Clothesline Compositions

Little Kitten Oct. 2010

2011-05-15T17:41:00.000-07:00

published 12/26/2011

This was taken when the kittens were 5 weeks old. The big sisters were starting to eat kitten chow, and Little Kitten had lost a lot of ground - you can see he was much smaller than they were. He started getting supplemental feedings of kitten formula.

They haven't been named yet, but the little kitten became Rex. The vet said he was male.

And, inevitably, when I had named Rex, 2 kittens became Spot (in front, eating) and Lassie (beside her). And the 3rd sister, I named Grey Mouse - because of what the vet calls an underbite, but I call a rodent-like profile, that they have like their father.

This was only the first time in his first 4 months of life that little Rex had a life-threatening problem.

Iris blue each spring....

2011-05-09T12:09:00.000-07:00

This photo taken June 3, 2009. (really?)

I took photos of this same iris yesterday, May 8, 2011. It's been a warm week; the apple trees and daffodils are done blooming, hawthornes (that dreadful weed) have started. This weekend it's been cool. This iris and one more on the South side (palest lavender-white, both shorter earlier varieties, are in bloom. Along with, around town, the deep red-violet shorter, antique, early-blooming one.

Taller types, and the ones on the other side of the house have not started yet.

The title is from a haiku.

Reminded of things Japanese by a visit yesterday to Kodo Arts, an ephemeral seller of Japanese antiques. Gorgeous furniture. I found a couple of little fabric stamps - probably destined to inspire virtual batiks.

Once, that haiku was the cause of my being locked into the college library just before Christmas vacation!

I had it only in translation - I wanted the original in Japanese. I was reading Tale of Gengi (translated).

So, searching for the Japanese original of the haiku, I was in a back aisle on the top floor of the college library in my home town, in the Japanese written in Japanese section. Since I don't read the language, this was not simple.

I had been there for a couple of hours, sitting on the floor. (Ah, youth.) I guess I had been pretty quiet....

But they didn't make an announcement, or even dim the lights, when they closed early and left. It was still daylight.

I came out of the stacks to find myself alone and locked in. The day before vacation.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

The denouement was anticlimactic - there was a phone; I called Security.

Oh, the haiku? Slightly altered translation:

Dead my old fine hopes
And dust my dreaming . . . but still
Iris blue each spring.

Shushiri

(Shushiki? His name appears both ways.
I can't find the haiku book my Dad gave me, when I was in high school, before we went to Japan.)

see haiku - public domain file, trans. Peter Beilenson 1955, from http://www.sacred-texts.com/shi/jh/jh02.htm

Right in front of her eyes

2011-05-03T22:41:00.000-07:00

And right in front of our eyes, this very large bird, rising from the pond with a medium size koi.

That peaceful-seeming pond, with the koi that come over to see if people will feed them - the great blue heron fishes there too.

Heading home with the prey.

Couldn't resist:

Placid koi approach
Looking for food. . . . from the sky
Osprey or heron.

Looking for fish?

2011-05-03T22:14:00.000-07:00

Pictures taken on April 26, 2011.

Where was this? Out in the woods somewhere, near a lake? No, right on campus, over the koi pond. After class last Tuesday, this large bird (osprey, I think) was circling over the campus hill for some time. Coming lower, rising again, sometimes backwinging to stay in the same place for a moment.

And then the dive, and a splash.

Well, it seemed like a long time, but by the times on the photos, the whole thing lasted barely 5 minutes.

12/28/2011 I made a fabric of these photos, with a clouds background. I still need to make a small change, but it should become available for sale soon. I will do another version soon; I've been taking sky pictures for years - should have a good one with scattered lovely clouds that I can use for an alternate background.
http://www.spoonflower.com/fabric/750650

The apple trees are blooming now

2011-04-27T22:18:00.000-07:00

This photo is from spring 2003. It was taken with a film camera, so no handy reference to the date, but I think in early May, after all of April had been cold: snow, rain, hail, freezing. I remember the apple trees were blooming in May.

This year mid-Feb through March was all cold, while April has had a few warm spells, one is starting this week. And only token snow. The apple trees started blooming on about the 16th, may be finishing by May. Don't know yet if they are late this year - I think of them as early April. Need to check old photos.

The late daffodils are still blooming - finishing. And the English and Spanish bluebells (Scillas, they used to be called) are just coming into full bloom..

Quilt show this weekend.

Another new (old) fabric design

2011-04-24T22:06:00.000-07:00

Spoonflower is having a contest for black and white designs, entry deadline May 3. I made this on April 21.

I was looking at my designs wondering which would be good in black & white. I wanted a bold graphic, one without too much expanse of black background, since blacks at Spoonflower don't print really dark, and may fade in the wash.

I wanted a variation in the texture, the size of the black and white areas.

Which ones would do? The ravens? The cat drawings? The new sea turtles virtual batiks? A quilt-style combination of all of them? Hmm, that's earth, air and water, just need fire...

Although this one was drawn as leaves, long ago when I was learning to draw by playing on the computer, once I had redrawn it as a vector drawing, with a black background, it looked like stylized flames too.

I may do those others in black & white too as companion fabrics, but I love the bold graphic effect of this one. And yet it's organic, not quite symmetrical. I would buy this in the fabric store.

And now that I've redrawn it, I can do it in lots of colors, with companion fabrics in those colors.

Of course the newest design one has made is always the most wonderful design in the world....

The sky doesn't fit in my camera...

2011-04-22T21:56:00.000-07:00

Went up to the campus hill this evening to look at the gorgeous clouds, and as I got out of the car, I said "The sky doesn't fit in my camera!"

