windthread

yesterday,  Starling and little red Goat began playing hard.  it was the first time.  

Starling was the agressor.  little Red Goat is quite peaceful and pretty much only is interested in his mother's teat.

his coloring is really very Fine.  but this does not ever mean it will carry through .  it's always a fluke, coloring.  it is of its own accord.  but still….

anyway…this was Saturday evening.  Earlier in the day, a woman called from the grocery store in town where i'd posted a flyer.  She, her two kids and her mother came to look.  i didn't say anything because what seems to a totally great idea in one moment can change in the blink of an eye.  they said they would be back this morning.  

maybe.

But/and they WERE.   the Mom.  the Grandma.  the son, Trace.  the little girl, 18mos old, Trinity.  they came to collect their Goats.  Trinity, in her pink shorts and lavendar plastic sandles needed to be put down….she 

STRODE

if an 18 month old can stride,  she STRODE from the road fence to the Goat's place and turned, looking at her grandma and mother, pointing forcefully…..

"mine" she said.  

they are a ranch family.  these Goats are hers, Trinity's.  she's not yet 2.  but she will feed and water them.  this is how it begins with ranch families.    as we took them from the Goat yard and put them in the transport crate i loaned them,  Trace, who is 10, as he took them from me, said their names.

little Red Boy Goat is

Buddy.

Starling, is

Charolotte.

i asked why Charolotte?  and he said…its a pretty name.

so.  ok.  Charolotte and Buddy have gone of to find their destiny.  and i am here.  here to think it all through.  think how i was so full of angst about it and how, this morning it could not have been more right than  RIGHT.

and here we are.  2013.  the New.  Nogal,  Celia and Deb's Karma.  ok.  here we

Go.

 

a day, if i hadn't made the commitment, i woudn't post.  i would wait a couple days or so.  give or take. however.

Things seem to be Creating Themselves.    i  am looking at Amazon for the exact right crib for this girl child that will be appearing in my son's life soon.  seems innocent enough, doesn't it.  well.  and all the while,  it's mums the word for him.   and today i hear that both the daughter and the granddaughter and the step~granddaughter???? is that what she is????? i don't even know, but anyway, this extended extension of Females,  

are now in Phoenix Arizona.  ???????   !!!!!!!  ?

what?

well they Are.  All of them.   Females: 40, 25, 16,  small boy almost 4.  a newish dog, somewhere around  1 and the very very old dog LuLu  about 14.  maybe 15.  Phoenix.  All in one place.  Them.

and Jude posted something the other day about sisters of the heart…and i thought a lot about that and realized that my daughter, her daughter, feel more to me like Sisters, in a certain way.  so…Karma again.   Karma is riding hard and heavy.

and i look at the Cloth of the moment.  DO i put a Goat?  what might that mean, if i Claim a Goat? in a Cloth????  and for whatever reason,  the Goat to be depicted is Celia.  so i SEARCH for the cloth that can represent Celia.  Not here.  i guess i used it.  i guess it was just a small piece and i used it.  so…searching, this place is turned up side down.  a mess.  but, Still, what to do??? 

i found the old box of  Color Hue dye.  Not.  then i remember the bottle of it i ordered from Dharma Trading…black….find it.  i  dye.  i twist, stitch, fold scraps.   into the dye bowl

nice, but it won't work.

search more, but cannot find.  then…on the wall, the once small piece, hanging on the clothesline in the First Bird Cloth….

 

with the small piece that was left to oxidize  from the Walnut Pot

maybe

 

 

 

had planned on more pics but ended up talking to Son's woman about what is needed there to receive the girl child at the end of next month and we looked online at cribs.  and so.

all the Essentials are there.  so…now what.  what "Present" do we take them into?  this is much "prettier", but i went back and watched UTubes of the movie,  the Mission   Robert Deniro and Jeremy Irons.  watched it about going forward, about hauling the Past with you.  asking self how this is different, what i'm doing here, in taking Some from the Past in to the present, the now, because i can Use it…??????

i am really loving this.  loving it a lot.  i am seeing things.  good things.  yes.  i like it a lot.

