slowly she turned

Living the Slow life in North Carolina

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  • Saturday morning coffee pot post

    I hope that this won’t be a wasted day. I developed a migraine last night and I’m just now getting up. I drank my first little pot of coffee and I’m beginning a second. I’m afraid that this will come in clusters, as they do occasionally.

    So the computer is probably not the best place for me. I did have very creative dreams once I got to sleep this morning. I’ll have some lunch and go out to the studio to weave and I have some ideas for mica-covered books to sell, if I can ever get this store up and running. I’m pretty frustrated at this point and almost out of patience, because I can’t stand being ignored. If you can’t solve a problem right away, you should at least acknowledge receipt of the message.

    I talked one of my many friends named Deb last night, and we discussed Slow Food and going back to Spannocchia next year. I think that she will go with Susanne’s trip. It’s hard to choose because I have two friends going back to Tuscany next year and both would be fun to go with, but I’m sure I’d go with Susanne if Deb will go with me. We talked about collaborating on a book – her watercolors and poetry and calligraphy and my binding. It made me feel very hopeful that the trip might happen.

    Miss Jazz is having all kind of hissy fits for attention and making it hard to blog, so I guess that means it’s time to get on with my day.

  • Rainy Friday night

    All alone, boo hoo hoo.

    Actually I love being all alone. I’m a solitary kind of gal, especially since I became my own best friend. I get to hang out with Sandy on Saturday and Sunday, and that’s good because by the time I get to the end of the week I miss him.

    Right now I’m frustrated because I decided to open an online store, not on Etsy, that I’ve paid for and the admins over there are either not getting my emails or are having trouble figuring out why my store is disabled and not responding. I’m irritated because tonight is the perfect night for me to concentrate on it and get it set up, photos uploaded, all that stuff. After tonight, I’ll be really busy again.

    I have an Etsy store set up, but I’ve never listed anything and thought that this looked like a good deal. If it isn’t straightened out soon, I guess I’ll ask for my money back and go with Etsy. I want to sell my beaded jewelry from my pre-bifocal days and scarves and books and whatnot to try to make my hobbies somewhat pay for themselves, if possible.

    I’ll let you know what happens either way. It’s been fun looking through these artist Ning sites; another addictive Internet thing to distract me from real life!

    By the way, if you’ve heard about my place of employment laying off lots of folks, the news is a bit overblown. Don’t worry about me, we heard that staff in our department were safe. For next year, at least!

    Guess I’ll go do something constructive now.

  • Back Forty update

    After work today, I planted broccoli seedings – De Ciccio and a mix that I bought from Fedco that is supposed to produce heads at different times. Also I put in the ruby chard and half of the golden chard seedlings, and black seeded Simpson and buttercrunch lettuce seedlings. Peas and potatoes are beginning to come up. The greens under the maple tree are doing okay but the kale under the oak tree not so much. I think that it is much drier in the back, so I gave everything a good soaking before our next rain is expected on Wednesday night and Thursday.

    I spent a good part of yesterday on general clean-up and mulching. I think that I’m going to cut back the rosemary severely and dig up a bunch of flowers that are a little too gung-ho as well. I need to fertilize with compost and bloodmeal too.

    This is my favorite time of year. I’m tired, but it is such a good tired, and my hip is healing.

  • The thing about university art classes is that you have to accept that you’re going to be told to do certain things to improve your work that you might not agree with. If everything you do is just hunky-dory, you may as well work on your own at home.

    I’m struggling just a little with a woodcut that I’m doing of a window at Spannocchia. In the photo that I took, the viewer is looking out a deep window from a very dark, very old hallway into a very bright, sun-splashed space that has stones and bricks and a tool of some kind – maybe a stirrup hoe. The problem is the dark hallway.

    The funny thing is that the part that bothers me doesn’t bother the instructor, and the part that bothers him doesn’t bother me.