It was such a whole circular panorama of diversity and gorgeous light and shade that there was no way to get it into a photograph or a dozen photographs.

The map is not the territory. The photo doesn't get all the shades our eyes do.

Sunsets in Seattle used to be like that, layers and layers of every shade of silver & gray, with no color at all. I came from a dusty place, and missed sunset color.

This photo was actually taken a few minutes before, from a parking lot lower down, while I could still see through all the layers of clouds to the sky.

Couldn't really tell what direction the higher layers were going, but while we were on campus, a lower layer of clouds, seemingly barely above the treetops, was moving in from the South (it was to the Southeast as well) and obscuring everything above.

We went to dinner, and when we came out it was pouring rain.

The kitten gate

2011-04-18T22:39:00.000-07:00

Photo Oct. 12 2010.

Two little kittens inside their makeshift kitten gate, which was trying to keep them inside the pantry for a few weeks. It's made of an expandable screen held in place by a tension rod and a couple of paint cans.

The dark tabby is on the left, with one of the light tabbies - and you can see that he-who-would-become-Rex is already smaller than his sister.

He wasn't getting enough to eat; I had just started to try to feed him. He went to the vet on the 14th, very weak and dehydrated, and started getting kitten formula supplements. He had a little respiratory thing.

Sugar Mouse in exile

2011-04-17T22:37:00.000-07:00

Photo Oct. 8 2010.

Sugar Mouse sleeping out on the porch. At least it was still fairly warm at first.

But sadly, chased out here into exile, he became very shy again, no longer pettable.

Latin class, Fowler CA 1944-45

2011-04-14T23:09:00.000-07:00

This photo was sent to Grandpa (John Hubbard) by the teacher, in 1944 or 1945. She folded it to put it in the envelope to send. I Photoshopped it for class a few years ago - the original version is below, folds and all.

The students' names are all on the back. (I'll add them when I find the original again.)

I am publishing it now partly because I have been meaning to get around to contacting the school, if it still exists, to see if they want a copy. And partly because Erin at Dressaday gave a link to a project collecting fashion images of women of color, who are left out of the histories. (Of Another Fashion by Minh-Ha Pham)

And if you look at the names, there's not an anglo in this class.

So this is what high school girls and boys were wearing in 1944-45. I don't know if these were everyday clothes, or if they knew she was going to take the photo, and they're dressed up a little. I do know that school clothes were more formal then (judging from my experience a couple of decades later).

New (old) fabric design - 2 Papercuts

2011-04-14T07:38:00.000-07:00

I have been designing fabrics all along, just not posting about them. I just uploaded this design to Spoonflower about a week ago.

It's a new version of a papercut design, of which I just recently have been doing some new ones. But this one I did about 10 years ago, the first time I was doing this type of design, which is related to Hawaiian and Tahitian quilt designs, snowflakes, and Baltimore Album quilts. But my inspiration is often a tiny bit of a William Morris design.

This larger one, though, I designed in my head while walking to work, and when I got there, cut it out of a page-a-day calendar - the kind with graph paper on the back.

This layout has an interesting wavy effect, because I did the 2 elements in a slightly different size. Click on the title to see it as fabric.

Before Spoonflower, I never could do more with it than cut it out of colored origami paper and make a section divider page in my design class notebook. Now I can get fabric from it in any of a dozen or so colors I set up, and on several weights of fabric. And make something!

It wasn't supposed to snow today....

2011-04-13T12:31:00.000-07:00

It often does in early April. But the forecast was only saying scattered rain showers.

Yesterday it was sunny with scattered clouds (cumulus?), and colder than it looked because of the wind.

This deer is sitting in the lee of a tree ( and a Ponderosa which was mature in 1917 provides significant shelter).

Do you suppose that s(he) was surprised by the snow, or knew it was coming?

Picture taken Apr. 13 2011, 11:09 am. It was still snowing then, but is melting now.

It wasn't until I looked at these photos large size to decide which one to post that I could see the head injury. Car? Falling branch?

Waiting for Mama

2011-04-12T22:25:00.000-07:00

These pictures were taken Oct. 4 2010.

About this time, after a few days in the cupboard, Patches started moving the kittens into more and more inaccessible places. And finally into this drawer which she couldn't get into herself. She got them out again to feed them.

And she started chasing Sugar Mouse away, and beating him up.

So after a bit of that, even though I didn't suspect him of any ill intent, I locked him out on the screen porch for several weeks.

Poor Sugar Mouse - all I ever saw him doing was looking curiously towards them.

(I didn't know until I photoshopped this picture that one of the kittens had a scratch. She might have gotten it from being moved around.)

And what are they looking at up there? Mama Patches, getting ready to come down to feed them.

The kittens' first appearance

2011-04-09T22:16:00.000-07:00

The kittens first appeared Sept 29, 2010. They were 3 weeks old. Mama cat, Patches, had been hiding them in another cupboard, (purring and squeaking from inside the cupboard). She brought them out to this cupboard in the pantry. This picture shows 3 of the four kittens: one dark tabby, looking at me, and there are 2 lighter grey tabbies, and one grey tabby with white.

And she fed them on the floor just outside the cupboard. Only you notice that the dark tabby is not eating like the others.

The dark tabby is the one who became Rex.

Tiger, Pandora, Buddy (and Bob)

2011-04-05T14:18:00.000-07:00

Tigrr and my 2 remaining cats, Pandora (in back) and Buddy together on the chair with a pillow from Cafepress with the image of Bob on it.

