angel petals and wings

I'm not much of a gardener. I like flowers but am not dedicated enough for the struggle to grow stuff at this elevation. After many years of trying, I gave up and now prefer to plant things in pots instead. This spring I just didn't seem to get it together. So today, in anticipation of my family arriving next week and wanting the upstairs deck (outside the kitchen) to look nice for my birthday dinner next week, I stopped off at Turquoise Teapot and asked Kathleen if there were any plants left. She walked me to a shady side garden and we filled a tray with zinnias, marigolds, petunias and pretty purple/white stalks whose name I can't remember except that the word angel was in it. I donned my straw hat and planted the flowers in empty terracotta pots that had been languishing on the deck since winter. I repotted the basil that had been growing in my kitchen, too, and added the smallest sprigs to the flowerpots.The moment I planted the red petunias, a hummingbird swooped by to check things out. I wonder if it was the hummingbird my husband rescued from the skylight in his studio. The tiny bird was desperately trying to find a way out - it saw light but no opening. My brilliant husband grabbed a cotton mop and thrust it up towards the bird. I was afraid it would be injured in its panic, but he assured me that he's rescued many birds from the studio through the years: "they seem to like coming in here", he added. Sure enough, the hummingbird grabbed onto the mop and we carried it outside. The moment it hit the outside air it flew high and out of sight. Many humane husband points accrued through this act.

Now, a few hours after the big gardening episode, it has rained gently upon the new plants and they already look happier and settled in. For me though, I have to clean up, change clothes and prepare a brief introduction of the new SOMOS anthology at the readings tonight at the Rane Gallery. It will be the first public launch of this year's edition and I hope the public likes it as much as we do.

opened window voices
on a late July afternoon
a man, birds, and soft rain

it's here!

I'm so excited and tired today. After a morning of washing and drying two huge comforters at the laundromat in town while reading poems by Jack Gilbert and Ted Kooser and then going to the recycle center with five bags of bottles, tin cans, newspapers, then grocery shopping, I'm pooped. But excited because the SOMOS retrospective anthology, Chokecherries, finally arrived from the printer and it is all I'd hoped for!

This is the editing job I've been working on forever and hinting at for weeks. The covers display two panoramic photographs by Gus Foster - one on the front, another on the back. Foster is an amazing photographer whose panoramic photos (when not reduced to standard book size) are 12-17 feet long! He uses special cameras and prints using a huge enlarger of his own design. Inside, is an interview with him. This annual edition is a retrospective of the works of writers who were invited by SOMOS (The Society of the Muse of the Southwest) to read their work in various series and events during 2009. This is the 15th edition of Chokecherries and it's one of the best. There are also photographers, artists, and a fiber artist within its pages, as well as poems, prose and essays. It will be officially introduced on Friday night during the Summer Writers Series and can be ordered from somos@somostaos.net.
 

it's only raining!

Thinking of all those moody rainy day songs I've heard through the years as this day continues gray and damp. Not gloomy. It's not easy for a vast sky vista to turn gloomy, but it does feel more New England coastal than Taos mountain clear. In a word, I'm enjoying the rare cozy feeling and have frittered away much of the day puttering, knitting, reading. Maybe by tonight I'll have accomplished the task I set this morning. Clear out and organize workroom so it will be ready for expected guests.

Yesterday at the post office the skein of Squoosh Fiberarts Merino Cashmere Sock yarn in color "Tuscany" was waiting for me. I ordered it from Eat, Sleep, Knit after receiving their latest newsletter containing raves about it. It contains only 10% cashmere but combined with the 80% merino it is incredibly soft. The color is actually lighter than the photograph above - more gold, with shots of olive. I started the Raha Scarf from Knitted Lace of Estonia. It looks lovely and is a fun pattern, however, the scarf is too narrow for my taste. I considered buying more yarn and increasing the pattern repeats, but changed my mind. I'll just look at it for awhile and see what comes.

