Fungal color!

And oh, I almost forgot. Here's the beautiful shelf fungus I mentioned in the previous post. One of our lab students brought it in when we studied fungi last week. Aren't the colors lovely?


Maybe that's what I was thinking of when I bought this...

Solo Silk yarn from Brooks Farm Yarn. It's 50/50 fine wool/silk sport weight yarn. Can't wait to start knitting with it. A poncho, maybe??

In the company of creative women

This time a week ago, I was in my little car headed west to the mountains of North Carolina and the Southeastern Animal Fiber Festival (SAFF). I know - it's a funny name. Lots of people that asked about my weekend gave me quizzical looks last Sunday when I told them where I'd been. Animal fiber? Hmmm......

I tried to explain by urging them to think about sheep, alpacas, angora rabbits. And then to think of what comes from these animals and what you do with it. Think fleece, wool, spinning, weaving, yarn, knitting, felting, and more. Think workshops, demonstrations, classes, vendors, and more. Think the smell of lanolin on wool, think the colors of the rainbow, forest, seashore, sunset, even the colors of a beautiful shelf fungus (I'll show you later....) Think agricultural fair, craft show, yarn shop. Think all of this and you'll get some idea of what SAFF is.

The festival is held the fourth weekend in October at the Western NC Agricultural Center.

This is the floor of the main arena with vendors all around. Booths line the upper level, too. Workshops and classes were held in the partitioned area in the middle.

The animals were there, too. Furry, Dr. Suess-ish angora rabbits, and alpacas and more in the outer arena areas.

There were teachers, formal and informal. SAFF offers lots of classes and workshops on everything from wool carding to Fair Isle knitting, from Angora bunny care to alpaca confirmation. I think there were probably as many, if not more, informal teaching sessions going on as well, as vendors and artists shared their skill and the love of their craft with eager learners.

And ohhhh, the colors. Such a feast for the eyes...



Unfortunately, I didn't get a photo of the yarn that grabbed our attention most, but you can visit SeaColors and see for yourself. Several of us came home with skeins of Nanney Kennedy's yarn and enjoyed talking with Nanney and Demetrio, the master rug weaver whose stunning rugs were displayed next to Nanney's yarns.

The festival was everything I hoped for and more. What made it even more special was the time spent in the company of the creative women I shared a mountain cottage with for the weekend. My dear friend, Amber, organized our weekend. (Thanks, Amber) Her mom, Brenda, came and brought her spinning wheel. High school art teacher, potter, spinner and after this weekend possibly artist in felt, Andrea, was there, too. And a friend from Amber's knitting group, Jenny, joined us for Friday night.

Picture the scene. A small cabin sitting room that smells of hot cider. The floor is littered with baskets holding yarn, fleece, roving, knitting needles, and drop spindles. Books lie open to knitting patterns and the click, click of the foot pedals on the spinning wheel punctuates the conversation. Four women and one baby. And the next night, five women and another little one.

We sat and knitted. We looked at yarn. We talked about spinning and apple varieties and high school students and troubled kids. We talked about our families and future projects and food. We talked and knitted and spun until our eyelids grew heavy. The first night we slept to the music of rain on the roof.

Spending time with these women was so refreshing, so energizing. I don't often spend two nights in a row, sitting. Resting from normal activities and giving myself to the quiet of a night of knitting and talk. And such company. These women inspire greater appreciation for color and texture, artistry and design, quality and beauty.

We're already planning for SAFF next year. We want to go back to the same cabin. We want to share the time with other friends. And maybe by then, we'll be done with the projects we bought yarn for this year and be ready for more!

Conference Champs

Soccer season ended for Matthew and Joel on an exciting and very satisfying note. Their team, which had a terrible season last year, showed incredible improvement through this season. In a hard fought conference final last Tuesday, they won, 2-1, beating a rival they'd never beaten before. It was a nerve wracking game to watch. It could easily have gone the other way. But our guys played like they'd never played before, not letting down for a minute.

