windthread

experiment Ignore This

lierrekeith.com/vegmyth.htm

a good thing.

It's a good thing      that circumstance has not allowed me to name things.  i change too much.  Naming changes for me.  Tonight, just now, really, i was out watering the tomato plants and as she does, Magic caught my attention.  She  was standing off to the side.  Everyone else was wolfing down the Kochia i'd thrown in, but she was just watching.  Near the gate.  So, i spoke to her in quiet sounds, not to attract the attention of the others and she came...because she

notices things.

and i let her out.  And there she flew and spun and twirled and whirled and flew and spun.  The dogs ran with her.  She led them.   Until her mother came to the fence and said something and she spoke back and i captured her and let her back in where she and everyone else pretended nothing at all unusual had happened.

so...i am thinking a lot, almost constantly, about that thing of Kas Limaal that i found in Lierre Keith's book...The Vegetarian Myth.  Food Justice and Sustainability

Kas Limaal, a concept given to her from a Mayan Elder.  " Mutual indebtedness, mutual insparkedness.  the knowledge that every animal, plant, person, wind and season is indebted to the fruit of everything else"

and i would change this little goat's name.  Tonight her name is Kas Limaal.  (but she answers to Magic)

my friend Jane will be here Tuesday.  From Alaska.  Tuesday to Friday.  my daughter Jenny will be here.  Tuesday through Thursday.  my history and my present all in one place.  Jane and i have been friends since we were 16 and 17.  we were close by when our children were young.  we have kept close, all the years since, even though seperated by long distances.    So,  to have my  "before" and my "now" all within the same days will be Something.  My guess is that we won't probably do this again.   And there has been the urge to kind of..uhhh, spruce up.  I'd had plans to repaint the bathroom, finally tile the kitchen floor.  Things like that.  Just the Usual that regular people do.  But...what has happened instead is that i worked on the Noragi and then,  knew i would at least need to Look at cloth,  spent considerable time pinning things on the wall.  Standing.  Looking. 

And i brought the fold up bed in from the Albatros shed.  moved things around in the ROOM.  and in doing this, i realized that i very much could use a

cloth

for company.   I don't normally Have company.  But here i am.   and then in July and then in September,  the not quite 3 year old SunnyDay/DarkNight (Julian) greatgrandson will use this bed. So, hey ho.

 

 

 

 

a love story ~ a woman and her noragi

I had mentioned a few times, my beloved heavy duty hooded zipup sweatshirt.  Of all the articles of clothing i own, this is to me,  really, the most important.  During a lot of the year, it goes over a thinner one and in the winter months maybe 2.  It is my work jacket.  It's hood is perfect, big enough to allow free movement, but just right to not be sliding off.   Last winter i replaced the heavy duty metal zipper.  But, the inner sleeves and both cuffs are worn.

There are a few other places, small, where there is significant wear.  But, for being some years old, and a Thrift Shop find to begin with,  it's quite strong.   I spend some time in the last days looking long at the photographs in that catalog for the Sri exhibit at the Portland Japanese Garden 2011,  Mottainai:  The Fabric of Life    Lessons in Frugality from Traditional Japan.  I looked through the book start to finish several times and lingered long on the photographs of the boro noragi, the work jacket.   Trying to create images in my mind of a woman to whom it might belong, trying to "watch" her as she went through her day.   Something about it just touches something deep in me.  I can't imagine anything more beautiful than this jacket.

So...here we have it.  The beginning of mine.  Right now, not much, really.  but being such a strong thing, i know it can go on as long as i choose to continue...years. 

One cuff,  the inner seam of one sleeve.  Now the other to go.

