Jogging Along

Another day when I got home after the sun went down.  The moon, though, is almost at the half, and its silver light is more than enough to illuminate the up and down track around the pond.  The dogs and I went three fast circuits around it -- I with 5 pounds of weights on my ankles and in my hands. Most exhilarating of all was that I squared my jaw and broke into a jog on the road along the dam.  I must admit that several years ago I'd decided that I was too old to jog -- nothing but brisk walking for me for the rest of my life.  Tonight I thought, "Why not give jogging a try?"  And off I went.  And it was good!  Next Monday is my birthday and I'll be 57 years old.  And I'm going to be jogging into it -- yeah, baby!

I'm still thinking about coyotes -- dead and alive.  None of my students have said anything about what I told them yesterday, so I'm assuming the none of them were scarred for life by what I told them.  I'm planning on giving them the journal topic "Coyotes" tomorrow just to see what's going on in their heads.  After thinking long and hard about it, I don't regret telling them about the dead coyotes strung up on the fence.  I will not presume to tell them what to think, but I will do my best to engage their hearts and their minds on things that matter.  This is, I believe, the best and most important part of being a teacher.

More Coyotes

The confluence of certain events can sometimes be an interesting thing.  Yesterday I wrote about reading a Native American coyote tale to my 4th graders.  Today, on the way to school, I passed three dead coyotes.  Two had already been strung up on a fence by a hind leg and one was propped up by a fence post waiting, I assume, to be hoisted.  Two men standing by their trucks in the drive and having a conversation glanced at me as I passed.  I can only imagine that one or the other or both were the coyote killers.   

Try as I might, I can't understand this.  While I do get that coyotes can cause problems with smaller livestock and pets, and see why they might be shot, I don't understand the thinking that strings them up for every passing motorist to see.  Why?  I know that the men in the drive would probably laugh at me for saying this, but it seems highly disrespectful to the coyotes.  And to all the people who must witness this.  What's the point?  Is this a way of counting coup?  Or are the hanging remains of their brethren supposed to warn other coyotes to keep away?  Really??? 

This afternoon, before reading the next coyote tale to the class, I told them about the dead coyotes hanging from the fence.  Perhaps I shouldn't have, but I wanted them to be aware of how our belief systems affect everything we do.  If you believe that a coyote has no worth on any level, nothing you do to it, dead or alive, can be considered wrong or immoral.  I told the children that it was hard to explain, but that I felt that what these men had done was disrespectful to the coyotes.  One boy raised his hand and when I called on him he said, "All this talking about the dead coyotes is creeping me out.  Could you just read the next story?"  I realized that perhaps this wasn't an experience I should have shared.  I have no idea how this affected the other children.  At the time, I felt that this very much tied into what I've been trying to teach about Native Americans and their respect for all life.   And this, naturally, ties into my own feelings, which is in full agreement with the Native Americans.

So I read the next story (Fire Race: How Coyote Brought Fire) and the children enjoyed it very much.  I wish I knew what they were thinking about all the other stuff I'd talked about. 

Back in the Fog

Back to school today and the drive through the fog on the way down was a white-knuckled, grip-the-steering wheel sort of commute.  The fog was so dense that I completely passed my normal turnoff and could only glance helplessly at the street sign as I crept along past it at a dizzying 30 mph.  But I made it to school in one piece and before the bell rang.  A group of students, waiting in front of my classroom, descended on me as I tottered towards them, rolling crate in tow.  They all began chattering at once about everything wonderful/awful/weird that had happened in their young lives during the past two weeks, and did a remarkably good job of diverting my attention from my recent blind 25 mile drive through grey nothingness.  Nine year olds will do that!

As is often the case, the first day back from break was both long and very fast moving.  My favorite part of it was after lunch when the students sat on the carpet and I read them a Native American folktale called "Coyote and the Grasshoppers."  I really get into the Trickster Coyote stories and do my best to make sure that my young audience does too.  I got into full storyteller mode, giving distinct voices to Coyote (whose job it was to take care of the problem of a plague of grasshoppers by eating them) and the Great Spirit (the one who, much to the delight of my students, gave Coyote this distasteful task).  I especially liked being the Great Spirit.  When I spoke as him, I looked down from on-high as I serenely commanded whining, reluctant Coyote to eat the grasshoppers.  And the children, absolutely still and wide-eyed, looked up towards me as though it really was the Great Spirit speaking.  It's incredibly gratifying when, in this age of multi-media technology, a woman holding a book and sitting in a chair can transport a group of children (and, I'll admit it, herself) into a tale that's been told around campfires for a very, very long time.

I got home just after the sun had set.  I changed and took the dogs for a walk -- two vigorous laps around the pond.  The moon overhead was so bright that it cast shadows. 

