft stroke in it. But I listened carefully to his compliments of the winning pieces, eager to learn more from his perspective.

What I came away with was a new understanding of why I paint. Certainly I have always arranged my compositions and chosen my colors intuitively. And I know that there is always room for me to grow in my technical skill. But in the end I paint because I have a story to tell. I am a narrative painter. It’s something I’d thought about a little bit before, but as I mulled over certain things the judge said I realized that for me, value and edges and composition all serve one end, to tell the story of whatever it is I am painting. I don’t know exactly how to explain this, except to say that in the case of the pine, I’ve always felt that it serves as a bridge between life and death, heaven and earth, grief and celebration. That is why I have been compelled to paint it. If I really want to paint the story of the cemetery pine, I need to do so in a completely different way. And I want to do that, and am indeed excited about it. I feel like I really know how to paint this story now.

Anyway, if you are smitten with either of these pieces let me know! I'm pleased with them both, but my studio is honestly getting too full, so I'm happy to take offers. I'm thinking somewhere around $100 for the study (12" x 16") and $350 for the larger Paint Out piece (16" x 30"?). You can see the larger piece at the Burnsville TRAC gallery until June 27th. Anyone who purchases these originals will get a free print of the Narrative Painting I will be doing later this summer (it's gonna be wicked cool!).

If you've gotten to the end of this, then I want to thank you so much for your interest in my work! It really does mean a lot to me. My next studio update will have pictures of piece from start to completion--I should be posting it soon!

Facebook, Fish, & the Final days of school

2009-06-04T06:26:00.000-07:00

It's morning, I'm drinking coffee, and I'm on the computer. A bit of a ritual.

McKinley stayed home from school today---yesterday when he came home from school he was complaining of being worn out and sore. I thought we'd take no chances today. Dose him up on Vitamin C, and let him work with his Dad on an Aquaponics project. Yes, my husband wants to grow fish, and came home last night with a bag of goldfish and another bag of two tiny catfish that look more like sharks. He's wanted to do this for years. The water will circulate so that the fish poo can fertilize a hydroponics system. This is just J's kind of thing!

Meanwhile the school year winds down, and Renee's class program is today at noon. Plus there's squash plants to put in the ground, more tomatoes, tomatillos, celery, more basil, more parsley, even a ginkgo tree is waiting for a good spot in the ground. Today's a good day for it--it's overcast and likely to rain. And last night a wild thunderstorm moved over, spewing hail and throwing lightning very close--thunderbolts out the window, and in the valley. So there's lots of good sky-nitrogen in the ground, thanks to that lightning. A garden day it is. If it rains later I'll go to my studio.

Last night a made a Facebook page for my art business. I've already been getting some sales just by posting things here and there on my personal Facebook page, so I thought I'd get viral with it. I am determined to make an income from my art! I even bought a little Facebook advertising, which was easy enough--you can set all sorts of interesting parameters with your advertising--and it was a tiny, tiny investment. We'll see what happens!

And a word about Facebook. I think it's a great thing, pretty much. I don't get out much, and yet there are so many people I'd like to have some sort of connection with--relatives, old friends, new friends that I don't see much because...I don't get out much. But it is a bit on the addictive side. Like all technology I suppose. Last night at the dinner table I mentioned (after the phone rang--we don't answer the phone while we're having dinner) that I thought it would be nice to not have a phone, at least, not all the time. And yes, I'm talking about a landline. Cell phones don't even work out here where I live. I'm a strange mix of modern and old-fashioned, I suppose. I love technology, but seriously, as soon as I have some extra money I'd like to buy some Amish-style washers from Lehman's. But that's another post altogether.

p.s. If you're on Facebook, & haven't already mosey on over to my art page and be a fan. It really will make my day!

Wrensong

2009-05-28T05:43:00.000-07:00

There's a pair of wrens nesting near my house--maybe even in my house, in a small section that's not sided --and I hear them throughout the day, their high chattering song encircling my home. I think they are winter wrens, which is even nicer, since they are a bit uncommon. There's also lots of kingfishers about, with their rattling call and crisp soaring lines of flight over my garden. And kestrels weaving through the forest. All these birds are raising their young, caught up in the business of nests and eggs and feeding, feeding, feeding.