 

 

going through all the scraps…some i just can't seem to find.  so, maybe that's  ok.  and will leave that for the moment.   i think i'm thinking too much.   too many interupted days too.    this one will for sure be just invisibly basted…all it's parts,  because there wil be no order to how things are added.  Under, Over  it can go so many ways. and string.  maybe string.  

and how could i have not noticed???  a native SunFlower.  tall as the Apricot tree.  looked up and what a Surprise.

 

Dee asked something about what it is that i would Bring Forward in to this Present.  and i had been thinking about that.  cannot answer it yet.  but it's forming as i work.

it's too late.  the day has been too long.  and did NOT belong to me, really….i Gave It Away.  so i can't say much that would be worth saying about that now.

but in the time that i DID claim for the Cloth,  i did this.   i "knew" that a fragment of the Coyote cloth must be here.  ok.  and as i fooled with it all in the late afternoon,  i put it on and down from her right shoulder.  no.  i then thought of actually weaving it in from the left side, as seen here, from the left side, the past…across where her power center might be.  i girded her loins with it.  no. Both, too uhhhh Theatrical.  am not much interested in Theatrical here.   just in ….going.  how one goes.

so…here is where it is in the last moments of this day.  in the center.  inside, yet showing.  the face got reattached.  i look at the discrepant eyes and have strong urge to somehow FIX that, but probably i won't.  it's ok.  she has two different kinds of seeing maybe.  Leave it.  ok.  and down at the bottom…too much.  so i squnched it up.  will it stay?  don't know.  something about a tap root.

and something about her needing ankles and FEET.  feet will be important.  the feet.  How will i do that? don't know.  but feet.  ok.  

it was NOT a particularly satisfying day.  and  i dreamed last night,  how i do…and at the very last scene when i was looking for the Large Cloth that had gotten blown away with tumoltous weather,  me and my dog Chinche,  we were down a very severe drop of rocks at the edge of a very large body of water.   not a sea, but some kind of tributary that edged a populated place.  a city.  and looking for the Large Cloth, my dog and i,  we suddenly realized that this place was ruled by the Tide.   how we thought we could come and go turned out to not be so at all.  turned out to be quite the contrary.  and suddenly i realized that the black glistening stone thing i'd found that had the one end of a dragon, …..was a flash light.  i clicked the button and saw that the way back was through a long large cavern upward.  i called Chinche and she had slid down almost into the water and i did what was needed to help her up and we entered the cavern/cave/passage.  no thought.  it was just what we needed to do.  

 

on Day 177,  i wrote this about this new cloth:

I need a rearranged self, a re~designed self that can move in these days.  I need to retrieve parts of an old self, create parts i have never chosen to have.  Add these to the present self.  I need a self that works with this Now.  different, but much the same.  but different in ways that the Present needs.

O K

it was a work away day, tomorrow is too.  actually, every other day is an Alz B day while her son is gone.  and that's part of my tenuousness, i realized this evening.  to much OTHER going on. but it's how it is.

Still….i was anxious to get back home and see this cloth.  see if it was as i'd remembered when i left the house this morning.   it was.  and also i knew more things.  it began just so fast…stitched to the silk noile.  when i got home, i layered it.  in the middle, harem cloth, bottom some iron pot leaf dye muslin.    IMPORTANT about this:  the harem cloth must protrude on the right…it is squinched in the way that i love so much…so…This, sticking out from under the silk noile.  ok.  Then, on the left, there needed to be a left margin of the muslin.  beyond the formal border of the Noile.  that is where the Past lives and where i think it might, some of it, enter into the Present of the Noile.

was it too LONG?  i tucked it under.  But NO.  not too long as much as there wasn't room enough at the top.

 

 

yes.  Better.

 

OUT to feed the Goats and while there, coming back, one of the Stink Beetles.  they are everywhere in the Southwest.  clunking along in their singular way,  stinky if you bother them…

and i REMEMBERED.   i remembered going to Third Mesa in Hopi Land.  i  remembered going there because i'd seen a PBS program about it and about how it is there and in that program, there was an old woman,  Helen Sekaquaptewa.  in this program, in the background of it all through, was her singing.  she was singing in a thin voice, but a very true voice.  she was singing Hopi language.  just her voice.  in the back ground of the documentary about how corn and beans are planted, tended, how old buildings are let live, though they are dissolving with Time.  i had seen this.

