Busy Wings

Life has been very very busy. Mostly all in a good way. Lots of work getting done. Garden busy growing (including the weeds, which means lots of weeding to do too!) Lots of family coming and going and coming again - a busymaking but lovely thing. All this to say, it's tough to find blogging time. Why does the idea of summer being a lazy hazy time persist so determinedly in my brain in the face of so much evidence that it is not!?

Lots of photos (although I've been sort of off my usual snapping everything in sight mode) have been queueing up to be posted here. These are from last week and I'm using them to say "We've been busy little faeries, flying from project to project these days!"

The grandkids wanted to try on their wings for Faerieworlds. This will be their first year attending, I'm so excited they will be experiencing it! Garrett is such a little comedian, always has a schtick. Joshua and Nonny are waiting more patiently, not sure what to do.


Fly, of course. Here they are practicing. "Can we really fly?" Joshua asks. Oooh, tricky question. Don't want to ruin the fun but don't want them attempting to jump off something either!

Now that's the idea. Faeries flying all over the yard!

Look at the rosy cheeks of an Anastasia Fae! (Her name is really Anastasia Faye!)

Benjamin the baby fae slept through the wing practice. There's nothing like holding a sleeping (and heavy) baby to relax the spirit. I didn't notice when Hubby took this photo - check out Rosie in the background looking all sad and misplaced.

Well, speaking of wings, I've gotta fly. Lots to do and not enough time left to do it all in. I could sure use some magic faery dust to help me get everything done on time. (Gee, I hope that isn't a street term for some illegal substance!) Company arriving in three days. Mucho cleaning and organizing still left. Errands and evening appointment are gonna take a chunk outa today. Harry Potter premiere tonight. (gotta have priorities!) Book club tomorrow. Haven't read the book yet. Haven't even started the EIGHT outfits I have to design for Faerieworlds yet. Weeds keep growing. And so on and so on ad infinitum.

The Road Not Taken

There are a dozen or so houses that I carry around in my head. Most of them are houses that at one time in my life I visited with the idea of buying them. Some are places I actually lived but moved away from, one is my grandmother's old homestead, and a few I've only visited in my dreams.

But all of them are real to me and all of them are more than just a structure sitting on a certain square feet of land. Each represents a road not taken and the thought of them brings to mind a detailed and entire life I might have lived if I had chosen that path instead of the one I'm on.



For example, there's a house about four blocks from where we currently live that the realtor took me to when we came here long ago. It was really just a shell of a house - it needed new flooring, new windows, new wiring, new plumbing, new everything. But it was in a prime location and came with four acres of bottom land that wasn't "valuable" because it was flood zone and couldn't be built on. When we moved here, I was leaving a budding nursery business behind and it would have been the perfect spot to grow a new and permanent nursery business here. Because I didn't think at the time that our family was up to the challenges that came with the actual house, and because I was discouraged from considering it by a few people, I passed that road by and in my mind, I also passed up a key juncture where I could have chosen my future as "plant lady".


Another house that has stuck with me all these years was an abandoned house high in the mountains above San Diego. It was in worst shape, if that was possible, than the first house I described, but it came with substantial acreage and a private view that went on forever. I remember it had rooms that unfolded one into another, like a domino game. It had a Japanese style garden gate that needed paint and oil but which the wind sang beautifully in as it passed through. I actually got as far as having the realtor write up an offer on this house. I literally backed out with my pen poised above the contract, a sudden certainty that it was the wrong thing to do. A few days later Hubby got the transfer back to northern California that we had been told was impossible. Still, with not choosing this house, I saw myself walking away from the path that led to me building a retreat center that would have nourished me, my family, and many other people.



I know that if I had truly chosen these locations, my life may have unfolded in completely different ways than I have imagined them. I know this. But it doesn't really matter, it's my way to organize and remember all the choices in my life and where and when I made them.

A huge undercurrent in my life now is the decision we'll be making in the next few years where to move when and once William is off to college and launched, and Hubby retires. My family calls to me in several different directions, hubby's needs factor in, and my own goals (if I can ever chose amongst that maze of directions!) put in their two cents.

Deep down at a level that doesn't have a reason, I know what path I want to take. My heart tells me where I should be, knock on wood, things work out to allow it. I have an imagined life already plotted out for this particular scenario. And yet, at the same time, I know I truly don't know what that path will bring. Life is too unpredictable. There are too many places where you can't see beyond the hill or around the curve, or past the thick trees, to know what will come next. And isn't it better that way, really? What fun would it be if we didn't have some delights and challenges to make the journey worth traveling.

