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Sunday, July 22, 2007

the load!

Sheeeesh! Lately, the blog has fallen by the wayside, in the wake of gardening and harvesting and preparing the food from said garden. So when ya get an update, it's positively torrential, eh?!

From the top: last week's golden morning sunshine through the windows facing east. Have I mentioned enough times how many blessed windows are in this place??


It also rained last week. A month ago I would've groaned, wailed, and gnashed my teeth. Now, I'm so happy. The garden will grow! It's warm, too, so that helps. No yeti slippers in sight (they are tucked safely away in the closet for next winter).

I harvested lots of basil last week (Kit harvested the week before and suggested that I do this harvest) and made mega pesto!! With garlic from the garden, too. WOWEE. Found this carapace on one of the plants. It's a cicada that busted out of its shell! I had no idea this is what they looked like. I love cicadas.


Even though it's a shell, I was kinda creeped out holding it. It's so....big!

More harvesting last week, too. I left this for John (Kit was hiking with her sister on the Santiam River):

And he brought me a bowl of stir fry, "I invited him to dinner!". ('twas very yummy)

That night, the sunset (the camera settings don't do it enough justice, but you get the idea, and it's fabulous to be able to sit on my deck, eat dinner, and with such a view):

The sequoia doesn't obscure the entire view!

In a bit I'll go say hi to the garden, and then ride on over to the girls' so we can go pick some blackberries. I rode an extra detour home last night to check on the status of berries, and they're pretty darn ready. This is one of my favorite things in life: it's warm, there's a breeze, the birds are barking and the bees are nuzzling around, I'm at the river, picking succulence. I mean really. Can it get much better?

Oh but first, a piece of mail art! Yes! I managed to send Haddock some mail art this week!

Also, when I was riding the bus (it's biking more lately), I sketched quick (mostly) blind contours and there was a period when I was sitting in the library amongst the patrons on lunch, sketching. Here's a compilation, it's kinda funky. But I like the energy of sketching like this, very fast and engaging the part of me who likes to gallop and harness, ya know?



oh ack. this really did turn out funky. I hope you can click for bigger pics. I'll try that when I post and see how it looks.

The montage below is first from a DVD cover, a Wim Wenders film of Yoji Yamamamoto who designs clothing. It's a contemplative film, and beautiful to look at. At first I was charmed but then what happened? Did it turn pretentious? Still I like these quick line drawings, done mostly blind contour. The one to the right is from a cover of a journal that was sent to me for an online journal swap. Again, I feel excited by the energy here. It's always a kick to look down and see something on paper that you put there, that wasn't there before.

This morning I've been listening to a group I just learned of, from the postman who was on duty saturday at work. They provide free streaming audio of their album(s). It's trance/electronic/ambient/house/dub kind of thang, you can check it here at Freeworm.

Oh yeah, and I was able to parle un peu francais on friday: Kit and John's friends from France are visiting and were sitting 'round the firepit when I arrived home (it was dark, I'd swung by the girls on my way home from work and we threw a garden stir-fry together....GOD! my life is GOOD!). I sat with them and a glass of tasty red wine and we talked of cinema. Actually I gushed about Kirikou, one of my favorite animated films by french maitre en scene (director) Michael Ocelot and we found other common denominators. I don't think I've drank much good wine in my life because that red (portaged from Spain to France to the US) was sure smooth. Now I understand why people drink it! Maybe my tastebuds have matured or something. At any rate, it was a perfect wine and fun to meet new folks.

I must go say hi to the garden varieties now.

A bientot!

2 comments:

mcglinch said...

a well-rounded load you carry!

Victoria Koldewyn said...

indeedy! and full of fiber too. thanks for stopping by!