slowly she turned

Living the Slow life in North Carolina

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  • Sunday sweep

    Hot. hot… hot hot hot. HOT. And humid. When it gets this hot here, it ain’t like out West. Here you suffer before you DIE of MISERY.

    When I was 13, I went out to southern California and spent a week with my aunt in July. It was just as hot as here, but it felt good. I noticed the air pollution, but at the time I lived way out in the country so that made a big difference. Then we stopped in New Orleans on the way back to visit my brother, who was in the Coast Guard at the time. Good GOD. I sweat in places that I didn’t know had sweat glands. Since then I’ve been in New York City during a heat wave. That sure wasn’t a picnic either.

    Okay, I’ll stop whining about the heat. I’ll enjoy the AC before I have to go outside this afternoon for hours. It might end up being just lovely in the cherry orchard, and we have Gatorade and lemonade and the forbidden bottled water and lots of bandanas to soak in the ice water of our coolers to mop our weary brows and necks.

    Heck, for all I know, whining about stuff may actually be helping. Yesterday, I received an email from a woman who is starting a truffle farm in Trinity. She and her husband have converted a barn into an art studio and a gathering place big enough for a potluck – it has a kitchen. We may be able to use it for a canning/preserving workshop/party. She has offered to host a vegetarian potluck and is open to many other ideas. They also are converting another building into a recording studio and dance hall. But her intention for the barn is to host workshops in sustainable living topics and art workshops and retreats. So I’m going to discuss that with her soon.

    The other thing in the works that is related is that I volunteered to do a two-part program for the Greensboro Weavers’ Guild in weaving tapestry boxes a la Sarah Swett’s instructions. So maybe I can develop a class or weekend workshop in tapestry weaving. The thing about tapestry weaving is that it is so slow, but if we weave on cardboard or pin looms just to get the process down, it might be doable. It’s one of those things that looks hard but is so easy.

    Tuesday night, Anne Marie and I are speaking and leading a discussion about eating local as a kickoff to Deep Roots Market’s Eat Local America challenge. 8 p.m. Deep Roots is doing a group challenge that asks for 80% local from June 15 to July 15. Funny thing is, I’m not sure that I can do it since I’ll be away for much of that time, but I’ll give it a shot. I usually take a lot of food with me on vacation anyway.

    Oy. The high today is predicted to be 102. In Ararat, Virginia, 95. Let’s hope that forecast is actually for nearby Mayberry Mount Airy, which would be hotter. Maybe there will be a storm. Weird to be hoping for rainy weather for an event.

  • Labyrinth tapestry progress

  • Slow Food cherry picking and National Congress

    Well, the cherry picking is still on for Sunday. We’re just going to make it a shorter event. It will be just as hot, because I can’t schedule it for early in the morning or after five, but we’ll plan to get there around 3:30 for about an hour of picking, pay up, and hopefully it will be tolerable enough that we will want to have our picnic and Frank will speak to us.

    I just hope and pray that no one keels over. But I did put it to a vote. The vote was a tie. A lot of people would like to go later in the month, but a couple of them missed my deadline for the vote. It still would have been close. I joked to them that they must be a bunch of Democrats.

    Thing is, anyone could organize a Slow Food trip to one of the orchards, or a vineyard, or a restaurant, or a farm, or a park for a cook-out, or to their house for a potluck. But no one steps up to do it. At least not this year. It kind of puzzles me because it’s not a big deal to organize a small event. It IS, however, a big deal to organize ALL the events, which is why I’m not doing it this year,and I’m tired of asking people to do it. I like the way that SF Triangle did it – in their planning meeting announcement, they said to bring an idea for an event that you would be willing to organize. At our meetings, we get skads of great ideas, but by “go” time, the people who proposed them or volunteered have forgotten or found other things to do, so sorry. Or, inexplicably, I suddenly find out that they assumed that I would be helping them when I might not even been planning to go. Triangle might still have some of the same problems we do, but I’m guessing that it’s working for them better than our current system. Maybe it will never change, I don’t know. Maybe I’ll just have to learn to live with it, which is the decision I came to last fall.

    So, all this is leading up to a related topic – it appears that I will be representing our convivium at the Slow Food National Congress in San Francisco. There is a bit of confusion about how many delegates we get. I thought that we had over 100 members, and that gives us two delegates. But that is not what SFUSA has down for us. At any rate, my friend Deb Bettini plans to go along, either as a delegate or an observer. We’ll be voting on national Slow Food direction and policies, doing some leadership training and listening to discussion panels and speakers such as Carlo Petrini, Michael Pollan, Marion Nestle, Alice Waters, Eric Schlosser, Gary Nabhan, Vandana Shiva, just to name a few. And eating Slow Food meals for two full days and staying in a nice historic hotel downtown, for a very reasonable price. Very, very exciting stuff!

    I figure that it wouldn’t hurt for me to gain some understanding of Slow Food’s national goals and policies, and it sure wouldn’t hurt for me to get some leadership training and talk to other convivium leaders. (I’ve learned a whole lot the hard way the last few years.) Deb is the chair of our Farm Committee and active in the N.C. Mushroom Growers Association, and she and her husband are very interested in getting young people interested in farming and good local food in schools.

