bringing up baby

Born this morning at 8:30. Mother and baby (female?) doing fine. Here's how it began:

The other mares were curious..

Baby tried to stand up almost immediately, but it's legs weren't strong enough...until...

Within minutes mother and baby found each other and started bonding...the afterbirth still attached to the mother who gently nudged and licked the little one.

Within an hour it could walk on it's strengthening legs...a miracle...

Neighbors Floyd and Billy were there and we noticed that the other two mares were curious and protective. Perhaps too protective. When one got too close the other kicked. The danger in that situation is not that they would deliberately hurt the foal, but that it would be injured by accident.These females are around 600 pounds each! Floyd and his brother Lloyd gently and slowly walked the mares to the adjoining enclosed pasture. Now baby and mother can be alone and bond completely and safely. This little guy has a set of 3 diamonds on it's head and two white socks on its back feet. Medias in Spanish. I suggested it as a name; Ron suggested Seabiscuit!

I feel that our land has been blessed by this event. I pulled out an old booklet that I've had since the early 90's when we moved here, Animal Energies by Gary Buffalo Horn Man and Sherry Firedancer (I swear that's true). The book explains the medicine powers and qualities of many North American animals. The authors "have been working and communicating with these beings for years." So. Horse energy? It's lovely.

The horse is freedom and the power that comes with being free. If it has come to you, you are being offered a gift of safe movement. Is there somewhere that you want or need to go? Horse can help you get there, whether the place is physical or spiritual.

How cool is that? I'm heading west on Sunday morning (not on horseback). They do add a warning: there can be a high price to pay for freedom.

In the Sacred Circle of Creation, 
no life form is placed above another. 
All are equal and each has special 
knowledge to share with us.
                        (from Animal Energies)

the wild side

someone else's junk clutter
I'm beginning to feel that the months and months of obsessive on and off decluttering is actually paying off. The house feels more open. There's a sense of space seeping in. Yesterday I loaded up the car, drove to the recycle center and got rid of an enormous amount of bottles, cans, newspapers, catalogues. Happily donned my work gloves and emptied the car. Then drove to Pieces, a huge consignment shop, with boxes of clothes, handbags, shoes. Friday is the day they receive stuff and while they looked through it all, I wandered around the place -- and nearly had cardiac arrest! It's the most cluttered place on earth! (I didn't even attempt to take pictures of the racks and racks of clothing, or the wall of handbags six deep).

it ain't me babe (anymore)
Being in there actually made me nervous. We're such a fickle culture, aren't we? By the standards of most of the world's population, all Americans are rich - even the poor have plumbing, indoor toilets, electricity, televisions, cars and cellphones. We certainly have a short attention span and given that Taos, overall, is not a wealthy place (New Mexico is listed 47th economy-wise in the whole country), the sheer volume of stuff in Pieces is astonishing. It was so crowded in there that I couldn't see past the multiples of everything imaginable and, in a daze, made my way back, empty-handed, to the desk where they'd finished and made their choices. About 5 items were handed back (and a surprise check from the last load several months ago). I took the leftovers (perfectly good) to the Boys and Girls Club donation box in town and felt light (and virtuous). I did like the prince's purple satin crown though.

Now to the Farmer's Market this morning and then back to my desk to organize and sort through what exactly I am taking to CA with me next Sunday. The point of the trip is to actually return with publishable pages, follow the muse and maybe even start something new. Many writers feel they can't produce in their everyday environment and we're always looking for the place, "the triggering town," (as Richard Hughes so famously said), whereby we can actually think original thoughts and receive inspiration -- (a challenging thought in itself!).

White Horse Bulletin

She hasn't given birth yet. And I was disappointed when I returned home yesterday to find that she was moved into a corral where we couldn't see her. As White gets closer to foaling (is that a word?), we figured they wanted to keep her isolated and safe. Then in the evening Floyd called to say they're putting her on our land and would like to dig a small pond to divert water. Hooray! All three horses were released at dusk and the two other mares (brown and unpregnant) galloped around like wild things, raising dust, braking at the fence, sharp turnings, running back again.  It was an amazing sight to see and hear. The last of the light faded and only White was visible in the dark. She ambled around slowly and calmly the way a hugely pregnant female should and seemed quite uninterested in the wild spirit all around her. This morning she (and her companion) come close to the adobe wall to visit.

teeth on edge

the poet must be continually watching the moods of his mind, as the astronomer watches the aspects of the heavens
           Henry David Thoreau

