Saturday, August 10, 2019

August 10th, 2019

After a week of terribly hot weather

this was to have been 

a lazy Saturday, -

but you know how it is when it comes to

the schemes of mice and men going aft a-gley.....

it seems that also applies to old ladies with string, too!

I was so close to the end of the warp

I thought I would just finish off the last towel

I have been working on.

Which I did....

but the day's work didn't end there!

The end of a warp inspires one 

to unwind the beam, and stretch out the weaving

in the hallway...

and then, of course, one must examine

the whole thing for errors,

snip off the bits and pieces of thread,

and you might just as well throw it in the washing machine

and get that over with!!

An hour or so over the shower curtain

in the bathroom, 

and surely the fabric was dry enough

to press and cut apart!!!

By this time it is getting close to supper time...

but enthusiasm is not to be denied,

and here are a half a dozen blue towels,

hanging in the hallway,



The weather lady promised

and we are having a wonderful thunder and lightning show

in celebration.

A fitting end to a hot, hot week!

Bruce is at my feet - and Callie

is hiding in the closet

but I revel in the wonderful smell of rain,

and the windows and doors are all wide open!!

Here is Yundi playing Chopin's Raindrop Prelude

Lovely - enjoy!




Tuesday, August 06, 2019

August

August 6th, 2019


August

by Lizette Woodworth Rease

No wind, no bird. The river flames like brass.
On either side, smitten as with a spell
of silence, brood the fields;  in the deep grass,
edging the dusty roads,lie as they fell
handfuls of shriveled leaves from tree and bush;
but long the orchard fence and at the gate,
thrusting their saffron torches through the hush,
wild lilies blaze, and bees hum soon and late.
Rust coloaured the tall straggling briar, not one
rose left.  The spider sets its loom up there
close to the roots, and spins out in the sun
a silken web from twig to twig.  The air
is full of hot rank scents.  Upom the hill
Drifts the noon's single cloud, white, glasring, still.

We are well into August, and the hot, hot days that make it such a sultry month.  

The routine seems to be to keep the house cool, the garden well watered, 
and to find a shady spot out back for a late afternoon cooling drink
and a light read to go with it!

I start the day while it is still cool(ish)
in the loom room
threading the Glimakra, -

that weaving task that requires the most concentration
and morning is the time
most suited to my easily distracted
ninety-four year old brain!!!

A few bookish chores to do
on the computer
(bill paying day)
and I am ready to relax,
somewhere shady,
away from August's sulphurous heat,
where I can watch the butterflies
and the big fat bees,
and the hummingbirds,
as they delight and gorge themselves
on all the sunny late summer
flowers.




The weather man says
each day this week
will be warmer than the last,
and we will have to wait until Saturday
for refreshing showers.

Still, the village is full of happy, hot
vacationers.
Over the long August week-end
the usual pancake breakfast,
a wondrous car show
(I hear from those who attended), -
a reunion of the
Sober Motorcyclists

and the Ashnola valley
full of happy campers..
in the woods beside the creek,
dipping their toes and their fishing rods
into the water,
for all it has to offer....

(minnows, small trout, and tingling toes)

Oh August, what's but to love you....

But I love September more.......




Sunday, August 04, 2019

August 4th, 2019 - the circle of life








"The door to the past is a strange door.  It swings open and things pass through it, but they pass in one direction only.  No man can return across that threshold, though he can look down still and see the green light waver in his watery weeds"

Loren Eiseley,  "The Snout"  (The Immense Journey)

Looking for inspiration I found in the past a blog entry written on August 4th, 2009
 - ten years ago!

It seemed appropriate as I am re-reading Loren Eiseley...

The Unexpected Universe
The Star Thrower
The Immense Journey

For a time the Immense Journey was the only Eiseley books on the shelf,  having passed his other books to family, hoping to share with them his wisdom and philosophy.  However, through Thrift Books I have been able to obtain copies of those books I once gave away - (never expecting to live so long that I would want to once again be inspired!!!!)

Here is what I said about Loren Eiseley when I was ten years younger, - he seems to be a revolving wheel in my life, - someone whose philosophy overtakes me every decade, when life grows mundane!

August 4th, 2009

"Loren Eiseley seems passe now, as far as the library is concerned at any rate.  He was still searching for the Secret to Life when he wrote about the endless mysteries in his own experiences, and meditating on the long past.

An anthropoligist, an imaginative naturalist and a master of prose and poetry, Loren Eiseley fired my imagination and my searching soul.

"When the human mind exists in the
light of reason and no more than reason,
we may say with absolute certainty
that Man and all that made him
will be in that instant gone."  Loren Eiseley

From his Biographical Notes....

"Loren Corey Eiseley was born on Sept. 3, 1907, in Lincoln, Nebraska.  Eiseley learned much from his parents, both of whom were descendants of pioneers.  From his mother, Daisy Corey, an amateur artist, he gained an immense appreciation for the beauty of natural structures and creatures.  From his father, Clyde Edward Eiseley, once an itinerent Shakespeare actor, he acquired the sensitivity and expression of a poet.  In addition, the Plains environment in which he spent his childhood stimulated his interest in anthropology with its salt flats, ponds, and the mammoth bones and fossil collections of the Unversity of Nebraska museum.

Loren Eiseley died on July 9, 1977.

Eiseley described himself as "the fox that sits at the edge of the woods"....

He was admired by W.H. Auden, described as a modern day Thoreau, and yet the discoveries of recent times have dimmed his light somewhat.

Neverthless, as I run my hands along the shelves, looking for something to read, invariably I pause at Loren Eiseley - he writes of his wonderful natural philosophy with such eloquence."

There are many quotes, but the one that I continually marvel at concerns water, - the water that turns my stiff weaving, as it comes off the loom, into soft and luxurious fabric, -   magically changed by its immersion..

"If there is magic on this planet, it is contained in water."