windthread

a long time coming

the Queen of the self seeded Black Eyed Susans.    6  potential blooms.    I squat.    Breathe her.    Breathe in the day WITH Her.  She is very Strong.

Things

my house with lamp plugged in....coming back from checking on the cry of a goat or sheep in the dark....was from across the way.  All was well here.   interesting to come up the Hill and see this illuminated scene.

 

not finished looking yet

 

youtube

Stevie Wonder    I'm so Glad to be Alive   1974        has to be this version,  1974

did not go looking for this...it just Appeared but  i have listened,  WATCHED over and over....the incredible  synthesis of all these individual musicians,  their Beauty FULL  intuitive MERGE into ONE       i am seeing someThing that i don't know what it is but i want to keep seeing it over and over.   

finding what i need

Susie King Taylor was an activist,  educator and volunteer nurse on the Union side in the Civil War.  She documented her experiences in her memoir  Reminiscences of My Life in Camp with the 33rd United States Colored Troops,  late 1st S.C. Volunteers.   After the Civil War,  she opened several schools in Georgia for formerly enslaved people.   This daguerreotype had been lost to history until it was discovered by collector Stephen Restelli.   We see Taylor in a military inspired bodice and petticoated gingham gown,  looking directly at the photographer with a confident gaze. 

from Fashioning the Self in Slavery and Freedom.....explores the politics of fashion among people of African descent during slavery.    FaceBook 

territory ahead

this shirt.    from the Socorro Thrift Shop.   New Mexico....  maybe ....oh i don't  know....i don't even want to guess,  but many many years ago.  Other than this cuff,  it remains GOOD in all ways.  I don't know what happened to the cuff?????     Do i mend it?   or leave it as is?    it's a man's shirt....oversized for me but i love it and it had been hanging on a hook just inside that back room and this morning it was only 71 degrees and i got it,  put it

on.   If i would be wearing it for any length of time past the chill of dawn,  i  would roll up the cuffs of the sleeves,  mended or not,    and this,  what we see here,  would be unseen and  of no importance at all.  So what's the importance of mending it?    Why would I?   I love looking at it this way,  love the loose fibers,    and it somehow is connected to the conversation i had with Alyssia just now about Afghanistan which began with me saying i don't even WANT to talk about Afghanistan,  THINK about Afghanistan ,   partly because there are 8 active Fires in N. Cal      HOW MUCH CAN ANY ONE PERSON CARE?

but we had the conversation that went ON a long time and  was GOOD

and i still am unsure.  Why would i FIX this?   Maybe it's Good,  as a Teacher,  a Reminder about Weave

 

a nightie

before the First SleepOver,  i searched for something i could sleep in.   Nights have stayed in 70's.  Emrie's body generates heat.  I am used to sleeping naked.   I'd found this...just white cotton,   household cotton as Jude would call it.   In that bag of stuff i never wear but can't seem to let go  of.     the feel of a dishtowel.  Lightweight and oversized.  Had never used it.   Don't know any history.  Perfect.    a while after that,  i wanted to mark it with Walnut and found the jar with 3 year old  walnut sludge.  Who knows,  why not try.  The walnut was spent.    I thought it was a fail....no complex marks so i just dropped  it wet,  in a wad  into the copper tub and left it there.    it dried up.   Thursday is Second SleepOver.    this eve i  put it in the laundry bucket,  had no laundry soap so used shampoo and washed,  rinsed rinsed rinsed.   

i like it very much.   It's the color of Everything Here Now.  The color of our SleepOvers.    The marks are of the feeling last night of being animal.   Will wait till morning to really look at the marks when it's dry.   at the right shoulder seam there is an interesting one covered here by the clothespin.     will  hem it tomorrow.

