Twenty-Four: 52

 

 

 the 52 project.
Portraits of my main squeezes, every week.

O, this week you…

…dyed your mohawk red with kool-aid for “Crazy Hair Day” at school. It faded to a pretty awesome mauve color that I would like on a wall someday, but you’re feeling pretty done with the mohawk experiment, in general. Tonight, we buzz it off.

…cut class mid-week to spend the day with your homeschooling friends. We’ve missed them so much. I wonder what our world will look like after the Summer?

…made several modifications to your workbench, and I wonder what you have up your sleeve.

 

C, this week you…

…were foiled by the weather yet again! But you did manage to steal a weed-whacking moment and find the yard under the jungle that had grown in its place. I wish I’d picked the daisies first, though!

Him and Me: 4

Originally posted on Literary Traces

 

We didn’t have any lawn chairs, so we just sat down on the roof, sticky with loquat, to watch the sun setting. Sometimes we would pretend the lanai was in a tropical place, and if we tried really hard, the freeway sounded just like the ocean.

It was new to me, sleeping in the open air. And it was perfect. I never wanted four walls around me again. Except for on the extra-cold nights. And that handful of times the neighbors did things that didn’t smell so great or sound so great. Or when I was on my period. I liked the walls, then; I don’t know why.

The cat enjoyed the futon under the lanai, too. We would pile blankets over us and then he would curl up atop, like a bow on a present. It was all cat breath and gentle breeze.

He is gone now, and I wonder who sleeps under the roof of the lanai.

This evening I watch the sun setting through the trees, behind the hills, instead of through buildings and behind the fence.
I feel the gentle breeze on my face and go inside to sleep within four walls.

Twenty-Three: 52

 

 

 

 the 52 project.
Portraits of my main squeezes, every week.

O, this week you…

…kept at it. You are so close to the finish-line on a project you are less than enthusiastic about. Perseverance, man, you’ve got it.

…really started to feel the absence of our departed friend. I’m glad we finally had a good cry about it. I miss him, too.

…tried something you thought you didn’t like and discovered it wasn’t so bad.

C, this week you…

…made a bomb-proof bean teepee. Pretty sure we can live in it if we need to.

Come Into My Garden: 1

I’ve been laying low this week, but I have been around…I spent some time here, waxing poetic, and then some time here, exploring Roots. I also started a summer internship I’ll tell you more about later, so there’s been a bit of a reshuffling of routine, but I think I’m settling in now (just in time for school to let out, of course).

There has also been the mad rush of Spring gardening, and I realize I should be recording more than just a few quick notes on the calendar.

And yes, I really should have started this earlier, but better late than never and all that. Before-and-after would have been nice, too, since we’ve broken much in the way of new ground this season. There’s still a long way to go, though, even beds still to be created for this year, so lots more to share in the weeks to come, I hope!

This is our new friend, the Bean Teepee. How we’ve lived here for three summers already without a bean teepee, I have no idea. A rainbow pole bean mix has been planted, 6 bean seeds per pole.

Also new this year is the way we planted the potatoes. Last year, we put them in raised beds, but didn’t have enough organic matter around to add to the bed throughout the season. 10 pounds of seed yielded enough harvested potatoes to last us until February, but we can do better. This year, trenches were dug, layered with compost and seed potatoes, then covered in straw. 4 varieties totaling 12 pounds.

These pickling cucumbers are coming up where there was a mess of blackberry bushes and milkweed last year. The hillside still needs a lot of work, but is mostly clear for the squash that will go in this week.

Garlic, I love you. Easy and beautiful. I check every day for signs of scapes, but probably have a few weeks to wait. We are quite a bit behind some of our local farmers, because we don’t get as much sun up here on the hill in the woods.