Picture taken Dec. 30, 2010. (It was easier to use a good picture of the cats and Photoshop out the cover on the chair than to get a good posed photo in a clean chair.)

I only put them together after Tigrr had been to the vet, and we had still not figured out what was wrong with him. As it turns out, probably a bad idea. But he and Buddy do the friendly greeting ritual, and they all 3 sleep together, so they are happy having company.

Tigrr is even skinnier than this now; he feels so light he seems hardly there. Hard to believe he's survived almost a year and a half like this.

Patches' reflection

2011-04-02T16:23:00.000-07:00

Photo of Patches taken in the living room window, Nov. 4, 2010.

I think we were out there that day to feed Rex his kitten formula, and because I didn't want him to miss any mama-feeding-opportunities, Patches was with us.

The only Photoshopping I did to this image was to remove distracting areas of putty etc. on the window frame. The lighting was just right for the reflection, and Patches was posing, looking out.

The texture in the window with her reflection was the fall foliage, seen through one of the best float-glass windows with its wavery distortion, at an extreme angle, which gives the most effect.

We were happy that day; Little Kitten was surviving and thriving on his supplemental feeding, and it was warm and sunny.

It's been warm and sunny for several days now, the first time in more than a month. Larry helped me move wet firewood up from the driveway to the house and garage yesterday - much easier to use the car than my carrying it all myself. And I was almost out. Still have to carry it upstairs, but I'm set now in case we get another big snowstorm (entirely likely in early April) and the power goes out again.

So far Patches and fat Mousie, who I think has the disease, are healthy-seeming. The kittens are living separately with me, busily randomizing the contents of my rooms. Tigrr, Pandora, and Buddy are unfortunately together, but all right. Except it doesn't seem possible that anything as skinny as Tigrr could still be alive.

Autre temps, autre fleurs

2011-02-23T21:36:00.000-08:00

Different years, different flowers. Some, like the paperwhite narcissus, which don't need cooling, flower at about the same time each year (Jan through Feb).

Others are very variable in when they flower, especially the flowering fruit trees, which have cooling requirements, like the earliest here, the flowering plums.

The winter iris, Iris unguicularis, flowers for about 2 months, sometime between November and April. It provides enough blooms to cut a few for a vase every few days - except this year the deer (probably) have discovered it, I have to get there before they do.

We usually but not always have several weeks of warm weather with cool nights in Jan & Feb. The years we don't things are off schedule.

This year we had snow in mid-Nov 2010, very early. Leaves still on the trees, lots of broken branches and fallen trees. I lost the vertical top to the oak west of the house, the one that might have shaded the house in late summer someday. On my south slope I usually don't see the first few frosts to take the leaves off & ripen the fruit of the persimmon until Thanksgiving. (Other microclimates are quite different - Grandpa knew where to build a house.)

Planting weather (like for lawn seed) is usually between mid-April and mid-Oct. One year that I was doing spray-dyeing out in the yard, we had warm weather until the end of October. (I'm not sure if that was the year it snowed on Nov 2 or not. I think so.)

It almost always snows in March and early April. The first year I was here, the April Fools day storm dumped about a foot and a half of snow. The year my sister died in March, after I got back here, all of April it was cold, snow, hail, freezing rain. Things were a month late blooming. Apple trees were blooming in mid-May.

I'm planning to do a five-year gardening/weather calendar, with pictures of what's in bloom each week in several years, and places to write temperatures and notes for each year.

This photo was taken in 2006 on March 9, but this year the flowering plums are almost done Feb 23, the leaves are emerging. Last Thursday it snowed enough to close campus; we've just had several partly sunny days with snow on the ground, in the next few days it's supposed to snow 1-2 ft above 2000 ft. It probably won't look like this.

PS April 14 This year, starting Feb 17th, it snowed almost every Thursday/Friday all the way through March. The one week it didn't snow, it rained. The power went out for days the week I posted this. The first warm weekend was April Fool's week, warm and sunny enough to go for a wildflower walk at Bridgeport.

Sugar Mouse

2011-02-18T13:58:00.000-08:00

A picture of Sugar Mouse from last summer, when he was happy being able to be out on the screened porch, along with his friend Patches (when she wasn't in heat).

You can see that his brown stripes had darkened up a lot from his half-grown color, showing the siamese part of his lynx-point coloring. And this picture shows nicely the dark-grey-stripy coloring on his head and tail. Narrow "mackeral tabby" stripes which he shares with the dark-gray & white tabby Mousie. And that cute little white tip to the tail.

That little curve to the end of the tail is characteristic. Once he started being pettable, in late spring, he would sit on the kitchen floor facing me in his "pet me please" posture, with his tail stretched out behind him, curled at the tip. At that point he was a chubby cheerful little cat.

In the summer out on the porch, he started sitting on laps, Larry's as well as mine, as well as walking by the chairs to be petted, over & over.

And it was only then that I noticed his receding chin. The vet calls it an underbite. I call it a rodent-like profile. And I named him Sugar Mouse months before I noticed it.

He died yesterday morning. Liver failure. I only noticed something wrong the evening before, and he was in very bad shape all night. The vet says it may have been one of the dreadful viruses, like FIP. In which case, his kittens and all the cats have it.

He probably wasn't even 2 years old yet.

I am not usually on the roof in December (12/29/10)

2011-02-16T20:22:00.000-08:00

Or January or February*, but today I was. I had swept part of the roof before the first big storm came in, but didn't finish because the rain started. And I didn't have a metal brush up there with me to clear out the screen in the chimney cap.