Matthew played forward, a position he just started playing in the tournament, and scored the deciding goal. Sweet, very sweet!

M calling for a pass and heading upfield. See the ball in the middle of the picture on the right side. Sorry for the purple haze. I was shooting into the sun.

Joel and Matthew basically switched positions and Joel played right midfield. He got fouled pretty roughly once and heard his shoulder pop when he fell. Here he is after that foul, waiting to do a throw in, working his shoulder a bit. It's ok...it was just a little sore. Goes with the territory.

The victorious Covenant team with their hard-won trophy. Great end to a team building season with a new coach and seniors we will miss next year. But lots of key players will be back and I'm sure they'll be eager for a repeat, now that they have tasted the sweetness of conference victory!

Grateful for legs

When we were children we were grateful to those who filled our stockings at Christmas time. Why are we not grateful to God for filling our stockings with legs? ~G.K. Chesterton

Tonight I give thanks for legs and more...

241. Thank you, Father, for the strong legs of barefooted boys who work hard to help their mom.

242. And for legs to walk on leaf covered pathways on a sunny Saturday afternoon.

243. And for a healing foot.

244. And new shoes for these wide feet of mine.

245. For the fresh cool air of a fall afternoon, the leaves just beginning to change, and a path by the river.

246. For my volley-boys. Oh, Father, I am so thankful for these young men and that special older man who loves to play with them.

247. And for legs that continue to carry Coty on walks and runs and hold him up in volleyball games, even after knee surgeries in the past.

Thank you, Father, for your good gifts. They are abundant.I number them now but they are measureless, boundless.

Brunch

The dishes are set on the counter,
the food is warm in the oven,
the coffee is brewing,

the house is straightened a bit,
and the candles are lit in the fireplace.
The boys are up and offering to help,
the doorbell rings and guests arrive.
It's time for brunch.

We fill our plates with breakfast casserole, spicy sausage, hot baked apples, and blueberry coffee cake. We fill small bowls with fresh fruit and pour coffee or hot chai tea into mugs. And then we sit around the table or in the family room to eat and talk and laugh and share. Boys come home, "adopted" son here from far-away, new college hallmate come to visit and get to know the family, old friends gathered, too. It's a happy mix of folks on a relaxed morning to sharing a good meal and so much more.


Not much left of cheesy potato casserole...


or cinnamon-y baked apples.

But plenty of dishes to wash. That will come later...

After...

big kids enjoy each other,

and friends catch up.

Pictures from yesterday's brunch. Thomas was home for fall break and Andrew came for the weekend with a friend from Furman. It was Rob's last day after a wonderful nine day visit. And of course, we always enjoy having the B's here.

It's quiet here...

on the blog, I mean, not at home. I keep thinking, I really should sit down and write, especially for those of you who like to keep up with what's going on around here and do so via this blog. But honestly, I have just not felt much like writing and have been enjoying all the boys so much that there's just not a lot of extra time left over for posting.

But, to keep you up, here's a little look back at the past couple of weeks:

Andrew came home for a few days in early October for his fall break. It was so good to have him home and I think he got a bit of much needed sleep. He brought a friend with him. I am so thankful the boys feel free to invite friends to stay here.

I turned 51 - quiet birthday but a very sweet celebration that night with my small group. They surprised me with a cake and desserts, kind words, and some cards and gifts. Thanks, y'all.

The weekend after Andrew came home, Rob arrived. He's been here for a week and a day now so we've had plenty of time for great conversations over coffee.

And this weekend, Thomas came home for his fall break. He got in last night and will be here til Wednesday. Yeah! We encouraged Andrew to come up since Rob and Thomas are both here, so he and a friend (different one from fall break visit) arrived yesterday, too. The house is again FULL of boys. I will be doing plenty of cooking this weekend.

