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    one side of the kantha accomplished.  this pic late in the day.  so decided to see what the flash would do ….  usually nothing good, but….

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    and remember,  it needed to be ok in any direction.   and looking at these,  i think it is.  somehow the flash made it….uhhhh,  flatter?   easier to see almost.  and i think it's ok.

    and i think i realize that i am looking for a way to Feel about how things are going, or seem to be going for the Planet,  for humanity,  and that i was unable to feel grounded  once i  "moved" out side of my own Place here,  that there seemed to be such a disconnect…and the last few Cloths have been an effort to find some way to be ok with this disconnect ,  and Just Go anyway.  

    i think this one is that effort,  that  movement that i need to translate into Doing.   i hope the Thinking about it becomes clearer as i finish the kantha.  but if it's something that can't be THOUGHT,  then, at least i have an image.  a cloth image.  so..maybe this is a Cloth Thought?

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    just a little stitching,  just some invisible baste.  just enough to see if it can work.   Which is hard, because i really can't articulate what the IT is.  but it's about feelings.  Earth feelings.   

    this much for now and i've begun the kantha around the border.   once that's done i can go back InSide and Re View.

     

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    i had to come back and add this.  It needs to go all ways.  Sun at the Rise,  or Moon.  Vertical or Horizontal…just like this Earth does it, magically, somehow.  i forgot to put this pic because the across the road people are having a PARTY.  the Goats have never experienced a PARTY before.

    lots of music, lots of Voices….and just as i was posting the first,  voices outside their fence that i couldn't tell if they were speaking,  LOUDLY,  to    the Goats  or   at   the Goats.  Goats just spoke back….Snowbunny in the lead,  her back covered by Ginger…which surprised me.  Ginger is normally very quiet.  but she was Ready.  Lots of drugs.  Lots of alcohol.  a very uneasy vibration.

    i hope they want to go home soon.  a cold Wind is rising.  maybe that will help.   it's been so long here…i'd forgotten how that kind of thing feels.

     

     

     

     

     

     

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    from yesterday.  i need to say,  the Indigo cloth in the center is Jude Hill's work.

     

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    and this will Rest now.  the central cloth, of the Firmament,  is the work of Deb Lacativa.

     

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    then, OutSide,  i looked at how "debris" had settled as it dried and fell,  blown by Wind.  how it found edges of things to tuck against

     

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    i see how i walk in exact certain ways,  to and fro,  and those pathways are compacted in this sand almost like cement.   rain skims the surface and runs off,  collecting in those tucked in places.

     

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    hollyhocks remain green year round.  their leaves are torn and stems bent, but once the warmth settles in,  they continue to grow….the moisture held by "debris".   Debris.  i like that word.

     

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    a zinnia,  from Deb Lacativa last spring.,  the seed.   Once upon a time i spent days upon days drawing leaves like these.  the beauty of this form.  

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • 1.  Observe and interact                     

    2.  Catch and store energy

    3.  Obtain a yield

    4.  Apply self~regulation and accept feedback

    5.  Use and value renewable resources and services

    6.  Produce no waste

    7.  Design from patterns, to details

    8.  Integrate rather than segregate

    9.  Use small and slow solutions

    10.  Use and value diversity

    11.   Use edges and value the marginal

    12.  Creatively use and respond to change

    so.  There they are.   and initially, we might think Permaculture is about Growing.  and it is.  but it is just as much about Living.  even,  it is just as much about  Making.  whether it be with cloth or anything else.  

     

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    i love this photograph.  probably as much or more than any i have taken here.

     

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    i went Out and sat.  just sat.  looking at this oh so small mound that i'd written about last night…the Hugelkultur plan.  i thought about putting potatoes there.  and i sat.  waiting.  waiting to see how that felt.  Principle 1.  Observe and Interact.   and yes,  it is actually an instinctive Hugelkultur mound,  (Observe)  but also,  it is in one of the small areas left  without Goats.  i call it an Oasis.  for reason.   i remembered how when putting in the buck fence,  digging,  there was a beautiful indigo blue juvenile skink. (Interact…via memory).   so…i can't.  it belongs to what has chosen to remain through the arrival and settlement of a Goat herd.  

    so, now what.  #4.  Apply self regulation and accept feedback.  ok.  this means….Wait.  think.  listen.

     

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    i moved them around.

     

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    i couldn't decide.  but they are my "maps" .    the one of Everything and Nothing,  the one of Willingness for Faith,  the last,  Permaculture of Self.  Maps.   Maps for what's  Next.