Yesterday, the wood stove started smoking dreadfully; I had to lock cats in the kitchen or outside in the rain, wherever they were, open all the windows wide and close the doors. It was so smoky I couldn't even go back in there.

The large piece of wood I'd put in smouldered all night, and was still there at noon, today, still warm, although it wasn't smoking anymore.

So I swept my way up onto the roof - this sloping roof on the North side is the access route. Since Mom had the roof taken off the stairs, I hadn't been up there, except the once last fall. It feels kind of steep, without anything to catch myself on... But it wasn't really wet, despite all the rain last night.

After I had used the metal brush on the screen in the chimney cap, and was spending some time doing some more sweeping, the chimney started to smoke a lot. Apparently when it had a draft, the fire started burning more again.

It started to snow a little, just at sunset - glad I got the chimney clear enough for a fire.

It is supposed to start snowing again tonight or tomorrow. Feb. 16, 2011

* The Ectoplasm Incident
Once, years ago, in February, the tenants were complaining that their chimney was smoking.

The chimney sweep had the flu, and I had reason to believe that the blockage was at the chimney cap:

During the night, when I had not been using the wood stove, a long streamer of smoke came out of the stove and traveled horizontally across the room to exit at a slightly open window. The flues only connect up at the cap, under the screen.

And thinking of those complicated Victorian chimneys, which climbing boys were sent up to sweep, I thought an experience of something like that might have originated the concept of ectoplasm.

So I was up on the roof, on a sunny day in February, and from 3 stories up, I could smell the old-fashioned violets in the lawn, strong as wine.

And in the chimney cap, there were a few leaves on the screen, and there was also a small round dented area, just about small-cat size - and I realized why my little shiny white and gray cat, Fussy, had a few days ago, suddenly been all gray...

Rex discovering the daylight world outside

2011-02-15T22:17:00.000-08:00

This is Rex. He's a kitten. In fact, he is a kitten of Mom's cats, Patches and Sugar Mouse.

Unfortunately all my early kitten pictures, from when Patches was hiding them in the cupboards and drawers, and when they started to explore, are inaccessible on an external drive which stopped mounting. So I may tell early kitten stories later, when (if!) I have those pictures.

Including the reason he's named Rex, and his sister's names.

Rex has been sleeping with me for some time, curled up under my chin or on my chest next to my face, kneading and purring. And the lined curtains were all closed, keeping the room cozy during the night.

Now we've started having our frequent run of warm days in Jan & Feb, when I can have some windows open during the day, and passive solar heat on this south slope warms the house.

And this was (Jan 17, 2011) the first time he had been in the bedroom in daylight, when the curtains and windows were open.

And Rex has discovered that there is a very different, interesting and scary world out there during the day.

(He's not going to get to explore it much for a while; I heard the great horned owl again recently, and the red-tail hawk several days last week, and the kittens are still small enough to be swept right off the balcony/low roofs.)

This picture from Jan. 17, 2011.

Tonight it's raining and very windy, and getting cold enough to snow tomorrow. Spring-in-the-middle-of-winter is over for now.

The lantern casts a shadow - going forward

2011-01-31T12:17:00.000-08:00

Last year casts a shadow of light as well as darkness. Of enhanced attention/understanding, as well as turning away from things I don't want to look at.

Instead of trying to write about things from last year, first, before this year, I am going to interleaf posts from now and posts from/about last year ( and even before in the case of one funny story I did not want my mother to see). I will date them when I post them, and in the text indicate when/or about when they were written.

Even more so because I just got off the phone with tech support. They are going to try to recover the data from my firewire/USB2 external drive, which just stopped mounting. Even though it still works as a hub, I can't see any of the photos on it. So some posts, like Mom's cats, and kitten pictures, would all be sadly unillustrated if I tried to do them all in a hurry now.

This picture from 12/9/2009, 11:06 am.

Catching up

2010-01-15T23:03:00.000-08:00

This picture is from 12/5/2009, 11:02 am.

The last 19 posts were pretty much all written, and the pictures were chosen in December 2009 and January & February 2010. But I only finally got back to them to finish photoshopping the pictures and posting them in Jan 2011.

Now maybe I can start catching up on the rest of last year...

Between every two pines...

2009-12-29T21:43:00.000-08:00

"Between every two pines is a doorway to a new world."
(John Muir)

This picture is of Mom in 1946, a few months after her marriage, taken by her father.

It was her Celebration of Life today; it was beautiful. RevAmanda was wonderful, Mount Baker out the window was as beautiful as anyone had ever seen it. I had found Celtic music to play (Turlogh O'Carolan played by Patrick Ball & Aine Minogue), since she had wanted one Celtic piece for herself among my sister's country music at my sister's memorial service. Many people got up to light a candle and tell Juanita stories.

My stories:

- When my brothers were young, to ensure fairness, she used to weigh the bowls of ice cream. And being Juanita, first she weighed the bowls, then the bowls plus ice cream.

- I live in the house she was born in, in the Northern California foothills. It is surrounded by tall trees, Black Oaks and Ponderosa pines that were mature when she was born. They dwarf the 3-story house. Once when she came to visit, she got out of the car, looked around, and said "You need more trees". At first I thought she was joking.

- In her last weeks, when she didn't really remember people, she would always ask "Have I met you before?" But if you were wearing purple, you were her friend instantly.

- When she was perhaps pregnant with the elder of my brothers, and I was barely tall enough to see over the counter, I had asked the 'where do babies come from?' question. Maybe in the form "Is the new baby going to come out of Mommie's tummy?" The answer I got involved diagrams of cell division, and I swear, when I got to the subject long later in biology class, the words 'meiosis' and 'mitosis' were strangely familiar...

