As long as I emptied my camera today, and I’m using pictures to save time, I thought I’d post a few more.
Here is a picture of my new dining room set. Pretty, Hun?
Oh, you only see trees. Well, where do you think furniture comes from, Silly. Rooms to Go?
That reminds me of a funny thing that happened this summer. Neva and I were picking blackberries by the side of the road on our mountain, and a man walked by who was renting a cabin (a city boy). He said, “What are you two doing?”
I said, “We are picking blackberries.”
He wrinkled his nose and said, “Why bother? It is not like you can eat them.” And he left.
Neva said, “Why did he say that?”
I explained that some people thought food only came from the grocery store, as if dropped down from the sky all nicely packaged in plastic and filled with preservatives. Apparently, that fellow felt food that had been “outside” must be spoiled or something. Ha. we had a good laugh over that one.
Anyway, here is my fabulous new dining room chair, in the hands of the grunt that will slave away to make it.
Gee Wiz – he doesn’t even look Korean to me. His sidekick is an alledged “apprentice” to this project. When he heard that he could learn to make these chairs and they would sell for about 600 bucks, little cars flashed in his pupils, like a boy obsessed. I think now would be a good time to tell you (as a friend) to put you money in Calamine lotion stock!
This is my assistant holding up her bag of lichen. Nothing like sending your child into the deep dark woods on a creative mission to prove your overprotective mothering gene has passed the freshness date on the lable. Next to her is a picture of our house from the area where we are digging a small lake this week (thus the trees would have been destroyed and that is why we are harvesting them now.) I’m told I am a real annoyance when I am hanging around with a camera. I would be more appreciated if I were willing to drag trees out of the woods. I figure, I’ll be the one cleaning this furniture, and moving it aside to vacumn so eventually I’ll pay my wood hoisting dues . The house is pretty though, don’t ya think? 
I have to go take my little woodsprite to soccer. All that running keeps her in shape for hunting dye material, so I am willing to cheer.
Monthly Archives: September 2006
My new dining room set!
I can be a wolf in sheep’s clothing now
They say a picture is worth a thousand words and since I have an essay to write today for my non fiction professor, I have no time to amuse you with flippant descriptions of my life altering week. So, assuming my readership misses me (allow me my delusions), I thought I might just leave a “picture essay” to wet your appetite. Actually, I’m writing a piece about my spinning class today, so I will post it later to offer a more lyrical and detailed accounting of this endevor. It was such fun. I’ll never look at the world the same again. Really.
Take my hand, and let me show you a small sampling of what my eyes (and hands) feasted upon all week.
These are my new friends Lucy and Norman (in that order). I know they are true friends, because they were willing to get naked for me. (Only a friend that has true trust in you would do something like that.) They have body oder, I’m told, but since I can’t smell, it doesnt interfer with our friendship. They are not very bright. They are timid and can’t protect themselves from any kind of preditor. They die easily and require a great deal of maintence. They have no personality like goats, dogs, horses, donkeys or llama, making them almost monotone creatures. They travel as a click like girls in high school incapable of thinking independantly. I now understand why sheep are used to describe people who follow the crowd. But they are cute in a fuzzy, dumbish way. Lucy is a Coridale, and Norman is a shetland blend. Norman is what they call a “black sheep” even though he is brown. I figure, since my parents always told me I was the black sheep of the family, that he and I would hit it off, and we did. These sheep have deep, odd voices, not like the cute bleeting sheep on cartoons, but more like sheep with a cold – I would have named one”Froggy” (from little rascles) had they been mine. As a whole, they cured me of ever wanting sheep. Mark loves Lucy and Norman for that. 
This is how sheep wool begins. It is cut from the animal in a huge rug, then you cut off the flanks, tummy, and neck area to discard the rough matted wool (of store it for other uses, like felting). The square wooden thing-a-ma-bobbers are wool cards. They are like huge brushes that you use to brush out and prepare the wool. You can do fiber or color blends this way too. You must wash the wool first in huge tubs with shampoo or detergent, careful not to adgitate it or it will mat and turn into felt. Use warm water. Then you hang it out to dry, or place it on a screen so the air can circulate around it. You should pick out debris and sticks first, of course.