Still, it doesn't keep me from wondering and worrying each time I come to a crossroads. Which path? Right or left? An intriguing direction might peter out into thicket of impassable tangles. A beautiful looking beginning might end up becoming a long, boring valley. And yet what each path says to us at that point, paused between two directions, is all we have to help us decide because, as Frost so eloquently reminds us - "Yet knowing how way leads on to way,I doubted if I should ever come back."

No matter how much we weigh the pros and cons, ponder the possibilities, at the end it all comes down to the stillness of that last moment when we listen to the whispers in our heart and taking the very next step, make our choice.

The Road Not Taken

by Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

More Family, Flowers, and Floppy Puppy

This is the time of year when our overgrown weed/flower front garden makes the entrance look very inviting, yes? So inviting, that more family has come visiting. Sam and Ashley came over yesterday, and they brought their new puppy Jax.

Jax: "Hey, I remember you! Wanna play!"
Rosie: "Oh no! Not him again!"

Jax had never meet a feline, he was very curious. Here he is checking out Ginny Weasley. Fortunately our cats have all had their share of dog and puppy visitors and don't get terribly hissy or annoyed. So far everyone's fine. Well, except for when Jax tried to play with Mongo's tail and Mongo swatted him. Jax is a fast learner though. "YELP! No tail biting. Gotcha." Not a good pic of Ashley.


But here's a nice one. Joli's not the only cutie on our tree swing. Ashley's looking pretty in the yard.


More pretties in the yard. The daylilies are blooming.


Including this beautiful burgundy one, the only remaining specialty lily of the half dozen we planted.


Sam and Ashley are off to spend the rest of the weekend in Lake Tahoe and we're babysitting the grandpuppy. We were given all sorts of instructions - geeze, you'd think we'd never raised any kids or animals without their help. Hehe. Ashley giving Jax one more kiss goodbye.


We're supposed to put him in his crate for sleeping or when we have to go somewhere. He sleeps in there just fine but I think he looks very sad in there in the day.


Much happier on the couch, doncha think! He's a very sweet tempered guy. And silly. And floppy. And smart. Right now Rosie is napping on the couch next to my side, and Jax is napping on the floor next to my feet. It's a dog sleep dog world.

Family Poses

Just hanging out with family this last week and snapped some photos.


Hubby (aka Papa) loves holding puppies, cats, and grandbabies. Garrett making sure he gets in the picture, he's a little imp. And geeze, I forget until I see it in a photo, we still haven't remodeled the kitchen and it's still sporting the green paint samples. I pretend it's painting in camo on purpose. Sure. It could be.


More silly Garrett with his mom. It struck me that he's just a few months younger than William was when we moved to Susanville. It's hard to imagine a) William having ever been that little (and he probably wasn't, Garrett is small for his age) and b) Garrett being that old already!


See what I mean, could William ever been a little guy? Noel and her baby brother. (pssst, he's also taller than his brothers, much to their annoyance. And his father, who's shrunk a teensy bit over the years. And of course everyone is taller than me. Well, no. Not true. Now that there are grandkids, I'm not the only shrinky dink in the family.)


Noel and me. I'm usually behind the lens, not in front of it. I'm trying to remember to get in more pictures after finding so few of me in the family archives.


Benjamin working that straw. It always works to go with a cute baby finale.

Fern Canyon

There's this place on the northern coast called Fern Canyon. Everyone else in the family has been there, several times each, on the biology field trips that our local high school sponsors. Somehow I was always the one that stayed home or back at camp cooking during these excursions. Everyone talked about it in awed tones, so I decided to take the opportunity to visit it on my trip last week.

I wasn't sure if it would work out as I was going through the area with only about three hours of daylight left and I knew the kids got there by walking a five mile hiking trail from the edge of the state park. Turns out, alternately, you can drive down to near the beach camping area and there's a trail head just a few tenths of a mile from the beginning of the canyon. Being on my own, I chose that route.

Join me? Maybe you should go refill your tea or coffee cup first. I couldn't resist sharing a LOT of photos. Ready? Let's go -



We start out walking through salt marsh. Hello Mr. Roosevelt Elk. I know from previous camping experiences to stay my distance.




It's late in the day at the peak of summer, so even though the shadows look long as we head into woodland, there are almost two hours of light left.