Sometimes I think this makes birds very scatterbrained. This time of year, when they are so busy. And it makes me think of myself, also caught up in the rigors of child-rearing. I talk to my sister on the phone, who is raising a seven-month-old, and I can barely remember how we handled certain issues of parenting. That time period is a blur of memories and the feeling of exhaustion coupled with fierce momma-joy. Now my kids are older, and there's thankfully less exhaustion, but still all that nest work and of course open mouths. Feed me! Feed me! Feed me! The song of the wrens around my house reminds me that this is essentially a joyful act.*

McKinley has been sick since Friday. It's been worrying me. I thought it might have been strep throat, and sent him to the doctor on Monday, but the doctor said it was just a bad cold. He seems to get just a tiny bit better each day, and last night he did not wake up coughing--a good sign. He seems to get every cold that comes around, and get it hard. I've been saturating his system with particular herbs--herbs for the lungs, herbs for the immune system, anti-viral herbs, and I think I"m going to keep that up once he's well, too. I'm hoping today will be his last day home, not just because I wish him well, but also because my patience is wearing thin, even with all the wrensong encircling my home.

* I misspelled joyful act when I first typed it as joyful cat--and I've been worried about little wren feathers sticking out of my feline's mouths--let's hope that's not a future reality!

In Other News:

I'll be participating in this event come Saturday. I know exactly what I'm going to paint, and I'm going to do some prep for it today & tomorrow.

the dance of last night

2009-05-27T06:28:00.001-07:00

In the very last tinge of dusk, when the sky was still a milky blue, my husband walked out onto our balcony to observe the night sky. Within moments he had peeked his head back, calling us to come see the light show. I was reading "The Silver Chair" to the littles, who were curled against me like hot water bottles--I absorbed their warmth while they absorbed my voice.

"What is it?" I queried. "Fireflies?" For we had not yet seen the fireflies emerge, and with all this rain it will certainly be a good year for them.

"No, no...something else! Come see! Come see!" he appealed, inciting a love of mystery.

So we climbed off the bed and walked through the door. Above us the sky was nearly completely clear. A few small clouds skirted across in gray dress. But towering above us in the Eastern sky was a radiant white cumulus God. And high in the mind of that great cloud lightning was flashing. We counted together, children and adults both rapt with attention.

One....two...thre...four...five...six...seven...eight...nine....thunder.

"Surely that's not nine miles away? Do you think, J?" I asked him.

He raised his eyebrows. Who's to know the answer to that question? What a marvel! A cloud nine miles deep, nine mile high. It flashed again, and we counted with the mississippi part this time, for more scientific accuracy....five miles. This seemed more realistic a number.

The gray clouds continued to march beneath the tower of white, like horses carrying a silver-gilded chariot. Between their shifting wet hooves and the shadows of our garden, the first sparkles of fireflies danced. Our breathing was hushed in the dark air.

Lightning again. Another scientific count. Nine miles.

The clouds thundered in, and one ferocious finger of lightening bridged Heaven and Earth. One, two miles away. Then the rain came, a roaring chorus of rain, and we retreated into the house, the cloud above us now, a nine-miled column of cloud, a Silver Lord, dancing with his consort, Rainwoman.

The air was lush with excitement.

poppies & prints

2009-05-26T06:53:00.000-07:00

I've put up lots of new prints in my etsy shop...you can see them here! Mention this blog in the checkout and I'll give you a twenty percent discount! If you don't want to set up an etsy account, you can just email me and we can handle the transaction ourselves.

