windthread

looking out the back window

 

Goldie,  at the big stump.  I get the camera.   Telephoto.

 

mother cat at the water bowl,  Wheat is coming.

 

Goldie goes through

 

Wheat

 

Wheat goes through

 

mother

 

she looks

 

but heads off for the corridor.   Cat mother.  It's nearing dusk.  Hunting.  Hunted.

 

there are leaves,  maybe.

there is talk of more maybe.  talk of maybe getting a donkey.   Donkeys alert to trespassers.  Having had the experience of the livestock guardian dog,  Kadir,  having fully understood about livestock guardian dogs,  and having watched how it is near the Hill,  Jenny,  and not really wanting to do the livestock guardian dog again,  she's thinking, maybe a donkey.  We consider this.  I also am wondering if Tay will choose to stay Outside with the Goats.  It's possible.  She has not slept inside now for a long time, feeling the need to keep an eye on these feral cats.  It Goes.

 

all invisibly stitched down

 

now branches.  just some today,  but many.  Maybe double click will work?

and peanut work in the Buck yards.   salted peanuts in the shell.  a delicacy.  I work to get Jack Flash to come to his name.  It's tricky because Sunny Ray is all in his business and there is a lot of spinning and turning…me,  them,  but we made progress.  Nogal and Tenzen know the program.  Working into it,  just once in a while now,  but more as September comes along.  Readying for the Trip.

over there,  to the right,  in the sidebar is Frazey Ford,  singing…I'm done.   there are these words

"my joy,  my joy takes nothin from you"  

the song,  if can be called a song,  but really is an anthem,  applies to so many things for women,  but today applies for me to this scrap and the Cloth that wants to come in the midst of so much shit.  From the President of these united? states….blah blah blah,  but….Joy.

this scrap from Deb Lacativa.  a wasteband and some from a pair of pants that didn't work out but for me,  such a teaching in COLOR….and in such small scraps,  smaller than a postage stamp but so so thrilling in their smallness.  will be the last to add here….to the Joy

ok.  Ready.  this is Energy and Blood and well,  we'll see.  But i love it very much.  

but he forgot,  because he went to Wyoming to see the Eclipse.  Hoped there was no inconvenience.

And Tina said in a comment yesterday…."nothing i can put my finger on".   Yes.  just a,  uhhhh, moodiness, for me.  easily sorted through and defined,  yet,  not.  

Dakotah told this today on her blog….junewildflower.wordpress.com…..

the Navajo teaching of  "stay inside and do not observe the eclipse,  out of reverence for what they say is an intimate event between the earth, moon and sun."   I knew this.  i'd forgotten how i Knew this and am so grateful to her for helping the memory.   

so there are things.  and Eclipse when so many donned spectacles to what they deemed a spectacle.  And yet one more day when ratboyEssence is NOT here and i watched this morning just before Light;    the Mother cat and Wheat and Goldie coming through that small space in the Way Back Gate place,  the same space where that Rabbit used to come through until they took up residence under the house….coming "home" from hunting.  She's teaching them to hunt.  There is an OWL that lives near enough by.  S/he would be out there,  calling h/ir night sounds when the rabbit was there.   An owl can take a good sized cat.

and i thought all day about making a cheery post.  That maybe that might be a mission,  to make cheery posts,  or at least neutral ones?????    But here i am.  Just sayin.

and when feeding early,  because i wanted to support this evenings Farmer's Market in town,  when feeding early,  behind me in the Middle Oasis,  where the Raft is and where the Mirror on the Chair is,  there was a rushing of Sound of Wings of a Large Bird and i spun to see but could see nothing,  but the sound of it was real…….

and my dreams have dramatically changed in the last weeks,  maybe last night an example of how it is now,  it's all about DOING…on the brink of it….no more is it about where the doing might take place.  That is inconsequential now…