For 'going away music': the Huron Carol, played by John McCutcheon, and Farewell to Stromness, by Peter Maxwell Davies, among other nature themed songs.

I had spent the time since she died finding photos & writing a memorial booklet about her life, and found these two John Muir quotes for the covers.

"Climb the mountains and get their good tidings.
Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees."
(John Muir)

I was alone today

2009-12-25T21:32:00.000-08:00

Picture from 12/12/2009, 5:04 pm.

I was alone today, in this house where we often spent Christmases together, Mom, my sister Tina and my two brothers & I - and one memorable year, Mom's niece & her son Jeff, plus Tina's husband and my brother's wife. Mom, Tina & Jeff are all gone now.

My brothers were here for 2 days on the weekend, and they will be back for a couple of days for the memorial service. Otherwise the cats & I are alone here. They have started sleeping with her teddy bears on the chest that used to be at the foot of her bed. Except Tiger who has lost a lot of weight for unknown reasons, and seems very ill.

I should have called my family, I know. I didn't.

My friend called in the evening at his usual time.

Patches & Sugar Mouse with teddy bears

2009-12-18T18:44:00.000-08:00

The cats are hanging out in the bedroom again, on the toy chest with the teddy bears.

Picture taken 12/18/2009, 4:12 pm.

My brothers will be here this weekend for a few days.

Tigrrr went to the vet

2009-12-16T17:49:00.000-08:00

Tigrrr went to the vet yesterday. Don't know what's wrong with him - he's been losing weight, despite getting canned food. And his eyes are totally dilated.

This picture taken 12/10/2009, 2:17 pm.

Once she said, while sitting at the table with Tiger on her lap, and her pills spread out on the tablecloth, "I don't know if I'm supposed to take this medicine or give it to the cat."

PS. When she got him from me, he was named Musketeer, because of his Puss in Boots coloring. She renamed him Tiger... I am not going to have a cat called Tiger, of all the trite names. But he's had it too long, and I've been calling him by it here when feeding him, and he knows his name. (Well, I suspect it means "food" to him.) So I at least will make it Tigrrr.

Foggy today

2009-12-15T17:41:00.000-08:00

Picture taken 12/15/2009, 1:06 pm.

Ran errands today with Michelle - the last time she will be here. It was the first time I have left here, except to go for a walk, since I arrived in late October.

The teddy bears miss her

2009-12-14T18:46:00.000-08:00

Picture from Friday 12/11/2009, 3:07 pm.

The coverlet here was her favorite color.

Ice-fishing

2009-12-13T23:19:00.000-08:00

That's a blue heron on that log out there, in the patches of floating ice. The rough-looking areas are ice too. I think the flat white patches may have finally floated loose from where they were stuck to the beaches, underwater, after the very cold middle-of-the-night low tides we have had for several days. The days have been in the 30s°F.

Picture taken 12/12/2009, 5:02 pm.

I am working on a memorial booklet about Mom, like she & I did for my sister, except that in the several years since my sister died, I have gone to school for three years to learn how to do this. Unfortunately, technical difficulties prevent my moving forward very quickly until more RAM arrives for her computer. Meanwhile I am getting an obituary out to the local newspapers.

You just have to keep moving

2009-12-12T18:38:00.000-08:00

This picture was taken 12/10/2009, 4:13 pm.

You just have to keep moving to not freeze in place, like this little bird striding along the frozen shore.

Mom's computer guy was here this afternoon to help me get her computer able to use Photoshop & InDesign so I can do a booklet about her, like she & I & my brother did about my sister.

And he showed me that there is a street named after her!

Swimming in the sky

2009-12-11T18:29:00.000-08:00

Picture taken 12/10/2009, 4:30 pm.

The light was amazing yesterday afternoon, with clear reflections of the colors in the sky on the glassy surface, and with spreading ripples made by little birds swimming through the sky reflections.

Ice on the beach at sunset

2009-12-10T21:52:00.000-08:00

Picture from 12/10/2009, 5:34pm.

Everyone has come and gone, and I am alone here now with her cats. My brothers will be here for a few days, not this weekend, but next. It's finals week.

Frozen wave

2009-12-10T18:12:00.000-08:00

Picture taken 12/10/2009, 4:21pm.

I spent a couple of hours this afternoon down at the shore, taking pictures. It was very cold, and bright, with new clouds coming in, in the distance.

It has been very cold at night during the low tides, and the seawater has frozen onto the beaches, underneath the returning tidal water. I've never seen underwater ice before.

And here, visible during this afternoon's low tide, a wave that froze as it came up onto the exposed beach.

Calm Seas

2009-12-10T13:12:00.000-08:00

My mother died this morning.

She was breathing peacefully & quietly all day yesterday, and last night, when I whispered "Goodnight, love" at about 2:30 am.

She was gone this morning at 8:30.

Goodbye. We love you.

The tide is far out now

2009-12-09T23:36:00.000-08:00

Picture taken 12/9/2009, 5:51 pm.

She has been breathing peacefully and quietly all day.
No one will be here with us tonight - the car won't start.

Bright, clear, calm

2009-12-09T13:29:00.000-08:00

Picture taken 12/9/2009, 10:42am.

She is breathing more quietly now.

Red sky in the morning

2009-12-08T18:00:00.000-08:00

Red sky in the morning.
Photos Dec 8, 2009, 9:24am.

She has been breathing harshly all day

Dec 7 Waves

2009-12-07T23:17:00.000-08:00

Gentler waves on the beach.
Photo Monday Dec 7, 2009, 3:26pm.

