A Walk in the Yard of May

It is the end of the weekend of planting. Seeds and plants are all tucked in their beds and covered with a blanket of straw.

Except that in the early morning, Billy apparently chased a critter through a row of tomato plants into the bush bean seeds, through the cucumber seeds, back around into the middle of the carrot seeds and out through the spinach plants. I saw him through the window, trotting around the fence line with a mass of fur hanging from his mouth and before he could leap through the dog door and deposit said fur on the Persian rug, I ran outside. He was all "la di da, good morning, Mom, nice to see you...." I'm no dummy, I saw enough of this "What, me?" attitude from my children, who at least would have known how to conceal the shards of straw hanging their snouts.  Sure enough, when I peeked into the  open bale of straw, there was a possum too damaged to even play possum.

While surveying the damage (to my seeds, not his possum), I tapped into my awareness of what it must have been like to have been a homesteader (or today's agrarian poor, for that matter). What if I had cared for those seeds for an entire year...what if I were dependent on their yield to feed my family?

I am lucky. I can be back in the garden tomorrow morning, with the extra seeds I have in my new, handy-dandy seedbox that Himself made for me.

So while we're waiting for the sun to rise, come walk through my yard with me. I really love how Grace at Windthread gives wonderfully descriptive names to different parts of her property and even her furniture. I decided to do the same thing...the names were vivid, funny...

... and I can't remember a single one.

 So never mind that. Here is how the onions see my house:

As you can see, the crop of tomato stakes is doing beautifully...

As are the freshly pruned and staked raspberry bushes. 

 I actually remembered to get in there before the real growth started and after watching more You-Tube how-to videos than I think should even exist in the universe (but thank you, all you nice people who feel compelled to take videos of yourselves pulling up dead raspberry canes), I pulled out the old canes and gave the younguns something to lean on. Someone remind me to check at the end of the season if this made a difference in their berry power.

The concord grapes are coming in.

The vines were here when we moved in 18 years ago and most years, I get enough for incredible grape jelly. And after Thing One went to Fancy Culinary School, I even made grape granita (that's the culinary word for a grape slushie). We have to fight off Japanese beetles to keep the leaves, which you need to shade the fruit, and then we have to outrun the yellow jackets to keep the fruit...one day too late and you have a gorgeous crop of raisins. At this moment, all is so promising. But that's the bitch about gardening, right? Nature is such a tease.

We've got lots of flowers right now. You can tell why its called bleeding heart:

But even with all the Torah study I've had, I don't know why this is called Solomon's Seal:

Before the dogs took over, I used to feed the deer my tulips. Every season, they got a different flavor, till I finally gave up. But one hardy lady survived. Must be what its like to be a very old person who has outlived every one of her friends.

The Great Tulip Fiasco Years taught me to always include extremely hardy specimens in my garden, too.

That concludes our tour...time to go home.

Three Appetizers and a Main Dish

Golly, I just have so much to say that we better sit down for a full course dinner here.

 

Appetizer #1 

The joy seems to have settled into my bones. Last night, I noticed how absolutely thrilled I was when Himself came home from work. Just that very thing...that the weekend begins with the sun still in the sky and the grounds deliriously green, that he walks into the kitchen, gives the dogs their treats, and gives me a kiss hello. (Just the fact that is not the other way around is enough to elicit gratitude, no?)

I felt a little weak in the knees when I saw him. I told him that lately, our lives have been so simple and peaceful yet full of merriment and all-around good cheer that I feel, well, like I have a boyfriend. His brow furrowed a bit in distress. Then his eyes opened. "Oh. Am I the boyfriend?" 

 

Appetizer #2

I turned the bright new fabric from Kaffe Fassett and friends at the shop into a little baby quilt called "Playland."

