The First Loom Project

I have a number of creative projects going on. Jewelry, drawings, writings, embroidery, crochet...

But today, I want to show off my tabletop loom. My husband Dave gave it to me for Xmas. It's called a Cricket Loom, which apparently is just a rigid heddle loom. I know next to nothing about looms and weaving, but I have been educating myself!




Set up was pretty easy. I put the loom together quickly.




Warping the loom (stringing the blue yarn) became a somewhat meditative practice. It took a while, but it wasn't at all boring.




I used the self-striping yarn Dave gave me. It lends itself to a subtle effect in changing hues of the scarf. Creating the weft had its challenges. The edges are a little uneven, and there are gaps here and there from missing the warp on occasion. The thickness of the weft improved as I got into the swing of it.




The finished product! It's by no means perfect, but what a fulfilling practice! I can't wait to start a new one!

Meanwhile, I've been collecting seeds and seed catalogs. I prefer heirloom varieties from organic suppliers, but I recently got a box of mixed heirlooms and hybrids:




Anyone else excited for the coming gardening season?!

Getting Eggy

I love the colors we have in our kitchen. Olive, pastel blue, eggshell white (see what I did there?), caramel, chocolate, salmon...

One of our layers is a frizzle olive egger. She lays the green egg in the middle.

We call her Tina Turner.




The recent big snows have chased our hens inside, but the ducks stay out in the snow as if it were never happening.




That's a photo of our lovely Beignet out for a stroll.

We also have been getting our first duck eggs:




We have a lot of eggs at the house now. I collect more than a half dozen per day. Friends and family are the ones benefitting from this!

Addition and Subtraction

2013 was a year for adding. I took on a near excessive amount of graduate classes to accompany my full time work. I loved it, even if at times I was stressed, tired, and disappointed. Academia, particularly the natural sciences, tickles me pink.

I also got married to my best friend and fabulous partner.











I acquired a beautiful creature who likes to glut himself on crickets and romaine lettuce.




We've named him Apollo. Here he is taking his first bath!







Chillin' like a reptilian:




My lively little girl Malai takes a nap in our new chair in the library.




She remains the apple of my eye, though some of the chickens are vying for that spot:















Let's not forget the ducks:










My life is full to the brim. As a result of the wedding registry and our super generous friends and family, my house is full to the brim.

Now, I try to cut back. 2014 will be about subtraction. I have a single project to do for my masters degree, I have two wonderful jobs centered around ecology and agriculture, and I continue my creative pursuits. However, there is necessary weekly household organization going on, along with trips to secondhand shops and shelters. (Not giving away the registry items, but a lot of stuff that's gone unused in our house - old clothes, old bread machine, old games, etc.) In addition, I will do less of the stuff that doesn't build toward my personal goals.

So, life is good, still busy, but not nearly as tense as it once was. In 2014 I hope to focus on what's really important - friendships, family, my partnership with my husband, and the activities which fulfill my sense of meaning.

So, less Facebook, guys. ;)

And I leave you with my most recent WIP:



Nothing special yet, but fun to work on!

Flow

Using the Vision Kit app, this is the other vision collage I created. Something simple, something just right. This is to remind myself to relax, to soothe myself with music, to take a pause, to act from a place of love, to connect with others, and to nourish myself. The statement is about accepting every moment as it comes, and to discover and work with my natural flow, my circadian rhythm.

What do you do to nourish yourself?

Stir-Crazy Sunday

I was having one of those restless days. You know, the kind that sneak up on you - an unexpected day of no commitments, no one asking you to do anything, and there are no deadlines to meet.

My husband's parents have staying with us for the past few days. We were supposed to spend today, their last day, with them. Instead, they left bright and early to beat tomorrow's weather. It was a visit full of fun, and now here I am, with no one to host, and no plan B.

For someone like me, who gets busy busy busy, this can be dangerous. On top of it, I am getting over a bad cold that kept me wrapped in blankets on the couch for most of the day. It's a recipe for a melodramatic type of stir-crazy, and Husband sent me out the door by mid-afternoon. He couldn't take it! Lol, I can't say I blame him.

