windthread

the little virus' or germs or entities or whatever,  i think they've had their way with me and are just leaving,  having lost interest.   and feeling better enough today to want to eat

 

made soup.  one of the most primitive means of self care.  

 

 

Karma

 

Celia.  Jan, the Practical couldn't even help herself.  said a couple time…"you are really Pretty".  and we know it's not supposed to matter at all, prettiness or not.  it's the Milking.  and look in the background,  her mother, Lucky Star's bag.  nice.  and she's weaning Celia even.   Lucky Star.  for sure a keeper.    but these are things for their own post.

 

and i began looking again at the Migration Cloth, wondering again how i was ever going to "talk" about the signals and signs of the passage.  when suddenly i looked over to this cloth on the left that has been there for some months.  it was a cloth of Whatever…just anything at all i wanted to put there,  unrelated, no story,  just to see what happened.   well…there Was the Burning Bush, but it never did relate to anything else.  but i looked closely and some of the stitch marks…

 

 

 

thread language.

 

and this part, not for the thread language, but just because i love it so much i wanted to put it here.

and so life goes on.  Who knows about tomorrow.   Love to All for Wishing me Well.  it WORKED.  xoxoxo

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

i mostly slept.  how interesting.  to just sleep.  get up for a moment, look out the window,  go lay down.

i'd forgotten about flu.  it's very powerful.  

so fed Them and slept.  at around 3 oclock,  i went to the dump.  the truck had trash in it from 3 days ago.  the dump will not be open again until Wednesday and i will need the truck before that to haul grass hay.  so, no choice.  i took each single thing, one by one and put it in the bin.  took forever, but i did it.  squatting to rest inbetween.

and i thought about a lot of things while drifting in and out of sleep.   and it was also such an incredibly beautiful glowing soft warm day outside and not being able to DO things was hard.

coralberry bush

 

 

very well might be the last day(s) for the leaves on the tree and i missed it.  i missed a whole day.

 

 

 

 

first, the Sheep/Goat woman.  her name is Jan.  and she was/is perfect.  No nonsense.  stayed an hour and a half, tho a couple times i made an opening for her to leave gracefully.  but she didn't.  she was

INTERESTED!!!!!!  oh, Joy!  Interested.    But in a very Plain Quiet way.  She is a Plain Quiet woman.

i know now where she lives.  over in Escondida.  i didn't catch, if she said, but that would mean she has either 20 acres or 40.  Unless something has changed that i don't know about, that's how land over there is divided.   At this time, she raises Hair Sheep,  and again, i didn't catch the breed.  but if you're interested, you can google hair sheep.  Meat sheep.  she has a steady clientele.  they basically are organic tho she is not certified.  Then, she has 4 Angora Goats left.  she is a weaver and spinner who has no time to weave and spin.  but she's kept 4.  and then, last but not least, she has 2 Nigerian Dwarf Does for her home dairy.  

She's very pragmatic.  Very serious about the meaning of Animal Husbandry.   i'll find out more in the future of her "history",  but she has tried things that just didn't work.  and she is not at all opposed to Change.   if it doesn't work, Change it.  and she has.  again, i don't know how long its taken her to reach the point she's come to.  she didn't start that way.  

i had basically 3 questions for her that i'd written down on paper.   The first was if she were going to be moving in here,  bringing 19 goats,  what would she change.  spatially.  what would she do differently.  Answer:  it's good.  it's not 20 acres.  but it's fine.  add rocks to the way back.  for hooves.  

2.  Scurs.   LONG conversation about these.  and she offered to come and help me disbud if i decide to breed for spring.  Her sheep all have horns.  because of their form, it's not an issue.  and also, because they are meat,  it's not an issue.  so..more about scurs later.  but the final thought was i should get a horse hoof trimmer from the feed store and clip them myself.   eeee.

3.  my other major question was reintegrating the two milking does and their doelings with the rest of the herd.  and she simply reitterated what i already knew…WHO KNOWS how it will go.    but the really good thing about talking with her…talking WITH her…was that things can't always be great with livestock.  stuff happens.  and she pointed out that really,  i have been incredibly lucky.  but to understand that stuff happens.  no matter how we try to cover all the possibilities.  it goes how it goes.  So, This was very very good.

and then i added a 4.  about  letting the kids become meat.  and this is a HUGE issue and i am not ready to "go there" right now.  but the talking helped me a LOT.  So…it was GREAT.  and soon, i can go visit her place.  look.  Look.  yes.

 

and the rest of the day, when i wasn't sleeping,  it was Kantha.  there is maybe a half inch at the bottom not stitched.  i am thinking.  i don't know.  but if i leave it unstitched, it will fray.  and that fray may be very beautiful.  but here we are.  and tomorrow morning, i can begin USING her.

and i think this "cold" is really a flu.  Everything ached today.  my face.  my hands.  all my bones.  just this dull aching.  and i thought about that all day,   about how i am rarely sick and how i think it's probably a good thing,  this now and then Descending of Bad Germs that take me Out.  there's something important to understand about that.  The Goats were very kind.  Many of them came up and put their faces against me in a certain way.  i must have felt weak to them?  i don't know.  but it was nice.  this kindness from them.