    Anyway, I thought that I was going to print that puppy tonight but it will have to wait a few days at least.

  • a book quiz

    I liked this quiz that I found on Facebook and would love to see other answers to it. I’m not into tagging people, but if you decide to post your answers, please leave me a comment so that I can read them!

    1. What was the last book you bought?

    I pick up most of my books for free these days, but I think that the last book I bought was Artist Journals and Sketchbooks by Lynne Perella, used at Ed McKay’s, which I have thoroughly enjoyed EXCEPT for the fact that the previous owner was a smoker so I can only take a little at a time. If I’d noticed I would have put it back on the shelf and waited for a clean copy. But I got excited and grabbed it.

    2. Name a book you have read MORE than once.

    1. The Bible (With my parents, I was very close to being a preacher’s kid)
    2. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass (When I was a child I finished the last page and flipped back to the beginning to start it again, but I’m not obsessive. Oh no.)
    3. Catch 22 (I didn’t quite get it in Governor’s School and appreciated it much more as an adult)
    4. The Sound and the Fury (see number #3)
    5. Peace is Every Step by Thich Nhat Hanh
    6. Fair and Tender Ladies by Lee Smith

    3. Has a book ever fundamentally changed the way you see life?

    I think that Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance was the first book that woke me out of my lethargy and convinced me that whatever I did was worth doing well. (I’m not sure that I believe that about EVERYthing I do now, but I still appreciate the philosophy.) Another was Voluntary Simplicity by Duane Elgin, which introduced me to the simple living movement and guided me to change my priorities in life. Peace is Every Step by Thich Nhat Hahn taught me about mindfulness. And Michael Pollan’s Botany of Desire changed the way I look at the relationships of plants and humans.

    4. How do you choose a book? e.g. by cover design and summary, recommendations or reviews?

    I have a love affair with Amazon. I wish that I didn’t! I look at the reviews and flip through the online page samples. I follow up on recommendations obsessively, if it is a recommender that I respect and admire. I buy too many books and that’s why I drive a 92 Tercel.

    5. Do you prefer fiction or non-fiction?

    I read a lot of art and craft books these days, but I prefer to go to bed with a novel or book of short stories.

    6. What’s more important in a novel – beautiful writing or a gripping plot?

    I love Annie Dillard and Anne Lamott and Wendell Berry because even when the plot is thin, I eat up their words like candy. But I do like a good plot too.

    7. Most loved/memorable character (character/book).

    Gus McRae from Lonesome Dove. Bilbo Baggins from the Hobbit. Burley Coulter from the Port William Membership stories and novels by Wendell Berry.

    8. Which book or books can be found on your nightstand/coffee table at the moment?

    *Bedside table: The Meaning of Night by Michael Cox. A pseudo-Victorian murder story.

    *Coffee Table: Andy Goldsworthy and Time by Andy Goldsworthy. My favorite artist.

    8. What was the last book you read, and when was it?

    Andy Catlett: Early Travels by Wendell Berry. Finished it Tuesday night.

    9. Have you ever given up on a book halfway in?

    Yes. The last one was The Lady in the Palazzo by Marlena di Blasi. Quite frankly, I think that her photo put me off, because I enjoyed the first two books. Suddenly the whole story seemed overblown and pretentious when I looked at her lipstick.

    10. Can you recommend a good book to me? If so, what is it?

    Nonfiction: The Botany of Desire and The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan are both entertaining and non-preachy books on food. In the same food vein, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver. For writers or dreamers of being a writer: Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott. Fiction: Jayber Crow and The Memory of Old Jack by Wendell Berry. In between: anything by David Sedaris. Howlingly funny, and not for sensitive sorts or homophobes.

    11. Is there a book you haven’t read, and should have?

    I’m determined to read Moby Dick soon, after reading Ahab’s Wife this summer. Also, I picked up a hard copy of War and Peace for free, and one day I’ll tackle it. I got behind on my contemporary fiction reading when I was in grad school, and have a lot of catching up to do there.