I headed to a coffee shop, and using my reusable coffee mug, I got myself a soy mocha. I snuggled into a cushy chair and opened up the iPad that was my graduate school gift to myself. I discovered the app "Vision Kit", and I took a couple hours to think about the direction of my life, and what I really wanted to focus on for the future. Honestly, I have been thinking about these things for some time. And, it's been coming together, as I begin to really find my voice, and to live life as I want to live it.

The Vision Kit app is simple. You create a statement, or affirmation, and then decide on a selection of images to surround the statement. You can use photos from your camera roll or the web. Despite my artistic inclinations, and my usual preference for tactile art, this simplicity was just what I needed.





Each image refers to an art form, creative doing, or subject matter that I love. Nothing more to explain, right? I may print this, and hang it above my desk. For inspiration.

I created a second one, that I will share with you tomorrow - it requires more explanation.

For now, I can say the exercise was helpful to overcome my cabin fever. I returned home and created a delicious dinner of tofu-shiitake ramen. I topped it with the kale I bought at the winter farmer's market. Then, I put out all the ingredients for tomorrow's bread baking, and for creating apple pie filling (which I plan to can for future use). I also thought about how I will create restorative downtime, and continue work on my manuscript.

How do you overcome the stir-crazies?

A Blog Set with Intention

Before I begin this, let me tell you right now, that I live a wonderful life. I have a loving and fun husband, fabulous friends, a number of fulfilling interests, jobs that engage my creativity and expertise, and a supportive family. I didn't always have these things - I've had many painful experiences. They are nothing that I will divulge here in the interest of (a) further cultivating healthy relationships that have resolved old wounds, and (b) letting go of old frustrations and griefs.

The bottom line is, that though I have endured abuse, loss, and family tragedy, I am not experiencing any of those things right now. From time to time, I have tenacious anxiety issues, and my go-to coping mechanism is anger. I have hurt people close to me when I lash out or react in a passive aggressive manner. I feel that in my natural state that I am actually an open and loving person. I am quick to laugh, and I find joy in things both simple and elaborate. I would rather trust in the good of everyone. I imagine there are a lot of you out there, that are like me.

This blog began as a therapeutic tool to record the successes and celebrations in my life. It was a way for me to look back on all the vital, positive, and transformative experiences of my life. In time, I didn't need to do it so often. In time, it became a bit of a chore.

As I begin living a life steeped in values of my choosing, committing actions which fall in line with my values, and build an indomitable will against those things which would like to force me astray, I remind myself of how far I have come. As we live a life that is a result of both chance and choice, I can say that I have made some of the best choices in my life in these past few years.

This blog, henceforth, will be about living a joyful life with intention. I will plan my days, though I always allow for spontaneity. I will remind myself to experience each moment as life unfolds. I'll do my best to set goals and follow through on commitments. I'll record my experiences here.

So, what might this blog look like as I set this intention?

I might share a moment among friends, or a finished project (or...unfinished ones!), I will most likely share moments about my backyard poultry, and art, and love, and all things good. I might also share frustrations and sad moments. I don't need this blog to be a highlights reel, as much as I need it to be real. I don't expect to accomplish everything. I can't.

Though I would really like to. ;)

So, this is me, perfect in my imperfection, always a work-in-progress, and in each moment alone, a completed masterpiece. From my heart to yours.

I have been trying to decide the direction of this blog. A blog takes time and effort, as anyone who maintains such a thing knows. I try to remember photos to make it more interesting, but it's not always possible. I cook, craft, paint, keep small livestock, and garden. I write, too, but all these hobbies pepper my days and nights. On most days, I work, I do chores, and I socialize.

Keeping a blog can become a chore, instead of the celebratory pastime it was for me when I began. It is not so much a mental menagerie as it is an affirmation of living, and the curation of a life. My life.

So, maybe it's a menagerie of another scale.

Stay tuned. Or not. We shall see.

First Egg

I have been lamenting the fact that I have seventeen chickens, several at "point of lay," and not a single layer!