This…well, this is the tomato and pepper patch, can’t you tell? At least, it will be by the end of this weekend, if the weather cooperates. Consider this a Before…

We grew some glorious starts to put into the After; I must say I’m quite proud of these. They are opalka paste tomatoes, of which we have several flats awaiting their new home…

…along with these bazillion other friends who are wishing we didn’t have anything else we needed to do besides create the spaces to get them planted out. Yes, the squash and melons are beginning to yellow for want of nutrients…just give us one. more. week.

Aaaaaand…yarn update today! Here’s a little something special I spun up while visiting Dayna at Madison Wool last weekend. It’s up for grabs along with a few traditional plied yarns. Enjoy!

Twenty-Two: 52

 the 52 project.
Portraits of my main squeezes, every week.

O, this week you…

…remembered why an attic bedroom is not-so-awesome during a heat wave. You made a bed for yourself on the floor, where it was cooler.

…enjoyed your bedtime story outside, swinging in the hammock with Papa. Heat waves have their perks.

…have been impossible to wake in the mornings. It might have something to do with your insistence to stay up late so as not to miss the first appearance of fireflies. I understand. But I’m tired.

…acquired some new feathered friends. The Newbies are much easier to catch and cuddle than The Residents.

C, this week you…

…had lots of extreme heat, thunderstorm, or mama’s-away enforced rest-and-quality-time-with-the-boy. So, the tomatoes aren’t in the ground yet. But the potatoes are. Who cares, anyway, when there are Eyewitness books to peruse in a very serious way?

Loss and Fat Chipmunks

I’m over here today.

Writing about this guy. Sort of.

RIP (maybe? ugh, I wish we knew) BEST CAT EVER.

Twenty-One: 52

 the 52 project.
Portraits of my main squeezes, every week.

O, this week you…

…spent many hours of the cold, wet days this weekend fully immersed in creating a haunted castle with your Legos.

…wanted us to spend all our hours playing with it, too.

….got so mad when we had other things we needed to work on. Lots of bummer energy this week. I think we all got a necessary recharge when the sun finally came out yesterday!

…befriended a border collie who insisted your throw a piece of bark for him about 900 times.

…pitched in to help with the garden prep and happily took an ax to the fallen pine to help get it cleaned up. Thanks, buddy…we’re almost there!

 

C, this week you…

…stopped sometimes. Just to be. You needed that.

Percolating

Ideas! Plans! Wine!
Not presented in that order!

Here it is, and here it will be for the next three months before bottling. So, don’t hold your breath for the next Dandelion Wine report.

And here are the things I have planned for the summer:

The Yarnival
…not to vend or teach at, just to enjoy and elbow-rub.

Twist: Festival de la Fibre…to TEACH! My new photography workshop geared towards shooting better photos for your online sales or portfolio. I’m really excited about this one and will also be working on an online version of the class to be released in July.

And here is the thing happening very soon: Trunk Show at Madison Wool in Madison, CT on Sunday, June 2nd from 11am-2pm. Come celebrate Dayna’s 2nd anniversary with MadWool and bring your spinning wheel! I’ll have lots of new dyed fibers for sale and handspun yarn and wearables, too!

And then there’s the right now, right this second stuff: the shop has been updated with new handspun yarn, hand dyed yarn, and art rolags. I want you to enjoy 20% off everything in the shop, including fiber and yarn clubs! Use the code: LONGWEEKEND to receive your discount at check out. Yeah!

And since I seem to be working somewhat backwards in time in my announcements, I was over at Luminous Traces the other day. Embracing lilacs.

That was all very business-like, but long overdue. The ideas, I’ll let percolate a little while longer because I’ve shared enough Monkey biz for one day.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend. If you need me, I’ll be in the garden prepping (but not planting). Frost warning tonight…aaaaaaahhh, New England. At least we avoided the potential snow in last night’s forecast.

Him and Me: 3

Re-posted from my contribution to Literary Traces this week.

***

I thought it would be something like the genetic aversion to the taste of cilantro. You know, how some people think cilantro tastes like soap. I don’t get it, but there is an entire website devoted to hating cilantro.