  • Back Forty update

    Today has been very pleasantly busy. It’s not often that I don’t turn on the computer until late afternoon!

    It began early this morning when I picked up the Fabulous Zha K on our way to Carrboro (siamese twin sister city of Chapel Hill) to buy some compost bins at a fabulously low price. I believe that it was arranged by the municipality of Carrboro, and the sale was out of a big truck in a Park and Ride lot. They ordered 1000 and sold them for $40 each, with optional turners and kitchen bins. From the line we were in I bet that they sold them all.

    Anyway, when we got there, I called my sister on my rarely used cell phone to let her know about it. She and her husband were nearby in her car, and she didn’t want a bin but we all went to breakfast and then to a small farmer’s market in a Walmart shopping center outside of Hillsborough. It was nice for one reason because I’ve told Lisa and Tim all about ZK and vice versa, so they finally got to meet my fabulous friend, and she got to meet a terrific sister and brother-in-law.

    The farmer’s market was small but very high quality. I think that it was their first time setting up in this new location on Hwy 86 near I-85. There were several meat and poultry farmers, all pastured/free-range and/or organic, a great cheesemaker, several bakers, herbal folks and other craftspeople. I bought pork chops from Caswell County Organics, and I didn’t get the names of the other vendors, unfortunately. The cheese was named Durham Blu and was a Italian Taleggio style cheese that had sharpened a bit from her normal cheese. I bought some whole wheat/rye sourdough bread and a bar of goat milk soap, tasted samples, and petted a chicken. That’s right. I petted a CHICKEN. There were witnesses.

    I came home to re-sign all the refinancing paperwork again, which would have irritated the snot out of me except that they offered to give us $200 back to make up for the inconvenience of signing my name for 30 minutes in my own home. That was worth it.

    Then I set up the composting bin and shoveled about half of my pile into it. The bottom half of the pile looks like it’s ready to put out in the garden beds. So if you are one of my friends that donates scraps to my compost pile, please put it in the black plastic bin from now on.

    Thanks to a very generous and kind reader, I now have some solar lighting in the Back Forty! I have four staked lights to mark the path to the studio door, and a string of white Christmas lights that I’m going to hang around the gazebo. This is something that I’ve been wanting for some time, so thank you very much, Meadowlark!

    The seckel pear tree is flowering for the first time. The Korean Giant asian pear appears to be dead. This was not a big surprise because I knew that I didn’t water it enough during the drought. Fortunately, I found that seckel pears are self-pollinating. The cherry bushes and the Yoshina ornamental cherries are blooming too. Most of the greens are still alive, and asparagus spears are beginning to emerge. Can’t harvest those until next spring. It will be hard to wait! Violetto artichokes are coming back too.

    It’s been a very good week. I’m very happy right now.

  • House dreams

    I know that houses in dreams represent your life as a whole. I dream about houses a LOT, and there are particular dream houses I return to often. I can ferret out some meanings – for instance, I no longer dream about my grandfather’s house, but I used to find all kinds of little secret rooms and stairways, and often the stairs went up to higher floors that were dangerous and falling apart. That was when I was struggling a lot with panic disorder and worried about going crazy.

    Lately I find it curious that the houses in my dreams are nothing like what I would pick in real life to live in, yet I am usually thrilled with them. Last night’s house toggled between being a house and a condo, but it was in a planned community with a clubhouse and lots of neighbors being very sociable. It was new, one story, with a porch all around and full of light. Everything was the color of sunshine, and the yard had lots of garden beds which were going to require some work because the soil was sandy, a lot like down east.

    But there were troubling parts – the house had lots and lots of outside doors, and I was trying to keep out an old boyfriend who stalked me earlier in my life, and in a very stupid moment I had given him a key. So I spent a lot of time running around, locking and unlocking doors, worrying about how to keep him out and how to let in my new boyfriend and the neighbors who I wanted to be friends with.