 

so many small things that are not small at all

 

 

 

like

FINALLY....there is a patty pan squash growing....the size of a nickel.  (a spring squash)     So many blossoms have come and gone but today...Ta DA!   and there were a Whole Bag of Green Beans....relatively normal sized green beans to bring in....they had been eye lash sized for  forever.   Alyssia has  linked me to a Facebook group....Shitty Harvests....and i laughed and felt at home 

she also told me that Julian said he plans to die here...on this Hill.   How AMAZING....and just more impetus to Grow the B Garden

and Typepad let me put three pics here.   That in its self.   Lacelady sent me this publication,  Alyssia brought it yesterday and early this day i sat long looking at the nests,  the masterpiece nests,  such oh so FINE beauty of them and it wasn't till the end of today that i saw...in the final pages....THIS.    it is really the FIRST i have seen talking about any Goodness within  the reality of Fire...i was/am  energized and full.   Full of purpose to continue....more.   Outcome will be outcome and what i do from day to day now...just what i do from day to day now.   I am soft eyed....gentled and  ..... alert tonight.  like some kind of animal.

Sunny Ray's Big Day

too long a story.   But since moving Sunny Ray  to his Elder forest,  we have been working on his health that was compromised in a few ways,  the primary being he is just an OLD buck Goat.    We have been giving him supplements...B 12,    an Iron Mineral supplement for livestock mixed with molasses.  Zinc gummy bears.   Brushing through a couple unsuccessful topical skin/coat products that had kind of caked on and  was causing hair loss.   That combined with the turn of events of his Wether Friend taking on  dominant  status,    the stress of that....He was a mess.    Today Jenny and i gave him a bath.....to see the fruits of our Caring.....I kept him in one ish   place....a collar....holding his tail forward,  firmly,   knees into his rear end while dribbling Alfalfa pellets into a bowl.  Jenny soaked him with the hose and scrubbed him with No More Tears Baby Shampoo...being sure to get his balls...which ironically,  he enjoyed .  We scrubbed between and around his horns with an old tooth brush.  Rinsed him off and drenched with another product for Goats.   Turned him loose and he took off for the imagined safety of the tarp house  as you see above.  The only thing i know of that Goats DO NOT LIKE is being wet.   He was     WET.    He however, didn't hold on to it...bygones were by and he accepted all manner of hand fed treats of atonement immediately and within just a short while was Spiffy.   As we looked at him,  on his hill,   he was all so WHITE and Shining....and yes!...all new hair WAS growing/grown in,  eyes bright and an expectant posture...i said we should change his name to Lancelot.   

Any where you look,  there is nothing about caring for and keeping on with Old Buck Goats.   It's not done.

He has been just your average Buck.   Has sired  for Jan in New Mexico,  broke out  twice since we've been here on this Hill with the hope and intention of that again.   But he is also Gideon's son.   Unlike his father,  he is not an attractive Goat.  His scur horns adding to that,  his whiteness and mottled nose pigment.   All the time he was with Jack he played the game of No Touch.  For Evacuations,  we had to rodeo him and Alyssia would carry him to the trailer struggling.   These days now....he is Emrie's favorite.  She hand feeds him.  one green bean at a time.   He follows her anywhere.   

 

 

 

Given

breaking with recent routine i was there to give water around 11 am instead of at the end of the day.   I went about it all and then sat while the hose seeped water into the stressed Fig.   There was a SUDDeNESS.... a FLOCK,  a literal FLOCK of the small grey birds....more than 20....everywhere over and around the straggly potato stalks and then  overflowing onto the tomatoes  and up into the Scrub Oak that overlooks it all...skittering,  fluttering,  so difficult to photograph i think i took a dozen pics and this is the clearest,  you can see just small grey  forms at about 9 oclock,  one hanging upsidedown.   They were eating something off the stems????   i think they are Oak Titmouse  mice.....but it doesn't matter,  they were joyous and so absorbed in their moments and i SAW it.   i saw it.   it will forever be clear...just like that....in my mind.   How what we do....affects what is.

 

 

there were twice as many of the long eggplant...they were cooling....the Baba Ganoush....     ....those oh so small garlic that grew... small,  but intensely what they ARE....   i ate half of it while mixing.  There IS    some thing about eating what you have grown....eating what a Plant,  that you care for     Gives.   The Rosa Blanca....oozed with a syrupy stickiness that was/is  sublime.

a kind of un necessary stubbornness ?

she says it's time for the second sleep over.

Jenny brought me these the first winter i was here....the first month i was here.    I put them in the high cupboards in that back room.