Last night,  "they" were coming,  would arrive any minute and they were beings i "knew" but hadn't seen in so long that i couldn't know what they were like now,  and i didn't know how to tell anything about them,  but then suddenly they arrived and it was a tall woman of color,  maybe Alyssia's color,  and maybe Emrie's features,  that are not mixed black and european,  but more of her father's that is sharper featured…El Salvadoran,  I saw her face,  clearly.  She is/was mid life Woman and her hair was in rasta braided antlers,  stiff and rising from her head,  tall and branched.  Her clothing colorful and she had a woven braided leather bag around her shoulders that was cut through in one "scene",

that was noted,  but things went on,  so i don't know anymore about that

she had brought children.  Two girl children,  maybe 3 years,  4,  who were independent of her as were at least 2 boy children.  There was a baby,  in a carry thing,  that i was most involved with.  There was water on the floor,  but of no importance and in that water there were lizards moving about and i worried some about the lizards,  but the two little girls did not.  and the lizards did not.

 

and these things fell into place

 

i was at the Post Office in the next little "town" over,  Lemitar,  when the eclipse was happening…on my way to work.  As i came out,  an old farmer guy pulled up in his truck.  Said to me,  you wanna see?  I said ok and he handed me what i guess was his phone?  and said just look up and i did and saw a small image of a partial eclipse.  I said….Once in a lifetime, yes?   and he nodded.  Then at work,  it was just

all kind of softened.  The starkness,  harshness of SUN here,  just softened.  It was gentle.  But i went on with my day.

Essense,  formerly known as Rat Boy is MIA.  3 times now.  Just Wheat and Goldie.

i have no pics.

weather.gov said heavy rains for today and tonight and then storms on into the week.  Which set me into motion early this morning…no procrastinating…and i weed whacked Out There,  near the front oasis and along the raised bed of the Tomato Garden.  I did a lot.  All that Kochia is ready to go to seed.  

But it never did rain.  not a drop.  so there was a lot of time to evaluate what remains to be done and how i'm going to do that.  I gave myself a gift of what feels like extra time.

 

i love Mallow.  How it grows where it wants to be.  and i looked at this metal frame with hog panel, smiling.  How some people,  when they relocate,  take things like tables and couches,  but for me, it's metal frames that were a part of a pick up bed,  customized for hauling Goats.  Daughter had them made for the pickup she first drove them to California.  Truck crapped out but we kept these.  I'll take them.  who knows.

 

and the Raft,  where seasons circle but Time remains the same.  

 

first stitches.  the commitment.  

 

the first branch

It's 8:04 p.m.  Very close to dark.  I need a different word than dusk  or  twilight….a word for that last light,  before night becomes.   By accident a few evenings ago,  i was there,  just at that time,  giving water and i loved it.  How i could barely see at first.  Since then,  i think this will be the 4th time,  i have waited until that time.  There is immense pleasure in it.  The scent of water is very strong.  The sound of water strong also.  What we call Air is extremely present on my skin…is a beingness.

ok.  it's time now.   

 

and i forgot.  the crickets.  singing now their song of one single note.  it pulses.

 

i thought yesterday that i would need to choose which part of this piece of Deb Lacativa's cloth i would need,  but today,  it's very clear that it's the whole of it…a long cloth….

 

still,  from Michelle's post,  from Marija Gimbutas

 

and then,  just now,  feeding.  I go to the Way Back gate to where the wheel barrow is,  tilted on its side always in case of rain.  I wheel it out,  in the morning to the bale of alfalfa or in the evening,  as now, to the Albatros where the grass hay is stored.  The Sound of this sets it all in motion….the wheel bumbling along across the dirt.  There is a squeak.   Everyone knows what's coming.  Tay accompanies me,  carrying her ball or a stick.  back and forth.  I feed the 4 buck Goats first and Gideon,  then load the feed in the wheelbarrow for the doe Goats in the Way back and trundle the wheelbarrow to that gate.  Drop the feed over into the bowl.  All of it,  then go through the house,  out the back porch and distribute all of it into 4 other feed bowls.  Every day.  365 times a year.   The universe could set it's doings by my reliability.  Also,  feral kittens.  They have been coming out to the feed bowls lately.  