Pattern and fabric pack available at Gloriouscolor.com

I listened to The Goldfinch, by Donna Tartt, while designing, sewing, unsewing, and resewing this baby. The reader of this first-person saga is remarkable and the story is just perfect for hearing rather than reading because it most definitely is a long tale.  Also, Boy Alone in the World is an unnerving proposition at times and I know I would want to leaf ahead just to make sure all will be well and thus ruin the experience. This way, I have to sweat it out, meaning I probably am losing weight, right?

 

Appetizer #3

Speaking of audiobooks, see if your libraries carry "Overdrive," which brings audiobooks or even e books to you for absolutely free. I love this way of not having to buy books I know I will never read more than once and also, getting someone to tell me a story at the same time.

The Main Course

 

Ok, the entree is for me, to document process. No, sillies, you don't have to leave.

A few days ago, I wanted to do some hand stitching but felt rather clueless. Perhaps to give the rods and cones in my eyes some respite from the colors of Playland, I just started working in neutral grays and off-whites,on a little 8 x 10 inch scrap.

This felt right, so I looked in my shelves for a background for it. I tried all the usual culprits and then found this, a printed fabric from Marcia Derse called "Calendar."

And that turned into this.

I thought I was making a garden but when I moved it into its new neighborhood, it turned into a house in a village. The supporting structure of the print was very rich in possibility but I kept stumbling into the body of an elephant two rows above my house. So what else to do with an elephant body but bring it to life?

With that, all the other printed shapes started making noises. I grabbed my handy box of pairings that I learned to make from Jude and suddenly, I landed on Noah's Ark for Singles. Single beasts, that is.

Ms Pac Man

The Wizard of Id?

I know this is from some childhood cartoon, someone help me remember

Identity TBD

So this is how it looks at the moment.

I'm ready to stitch for real now and it helps me to remember that sometimes, its the proverbial long and winding road to find that space.

Ok, who wants dessert?

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We now return you to your regularly scheduled program.

The Joy of Deadhorse

I am planning a mosaic table for E and find myself surprisingly short of broken china and glassware. Not to worry, Himself and I consulted the tide tables and yesterday, got ourselves to Deadhorse Bay, Brooklyn at low tide.( I think I gave a brief history of this strange place on an earlier post--if not, take a few moments, research it, and come back prepared to tell the class what you have learned.)

This time, I shopped in the sand with much more discrimination. That's because I am still finding pieces of my fingers that I clipped off with those damn nippers every time I tried to trim curved pieces of glass for my last table.So this time, only flat pieces of glass or china, thank you, and only in colors. The only limiting factor was how much I could carry.

The harvest was plentiful.

All cleaned up back at home

\

The wind was strong but so was the sun. I snuggled into my cobalt blue windbreaker (makes me blend in the beach glass, you'd never know I was there) so I was toasty warm. and best of all, I had Himself, just a few hundred feet away at all times. I was filled with happiness...imagine that literally because it is how it was. I don't know what it is about digging around in the dirt that gets me so energized but isn't it unbelievable that I have a guy who feels the same way? It felt all the more wonderful because just 24 hours before, I had bumped into my ex-husband at Shad Fest, the local street fair celebrating a really stinky fish that runs the Delaware River this week. 

How fitting. Because they both leave me with a really bad taste in my mouth.

But there on that Deadhorse Sunday, with my tall red rubber boots mired in sea muck, the past blew away and the wonder of my life at present was all around me.Himself found this for me.

This is how it looks, all nestled in my Garden of Earthly Delights, a shady spot beneath the maple tree where I plant hosta, astilbe, and all kinds of wonderful from our diggings. Here is the Deadhorse Bay Brass Ensemble:

Yep,that's a roller skate and I know you're old enough to remember them.

Here are the woodwinds:

This will be a fairy castle for a grandchild

Driftwood found in Maine with rocks intact!

A white platter from Deadhorse colored by saltwater.

But wait! There's more!

I even have the chicken feet, which are soaking. I found it at Deadhorse yesterday, along with this guy.

out of focus but you get the point

 And so in they go, with the rest of the Deadhorse Bay Collective.