SO, when i finally made it to the SouthWest,  i went there.  i went there in my old Ford Econoline Van, Fern.  and my dog, Lucy.  and i drive up to Third Mesa.   i went into the local "grocery store", saying to the  cashier,  "  I am looking for Helen Sekaquaptewa".  i asked if she could direct me to her home.  She declined.  No Nothing.  i left.  i sat a long time on the curb.  i went back in.  i said,

I am looking for Helen Sekaquaptewa.  she said, and pointed with her lips….over there.  I went over there.  i asked a person in front of a home.   no.  they knew no such person.  i sat.  sat.  sat.

i went back to the grocery and asked.  over there.  that house with the gate and the dog.  ok.

and i honked the horn, as is courteous here, and a man came out.  One of her sons.  i tell him i have come to find Helen Sekaquaptewa because of the song she sang.  he opens the gate.  i go in, with a video camera and one of the fiber figures, dolls, i had made as a gift.  in the house there, at a plain table is an old woman.  a bowl of cherrios on the table and as she chases the last few cherrios around in the milk with her spoon,  i tell her how i had listened to her singing on the TV, on that documentary about the Hopi of Third Mesa and how i had listened to that song and that my daughter was having a second child and wanted me to come home and how i NEEDED that song to take with me.  

She listened.  and said ok.  and i asked her son if i could video her singing so i wouldn't forget and he said yes.  but i could never use it for any purpose than my own.  so i set up the camera on the tripod and sat at her feet.  She began.  the song is plaintif, thin, like maybe you could image Spider Woman singing.  she sang.  

and when she was finished, with tears in my eyes, i asked her to tell me the meaning of the Hopi words of this song, thinking it was going to be something oh so deep and sacred….

she said it was a lulabye often sung to the babies.  about these black beetles, these stink bugs, and it was about how two were going down the road and one is asking to ride on the other one's back.

and she laughed.

 

 

 

 

so….for a moment, i'll just give it to the Cloth.   the Cloth making.   i can see her…the palm of one hand upturned, receiving those blue beads of Karma.   

and looking…..looking at why i put her so close to the edge.  at first, the figure was centered.  but i changed that.  at the time, watched self doing that but chose not to think about Why.  just did it.

now i look.  Why?  and there is a whole other side there that hasn't appeared.  hasn't made itself known yet.  maybe today.

 

as it goes.  Monica did NOT call today.  she will,  most likely, but didn't today.  BUT, Jacob did.  he was the one who wanted a wether to round out his pack goat family.  he has 2 pack goats.  but three seems to be the good number.  he doesn't need this one to Pack, just to round out the herd.   i had tried to get in touch with him all last week or so.  nope.  his Cell not accepting messages.  ok.  gave up.  but today, he calls and there are long pauses.  i say that Monica has claimed them.  he is silent.  to make a long conversation shorter,  he arrives with his young boys and they look.  HOW he looks, i can tell….he really likes Goats.  he notices things.  small things, details about them.  he like both the wethers but i tell him i think the bigger one will fit better in his Pack Herd.  he kinda likes the little Red one.  yes, well, but…he's small.  will always be small.  so ok.  and  they go.  Him carrying the bleating boy,  Maaaaaaa!!!!!!!  and Caroline who is so DONE with mothering calls back.  Loud.   So…this evening, here we are now.  one less:

to the far right is Nogal.  a good view of his intact testicles.  Enough Jiz in there to populate North America with Nigerian Dwarf Goats.  one buck can do the job.  HE will be the new 4th buck here.  

and to be honest, this is really painful.  letting them go.  to whom.  Why.  and this is what's nice about having Snotty Goat Herds that are all registered and with milking stars for the does and with ribbons at various competitions.  in THAT case,  all of these kids would have had reserve deposits for them.  All of these kids would have sold for 2 to $300 each.  they are VERY FINE.  they are purebread.  they are extremely healthy and well…just the best.  BUT/AND  they are not registered and their mothers do not have their milking stars.  and so…i give them away.  

and UNLESS my daughter, Jenny, takes them back before November, i will need to come to terms with it all.  

