windthread

wonder about Oak

this is understandable.   It was old (?)   or   diseased?   but it fell  with the weight of it's wetness during Winter Rain.   Easy to see that all its interior was already transitioning by decomposition.   Wind broke it.

 

but then....this.   These Oaks have multiple trunks rising from the same Earth Body.   This is how Oaks are here.   With this one,  two of the trunks remain and appear totally viable.  Two had broken off at the base of Earth.   

 

they appear to be healthy.  The wood is solid and hard.   But they broke off.    We stand.  Over and over,  there,   asking aloud the same questions over and over,   going over and over what we "know",  about why trees fall and we are left Wondering.   Maybe that's how it will always be.   Jenny wanted to clear the path.   They had fallen on our best path from B down to A....across the Goat Path there.   She and her man worked.    quietly.   She has feelings about all this.   Her love for this Hill is more than i might ever know.   It's fluid tho,  i am finding out.   She is Fluid,  i am finding out.   We learn even tho we don't know what we are learning.   Earth is Love

Sunny

it's too long a story.   It was harrowing.   No clutch on the way UP and DOWN and then over.   Last Saturday.   But more than that kind of harrowing,   the high anxiety i put self through  the following Sun  Mon  and Tues  over dreading asking the mechanic down at the corner,   the truly GREAT mechanic down at the corner who only wants to work on diesel and who said NO to working on the Honda Car?    Who DID work on Sunny last year...remember?  And since,  Sunny has run like new.   1983 just like New.   until last Saturday.   I knew,  of course,  there was only one course of action and that that course of action was a REQUIREMENT.  period.   I had to ask him and if he said no,  then...no.  and i would have to figure something else out.   No wiggle room with any of this.   So i went.  Wednesday and stood in front of his counter that is so high i almost don't see over and stood,  waiting for him to come through the door from the actual shop.   i asked.  he said    Get her here and we'll look.  i asked for a towing referral.  he gave it.

LOOOOOOOOOOOng story short.   He came.   His tow truck was enormous.  I said i didn't think it would work.  He said lets go look.  We walked up.   He somehow got the gear into neutral and coasted backward down the hill.   Loaded and delivered.   An incredibly good natured young man with a cud of sunflower seeds in his cheek.   We wait now.   Sunny is there tonight,  with all the giant shiny diesels.   Blessed Be 

I really WANT.   really WANT   these two old vehicles,   this truck and the 1986 honda car to      LAST.   As long as me.  Me and them.  Just Some more years.   

 

 

love takes a lot of time

this is the pic i lost.   see below

this would be next...it's flowering now,  there is a very subtle powdery  fragrance like you might imagine in a victorian lady's budoir.   The flowering clusters are round.   The flowers themselves at first look simple...how they have looked to me the first year,  last year and this year up until today

 

standing at the distance that i normally stand from this bush/shrub,  the flowers are just small balls...like on the snowball bush back in Michigan.   Not any more.  There is what i might call the primary flower and then these wonder Full  Dr.Seuss flipper petals that make them quite exotic,  more like a  million of tiny orchids.   So....these were what i had in mind at the beginning of the day of searching to identify.  To name.   But as the search went on and on to just more searching,  i learned more ....of the obvious....i needed to know about the leaves...their positioning,  their texture,  smooth or rough edged.  and then the form of the wooded  part,  the brush tree itself and specifically, the bark.

 

so i ran back down for the third time and was Amazed and what i had not seen.   LOOK at this!   Double click for sure...How Elegant.   and the lower,  older trunks..there are several to this one shrub,  even more so.  Typepad only allows me 5 pics.  I looked at a LOT of images Google found for me and finally,  at the near end of the day thought to find the copy of 

John Muir Laws    The Laws Field Guide to Sierra Nevada   that i'd gotten last year.   Which is not the Go To that i'd dreamed it would be...but then you can only fit so much in one book.  But Ta Da......