Fog Lifting

The classroom withstood two weeks of idleness very well.  The plants were all still alive and no mice were in the traps.  Christmas decorations were put away, and then I did several hours of general sorting, tidying up and organizing.  Finally, the other 4th grade teacher and I did mutual hand-wringing and whining over the scant amount of time we had to teach a LOT of stuff in a very short amount of time.   And then we got down to lesson planning and got the plans for next week sorted out.  I came home with a crate of work to do, but also with a feeling of great relief that I'm ready for tomorrow...at least, ready enough.

Down in the valley, where my school is, heavy, cold fog clung all day.  Up in the foothills ,where we live, the sun broke through early on and the whole day became more cheerful with the advent of light.  Yesterday Bruce took a time lapse series of photographs spanning about 1 1/2 hours of the fog lifting from Frogpond. What I love about this series is how Gopher Ridge so slowly emerges from the drifts of fog.  In the beginning, there was light...

On a totally different tack, for Christmas, among other things, Bruce got me hand and ankle weights.  I've been using them for my daily walks and am amazed by the effect that carrying a combined additional 5 pounds of weight can have.  I'm thinking that a few weeks of trucking up and down the hills with these should work wonders on muscles that need toning up.

So, yesterday, while briskly walking around the pond and enthusiastically carrying the hand weights, I went to brush off a hair that was tickling my nose and ended up smacking my lip hard with a finger that was attached to a weighted hand.  The left side of my lower lip is now a violent shade of purple/blue and looks like someone popped me a good one.  God knows what the 4th graders will tell their parents tomorrow afternoon.

I am, as Bruce frequently reminds me, my own worst enemy.

A New Year's Day

The first day of the year began with a heavy fog layered over frost.  By nine, the sun was filtering through.  We took a New Year's walk around the pond and then went on to the other property. 

 The light was amazing. 

Technically tomorrow I have off, but I'll be going down to my classroom early to spend the day working in my classroom.  On the last afternoon before Winter Break I bolted for home so quickly that I left everything as it was.  The Christmas decorations will still be up and my first job will be to get all that put away.  After that will be putting up a new science bulletin board and lesson planning with the other 4th grade teacher.  And so my teaching life resumes. 

These past two weeks have been so good to me.  It took several days for me to let go of all my preoccupations with school, but when I finally was able to, I embraced our quiet life here to the fullest.  We didn't go anywhere or do anything particularly exciting.  I'll admit that I'm a little disappointed that we never made it to the ocean or the mountains or even a museum.  But I wove, walked, gardened, blogged, cooked, read, visited,  and enjoyed being with Bruce (and all the other animals). 

The luxury of just having some time to oneself to look inward and outward cannot be overestimated.  I begin this new year grateful for this gift of time.



The very last day of the year

Today was a quiet sort of last day of the year.  In the morning I worked on finishing weaving the scarf while Bruce fixed breakfast.  The meal starred the crab cakes that Liz and Kiichi brought us.  When Bruce called me from my loom, this was waiting:

I love having a husband who enjoys cooking

The three dogs and I trucked up Gopher Ridge just after the sun went down and the moon came up.  The sky was soft and opalescent and it was very quiet.  It felt like I was walking through a watercolor.

Back at home, Max was waiting for me in the garage.  He's settling in more and more and now he has his own wicker basket to sleep in.  He's a happy boy.

All best wishes to everyone for a great 2012!

The Hobbit Hole

Our neighbors with the llamas are only up here sporadically -- they live and work in the Bay area, so most of the time the house and property are alone and unloved.  They come up here on holidays to party, target practice, and  ride noisy four-wheelers  -- I have my not-so-charitable views on this.  However, I must admit that Bob has cut some cool trails that twist through the hills and trees of their 20 acres, and we have permission to ride or walk over there any time we want to.  This has become my trail of choice when out walking because the views constantly change with every step --there is the illusion of walking somewhere way out in the woods instead of merely  in the lot next to our house.  It satisfyingly feels like I'm really going somewhere (even though, in reality,  it's just in very convoluted circles). The  path takes so many serpentine turns that it takes 35 minutes of brisk walking to do a complete circuit.  I'm thinking that this is about a mile  (I just ordered a pedometer so I can find out for sure -- I'd hate to think it took me 35 minutes to walk less than a mile). 

Just as you walk in through the gap in the fence from our property to theirs is this strange little structure dug right into the hillside.

 I'm not sure how old it is or what it was used for.  All of this land used to be part of a large ranch, so most likely it was built to store canned goods or cure meat.

 But to me it is mysterious and intriguing and I refer to it as The Hobbit Hole. 











From inside, the view is of our lower pasture.  I'm so jealous that "my" hobbit hole is on the neighbor's property.   So unfair.




I ask you, would they really notice if I shifted the fence line 300 yards over to their side??? 