If you want your wool to be colored, you must dye it. We used all natural dyes. Rit is for sissys. This is a “rainbow” pot. After conditioning the wool with a solution of alum and creme of tarter to make it colorfast, we layer it (wet) in a pot using cheesecloth to keep the dye materials from getting caught in the just cleaned wool. You can add any ingrediants you wish. We used marigolds, madder root, walnuts (still green) and cochnile (which is a bug). We made several layers. After sitting a few hours, it came out in the multicolors you see here. Beautiful! Nature has such a wealth of amazing surprises if you get intimate with her.
This is how many marigolds you need to make the nice warm yellow orange you see here. The duller gold is from lichen, which is moss growing on trees. You’d think that would turn things brown or green, but it comes out yellow. As you can imagine, a gardener would have a fit if you decided to visit his bounty on dye day. I will tell Mark to plant marigolds, but I will leave out the details about why. On the day they dissapear, I’ll blame it on a goat or something. Ha. I am already plotting…. 
This is how we crushed the bugs we used to make red. No fancy bowls for us – we used a rock. This is the cochnile bug from Mexico. Only the girl bugs make red. Funny, that is the opposite of nature – having the girl be the one with the color pigment. I couldn’t help but wonder how they seperated the males and females. To turn them over to look at their privates wouldn’t be time efficient, if you ask me. I also worked with Indigo – the most facinating stuff of all. To make this natural plant work, someone must pee in the pot. No kidding. We used a different acidic agent for the class (too bad – would have given me a colorful story to tell) but still, the process of dying with indigo is remarkable. Next to this picture is my carded wool (washed, dyed and brushed) which I prepared for spinning. This is more work than it looks. If I made pink, I could have used it to play tricks on friends by telling them it was cotton candy. We also had a hand-crank machine carder, which I used as well, but this apparatus is rather expensive, so I wanted to be proficient with the hand cards before I left the class, to assure I could do some of this stuff at home. 
This is the wheel I learned to spin on. As you can see, I like spinning because you can actually do it with nails. 
This is a picture of me spinning, (just to allieviate your fears that I might be turning into a menonite or something). I look much the same, although viewing these pictures now, I’m thinking I need to spend less time developing my mind and more time developing my arms. Yuck. Ah well, what good is a pretty package if inside you are nothing but an empty box! I will wear long sleeves for awhile – heck it’s winter. This huge wheel was just as easy to spin on as the smaller wheels. The size means nothing but a different ratio of rotations to the bobin. They fool you by making it look big and important. Spinning wheels look complicated, but they are the simplist machine ever. I was amazed at how simple spinning is (not to do it uniformaly and well, but just how making yarn or thread is accomplished.) I can now spin now on a hand spindle or even with my hand against my leg. I am sure you will be impressed to learn I am multi-talented in the yarn developement catagory. I tried all kinds of wheels to find out what kind I am most comfortable with. I felt I had to if I wanted to buy one (which I do). It was great fun adventuring with all different styles and brands. I tend to like big, textured yarns, so I need a wheel with a big bobbin capacity. I also like Scottish tension. I like the Ashfords, but mostly I fell in love with the Luet. (This means nothing to you, but it makes me sound proficient, so I wanted to throw it in.) 
This is my teacher, Martha, who also taught us about fiber blending. She showed us how to use angora, and even demonstrated this cool “parlor trick” of spinning right off the rabbit. Do I need to mention how much that delighted me. I can’t wait for my next party, cause I have every intention of making my friends smile with this nifty trick. I know how to use Dahli’s fur now, and I can spin with yak or camel too. As far as I’m concerned, the weirder the wool source the better. Why not experiment. The lord wouldn’t have made the world so interesting if he wanted us to live in a box. 
