windthread

what do things mean. ???. ...

 

She is about to bloom.  For sure,  then,  we will know her  "name".   But when you "google" her,  there's not much information.  In comparison to what she really IS...living near her.  As i type this,  her scent rises from my hands....a soft brief touch when i was giving water,  and her scent lingers,  strong,  an hour later.   And if i say, yes.  this is "what" this plant person "is".  What does that actually mean?   I guess,  it is a way to communicate.  a way to exchange information.   Like to Like.   Across distance.   This Hill to say,  Jaimie's world.    But it's not ALL of it.   All of it requires learning a very expansive   context.  A complicated context that takes very soft, slow looking.   A soft slow being with.

so there's that.

and then i thought today a lot about what things mean in terms of where i've "gotten to".   All the places i had thought i wanted to go,  could go.   Again,  Jaime's link took me to Susun Weed and back back back to so long ago now,  to when i thought i wanted to be a midwife.   How i read Susun Weed's  work,  Ina May Gaskin's Spiritual Midwifery,  both of them making me want to "become" something...a midwife with knowledge of the  Plant People.  I ddn't.

and i have wanted to be other things.  I wanted to be an artist.  I studied with Kay Gould Caskey.  Graphite.    I drew a lot of things,  but i didn't become an artist.

I wanted to become an artist of Cloth Making.  I studied Jude Hill,  and have made cloth.  I have not become a Cloth Artist.  I am a student of Jude Hill.

so i thought about all this today as i wandered around,  calling Goats....Come Come...in a bright voice that they like and respond to...Come Come and i wander a hill and late in the afternoon stitch yet more Kantha stitches,  slow slow they go and i thought about how i'd wanted to go sit in front of that Plant Person with my drawing journal and pencil and

it's dusk.  The Goats are just over the way,  browsing what is left from other browsing....evening and they don't like to go far from "home",  so it's dry leaves and twigs.    I guess i am a Goatherd.    and i guess i am a grandmother.  Julian returns tomorrow from New Jersey,  his summer in the City and i will swim with him in the canal/creek.

 

who would have guessed

not me.  I went off to the Farmer's Market.  Jenny and Alyssia had arrived before 7am.  No indication of anything.  We walked the part of the fence that was loose.  Talked.  Nothing out of the ordinary.  Tay and i left for town and the Market.  But in the short time i was gone

Much.

i got a blow by blow from them on return and repeated and rerun because it was such a Surprise.  

Seems as if there is a HERD of Goats here.  Maybe it's their new, week long, freedom?  Maybe who knows.   

But it seems that Ginger, in the pic above, on the left,  had made a decision.  And went about implementing that decision.  Which meant a lot of challenging,  a lot of head butting...HARD..like really hard.  A lot of body slamming if the head butting wasn't enough.  There was even biting.  Oona is on the right in the pic.  Really,  the one that might challenge anyone.  She is a hefty Goat.  She is from Snowbunny.   But it was Ginger,  the slight Goat,  that took the challenge.    Maybe it was because yesterday there was a chicken taking the lead?  

it's approaching dusk and it's still going on.  Ginger is alert,  watching.  

and all this means that each of them would need to find a new place in the herd.   But it's a good thing and it's Timely.  Someone needs to lead.  It will help us,  all the way around if someone has taken the lead.  And Ginger would be good.  She is very people responsive but also very herd oriented.  So now we just watch.   

SUNDAY.   I thought i'd tapped publish last night but i didn't and it's just as well.  Today is like any other day.  Whatever happened yesterday was not evident at all.  Calm.   So, i have no idea what if anything will happen next.  One thing tho.  

Talkie, the chicken has so far spent her Goat time in the buck forests.  Today, she was with the does,  whether in or out of their area.  ???  Maybe it still somehow has something to do with Talkie?

Day was spent with everyone working to clear the Goat Boat of tools etc.  The metal shelving along the outside of it. *   It's all organized now in the Moveable Shed over in the aborted buck forest between A and the hill down to B.   Goat Boat is poised.  Empty.  Clear.  Ready.    Jenny brought a wind chime,  hung it in the Morning Tree outside the Travel Trailer.  Beside the aesthetics,  it is a way to understand even slight Wind currents.   We think of both Wind and Solar energy.  I have been assigned the task of tracking shade across the expanse of the Meadow at A.   Shade meaning when surrounding trees cast their shadows.  I will do this hour by hour.  Keep a written record.    More Kantha stitching.   It's so slow.  But things i see for the Cloth change.  In my mind,  it is so different than when it began.  While giving water in the Wall Garden i ate several radish seed pods,  a fig,  2 strawberries and an Asian Pear.

*shelving that was in my bedroom in The Other Place,  shelving that held cloth.

 

 

the lead. seeking community

What if?  What if because of being Only One,  you decided to weave yourself in?  and What if they didn't mind?  And you became the Lead?  Talkie.  a Chicken.  a single Chicken became a part of the herd this morning.  Not just a part of the herd,  but the one that went Ahead.  First.  With Goats,  someone always needs to go first.  and with this herd,  first is always up for grabs.  Talkie took it.  She also lays one egg a day.

Yes. Very much, yes.

an hour and a half of constant commentary.  No chit chat.  We walked.  He wanted to begin at the highest point.  That would be at the far top C.   and we wove back and forth,  looking,  noticing,  him talking,   us listening.  He asked many questions about our hopes,  our imagined use.  our imagined needs.  He asked what we had seen so far,  what we had understood from the land so far.  and he wove that into what he was seeing today.  He's very knowledgeable.  Very.  Knows his stuff.  and more,  Loves his stuff.   He sees the immediate and envisions the future.  He was Great.  really Great.   He will draw it all up,  a map of the land,  how he envisions permaculture practices on this map.  Will get it to us soon.  What we found out beside all that we didn't know,  was that our own knowledge base is solid.  That we have done our homework,  especially daughter Jenny.  That our intuitions are good,  especially Alyssia.    It was great.

i'll let it all soak in for a while and little bits will float to the top.  But just easy in the moment was his happiness about how the Earth here just takes pleasure in growing mushrooms...JULIE.. how everywhere,  there are these Turkey Tail mushrooms....Extremely Medicinal....he talked about using the cut or spontaneously downed Oak to innoculate with Shiitake.  Saying this in itself could support a lot.   I smile.  Ever since reading Julie's experience,  i had wondered.  Yes. Mushrooms.

On walking up the drive/road we saw a very young small slender snake,  very small.  Earthworm size,  but longer...it was dead and the yellow jackets were doing their work .   I went back late and found it again.  Brought it in.

Giving Water tonight,  there was yet another color tree frog and 3 Oh SO SMALL lizards.

and Emrie,  who likes to be the center of Everything,  was totally silent through it all.  Alyssia or Jenny carried her.  She was attentive.  She listened.  As if she knows that all that was being talked about,  all that was being Imagined would become hers and she needed to know.

 

 

 

 

Anticipating

almost Dark.  3 kinds of   "spring peepers",  tree frogs in the Wall Garden.    Kinds,  meaning coloring.  One copper bronze with a VERY dark stripe at the eye.  A brown green spotted one.  and then a Bright orangeish.  All the same body.  Just the difference in coloring.  

Still,  enough Kale for sharing.  

Beets have the feeling/sense that they are nearing completion.  Nothing that i see that says that...just the feeling.  Which lends to the understanding that it's time to plant again.   A whole other Round to go.

now, it IS dark.  just in these few sentences.  and tomorrow...OH, tomorrow.  The Permaculture Guys.  9 am.