Difficult breathing.

Dec6 09 Waves

2009-12-06T16:07:00.000-08:00

Wind and waves on the beach.
Photo Sun Dec 6, 2009, 1:34pm.

Difficult breathing all day.

Cruel & unusual

2009-12-05T22:03:00.000-08:00

The mountain is beautiful...
(Picture taken 12/1/2009, 1:10 pm.)

She went to law school when she was 60. She said that the thing which frustrated her and her classmates, was that in all the case law they studied, the precedent-setting cases, justice was nowhere considered, or fairness, or redress for wrongs. Only precedents of law.

"Help help help.
No no no.
Stop stop stop.

Cruel & unusual."

When I told Hospice that, they raised the dosage.

"I can't drink it right now."

That was the last clear thing she said, and couldn't really drink anything after.

Morning sun

2009-12-05T15:56:00.000-08:00

Someone was here last night, so I could go for a walk before she left this morning.
Photos Sat Dec 5, 2009, 10:53, 10:57.

Soft light

2009-12-04T23:22:00.000-08:00

A soft light at noon today.

"Help help help.

Help me lift up.
Help me give up.

More hurryin."

Frozen beauty

2009-12-03T23:02:00.000-08:00

It's stayed cold. (This picture is from yesterday.)

Yesterday she said "Where is my memory?"

Going away

2009-12-02T23:40:00.000-08:00

Her teddy bears share her bed. (And that is useful, especially now that it is the hospital bed, because they are cushioning against the bars.)

Weeks ago she said "I feel like I'm in Never-Never land.

Some of what she is saying must come out of the past. I wish I could hear the story behind "She outsmarted him".

One can guess about "He ate my candy." How long ago.

Some of it may come from the day the Hospice volunteer was reading Newsweek to her. "Help Dubai. Help me speak Dubai." (me - I don't speak Dubai). Very clearly: "Fake it."

Some is enigmatic. She called me in to give her a drink of water, and when I tried to leave the sippy cup that my brothers had brought, in the bed with her, saying she could have water when she wanted it, she said "I don't want it when I want it". Then very clearly, "Lake Pontchartrain". Was she thinking of flooding?

Some of it is so sad. "He said I was cheating on him. I didn't even know what the word meant. Please, I never meant to cheat anybody."

And I don't have a clue what "Stop, stop, stop the little blue men" was about, but I imagine them marching across the footboard.

Today she said "I googled & googled & googled".

And some is about the teddy bears. "We have to keep all the teddy bears warm." (I think one of my brothers came up with that to keep her from pushing off all the covers.)

And "Two teddy bears should be enough."

And "I need my teddy bear. I've got to hold my teddy bear."

And one day last week when the Hospice volunteer was here, I was called in: "Mina, she took my bear!" (me-your favorite bear is right here) "Show me all the bears." repeat several times

And "Please, please, put my teddy bear on the wall." (Where all her pictures are?)

And Monday "The teddy bears need a nap. Mama needs a nap."

I want water

2009-12-02T21:27:00.000-08:00

Reflections today on smooth rippled water, showing "sky pools" and "land pools" of color.

"I want water. More water.
Paradoxical."
Did you drink too much water?
"Yes."

Lovely beach arrangement

2009-12-01T23:15:00.000-08:00

This was a particularly beautiful beach arrangement today.

Tonight will be the first night since my brothers were here at Thanksgiving that there will be anyone here besides me & her. They have brought a monitor too (why didn't we think of that before?) so I won't be sleeping on the couch anymore, to hear her in the night.

11/29 "There's a little dog in the bed. It's homeless. It needs a home."
"I can only keep one a month."

Afternoon light

2009-11-30T22:04:00.000-08:00

The light was particularly lovely today near sunset.

Last night "Help.
All my teddy bears are cold."
She had thrown off all the covers.

And today "Tasted like elixir of the gods. The water."

Beautiful pattern

2009-11-29T23:59:00.000-08:00

A modest little arrangement, but charming.

Last night
"Is that Mina? We need to make a pattern, a beautiful pattern."
"We can make it out of newspaper. Fold it twice."

She taught me to sew, we would cut out patterns in fabric together, I would sew what I could, and she would do the hard parts, until I learned enough to do them myself.

Early in this visit we looked at some of my patterns online. We didn't get a chance to look at the newer fabric designs.

Her cats, her bed

2009-11-28T23:55:00.000-08:00

Her bed, with its denim cover, is now in the breakfast room, since she's been in a hospital bed since the beginning of the week.

And the cats, who used to sleep on it with her, are back on it.

This is Sugar Mouse and his relative, Mousie.

She said today
"Help me hold my teddy bear.
Help me hold myself together."

And "I don't understand what's going on. Elaborate hoax?"

Boats & a boat

2009-11-27T23:49:00.000-08:00

Another iconic picture, with the changeable light.

Last night she said "I thought that the water was by allotment, and that my allotment was almost out. I think that water allotment is scary."

I don't think we ever sat on this bench

2009-11-26T23:36:00.000-08:00

Very calm, very bright, very cold.

Yesterday she said "I didn't think you were real."

And today,
"I'm tired, I want to go to sleep, but I don't want to waste my time with you."

Cattails

2009-11-25T23:21:00.000-08:00

My brothers are here for a few days. I spent the morning sitting with her, (and falling asleep leaning on one of her teddy bears against the bars of the hospital bed) while they were out running errands. She is saying interesting things.

This afternoon I cooked, while the Hospice volunteer was here. But I got called in to her room: "She took my bear!" me - your favorite bear is right here. "Show me all the bears!"