Something about this feels so Important.  So Significant.  Like some kind of Promise being made.

and then, i was whining in the last post about shade trees and to be sure not to misrepresent this Place,  there ARE trees left.  None are the really big ones that DID grow and then were lost for whatever their own reasons were.  But

beyond the picnic table you can see the latest effort...a second summer young cottonwood.  If it takes, it will provide more shade than anyone could imagine.

and here by the buck pen,  it's sister tree, up against the skeleton of Willow Boy, a beautiful globe willow that was killed by beetles a few years ago.

and there ARE trees in the "house yard"...small but provide shade.

and i tried to take pics of the goats but they were too uncooperative and little Sunny Ray kept trying to eat my hair and no one would stand still for one single minute.   My very old friend Jane is coming on Tuesday from Alaska.  Daughter Jenny will be here in the same days to get some of the does and babies ready to take to the Nigerian Dwarf Goat Show at the fairgrounds in Albuquerque.  I will assign Jane as the photographer and there should be some good pics then.  but in the meantime,  the bucks

beloved Tenzen

the young one, BuckWheat.  notice his stockings...need to get a better pic.

and oh so Beauty Full Gideon, who just as i snapped the pic, noticed a hummingbird overhead.

so, here we are.  Solstice 2012.

 

 

neither here nor there

a funny, as in odd week.  i don't know why.  just out of focus, off balance.  just some.  ok, but just ok.

the grown goats would like more attention.  they would like it if i sat with them.  scratching.  talking.  they wished for that.

the young ones are busy learning.  this is Inky and his brother Darth Vader (just what i call them, not a name they will remain with). 

Sunny Ray, nibbling his sister,  Cinderella's chin.  practicing saying things to her that will, he's thinking, be useful in the future.  Goats are very verbal.  the exchanges between buck goats and does are almost startling unless you have heard them before.  the bucks have an extremely wide array of verbal exchanges that all the goats,  even the mature does understand.  it's, ummmm, really amazing to say the least.  so all that has begun.  and, as i watch and listen, i am also knowing that it is to no avail.  as soon as the daughter comes back again, they will all begin the process of being neutered,  the bucks...small rings clamped around their testicles which over a period of days, wither and drop off.  hmmmm.  so all this busyness is really for naught.  and i watch Cinderella and Magic, in their doe~ness receiving all this attention (well, the brothers to brother, too) but i think about Cinderella and Magic.  in another one to two months they Could be bred.  in goat world, life does not hesitate.  particularly with Nigerian Dwarves.  in their world of origin, they are prey to lion, cheetah, hyeena. 

and i began the first, really, boro work. 

this is one of the original hose dresses.  jumper.  it has been with me since my kids were little. so 30 some years.  it has worn so thin here...like a hanky, and once i began stitching, it became like gauze.

i cut slits so i could weave other cloth in.  and did.

it ended up feeling....bizzy.   the other side is as worn, but i am working that differently.  which do i like the most?  which is most efficient to sustain the integrity of the fabric? 

thinking a lot about the conversation of Deb G over in the Boro 2 workshop.  as in,  What if this were All i had and i needed to maintain it.

Thinking.

and during all this, the sunflowers have begun to bloom.  they are a mix of wild sunflower and the Zulu Prince that i used to plant.  this year, there are many.  strong.  really strong.  and i have been thinking about trees.  shade trees.  all the trees i have planted and that have grown and then died for yearly reasons.  some, insects.  some that harsh winter.  but to grow a shade tree is not nothing here.  and again, i am thinking about sustain  ability.  i watched Valerianna's video...her forest and i longed for just one tree this week.  just one.

 

 

 

ok, and so..............What If i....................

ok.  What if i just go.  what if i just follow that urge to strengthen the placket...oh...i don't like that word for some reason.  what if i just strengthen the button thingys on either side.  weight them.

yes.  weight them.  they are really "strong" enough.  as is.  but they are not "weighted".  whatever that means.

i had to work today..away...and before i left i did this pinning.........

i could barely wait till i got back home to look at it.  but then, could JUST look, as the refrigerater is almost totally dead and a new one (or, new to me) is going to be delivered tomorrow and i needed to Do Things to make that possible......and then the goats were yelling...HEY, OLD NANA, HEY, you in the denim jumper.........!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  so i did goat stuff until they were satisfied.

but then...back to this.  WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?, i am wondering??????????????????

