Dan Essig’s “The Exquisite Corpse Mica Book” class
L.K. Ludwig’s “Painted, Knotted, Sewn” class
L.K. Ludwig’s “Outside Inside” class
slowly she turned
Living the Slow life in North Carolina
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I’ve uploaded photos to Flickr but will be editing and writing descriptions over the next week. It will be difficult to choose the ones to show here on the blog. This is a teaser. I finally just picked one at random from the Sunday sunrise photos, the sunrise that put the sun in Sunday.
I’ve really got to study medieval art history too, way behind.
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In case you didn’t get the news, this is where I’m heading at 6:30 a.m. I should be there at 4 p.m. their time. I’ll be in the little green area just above the words Port Townsend. Seattle and Tacoma are just to the south of the map.
Now I’m going to turn off the computer and pack. Arrivederci!
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I can’t get it through my head that it is October 19. I keep thinking that it is a week earlier or a week later. I think that I just can’t process the idea that my big wonderful trip is this week!
But for some reason, I can’t make myself begin packing? What’s up with that? Oh well, the kitchen needed a good cleaning. I’ll get it done tomorrow.
I’m pretty sure that I aced my exam today. Turns out that studying sometimes pays off. Who knew? I never studied in high school or for the first BA I earned (well, maybe a LITTLE for that one). I did okay without it, although with a degree that I couldn’t earn much more than minimum wage with for years. Now with middle age and a few thousand killed brain cells from my partying years, I have memory problems.
Wednesday morning will be a milestone for me – after years of a serious flying phobia, I will fly across the country all by myself. I’m not nervous about it at all, although I still don’t like to fly because of my motion sickness issues.
I think that my reluctance to begin packing is driven by the anxiety of decision-making. I will have to have one checked bag because of the art supplies I need to take, and I want to take only one carry-on bag and a large tote bag. Nothing that is too much for me to reasonably lug around on my own with a sprained hand. I am the type of person who will attempt to bring the whole house with her for a weekend away. It is part of the obsessive contingency planning personality thing. What if this happens? What if that gets ruined or lost or broken? This is the one time that I admire Sandy for his laissez-faire attitude about travel. Of course he doesn’t have to worry because I do more than enough for two.
I’m going to go to bed early and pack tomorrow night. And go to bed early tomorrow night too. It’s like Christmas – the earlier you fall asleep the quicker Santa Claus gets here.
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It was SO NICE to work in the Back Forty yesterday. It was the first day that I have not been chased inside by mosquitoes in months. There is a frost advisory tonight.
I pulled up all the field peas, carefully picked every last pea off each plant, and piled the plants up next to the compost bin where I’m going to add them little by little. Then I cooked them for supper last night. I think that field pea snaps (the immature green pods) are much better tasting than green beans. I always find some dried pods which go into my seed stash for next year.
Today I will try to do the same with the butterbeans. I learned a lesson last year. These beans produce right up until frost, and I saw the little green pods as such a waste. Well, that’s silly, I should be happy that they produce that long! Last year I let the pods stay on the vine after frost hoping that they might, I don’t know, magically mature? Magic beans? This year I am picking every last one that has a hint of a little bean in it that is shellable. I will blanch them for about two minutes, cool them quickly in ice water, drain and freeze them.
Another important priority for today: freezing basil. It will not survive the frost. This is one of those things that if I miss it, I will regret it. I only have one basil plant this year, but it’s a big one.
I guess that I should pick the rest of the green tomatoes as well, but I’m not really excited about that. I don’t understand the appeal of green tomatoes, but they will eventually ripen in the house.
Yesterday I made a really good local meal. I marinated a small pork shoulder roast in cherry apple cider overnight. Then I sliced up a Stayman apple and minced a clove of garlic and put in the bottom of a slow cooker. I browned the shoulder in a cast iron skillet, then added it to the slow cooker and poured the rest of the cider marinade and a little more cider over it to come up to the bottom of the roast. I cooked it on low for about eight hours.
I served this with field peas and tendergreens/Tuscan kale sauted with garlic and a little bacon.
Pork Shoulder Roast: Bradd’s Family Farm (whey-fed pastured pork)
Apple and cider: Mountain Fresh Orchards, Hendersonville, NC
Field peas, kale, tendergreens, garlic: The Back Forty
Certified humanely raised bacon, salt, and pepper: Deep Roots Market -
Oh, have I been looking forward to this morning. No real plans, other than to study for my exam on Monday and to get materials ready for this week’s trip to Journalfest in Port Townsend, Washington.
Guido is galloping around the house like a racehorse. He is 13 years old and still a kitten. Lucy has become much more of an attention-seeker and purrs very loudly often, which is nice. Miss Jazz is Miss Jazz, queen bee, petite and haughty to the other cats, insistent on constantly sitting on top of us. I saw a cat at Petsmart yesterday that was the exact image of Squirt, face, size, coloring, everything. It was hard to walk away. I still dream of Squirt nearly every night and think about him every day. I wish that I could let him go.