I love assemblage and think I have finally have enough critters to tell a story in the old cheese boxes piled up on the shelf. 

I have so much to say about the joy of recognizing joy, but it is enough to share this, my beautiful Sunday, April 27, 2014. I know the tides will come in and nip around my heels again but for this moment, all is perfect.

The Polar Vortex

I started The Polar Vortex when our world was layers of snow, ice and cold.I finished it last night, just as the yellow of the daffodils burst open all around me.

I want to pass along something I actually learned from the woven panel on the right (and originally from Spirit Cloth).  That is, the utility of having completed components hanging around.When I am not working on something specific, I followed Jude's example of creating random weavings, pairings (stitching sets of two scraps together), and other little bits and pieces. I was never sure what to do with them so I threw them into an old wooden box.  When I was looking for border panels for this piece, I pulled stuff from the scrap baskets and then had the brilliant idea to go back to the wooden box, where I found all kinds of more complex goodies. Voila!

My goal was to stitch more freely than I have in the past, not worry very much about outcome. The pink beads came from the winter sky at dusk this year, which was ice blue with long wispy lines of ice pink. As for those weird stitches in the gray sky, the best I can figure is that aliens snuck in while I was sleeping, grabbed a needle and gray floss, and crafted thread signals to the Mother Ship.

Now Showing: Dutch Masters from the 21st Century

The frames arrived and Little Bird, who flew here from Saskia's birdhut in the Netherlands, is thrilled to see his relatives on our newly painted kitchen wall.

 

I can see them perfectly during the 22 hours a day I am standing at the kitchen sink. In fact, the other night,  I was finally washing out the pot I set to soak in early 2004 when I realized that I was not the only one watching the birds. The psychotic cats are clearly distraught.

I brought home the cat painting many years ago from an Outsiders' Art Fair in New York. (Don't get me started on the stupidity of "outsiders' art," it is apparently a movement--of course--of works created by people who didn't get formally trained in art. You know, like, um, just about everyone? Does that mean sentences created by people who didn't get an MA from the Iowa Writer's Program are "outsider's words?" And if you are untrained and dare to paint a landscape, are you an outside outsider?? When you are draw a studio model, are you an inside outsider???)

I told you not to get me started.

What I meant to be telling you is that the artist of the cats is from The Netherlands, like the artist of the birds. According to Kunst and Vlliegwerk, which is the gallery employing/representing her, she is a schizophrenic woman who showed her talents in the activity center and now comes to their studio to paint. Mostly cats. Her name is Tineke and here's more about her.

I love the part where Tineke will make elephants or dogs, but only when asked. And that she "highly likes" to work while listening to Alice Cooper! I asked a ton of questions and was told that most of the money goes directly into her account at the institution. I could only hope they were truthful.

Right? 

However, they didn't have Google Translate when I bought the painting. And I'm getting a little nervous about this situation because it seems that  "kunst vliegwerk" apparently means "art crook." When I google the artist's name, I get the Dutch version of Paris Hilton.  Saskia, I'm petrified that you are pulling out your short little hair and screaming in Dutch, "how could she not know that this gallery is infamous for exploiting disabled artists!!!"

I love really, really love my psychotic Dutch cats. And now, I love them loving the work of another artist from the Netherlands, this one completely sane. (Because filling one's home with bird skeletons and dead frogs and building an empire of miniature creatures that have their own artwork, tea sets, and quilts, is clearly a sign of fine mental health, right?) I love my Dutch outsiders.

And I hate not wanting to know the truth.

Right?

It All Started with an Earthworm

First, let's all drop to our knees and scream THANK YOU for the sunny day and the chance to get into the garden at long last. And now, since you're  already on your knees, you might as well take an up-close-and-personal look at this little critter in my compost..

Bear with me, because there is a point to this photo, I promise. (Those of you still on your knees should feel free to get up now.)