Having nearly gone over the edge in recent days, I decided that reading Thoreau was just the antidote I needed.  The chapter "Simply Seeing" (A Writer's Journal) resonated. I paused, really looked at my immediate surroundings...and noticed Alien Yarnman who has been sitting in a corner of my desk for a couple of years. Funny how we stop seeing things after awhile. Well, I do, which tells me that I really need to work on mindfulness. However, he does reflect my current mood -- which is one of teeth-on-edge-I'll-never-get-out-of-here-without-forgetting-my-clothes-and-hands-and-shoes. Oh, and I feel fat (although recent physical and mental activity has resulted in losing 2#s!).

So I dawdle, putter, try to put things in order and perspective, move yarn balls around, in and out of the sun -- for no reason except that they look pretty and there's lots of sun pouring into 50 windows in this glass house...

and accept that I will not be able to finish editing/rewriting in one week, the oral history that I've sporadically worked on for over a year. duh!

I will have to bring it with me or send it on ahead -- and there's no chance that it will get lost in the mail (like Hemingway's early stories) because: 1) it's only going to CA (not Paris, more's the pity) and 2) I'll have the entire ms. on a flash drive in my bag. Technology strikes again. The pressure to finish it increases every day since the man whose story it is turned 97 recently and he said he would like to see it. But first, now, I have to go to the recycle center.

bulletin
White horse has not had her baby yet. Still on Foal-Watch-Alert.

Art is as long as ever, but life is more interrupted and less available for a man's  woman's proper pursuits.
     Thoreau

a summer's day

not official yet, but here nonetheless
Remember that lovely white horse fit for a medieval princess that I wrote about a few weeks ago? the one I've been watching, taking pictures of? Well, I noticed that she was getting fat eating all that new green grass supplemented by nice bales of fresh hay.

Then our neighbor Floyd told us that she's expecting a foal any day now! Yesterday, on my deck with binoculars and camera, I watched for signs. The brown horse, also a mare, stayed by her side and (I swear) seemed protective and solicitous. The bulges in princess's sides were moving (I don't know her name)! This foal-baby is getting ready! It also occurred to me that this mare has no idea of what's about to happen to her. How she will suddenly face a tiny version of herself and wonder where it came from, but will feel protective and care for it. At least that's what everyone is expecting; sometimes new mothers don't quite know what to do and tend to ignore their progeny. I saw it happen once with a cow, back in the days when they were kept on adjacent land.

There is a tranquility about cattle free to roam 19 acres, not penned in the way I saw them once in Oklahoma and was horrified. As someone newly arrived in rural NM from New York and southern New England where cows were in zoos, I was fascinated. What I saw was that the new mother ignored her wooly little calf. The male horse who shared the pasture immediately moved in and became attached to it, protecting it to the point of keeping the mother away. The calf couldn't feed. Eventually, Manuel, whose cattle they were (and who is now 97 years old) chased the horse away and had him removed. Calf and mother reunited and all was well again.

obsessions reign
So now, as if I didn't have enough stuff to be obsessed about, I'm on Full-Foal-Alert. My house is clean after four days of intense scrubbing, cleaning, organizing, tossing (even Ron got into the swing of things and cleared out one side of the garage, filled the entire bed of the pickup and drove to the dump). The printer's proof of the anthology is expected any moment and bits of white light are opening in my mind. I may actually be able to think about what I'm going to bring along on my writing retreat in San Francisco. Haven't thought about clothes yet (I think it will be cool there), but considering yarn and knitting. 

the butterscotch Alpaca Sox socks in "Roger" pattern by Ann Hanson - I love working with this color that I never wear and have been knitting very slowly because I'm definitely taking this one with me. Who knew? this color makes me feel happy.

or the other Alpaca Sox in dreamy beach-y colors - basic pattern (this yarn really doesn't need anything to enhance it)

or the Cables & Lace mitts in Marian Foale yarn... oh, Foale - how appropriate! will have to bring that  one - maybe swing by Tutto's in Santa Fe and pick up more in other color(s)?

other realms
Totally exhausted last evening, I sat on the deck in a cool breeze (it was hot in the house) with a glass of Chablis and watched the white horse turn peachy-pink in the sunset light. An incredible feeling of peace came over me - which I didn't recognize at first since it's been missing for so long...it could have been the wine or the pink horse, a sense of accomplishment...or just the beauty of this place that never ceases to amaze.

