Blue Moon

The toad is back this week, looking fit. There will be a second full moon for the month of August, on the 31st, a so-called Blue Moon.  These events make me feel lucky, for no apparent reason. 

I picked a peck of tomatoes, or maybe it was two, at Barb-and-Harry-in-Dell's garden one morning  this week.  A gentle rain had fallen the night before, and the sun was warm, the air sweet, the bees friendly.  The curly sheep baa-baaed far across the field, not too close to be irritating.  Barb was thumping away at her loom in the shed.

I stood up too quickly, and felt a dizzy rush.  I reached out to steady myself and found a sturdy bar to hold. It was a walker. Harry has staked his tomatoes on a collection of discarded ones, giving his garden the appearance of a crowd of walker-users having disappeared and returned as tomato plants. For the record,  I believe this is the first time I've relied on a walker to keep myself standing up.

something old, something new & some other things

 

Here is a little rag bench rug from the sauna, that I packed with a kitchen fork when I wove it years and years ago, that's still a favorite of mine.  Today I started a fresh scarf on the 22" Norwood loom.  Amy Arnold's summer kids look cute hanging out in the store.  When I cross the creek I stop to dip up water in that red plastic bucket  to pour on the nasturtiums in the flower pots and the gingko tree.  

Today an Amish man with a long gray beard walked in to the store and said he'd been looking around the neighborhood for some hay they could cut, since it's been so droughty. Could they cut in our field?

We haven't cut hay off that old field in years and years, I said. 

It is what it is, he said. 

It kills me when an old white bearded Amish guy says something like, It is what it is.

Heat

Late afternoon in our house, the shade pulled to keep sun out of the dining room.  A cigar box smells dusty, and is the perfect metaphor for my brain.  Got any-thing? No. No-thing.

The old farm apron is my favorite cotton print, even if I don't feel like cooking.  I like its pocket, with the round ric rac trim. Coleslaw for supper, with a Bloody Mary. Lost kittens found napping near their big project, Hole to China.  Both are alarmed when Carl sets up a ladder to scrape and paint the peeling siding from past winters' ice dams.

Still feeling bored at the grocery, I see my friend and neighbor, Elizabeth. She said it's a distressing holiday so far.

She's been taking care of her neighbor's animals while they're gone.We are living through an epic magnitude of raccoons this summer. I read Sterling North's Rascal when I was 11, and for many years  wanted nothing more than a tame raccoon for a pet, and a tame crow to live in a belfry of a church next door.  I've always loved wildlife, and still do.  But, I've discovered, there is a them and us, when it comes to numbers.  A few lady bugs are charming, a wall full or a window full is a terrible situation for all of us.

Raccoons entered the chicken house of Elizabeth's neighbors, two nights in a row.  The first night 3 chickens were killed and maimed, the next night the rooster disappeared.  It was a bloody mess, she said, and there was a one-legged chicken that had to be killed. She had already trapped and killed 7 raccoons in her own yard.  To tell you the truth, she said, it's kind of depressing.  Boring seemed a better kind of hot summer day, actually. I didn't mention to her that someone had recently seen a mother skunk and a litter of babies crossing the road to her barn.

Blue Bird and other signs

Have you heard that, once again, the world is due to end?  May 21, 2011 is Judgement Day. That's coming right up, but I feel that it's not likely to happen so soon, because, in a barn, in SW Wisconsin there is a small miracle. I've told just a few people about the new kitten I've been waiting for. Sometimes cats around here have noticeably big, fan-shaped feet, due to extra toes. I have acquired a strong desire to have one of these cats. I heard of a cat in the neighborhood that often has kittens with extra toes on their front paws.The cat-daddy is feral, and he's the one with the extra-toe genes. He comes around every spring, and this year he made his visit on schedule.

This must have been the longest gestation in cat history, but at last it's born. It was a 2-kitten litter, and just one kitten has extra toes--on each of its feet!  Four big paws!  It's mauve! I'm the first on the list, maybe the only one on the list, but the farmer's wife said I can have it.   It's just 2 weeks old, and its mother has it and the other kitten, without extraordinary feet, high up in a spidery hay mow. It takes a ladder to get up to find them. Just a few more weeks to wait, unless an owl, or some other mishap (end of the world?) comes along.

My old Mama Kitty hasn't heard  any of this news.  I'm going to call it Smoky. (What color is mauve anyway?)

A Death and a Chase

First there was a death. This chickadee flew off the feeder, straight into the workshop window.  It fell to the snowbank below, twitched its feet, then gave up the ghost.  Its breast feathers were lemony, and gray.  A color I hadn't been able to see before.  Its small feet, blue.  Poor thing!