This is a picture of the yarns I made this week all from raw wool. All of them are made with natural dyes – lichen, marigold, walnut, cochnile, madder, and natural wool colors. You can also see the sample book I made to keep track of it all. I have pages of wool samples (every breed of sheep is different, ya know and there are thousands of breeds.) And I have angora, goat and other wool samples too. I also have all the dye swatches so I can reproduce them someday. I love my wool notebook, because it is filled with information and small observances I had during the experience. I love these first skeins of wool, because they are made of earthly things, so natural and simple, yet so beautiful too. I now have an understanding of what people did in the past to make all kinds of textiles – felt, yarn, fabric and thread. I understand how early cloth was put together and colored. I will never go into a museum and see a rug or costume and not have a greater understanding and appreciation for the talent and work that went into making it. I see the world in color now – not just the surface color, but all the colors that lie hidden in nature (for example indigo is just a green plant and when you dye with it, the fabric and the water is a dull yellow. Only when you lift the item inside and the air meets it, will it oxidize and turn blue like magic before your eyes. – Now, I ask you, how did they invent that !?!)
I confess, I do not want sheep anymore. I do want a spinning wheel, and loads of fiber, and yesterday, Neva and I took a walk through the forest and gathered a huge gallon ziplock of lichen. I plan to color our easter eggs with natural substances this year. What a fun project! I am now facinated with natural dying, and I am taking a weekend class on dying with mushrooms (they give you yellow and green and blue and red – amazing) next month.
I’ve expanded my world in the simplist way. Feels good. Now – what shall I do with this wool? Hummm…. I’m thinking I need to learn something about knitting next.
No animals involved. Mark will be relieved.
This was written on the board in the class, and I understand it now in a way I don’t think I would have a year ago:
“Our Ability to hold and to live in the memory of the primal creative source is an essential thread that binds together the fabric of all existence.”
– J. Lambert –
I feel grounded – as if I understand the world better now, thanks to my slowing down and taking the time and trouble to convene with nature in a way that is more poignant than just taking hikes and gardening. It is good to wake up after years of groggy napping in a convienience world.
I’ve never been one too keen on church. But now, I think, in nature, I’ve found my church. Hendry David Thoreau would be proud of me, I think.
Counting sheep doesn’t always put a girl to sleep
I’ve found a new passion!
I love spinning.
Actually, I haven’t done any spinning yet, but I’ve had the first night’s meeting that gives us a class overview, met the 11 women in the course, and gotten to know the instructor (her name is Martha.) She is down to earth, has a great sense of humor and a twinkle in her eye. “Martha’s” have it all together.
Tonight I learned loads about fiber. Most exciting of all was learning that one can spin just about any kind of animal fur into yarn. My llama fur will come in use and you can bet I’m taking it to the class tomorrow. The angora rabbits they had for sale at the feed store a few months ago are perfect for this kind of thing too. If only I had known! (I asked Neva if she wanted one of these huge fluffy beasts when we saw them, but she said they were too big. Like monster rabbits. Well, next time I’ll buy them, but for me.) I even learned that most spinners prefer a certain sort of dog (forget the name right now) because their fur is a great additive to wool. Would that I had known that before adopting our two big lazy, mischievous canines. I learned about all sorts of sheep too, of course.
Tonight, I fingered finished yarn samples of all sorts of combinations, and inspected raw wool. I learned about all kinds of methods of dying, with natural elements, like roots, grasses, lichen, and indigo. I even learned that ammonia and a copper pipe make a dye that turns yarn green. We will explore natural dying on Wednesday. Cool.
Unbelievably, every woman in the class has a spinning wheel except me. They were family heirlooms or, in several cases, their husbands gave them a wheel for Christmas – out of the blue. Now, I ask you, would you ever consider buying your spouse a spinning wheel if they never mentioned it? Some people consider them pretty furniture accents. And once it has been sitting in the living room for a year or two, the woman starts thinking that maybe she should learn how to use it. Amazing.
This week, I will learn all about the many different types of wheels, and I can try them all out so that, should I want to purchase one, I’ll have a good idea of what kind suits me best. The teacher asked me if I’d brought any kind of “equipment.”