Last night it rained and rained and rained. Sometimes passionately. Yesterday it rained and rained and rained, sometimes passionately, but spots of sun came through, too, and in the afternoon Renee and I went into my garden and planted things. Tomatoes first. Two "aunt ginny's purple," one "green zebra," and one whose little tag wore off and whose name I've thus forgotten. (I've got more tomatoes in the second garden, which has been planted and tended to by our interns, along with onions and potatoes galore). Then I planted three boneset plants (Eupatorium perfoliatum), a native herb used for the treatment of colds and influenza, and a soapwort (Saponaria officinalis). Throughout most of this Renee had been wandering through the garden plucking radishes or having little conversations with plants. At one point she was weeding (really more like trimming, as she was cutting the weeds with scissors) when she let out a piercing little scream and ran from one end of the garden to the other. It was a spider, which she adeptly described. Renee is petrified of spiders. I tried explaining to her that she was in more danger running across the garden with scissors in her hand than from this spider, regardless of its size, but my logic fell on deaf ears. And by this time it had started to rain again, just a bit of a sprinkle, really, but we headed inside to start dinner.

But the main reason for our visit to the garden was the poppies. Renee had not yet seen them, though really all she had to do was glance the garden's way and her eye would have been caught by their outrageous orange-ness. In fact as we started walking to the garden gate the instant she saw them she started to run with eagerness. They are truly amazingly orange!

These poppies are perennials, though I've planted some Zahir poppies in my front garden. They're purple, but not yet blooming. Of course I'll post photos when they do.

puzzling

2009-05-21T18:13:00.001-07:00

Last Christmas I purchased a "Colorado Puzzle" for my kids. Renee played with it some, but it wasn't long before it was sitting on a shelf, forgotten.

Until I took it to my desk. Now it's mine. I find it to be immensely therapeutic in one of those indescribable ways. Maybe in the same kind of way as knitting seems to be for some people.

Anyway, I thought I'd take a photo of these designs I come up with, just for fun.
Here's one I did yesterday:

Studio Blessings

2009-05-21T07:54:00.001-07:00

My studio is really close to my house, but certain features make it seem farther away. My house sits just outside of the bounds of the forest, while my studio sits just within. And up. My studio is up. So I walk into the forest, and up. Yesterday, just as I had stepped into the forest, a white flutter of wings streaked right before me, then landed in the twisting arms of a rhododendron only fifteen feet away from me. I gasped. Just as quickly as it landed it flew off again, obviously disturbed by my presence, but I saw enough of it to know what it was--a kestrel. I have never observed kestrels in the forest before, but I'm pretty sure that this is the bird that is nesting south of my studio, where the border of the forest bleeds from thick to overgrown pasture.

Many other wonderful things happened yesterday. I made a little notebook for myself. I call it my abundance notebook, and I'm using it to keep better track of my money. I know some people are born with this skill, or maybe just a natural ability to be organized, but I am only recently really getting the hang of it. This little book will help make the process more beautiful! I made it green, cause don't we all know that's the color of money, with graph paper and blank paper alternating on each page. This way I can make little notes and whatnot on the blank page, while the graph paper can be the "official" record.

The materials I used: graph paper (printed off the internet on 100% post-consumer recycled paper), recycled kraft cover stock, handmade paper purchased from my local tea~paper shop, a razor, a ruler, some green thread (not-pictured).

Here's the finished product:

My wonderful hubbadoodle took my large tabletop (it's 4' x 8' and is a huge collage under glass that heretofore had been sitting about eighteen inches off the floor) and made a table frame for it in my studio. This is very exciting, and maybe I can take some pictures today after I've cleaned up the space. Right now it's a bit of a disaster because of all the rearranging.

And all of this is just in time, as I received an exciting email from a gallery that I've been interested in for awhile. More on that when it's all official.

camera woes return

2009-05-20T08:39:00.000-07:00

I thought my camera woes were over, but it seems that my camera is bent on making me grit my teeth. I"m so sad about it. It won't go into playback mode (the button is shot, maybe?) so I can't fix this other little issue whereby the little card is "not initialized" every time I pull photos off of it. It's like all this funky stuff that chants new camera, new camera, new camera.

Actually I have two cameras. One is this Fuji finepix 4900. It's a nice camera for me--way more than a point and shoot, but not super deluxe. This is the one that is driving me nuts. My other camera is a point and shoot, fine for what it's meant to do, but no macro worth a damn, and for some reason it won't connect to my computer. So I have to put all the pics in J's computer, and then transfer them to mine, usually by email. And that takes forever.