It already triggers a memory of olive trees and foliage at Camporomano in Massarosa in Tuscany. I took a walk in a grove in a light rain that turned the whole area into a sort of misty dream. An olive oil estate has existed there for 300 years. The trees are thick and tall, gnarled into fantastic scary shapes. Nets had been placed on the ground beneath each tree to catch falling olives. Also existing on the estate at that time were the elderly Count and Countess. They were charming and attractive although the Countess was a bit deaf. My husband, who was quite chilled and uncomfortable during our stay, ran into the countess one  morning and mentioned that he was cold (hoping she would have someone turn on the heat in the old villa where we were staying). She smiled graciously and offered him an umbrella.

Ugo, the count's son
when I told him it was cold in our room
said not to worry, it will be fixed soon.
And looking into his clear blue eyes
I almost believed it.

shuttergram strikes again

I leave my house at 5:55 a.m. Greeted by a sky that looks eerily like the ocean downsideup. The air is cool enough to wear a light sweater, grasses and fields smell fresh from last night's rainfall, birds are awake and chirping. Why am I up so early? Actually out of bed and getting into my car? I have been asked to do a photo shoot. My role is secondary to the documentary being filmed with my 95 year old neighbor Manuel. I plan to keep a low profile and be unobtrusive - quietly shooting pictures with my cameras (Canon G7, Canon S90) and no flash.

Manuel and his many family members have been our neighbors for over twenty years since we first came out here. His working land is adjacent to ours. Much larger and in his family for generations - in fact the land our house is on once belonged to his sister who left this area many decades ago. We are the newcomers. In the past I've taken pictures of him from my second floor deck using a zoom lens - because he represents the quintessential farmer/rancher of northern New Mexico and may be one of the last of his generation. Also because I am editing a book about him. I won't reveal the subject of the documentary or the book yet. That will come later on in the year. For now I just want to say that the hours I spent today shooting, talking (yes, I managed that) reminded me why I have loved this area so much for so long and can't believe that I let it slip - or maybe took it for granted.

I strapped on my cameras, slipped my feet into sturdy Birkenstocks, donned a baseball cap, and felt like the photojournalist I always secretly wanted to be but never became. In my mind I called myself Shutterbabe but then remembered that great name was already taken a few years ago by Deborah Copaken Kogan as the title her book. Also she was much younger and I'm not sure I can be called "babe" anymore. So how about Shuttercrone? Shuttervixen? Shuttergrandam? Or nothing. Just do what I love whenever I get the chance.

There will be more about this project as it unfolds. As I write now, it is early evening, someone has to start supper, clouds have gathered and this morning's ocean-like visage gave way to blue sky and fluffy white clouds that have turned gray and silvery. Thunder rumbles insistently in the distance and if we're lucky, it will rain again tonight.

one GIO down!

Finished! The cashmere shawl. Not blocked yet but so lovely I had to photograph it with the light coming through to accent the laciness (which rendered the color less than precise as you can see in the next picture).

I loved every hour working with this project and highly recommend this luxurious yarn. It is expensive but worth it. It's not just the romance (Cape Cod beaches) but the high quality, luscious hand dyed colors, touch.

As with the last shawl (pale sage cashmere), I carefully and loosely sewed the two pieces together rather than grafting it (no patience). In this variagated darker color the seam is barely visible and I'm not giving it another thought. Can't wait to wear it. But first it has to soak in Eucalan for a half hour and then blocked to dry.