I said, “Does a crochet hook count?”
The whole class laughed at me, and said, “You don’t know what you are getting into. You’re going to want a wheel before the week is out.”
They are probably right.
I just was grateful I own a llama because it means I am not a total outcast. Dahli is my loose connection to proclaiming myself a fiber arts enthusiast.
I must say, I am delighted with the class. The women are all brimming with enthusiasm and humor and the wealth of information we are covering is exciting. It is Scottish heritage week at the Campbell school, so there are many special events going on. Since they have classes offered in weaving, knitting, and spinning, they have several functions just for those interested in fiber arts, including a tea party at the local yarn circle and a special event called a weaving walk. You don’t actually walk anywhere – you gather in a circle and pound finished woven material and pass it on to the rhythm of a song. This blocks the fabric and tightens the weave. They say it is an old world art that you rarely see, much less participate in. Ha. I picked a good week for this particular adventure. They also have a special Scottish heritage slide presentation and a guest speaker.
Tomorrow begins the real work. We start by cleaning wool – there are buckets and buckets of it around the room in all shades and textures. We will not be sheering a sheep because it is the wrong season (they need their coats for winter,) but we will visit a sheep farm on Friday to learn some basics. Mark commented that perhaps he should tag along, “just in case” (chuckle). I’m told there are local sheep sheering seminars, short half day events, which people can attend to learn the basics. Neat. I’m there. I also found out that in Asheville there is a huge fiber arts festival at the agricultural center in late October. (www.saffsite.org) You can see all kinds of equipment, find out about llama, alpaca, sheep and other animal organizations, and all things related to this heritage art form. I asked Mark if he was interested in going. We had such a nice time when we went to Asheville last month (the Victorian Bed and Breakfast) that he said “it’s a go.” Gee – from the seed of an idea, a passion is born so readily. He is certainly making it easy for me to embrace this new “hobby.” I’ll have to make the man a scarf or something.
Anyway, I will keep you posted on the daily events. Too bad I can’t write with a Scottish brogue, just to amuse.
I must admit, this morning I was kicking myself for enrolling in this seminar. I’ve been feeling melancholy the last few days and I wasn’t much in the mood to be jovial. However, tonight, I am thinking this was the medicine I needed to force myself out of my funk. Sometimes, you have to take steps to think beyond yourself – to crowbar yourself out of too much inward, (self-imposed) conflict.Controling your attitude and mood, being positive, is an art, I think.
Well , I can’t talk now. I have some reading to do about sheep. You can bet I’ll be counting them as I fall asleep tonight! One sheep, two sheep, three sheep, a llama – hey, how did you get in there, Dahli?
Shopping to avoid work
I have MFA overload, so I will write one more blog to avoid my work.
I spent the morning shopping. Probably not shopping for the kinds of things you or your spouse shopped for today. No, I was shopping at home- browsing my favorite publication, The Northwest Georgia Trader. This little book can be picked up for 99 cents at every gas station near and far – I buy it every week. The publication allows people to place ads for free and just about anything you think of is in there, even kitchen sinks. It’s like a countywide garage sale on paper.
I like to see what people think is worth money. I laugh when checking out the “miscellaneous” column because of the odd, eclectic items featured. Everything from toys and tires to wedding dresses and army helmet planters sit in tiny-boxed ads to flag a potential customer. They have an animal section. I always marvel at how many dogs are for sale, and sadly, just as many are “free”, one-step away from being dumped on the side of the road or put in a sack and thrown into the river with a rock. There are tons of cars and boats and cabin rentals in designated columns. However, what I am looking for is always found in the “Farm animal and supply” category. Good stuff there.
Two weeks ago, they had a chicken house. I got excited, until I saw it was a huge chicken house – the kind that houses over 1000 chickens. Um…. I’m not that much of a hobbyist. There are dozens of horses, cows, rabbits, chickens, peacocks, and you name it for sale or trade.
