windthread

here's pics from yesterday,  taken today on my way to town,  belated because when i was leaving the Work Away job there was a Great Darkness over to Magdalena Mountain and i had not retarped the alfalfa,  so i went home instead of on to town.  Took a nap and set out again.  Out of cat food for the WayBackUnderHouse family.

 

up to what looks like a brown tree bush,  which is the Mother Salt Cedar.  Some kind of caterpillars ate her.  also her child inside.  Not to worry,  they are indestructable….but beyond that brown treebush is the whole rest of the fence of the backside of this sovereign state.  There,  the Kochia is even taller.  This is a 6ft fence.  Within the week,  the Kochia will be at least 8 ft.  And now, too,  the pig weed that is in the foreground.

Pig Weed,  but looking down….HEY!  WAIT!…….Verdolaga!

 

it's NICE!   amidst  the Pig Weed.   it's tender and tender stemmed,  i ate a hand full and will go back in the morning to gather some to saute.  More nutritious than spinach.  and i went again later to UTube to find that guy's video where the women are singing about  " I love Verdolaga",  Chanflas,  Cooking with El Chavo and saw,  miraculously at the bottom because of the chosen color of background and type a link to a BLOG  ….  food in LA  and i thought,  who knows?????  Maybe once.   i will go to LA and EAT.  My son, the chef,  sends me links to utubes about street food in LA,  little joints for FOOD in LA.  I love these.

 

the little beat out Honda,  poised,  waiting,  to head into town.

and i thought more about stuff and really,  it is all just how it is.  There is No Wonder,  because it IS exactly what it is.  How it began with the crash of the Old Russian Olive tree that is still there,  out there,  in the Way back,  crashed…what that signaled.  And on to needing to be ready to leave twice already but then not.   it is an Of Course.  and i guess i feel impelled to somehow make it something that it's Not,  something it just ISN'T.  It IS an impending disconnect but simultaneously a Re connect,  a Just Going.  and there is no need.  No need at all to make it anything other than exactly what it is.

 

 

 

partly because it was work away that seems to be taking more of a toll recently.  I just don't Want to.  and it took forever,  it seemed,  because in the last couple months,  like today,  Bill is home.  He semi retired himself.  He likes to talk to me.  So,  when i'm scrubbing the bathtub he says things from over there and i can't  hear him,  so me and the rag have to get up and go out into the hall and say WHAT????  Part of it is because i have KEPT their house for going on 15 years now.   and that i'd kept his mother's house,  Alz. B,  and then i kept his mother herself in her 3 years at the old folks home,  and how,  the night she died,  we both sat there with and next to her and then walked,  the rest of the night till dawn,  the streets in town,  just walking and feeling it.  and i have known all their dogs,  he and his wife Nelia,  a few horses that are gone now too,  sang them the Dying Song and helped him bury them.  and how he has many times fixed my plumbing  and has watched me here,  built that overkill beam over the place where daughter Jenny and i cut through the wall of this trailer house and made the ROOM out of a screened in porch,  helped me with fencing when the Goats were coming.  He does the oil change in the Honda.  I gave him my Datsun pickup,  Blue Bird, because she either ran perfectly or not at all.  50/50.  He is a geologist but also loves mechanics.  BlueBird is his welding truck.  He met me and i began housekeeping there when i was still married to That Person,  he met him,  knew him just some,  but he knows me from those days when i was Wary of anyone knowing much.

so we have History.  there's a Lot More.  But just to say

and before i went there this morning i walked the perimeter  of this fence that creates the  sovereign state of Here to repair some slats of that fence because of a couple dogs that appeared yesterday,  frightening the Goats.  as i did that i realized that if i took a pic of that Other side of the fence,  i could give You a real sense of the Kochia.  What Kochia IS here.  How it is all consuming.   I'll take a pic tomorrow morning,  so You can get the drift.  I didn't have the energy for it this eve.  There was a TON of rain to that storm last night.  It's 90 something and humidity is HIGH.  All the feed tubs for Goats swimming in stinky feed water and needing hosed out and Gideon's tarp leaked…i need to muck his little hut out and fill with new dry straw , buy him a new tarp tomorrow.

and the Kochia grows.  You'll see.  now the Pig Weed too.

any Way.

i didn't want to go to Work Away.  I don't want to have to deal with this abundance of Kochia.

and i can't tell if it's because i am 71 this summer?….that's OLD.  or  OR if it's that i am knowing i will be going soon?,  to a place where it's very different?  I don't know.  I can't know.  and i'm trying to work out how to Work it,  whatever it is.  Because i AM here

and 

i AM here.  Here.  And as i was just out feeding and filling the water tubs there was the most amazing Black and White dragon fly.  I ran to get the camera but it was no use,  s/he wouldn't sit for a photograph,  flitting here to there,  this side of the yard fence to that,  but so so so BeautyFull

there's just a LOT.  a lot of stuff.