Soccer season is winding down. Joel and Matthew played in a tournament semi-final yesterday in the chilly rain. They won and play in the final on Tuesday afternoon. Great game yesterday. Matthew played forward for the first time this season (he's usually a mid-fielder) and he did a great job with a couple of close "almost" shots, good placement of his passes, and one beautiful assist for the game winning goal. I was hollering!

Matthew spent three weeks in performances of Walking Across Egypt at the Old Courthouse Theatre. The show is over now and he's back to more videography. He's got several projects ahead in the coming months. More on that in another post. He is also gearing up for a trip to Asia in early November. Stay tuned.

I've pulled out the last of the peppers, the lemons have turned yellow, the collards are planted, and the leaves are turning. It feels like fall this morning. I got up early to take Matthew and Joel to take the PSAT and now I'm off to the kitchen to make corn pancakes as the other boys wake up.

Have a great day. I'll be back soon.

Once upon a time...

...there were some men that were building a house in the woods. They cut down a lot of trees so they could make a nice backyard but they didn't know where to put the trees. So, they put them in a big pile and covered them up with dirt. "No one will ever know," they thought, "and now we don't have to worry any more about all those trees."

A few years later a nice family moved into the house in the woods. They loved the backyard, and the sloping hillside covered with juniper. They loved the crape myrtle trees that bloomed in the summer - on the hill and at the base of the hill.

But one day, the hill began to sink. Slowly, almost imperceptibly at first, the crape myrtle got lower. A few months went by and the hill sank even more. Before long, instead of a hill, there was a big hole. And the crape myrtle in the hole was sinking lower and lower.


The nice family was worried about the hole. It was getting deeper and the sinking crape myrtle was dying. They were also worried about the other crape myrtle, the big one that hung over the pool. It was lovely and big, but it dropped leaves, flowers, and seed pods into the pool. The father didn't like having to clean all that mess out of the pool.

One year, the mother got a chain saw for her birthday and decided to help the father out by cutting down the big crape myrtle. So, then the family in the house in the woods had a big hole, a dead crape myrtle and a very large stump. They didn't know what to do.

Now the mother with the chain saw really began to worry about the hole. It was getting bigger and it was eating away at more of the hillside with each rain. Something had to be done. But what? She gathered concrete from busted sidewalks and rocks from vacant lots. She read about walls. But she couldn't figure out what to do.

About that time, a helpful engineer came on the scene. He made friends with the family in the house in the woods. He was a smart engineer and knew all about soil and walls and things like that. He was a very nice engineer, too, and when the mother asked for help, he said yes. He drew nice pictures of walls with measurements and arrows. He discussed physics, soil stability, geogrid, footings and many other things that the mother didn't know anything about. Slowly she began to understand and together they tried to figure out how to fix the hole and how to build a wall.

Now fortunately, the mother and father had four strong sons living at home. They always helped their mother whenever she asked, so she set them to work, excavating the hole so the engineer could see what was making the hill turn into a hole.

The boys dug and dug. They moved dirt and pulled out the small stump. The tried to pull out the big stump but it was too hard.

They worked in the hot sun and even invited their friends over to help dig.

The deeper they dug, the more holes they found. All those trees buried by those men who built the house in the woods long ago had rotted away and left spaces in the hill that caved in and made the ground sink. Finally, the boys had dug as far as they could and there was nothing left to do but make a wall and fill in the hole, the very big hole.


On a very hot day, the engineer came over and helped the boys make a foundation for the wall. They dug and mixed and poured and smoothed.

They got hot and tired and thirsty. They all took off their shirts.


Then the smart engineer showed the helpful boys how to put in a drainage pipe behind the wall. He told the mother to buy gravel to put in the bottom of the hole and behind the wall. A big truck brought a load of gravel and dumped it in the driveway.