Here are the details:
Pattern (free PDF from Knitting Daily): Lace Shawl by Alice Halbeisan
Yarn: 2 skeins (400 yds each) Lobster Pot 100% cashmere laceweight (closer to fingering weight)
Needles: 3.75 mm Addi Turbo Natura wood circular used flat
Size before blocking: 15" X 66"

bloody & bowed for now

Several years ago I walked out to the edge of our 2 1/2 acres of land to where some wild rosebushes grew along the fenceline near an acequia (water ditch). I was a little envious that we didn't have these thick bushes with their spare pink flowers in spring and red rosehips in autumn.  They grew in profusion on our neighbors' land and I noticed that some shoots had drifted over to ours. I dug up a couple of small volunteers, replanted them behind the adobe wall close to the house and hoped they would grow. Silly me. They are wild. They grow anywhere. Their roots will reach down to hell if there's any water there. They form thickets, take over, and are now most formidable six foot high nasty thorny bushes that we somehow didn't get around to trimming. Until this morning after a nice civilized walk in the park with Spike.

I wrestled thick branches, thorns, biting ants, stinging mosquitoes, emerged bloody, scratched, and itchy. So now there is a huge pile of thorn-filled branches waiting to be loaded into the truck and driven to the landfill tomorrow. I've always known, since we started to clear land for a garden (ha!) 20 years ago, that when something manages to grow around here at 7500 feet it grows for eternity. I've been pulling up the same weeds with their thick stems and strong tenacious roots since 1990. However (silly me), I still like the way these wild bushes look when covered with hundreds of small flowers sending out a woodsy-sweet fragrance so I rescued some thin young green stems and shoved them in a bucket of water. If they root, I'll plant them outside the wall, far away from the house.

At the end of that rosebush summer we planted what we thought was a dwarf apricot tree. As I wrote here in late April, every year except last when I made 12 jars of jam, the blossoms froze and we never saw fruit. This year as usual the blossoms froze again, but today as I cleared out the overgrown rosebushes that were choking the now huge tree, I spotted five plump apricots, still greeny-yellow in the lowest branches of the tree where they were obviously sheltered from the freeze that took all the rest of the blossoms. Five apricots!

It's probably unnatural to admit this, but I'm going to. I hate blueberries! After buying two pounds at the supermarket, discovering they were basically tasteless, making muffins that looked deformed and a pie full of sugar but still tasteless, I realized that even though I consider myself a pretty fair baker, I have never had success baking anything blueberry related. Organic? Frozen? Wild? I've never experienced blueberry satisfaction the way raspberries, strawberries, blackberries, and even wild huckleberries (picked in CT woods) provide. So I'm finished with blueberries forever.

Except as a color for yarn
Or maybe the clafoutis I planned to bake with leftover berries
Or that lucious blueberry tart in the My French Kitchen cookbook by Joanne Harris
Later on I'll drive into town to Monet's Kitchen and buy a tart pan
After I meet my friend for lunch...

grapes and wolfsbane

Late lunch at Harry's Roadhouse in Santa Fe. We sit outside. The day is hot, but it's comfortable in the courtyard where bunches of grapes spill over the weathered fence, flowers bloom in clumps in corners and old trees cast moving shadows. I love courtyards and the best ones I've seen are in Santa Fe and Capri. Okay, that last exotic location was just a glimpse many years ago that I haven't forgotten - behind wrought iron fences and steps decorated in yellow and blue tile. I took pictures but couldn't enter.

You many have noticed on my reading list that I'm entering the fourth (and last) of the twilight series, breaking dawn (lower case titles are the publisher's decision, not mine). Even though I asked nicely, my friend would not reveal the outcome after I finished the first two volumes (I'm reconsidering our friendship). She was right about the third one being better than the first two and according to the email I sent her this morning hinting for an intervention, I have taken a vow to stop reading about vampires, adolescent love and giant wolves for 24 hours to return to knitting and editing - a vow conceived before my husband subtly (he thought) began to talk about how, when he was teaching psychology, they discussed people who read about real life rather than participating in it. "Not you," he quickly added (not realizing that what I'm reading has absolutely nothing to do with real life). But, hey, I've lived with this guy for decades. Because then I mentioned (subtly of course) something about how he often turns on the TV in his studio and clicks it to TCM for a stream of old black and white movies flickering in the background while he works. He answers, I'm a visual person, you are a word person and heads out the door.