Later she said
"I've gotta let go, I've gotta relax & let go.
Don't you relax."

Looking out

2009-11-20T22:23:00.000-08:00

The Kitten cat, looking out the window. This morning it was at an orange cat on the path. And tonight, for several minutes, there was a Stellar jay perched on the swingset, out in the dark looking in, screaming at the cat.

She said today "No more medicine. No, no more. It was too much medicine which got me into this mess."

There are gardens here

2009-11-19T16:14:00.000-08:00

Beautiful gardens, with flowers still blooming. I'm sure I saw Rosa chinensis mutabilis, still with lots of flowers.

"Are you my daughter?" Yes
"How old are you?" 59
"No, how old are you?" Yes that's my age.
"It doesn't seem possible."

The tide has turned

2009-11-18T14:54:00.000-08:00

Long ago when I was a marine biology grad student in Oregon, I used to go down to the coast at least once every 2 weeks for the lowest tides, at new moon & full moon. During fall & winter the lowest lows are about 10:00 at night, in the spring & summer 5:00 in the morning.

I'd be out there alone, in the winter at night walking or wading on sand in shallow water to a rock sticking out of the sand, close in to shore, looking for the small algae & its sacoglossans I was supposed to be working on. In the summer it was much harder to find, and dawn would catch me far out in the rocky intertidal, kneeling down looking at the sides of rocks. Then it used to take me three low tides to find one piece of algae.

That sounds a little dangerous, but in fact I was never caught by surprise from behind by a large wave, because I was listening very hard for them.

And because I was listening for those extra large waves, I discovered that I could hear the tide change and start to come back in, whispering over the rocks.

The tide has turned for my mother now, she's going out with the waves.

A new art form

2009-11-17T15:48:00.000-08:00

I think we should recognize a new ephemeral art form: beach arrangement. Sometimes, in the smaller pieces, we might add an item. Or not. This one gets lots of points for potential energy.

This is the first time I've gotten to walk out on the beach.

She said Sunday "Is this the real world?"
"It feels like some weird dream. Are you my daughter? Is this my house? Is Tiger the only cat I've got left?"

What a noble mind

2009-11-15T16:05:00.000-08:00

What a noble mind is here o'erthrown.

She was her class valedictorian in high school, and went to Berkeley at 17. She got a degree in Chemistry, and then during World War II was on the Manhattan Project. She met my Dad there, and after the war they got married on Groundhog Day, and went to graduate school at Brown University, where she was the first woman to get a PhD in Chemistry.

After they graduated, Dad went to teach at Washington State College. In those postwar days, when women were being shoved out of the jobs they had done so well during the war, anti-nepotism rules said that she could not work under the same dean as her husband, so that meant she couldn't teach in Math, Physics or Chemistry, all of which she was qualified for. A neighboring college had an opening for someone to teach Thermodynamics, which she had taken. Instead, they hired a man with a Master's who was taking it from my Dad while teaching it next door. And you know that in those days, a man with a Master's degree was not cheaper than a woman with a PhD.

So she worked odd jobs in many departments while raising their kids, and it was only long later that she got to teach in Chemistry, after suing the university. Their loss all those years; she was an excellent teacher. After Dad died, she went to law school at the University of Washington, at age 60. (She said she wished she had done it while she was "young & brilliant".) Then she worked at the EPA on a pesticide project that used both the law & chemistry.

She ran for state legislature twice (this news photo was taken then), and was one of the few people who actually enjoy the process of running. She was on her state board of medical examiners for years, and president of her local water board.

And now she asks the same question 5 times in 5 minutes, and never remembers the answers.
She said yesterday "How am I supposed to know whether I want to drink more milk or not?"

Friday the 13th crows

2009-11-13T11:04:00.000-08:00

I had not realised the date earlier, one loses track, but these neighborhood crows make a colorful appropriate picture with the fallen leaves and the green green grass.

On Sunday she said "I feel like I'm in Never-Never Land."
But in the morning she said "I dreamed I was sentenced to the electric chair".

The iconic coastal picture

2009-11-11T19:37:00.000-08:00

Apparently aware of his responsibilities to the coastal visitor, he posed for several minutes as the light came and went, giving me time to try for a picture.

Last night she thought for an hour I was someone she had invited for supper.

Tiger is trying to help

2009-11-07T15:14:00.000-08:00

This is Tiger sitting on my mother's lap. She got him from me in maybe 1996. (I called him Musketeer.) When I said that she had gotten him from me, she said, smiling "Oh, is he the one I stole from you?"

She had been down visiting me, and actually I had offered him, because I had lots of cats then, from feeding the feral cats behind work. When she refused though, I was glad, because I liked him a lot. But then, after I had left for work on the day she was leaving, he jumped into her arms - and she just took him.

The pictures she sent showed him all ruffled right after the 2-day drive, and then calmed down and at home.

She and everyone said he had been skittish and shy here recently, but once I was here he came out and sat on her & my & others' laps.

She is seeing purple shadows on the orange cat; they changed her medicine.

11-16-09 He's spent several weeks sitting mostly on her lap at the table (well she was feeding him her food), and sleeping beside her on her bed.

She said (and she doesn't remember what's wrong) "Tiger is trying to help. He doesn't know what he can do, but he is trying so hard to help."

The view from here

2009-11-06T19:15:00.000-08:00

The view can be beautiful, especially when there is light. Most mornings there is a break under the clouds & over the mountains to the east, and a bright colorful sunrise. A couple of mornings when that didn't happen, it was so dark at 7:00 am that we wondered if our clocks were wrong.