Tonight,  as i approached the gate with the wheelbarrow,  getting almost there…a shock!  Goldie and Essence,  formally known as little rat boy,  were  ON THIS SIDE OF THE GATE!!!!…Goldie to the west,  over by the wood pile and Essence,  just there at the gate, but inside,  THIS side and Tay

saw them.

she has watched them and their doings through the gate all this time,  totally entranced,  as she is over at the other end of the house yard where she lays,  nose pressed to the wooden slats,  watching them.   and here they were,  tonight.  on HER side.  She bolted,  fast as lightning and and it was a split second.  Goldie slid through the gate wires but Tay had Essence under her mouth…how i can't tell,  too fast and i yelled   NO!  NO BITE!  which is a thing she knows because she likes to bite the wheel of the wheelbarrow.  She knows that she can put her mouth there against the wheel,  she can make growl sounds but she knows she cannot bite,  even tho sometimes she still does.  

so..NO BITE  NO! and he,  Essence scrambled to go through the gate,  but she got him again,  pressed, i don't know how exactly;  with teeth?  with just her muzzle?  i don't know but i yell the second time and she releases and he scrambles through.  I tell her NO,  Babies.  No bite babies.

she didn't,  but what if she'd been alone?  and they were there?  These are things we will Work on in the days ahead.  There will be chickens.  

when i went into the Way Back to distribute the feed to all 4 other bowls,  both Goldie and Essence were where they are now,  under the porch steps.  Neither any worse for the experience…Essence being  his  ordinary vague self,  Goldie all in his Right There self,  Wheat,  watching from a little distance.  and so it goes.  Thursday,  more than mid way through the month of August.

 

reminded self that singing ,  does something.   When i sing,  it's no known song,  but rather just random sounds and melody that is created as it goes.  The freer i get the more Good the song,  the more pleasing,  the more Easy of Flow.   I sang as i used the weed whacker to cut the Kochia that remained after i'd cut by hand all that was near wood and stone.   Done.  before it set seed which would have been any day  now.   At least in this House yard.  Tomorrow,  Out There.

but singing.  And then i sang while washing dishes and other things and then sang when i went to care for the Goats.  I sang a long time to Nogal while filling his water tub and scratching with one hand.  I sang to Gideon and some to Sunny Ray,  but he was spinning…it's just how he feels right now.

 

this Cloth is now in the shop and it is,  a song, really

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cinderella continues to distance herSelf.  Her mother,  Ginger,  continues to be her intermediary to the herd.  I watch.  I cannot know.  It belongs to Them.

 

Michelle.  Ms Uncertainty Principles.  click her name in any comment.  Michelle posted today a truly Extraordinary post about the life and work of Marija Gimbutas….about her lifelong study of   "goddess".  There are two videos.  one is long but extraordinary.  i need to watch again.  

i have always shied away from the word Goddess.  somehow it paired with the word Worship.  in the same way that the word God paired.   But today,  watching these videos,  i was able to go past that and on,  into a world where women sing their way through the days.  just as i had today.  and it all clicked.   it answered the unasked question of why the Hill, now.  Why this change from singular to community of female.  I need to watch and listen again but i saw that what is happening,  against all odds for me and my daughter and my granddaughter and her daughter is an urge toward and back to the antidote for the toxic world we find ourSelves faced with.

Loosening    as soon as the internet allows,  i'll put it in the shop.  5  1/2 inches by  10 1/2.

 

Things in general,  picked up and put in place.  Housekeeping.

 

August ritual.  Zucchini Pizza.   Came out perfect.

 

i got pretty far along,  responding to comments and it was feeling Good and then,  at 6:56,  as it does,  stuff froze.  Not allowing.  disrupted my rhythm,  but oh well,  there's tomorrow,  right?