 

what we put on our bodies (clothing)

this is reference to Jude's Boro 2 workshop.    i don't know if i'm totally up to this this evening, but...

looking at her posts, looking at all the incredible posts of Others in the workshop, i have been thinking deeply about what cloth i put on my body and why...AND... why Not.....  it 's not at all over and i am surprised with what has arisen so far.  Body Cloth...clothing.  Impressions come from so long ago, remembering when is was a child, in grade school,  with only a few things that felt like "me", and the more worn they got, the better.  then early adolescence when you just wanted to "fit".  through high school when NOTHING was right and then the flying free of early adulthood when clothing was a STATEMENT on into a long period of time when clothing i wore was really, i hate to admit it, was to elicit a response.  but/and again, making a Statement.  my clothes talked.  they talked about who i was at that time.  Come Near, or, Stay Away  was the message. 

All my clothes, except for the early adolescent, i have loved.  all the ways i have "dressed", which could mean, all the costumes i have worn, i have loved.

(ok, grace, cut to the chase)

and here i am.  66 years old.  all this behind me.  ok.  so....Who Am I Now?  really.  How does what i wear, wrap my body in, speak to this.  and most IMPORTANTLY, to whom....does it speak?

for reasons,  in the last some years, i have i think i realize now, made an effort to be non existent.  well, i guess really, it was a style, but not one that would attract any attention. 

this workshop has brought into the present so much and i find myself really ambivilent.  do i create something that Pleases me deeply, but also might cause uhhhhh, Notice?  Thinking.

and then...things that Please me Deeply can also be things that are so functional with the way i live...which is called LifeStyle.

so, here.  the first.  the Goat Shirt.  it's not finished.  things will go on the Inside of it...remain hidden to the eyes of others, but that i will know are there.  WHAT AM I DOING WITH THIS???  don't know.  we'll see.  but here.  the first:

from the Thrift Shop.  shirt.  56% rayon, 29%cotton, 19% linen.  made in Sri Lanka.  when i brought it home and for a really long time, it was white with a kind of greenish strip and the dark line stripe and i referred to it as like an awning.  but i loved how it FELT when i tried it on, but could not deal with it's awning~ness...stripped~ness.  so it sat.  waiting to probably be cut up for small fragments somewhere, but also for SO long, NOT cut up.  Just sitting.  the other day, an onion skin pot out there and....there it went and what a surprise!...a really beautiful color that has completely taken me in and the pics here don't really capture it, but it's .....Amber????, an Apricot????  i don't know but the color was driving me crazy, thinking about it and how the onion skins muted the green stripe to some kind of beautiful greygreen shadow that was suddenly SUBTLE and the dark line was now ok.  just very ok.   so...it's now the Goat Shirt.

it didn't take they dye evenly.  it's most evident here, but it's all over the shirt.

took off all the faux wood buttons.  Kantha with a pale but vibrant blue thread down the uhhh, plackets???the button and buttonhole things...disappearing the buttonholes.  i made a very large blue thread buttonhole.  forgot a pic of that.

a most loved button that has gone from thing to thing over maybe 40 years?

the breast pocket.  i like that term.  now it has a goat's eye.

and here.  if i need to run out in the night, in a hurry,  and wander around, making sure things are ok and it's cool, like it gets in the desert....the perfect shirt.  one button takes care of covering all that is necessary to cover

and What If,  i want to wear it as a jacket shirt over one of the jumpers?  like to the store, or the post office?  i Could.

and as i am stitching, thinking about ALL this, my attention is drawn to the right, the West, where Sun is heading again for the Rim and where just to see what would happen, i have hung the Diaries Cloth...........and oh Jeez.  look!

the light is coming through and it's that SAME amber color and i go out and look, and yes, it's true.  it's the color of the goats eyes.  amber. 

amber.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

looking for words

i wanted to say some things.  then, i thought i wouldn't.  but now i am. 

