A Sense of Wonder

Blogtober?

I suppose, rather than just paying for this space and trying to move old stuff over, I should write something new here.

I'm already making something every day, so I'm torn:  what do I want to document every day for this whole month?  I know I want it to be simple and fairly easy, or I won't do it.  Because that's how I am right now -- too many irons, not enough fire.  

I have 'til the end of the day to decide. :)

Today, I stood in the middle of a violent rainstorm.

Summer washed off my skin and back into the gravel at my feet and I said goodbye as it disappeared, all yellow and dusty and uncharacteristically hot.

Monsoon season's here again.

Testing!

I'm figuring out how this works.  After years of self-hosted wordpress sites, I'm sick of fighting with the domain host, and I miss having a blog.

So here we go.

(testing image options)

Taking care of business.

My garden needs so much work this week. I need to get with the program and get things harvested and drying/preserved soon or I'm going to be hijacked by autumn this year.

Your Weekly Dose of Calm

[vimeo id="15486292"]

How To Fold A Sweater. (Among Other Things)

  In case you're going camping, and you were being held back by the proper Boy Scout approved method of folding a sweater or jersey, The Art Of Manliness has your back.  There are sixteen total tips they're sharing from a 1911 Boys' Life magazine, ranging from the practical (like this one) to the totally bizarre (digging a trench for your calves when you're eating outside) to the I'm-pretty-sure-this-is-unlikely (making a loop if you're ever stranded on a rope). The illustrations are worth the price of admission.  Go see.

In the north

All of a sudden, now that we're in the North in the class I'm taking, I'm seeing people in my paintings, where it was only animal guides before. This is interesting. (Also, testing the Wordpress app for the iPad, to see if I can update on the fly. There may be much more blather soon.)

Just the Sun {nerd alert}

  There's a little part of me (little but loud) that says that if I could pick up one of these from GoalZero ($329 msrp), that I could totally travel the countryside by bike or something, living in a tent from campground to campground, and still be connected to the outside world. Granted, that fails to take into account the fact that I'm a pretty pretty princess and would get tired of sleeping on the ground after a few days (most likely) and would cry if there were large bugs. Maybe car camping.  (Though the gas would kind of negate the whole off-the-grid benefits.) (Also, this thing weighs more than 13 pounds, which would make backpacking/biking unpleasant. It'd be like carrying my smallest dog on my back all the time.  Which, frankly, I sometimes have to do, because he's needy.  Beside the point.) Also:  I still have too much stuff. Must remedy this soonish. (Can you tell I haven't had nearly enough coffee yet today to be coherent?  Why, yes.  Yes, you can.)

maize ' s wooden hangers?

Oh, but yes. This is so happening in this house. I've been gathering twigs for dreamcatchers anyway, so it's just a half-step and a saw-cut away from having a closet full of forest. via Maize Hutton, who has a very pretty blog.  (photo credit is all Maize.)

{quote} Thoreau, again.

It's always Thoreau Time 'round here.  Or Emerson.  I think I'm a transcendentalist, born in the wrong time.

We need the tonic of wildness...we require that land and see be indefinitely wild... we can never have enough nature. -H. D. Thoreau

I'm really thinking my word for 2014 is going to be "wild".  It just keeps popping up all around me, and, let's face it, I'm about half-feral on the best of days.