I threw my shell away upon the sand,
And a wave fill'd it, as my sense was fill'd
With that new blissful golden melody.
     Keats (Hyperion)

choruses

she did it!
Still in time-to-feng-shui-my-life mode. Get rid of useless objects; clear away the dust on the shelves and in my mind. Goodbye one dozen old notebooks! Admittedly, they were more about notes and quotes, fits and starts, than actual workbooks or journals, but there is simply no room for them anywhere and I take that as a message from the universe to let go. Feels good. Getting lots accomplished in what I know is only a brief lull between projects and travel. Wise words read during a quick lunch guide me. May Sarton (At Seventy) wrote:

If I can be wiser about not feeling so compulsive about everything, all will be well.

Just listen to the wind outside (blowing hard and dry), hope for rain,  enjoy the sound of bamboo windbells in the window in the next room tossed by currents of air; clonking exotic melodic notes, shape like a Chinese character. Maybe Joy?

I woke yesterday morning wondering what was about to happen that meant joy and then remembered...
        May Sarton

begone dust on my ch'i!

Feeling like a puff of wind could do me in as I photographed his huge (4-5") puffball growing in the middle of the gravel driveway with wind howling and dust blowing around. Intact and silky, it stopped me on the way to the garage.

wildfires
obliterating mountains here as they rage around Ruidoso and other parts much further south. The Floresta has declared Extreme Fire Danger throughout the state. No campfires and no smoking in the woods.

Chokecherries
The anthology manuscript has been sent to the printer and I feel a sense of brief relief as it's now out of my hands until the final proof comes in a couple of days from now. I'm excited about this year's edition. The cover is a whimsical dreamy pastel by Barbara Sayre Harmon (not a good photo here).

In her late 80's now, she has lived in Taos since 1949. She and artist husband Cliff call their home Teahouse of the Taos Moon and in the past were known for regularly throwing dances and parties for other artists and characters (her word). She also writes children's books and there is an interview with her in Chokecherries. I got to know her on the phone as we discussed her painting and the poem she rendered in calligraphy for the back cover. She is a delight. But there's more to the book than the covers. An incredible roster of writers and poets is represented in this edition, including poet/musician Joy Harjo. Stay tuned, I'll list others soon.

feng shui-ing my life
So what did I do today? With that sense of relief? Freer than I've been in weeks? I turned the house upside down (so to speak) and have been cleaning and moving furniture around all day! not at all like me. I tell myself the house is a mess because Ron and I are interesting people with creative passions that outweigh domestic duties, but really, we just like to do our thing, are kind of lax, and basically ignore the house until it is no longer ignorable! Besides, we're having a guest or two in August, I'm leaving for my month-long retreat in two weeks, and I wanted to put my workroom back to guest room. We moved my worktable into the living room and I think I love it there! It's all so pristine and uncluttered. Even Spike took to it right away.

The 21st century macbook with it's snazzy new green shell sits beside an old 1940's Remington portable. On a rickety ladder, I retrieved it from the top of the tallest bookcase where it's been since the bookcase was built about six years ago.  It's so cool! It was thick with dust and still needs a swish with a damp cloth, but I couldn't wait to put it on the table. I think there's even a new ribbon around here somewhere.

I'm taking the rest of the day off (it's nearly 5) even though I haven't finished cleaning yet and moved a lot of stuff-still-to-be-sorted into the downstairs bathroom where it's cluttering up the room.  Tomorrow is another day and tonight  I'll pour a glass of wine, put the pasta water on...if I can get out of this chair with my aching body that's definitely not used to cleaning, dusting, and furniture moving. But in the realm of Feng Shui, I think we just moved my worktable into the prosperity bagua (corner) of our house.  Nice. I may have to set new goals to fit the promise. And Ron, who is doing something outside (not much) has been warned: don't block your ch'i by blocking any part of your entire front door. The problem is that we're never quite sure which of two doors is the front.

...the universe does not make mistakes.
It may look like chaos for a while....
but keep the faith...the energy you have 
put out toward your new goals 
will make good things happen.

Karen Rauch Carter (Move Your Stuff, Change Your Life)

marginalia

The way I feel. A bit shaggy (need a haircut), a bit dusty (no rain), small, sort of (what's the look on his face?) depressed? restful? resigned? windblown? All of the above applies to my mood for the last four days. Too many details can destroy any sense of well-being that may have accidentally slipped into my thinking. So I decided to take a short break (details be gone!) and just muse a bit here. Unfortunately my musings keep taking me to a cottage on a balmy Bahamian beach, barefoot (that's balmy, not barmy) and it's hard to multi-task effectively in that state of mind.