My hand is not broken, and my arm and fourth finger feel much better. It is the pinkie and the muscles on that side of my hand that are still painful, and pain relievers have not helped, even strong doses. I can type without too much pain but I’m not going to push it today. I wanted to make paper but I decided that I’d better wait until this gets better.
Sandy found his wedding ring. He had taken it off his ring finger and put it on his pinkie because it was getting too tight. When he was packing to come home it must have fallen into the suitcase.
It is supposed to get down in the high thirties here this weekend so I’ll make a serious push on the butterbeans and field peas to get the last of them. The field peas slowed down a week or so ago but the butterbeans keep going until the frost gets them. I had a delicious second wave of figs but not nearly as many. My carrots were very disappointing, and almost all that lettuce seed I planted was carried off by ants or the seedlings eaten. I dug up a handful of small Yukon Gold potatoes. I’ve harvested a few very small heads and side shoots of broccoli, enough to make a few dishes from. I have a little patch of tatsoi and other greens, Tuscan kale, lots of parsley, and one lonely golden chard in a pot. The tendergreens that I planted in the spring made a comeback. I’ll have to pick some for Lucy and Miss Jazz. They love them.
A lot of these failures could have been avoided if I had put a bit more effort into it, but this has been the year of the lazy gardener at my house.
I realized that if I wanted to get any classes that I wanted at Art & Soul in Hampton, Virginia in May, I’d better go ahead and sign up. So I contacted my roomie from last year, and signed up for two book classes under two teachers that I haven’t had before, as well as a fun printing technique class from Traci Bunkers called Roller Printing MacGyver Style. I’ve taken a couple of Traci’s classes before and I enjoy her funky free-wheeling style.
But this coming week IS THE WEEK! On Wednesday morning, I will be flying all by my little lonesome to Seattle, where I’ll get on a shuttle bus to Port Townsend, to take a class from Daniel Essig and two classes from LK Ludwig, two book artists that I greatly admire! Journalfest is all about art journaling and takes place at Fort Worden State Park, a former military installation on a spit of land sticking out into the Puget Sound. All I’ll have to think about is making art and I’ll meet a lot of like-minded artists at this one.
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Two corkscrew willows, one living, one dying.
If I had been completely alone, you can bet that I would have been scrambling over these rocks to play in the river and collect pebbles.
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You can usually find beauty if you look for it. In this case, it was a walk beside a ditch behind the Super 8 Motel in Black Mountain, North Carolina.
These asters were much bluer in person.
I think that this is wild lettuce.
I wish that I knew my plants better.
Ditto.
Ooh! Ooh! Ooh! I know this one, pokeweed!
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Our trip was nice but cut a bit short. It poured rain yesterday and we had had enough of shopping. I would have liked to do a bit of hiking but Sandy suddenly developed a painful knee. I got out into nature a little bit on Sunday morning and yesterday there was a short break in the rain as we went through Chimney Rock so I played a little bit in the Broad River at the Riverwalk there.
I spent a lot of money (for me) but I’m well pleased with my purchases: a pair of gorgeous Danskos, two shirts and a jacket by Sacred Threads, a small eggbeater drill for $12 at an antique store, a couple of books at Downtown Books in Asheville, bone buttons at Chevron Beads in Asheville and shell/seed beads at New Earth in Black Mountain, a ceramic pin for Mama’s Christmas present, Stayman apples, a huge $2 cabbage. I really could have gone wild in the craft galleries if I hadn’t bought the clothes and shoes first.
We generally ate well. We stayed at a Super 8 in Black Mountain and ate dinner at the Cellar Door and the way-off-the-beaten-path Straightaway Cafe, an ironic name for a Hungarian restaurant that was up five miles of hairpin curves. Didn’t work too well for me, the carsick queen. Lunched at an old German restaurant in Black Mountain – the name escapes me right now. The Cellar Door was great but I am disappointed that we didn’t eat in Asheville or Hendersonville. At least I did get to eat my obligatory mountain meal – trout, with a pecan crust. Yum.
Sandy is a little upset because he lost his wedding ring. At least I was with him during the time that he must have lost it, so I know it was not due to funny business.
I’ll upload photos later – my hand needs a break. Trying to decide whether to go to the doctor but I’m so sick of doctors and dentists. I get my permanent crown tomorrow, which is good since I broke my temporary crown into half-a-dozen pieces this weekend.
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Have I mentioned what an incredible klutz I am? Today I stumbled on a curb and took a bad fall. Both hands are bruised and my left hand is probably sprained and it is difficult to type. So it is a good thing that I’m taking a little vacation tomorrow and won’t be making paper or typing for a few days. We’re going to the Asheville area for a few nights. Have a great weekend, and hey, take care out there. Those curbs are everywhere.
(Update from Aug. 30, 2012: little did I know when I wrote this that I would end up having surgery on this hand AND I still woke up with pain in it this morning, almost three years later.)
slowly she turned 