 Next thing, a  rabbit came straight down the path to the house, in the middle of the day.  I noticed him, because usually the rabbits stay hid in the brush of the tree row during the day.  And, this one seemed to be in a hurry.

When I was back at the loom again, well, actually at the window near the loom,  trying to get a count of all the cardinals perched in the tree above the bird feeder (16 was the most I counted, but they kept moving. so I'm not sure) here came the same rabbit.  Bounding over the deeply snowed bank on the other side of the creek,  it crossed a rough row of snow covered creek rocks, and then came up the path behind the store.

The rabbit didn't  even glance at the black sunflower seeds scattered on the ground around the feeder, but hurried by in determined haste.  I took another count of the red birds, mainly because they were such a treat to look at in all the snow, plump and red, perched,  like fruits  on the gray branches.

What's this?  Something moving,  gray and slinky at the top of the hill across the creek, just where the rabbit came down through the snow, making its own trail.  It's the weasel!  The same from last summer that wouldn't let me cross the bridge to the house?  Or an associate?  The gray furred  weasel undulated, body surfing through the snow, more than it used its legs, which were not long.  And it was fast, following the rabbit's trail as far as the creek stones, then doubling back. It was back at the top of the bank, in  a moment,  in one gliding,  cursive stroke.

The weasel looked small, only about  2/3 the rabbit's size, but was definitely in pursuit.  Back to the rocks, the weasel streaked across, not getting wet, though weasels are aquatic.  Soon he was up by the bird feeder, hesitating going first to the west, then toward me at the window, then going  around the east side of my building. The rabbit had gone west, but was only a few minutes ahead.  The weasel's gray, fine fur looked so soft and silky, and its face sleek and beautiful. But, oh my, what a mouth full of teeth are in that head!  I thought weasels turned white in winter, but not this one.

I took my camera and sneaked out the front door hoping to see more, but there was just a shadow of
a gray tail (?) sliding under the gas pig in the side yard.  I had disrupted  the chase, but my feeling is that the weasel still had the advantage.  Another unresolved story, with life and death consequences, unfolding outside my window.

What actually came next is I went back to my weaving, wondering how, exactly, a rabbit's expression can appear anxious, and how is a person supposed to get anything done around here, with all this drama?

Deer Season, Deja Vu

Deer season ahead.  The deer are running now, sometimes in front of your car headlights.  Driving at dusk is a fraught experience, 45 mph seems too fast.  Not much has changed in my neighbor Falk's yard since last year, except he's not there.  His old blue truck is parked behind the sheds.

I wove 3 more pillows of rag, linen, and Rosepath,  and will weave some more.  I'm waiting for new yarn to arrive, silk and alpaca cones in choice colors, only 2 back-ordered! My plan is to make wristwarmers and scarves with similar designs to these pillows.  I'm also planning for Sno-Crush, first all textile show, here, Nov 20 - Dec 31.

uphill

The wild clematis is a little garland of puffs along the hill road. The woods on the side hill of the valley is not so leafy now, but the Witch Hazel is in bloom with its small yellow starry flowers.
I wish my weaving could merge into the rough fissured bark of the century (at least) white pine. I don't try to copy what I see. It's usually after I've woven something, that I see what I have been looking at.

Late Bus

Dusk happens suddenly these days. I walk up the hill after the late school bus comes through Avalanche. The woods is settling down, a few birds call, a cardinal chip-chip-chips. Two deer run across the road in front of me, their white tails flagging. There is a bow hunter in the woods.

My bench cushions are woven and shipped now.  Still some pillows to make and  sew together tomorrow.  But now, there are a few of my Hen-of-the-Woods mushrooms leftover, and some red wine, suppertime.

Chartreuse & Some Bees

High summer, and my eyes can't get enough of what I see.  The bees have a surfeit of flowers, nectar is everywhere.  There is too much of everything good, all at once.  Everything is lush and ripe and overgrown, but the heat makes us sleepy and slow.