So. If anyone wants to trade an nice used camera that they don't use because they have a super deluxe camera in exchange for some art, let me know. I'm so game right now.

strange mix

2009-05-19T06:22:00.001-07:00

I wake up this morning a strange mix of jubilation and despair. The rising Sun glints on the railing of my balcony and I rush outside. The air is cold, and I lay my still sleeping palms on a thick soppy frost. It immediately melts. I glance down to my garden with a heaving sigh. I'll go down later and see what damage has been done. The lupines were in full flower, but they are pretty hardy. The uppermost flower buds of the peonies were just beginning to reveal their burlesque ruffles. What about the borage, the calendula? What about the poppies in the garden along the South wall? Or the tomatoes and heliotrope that haven't even been planted in the ground...

If the tomatoes have been nipped then there will be a run on tomato plants at our local greenhouse. Which means I'd best get up and get going, see what needs re-planting, see what has suffered from the icy tooth of crystalline dew.

And while this motivates me, turns my attention towards something that needs doing, I still linger with this strange mix that is delight at being alive, and a sadness with the way things are. I suppose that, more than anything, it means I'm really present to the day, to the glory and green of spring, while a late frost bites at the tenderness of life. I'll stay with it, not rush off for tomatoes or whatever else might grab my attention. And I'll settle into breathing, deep down, and remember that I'm so happy to be here, in this garden of Earth. With frost or without, there's a mystery to being alive that can't ever be laid out under a microscope, there's a mystery to life on Earth that unravels me and bares my heart to both the frost and the green, and like the peony I'm still planning on flirting out my pink skirt, I'm still planning on blooming.

p.s. I just took the above photo...it looks like most everything will be fine, even my tomatoes! The only things that got hit really hard were the marigolds my kids gave me for mother's day. They are limp and wilted. :(

my camera woes are over!

2009-05-18T09:58:00.000-07:00

Bluets, down by the river

my website

2009-05-15T15:27:00.000-07:00

Well, I've worked on it on and off for over a year, and I think it's finally at a point where I can say, a website is always a work in progress, but mine is definitely now presentable. So, here it is:
woodbyrd.com

2009-05-14T05:24:00.001-07:00

Yesterday:

a hike up in the morning, and I can feel the growing strength in my legs
ate some chocolate
transplanted calendula and motherwort to various places around the house, thus making new flower~herb beds where before only grass and plantain grew
planted heartsease & a chasteberry tree (plant purchases from a few weeks ago)
found the baby lupine that was transplanted early in the Spring was still alive (a miracle!) and weeded around it and gave it lots of compost and adoration
ate some chocolate
realized how lucky I am to be able to spend the greater portion of the day gardening
did two loads of laundry
helped McKinley with his homework
realized I had to take a short nap (this was caused by eating lunch too late, coupled with a liver in need of nourishment. You can tell your liver is a bit whooped if you're tired after you eat)
looked over the garden bed that McKinley made all on his own while I napped. It's complete with spade-softened earth, and has posts and chicken wire around it. I swelled up with pride.
realized I have the most wonderful hubbie in the world, who cheerfully made dinner because I was stressing out about it
ate some chocolate
read Chapter XI of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader to my littles
ate some....ha! gotcha! went to bed

Today the air is damp and cold, and everything is wet from a very early morning rain. I'll lay off the gardening today...for I'm bound to the studio this morning, and then a haircut after lunch. My goal for today is to have a sustained level of energy, rather than crashing out at 3, so I can do all my motherly domestic things with vim and vigor. I plan on accomplishing this by paying better attention to when I eat, and nourishing my liver with a dandelion root infusion.

a good night

2009-05-12T20:19:00.001-07:00

Lately I've been taking my walks up into the forest rather than along the road. One might wonder why I would ever choose road over forest and the answer is actually rather simple. The forest goes up, really up, and the road runs next to a delightful mountain creek.