However, what I am looking for today is a llama. Dahli is lonely and needs a companion. Last week there was a llama for sale, but it was male. Two males will fight (unless I get Dahli nurtured), so I am looking for a female. And you know what that means – Dalhi’s woman will probably be a mama llama by spring. Fun. I am also hoping for a white llama, because I am an equal opportunity llama employer.
This week, someone is selling a set of llamas, a male, female and their 5-month-old baby. I told Mark it was a shame they weren’t just selling a female. I asked if he thought they would break up the family.
He said, “Probably not, but they might sell the baby. Is it a male or female?”
Duh, I hadn’t considered that possibility. Would be perfect though, because a young llama is easily trained and I would have time (while it matured) to prepare for little llamas popping up all over the place.
I commented that perhaps we should do some research before we buy a female because we don’t exactly need a herd of llamas taking over our pasture. Of course, after we had one baby, if we didn’t like it, we could have Dahli nurtured.
Mark said that we could simply sell future offspring, which would offset the cost of keeping the animals. I could start a little llama business to support my interest.
I suppose that is a possibility. I mean, I would have to have an in depth interview with potential adopter’s and check their home facility, their financial position, their temperament and ask their long-term intentions. I’d need a yearly report, with pictures, of course, and the new owners would have to endure spot inspections should I wish to make them to assure the on-going well-being of the llama youth. Yea, I could sell Dahli’s babies under these conditions. No problem.
So, I just now called and left a message on the person’s answering machine inquiring about the baby llama’s color and sex. My message explained that I am looking for a companion llama for an un-neutered male, preferably a light color. I figure that way, they can consider selling their female independently, without being put on the spot. I’m hoping they call back and say the baby is a white female and to come get her.
Now that I’ve put that potential acquisition in motion, I must move on to my next shopping task. I need to hire someone to build a llama shed in the field (because the rains are coming) and a windbreak for the horses (because I can tell it is going to take a while before we get to this barn project – and the rains are coming) and a chicken house (because my cute baby chicks are now big ol birds with Perdue sized turds and I need to get them out of the cage, off my porch and away from this cabin. . . even though I do love the sound of that crowing – and this particular endeavor has nothing at all to do with the rains coming.)
But I don’t have much more time for shopping. It is “early release day” at school. The kids are excused at 1:00. I will pick them up and take Neva to the land to go riding. We finally have a ring set up so she can practice safely. Today will be the first time we use it. Of course, it looks a bit like rain. Drat.
Tonight we will all be going to the football game. My son is in the marching band. Ha, it figures that I’d be one to go to the game for the music instead of the sport. This is the first time we will hear him play, other than loud practices on the field that we’ve heard from our car whenever we show up early to pick him up. The band is great – this school has won the state championship for 16 years in a row, and the band director has no intention of breaking that winning streak anytime soon. Kent is a percussionist, one of the stronger ones in the group. I guess a year of private drum lessons has paid off. (He is also talking about organizing a rock ‘n roll band with some friends.) and of course, he can march in any formation without faltering. All that dance training was bound to come in handy one way or another.
He loves band, and I love it because he loves it. I just took a run this morning specifically so I can eat a hot dog tonight without guilt. Of course, it looks a bit like rain. Drat.
Kent will wear his uniform for the first and last time tonight, because they are getting new uniforms next week. If it does rain, well, at least we will only be soaking an old suit. . . and me in the stands, I guess. One more “Drat” for that.
Time to go. My riveting (maybe wet) day, four hungry horses and one lonely llama, need my attention. My homework needs attention too, but I’m ignoring that particular whine today.
One way to love bread
There is a wonderful gourmet food and wine store in downtown Blue Ridge called Out of the Blue. (http://outofzbleu.com). They’ve hosted cooking classes, but each time they’ve arranged a class, it’s happened on a day when I’ve been in Boston. Today, I checked the store’s website and see they are planning two classes in September on a Sunday morning. I happen to be available for both. They are minimal commitment sorts of classes, (one 4 hour session) just what I’m looking for. It will be fun to go in one morning to spend a few hours with people I’ve just met, who also share a love of cooking. Hopefully, I’ll learn something new.