The great and frightening thing
about being adults is that
by now we know
we can't save each other.
                 Joan Logghe ("Brevity")

kinds of lust

Summer afternoon at the Teapot. The gorgeous old wicker chair would probably collapse if anything heavier than a planter was placed on it (like a knitter's butt). But it represents something ineffable about summer and spending quiet time under the moving shade of a tree. Instead, I go inside and sit at a table with a French country tablecloth and sip iced black Vietnamese tea - and finally get back to editing.

Twilight
A couple of days ago my extremely intelligent and educated friend handed me a rather large shopping bag with four thick books in it. The books are Stephanie Meyer's Twilight series. Along with the bag of books came a warning,  "they are young adult level, but you will be mesmerized" - appropriate for reading about adolescent vampire lovers. I finished all 500+ pages in a couple of days. And I must say that although I would like to know if Bella becomes a vampire herself (in order to live forever with her Adonis-like boyfriend Edward) I'm not sure I can plow through another 1500 pages or so to find out. I'm seriously considering asking my friend to spill the bloody beans and just tell me what happens.

I did like the story of how the author was inspired. She had a dream. In a sunny clearing of a forest she was with a drop dead (no pun intended) gorgeous man whose skin, in the bright sun, glowed and sparkled. He just happened to be a vampire madly in love with her. Next morning she sat down at her computer and started writing. It took three months to complete the first book and after some rejections and disappointments, a clever literary agent liked what she read and found a publisher - then a movie deal materialized. The rest is history. (By the way, I am going to buy Twilight for my granddaughter who is turning 15 in a couple of weeks).

Lust
Not the sexy kind (sorry). But knitting-related lust. I have just stumbled upon Colonial Needle Company's Rosewood Interchangeable Knitting Needles. I must have them! I've always loved rosewood needles. I have a couple of dpn sets and one or two circulars picked up at Stitches West in years past. I consider them treasures and one year when my backpack containing a half finished sock on rosewood needles was stolen out of my car I claimed them, along with my camera, as a loss. Surprisingly, the claims adjuster didn't question it and they were replaced. The problem is that these needles cost $199 (plus shipping)! So I'm planning a yarn stash and sample sweater sale at the end of August.  I may post some of the inventory on this site and on Ravelry first. Or I could get a job. Maybe not.

Old time words for knitting needles include:
pins
prangs
wires
pricks

the Sunday edition

Here is the latest egg surprise nestled in our usual dozen. Sarah calls it her "brand". Frankly I think that's a pretty sophisticated concept. But maybe I'm just comparing it to what I was like at 9 years old in the last century. No encouragement to think outside the box - at least in my Italian-American Bronx world. Rules were clear and covered everything from sex to imagination. In the decade of the 1950s they reached their zenith. By the time the great revolution hit in the 1960s, most of us had already made permanent decisions about our lives that were not easily open to change. We were the in-between generation. Establishment by day, rebels by night (the scent of cannabis smoke regularly wafted out of opened suburban windows after the kids were asleep). Compare movies from the 1950s (if you can bear it you will notice one overriding plot theme: get a husband) with those from the next two decades (get a lover or two, drop out), and you have some idea of how we went a little nuts at some point.

Still crazy after all these years
                Paul Simon

a contemporary manifestation

Ok. So I'm still doing this farmer's market eggplant thing. This one reminds me of the new yarn - and now I'm thinking that maybe I will make socks out of the yarn it after all. Then I can admire my warm feet all winter long and be reminded of (so far) this cool lovely summer. There's a small (3 vendor) market on Wednesday afternoons next to my neighbor's local hispanic art gallery. I stopped by and picked up, along with arugula and fresh fava beans, a bunch of squash blossoms.

When I was a kid my mother used to go outside in the early morning and pick the zucchini flowers from our small kitchen garden. She would lightly dip them in egg and flour, sprinkle salt and pepper and saute in olive oil. They were delicious, but I never told my friends about it because I was sure they'd think we were a weird family who ate flowers.