Until now!




Thank you, Henrietta Torpedo!

Autumn has brought on a new kind of crazy obsession for me.




Not all of the product is seen here.

I don't know if it's because of my summer blitz of planning a wedding and mourning the loss of pets (on top of earning a livelihood and attending grad school full time), but barely anything got done around the house or around the garden. Then, fueled by CSA, farmer's market, and 4-H garden tomato surpluses, the water bath canner and the accompanying supplies came out of the basement and into the kitchen. I have spent many, many hours canning crushed tomatoes, tomato paste, six types of salsa, two types of ketchup, BBQ sauce, tomato jam, green tomato relish and salsa verde, and hot sauce.

Then there were peaches. More salsas, a mango peach habanero sauce, peaches in booze, and vanilla peach butter.

And, with tomatoes the 4-H garden isn't using this week, I made pizza sauce and ready made spaghetti sauce.

I took end of the season black plums and made Chinese plum sauce. Tomorrow I am making Harissa. I'm hoping to scrounge up more tomatoes soon, and make taco sauce.

And I feel vindicated, absolutely vindicated in all this, after recently reading "Salt, Sugar, and Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us" by Michael Moss. I want significantly less processed foods in our house, particularly condiments (these and in our ice cream is where you'll find the majority of the commercially processed crap in our house).

I even made massaman curry paste from scratch the other night and froze it to use in Thai Curry sauces. I'm a machine.

It was Husband's (still weird calling him that) birthday this past weekend, and I made a tangy beer mustard and soft pretzels for the party. Because screw store bought crap!

Admittedly, his cake was a box mix. (I am by no means perfect, people!) I'm sure by this time next year, I'll have created my own jars of ready-to-make mixes.

Now, back to my homework. After... I put this photo up of our newest family member, Snow White.




She's a three month old German angora bunny! And she's ready for a shearing!

The Grind

I can't believe how long it has been since I last blogged. It's like I dropped off the face of the earth or something!

And honestly, it sort of felt like I did, for a while.

My new jobs are fabulous. I have a great team of people in CT 4-H, and we are putting together a really engaging, forward-thinking program on youth development and organic gardening. CT Audubon is awesome because it gives me opportunities to spend time in nature, to learn more about ecology, to identify flora and fauna, and have the opportunity to educate others.

School has been challenging and stressful, but at the same time, I have learned so much, made new friends, and found new inspiration in learning science and ecology. My last classes are this semester.

Meanwhile, Fiance and I have been planning a wedding. This can be anxiety-provoking, but it has had many fun moments. Come next Friday, it's all over!

We had a year in poultry to always remember. Raccoons killed 17 of our 18 chickens. Our five laying adult hens who were deeply loved, and 12 of our 13 five week old chicks. The remaining survivor, Marsala, wasn't quite the same after that. She eventually died, several weeks later, of unknown causes.

We were immediately gifted by friends and family with about 45 more chicks when the news was announced. It was such a blessing to know that we had so many people who cared and sympathized with us.

Then we had a coccidiosis outbreak, in which eight chicks succumbed to the disease.

We found homes for many, and kept our favorites. We also hatched 22 more chicks using an incubator. It was a magical experience to see them fight their way through the eggshell, and then flop around in wet, alien bodies until they finally dried out and fluffed up. These guys have homes to go to, too.

Ducks also joined our flock. Bourbon, Beignet, and Belle, have entertained us for hours, from playtime in the shower to antics in the backyard. Ducks have turned out to be a fantastic addition.

Then there's Scarlet, the satin angora rabbit. She's absolutely gorgeous, and she's kinder and tamer than the rascally Blackula and Wicket. Unfortunately, earlier this summer, Blackula died during the heat wave that hit. Wicket has received some special treatment since the loss of his brother.

As you can see, it's been a bit of a rollercoaster this summer. With new jobs, changing classes and papers, sick animals, raccoon raids, and wedding planning, I have not had the time nor energy to post.

I hope to post regularly again, soon.

I know you'll forgive me. ;)