I have been away from home in Service of Family for five days that seemed like a month. So today was MY day, and I ran right into the garden this morning to prepare the vegetable beds and plant my lettuce, kale, radishes, and bok choy. 

Every spring, I pull out my little red Mantis rototiller and run it through all the beds, until they look soft and inviting and I can no longer walk. Today, before tilling, I pulled back the old straw mulch and oak leaves, yanked out the few weeds that are clearly overachievers, and tossed large rocks that I apparently planted last fall. The soil is rich and crumbly and moved easily beneath the tongs of that um....that little hand tool...you know, the one that looks like an Afro pick...um...ok, Google says its a cultivator!

When I went to the compost bin to load up the wheelbarrow, I noticed all the fat and happy worms. They had just won a free trip to the vegetable beds and when I thought about running my rototiller through the beds...and through the worms...I felt a bit yucky. And that made me wonder. Why exactly do I till, anyway?

And the answer is: I dunno.

To turn the soil upside down, taking the top layer of organic stuff with it?

To get soft, crumbly soil that I always thought made my plants happy?

Maybe. But when it comes right down to it, I have a dirty little secret.
I till because it makes me feel like this.
 
I love mobilizing my physical strength, especially in this year that I am turning 60. I love feeling my biceps wake up as I plow, the throbbing in my muscles after the day is done. And I love waking up the next morning and finding that the throbbing has become but a gentle ache and I can still perform that daily miracle: getting out of bed and standing (mostly) upright. It makes me feel, well, just more alive. So silly, but so true.

But that little earthworm in my compost and the fact that I was freely turning the soil with a 9 inch hand cultivator made me wonder if rototilling makes sense for my garden at this moment. After all, I have three raised beds that I've been working for years, not 40 acres of overgrown meadow. And if I need to feel strong, I can always lift sacks of dog food. Or my dogs.

So I went online and learned two things. First, "till vs no-till" is a controversy so hot  that debates about gay marriage, abortion rights, and evolution vs intelligent design make you yawn. Like most controversies, you can pretty much find a bulletin, blog, or outright manifesto to tell you anything you want to hear. Second, it is very clear that tilling makes no sense for my garden at this moment.

I'm not going to get into all the reasons, mostly because I read so much that I already barely remember the question. But quite simply, to paraphrase Isaiah, its time to beat my Mantis into pitchfork...

 Julie will not take up Mantis against earthworm, neither will she learn rototilling no more.

Yes, I was Miss May

Knew that headline would grab you.

This post answers Saskia's question on my last post, ie, what are those two colorful things on top of my fabric shelf?

The answer is "they were my entries into a calendar challenge from Quilting Arts Magazine." I used to love this magazine because it offered such a contrast to the rows of calico squares that filled up my local quilt shops. (That was when I HAD local quilt shops but that's another post). Over time, the magazine seemed to be less about cloth and more about what you could squirt on to it. Or the converse, meaning what noncloth item you could stitch together. I think I quit when each issue started to regularly feature articles on the joy of quilting on Tyvek (that white plastic that builders use to wrap houses). Call me cranky, but I have enough challenges just stitching on cloth, let alone Tyvek, dry wall, or sandpaper.

Now, I haven't read a whole issue of QA lately so things may have changed.  I did check and found out that they still have one of their best offerings: QA challenges.  These provide a nice little creative frame to work in now and then, especially when you are a novice or inspiration seems elusive. Back in 2007, just when I was ready to fly, I intentionally decided to push myself and enter the calendar contest (12 times the chance of winning, right?). The theme was also close to my heart: a 12 x 12 inch image from American literature.

I approached this like it mattered. I plotted and planned. I sketched and took digital photos, printed them off in black and white and made jigsaw pieces of them all. I outlined each piece onto fabric and reassembled them in place on handdyed background. I sewed and unsewed...by hand and by machine. I took out all the hanging shmutz that characterizes my normal work and put on a nice little binding, all to fit the requisite 12 x 12.