When I started this blog I made a casual vow not to write about extremely frivolous things - and then I realized that everything I write about barely (if at all) clears that standard. So here it is. I'm in love with Pandora bracelets and charms! (see, I did warn you).

When I was in CT last month I received an early birthday gift of a silver Pandora bracelet. I immediately bought two charms for it. I'd never heard of Pandora and was surprised to find that it's a fashion trend that's been gaining momentum for several years. How could I not know! Me. The fashion icon of Des Montes (slight exaggeration here - but I do read Vogue every time I have a hair appointment). Most of the women (of all ages) in my east coast family have them - personalized for their lives and interests - and they gradually add and change charms and beads. That's the fun of it. The pieces aren't permanently fixed like the charm bracelets of the 1950s and 60s. Since that fateful afternoon in CT more clips and charms have been added to mine. And now I have this really fun obsession running a close second to new yarn! On a limited budget choices have to be made and I am choosing silver (and gold if I win the lottery) over cashmere for now. I've exposed  my superficial side and proud of it!

...most of humanity's past was spent in hunter-gatherer cultures,
and women were the chief gatherers.
                             Thomas Hine, "I Want That! A Cultural History"

food, yarn - what more?

Here's my latest score from the farmer's market. Pretty, photogenic, small eggplants! Eventually they will be cut up and sauteed in olive oil and garlic, but for now they will be admired. Farmer's markets are multiplying around here. We now have Saturday, Sunday and Wednesday markets in different locations. If I could just remember which one is where, when, I'll be fine. Speaking of markets, I finished the third of the market bags I started knitting over the winter with various worsted weight cottons. The other two are lime green and wheat. They are rather stretchy, but strong. I have yet to actually use one at the market, but that's because I haven't tried.

Also new on the scene is this skein of Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock yarn that arrived at the post office yesterday.

The color is called Eclipse and I was informed that it is a limited edition color (this could, however, be a lie). I'd planned socks, but the color is so intensely eggplant, wine, smoke, that it wants to be something else entirely. I'm thinking of a diagonal lace scarf because I can see myself wearing it at an interesting urban sidewalk cafe in the fall. This is what happens even as I am flailing under the weight of many UFOs and a still unfinished tiny baby sweater (really, just a couple of hours and it could be done!). My whole travel outfit, including scarf, is planned, but not the destination! Almost anywhere faraway will do. Taos is lovely in summer but in my mind, if not reality, my bags are always packed.
     Instead of planning a trip though, I find myself online researching fares for four family members to get from NY to NM next month. How did I get roped into doing this task? Because they claim they are tooo busy (someone added confused) and here I am in lovely Taos with nothing much to do. Oh well, I still care about them and will do my best to help get them here.
     Apropos of traveling, I came across this quote in Alain de Botton's, The Art of Travel (not your usual guide). It was Flaubert's way of ascribing nationality (he didn't like being a Frenchmen): "not according to the country one was born in or to which one's family belongs, but according to  the places to which one is attracted". In that case, today I'd be Venetian. With a basket of baseball-sized porporeo melanzani on my kitchen table. (That scarf would look great while sitting at a table at Florian's).

trunks and junk

Coming upon this old steamer trunk in a Taos resale shop today I realized I'd never actually seen a real one. It triggered mysterious memories of trips I've never taken. I've always been seduced by the idea of journeying to Europe via ship - not a cruise ship which I probably wouldn't like, but the kind of ship that people journeyed on before airplanes were dominant. Trips that are somehow intrinsic to many old movies. Sabrina. Holiday. An Affair to Remember. Lady Eve. Now, Voyager. Deck chairs. Lap robes. Drinks delivered by crisp efficient cabin boys. In those movies everyone always seemed to be getting ready for a "midnight sailing" while love affairs hung in the balance or adventure awaited.
     When I was in my early twenties, my then-steady-boyfriend's cousins were sailing to Rome. We drove to the pier in Manhattan to see them off. There really was champagne and confetti, the dank smell of the river, screaming gulls, the promise of the open Atlantic ahead, and a horn blowing as people on board and on shore waved to each other as the ship pulled out. I wanted to be on that ship to Rome more than I wanted to do anything else. I still do.