 

 

 

 

i know i am

going

so there is a distinctly different energy about dealing with the Kochia.  I think of how it might be if i were not going.  Very Different.  I would just Go.  I would just make my way through it.  Again.  as i always have.

 

this,  between two of the tomato plants…close to 7 ft tall.  But everywhere,  differing sizes,  but Kochia.  What LOVES to grow.  Earlier today i went out with the tree pruning shears and cut and threw for the Goats.  They LOVE Kochia.    But to turn them loose,  they would LOVE the bushes and trees FIRST and Kochia second.  So i wander with the pruning shears,  throwing over their fences.

and i look at them,  these Goats.  so fine and Beauty Full,  their hair/coats glistening in the Sun,  so fine and so Beauty Full and how they know their names…how can they?  amongst all of them,  but you call their name and they know and respond…?????  I love the Goats and back

and near that tall  tall Kochia is a kind of sorgum  that appears of its own accord…here,  draping itself over the tomato plant

 

then…just maybe SECONDS later

 

WHAT is this?  Same place,  Same space but ….What is THIS and what is it saying and what does it MEAN?

 

Great DEEP STRONG THUNDER…just to the South,  Rain now,  steady.  But probably when all is said and done,  not enough to Grow a Tomatoe Plant.  Enough,  yes,  for the desert.  Enough,  yes for Kochia.  But not enough for a tomatoe.

how we are.   made of where we live.   how it remains what we are ,  where our foot palms touch the Earth,  how we can go and take it.  How the crows will find us.

 

I look at the news feed first thing in the morning.  I guess i could change that.  Not look.  But i look.  Often,  more often than not,  there is a subtle ripple of nausea.  literally.  but then,  it  passes and i drink my tea.  turn my thoughts to the day ahead.    After the tea and after feeding Tay and Tazmeena there is Goat Feed.   And lately,  more and more,  we have an audience.  I hesitate to even put it here,  like putting is claiming and i am not claiming,  but it's how it seems to be going.  its the

WayBack~UnderHouse Feral Family.   Mother,  Wheat,  Liona,  and that last one.  Lately i've taken up calling him Rat Boy in my mind.  I don't know if he is a he or a she.  Maybe i'll never know?  Because of behavior,  i'm even wondering if Liona is a female.  Maybe she is not,  maybe Lion.  These words with spanish accent…Leeowna  or Leeown….

anyway,  to document these days of July,  2017  and how we managed all this time to have nothing living under the house,  but wouldn't you know it,  now we do.

more and more,  the 3 kittens are there.  They play in the debris of the downed Russian Olive.  They even play on the porch steps.  and when i come to distribute the feed to all 5 feed bowls,  they run back some,  but stay,  watching.  Feral,  but also attracted.

i rarely see the mother but when i do,  she is being a very good mother.  She lies out there with them in early morning or afternoon,  sometimes just watching,  sometimes playing with them.  They climb and pounce all over her.  She doesn't mind.  

i  began feeding them intermittently and then more,  because the little ones have sharp little teeth now that you can hear crunching on the dry cat food.  They are growing.  At first i thought not to put any food and they might go away,  but they aren't going anywhere and that changed to maybe if i put dry food they would be inclined to eat fewer lizards.  The kittens practice hunting.  She's teaching them.   So i fill a bowl everyother day.  of course,  water.  the water is in the green pyrex thing i make brownies in.     I didn't want to say this here,  but it's something that needs to be noted.  as in Field Notes.  Some days ago,  i went around that corner to fill the bowl and there was no sign of them.  Usually when they hear me.  they come to at least peek through the slats of the pallets.  No sign of them but Brain said…"what's that shape there?"  and i lowered my gaze to see maybe about 8 inches of a snake.  8 inches beginning at its head,  with an open eye,  along to where it's body stopped.  Judging from the size of its head,  i would guess that it,  when it was a whole snake,  was almost 2 ft long.  The rest of it,  however was not there.  and when i went back on the second day later,  nothing was there but very delicate white bones.  Eaten.

i love,  like love,  thinking about all the snakes that might live here,  invisible to me….so private in their lives that i never see them,  just what i am sure are their holes.  I had seen,  over the years,  the large Bull Snake mother.  Just a few times.  but she was magnificant.  That was back when i had the Guinnea hens.  She lived under the Palace and ate their eggs.  I am sure,  that over in the stick pile there are snakes.  Maybe only one…or two?….and then under the pallets where i get wood delivered.  There too.  I like knowing they are there.

i didn't look closely at this Part of a Snake,  i couldn't.  So i don't know what kind of snake it was.  So i don't know how old it was.  My guess is maybe 3 years.   There was pain in my heart.  Snake.  eaten.  and too,  though,  there was wonder about that small tortise shell mother cat,  small.  That caught and dragged an at least 2 foot snake to feed her children.