My daughter sent me a text message that read: don't wait for the storm to be over, dance in the rain! Good advice and just what I needed at exactly that moment. She's trying to dance, too. No matter how distant in years and miles, mothers and daughters sometimes have a mysterious bond that asserts itself in unlikely times and places. I'm grateful - it wasn't my fate with my mother.

And then it got cool and rained a couple of days ago. My mind immediately flew to wool. Something other than the endless round of socks that I seem to be stuck in - as I am every summer. I rummaged around in my stash and came up with this lovely stuff.

Southwest Weaving's Rio Grande hand-dyed sport weight merino. I have lots of it and SW Weaving is gone. The colors are rich and appealing and I'm thinking clapotis again. It would be the perfect project to bring along on my writing retreat in July. Almost mindless (the knitting, not the writing) and no pressure to knit a second matching one or even finish it in quick-time.  And it won't take up much room in my bags. So, tonight, if I am not once again bogged down in details, emotions, words and numbers, I will begin it. If sanity holds.

And this is the end,
the car running out of road,
the long nose of the photographed horse
touching the white electronic line.

Billy Collins makes me think and laugh. This excerpt is from "Aristotle," in Sailing Alone Around the Room.

of summer kitchens & graves

 

if you lead, I will follow, anywhere that you tell me to... (Carole King)
Remember that song from her album Tapestry? It's been on my mind in relation to my small camera(s). I always have one with me (and my iPhone, new, novel, fun). Most ordinary days I never quite know where I'll be or what I will encounter so my pictures tend to be minimalistic journal entries grabbed quickly. If I were an artist they would be sketches, but alas, I have no talent in that area. In the last 3 days I've been to Santa Fe twice and around the park a couple of times. In SF one afternoon we stopped into Clafoutis, French cafe and bakery. ooh la la! Yummy salads of grilled shrimp and chicken, beets, almonds, pineapple, tomatoes, greens...a baguette...

The desserts are to die for (see above: raspberry cream "baskets"). We bought a bag of fresh-baked Madeleines, all puffy and light, but I wasn't fast enough with the camera and we ate them before they could be immortalized.

And still on the food thing: the SOMOS Storied Recipes cookbook is shaping up nicely. We have more entries than we thought we'd receive and the stories and recipes are being vetted, edited, categorized by our chief/chef editor. Here's what I find interesting. For those writer/cooks who also happen to have Italian names (and many who do not), Italian food is high on their lists of favorites. Phil Roberts, the man who inspired the chain of Buca de Beppo restaurants (southern Italian-immigrant cooking) said:

being Italian is not the blood in your veins,
but the spirit in your heart

I like that thought and apparently many others agree. The cookbook will have a delicious assortment of non-Italian recipes from many places and experiences. It will be available in October, stay tuned.

when he grills shrimp,
he threads them on rosemary sticks
                    (Frances Mayes)

she's receiving guests...
still following the camera, I was perplexed and amused when I saw the latest adornment on Mabel Dodge Luhan's headstone in Kit Carson Cemetery. As noted before, visitors leave gifts. Her writings and life were and are an inspiration to many people who come to Taos. Her house, now a B&B inn/workshop/performance center (preserved in her style), is a short walk from the cemetery. Old cottonwood trees still sigh and provide shade, people still sit under them, hear pigeons cooing nearby, write, knit, dream, hear gurgling water in the acequia in spring. Guests, writers and artists who have been in intensive retreats leave notes, crocheted doilies, poems, silk flowers, special stones. A fur-trimmed sweater.

I do wonder what provoked the gift-giver to leave that nice sweater on the grave of someone long dead? I suppose it's about her words and the compelling images they evoked, the interesting life she lived: New York socialite, world traveler, writer, hostess, wife of Taos Pueblo Indian. The people she knew and "collected" - D.H. Lawrence, Georgia O'Keeffe, Frieda and Dorothy and even Carl Jung. No one is dead who has left their writing behind to inspire future others they couldn't even imagine they were writing for.