Hello to you too Crow. He was singing. Loudly. When he sang, he drowned out the sound of the surf in the background.





It's so pretty here. I see some ferns? Is this the canyon?




Not quite. Here, it almost looks like a portal to another.....




..... reality. Truly, it is.




Look at the people to get a sense of the scale of things. Although, even then, I can't explain how it feels to have the canyon all around you.




The walls are moss and ferns and water whispering, laughing, rustling, splashing.




In rare spaces the layers of earth are laid bare. The plant lover in me wants to name all these tiny greenies. Do you see the wee caterpillar?




Time, water, and winter storms have brought trees down, a giant sculpture garden everywhere you look.




It goes on. Deeper. Higher. Narrower.




And on.




And on. Eventually the canyon rises to meet the slope of the hill that is climbing down towards the ocean. Trailheads offer choices to wander through the giant trees - redwoods, alders, douglas fir. But we'll turn around for today and walk back through the heart of the canyon.




There is water everywhere, splashing and sparkling in places like falling diamonds.




Or looking like a veil of ghostly mist.




Tree trunks like scoured bones of long ago giants.




Nature calling it all back to itself in this green wedge of fecundity.




It's opening up again, the light is slanted high up in the tree branches.




At the coast the sun skims all the way down to the true horizon and then, almost between breaths, dark flows over. As beautiful as it is, I'm thinking it would be more than a little spooky here by myself after sunset.




Almost out of the woods.




Goodbye.

Until my next visit. I know I will want to come visit again, in the morning sun, when the sun is high above me, when the gray and fog swirls along for company. I'm already looking forward to the possibilities.

Wardrobe Changes

That's the entire closet. Not in the pic - the rest that dresser on the right, plus one more, but no more piles.

I have a ridiculous amount of clothing for one person. It won't fit in my closet and dresser drawers and is always overflowing into at least a couple of boxes or laundry baskets, plus coats and jackets piled high in another closet.

Part of the problem is tiny, outdated closets. Not a single standard sized closet in the entire house. And our master closet is, so silly, the smallest of them all, shared with a husband with lots of bulky clothing, plus work equipment, who takes more than his fair share of the cramped space. If I had a walk-in closet, even a smallish one, I'd probably fit everything in just fine.

Another problem, we live in a true four season climate so any combination of outfits only works for several months out of each year.

Even with those real issues, the main problem is that I simply have too many clothes. Or perhaps, had too many clothes? Because my new lifestyle means I've dropped several clothes sizes. I dropped one last year but y'know, I could still wear most of the clothes I already owned, they were just loose. But then I dropped another size and it quickly became apparent that there's a big difference between "loose" and "falling off".

I went out a few months ago and bought a couple pair of jeans, my first purchases of brand new clothing in over a year, since before my refashioning pledge last spring. (Hmmm, maybe I knew change was just over the horizon.) I was pleased with my new options. But then I lost more weight and was teetering on the edge of another size down. I kept thinking it would get warm and I could just make do with skirts and shorts until the end of summer, but the weather stayed cool. Eventually I brought home a bunch of stuff from thrift shops so I'd have more than one pair of pants to my name.

Now I'm close to the weight where I'm hopefully going to stay, just a few pounds more to make it to the top of my BMI chart for my height and age. And I'm still in a sort of midtween size, some stuff fits me in one size, other stuff fits me in the next size down, junior sizing works better than women's sizing, but I haven't figured out all those numbers quite yet.

A few weeks ago I sorted and got rid of the jeans, pants, capris and shorts that I could no longer wear. It was easy to get rid of the pieces that I'd kept thinking "they fit, I should keep them" but never did wear. It was harder getting rid of my favorites. Once they were all gone though, sent off with others or packed into the yard sale stuff, it felt awesome. Just like that, I had less clothing to find a space to store.

It's tough because I'm a pack rat, a raven who collects pretty things, a woman who's lived with little means and lots of ingenuity and hoarding over the years. It has served me well. But it's no longer serving me, it's no longer who I am. I have to remind myself that I don't have to save clothes for growing kids, for pregnancy ups and downs, for "just in case" times. It's time to travel more lightly through life, time to free my time and space for different experiences.

It feels good, but it's also confusing at the moment. Frustratingly it takes MORE time to pick out something to wear (or pack) because it's like trying to get dressed out of someone elses closet. I'm not completely familiar with the dozen or so new bottoms I've brought home that fit and it's still all jumbled in with the rest of my old wardrobe which I was surprised to find, doesn't necessarily fit me either. It doesn't stop with pants. Skirts, tops, even jackets and shoes fit differently. I'll pick out a shirt and find it doesn't look right anymore, a skirt hangs far too low to be comfortable.