    So that is what is on my schedule for the end of August. I’ve never been to San Francisco, and I’m really looking forward to it, even though I’ll be busy with SF business most of the time. I hope to at the very least make it to the Ferry Market.

  • Quickie Back Forty update

    Pulled out spring peas.

    Planted field peas beside turnips.

    Planted Toscanelli beans where sugar snap were (on other side of turnips)

    Threw some field peas in a flower bed where field peas that were spilled grew last year very well.

    Planted Choppee okra around Green Zebra and two remaining mystery maters near the pear tree.

    Planted unidentified variety of okra (bought at garden shop at Lake Waccamaw) in the side raised bed where the Little Marvel peas came out.

    Mosquitoes tried to kidnap me, but I escaped. Not unscathed, though.

    Windows just came down and AC turned on. 😦

  • Saturday morning coffee pot post

    Whew! It’s almost too hot to drink coffee this morning. Hot and muggy. This house has aluminum siding and I think that it makes it into a solar oven. It’s supposed to get near 90 today and the next few days, and it’s humid. Still, I hope that we can put off turning on the AC as long as possible.

    I do turn on a small window unit in the studio. When it’s hot like this, it gives me even more incentive to go out there and play where it is comfortable. Last year we had it in our bedroom, but a certain somebody who was housesitting lost his key and broke into the house by removing it from the outside. I decided that I was not comfortable with that kind of vulnerability.

    My husband can handle heat much better than I can. We lived together for 13 years without AC before I went peri-menopausal and decided that enough misery was enough. We installed two window units in that house. Now we have central AC in this house, but we use it as little as possible. Obviously last summer when the temps went into the 100s for days at a time it was running a lot.

    We have ceiling fans in one half of the house, and the windows are placed in that half so that we can get a breeze moving from the front to the back. The other half of the house where the two bedrooms and the computer room are are harder to cool because there isn’t a way to get a cross-breeze going. Remember that if you are planning to build a green structure. Very important.

    Anyway, I didn’t think that I’d be writing about heat this morning, but that’s what happens in these coffee pot posts. You never know where they will go as the caffeine hits your brain cells.

    Yesterday, I got so excited about my art journey that I thought that my head would explode. I get like that – I tend to have panic attacks when I’m overwhelmed, whether it is with fear, anger, joy, or ideas. It’s one of those things that shuts me down artistically, for obvious reasons. But I have not had a panic attack this week, although my chest is a bit tight with anxiety. This is a very good thing. I can work with this.

    What happens is that I get blocked for months, sometimes years (in the last case, quite a few), and then the dam breaks, and I am nearly manic with all the ideas and projects that I want to do. I am obsessed. It’s all I want to do, all I can think about. People talk to me about serious subjects, and I hear them, but in the back of my mind I’m thinking about what color thread I’m going to use to bind this particular book.

    So I’m spending most of my spare time creating. The Back Forty is finally at a point where it is simply in the business of growing, and I have little to harvest other than cherries and turnips. This is what is great about my method of gardening – most of the work is done in the winter and early spring, then I slide through the hot summer months, if I do it right. There will be a sparse period right now because I didn’t plant enough early enough, but that’s fine.

    My epiphany yesterday as I was sewing up the slits in the Elements tapestries, and I’m sure that all of this was just barely below the surface, was that I’d use them for the covers of a book. Then I knew what I’d do for the cover of Squirt and Mama Kitty’s book – a tapestry of the two of them. I pasted up a quick idea for the cartoon. The title might change. Remember the Ferrell Family from the Carol Burnett Show? That shows my age, but for some reason the Ferrell Family really cracked me up. That’s why I wanted to name Squirt “Daryl Feral,” but Sandy wouldn’t go for it.

    So here’s when it hit me, and I don’t know why it seemed so earth-shaking when it was so obvious. Has anyone suddenly asked you what you would do if you could do anything? I would make books with tapestry covers and handmade paper from plants in my garden. Maybe other covers with natural found objects.

    So that’s what I’m going to focus on. TA-DA!

    Oh well, this was lovely, but I have to go pick up my chicken now. It will go into the crockpot so that I don’t have to mess with a hot stove.

  • Memorial book in progress

    Sort of, anyway. I took most of Squirt and Mama Kitty’s fur to Susanne, who is adding it to a batch of pulp for our papermaking day June 14. She is going to show me how to make the paper and then let me go at it on my own all day.

    I’ve made the stamp of Squirt and I’m going to make a stamp of Mama Kitty.

    I think that I’ll include the “Our Cat Enters Heaven” story by Margaret Atwood that a kind reader sent to me, and my haiku for Squirt, and other writing and remembrances of mine about them.

    I need to think about the covers. Now that Mama Kitty has joined Squirt, I may make the back-to-back style that I learned in Dan Essig’s class at Art and Soul. I think that I’d like to do fabric covered covers, but I need to mull all this over and think about the whole of it rather than the parts.