IF i want to milk and learn Cheese,  it requires some does, 2 minimum, bred and kidding every year.    if it all goes very well in the next months, there would be the urge to breed more than 2.  More doe Goats giving milk, more cheese.  BUT/AND  more doe Goats kidding,  more kids to send out in to the world.  Reality IS…..i am NOT into the competition of showing Goats.  i am not into the dragging Goats here and there for Milking Stars.  so…what that means is that i find homes for them.  Where they will be cared for.  Safe.  Treated kindly and have good lives.  Like the one who went today.  being a part of a Pack Goat herd…going up into the mountains to hunt.  no tether. Free.  Just Going with his "Family".  

How often does that come up tho?  

So…i am looking at it all.  i am UNCOMFORTABLE with it.  i want some kind of Fairy Tale for them.  all loved, all living to old age.  Not Eaten.   WHAT IF that can't be the reality?  WHAT IF like in so many other parts of this Planet that is such a LUXURY.  ?????????????????  HOW do i deal with it?  Can I?  

Can i not need everything to have a fairy tale ending?  Can i learn to let things go how they ARE?

Can i at the very least, understand that at this time of year, August,  there will be the PAIN of how it is?????? and just GO anyway????????

 

 

Nogal.  Who alone, could populate North America.

 

 

Celia.  Who has interesting coloring.  much of her Black is turning deep oxblood red.  Her face is so striated.  NONE of these qualities will necessarily appear in subsequent kiddings.  but…color.  design.  i am helpless in the face of it.

and the cloth on the Flag of the Raft has gotten tangled with the overgrowth of the Mallow.

early.  but i want to spend most of the evening with the babies.  a Turn of Events today.  Monica, the young woman with the kids that came last year and took 4 of the bucklings, called.   Her life has changed.  the Man last year left her.  then came back to take what they had.   so now, she's trying again with someone new and living in Lemitar, 4 miles or so away.  She saw the ad on the grocery store board.  She wants Goats again.  He took everything.  including her horses, her pig and her Goats.  She lives now in a place with many livestock pens, shelters.  and no animals.  Goats.  she wants Goats.

so.  i tell her let me think.  i think.  i call her back.

the Vet Tech has not called.  i'd called her a couple weeks ago saying the kids are ready to go.  she said she still wanted them, 2, a doe and a wether, but that with the County and State fairs,  being 8 mos. pregnant, etc. etc. she was not ready.  she would call.  she hasn't.  am feeling it is not a priority.  ok.  so.  here appears Monica.  who is very ready.  so i make a deal with her.  1 doeling and 2 wethers in exchange for intermittent moral support here when i need it.  for help now and then with hoof trimming.  she's close.  she doesn't work.  she LOVES Goats.  

so unless something changes, which it can,  tomorrow or very soon she will take 3 of Lucky Star's kids.  THIS allows me to keep Celia,  (Marti) and then Starling (doe) and Nogal (intact buckling). she also will take Nogal if he doesn't work with the other bucks.  am hoping he can.  but i don't know.  and just to be clear, this will leave one doe each for Lucky Star and Caroline.  this will allow me to milk only once a day in the morning if i want to.  it would allow me to be able to go see my son's new girl,  Giana Alluvial Fan, when she's born.  just let the doelings take over in my absence.

Logistics.  

and the Personal Moon is finished.  and i figured out how to do it AGAIN….is pictured in the SHOP.

 

she had been waiting.  with her paper face.   Here we go.

 

i already know something about this One.  i need a rearranged self, a re-designed self that can move in these days that have been Forming.  i need to retrieve parts of an old self,  create parts i have never chosen to have.  Add these to the present self.  Weave/Stitch them in.  i need a self that works with this Now.  different, but much the same.  but different in ways that the Present needs.

so…ok.  here We go.