 

 

 

 

 

the morning began with light like this just to the left of the Morning Chair.   i thought maybe the cold might go totally away.  but as the day went on, it just morphed.  but in an ok way.  so i stitched more Kantha.  had made a deal, me and Self, that i can't wear it again till i'm finished.   and i read more and i took a long nap.  

 

Alz B' s  sister from Seattle, brother from Maryland, and daughter from Portand are visiting her.  so i drove into town to watch the interactions,  see the difference if there was any and also visit some with them.*    took this pic out the car window on the freeway going in and that yellow strip in the distance is the bosque along the Rio Grande River.  Cottonwoods which are all aglow.  beyond that are the San Andreas Mtns.  and the far far rim,  the beginning of the Malpais.  which, if we had been driving there, would be close to two hundred miles away.  distance is an illusion.                             * they brought her outside to the patio and my germs and i sat a little distance away on a rock.

Tomorrow, a woman comes who knows something about Goats.  she has her own.  but mostly she has Sheep.  she is a dog trainer.  i found her because she posted on FreeCycle asking for used halloween pumpkins to feed her sheep and goats.  there was a phone number.  so i was brazen and called and told her i needed some informed consultation here.  would she be willing.  so…Tomorrow.  she is pretty uhhh, abrupt, saying she does not have a lot of time.  i said i don't want or need much.  that i will have my "talking points" ready.  so…we'll see.  and now, soon as it is at all anything anyone might call "dark", i am going to go to sleep.  hoping that tomorrow will look like today's morning All Day.

 

 

spent time looking at this.  the "imbalance" of the Apricot Tree.  the second tree ever planted here.  just a twig then.   Why might this be?  and i made notes of it on the Calendar, so in the spring, if there are anomalies,  i will remember this.  and understand more.  there is a young one,  under her.  maybe i should take her out and plant in her own space??  maybe not.  

 

and more kantha.    i kept having the urge to leave that central place of Light ummm, free.  and i did.  stopping, then beginning again below.  the color in this pic is not at all true, but i waited too long and needed to use the flash.  but, it's beautiful, isn't it.  looks alive.  and i am looking long at that, too.  

and i read.  more.  way beyond page 15 and it continues to be a really excellent book.  with so much i read, books i buy,  there is the magnificant single thought on a page, like page 15 here,  but then the rest kind of dwindles away.  not with this one.  amazing,  her research and deep well of source.

and this is good because i have yes,  a second cold.  i haven't had colds for years.  and now, the second one in maybe 3 months?  The Old Folks Home.  spending as much time there as i have been,  touching so many people.  we Share.  Everything.  cold germs too.  so i went to town and got the tried and true.   When the Maniac (the person i was married to) began his journey into his death,  it began with a viral pneumonia which i got.    and in keeping with the news of the day,  i called the local "clinic" that was supposed to be for those who did not have routine medical care.  Speaking to the intake person,  i was told that since i was independantly employed,  i would need to gather letters from all my employers (ten, at the time)  and bring them in.  so they could determine my place on a sliding scale.  i told them i would be more than willing to pay Well Over that amount, cash,  to be seen.  Nope.  i was so sick,  i could not imagine going around collecting ten letters of employment.  i didn't have the time.  so i went to the big drugstore that USED to be here and in one of the departments was a woman named Grace, an herbalist.  she said…Easy.

Osha from Rio Grande Herb Company.

i'm only a fraction as sick today.  but i want to get it done with because i need to be doing things.  so i have my bottle.  Osha Root…grows wild all over here…Wild Cherry bark…Licorice root…Peppermint and Eucalyptus.  if ever any of you need a cure…let me know.  i'll send.  

 

 

 

 

as long as the mirror is still pulled out, and as long as i have the final pics of the HouseDress still to come,  i took this.  it's the bottom layer.  that which is under the House dress.  what i sleep in.  except for the crocks.   long sleeve shirt, leggings, wool socks.  

i worked a little more kantha on Marti's cloth that has been added.  MUCH satisfaction with this.

 

and Then, guess what i DID?  i read.   R E A D.  not wanting to stop.  the book that India Flint talked about a couple posts ago

and it's PERFECT.  it speaks directly to my Experiment in Purpose Less Ness.  Right there, Right there,  on page FIFTEEN!  right there,  at the end of the INTRODUCTION, no less,   in a place at the end of each chapter, called "Tactics".   she wrote:

"Choose any routine activity and allow it to become an end in itself.  Pay attention to how this feels."

 

 

ADDENDUM

the last moments of This Day,  i spent stitching.  across and back.  across and back.  i let it be no more and no less than that.  Stitching.  across and back.

Marti isn't much about stitching.  Yet.  OR, maybe never.  she is about the alchemical Magic of the dyepot.  with What Is At Hand.  nothing fancy.  but as i stitch this, i think of wanting to hand it to her when she comes and say….FEEL IT.  Feel what happened with the kantha.  how there is forevermore, no seperation.  and this night of the eve of Women,  i think of me stitching,  Marti and her dye pots,  Jude who Taught me/Teaches me.  these plain but Energetic Stitches. 