    That says a whole lot about where I’m at these days.

    Do you dream about houses? Can you share one?

  • Stop where you are!

    About 15 minutes ago I was snuggled under the covers, half-asleep, with a copy of a Wendell Berry novel, when I heard a voice yell “Stop where you are! Stop where you are! Don’t move!” At first I thought it must be something on the Internet in the next room but it was too loud. I shouted to Sandy that I thought the police were in our back yard, and sure enough, a young policeman had tackled a man right in the middle of the yard and was trying to call in for help. We turned on the lights and in a few minutes there were policemen looking through the Back Forty to see if the man had thrown anything back there. I’m amazed that no one fell in my next-door neighbor’s basement, because the opening to it is wide open there in the dark.

    About eight officers were out on the street where they had arrested and put the man in a car. He was yelling and cussing and making strange animal-like noises and thrashing about and generally not being very cooperative. I called out to the group and said, “Could someone tell me what happened? I’m just curious!”

    The policeman who chased and caught the guy came up to the porch and told me that he was a suspect for larceny at UNCG and that he had chased him from the next street over. You could see that the policeman was happy and pumped full of adrenalin. “Your lights really helped. I dropped my flashlight chasing him.”

    “You did a great job,” I said.

    “Thank you!” He flashed me a big smile and walked out to the street. A minute later, the blue lights were gone, the crowd had dispersed, and it was a quiet street again.

    This is the third time a policeman has caught someone in my yard (not at this house) and the first time anyone has explained it, so I was grateful for that! And even though I know that he would have been fine without us, I still feel like we were a part of it. Woo-hoo!

  • Saturday morning coffee pot post

    Ick. Chilly rain. I’m in what I think is the ending hours of a stomach bug. At least it’s not a beautiful day outside. I’m self-destructive enough that I decided I had to make another pot of coffee. It’s a small pot, though.

    I don’t know why I said ick about the rain, though. It’s perfect for my newly planted greens. I’m glad that I made the effort to get them in the ground. For once, my gardening instinct was correct!

    I now have a hotel room and roommate for Art and Soul. We’ve never met, but our email conversations have convinced me that we’ll get along great. That halves my hotel expenses, and if I eat a big breakfast (free with room) and take a loaf of bread and a jar of peanut butter, the whole trip comes within what I’ve already saved in my “fun” savings account. That includes shopping at the supply store they set up there, as long as I don’t go too crazy. I don’t think that I will because I bought a lot of art supplies this past year. So I’m really looking forward to it.

    I realized after I registered that both classes seem to include longstitch bookbinding, but I think that is actually better. It will give me more focus and the opportunity to learn different approaches to it. I don’t share my altered journals here or with anyone else, but I’ve been playing with glue and scissors for about ten months now, so it will be interesting to take it to the next level.

    This weekend: taxes and cleaning. Seriously. Well, maybe a little bit of fun, if I am really getting over having to be near a bathroom. I’d like to go back to the studio and weave. I have a striped cotton warp on the loom and I’m weaving towels again. I have to justify the order I placed for variegated cotton yarn from Webs yesterday.

    Someone needs to cut up my credit cards.

  • Giving in to my urges

    Again? you say.

    I just registered for two daylong classes at Art & Soul in Hampton, Va. in early May. Revival: Restoration to a Visual Life; An Awakening with Traci Bunkers and Longstitch Variations with Chrissie Hines.

    I know, I’ll never pay off my car early or go to Italy next year if I keep this up. But I think that I can do it, and these classes are awesome. I’d never get another chance to take classes from many of these teachers within driving distance. They tend to be from the west coast or midwest.

    Now I’m trying to find someone to room with. I hope that I’ll get a confirmation from someone for Saturday and Sunday nights, but if not, another person has offered the pull-out sofa in their suite on Saturday night. Then I could probably find another room for Sunday.