A piece of writing that I read nearly everyday, from Eva Zeisel, the exquisite designer:

"To me, beauty depends on one single person, on the person who looks at something and feels joy in looking at it because it pleases him without second thoughts, irrespective of whether is is useful, whether it is art, or whether it is in good taste.  It is the love affair of the eyes with the things they focus on.  As its enjoyment is immediate and spontaneous, it is quite impossible to put into words how to make beauty."   (italics, mine)

Goose Eye

When we first moved to Avalanche we thought we would farm.  I decided to keep a pair of geese since we have a little creek here.  One thing led to another, and soon we had a flock of geese and goslings, numbering 27 animal units.  I loved to watch them swim, or stick their necks out and honk,  running,  flapping their wings chasing each other, or any unfortunate caught in their path.  I remember a pair of scrap iron dealers drove up in a rusted truck once, eyeing my husband's hoard of old rusty junk from the road, and wanting to know if I was ready to sell.  I may have been tempted, but the geese drove them back before they even made it to the porch.  The scrapmen were pretty rough looking, so I was happy to see them go.  And so it was with missionaries, insurance salesmen, and the tax assessor.

Since I had no marketing plan for the geese, and we had become vegetarian,  the flock continued to multiply, until there were enough of them to rise into the air, form a vee and take aim at their chosen landing spot.  The squeaky door of the log house, where their corn feed was stored, would bring on a rush and swirl,  a general rising of bodies into the air,  the vee formation,  direct flight, and crash landing among a din of general honking and flapping bodies around my feet,  a twice daily event.  Once, my visiting mother-in-law, a neat, orderly woman unwittingly opened the squeaky loghouse door, as I watched in horror from my kitchen window.  I dashed out, but not in time to save her.  She had turned to see why the sky had suddenly darkened, only to realize  that a  flock of geese across the field had suddenly risen into the air, formed a squadron, and was now bearing down on her.   She ducked and survived direct hits, but  her dignity was injured.

One fall the goose lot having became too small for them, and feeling the call of the South, the flock rose with a general cacaphony,  swirled twice around the lot, and then split.  Half of the geese formed a vee, and flew off down the road past the old Avalanche general store (downtown Avalanche)  about 4 ft off the ground.  I watched as they swirled around Junie's trailer, and veered South.  They settled on the stream about 2 miles south of Avalanche, and lived at the farm there comfortably for several  more years.

It's been so many years since  I gave them up,  but I did like keeping them.  They were a nuisance, mainly,  but always interesting. They were a cantankerous lot.  I loved the goslings, all in a row, necks outstretched,  weep-weep-weeping behind the mother goose.  And geese lay the loveliest eggs.  I made oak gall ink and wrote with quills a few times.  Once, I was inspired to make a set of authentic cork-and-leather shuttle cocks with real goose feathers, which added an element of unpredictability to a game of badminton.

Thinking of my geese this rainy, July, Monday, I just finished a set of goose eye woven summer scarfs,  of hand-dyed bamboo, with linen, cotton and tencel.  Oh, and a little silk.

Peony

The picture of the peony on this antique postcard could have been taken by the lady of the house I live in, 100 years ago.  The house resembles ours, and there is an old peony planted at the same corner. My husband found it in an antique store, and mailed it to me, 30 years ago.  He was in Wisconsin looking for a good farm we could buy.  We were determined to leave the city and get back-to-the-land, where we meant to build our house,  grow and preserve our own food, and I'd weave all the cloth for our clothes!  He hadn't found anything promising.

Just like the lady who lived in my house then,  I take photos of my white peony every year as it blooms in the front yard, propped  up with sticks and bentwire edging fence.  I also collect finch nests that blow down from the big white pine tree in spring storms, and line them up on my kitchen window sill.  Other than that, I don't think her life was much like mine has been here.  Our experiment in getting back to the land didn't turn out at all as we expected. What did happen was much more interesting.  And, thank goodness, I never wove one thing for us to wear.

Around the Block

I rode my bike up the road yesterday and passed the old house where Tillie and Leona,  two sisters, married to two brothers,  raised their families together during the Great Depression.  At one time,  I've been told, that 27 people lived together in this house. Those were hard times. 

Now the poppies and the bleeding heart are putting on their show for an empty house.

Out the Window

The bee yard is east of the shop, so I can see it from where I'm sitting in my loom, warping linen today.  Bill Pike and his grandson arrived with wooden crates of bee swarms, and the dark Hawaiian queen bees, opened up the boxes and settled everyone in.

The queen in her small private screened compartment (black, upside down in the picture) travelled with her own little sugar cube.  Bill shook the bees into their new home after her. There is a little marshmallow plug in her compartment, that the bee colony will have to eat through, in order to free her for her queenly duties of egg laying and constant grooming.  This yard is the only one he has set up in a valley.  He hopes the bees will gather nectar from basswood trees in our woods, which makes a light amber, delicately flavored honey.

No one was stung, not even I taking these pictures without a bee hat on.  In fact, standing there in clouds of buzzing honey bees, was strangely elating.