Tartes and Cats

Today I did absolutely no weaving at all.  Instead, I (with Bruce and daughter Liz's help) made a quince tarte tatin.  The quince were picked from our own trees.  The fruit, heaped in a lard bucket, has been perfuming the air in the garage since October --  it was time to do something with it.  Liz and her boyfriend Kiichi came for dinner (and brought crab cakes made from crab that they just caught.  They didn't want us to eat them tonight -- we'll fry them up tomorrow.  For breakfast!).

Anyway, for desert we followed a Martha Stewart recipe for the French upside-down pie known as tarte tatin.  I'd never made one before but have encountered them in just about every French travel/cookbook I've ever read.  Come to think of it, I'd never eaten one before either.  I'd bought the correct French tarte pan to make it in, but in the end chose to put it in a simple cast iron crepe pan.  This made a smaller tarte, which is what I wanted.  I'll admit right now that my pie crust came from a package from the freezer section of the grocery store.  I;m willing to bet that Martha Stewart made her own, but I'm also pretty sure that she had someone else to clean up her kitchen afterwards. 

When the tarte came out of the oven and had been flipped onto a plate, it didn't look exactly perfect, but close enough (for me, at any rate.  I'm not sure about Martha).  And the fragrant sweet/tart quince flavor was divine!

While we ate, Arby (doing his best to ingratiate himself with both Kiichi and Liz) sat between them -- rear end on Liz's chair and front end planted on Kiichi's thigh.  I'm not sure what was going on in his little head, but he looked pleased at his stunning success at being such an excellent bridge.








Meanwhile, out in the garage, there's Max, who appears to be our new cat.  We've seen him hanging around at the bottom of the drive for over a month now.  He was shy and ran away if we approached him.  He chose Christmas Eve to move into the garage where he made himself at home on some Christmas stockings piled on the freezer.  His timing was perfect -- our own little furry Frogpond Christmas gift.  Bruce brought him a dish of food and Max said thank you by winding happily around his legs and purring like mad.  To our immense relief, the guy's already neutered and isn't feral, so he should fit in with our feline crew.  I think that Max (the name may change) will be staying.

 Tonight Bruce brought him out some canned food plus a bowl of milk to which I'd added a little cream. 

I think he liked it.

Weaving Progress

Early morning view from my loom: Mulligan in the window

I started unweaving the scarf yesterday to see if I could figure out why the sizes of the rectangles were different, but stopped after a few rows -- the yarn was showing wear from all the manipulation.  Besides, in the morning light I was absolutely certain that I hadn't made a counting or treadling error.  I decided to leave well enough alone and keep going forward.  I'm glad I did; I got in the rhythm of the pattern and the weaving went much more quickly and easily. 

By mid-afternoon I'd made it to the warm hues in the color sequence.  I'm enjoying the color changes, even though this means a lot of beginning and endings with the yarn.  That first funky stripe of green is now rolled up and hidden away until the end of the project when the entire scarf is cut from the loom.  I already know that it won't look quite right, but that's OK.  In my mind I'm already planning color variations for the next projects  using this pattern -- I'll have plenty of opportunity to get it right.

Weaving Woes



A pretty winter sunrise



This morning I woke up early, fed the cats, got my coffee and went to work on my scarf project.  For this one, I'm using eight harnesses instead of the usual four and a twill weave that requires keeping accurate count of all 240 threads at one time.  Counting out threads is sort of like playing Sudoku, where you keep repeating the same numbers over and over to yourself.   When my mind wanders (and, believe me, it does), I have to backtrack to a starting point and begin again.  Weaving is not for impatient people.

Last night, I'd gotten this far before I got sleepy, began making mistakes and went to bed. 




It took me all day to get the warp properly threaded and tied on, the harnesses and treadles tied up and the the weaving started.  Then I discovered some twisted threads and had to take out my first few rows and retie.  I wove again and, this time found that I'd tied three of the harnesses up incorrectly.  Unweave again, fix the harnesses and try again.  This time everything looked good other than it turns out that the twill draft I'm using is for a different type of loom than mine -- no big deal except that the pattern is coming out on the bottom side of the fabric.  In order to see it, I have to crawl underneath the loom and look up.  It isn't the most convenient way to weave, but, hey, it's keeping me limber.

I'm now two color blocks along in my weaving.  More bad news -- the second colored rectangle is definitely smaller than the first.  I've counted and recounted the threads and I come up with 16 for both rectangles -- how can one be 1/8" larger than the other?  More counting, recounting, studying the rectangles, checking the yarns.  I simply can't figure it out.  I had enough of counting threads -- at least for today.  I'll look at again tomorrow and will figure it out in the light of day.  I'll also have the patience to unweave yet again what I've already woven twice. 

I stopped for the day and took a brisk walk with Bruce and the dogs. 




At last: A three-egg day



When we got home again, the hens had a surprise for us:  

Perhaps not the most productive day I've ever had, but I got to spend it doing exactly what I wanted. That'll do!