I SOMEHOW LOST A PIC HERE.   WILL see if i can add it back when i finish ...what a BUMMER

 

I think this is IT.     and I laughed...look at his illustration of the bloom clusters!   Duh.   but that little close up image,  with the fippers....and i ran down a 4th time,  and yes...old stems make sharp spines.  So i think we have a Chaparral Whitethorn.  OR at least Something in the ceanothus family.  There was no note of the great and facinating form of the trunks....i would think for sure that would be noted?????   

 

 

 

this is the Beauty Full bristol notebook that Acey sent during the 30 Days.   the image here is just a little nothing that i did to test the Inktense pencils at that time.   Am looking at it as maybe for the preliminary drawings.  OR,  if she likes it,  maybe a book instead of a big picture?   

ok...will go see if i can retrieve that pic.   

 

for Jenny's drawing

they begin as heart shaped.   There are hundreds.   The Goats do not eat them.

 

each cluster is attached to the earth by a kind of filament stem root

 

 

 

as time goes they begin to resemble lily pads.   She calls them the lily pad plant.

 

some develop a secondary small leaf under multiple blossoms.

Miner's lettuce.   Claytonia perfoliata       100 grams,  a modest salad,   contains a third of the daily requirement of Vit C,  22% Vit A and 10%  iron.   They are native here.   Self perpetuating.    Interesting again....Goats do not eat them.  so...i would assume too that deer would not.   January through February so far.  in Profusian.

choosing

i can choose.   Every day.   How i see and experience my life.   Many nuances from pragmatic to totally SURReAL.   All are valid.  All carry Truth.  Choose.   Choosing.

i sat here,  in this small house space last night a longtime.   For a while,  a dog barked in the distance,  repetatively.   Which means a dog tied or confined.   A dog sensing but unable to Find Out.   and i thought about sensing and finding out.   about choosing.    

and the dark became deeper.   I slid into the Surreal.   Where AM i?   How did i get here?  Where is Here?   What is that on the wall in front of me that i call Evolution?   What is Making?,  like,  really?   i got out the collage images of Acey's  30 days.  Looked.  I thought about the woven cloth OutSide,  hanging from trees from the early days of Jude.   I thought about the exchanges with Jenny that began when she was pushed,   finally,  from my body  FROM MY BODY,  this 40 something old human being that i MADE...inside myself,   then

pushed her out.

I read.  Over and over all the comments left here and was so grateful for them.   How reading them opened  different ways of seeing  

And i want to say THANK YOU,   from deep in my Heart for all of them.   Want to say how they validate the Purpose and USE of blogging to me,   how we come to know Each Other and have a Sense of the Other's lives and can

WEIGH IN

with so many eyes and hearts.  And how it is for ALL of Us.   All of Us.

Alyssia was here this eve and commented that in phone with Jenny,  that she said how Good a Day Sunday was.

This is Big.  Big enough so it blurs the lines.  That mark degrees from pragmatic to surreal.

Thank YOU

 

 

small accomplishments

got these two in the Shop.   Above,  the Magician's Cloth                                                                                                                                      Below,   her Skirt    

 

 

 

looked for the garden tool i thought i might have brought.  Didn't.  But did find these....the copper innards from the old Subaru radiator.    Funny what made its way and what didn't.   

test run of the two drip hoses in the Wall Garden.  Maybe more constant moisture might make a difference this time?    Made 2 batches of Alfalfa pellet Tea for the grapevines tomorrow.   Yesterday same for the Plumcot and Pear trees that Have survived the deer.   So far.  This will be their 3rd year.    Sat and stared at my mail in ballot....how it is done now here in Butte County.   It's been here for a week.  Today i finally opened it.