The boys began to stack the stones and shovel the gravel to backfill the wall. They worked hard moving the gravel from the driveway to the hole. The boys were smart, too, and made a slide with tarps for the gravel to roll on down the hill. The boys shoveled and sweated and kept their shirts off. The mother didn't mind. Sometimes she made them root beer floats or lemonade. Sometimes she brought them Dr. Pepper and drinks from Sonic. She was so happy to see them building the wall that she wanted to make them happy, too.

The boys worked hard stacking the stone. They lined the stones up carefully.


They stuck yellow fiberglass pins in the holes so the wall would be strong. They rolled geogrid fabric over the gravel behind the wall. The engineer told the mother that this would make the wall so strong that it would not move.

The pile of stones looked so big that sometimes the boys wondered if they would ever finish the wall. They wondered if they'd ever get all that gravel down the hill and into the hole. But they did.


And then one day, after they had finished shoveling all the gravel, a large dump truck arrived. It dumped a very large load of fill dirt down the hill on the tarp. Some of the dirt went all the way down the hill but most of it stayed at the top. The boys were very sad. They thought they would never get all that dirt shoveled into the hole. They began to think how nice it would be to go away to college or hide somewhere.


But they were good boys and they stayed and helped their mother.


They worked together and played loud music while they worked. Their father came out to work. Their cousin came to work. Their friend came to work. They sweated some more. They still kept their shirts off. It was very, very hot.


And then, finally, the blocks were all stacked. Two of the boys went off to college. They didn't work on the wall anymore. But that was OK. The next week, the engineer brought a big saw and cut all the cap blocks so they fit just right. He and the mother glued the cap blocks to the top of the wall. One day soon after, the father and the two boys left at home shoveled the rest of the dirt into the hole. This dirt was topsoil. It was very soft and the boys worked barefoot. Their feet got very dirty.

At last the wall was finished. The mother was so happy. She wanted to hug the boys and the engineer and the father. She did. She wanted to say thank you to them in a very special way. She is still working on that. She felt so happy it was like being in a fairy tale that ends "happily ever after."


Now she just has to figure out what to plant in the new garden behind the wall. But that's another story...

Fortitude

This term's Ambleside artist is Botticelli. One of the paintings I've been looking at over and over again is Fortitude.

I am intrigued by John Ruskin's critique of the painting from Mornings in Florence:

What is chiefly notable in her is--that you would not, if you had to guess who she was, take her for Fortitude at all. Everybody else's Fortitudes announce themselves clearly and proudly. They have tower-like shields, and lion-like helmets--and stand firm astride on their legs, --and are confidently ready for all comers.. Yes;--that is your common Fortitude. Very grand, though common. But not the highest, by any means.

Ready for all comers, and a match for them,--thinks the universal Fortitude; --no thanks to her for standing so steady, then!

But Botticelli's Fortitude is no match, it may be, for any that are coming. Worn, somewhat; and not a little weary, instead of standing ready for all comers, she is sitting,--apparently in reverie, her fingers playing restlessly and idly--nay I think--even nervously, about the hilt of her sword.

For her battle is not to begin today, nor did it begin yesterday. Many a morn and eve have passed since it began -- and now--is this to be the ending day of it? And if this--by what manner of end?

That is what Sandro's Fortitude is thinking. And the playing fingers about the sword hilt would fain let it fall, if it might be: and yet, how swiftly and gladly will they close on it, when the far-off trumpet blows, which she will hear through all her reverie.

Fortitude does not always announce itself. Sometimes it sits quietly for a long time, nervously waiting, weary and uncertain. But ready, nevertheless. Fortitude that is undergirded by faith in God's sovereignty waits in patient, hopeful expectation with joy. I desire to be a woman with that kind of fortitude.

Early morning ramble... and God's gifts

Most mornings the routine is the same. Turn off the alarm clock, come downstairs, turn on computer as I walk past it, walk into kitchen, fill electric kettle, turn it on, grind coffee beans, measure into French press, wait for water to boil, make the coffee, check email while coffee steeps, fix coffee and head to my chair. Sometimes I stop to read a little on the computer. That can be deadly and waylay my morning quiet time so it's best not to even sit down at the desk.