But the exercise of going up, up, up has proven to be quite beneficial for me, and the medicine of the forest itself is powerful. Indeed, the woods are lush with herbal medicine, which I think speaks to the true nature of the forest. There's blue cohosh, ginseng, wild ginger, mountain mint, bloodroot, and mayapples. And besides all that, the pileated woodpeckers are announcing their presence constantly, with drumming and vocals, which is particularly meaningful for me, as I have a thing for pileated woodpeckers.

So I've been feeling great. And it's been raining a lot, which is also a good thing. My garden is doing great, and I've lots of projects on hand to keep me busy. I must transplant the multitudes of motherwort and skullcap that have sprouted up! And prepare a few new places near the house for planting herbs and flowers! And now's the time for basil and squash and tomatoes and all their friends. Plus I still have about twelve heartsease (johnny jump ups) to plant in assorted spots throughout the garden. Sunday I planted something like thirty-six of the cheery flowers. Ahhh. Clearly, I need to take pictures.

Today I did not work in the garden. I went to Asheville with my brother and we went out to lunch at Salsa's, my favorite restaurant--he was easily convinced to buy me lunch, as a certain event of this week grants me such favors. But I bought my own margarita.

Then we went grocery shopping, which was so much more fun, thanks to the aforementioned drink! I bought a lot of chocolate. Besides, I love hanging out with my brother. I'm eleven years older than him, but quickly regress to the folly and jolly of youth when we are out and about together. There's really no regressing required for him to be in that space of...youthfulness, as it seems he never left it to begin with.

I got home and mucked out the goat barn. I'll be a little stiff in the morning for that, I bet, but not the bad kind. I'll wake up and stretch and yawn like a great big ole cat and kick everyone else out of my bed. Including the real cats.

For now Renee has claimed her father's spot in the bed, until he decides he's ready to slumber. The window above my bed is open, and I can still hear a few spring peepers. But mostly I hear the creek and the river, and the gurgle of the thin lick of a stream--technically a branch--that runs through our property. And the soft breathing of my daughter. It is a good night.

found today

2009-05-08T17:49:00.001-07:00

I write to discover what I know.
--Flannery O'Connor

Let the Greening Begin!

2009-05-05T08:28:00.001-07:00

It's raining again this morning, and I can delight in this, armed as I am with a strong cup of coffee. My hubbie delivers my coffee to me every morning. Aren't I so lucky?

Speaking of hubbie, we've been married nine years since last week. In that time we:
*started our own businesses (2)
*had two babies, sixteen months apart (for a total of five)
*homeschooled at various intervals, for a total of about four years
*bought a house that used to be a barn (and still bore a strong resemblance to such a structure in terms of draftiness & wobbliness)that came also with a large shop for our business(es)
*built my studio
*started raising chickens
*sold one business for a nice sum
*renovated house and added on a
*tore down shop before it fell down on us
*became solar-powered and solar-water-heated
*bought the house next door
*started another business
*started raising goats
*built a tiny pentangle house for our eldest daughter
*renovated our house some more

Also in that time, I've built a large garden, which is where I spent most of my time yesterday. I planted a few of the plants I purchased at the Herb Fest: false indigo, fire pink, and vervain. Then I weeded out lots of grass, and made some beds bigger so I could transplant volunteer calendula and borage into spaces where they could actually grow.

My Lucille Ball Alliums are blooming. They look kinda like lollipops, with their tall stalk and big round cluster of purple flowers at the top.

The wood poppy, or American Celandine, is festooned in yellow, four-petaled flowers.

The Creeping Bellworts are dangling their pale lemon jewels, and the Blue Comfrey is tossing its tiny blue bells in the rain.

There's even a plant blooming in my garden that I've no idea what it is! A friend gave it to me two years ago, and it's now taken off. And it's gorgeous--brilliant pinwheels of tiny violet flowers.

My motherwort grew to a massive clump that was covered in greenery earlier in the Spring. I'm guessing that a frost killed it, though, for it's now rotten and brown. But in true mother fashion, the ground is covered in tiny motherwort babies. I'll be transplanting those to various spots both in and out of the garden. The skullcap did a similar number, except that none of it died. It just spread about like mint, which is no surprise since it's in the mint family. I'll need to transplant some of those, too, lest I'm overrun with skullcap. Considering that it's a marvelous nervine tonic (supporting the nervous system), maybe it's not so bad to have so much!