This means the sorting isn't finished. Sigh. I need to drag it all out, not just the pants, and try it all on, and weed, weed, weed. And those of you who know me know I hate the process. It's hard. I get attached to things.

Plus I come up with all sorts of ideas for how to take in a seam or fix a shoulder or cut it up into something completely different. Refashioning inspirations spiral around me enthusiastically. I have to force myself to let things go, to remember that new refashioning projects are only as far away as the thrift shop down the street. Or even, in a pile in the studio one door away. Release these items that I haven't worn even when they were already at my fingertips. Let someone else use them.

Throw in my fear of being unecological by tossing perfectly good clothing and it gets really stressful and confusing in my head. I have to remind myself that these clothes (or anything - knick knacks, kitchen bowls, old garden pots) are going to exist whether they're in my possession or not. They are already in the world and I'm not changing that by keeping it all. If something is ripped or stained, we already cut it up and reuse it for rag, reducing our use of paper towels and cleaning supplies. But what about the things that are still in good shape? I feel pretty passionate about what seems like a glut of too much clothing in the Western World. But that's another post, isn't it. This post isn't about the entire Western World, it's about my own personal square feet of it. Now that I think about it, most of what I have wasn't new when I brought it home. It was thrifted. So I'm not really dumping more new clothes into the world, right? It's more like I'm releasing them back into the wild? If I let things go, maybe someone else will really need, wear and and make use of them. Maybe not. But I can't save the planet by trying to fit all the excess stuff in it into my closet.

The one good thing is that the process sort of self selects those items I like the most because there's a lot of things in my wardrobe I bought in an "iffy" size simply because it was the only option and I loved the piece THAT much. Now those clothes, which are mostly the newer pieces, are the ones that fit me best, which makes it easier to get rid of the stuff that is comfortable but worn and outdated. There are items on the bottom of my drawers that when I pull them out, I'm immediately transported back to a time in my life that now feels like it belonged to a different person. Which begs the question - Why do I still have her clothes!?

So the decluttering and organizing, sorting and redefining continues. I have to keep the end in mind. I have to think about how good it will feel when it all fits - not only on my body, but in my closet!

Far From the Maddening Crowds

On a not very well marked road today I found an almost invisible trail.


It led through tall ferns and ceanothus and wild rose and blackberries and wild flowers..



...and more ferns and windswept forests where the trees crouched close to the ground....

.... along sandy cliffs....


...through more green tunnels which seemed to be made up of mostly light and shadow....



....over grassy dunes....



.....until it reached the end of land.



No one to the north.



No one to the south.



An entire beach all to myself! On a warm jacketless day with just a whisper of a breeze. How rare is that for an Oregon beach, even in the middle of summer!

Except, I didn't really have the beach to myself. True, I didn't have to share it with any other humans. But to say that it was uninhabited would be about as silly as saying that we Europeans "discovered" America. (No we didn't, the native population knew it was here all along.)


These little trilobyte looking creatures were here, rolling in the surf.


There were a lot of birds. These vultures were trying to look ferocious, to scare me off their lunch...

.... a dead seal carcass - at least I think it's a seal, or sea lion. A small one. You can still see the flipper. And ewww, no thanks. I think I'll pass on stealing this for myself.



The tiniest crab ever!



Do you see the .... not sure what kind of bird it is, a sand piper perhaps? There were two of them, both jumping about behind rocks and driftwood and fluttering their wings as if to say "Look at me! I'm hurt. Follow me!" They were working so very, very hard to get my attention. Why?


Well, to protect two tiny fluffy chicks that were skittering about. Can you see this one? Great camouflage, huh! I took it with a telephoto lens from about fifteen feet away. I didn't want to give the poor parents heart attacks by getting any closer. When I finally walked away, one of the parents, not sure if it was mommy or daddy, did it's whole "I'm injured" dance in front of me for quite some time, very pleased that it's act was finally working.

I've had a lovely lovely time visiting many different beaches. But it's late, and alas, I have to get an early start home tomorrow. No more beach walking. Sniff. Oh well, I'll have to relive the moments by sharing lots more photos of the shore with you in the next few posts.

Need to see rock photos? (Come on, you know you do!) Well lucky for you, rock photos over at Laume's Studio.