     

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  • began by Looking

     

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    o KAY!!!!!  ok.  so,  What…?????   now is in the very center of Everything

     

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    a local pecan.  that had some kind of Experience.

     

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    but then…maybe THIS is where i can put the seeds to germinate????  i have put them in the ROOM, always in the past.  but  it's cold there.  probably the coldest place in this house except for this end where i am typing away on this computer.  so….What about This?  just behind the wood stove?  and look.  i'd somehow neglected to put plastic on this window…… and forgot…..

     

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    hauled in two cement blocks and a piece of plywood.  set the flats to see if it might work.  i think so.  and maybe even, the cement blocks will hold a little heat in the night?  maybe.   but i think this might be it.   i won't set the seeds for another couple or few weeks.  but….stuff's ready.

     

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    and while working Out There,  fooling with the buck Goats,  i see how beautiful the Mirror Chair is from behind.

     

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    stuff begins to Connect.  i can feel it in my brain.  but have no idea what it is.

     

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    received my Permaculture Calendar….because of Ronnie's blog  rhondaayliff.blogspot.com because Marti saw it through India Flint…permaculture in practice    I really, really, like Australians.

     

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    it's my birth month.  it's a woman in Pakistan with her camels.  but it Could be ME, with the Goats, couldn't it??????   Use edges and value the marginal it says

     

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    this is the uhhhh, berm that i have been creating behind that Oasis that contains the Raft and the Mirror Chair.   it was just to create some small Terraine in an otherwise FLAT space.  and also to do something with debris.  it's a small mound of pulled grass lumps, bark.  with dirt layered from the bowls under and around the trees and bushes.  But i stood staring at it.  because  last night, just before going to sleep,  i had read this, in Gaia's Garden:

    "Most of the techniques offered in this chapter involve the decomposition of readily broken-down organic matter such as grass and kitchen scraps.  But most of us generate woody debris, too.  Tree prunings, logs, even rotten firewood or lumber scraps.  Wood is decomposed mainly by fungi, which we welcome into the ecological garden for their superb ability to keep soil moist, break down otherwise stubborn substances, and produce disease fighting compounds.  We can't add much wood waste to a compost pile, but rather than burn or landfil surplus wood, we can use it to build soil, too.  Here's how.  Hugelkultur.  In the carefully tended forests of central Europe, no scrap of wood is ever wasted.  Branches and brushy prunings are used in a gardening technique called by its German name Hugelkultur, or mound culture.  To create a hugelkultur, pile up branches or brush a foot or two deep in a mound four to eight feet around.  Stomp on the pile to compact it a bit.  Then toss compostable materials…grass clippings, sod, straw…into the pile.  Moisten the pile to that wrung out sponge stage,  Sprinkle some compost on the mound and top with an inch or so of soil.  Then plant the hugelkultur with seeds or starts.  Potatoes really love hugelkultur.  The decomposing organic matter raises the temperature just enough to boost plant growth. Another advantage, as the woody brush rots, it releases nutrients slowly, while it holds quite a bit of water.  You don't need irrigate hugelkultar very often."

     

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    and i looked A LOT at this….

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

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    Work Away day 2.   as i'd agreed with self,  i did Some upon return.  both these vegetable beds and now fully composted and mulched till maybe the middle of March.   the first is where the tomatoes were last year.  probably again.  the second,  for green beans.  trellis needs shoring up.  

    FOUR days home now.  

    and here it is again

     

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    what's going on with this cloth?   i suppose it could be Tazmeena the cat, but she doesn't do this kind of thing.  ?????

    so we can all rest tonight.  Tomorrow begin again.

     

  • so.

    time for bed.  the clean sheets from the clothesline are in place.  smelling of Tide.  smelling of Wind.

    smelling of  Safe.   time to go there.  but after going through all Your Thoughts and thinking Mine,

    i guess that's it.   That it's an odd little life i live here.  ,  really.  like, really.   odd even to me.   and that i can put these pics, photographs, here…   write some words that i do and 

    YOU

    respond.

    You respond, all of You,  from where ever You are  

    because something in Us, is,    uhhhh,     in sych.

    and this is so extremely Beautiful.  Beauty Full.   That where ever we are, however we live,, something is the Same.  I love this.  You  Me  Us   YouMeUs  youmeus.  how amazing.

     

     

  • i don't even know what i did with the early morning.  but then worked away.  came home to hang clothes on the line,  see to Goat Water,  bring in wood, take clothes down from the line,  talk on phone to granddaughter and then 

    cruise through Picasa.  i have no, as in NO record of where pics are.  just have to go backwards to find ones i remember.  

