windthread

Oak trees

wrist better.  Stitching again.  Oak.  leaves.  Sheltering

how it is

After  the Master Gardner's Plant Sale,   we set off to a nursery near Daughter's apartment in Chico.  Actually,  just around the corner.   Little Red Hen Nursery in search of Native Lilac.  The Master Gardners had started some,  had them going,  but then they were forgotten with watering and alas,  none for sale.  There were none at Little Red Hen either but we wandered and i was so smiling.   Jenny says she cannot grow a thing.  Nothing.  a flat statement.  as if OVER.   But to see her in the midst of Plants,  both places is such a wonder.  She is all glowey and soft and pink cheeked,  just so Happy. Aren't we interesting??????

so we got this Pomegranate

 

 

and another Fig

 

she wanted these daisys f or Alyssia.   They are annuals,  but she wanted them for Alyssia.

 

and here again,   the pic that was lost yesterday.   Here,  in the middle of grasslands,  no human habitat.  Along the shoulder of the road.  Walnut trees.  prolific.   How just so amazing is this?   It means so much.  

an Excellent, Extraordinary, Beauty Full Day

 

 

 

the pics uploaded outof order,  so you will need to rearrange them.  But I am driving to the Master Gardener's Plant Sale in Durham.   Using my PAPER  AAA Road map that i got last Thursday.  A PAPER map!   i drew the route with a pencil.  Was going to check it out with Alyssia but there was no time.  I was on my own.   So I drove.  Through vast area of grasslands,  no humans.  and occasionally,  a stand of trees along side of the highway.

I see i've lost a pic somehow.  Oh well...imagine a stand of trees along the roadside.  Then we skip to the second to last pic...

BRAIN clicks and says LOOK!   They are Walnut trees!!!!!   There are MANY Walnuts!!!  but i need to get to the plant sale by 10 am.  so i go.  

 

i meet Jenny there and we are so overwhelmed with possibilities.  Choose some and are ready to return to the Hill and she says she will take me the fastest way back...i should follow her.  But NO...what about the walnuts?  So we go my not so fast way back and

 

a Grocery Bag FULL.   I am so Happy,  there are no words.  Out there in the middle of nowhere there are walnut trees withe walnuts galore.  When passing them on the way there i yelled   JOANNE!   She has been bereft without the prospect of a single walnut and here...walnuts galore!  I was so happy for her,  i couldn't wait and phoned her in Maine....may i speak to Joanne? i asked....WALNUTS!

the day went on and we brought home all from the Plant Sale and that's another day and then as we were eating crispy tacos we noticed that Caroline was "flagging" at Nogal's fence,  he was beside himself with buckthings and so we let her IN and Lo and Behold,   it happened and we wrote it on the calendar...more about that later  but it was really a so great day

iteration

maybe # 3.   

 

more erasing.  maybe # 4 or 5

 

let it go for now.

From Acey's   WORK....Alchemical Ritual.l   Sparkling Lotus Ink  10-15 post

"the idea of choices in self-presentation being  important"

"How i was choosing to be seen by all the other species here on this small piece of land where i live."

the whole drawing took moments but then.   I sat.  looking and began to erase.  Erase,  Erase  Erase.  The FACE.  Wanting to make an OLD FACE and it just wouldn't happen but then i got close but it got lost and at one point as in pic 2,  i just wanted to take the face away.

FACE.

the feet don't bother me.  they're not right,  but they don't bother me...they somehow suggest movement and it's just OK.  That left hand doesn't bother me,  it's presenting a question,  but that's ok too.

it's the FACE.  I erased it a million times,  trying to get to something that seemed Real and couldn't.    I thought for a long time about what a face is when we are looking inside of it...as in Out Through it...a mask kind of?    A face is what carries the equipment  for the going.  Eyes,  nose,  mouth...this is the face i am trying to get to...the one that carries the equipment

a common native shrub...Toyon

 

there is a lot of it here,  everywhere and used along highways and freeways ...with its deep roots and drought tolerance, for slope stabilization and erosion control.   It is MAGIC in the variety of colors it assumes in this season and the patterning of those colors.  Enlarge them.  In the first,  that thin green line,  so much greener in person and the second pic,  wearing a feather from  my old feather duster that evidently Puppy found down there at B,  the green at the very top tip and then at the edge of the bottom almost a metallic aqua....i can't get it here.

Alyssia and the kids are gone to San Diego for 4 days or so,  so my battery power is limited.  I will need to conserve.  Might not get to reply to comments until Tuesday.  

 

free

 up,  above Alyssia's hood.   See her?   in the branches?  

Talkie.  

They were here later than usual,  getting dark,  and Talkie,  muttering her chicken things outside and i happened to look and NOTICE  her in the Morning Tree,  out...out the branch over Alyssia's car.  The evening before,  when Alyssia went to put Emrie in her car seat,   Talkie was already there.  IN the car seat.  The door had been left open and then closed and in the middle of that Talkie had settled into the car seat.  She did NOT want to come out.  Was PUT out but immediately fluttered in again.  Got put out again.  As they drove down the Hill,  she came to this screen door and battered against...at first i thought it must be Tay  doing something crazy and i yelled at her to stop but when i got up to look,  it was Talkie,  wanting to come  IN.

so,  here she was.  In the branches of the Morning Tree.  We called to her,  tried to lure her down with crackers.  No.  She stayed put.

 

i got up off and on during the night to go out to look,  and she was still there.  Quiet and Still how chickens get at night,  resting on a Y branch.    I got up before dawn and watched through the Morning Window and as it became light,  i could see her form,  still there,  exactly.  There has been OWLS again.   2,  calling back and forth in the night and i didn't know about that.  What they might think of a chicken on a branch.

over the weekend we had talked as we worked,  wondering where exactly Talkie slept.  I kept saying i didn't know.  So maybe she was responding to that.  HERE.   On a branch.  But never before in the Morning Tree.