One class is called “From farm to table” and involves meeting at 8am, driving to a farm and picking the food that we will cook later that morning in the store’s kitchen. Sounds fun. For one thing, I will enjoy beginning my day outdoors. For another, I intend to plant a garden next spring, and this class will serve as inspiration for that future endeavor.
The second class is a bread baking class. I’m told the teacher is very popular, and since I adore making bread, I will enjoy seeing what tips she has to offer. Though I’ve considered enrolling in gourmet cooking classes a few times I don’t have time for an intensive weeklong cooking class, nor do I believe I want to devote that much time to enhancing my cooking right now. Well, maybe, if it was a totally new subject for me, such as outdoor cooking on an open fire or learning how to tuck food under hot coals or something. I’d love to learn about barbequing. I’ve always considered grilling the man’s territory, but honestly, since I am the one in charge of meals in this home, and Mark is too distracted with his building project to take time to grill, I should learn about that method of cooking too. I so love grilled food and, it is good for you.
Other than that, I think the best way to learn to cook in a kitchen is by experimenting at home. I’ve no doubt there are many, many things I could learn from professional cooks, but I like my meandering pace as a cooking aficionado. I like reading about cooking and pulling new recipes out of my five monthly cooking magazines (yes, I’m guilty of subscribing to more cooking magazines than is needed) and trying something new when the spirit moves me. I don’t claim to be a gourmet cook, because I know enough about cooking to know that such a title only is earned by years of professional study – but I am a good cook . . . Certainly an enthusiastic one.
My mother-in-law claims I am the reason my husband is overweight. He has reached an all time high this year, and since the woman is to blame for everything regarding her family, apparently, this is my fault. I am supposed to stop cooking all together and nag him more, she says. (Ummm…. No. That is not now, nor will it ever be, my role.) I keep insisting that it isn’t my cooking that is the problem. It is my not cooking that creates the issue. Home cooking is healthy, and I happened to have a thousand tricks on how to cut calories and fat from fantastic meals. The problem is, my husband eats out when he is on the run. And when he is stressed, he reaches for a milkshake. A perfect example of this – when we were in the throws of recital, our closest friends would show up with a peanut butter pie for him, knowing he needed the sugar fix to fulfill his endless duties as stage manager, director and problem diffuser. They brought me a cup of coffee with equal. (We all have our crutch.) Truth is, I could turn my husband back into a GQ model if I could only lock him up for a month with nothing but my cooking to nourish him (and two long walks a day.)
Anyway, my point is, I refuse to allow my cooking to be the whipping boy of the issue. Last night, I was looking through Cooking Light magazine (my favorite) and pulling out recipes that cut fat from delicious dishes. I will slip these into my neat, organized page protectors and into my cooking notebooks. Soon, I will get around to making these main dishes and desserts, and if they are terrific, they find a permanent home in my collection. If not, they hit the trash with the daily newspaper. I am forever trying new recipes, especially if they are healthy.
I’ve gotten off the point. The point is, I’ve just signed up to take a few cooking classes for fun this month. I don’t feel guilty about it. I love to cook. Love to cook for others. Love to watch people eat. Love the look of food and finding ways to serve it that make it look as good as it tastes. Love planning thematic menus. Love the challenge of making something delectable and yet healthy too. Sure wish I could smell food. Can’t have everything.
I will make bread with new friends this month. I’ll sit there at the counter, asking questions, watching the teacher’s hands knead dough, excited to have a taste of our creation when it is complete. And while waiting, I’ll wonder about the ingredients, where they came from – not just from the flour sack, but also the origin . . . on the farm. I’ll consider the route that handful of grain traveled to arrive in this particular store, on this particular day, in this particular batch of dough, and finally, in my particular savory bite. When you think of it that way, taking a class on making bread suddenly has so much more meaning. In fact, it ceases to be about cooking at all –it’s about celebrating what you chose to honor, the independent path, the course of life selected, the journey taken, by something you love.
Heart of Ginny 