Looking for words.   Telling.

there's something about Telling.  Telling how it is for  "you" which, would be me,  in this case.    So, i had thought, during all the set up for the goats coming,  i had thought about the probable fact that this ecosystem would change.  but i had thought that there would be some kind of disturbance.  that stuff out there would be startled by 12 and now 17 sentient beings that take significant PLACE by being here.   and i knew that it would change me.  change how i experience a day, any day, every day.

and...interestingly enough,  things are, i guess, Evolving.  Changing, Taking In, Just Going ....in such  surprisingly wonder Full ways.  Today,  i set my mind to dealing MYSELF with the swamp cooler.  it's the SouthWest air conditioning.  it's a box attached to your home that has water connected to it through a small tube system from an outdoor faucet.  the water enters and through plastic spigots, sprays down on 3 or 4 walls of the box that hold pads, made of shredded aspen.  then, there is a whirring motor that turns and tries to dry the pads, thereby creating cool air that flows into your home.  i have lived years, off and on without.  just sweated through parts of days.  but daughter Jenny has a different biology than i and becomes, uhhh, flattened with excessive heat.  So, for the days she comes here, i needed to get it working.  i sweated and struggled and got it all apart and went to the hardware store with the non functioning parts and came home with the hopefully functioning parts and sweated some more trying to put it all back together. 

and Why i am telling this here,  is that, really, it's all about ....guess what?.....Mending.  it 's all about everything i've learned about Cloth.  what doesn't work, you cut out, or go over.  all it ever takes is just looking...thinking....doing....just going.  THIS IS AMAZING TO ME.

so, i DID get the cooler going.  what was over 100 degrees in here is now pleasantly....warm.  AND I DID IT MYSELF.  silently, looking, thinking, just going.  one moment to the next.  done.

and then, the goats were calling.  i am trying to cut their feed a little at a time.  they don't need so much, maybe.  but it's a big MAYBE.  and they called me.  and as i went out and pulled Kochia weed to fling over to them,  a little every day to accomodate their transition from alfalfa,  i watered things.  which is a trip in itself and as i watered things,  i saw:

that the bindweed is blooming Everywhere......because i don't have time to pull it.

and there is ORANGE mallow again!

and the grapes are coming!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  oh eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

and as i hauled wheelbarrows full of manure from one raised bed to a different one, because i haven't had time to plant in the Usual Way,  i heard a cicada.  Chicharra, in spanish.  one full month ahead, at least and i followed her sound and there she was on the young locust tree.  i didn't take her picture because also interested in her was one of the Mocking Birds that nest in the Elderberry.

but then, looking down...........oh LO and BEHOLD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

like a kiss on the forehead from a God Thing....oh and oh and just oh...............this so very SMALL so very NEW so very perfect Praying Mantis.  and again, like the Walking Stick, if there is one,  there are many. 

I take this as a blessing.  I take this as affirmation of good effort, though, faltering sometimes, though not really knowing anything at all.  I take these things as confirmation of the Law of Just Going.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

moments

there are 7 of these.

Jude's lizard

like a deal with the devil

i'd made a deal with my self that i couldn't post anything here until i finished that left panel of Kantha.

and that stitching needed to occur between the daughter arriving and then a lot of Goat Stuff.  but... here.  it's finished.

this is what the bottom of the left panel looked like yesterday morning.  you can see how much slack there is from the extended kantha.  like the ruffle on Mo'a's apron.

here's how it ended up.  it's uhhhh, got that xcess, but i don't really mind it.  i probably won't do anything to disguise that. 

 

and the thread.  it is quite secure.  so will remain as is.

i am really really happy with where i am with where the Cloth is.  now, i can slowly, as it goes, work on the center.  stitching down and maybe adding somethings or maybe not. 

but i want to spend some time for a while working on a few things for the Boro 2 class.  and i have some dye pots going out there, making some interesting colors.  so that too.