We talk of getting more chickens.  She hears this too.  Both for ourselves,  eggs,  and for her,  Beings of her species.  Goats and a dog and cat are one thing.  Others of one's own species might be welcome?    We had originally gotten 4 chicks.  Talkie made it.  If we get more,  we would re do the Chicken Palace to keep them IN.  We say we would not name them.  They would be the Egg Ladies.  (not)     We have been cavalier with Talkie and Talkie has been an unusual chicken,  a FREE RANGE to the Enth Degree Chicken,  but how    far do you go with that?    

just now,  as dark came,  she went up again.  This time even higher.  

 

a way to love

 

 

they built this when they knew we were coming.  We arrived in December.   Rain.   Desert Goats,  desert old woman.  So they built it.   Up until a week ago it had a tarp for a roof.   The roof materials came and went on.  A gallon of heavy duty preservative paint sat here.  Everyone was nervous about the color.   The old nana is sensitive to color.  they were...eee......

but the wood needed to be preserved and parts were built with some kind of paneling.   I painted this half yesterday.  Today the other two sides.  It began yesterday as some kind of gesture of Love in response to being in Paradise.   Some kind of gesture of caring for things,  for our constructions as humans...we are forever building constructions for stuff.  Here....there's this.  For the Doe Goats.  we fill it with straw next month and then again in mid Rain season,  so they are as comfortable as they can be.  It's never too cold here.  Less cold than in the desert of New Mex.  There's never snow.  It doesn't freeze.  But there is that RAIN that sometimes goes days on end and Goats do not love Rain.  

in this pic,  Rain will come in from that end at the left.  We'll  put some kind of awning over that opening to roll up and let down.  Probably canvas.   The far wall can be open.   The far end on the right where  they come in/out,  open.  This full side...maybe an awning here too.  Probably.   But it's all configured because of Love for them.   How can we help them be at Ease.   All the rest of the year they sleep Out,  somewhere near the feed structure.   Now Rain comes.  We will be Lucky,  really,  that Rain comes.  

and the color is very ok.   There is a sigh of relief.   We are all ok about the color.   I had looked yesterday about structures of the Maidu First Peoples here in the Sierra Foothills.  They didn't have Goats.  But they made structures for their needs...kinds of grainaries  to store the acorns.  Shelters for themselves.   Cedar boughs.   Willow.  That was up near Rocklin.  I'm not sure here,  am looking to know.  We go to Home Depot.  

 

 

 

?

i came away with a pear,  an oak gall,  a smudge stick that children had made.  2 pods of Love in the Mist,  seeds inside.

 

 

everything was free.  The food tent,  4 things,  one gluten free,  2 vegetarian,  1 pork.  I got some of each.  You got your plate and fork and moved along,  filling your plate however you wished.  When it was gone,  you took your plate and utensil and stood in line to wash them.  You washed your plate.  set it to dry for someone else.  All the plates,  nicely set to dry, all the PLATES.  All the Forks,  used,  washed,  set to dry,  used again  over and over.

 

we sat.  on the ground.  ate.  just over the way people sang .  Emrie leaned into Alyssia,  who made a little movie for Emries father.  She leaned into Alyssia and sang along with the performing person,  when their voice rose high,  hers did too,   She sang.  Un Self Conscious

I don't know what i want to say.  the day was subdued.  as it should have been.  Work was going on amidst what i say here.  It's a work week.    We stayed till 4 something and Rising Appalachia hadn't gotten there.  They'd been at Berkley.  Maybe the fire there?  But it was ok because of how it was.  Soft.  Quiet.  

we had to park over and across the road.  walk in.  Going back,  we really SAW where we were.  Down a short road.  On either side,  chain link fence demarking homesteads scraped to deep dirt.   Many.  a world of chain link.  repeating and repeating.

On the way up,  there was a point when there was a FLOOD of feeling,  just coming....a flood of feeling and me,  the Cry not Cry person ....cried.  Tears.   At that point it wasn't anything about what i KNOW about what happened,  but simply from what rose from the land...an energy of Great Grief.  I don't want to give words to it.   I don't know enough.   And then,  there,  walking back to where we parked.   I don't know what to say about it there.  The trees.  many burned.  Maybe the word burn scar?  Maybe a sense of being wounded.   ?

i need to go again.  It's more,  so much more than i had ever imagined and i have no idea what it might mean,  or can mean....

touched and touching

Alyssia, Julian,  Emrie,  Tay and i went today to

Paradise

it was a Celebration of the Permacuture Restoration Camp Week.

I'd not yet gone to Paradise.  It will be a year,  November 8.

about a half hour away.  We took two vehicles so i would get the route imprinted by driving,  Tay and i alone.   It's UP,  that drive,  people from up there call people here Flatlanders.   I understood.  I'll talk about it tomorrow i think.  Trees.   That's all that is in my mind.  Trees.  

the Cloth.  before i left,  i began the Trees.   When i resume,  tomorrow,  or whenever,  it will be different.  When i drove back,  it was different.  Arriving at this Hill,  the Hill was different.   Or,  maybe all is the same and my View is different?  But that's for tomorrow.  Tonight,  right now,  i watch the Sun set through the trees.  Go click on  Zoe Keating on the side bar.  Listen  and watch the Sun set through so so many branches holding hands

 

 

the body of Foothill Pine

often splits into two,  sometimes 3.   This one easily 80 ft tall.  Branches swooping up and down and both,  the same branch.  They sing.  Those pineapple sized cones contain nuts,  hard to get to and very hard shelled.  Same as pinion in New Mex,  but those you can crack with your teeth.  These,  pliers.  A staple in the diet of the First People.