I could find no such thing in regards to lilacs. No study finding genes that would influence my perception of their aroma. In fact, ihatelilacs.com is an available domain, as are .info and .net…so, maybe I am alone in this? A genetic anomaly?

***

It was such a sweet gesture, though. He brought bouquet after bouquet of them inside, our first Spring in the farmhouse. I guess I had never really noticed lilacs before, not on the west coast, but after getting through a long Vermont winter, they were the first blooming thing we saw (that wasn’t yellow), and well, they happened to be breathtakingly beautiful after the cold and the white and the brown branches…and here, here were mason jars full of them in several shades because -oh joy!- they were prolific around our new home…dark, medium and light purple blooms. Even the snow-white flowers were gorgeous, set against the deep green leaves.

He was full of delight at their beauty, placing them in the kitchen, on the dining table, in the bedroom, everywhere. “Lilacs are just incredible,” he told me. But, I…I hardly noticed them for my sudden and consuming obsession of figuring out where the heck the cat was pissing.

“What do you mean you can’t smell it?” I asked him. “It’s, like, all over the house. In every room! I just don’t get it…it’s not like Enki. He must be anxious about something.” The smell was overwhelming…why couldn’t I find it??!?
The smell was stronger where the bouquets were placed. How odd. No…wait a minute. It was all becoming clear. I asked him why he didn’t just tell me it was the flowers all along. Why did he humor me, looking around for puddles of cat piss? He looked at me like my hair just changed color or something. I thought, oh my God, he thinks they smell NICE.

Crestfallen. Now he wants to remove them from the house. No, no, no. I can deal with it. They’re pretty. Pretty nauseating. No, just pretty. He thinks they smell a little like roses, but more…oh, what was the word? Intoxicating, yes that’s it. And then I realize that I’ve never particularly cared for the smell of roses, either, as lovely as they can be.

It takes me a while to convince him it’s okay to leave the lilacs be. I’m just glad we don’t have an annoying problem going on with the cat, I tell him. And in a few days they’ll wither and I can take them out to the compost. 

***

There’s a lilac where we live now. It’s the first really spectacular bloom of the season for us, since we have only a few tiny stalks of forsythia that don’t get enough light. I admire it from the sliding door, and the bees admire it, too. It really is beautiful, but he never tries to bring the blooms inside anymore.

The other day I went out for a morning run, and there is a house I sometimes pass that is completely surrounded by mature lilacs. I counted them: nine, each of them easily 10 times as large as the one beside our deck. When the aroma hit my nostrils I nearly swooned with the nausea it induced. How awful to see such beauty and feel so sickened by it!

I got home, and our lilac tree seemed puny dainty, in comparison. A jar or two’s worth of clippings could not take me down the way that cluster of giants did earlier. I can make this sacrifice.

I bring a bouquet in and place it on the dining table.
Another, I put in our bedroom.

He notices the gesture, and is moved.
I love you more than avoiding nausea, my dear.

Twenty: 52

 

 

 the 52 project.
Portraits of my main squeezes, every week.

 

O, this week you…

…keep asking me when kitty will come home and all I can say is that I don’t know, that he may not, but we can still love him forever.

…took apart your old bike, just to do it. You broke it down completely, dividing up the parts into piles of what you might like to keep around for repairs and what you will repurpose for building projects, like that robot you keep talking about. Nothing is trash, and I think that’s pretty great.

…were really interested in the process of getting our bees situated this time around. We’ll enjoy watching them work this summer.

C, this week you…

…made it through, even though it was a tough one. We are stretched thin and feel a lot of pressure from many sources. We’re strong for each other, and I am grateful.

…felt disappointed when you didn’t get as far with the garden prep as you wanted to this weekend. Breaking new ground with only hand tools…it’s punishing, exhausting labor and, being the observer, I’m amazed at how much you were able to change the landscape. Don’t be so hard on yourself.

…set up the beeeeeees, and they seem happy in their new digs.

…kept yourself distracted and busy, as did I, so as not to constantly wonder if kitty will ever come home again.