Sun day there's more, but later some time

i am here,   to make the Post for today and phone rings  (or whatever it is,  the sound,  of this cell phone)  and it's a California # i answered and it was a survey.  with a very tired sounding young woman wanting to ask me questions about the upcoming Vote.  As it went along,  and i let it go along because of how tired she sounded,   it became clear that it was information seeking for candidate Mike Bloomberg  who i have paid ZERO attention to  so it became complex,  my answers to her,  too many words i had and she would say,  i understand,  but then give me the possible answers list again and i'd pick one.  Got more vague as it went on.  We got to racial identification and i went on a while that though i am caucasian,  my entire family is not,  and so i do not identify with caucasian  and she said I understand and went on to the next quesion of education and then to income level

and i spent the day,  just Jenny and i,  she bringing the chain saw to work on the downed trees  and that's a whole story there,  that i seem too tired to go near,  but we worked to cut and stack branches so i can burn them in the burn barrels,  which are a whole OTHEr thing i'm too tired to give words to       And at some point,  i remembered Mo's suggestion and gestured with my lips like the Native People do in New Mex to the Daughter Quilt hanging there ....i said it was suggested that i ask her how she might want it finished.   She kept cutting and then said,  laughing,  You never finish anything.   But followed that with

You know what i would Really Like?..She would like a Drawing.   She gestured...maybe 2ft wide x 3 ft long,  or more, she said.  She'd like a DRAWING   of all the things we know on this Hill,   the trees,  plants,  birds,  insects,  reptiles,  mammals,  she wants their life cycles included as in the old Natural History drawings of flora and fauna.   That's what i'd Really Like she said.

My kids are blunt.   They are Honest.   I raised them that way.  So.   Here it is.   She followed up,  a few minutes later with...

That's what i'd Really like.

and there we have it.

we found a lot of Turkey Tail.   There's more to this.  but enough for now.     

I really love her.   And slowly,  so so slowly,  she's letting me.

 

 

unfinished

in reference to a post from Acey   Sparklinglotusink.typepad.com   Nichobella

The Daughter Cloth.    just after Jude's patchwork Beasts....Cloth Weaving....made of torn strips of very used household cloth,  stained and with holes.   Wove and stitched while standing on a ladder.   It hung on that Beam into the ROOM in New Mex.  That other Life.   I remember vividly the Ecstasy of learning i could weave a World if i needed to.

I stuck it in the Uhaul the day she left N. Mex for the first time..the day of the Intervention  when her dad,  my son (her brother) Alyssia and i pried her,  some of her belongings,  2 dogs and the Goats out of a crazy marriage.   I said i would finish it  Someday.   Someday,  if i ever came to California.    There could be a lot of words here.  But i lost this post once already and i think because i don't need to put all those words here.,  or shouldn't.     But i found it today,  lost in the black hole  of that cabinet in the bathroom.

it's Big.  Too big for this modest clothesline

 

a good stick helped

but not enough....had to fold it over about 18 inches

 

i look at it today...it's Raw in many ways.   I see that i have learned a LOT over the years.   But i look at this....this image of a young Goat  setting out on a long trail,  UP.   This was long before this Hill.   This was the Goats first time in California.  They came back.  And now they came again....and this image has proven True.     Now What?,  i think?   

Spring Issue Parabola. Surnai Molloy

Surnai Molloy  was raised on an eight mile long island offshore Galway by parents who ran an organic garden and lived as simply as possible,  with a very small income.  Home schooled until the age of 15,  she spent her afternoons going to the sea and walking along the cliffs.  Currently she is a creative writing student at the National University of Ireland,  Galway.     Parabola

 

 

 

how the pieces might find one another and come  together again

a today

Alicia Pearl Ever....the VERY Young Manzanita,   her two Pine Sentinels and a buddha  

i just looked,  after publishing,  clicking to Enlarge,   and how so elegant the Enlarge,  so so perfect and Gentle and beautyFully Elegant the image....i stared and breathed

 

   

there was Wonder of what size?...this.

 

i do this in the morning now.     i just put the tip of the pencil on the paper and make small marks.   There is no thinking involved.   It's a story that i repeat over and over,  a woman walking.   A tree.   no need to think them.   They just occur.  and then the things along the way...just because the pencil was touching the paper there,  and moved some.   Not meant to be anything special,  just what i do in the morning now.   i think in response to  Evolving Sanctuary.   

the tree is growing leaves