What else is there to say?

 

I finished the Pocket for Daydreams Cloth….it's in the shop.  I put it there to keep a record but its probably spoken for.

 

Daydreams…i day dream about so much now.  Being between Here and There,  it's pretty much just nothing but daydream.

 

it is really here.  Yesterday i got almost all the pics loaded when the electricity went out.  

 

 

was so HAPPY to be stitching,  i just went forward with sewing the Pocket on,  before i had finished the invisible baste.  Then realized that i couldn't do invisible baste where the Pocket is.  would seal the Pocket closed.

 

i slipped this card in

 

but i still had to think of something different than the usual invisible,  so i ended up with this long short  long short long short….and really liked it,  how it felt and how it looks

 

because the long stitch is on the outside,  the Daydreams will not get tangled in the thread.

 

one Butterfly stitched down….for me….how daydreams are…fluttering through,  there for moments, lingering,  and then gone.  but feeding the soul.

 

Long phone conversations,  yesterday and today with daughter.   Looping me in with their thoughts there.  Yesterday a lot of it was about how 4 adults reach consensus about land use,  about livestock.  We have differing imaginings….Jenny's man would really like a Cow of all things.  Alyssia is thinking she might want pigs.  I am content with Goats.  Julian wants chickens.  I guess we all want chickens.

it morphed into Dogs.  Alyssia has a dog,  Jenny and man have two.  I have Tay.  How will this all play out?  If there are issues,   and there very well might be,  how are we going to approach those issues?

Today it was housing.  There is a company called  Arched Cabins.com in Texas.  They deliver.  I got the link and as we talked,  we both looked.   She thought i would hate them.   But really…they're interesting.  If the foundation is set,  they go up in 2 days.  and i think,  why not?  They are inexpensive,  leaving any extra $ and Energy  for the "community things".  Like a building SPACE for a large food freezer,  large refrigerator  for  Cheese making etc.  More for the Solar.  We seem committed to Solar.  and as far as that goes,  TRYing solar.  Trying it for a year,  a circle of seasons.  Finding out,  by living,  if we might have enough or not.  There is no way to know unless we try.  It might be just fine,  it might not.  But there's no way to know ahead of time.  So i think the most important place we got to today is NOT KNOWING and being all ok with that.   With an experimental year.  

and coming to a comfortable place with really,  not knowing Anything…even as in will we get on eachother's nerves,  and how we might deal with that…if stuff gets crunchy.  And she wanted me to know that it's not that she has no confidence in Growing,  but that she also really doesn't want to have to develop confidence.  She is happy with figuring out infrastructure,    like how to build a root cellar,  different kinds of off ground cattle panel arches,  researching and then the actual building.  So we cleared that up.  She doesn't NEED to plant and water.  Alyssia and i are into planting and watering.  I don't need to dig a root cellar.  She is Happy to.  So…just all this kind of stuff and there is a ebb and flow in the exchange that is becoming smoother and easy.  and reassurance that we all have confidence in the idea of this Well Being of the Whole,  that that is at the core of it.

 

this is a piece of cloth from Deb Lacativa.  Cotton.

 

 

 

 

 

 

daughter Jenny hooked me into a FaceBook group of sheds to homes.   There are 36,000 people linked into this….it's fascinating.  Today i read read and read about foundations.  What links us with this Earth.  Concrete foundation piers,  in particular.   The world,  the ALL of US wants something different than we have been becoming.   and i read the comments of so many human beings and i look at this Cloth,  from Deb and i am just in some kind of uhhhh,  well,  uh,  Swirl and it's so Grand and Excellent.  Human Beings are beyond fine.  We see our Beauty and we go,  Go,  in that direction,  never really knowing,  but we go.

a day of its Own Accord

beginning,  i thought with stitching to come,  but Not.  Instead a steady flow of the PULSE of what's happening Now.    With words from LaceLady of Ursula le Guin,  Images…and  then more,  from

sisters

and i take the Chance here,  that they will be ok with this,  but ….HOW COULD THEY NOT,  their Love and Beauty

 

Yvette and Martine…..who were already There,  at Jude's Spirit Cloth when i showed up,   but they took me in and the embrace was something i KNOW.   This pic of saying hello is from Yvette's garden in the Netherlands and Martine visiting there,  waving out to me and i feel it,  their waving out

to me

i feel them.  Sisters.   So full of love.

 

 

 

how they moved some of their Stuff in….Travis and Everett….SOME of it    Cleared space

 

then put every thing   back

 

 

and this one…for Emrie,  or maybe,  really for All of us.  For emrie,  for her mother,  her brother,  her grandmother,   for YOU  for me,  for all of us.   All of Us.

 

 

how daydreams are like Butterflies….a pocket full of butterflies

a pocket for Day Dreams