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")