Love to Us.  yes.

 

 

from:  A Field Guide to the Grasses of New Mexico  Second Edition Kelly W. Allred  Agricultural Experimental Station New Mexico State University 1997

 

Eragrostis (love grass)  (Chloridoideae: Eragrostideae)

Inflorescence a panicle.  Spikelets serveral-flowered;  the glumes, lemmas, and grains disarticulate, often leaving the paleas attached to the rachilla.  Lemmas 3-nerved, awnless.  Eragrostis poaeoides Beauv. E. pilosa (L.) Beuv., and E. lugens Nees have been reported for the state but no specimens of these specis from New Mexico have been located.

 

1  Plants annual.

  2 Plants with stolons, rooting at the nodes and forming mats…E hypnoides (Lam.) B.S.P. Teal Lovegrass.  Native, annual, sand and mud bars along streams and lakeshores; uncommon

 

and Cindy…it goes on and on…this POETRY, these magic words about Lovegrass, the 19 species.

i love to read this aloud to myself.  it makes everything fall into some kind of crazy place.  They are clump grasses, that live by waiting for rain.  just waiting.  like just going.  they wait and then they Go.

Love….

 

 

so…forward with Optimism???

 

ok.  so far so good.  here.  i want to carry the colors of the edges Through….and am thinking how i can do that.    the "story" that has presented is that this part to the left is "where the Imperative is kept".   Where the spirit "lives" that through time,  infuses the Urge for repetative or ritual  actions that manifest in things like Migration.   So, these images on this left side and the spaces in them would be Places Where Spirit Lives.   and then,  colors and form can represent a kind of "language".  

am thinking a LOT about the upcoming Festival of the Cranes.  and how that repetative ritual action of the birds brings the same in the response of humans who love them.  we go.  year after year to bear witness to their return.

 

and i am working outside in these last days of Warmth.  Under the morning glory vines i found yet an other thing i'd been looking for.   this piece of wood was found in an arroyo when i was living in Snowflake Arizona.   it's one of the things i have brought along with me for going on 25 years.  was good to find it.

 

one of the native grasses…a kind of Lovegrass.  There are 19 Lovegrasses.  i'm not sure yet which this is.  but i love it.

 

this is from Sunday.   at first, i thought it was a "failure".  but the longer it hangs out there, the longer i see it hanging out there,  i am no longer sure.  it is what it is.  and maybe that's Enough.

 

and a decision.   the central pieces of cloth here is Marti's collaboration with her Dye Pot.  if you remember, it was long.  twice as long actually.  and there was a lot of indecision about cutting her cloth.   But i Want it here.  and so, i did.   it is a much different fabric than the silk noile…it's some kind of more coursely woven cotton.   but i have begun to kantha stitch it on and as i do, it is amazing how it becomes One with the silk.  it's a horizontal kantha stitch which means the "rivulets" are vertical.   When that's done,  i'll post a photograph.  it's wonder Full and Fine and again, speaks to me of that thing of Ritual/Repetition/language of Spirit/the unknowable.

so…that's it.  now let's see if all this goes through.

 

 

 

 

things are still not right here.  so, i'll keep it short.  in case.

 

and no.  Typepad is still having issues.  this pic will not resize.  but anyway,  this is Tazmeena.  She has been my Partner here, in this home for many many years.  i really don't know how many, but approaching 20.  Which is unheard of for a cat in NM who has access to outside or in,  her choice. 

and during the intensity of the Milking,  i caught myself being Annoyed by her.  as i was bustling about getting ready to milk,  she was thinking maybe it was time for her to have new food in her bowl and was Saying things to that affect and ….i found myself

Annoyed.

speaking to her in an Annoyed voice….WAIT!!!!!

Tazmeena is slower now.  it takes her sometimes two days to get any mouse here.  it used to be just one overnight, or even half of one night.  So, yes.  she's slower.  but she still Works.  and she did not deserve the annoyance and harsh tone of voice.  She sat quietly and just looked at me.

 

on the road down from where i work every other Monday,  ahead,  i saw something moving on the pavement.   it didn't have the characteristic details that i could identify as maybe a tarantula, a horned toad, a lizard.   and i drove around it,  but then just past it,  need to know.  so i stopped in the middle of the road and left the car running to go back and see what it was.

a HUGE grasshopper thing.  maybe a true Locust?, i don't know.  yet.  but huge.  larger than my thumb and all covered with the most amazing patterns of Armor.  like a rhinnosorous…or how ever that's spelled,,,just amazing….and going so SLOW.  Walking.  Walking across the road.

people look at that kind of high desert land and say nothing lives there.  that it's empty.  and that breaks my heart.  SO MANY things live there and live there Well.  doing their share of planetary imperitive.

 

 

typepad is screwy.  so i gave up except, will try this one last time for this

nope.  won't upload.  Typepad needs to charge me a few more dollars a month and add some more juice.  i give AGAIN for today.