...when I remembered the clamor and movement out here beside this river, listening to the inner sound of these mountains and this flow, the rumble of new York came back to me like the impotent and despairing protest of a race that has gone wrong and is caught in a trap.
                     Mabel Doge Luhan (Edge of Taos Desert)

take it anyway

no animals were harmed in the taking of this picture
A family of yellow-breasted birds is homesteading nearby and training their babies to fly. I caught this one (almost wrote: on film; I'm so last century), not because I have an ultra zoom on my camera, but because it's so young that it didn't quite know what to do when I approached - I know I could have put my finger out and it would have hopped onto it. If it had, a kerfuffle of feathers would have ensued; the parent birds were going crazy a little farther off, trying to keep an eye on the monster human with the camera and three other fledgelings ready to fly off on their own. Lots of sharp warnings were sounded. The thing is that I can't identify this bird. I checked my trusty Audubon Field Guide but it's not clear; warbler? kingbird? goldfinch?

They're super-cute though and they all look healthy and strong. I'm so Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm these days. Horses in the field, birds on the adobe wall, a snake in my neighbor's yard, my dog resting in the shade, the wind cooling things down. Yellow birds and all. Cholla blooming near the Rio Grande.

Sounds idyllic, no? It is in a way. Local friends on facebook are always waxing poetic about the place (well, most of them are poets), but life goes on with it's joys, difficulties, messy bits. This isn't
lalalandia. Someone I care deeply for has been in a hospital far away for a week with a mysterious ailment that still goes undiagnosed. Stress begins to fall on me like rain as I realize the first week of June is over already and I'd better work double-time if I'm to complete the schedule I'd optimistically mapped out  for this month.

As poet Ruth Stone said"
You have to allow yourself to take joy,
otherwise you're no good to anyone.

brief time off

It's Rosa fendleri time again and once more I'm regretting where I planted, a few years ago, the tiny wild plants dug up from where they were happily growing in a nice moist spot near an acequia way away from the house. They are now thriving, 7 feet tall, behind adobe walls! They're crowding out the apricot tree (no sign of apricots) and the thorns of this pretty delicate-looking rose bush are evil! These wild roses grow everywhere. I remember versions of them at the edge of Narragansett Bay; in Connecticut woods; along the Atlantic shore. I saw them in Mexico. I severely trimmed the bushes back last December after harvesting the rose hips that I unsuccessfully planned to make jam out of. But they're tenacious. And pretty. Just don't get too near. They resemble the color of the socks I finished the other night, don't they? This must be my prom-dress pink period.

slow movin' time...
Having met, yesterday, the first two deadlines that drove me to extra glasses of wine the last couple of nights, I had a low-energy day today and just went with it. Summer has come to our valley and at times there is a blue and green stillness when the wind doesn't blow, when the only sounds are the birds and the insistent invisible buzzing of insects in the tall grasses. I only felt a twinge of guilt this day as I read, wrote, puttered.  And now, early dinner time, the artichokes are cooking, the salmon is waiting, and I plan to watch a movie tonight and knit. Tomorrow is another day and the craziness starts all over again...I'll think about it tomorrow...

returns

The horses are back (two more arrived after I took this photo), and the yucca is in full bell-ringing bloom again.

There's a large patch of multiple yuccas out on our land - very picturesque - but I don't feel like walking out there (it's raining lightly) and my camera's zoom isn't powerful enough to snap them from the deck of the house (another justification for the new super-zoom I have my eye on?).

But no time now to think of that. Super busy finishing up the two of the three already deadlined editing projects (the reason why I haven't posted here since last Wednesday). Storied Recipes cookbook is a go - we received many submissions with fun and interesting stories and hope to have it published by October or November. Will keep you informed. Our cookbook meeting was appropriately enhanced by Bonnie Lee Black's Lemon Squares (in March she won the Gourmand International Award in Paris for her memoir with recipes, How to Cook a Crocodile). I ate 4 - OMG ! I had a sugar hangover this morning, but it was worth it. The photo doesn't do them justice but I was so anxious to try one that I didn't take the time to set the camera. Do you think I have a problem?  I'll think about it tomorrow; today I'm on the wagon.

and she kept knitting through it all...
hangover and everything...finished a pair of Alpaca Sox sox. Lovely pink/mauve/candy color. Love what Stephen Beal wrote in his book The Very Stuff: poems on color, thread, and the habits of women...

I have to admit I'm suspicious of this color.
Wary, even though I've come to use it a lot.
For one thing, if my daughter were going to the prom,
I would not select this fuchsia for her gown.
On the other hand, she might.
                       (from 3607)