Mesmerized by the vast array of stuff all around me and with my head full of thoughts of midnight sailings, I wandered around the shop bleary-eyed and unable to do anything more than take a picture. When I got home, I browsed through some of my travel books and found this quote by Alain de Botton which, in a way, expresses what I feel about ship travel (as I imagine it) vs. airplane travel.

"In the [airplane] cabin, no one stands up to announce with
requisite emphasis that, out of the window,  
we are flying over a cloud,
a matter that would have detained
Leonardo and Poussin, Claude and Constable".



  

deco hens

As I reached into the refrigerator this morning to grab a couple of fresh eggs I came upon this one nestled among the dozen - one of the pleasures of doing business with a 9 year old entrepreneur! I put it back because it makes me smile every time I open the fridge.
     And that's it for today's posting. I'm going to settle in - as the rainclouds are settling in - and catch up on various knitting, writing (two new notebooks purchased today at the coffee shop) and start the second editing of a friend's manuscript that I've been putting aside.


at the cafe
a plate of tea and cookies
a bird steals the best one

summer holiday & haying

Has a carnival landed in the field south of my kitchen? No, it's the hay wagon. Well, I don't know if it's called that - which sounds sort of Oklahoma-ish (the musical) - maybe it's just called The Truck that Hay Bales are Loaded Onto. Because that's what it is. My neighbor spent the last several days haying the huge field. Last evening and this morning he hurled and stacked hay bales onto the truck for hours. There are still lots more (17 acres worth). It doesn't matter that a holiday weekend is coming up. When it's ready it's ready and he will work until it's done.

And what do I know about haying? The girl who grew up in the Bronx? Who spent most of her adult life in New York and Connecticut? My childhood experiences of Fourth of July weekends involved firecrackers and Roman candles, lots of food and relatives. The aunts, uncles, cousins who lived in The City drove up to our northeast Bronx "country" house to spend the day eating and visiting. My mother spent days cleaning, cooking, baking. My father mowed the lawn, prepared the brick barbeque grill, machete-ed weeds just beyond the white picket fence (yes, that's what I said) where there was an large empty lot surrounded by trees that we were permitted to use as if it were our own. When he briefly kept a vegetable garden he picked whatever was available - like the small bounty we received from friends today and which we ate for supper.
  

At nightfall in the Bronx, after eating and talking all day (the adults) a bonfire was built and we sat around it toasting marshmallows. The uncles told tall stories, the kids set off firecrackers with lighted "punks" - after we had formed a brigade that solemnly marched to the flagpole and took down the flag. One summer the metal pole was struck by lightening and the flag burned to a crisp - that was the last of that ritual - the flag was never replaced. By dusk the coffee pots were percolating on the kitchen stove, the smell of espresso wafting out the open screened doors, homemade desserts carried outside by a parade of sturdy aunts. The kids waited for the Bungalow Bar man who would come ringing down the block in his truck. That reliable 1950s summer presence - the white  ice cream truck - was supposed to resemble the Hindi thatched house that the word bungalow denoted. I can still swoon over a toasted coconut vanilla ice cream bar. But I do wonder who thought up that bungalow thing.
     Our preparation for the Fourth this year is, basically, nothing. Maybe we'll go to a friend's house to watch the town fireworks (they have an unobstructed view from their road) or maybe we'll just pour a couple of glasses of wine and watch an old movie.

"There's just no accounting for happiness"
Jane Kenyon wrote.
Like when I tried out my new digital camera
One fourth of July and set it to "fireworks"
Colorful stars and swirls and cascades
But then I said so what?
And deleted all fifty pictures.
They were not the happiness I desired.