We have replaced those huge battery charger boxes one by one and now have a kind that are about  5x7  , much more efficient and long lasting.    They come and go to Alyssia's house in town to be recharged   about every 3 days when she brings ice.   For the phone and the laptop and in the last month,  the little luxury of the Opolar fan.    i accidentally left the fan running on low all night...told Alyssia and she asked how the battery faired with that "excess" .  i noted that there was minimal change and she said...well then....well then maybe you are ready to try out a  lamp.   Stuff takes time with me.   ok and i climbed up and got the lamp which there were actually two of,  i'd forgotten.   Tonight's the night.

so....

if you can make do.    With flash lights.    When i am alone,  just one.    All of us here on this Hill either go to sleep or at least totally wind down at first dark.   We revolve around the SUN.    But sometimes....like a sleep over,   the  "day"   needs more time.  So....tonight....we'll see.     

how completely Wonder FULL things are

i was at her house today...to do laundry.   Got a load going and she wanted me to come into her room.  She was watching some thing on her TV about bald eagles.   Suddenly she got up and rummaged in one of  her storage bins.   Out came this  "tablet".  She handed it to me and said....can you write my name?    i was riveted...and there was  was like the opening music to some incredible movie in my head.   Yes i can..  and i slowly wrote E M R I E....speaking out each mark as i made it....E...line down   at the top, line across     in the middle,  line across    at the bottom,  line across.   M   line down,  touching the top,  line down sideways,  from the bottom,  line up sideways then line down.   and on.  We stared.   Looked at how her name begins and ends with E.   She took the tablet and erased.    asked for the "pen"  and i looked back at the thing about the bald eagle.  Seconds later,  she handed me the tablet and Lo and Behold,  oh so much Lo and Behold    there it was.   A circle with a smile and 2 dots for eyes.  2 arms and 2 legs.    a PERSON!     We documented the moment with a pic as we always do.   She wanted to look at the pic.  Nodded.   in a subdued tone i said....this is an excellent person, Em.   Beauty Full drawing.   and we left it at that.   She wanted to go swim so we did that a while.  She'd brought the tablet out with her.   After a while she got out of the pool,  put on the towel and picked up the tablet.

 

 

 

this is her second drawing.   she says it's a King Cricket.   difficult to see here but an image of so so many intricate lines,  curves circle dots....

There has been mostly unspoken concern.  She has had ZERO interest in letters,  in drawing,  in anything at all aside from the  Inktense Pencils and the paint brush.  and with those,  she has only made vertical or horizontal scribbles....Fast scribbles.  After her 4th birthday...which has great meaning to her...i asked her if she wanted to make an E on one of those watercolored scribble pages and she looked off and away  and i just went ahead .....line down and then put a dot out 3 times.  Line to the dot,  line to the dot,  line to the dot.   I made another line down....the first dot and she took the pencil and said she would make the other two which she did and then made 3 wobbly lines across to connect them.  I exclaimed happily...and E   a BeautyFull E.  she wanted to take a pic of it.  i did and we looked at it.    I said.....lets do it again and she said   NO.   I asked....why don't you like making letters and she very perfunctorily said....it's not my fav.   got up and walked away.     

(typepad disappeared this pic.  when i get finished writing here,  i'll go find it again and put it here,  but then,  it will be at the top probably. )

and i can't not connect more dots.   She was across the table from me the other day when i read on my phone an email from a most loved person saying her husband was very suddenly ill and it was possible he could die.   I was reading silently and tears sprang to my eyes...just as silently.   She said....what's wrong?  and i told her.   I told her that my loved friend had written me this and i read it ...she wanted to see the email.   I said...if you learn your letters you will be able to read.  you will be able to write letters to tell people things.     At Alyssia's today,  i read her (Alyssia)  the most recent email .  I didn't think Emrie was paying attention but she said....Let me see....the words.   and there was a pic  and she said....this is him?   and nodded.  looking long before she handed the phone back.   the man was sitting,  pen in hand,  making a drawing.

i am not writing all this here to say that Emrie is exceptional in any way.   Emrie is Emrie.   and because of circumstance,  the first being how Alyssia parents her and second because i have finally learned at 70 some years to LEAVE THINGS ALONE,  i am feeling like i am being Present as a human being becomes distinctly Who They Are....without interference...in freedom to Be.  I am so very very grateful to experience this.   And i'll go back now to see if i can add the pic