windthread

in the jar with the needles….in the evacuation basket        just some of things   that are here,  everywhere.     Was nice to have occasion to look at them.   

to sit with this.   for hours.

a photograph messaged from Alyssia during a phone conversation.   We beheld the Moon    together.

and so surprising.    just to be clear.   those words on the envelope….longues……Longs?   ……   they are not at all long.  and again,  until you get used to them,  are awkward          But they make hand work with denim possible.   When i wanted to make this  cover i tried many needles and none except these would allow me to see the cloth through.    and now  make the idea of the Noragi possible.   My family knows my love of denim.   The more i think of it the more the noragi might happen.  

sewing denim

this fine silk thread and these tiny needles….flow through denim like butter.   the needles require enormous   FOCUS  to thread… this silk or a single strand of embroidery thread…..  but as you go,  you get better and better at it.   it also was discipline for small stitches,  which i needed.    I'd never hesitate stitching denim with these.  and look forward to the repair.   

 

 

 

that night i began the blog….made my way through Blogspot  setup   …..needed a name.    typed in    windthread      just because.  i loved wind and i loved thread.                 the thread is on the move.

" The Yana have probably been in Northern California for three or four thousand years. "    pause.   sit with this sentence.    

" The Yana have probably been in Northern California for three or four thousand years.  There are those who would double this figure,  but in the present state of knowledge three thousand years as a minimum is a tentative conservative figure.   

In 1850 ten or more years before Ishi's birth,  the Yana occupied  some 2,000 to 2,400  square miles of land  recognized as their own;  they and their Indian neighbors distinguished  four linguistic territorial and cultural  groups .  In the little nation of two or three thousand people   life was as it always had been.    By 1872,  22 years later when Ishi was perhaps 10 years  old  there were no Southern Yana left and only some twenty or thirty alive.  As for the 4th group,  the Yahi,  they were believed to have been entirely exterminated also,  and so they were,  except for a handful,  Ishi among them.    This death of a whole people came after the fiercest fighting and most uncompromising resistance that the intruders were to meet anywhere on the west coast."

excerpt from   Nasty Women Writers. com   Theresa C. Dintino  Oct. 10, 2023   where she quotes Stringing Together the Bone Beads of History   Theodora Kroeber      this gifted from the thread  link yesterday from LaceLady.   

so…..i am feeling things anew,  this hill,  these trees,   these rocks and boulders,  this sky,   all beings that have come to be here over time,          over  three or four thousand years         

and the     thread     moves.      in my own small time….       last week i was talking to Alyssia about Ursula LeGuin….Ursula K. LeGuin  and i find now that she is the daughter of Theodora Kroeber.   K is for Kroeber.      and  CatherinE   notes the connection between the pic above and yurt making ,  her blog,   and that led me to  remembering  Jude's workshop of  Contemporary Boro…..to the Boro Noragi  maybe i can make a noragi from this cloth?     thread pulses.   

 

having been caught unprepared when the temperatures got so cold,  december,  i used what i had for Minnow's bed insulation.  It had been just all folded and doing nothing in the back room.   so now,  is a denim and    literal    mud cloth    futon (less) cover.   Can hang out here for the next week of Rain Days and when all's said and done i'll hose it hard before i take it to Alyssia's washing machine.  or maybe should go to a laundromat?     It needs some repairs and i think finally,   a hemming.   i  really don't have anything it would be "for",  but that's a whole lot of handstitching  to just say goodbye to?      thinking about setting up the tent i bought late last summer for Kid's sleep overs…..maybe for that?  like a ground cover for the air mattresses ?   

 

more toward fence line above  area of Big Meadow.    The time it takes for Earth to form the floor of a Forest.     Years.   Hundreds of them.   Years for the trees to grow,  years for them to mature and fall.   Years to decompose,  be incorporated into the earth beneath.     How many human beings have walked here?    This is the land of Ishi.   Maybe even this very Hill at some moment as he made his way.   

as i sat there,    thinking these things,  i remembered.     sometime in the 60's  i read the book.    Ishi,    Last of his Tribe     Theodora Kroeber     1964       Have thought sometimes   since here.    Julian's school…..Ishi Middle School

in the 1840's  approximately 400 Yahi people existed in California.   Total Yana people estimated at 1,500.

1849  the Gold Rush begins

Ishi is born in 1860

1865  the Massacre of  Yani  people begins.   74 killed.

1866  Three Knolls Massecre.   40 killed.   Dry Camp Massacre.   33 killed.

1871   Kingsley Cave / Morgan Valley Massacre   30 killed.

1870 – 1911 Period of Concealment        a remnant band of 5-20 individuals of Yahi hide in the Mill Creek area of California,  what  is   now Lassen National Forest   which consists of 7 counties,  Tehama where Mill Creek is   but includes Butte where this Hill is.   

November 10,  1908  a surveying party surprises a band of 4.   Ishi escapes and hides.

October 1910   T.T.  Waterman leads an expedition to Mill Creek in attempt to find.  No contact made but they find "incontrovertible evidence of their existence in the wild state".

August 29,  1911  after the death of his family and other remaining Yahi,   Ishi was cornered by dogs outside the town of Oroville.

 

Maybe he sat.   Like i do.   Looking out.   Looking down.   deciding.

Lassen National Forest….  named after  pioneer Peter Lassen who mined,  ranched,  and promoted the area to emigrant parties in the 1850's.

Chronology    Nancy Rokafellar  USCF

 

 

 

 

 

for the most part,  this is how it is.   GREEN.    more than ever before.   Many of the grasses i had become familiar with are not so much.   Others are More.   Different wild plants have taken center stage while others that were in profusion are not.    These last days the Goats,  for the first time EVER,     have not come for morning hay.  I call them,  they don't come.    They're gone….off….here and there….they Browse.  On Their Own.    they WANT   what's     Out There.        A different year.   WAY more Rain.   Things are happening.    i am trying to notice without knowing.   without needing to Know.

and the Friends,   the morning Lizards,  Uno and Dos         continue to come.    i get to Jack's  gate,  lean into the Sun   and call out to them…..Friends!   Hello!    and after some moments……Ta DA…..there!   One then Two      we continue.

 

 

its been so long         warm        Sun   

pause again       breathe again

door open,   only  screen door      only long sleeve cotton shirt.      Only.       Only  SUN.     only pause      only breathe