I've sown in trays passionflower, calendula ('cause you can never have enough of this generous herb), bloodflower (tropical milkweed that monarchs ADORE), and from my grandmother's garden: hummingbird vine, hibiscus, and hollyhocks. I've also got a tray of johnny-jump-ups waiting to cheer my garden, plus all the plants I got at the Herb Fest that I haven't planted yet: astragalus, lavender, hardy rosemary, heliotrope, tobacco, boneset, goji berries, lavender poppies, more passionflower, and heirloom tomatoes. I'm probably forgetting something.

How quickly the green returns, and with it the expectation and delight of the garden! I'm always blown away by the abundance of the Earth, how, with attention and awareness, one can gather seeds and grow more and more, how lemon balm and motherwort, mint and bee balm spread, and how the great root plants like elecampane, valerian, butterfly weed and echinacea expand each year. Abundance is the natural state of the Earth, and it's the kind of abundance that requires your hands and your heart. The best kind.

p.s. the dogwoods are blooming, too

unveiling

2009-05-04T07:20:00.000-07:00

Morning rain has cleared to Monday sunshine. This means the garden is sated and readying itself for blooming, and also that the forest will be thicker and wet when I hike up into it presently.

It's been a wild weekend of Herb Festing (which will get its own post shortly) and family visiting. Lots of traveling. So I am glad for Monday and the stillness it offers. This is ironic, of course, because Monday is rarely still around here, but comparatively speaking, it's more still than being on the road four hours, like I was yesterday.

This weekend also marks the completion of a new painting, whose progress I had documented here. I also had a poll a long while back: "Guess the Title" Nobody guessed the correct title!

Here it is, for your viewing pleasure:

"Ecstasy"
pastel on paper

This painting is second chakra therapy! Hence the title. And we all need second chakra therapy, don't you think, whether its for sexuality or creativity or all around juiciness. Look for prints (large sized!) at my etsy shop!

If you participated in my poll, you get a 20% discount on the print--that's my way of saying thanks!

vibrations

2009-04-13T08:58:00.000-07:00

Last night before I went to bed I sat out on my deck and listened to a pair of spring peepers. It was curious to hear just two peepers, as they usually are a full chorus. How rich and clear are their voices. Peeping is not the right word, it is more of a high chant, a velvet yet piercing trill, a fluted voice.

Wrapped in a thin sweater shawl, I felt the ethereal caress of the breathing night. The high whisper of the river was joined by the gurgling laugh of the small branch that runs by the north end of my house. I thought about the preciousness of water, the ancient song that is the Toe River, the blessing of living here.

Then I went to bed, and slept well.

The morning brings rain, and a Spring chill. I find myself quarreling internally, complaining about things which are, indeed, minor molehills. I suppose the problem I am seeing is that these minor molehills seem to consume my every breath.

I know this is my perspective, a drumbeat to which I keep dancing, and by all means a malleable beat. Sometimes it seems, though, that however malleable one’s perspective might be, the inner act of shifting one’s thoughts and feelings is no small feat. And when I feel stuck, incapable of producing change, well then, that’s when I ask for help.

St. Johns Wort, specifically, and a call for help from my spirit guides, and a vision of life being calmer. And then I jump into the day.

(After giving myself a little gift: http://www.etsy.com/view_transaction.php?transaction_id=15275222)

a few things to remember

2009-04-11T20:16:00.000-07:00

Yesterday Renee was not feeling so great. She said she wanted to lay in bed, and I offered to bring her some books to read. She liked this idea, and when I asked her what books she might like, she said, "Oh, just pick out what you like, Momma, 'cause that's what I like, too."

So I brought up a lushly illustrated edition of The Velveteen Rabbit, a lushly illustrated fairy book, Richard Scarry's What Do People Do All Day, and a lushly illustrated book about bumblebees. All of these pleased her to no end, and she remarked that I picked out the perfect books, that she loves all these books so much.