    I’ve been carving some wonderful stamps of the “Black Adder” font, my favorite font that I don’t even know where I picked it up, but I use it frequently.

    Susanne gave me a couple of big sheets of her paper; one with yak hair and one with buffalo hair and sage. I have a previous gift from her of a paper made with lavender from Spannocchia. Maybe I’ll make a small book with just these papers.

  • Barack discusses food and farm bill

    I received this article through the Slow Food DC email list, which is a terrific source of information about food and ag issues. The source is North Coast Journal, and while it seems to highlight Barack’s chili recipe, first it gives a very clear and concise summary of Obama’s plans and opinions about national food and ag policy. Here are a few Q & A’s from the article:

    Chef Ari: You voted for the Farm Bill, despite the enormous subsidies it provides to wealthy farmers. Why?

    Barack Obama: The Farm Bill has many positive provisions, in particular, an increase in federal funding for the development of renewable fuels, which will help reduce our nation’s dependence on foreign oil. The legislation provides an additional $10.3 billion for nutrition assistance programs, such as food stamps and school lunches.

    Although the Farm Bill is far from perfect, I support the legislation because it recognizes the important role of America’s farmers and ranchers, and the need to develop our rural economy. It is regrettable that John McCain [who voted against it] does not agree.

    While the Farm Bill does lower significantly the income limits of farmers eligible for subsidies, it doesn’t provide as much reform as I have advocated.

    As president, how would you work to hogtie this piece of runaway pork?

    In part, this is due to the disproportionate role that lobbyists play in the legislative process. As president, I would work with farm state legislators to pass additional reforms to reduce wasteful subsidies.

    Small farms that market to local communities are vital components of healthy local food systems. What policy initiatives would you propose to strengthen local food systems?

    As president, I would implement USDA policies that promote local and regional food systems, including assisting states to develop programs aimed at community supported farms. I also support a national farm-to-school program and am pleased that the Farm Bill provides more than $1 billion to expand healthy snacks in our schools.

    See the article for the rest…

  • “Mindful presence” collage

    The latest progress on “mindful presence” – this was started in Lisa Engelbreicht’s Fabric Art Collage class at Art and Soul at Hampton. I liked the right angles and the balance, but something about it still bothered me. So I began clipping corners, and then I decided to start swapping corners. I like the result a lot! I have this tacked onto a frame for quilting, but I now realize that these layers of canvas are going to be painful to quilt. So I’m going to glue on the rest of the elements and do a little beading, and it will be done!

    That’s right, I never posted the first photo, did I? Silly me, here it is:

    The prompt was, “From this moment on, I am…”

  • Back Forty update

    It rained last night, so I thought that it would be a good time to get some Back Forty shots. Unfortunately, it brought out the mosquitoes en masse.

    Scratch, scratch.

    This is the “gooseneck” garlic that my mother’s cousin Harry gave me. It’s a heirloom from my great-grandmother’s garden. It has twisted and turned several times over just the last couple of days. You may end up seeing this as my banner – it seems to have potential.

    The first violetto artichoke! It isn’t violet, but it’s very pretty. This was planted last spring, started from seed.

    White Nanking cherries on the bush. The pinkish one is ripe enough to eat, but can get a little riper.

    For size reference

    The red Nanking cherries on the bush. They can get a little bit darker red than this if you like them sweeter (I do). They’re a little smaller than the whites, but there are a LOT more of them.

  • Well, I’m home from work, but I think that I’ll wait a little while before sneaking through the Back Forty to the studio. When you overhear the NDN having a loud argument with Satan, it’s best to be prudent. She took the news of Mama Kitty’s death very well, though. I think from our recent conversation that she is overloaded on the irrationality of politics, which God only knows can drive the most stable of us nutty. That’s one reason that I gave up TV and most news in general. Besides, if Satan really is out there, I don’t want to run into him either.

    It sounds like I’m making fun of her, and I guess that I am, a little. But it is more like dread in getting captured in a conversation about religion, in which the only way to extract myself finally is to be rude, which I don’t want to be either. I usually feel a lot of compassion for NDN, but she does get on my nerves sometimes. I’m a little afraid that I might end up just like her one day. Except that my craziness will probably manifest itself in hoarding and cats.

    This summer, I’ll be preparing to go to the Slow Food National Congress in San Francisco as a delegate! Okay, it’s not a done deal yet, but I think that I have a good chance of going. With Alpha Anne, who should be a real fun travel companion.

    I’m working on finishing that scarf, hopefully in the next day or two. And I’m making a bunch of very cool alphabet stamps, and working in an art journal for the first time. This morning I had painted a couple of pages with white gesso, and my husband walked into the studio and tossed the phone onto the wet paint. He might need to adjust to my new medium.

    I’m going to call Susanne and see if she’ll give me a few lessons in papermaking. I know it’s easy. But I’m the type of person who needs a little instruction to kickstart me into a new direction. I want to make books, but I want to make the paper too.

    UPDATE: Woo hoo! Susanne and I have a paper making date for June 14. A whole day of it. Sometimes you just gotta ask for what you need.