     

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    i like this one.

     

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    i was looking back through the pics to find those of Buckwheat,   who, we remember is now herd sire at  Deadbroke Ranch in Las Cruces.   this paper came today in the mail.  it's been a long process.  i have been devious.   

    i wish i could tell what there is to tell about Daughter/HER Goats…but i can't.  it's her story and it wouldn't be right of me.  but still,  i had to do SOMETHING.  Buckwheat was never registered and so none of his offspring can be either.   that was two fold.  for Deadbroke, an issue and also for this herd here.  i deliberately bred Buckwheat so i could keep a buckling of his for my daughter.  Buckwheat was the result of a very purposeFULL breeding on her part.  and to just have it go to Nothing …. well, i couldn't.  and so,  i have Nogal.  Buckwheat's son.  She can have him,  or,  breed him before she takes the Goats back and have a third generation.  either way.  

    BUT  what happened today is that i got a PIN number in the mail from the American Dairy Goat Assoc.  this pin number is necessary to register goats.  i got it by forging her signature.  that's the devious part.  i told her i was going to do it.  so…not too devious,  but…nonetheless.

    so in the next few days i can register Buckwheat…..THEN,  his son, Nogal, and the two doelings Celia and Karma.  Registering them is important if they are sold or even if kids of theirs are sold and the buyers have serious herds.   not registering them is a dis service to them.  

    SO, today i am proud of myself.  i was very anxious about doing all this.  but i did it.  if any of you out there need a friend who will do whatever needs doing,  that will be me.  i'm good at that.  good at Just Going.  just ask.

     

     

     

     

  • Putting Off responding to comments about "Ego" for tonight.  still thinking.

    TODAY, a beauty full day.  low 60's.  OutSide all day.  lots of sitting time with Goats inbetween mucking the Albatros and hauling that manure to the vegetable beds.  then hauling feed waste to spread over.  turning  and watering  both large composts.    i moved slow and steady.  reminding self frequently to maintain this.  slow and steady.  i saw that many bushes and trees are developing buds.  with all this Warmth,  there is the signal for that.  but most likely,  before it's truly Spring, there will be Cold.  so i think about this.  What will happen?  i can't know.  so i move slowly and steady.  doing what i can.

     

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    she came out with me.  the wheelbarrow,  the Raft,  the stolen Janet chairs.  Nice to have company.

     

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    and thinking about Jude's next offering….looking at the small weaving of hers that is my altar cloth.  remembering weaving cloth.

     

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    still looking, inbetween all else

     

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    noticing small things.  Thinking about why i like them so much

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    so this.   the only difference now, at the end of the day is that everything is invisible basted in place.  i tried to take a pic just now, with the flash and the color was all off.  so…minus the pins and some very small adjustments,  the base is here.   

    this Cloth is about what i am learning about Permaculture….how totally all inclusive it is.  it might not be all that easy to tell that story.  i don't know.   i'd hoped to be able to try a few thing out, but…the Goats had company.  Alz B's youngest daughter, maybe late 40's?,  came to visit her from Seattle.   she's been here,  at our house, a few times before during the Goat Time and wanted to come and see what's happening now.   it was really heartening.   she just likes to sit among them.  watch them.   notice who does what and comment.  ask a lot of questions about each one.    She likes the bucks.  spent a lot of time scratching them and wanted to go in their pen but Bill and i kept reminding her that they were going from here to Alz. B's place and she already was "marked".  She said she thought they smell nice,  like her ferrets.   

     

    ADDENDUM

    i have washed dishes, cleaned up the small chaos of today and find self still looking at this cloth.

     

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    this was with the flash

     

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    this was fooling around with Picasa tweaking…i forget which one this is,  but i like it a lot.

    Jude is thinking about Ego.  

    is this Ego?  that i like to put pics here of what's happening?  i am really asking self that question.

    i don't know how it's perceived by others…and well…that's the KEY for me, really,  that i don't know how even    I    am perceived by others,  let alone the Cloths.   but i guess it doesn't really matter.  i am unendingly fascinated with putting scraps of recycle cloth together to make a story.  i am unendingly interested in looking at them here,  on this Typepad blog,  where i can enlarge and enlarge.   i still haven't  "gone back",  i just keep going forward, one day into another.  but soon, the 365 will be over.   just a little over a month…..   and then,  i'll go back and look.

    But…how much  of this is    Ego?   I am Jude's student.  I am a handmaiden of scraps.  what occurs, does.  and truly to me,  of it's own accord.  but i DO love looking at it….is that then, Ego?