A little while later I asked her if she wanted me to read The Velveteen Rabbit to her. It had been a long time since I had read it to her, and while McKinley, who was also present, remembered the story, I don't think she remembered or absorbed the story from before.

She was entranced. And when we got to the sad part, where the bunny goes to the burn pile, she absolutely burst into tears, and had me crying myself, such was the depth of her sweetness and tenderness.

All that emotion was too much for McKinley. He wandered to another part of the room, still within earshot of the story.

So the bunny met the nursery magic fairy, and was turned into a Real Real Bunny, and while that was good, and abated her tears, she was still deeply moved. "That was a sad and happy story, Momma," she snuffled, "because the bunny doesn't get to stay with the boy."

And she squirmed into the cradle of my arms and grew quiet for awhile, her fingers fiddling with my ears.

************************

Mike and Abby have arrived, hooray! I feel like I've been too stressed to properly enjoy their presence, what with all the chicken pox going on along with the usual what-nots. But last night Abby and Katie, and maybe Mike too, made dinner and brought it over. I am so thankful for their hearts and hands.

Earlier in the day Mike was working on their little cabin, which they started building late last summer, and McKinley was helping. I didn't get to see his contribution, but the word was that he was eager and helpful, which makes me proud.

McKinley is a powerhouse of motivation, when it's properly aligned with desire. Early yesterday thunder rumbled, and he jumped to making thundercake, which he had read about for school, and the recipe for which he had promptly copied after finishing the actual drudgery of reading. Abby helped with managing his motivation (I think I was handling myriad tasks), mostly just providing direction for him as he went about collecting all the ingredients and such. Together with Renee's minor assistance they made thundercake, which was downright delicious.

*************************

So the Easter Bunny comes tonight, leaving candy in the garden. They are both very excited about this, and I am exceedingly thankful that I have teenagers who can go to the store and get said candy after the littles have gone to sleep. Now I just have to get up early enough to get it in the garden before they wake up!

the thousand-fingered mind

2009-04-06T06:42:00.001-07:00

I woke first to rain, dappled and splashy. But so glad of its lullaby that of course I fell back asleep, and then found myself wanting to start this morning slow and delicious, in a welcoming sort of way, rather than the trumpet-call of “hurry, hurry, hurry.”

It went well, if one does not gauge the morning by whether or not one is late, or rather, one’s children are late, for school. It’s impossible for me to be late, thankfully, since I am self-employed. precisely because I frown upon trumpet-calls. OK, there are other reasons, too, but mostly neither I nor my husband can imagine it any other way. I still toy in my mind with the thought of homeschooling both my kids, and I know that for me homeschooling and self-employment spring from the same root—the reclamation of one’s life as one’s own.

Last night in that small space of quiet in between when the kids go to sleep and my own sleep I thought a little about this, about how, more often than not, I am stressed or worried about something. It’s almost as if the mind must have something to roll between its one thousand fingers, and if you don’t purposefully choose a mantra of joy or some higher intent, your mind will default to more reptilian instincts.

But I want to think in a new way. I’ve noticed how I always say I don’t have enough time. Or I stress about how some aspect of my home is in dire need of cleaning. Or perhaps it is one of those days filled with deadlines and many errands, and I find myself overwhelmed. This or that, there’s always something to distract me from my own joy, from my mind fingering the silk rope of happiness, and I find that just being aware of this thought pattern has helped my turn more to towards that state of being that is joy and not distraction.

Because really joy has nothing to do with whether or not I need to run errands, or if my house is clean (no, really). Joy is a lusty embrace of living, a presence to the beauty of each moment. And I find that by turning towards that, even if it is ever-so-slightly, my life takes on a depth that I had previously written off.

My mind will need something to turn its attention to. This is the nature of the mind, is it not? And it takes radiant willpower for me to give my mind’s one thousand fingers the wooden beads of appreciation to turn over and over, or that silk rope of happiness to braid, dropping the chains of distraction. Radiant willpower. It’s a gift I can give myself today.

click to satisfaction

2009-04-03T05:44:00.000-07:00

This morning I woke up on the other side of the nasty cold that has Renee still coughing. Last night it hit me hardest, and due to my achiness and snuffliness and grumpiness I stayed in bed from mid-afternoon on into the night.