Yesterday morning, the routine was the same. A little shorter time to read since we head out the door early to co-op on Tuesdays. On my way there, of course I listened to the news - financial crisis, no gas in Charlotte, Wachovia being sold, and on and on and on. And then it struck me, in the midst of all that bad news, how good we have it here in the US.

Now, I know that many people really are hurting. And this crisis has not hit me personally so I could be accused of being callous. It's true, families have lost their homes, people will lose their jobs, some people will lose their retirement savings, some will be hungry. I realize that. Still, I couldn't help but think that we are complaining about gas because we have cars and use them to go places; we are complaining about losing money because we have it. What would be so bad if I couldn't find gas for a few days. I'd have to stay home. No co-op, no soccer games, no grocery shopping. Would that be so bad? We'd walk or ride bikes and eat rice and beans....like the rest of the world.

Like I said, I don't mean to be insensitive to those who are suffering more than me because of the gas situation, the job market, and the financial crisis. I know there are bad problems and hurting people. I don't want to be blind to true suffering.

Still, don't we have an awful lot in this country? Aren't we maybe just a bit selfish? A lot selfish? Isn't that part of the problem?

Now the only person whose selfishness I can do anything about is me. The greatest antidote for selfishness is thankfulness, searching thankfulness that seeks to praise the Giver for taken-for-granted blessings. So, this morning, I add to the 1000 gifts, some of the little things that I do and have and rarely stop to think about or thank God for:

213. I have a bed to sleep in and warm covers when it's cool.

214. I have indoor plumbing.

215. I have electricity.

216. I woke up this morning and was able to stand up and get out of bed and walk on my own two feet. I had a warm robe to put on.

217. I had hot water and coffee to drink, a beautiful mug, a computer to turn on, a desk to sit at, a chair for reading.

218. I have a Bible, a whole Bible, all in one piece, in the language I speak.

219. I have other books to read and paper to write on and pens and pencils.

22o. It is quiet and peaceful. Outside crickets chirp and birds sing. No guns, no fighting.

221. The sun came up.

222. I can hear.

223. Because I can hear, I know that my husband is stirring upstairs. He will get up and read his Bible and pray and give me a hug and a kiss when he comes downstairs.

224. I have sons, healthy sons, sleeping in beds upstairs. They will be with me all day today. They will both give me hugs and say sweet things to me.

225. I can see.

226. Because I can see, I can appreciate the beauty of this early morning as the light filters through the trees.

227. I will have food to eat for breakfast.

228. I will go to the store this morning and buy what I need to make food for my family for the rest of the week. I have a refrigerator to store it in so I don't have to buy food every day.

229. I have friends who will come for lunch.

230. I have several pairs of shoes and many changes of clothes.

231. I have a telephone, two telephones, and a cell phone. I can call anyone I want, anytime I want to.

232. I can smell - coffee, rosemary, bread baking, oak leaves, morning.

233. My son will play the piano and sing today. I get to listen.

234. Another son will come home tonight...and bring a friend. I get to open my home.

235. I have an electric stove that cooks my food and the turn of a knob. I have several pots and pans, baking sheets, skillets and I have dishes to eat off of, utensils, and glasses to drink out of.

236. I get clean water from the tap.

237. I have a radio. I can listen to the news or music.

238. Birds sing outside my house every single day. Not a day has gone by that I haven't heard birds singing.

239. I can read and learn.

240. I get to meet together tonight for Bible study and not be afraid that someone will burn down the house in which we meet.

There are more...oh, so many more blessings for which to give thanks. Little unnoticed gifts. Open my eyes today, Lord, to see them and express my gratitude in a thousand ways. A Puritan said it better,

Oh my God, Thou fairest, greatest, first of all objects, my heart admires, adores, loves thee, my little vessel is as full as it can be, and I would pour out all that fullness before thee in ceaseless flow.
-Valley of Vision