And I sent in two entries. First, from my alltime favorite book of all time and space, To Kill a Mockingbird. (Am I the only girl who still dons overalls in the summer because I want to be Scout Finch and have a daddy like Atticus? Will I ever find out what its like to walk the neighborhood dressed as a cooked ham?) Scout's neighbor, the white-haired mystery named Boo Radley (played by a young unknown named Robert Duvall),used to leave trinkets for the kids in the squirrel's hole in the big 'ole walnut tree on the sidewalk.Trinkets like an old watch...

Real watch face from a flea market, chain snipped from a purse

...in a hole that sits in my own pin oak tree, captured by the miracle of digital photography...

The second entry is from Tom Sawyer. (Yes, I have read many books since junior high, but somehow, these are still right up on the top of my list.) It was inspired by a summer spent whitewashing a wooden fence in our yard, which seemed an idyllic idea and quickly turned out to be boring, back-breaking, and left both my hair and my echinacea full of white spots.

I had forgotten that I wove cloth for the background all those years ago. My favorite part was trying to get the paintfilled brushes to look just right. I screwed around with lots of thread and then decided, hell, why not just use real paint?

I personally think that Boo Radley's tree is one of my most beautiful pieces. I can't believe that I created it. But the QA editors went with Whitewash, I guess because if you love Tyvek, you will love house paint. And it was photographed for the magazine and for the QA Calendar...and that's how I became Miss May.

Funny how at the time, it was all so thrilling. I won $200 to spend in the QA online shop but probably spent three times that buying calendars for everyone I knew.  And now? I can't even find the calendar page and I am more than fine with that.

Anyway, that's the answer to the question. And Hugh Hefner, eat your heart out.

Winter Camp Draws to a Close

Its plain to see that Winter Camp is drawing to a close.

After this particular winter, I'm feeling like once the Outside opens, I never want to come back in the house again. In preparation, I spent this past weekend finishing the main chores of Winter Camp: mending and organizing.
I don't know why I let it pile up, because when I am mending, I am in love with mending. I love my hands as they reconfigure rips and tears back into Integrity. And I love walking around my home not averting my eyes from rather stunning holes in garments, linens, and furniture.

First, I mended Billy's work on the duvet cover on our bed, which is becoming a scrapbook of wintering over with boxers.

Then the chenille pillow I use to support my back while reading in bed:

On to the futon in my studio where Billy sleeps after he's done his warm-up exercises on our bed:

While in the studio, I felt suffocated by the piles of fabric--even though I have not brought in any fabric for well over a year. I listened to a Radio Lab program about the brain and blew my way through each and every piece. I got rid of two large bags that will go to some hapless Freecycler. And more important, I uprooted masses of stink bugs, who seem to have an affinity for woven stripes. Now I don't feel suffocated, I feel inspired.

Which lead me to my Jewelled Kilim quilt of last summer. I finally put on the binding...

And wove some bases for new pillows to go with my Gridlock cloth:

.And because one organizing leads to another, I cleaned my bulletin board, the better to showcase the collage that Thing One made me for Mother's Day years ago: "Mom is like a good friend who knows a lot about Stuff." Hallmark couldn't have said it better.

And I finally hung the tree upon which grows tiny beaded Indian people.

It started with the small cow head at the top, which is beaded around some sort of vertebra. (Are you paying attention, Saskia?)I found it in a suitcase at a flea market, which cost me 25 cents. Himself decided I need to collect something besides bags of trash of his Stuff to take to the Thrift Shop and so over the years,the cow got some friends.This is how it starts...because then the collection needs a home and the home needs a wall...and the wall needs a room (sing to the tune of "The Green Grass Grows All Around All Around...)

So its raining and the cold is comin' round the corner once again. But inside, Winter Camp is comin' down. At least in our hearts.