That’s when I discovered online jigsaw puzzles. I put together countless puzzles last night, changing the shape of the cut—from classic to doves to lizards. I am addicted now to the satisfying click sound the puzzle makes when you get a piece right. Sometimes I think it is a very curious thing to be a human.

I’m going to spend a little bit of time this morning straightening and decluttering my bedroom and Renee’s. It will be so pleasant to have her room cleaned. Every time I walk past it I think poorly of myself. It may be curious to be a human, but it is even more curious to be a mother.

And on a side note: SCORE! I found a local and entirely reasonable boyfriend for my does! ($25 for stud service rather than $100)

it's spring! time for flowers!

2009-03-31T12:56:00.001-07:00

I put up lots of wildflower prints on my Etsy shop today! They are on sale to make room for more recent works, check them out! stephanietberry.etsy.com

I mentioned this in a previous post, but the post was so long I doubt anyone mucked their way through the whole thing, so I'm going to mention it again, in this short and sweet format: My friends Pete & Kim have an Etsy site now (mcwhirterpottery.etsy.com), and though there's not much there yet, it's definitely worth a click to see and read about their Dragon Mugs. They'll be more stuff at their shop soon, so stop back often!

That's all for now!

Sunday

2009-03-31T07:42:00.000-07:00

After days with rain as our constant companion, Sunday dawned with the blaring palms of the Sun. Everyone felt the trumpet call of light, and gathered to work, squinting a bit yet still basking in the warm gold of morning.

J put a gate and half wall on the hot tub shed. I don’t know if that will stop the marauding raccoon from eating my cat food, but it will keep out the chickens, who had learned to fly over the flimsy lattice gate I had put up, thus depositing their eggs and more unpleasant gifts randomly throughout the structure.

Katie and Renee planted seeds. Tons of seeds! They are now under the lights in the shop, along with Zach & Molly’s seeds, which were planted Friday. Katie brought all sorts of seed treasures with her from France, where she spent last summer, and also from Georgia, her home state.

I lined a portion of the driveway that was widening more than it should with river rocks. Soon there will be festoons of daylilies on the protected side. I wheeled around picking up trash with the wheelbarrow, then proceeded to clean up the hot tub shed. Jason put up a fence to contain our formerly free-ranging chickens. Once Spring really hits they can roam no more. This means I will really be In The Eggs. I know they were laying them all over the place. Now they’ll be laying them in the coop like they’re supposed to.

J and I have decided to make the hot tub shed the official micro goat barn. It needs only minor modifications to serve that purpose marvelously. We’ll have to move out the hot tub, but that’s really fine. J & I are sustainably motivated, and the aforementioned hot tub runs off coal-powered electricity. Mountain top removal coal. So maybe our interns can retrofit our tub, make it wood-fired, and make another spot for it. J and I already have a solar-powered hot tub on our deck, but we’ve never gotten it fully functional. It just needs a few hours of J’s magic hands and it will be perfect. And with the electric hot tub out of the shed, I’ll have a little micro barn with running water and electricity, plus space for milking me wee goats, and maybe space enough for some angora bunnies. Renee would faint with joy.

The day began to slow down a bit. Clouds began to gather. The wind stirred up, and the temperature began to drop. Rae was finishing up supper—pork roast, mashed potatoes, garlic bread, and roasted veggies. She really is a dynamo! I went inside and got on the computer, to discover that I had made three sales on my Etsy shop! Could the day get any better?

We finished the day up with baths for the littles, and a good two chapters of Prince Caspian. We are almost done with it. McKinley can’t stand for me to stop! “Keep reading! Keep reading!” he insists. But his sister is already mostly asleep beside me, and he begrudgingly turns out the light, and snuggles under the quilt next to me. I think that I could stay awake a little longer, get a few things done, but to end the day here, sandwiched between the warm bodies of my kids, is too delicious and perfect. I’ll get ten hours of sleep, I calculate, and drift into a long night of dreaming.