This is her view (the one remaining view between the trees she planted) to the northwest. There is some sun on this beach in the morning, and I can see the tide change here.

I haven't yet had a chance to get down to the beach when the tide is low enough to walk out on the sand. In fact, I've only gotten out for a walk a couple of times so far.

She is seeing the bathroom floor as shiny, and thinks it's flooded and doesn't want to go in there.

There are cats

2009-11-04T11:33:00.000-08:00

There are cats living in this house which are beginning to be viewable. This is the least shy of them. Mom calls her Kitten. (Slightly out-of-date name...) She may have been the kitten Mom wanted which led her to import the feral mama cat to begin with.

And this other little one, half-grown size, Mom calls Kitten-kitten, or her little white kitten. Since the coloring is lynx-point siamese with white underside, this one must have been almost white when born.
They were sleeping on her bed, maybe still do, secretly.

I think I might call the large one Patches. Mom had a book about a horse when she was a kid, with that name. And the little one Sugar Mouse. There's a third one, gray & white, with the same tail as Sugar Mouse - gray striped with tiny white tip.

She fell down in the bathroom about 2:00 am Sunday night - unhurt, apparently. She said "Kerplunk" when I got there.

Colorful Bob

2009-10-29T21:20:00.000-07:00

This picture of Bob was taken when he was about a year old, visibly still a young cat, looking very alert and wild in the tall grass at the edge of the yard. Bob was maybe born in 2002. He wasn't very old at all.

I scanned the picture in, and Photoshopped it, the summer of 2006, when I was taking Photoshop my 2nd summer in school. The original is a tall young orange cat in green grass. The colors were changed with exaggerated Curves, and I textured it with a filter. One of my favorite Cafepress t-shirts has this image on it, and it makes an interesting mirrored fabric at Spoonflower.

Now those images are just going to make me sad. Bob died today. I wish I had taken just 10 minutes, in the rush to get out of the house to the airport, and held him on my lap and said goodbye.

Goodbye Bob. I love you, even if I couldn't be there with you.

Many thanks, beyond thanks, to Larry who is making it possible for me to be here in many ways, including taking care of poor Bob.

I arrived here

2009-10-28T22:23:00.000-07:00

On October 25. Well, not on heron-back, although I did fly. I usually take the train, which I love. It's not that I don't like flying, which I do. It's the getting to the airport, and all the fuss there which I don't like.

This time, flying meant I could bring frozen Cornish pasties, which are a specialty of the old mining town I live in, where my mother was born. We enjoyed them for dinner that night. (Although I suspect Spinach-mushroom-cheese, my favorite, is not a traditional flavor... My mother was surprised by it. She said, "Who would guess spinach could be so good".) She sometimes made pasties when we were kids.

If I flew back, I could take yakisoba. The refrigerated kind, which are the only ones I know with the real seasoning packets, are not currently available where I live.

I got out for a walk for the first time today - but she came back early from her meeting; she collapsed after lunch and asked to be brought home. She doesn't remember it, but I don't think she's going out again.

Bob in Summer

2009-10-22T20:22:00.000-07:00

This is Bob, taken several years ago, on the balcony, where the cats lived happily & fairly safely for years. He's called Bob because he has no tail.

He was born in my bathroom, to a feral cat I'd just caught after fishing for for 2 years. They had a big dog cage, with a small carrier for a hidden nest, and a litter box. The bars were far enough apart for the kittens to come out through them and make friends. (The mama cat, although she was never touchable, learned her name and came when she was called. She was the only one who got down off the balcony and back up onto it all the time.)

I didn't know in time that kittens need to be handled before weaning age by several people for them to become tame, so they weren't very give-away-able. But they didn't survive the dangers of this hillside (dogs, cars, coyotes, raccoons, foxes, a great horned owl, maybe bobcats, bears, or mountain lions) very long once they didn't live on the balcony anymore, so for several years Bob has been the last one left of 2 litters of feral kittens. His wily mother Ugly vanished a couple of summers ago.

He has always been very affectionate with me; he liked to chew on the hair on my forehead, and sleep right by my shoulder when he got the chance. He had been getting skinnier maybe since summer, but the last week or so he went downhill very rapidly. We just took him to the vet on Tuesday, and learned he has stomach cancer.

And I can't even stay with him for the week or so he has left. I am leaving this weekend to visit my mother; in any other case I'd put off the visit for a while, but she also is very unwell.

It's the season when the preying mantises come in from the cold

2009-09-30T04:34:00.000-07:00

Suddenly there they are, hanging out on the window frames all over the house, before it's so cool that the windows are closed up tight. I'm happy to see them, numerous and healthy, though I wish they'd stay out in the garden. But they can catch the flies on the windowsills if they wish.

This is a male, with a narrow abdomen; the females I really wish would lay their egg capsules out in the roses.

Unusually among insects, they are large enough to see us and pay attention to our movements. Looking out for predators, I assume.

Some years ago, when I had several former feral cats, for whom hunting bugs was serious business, it was very hazardous for them to come near the lights in the summer. When the balcony light was on, they'd be clinging to the shingles above the balcony, hunting - except for the ones the cats dismembered.

And the ecology class rumor about their lifestyle is correct, sometimes the female beheads the male before mating. (In captive lines, the males can become reluctant to mate, (no surprise), so the biologist takes their heads off, and sets them down beside a female.) Without the inhibiting signals from the brain, the lower nerve ganglion, which has only one thing on its mind, is in control. They climb on and mate. Guys.

This photo was taken on 9/26/08.

Oh, by the way, the commoner name is praying mantis. But they are certainly major predators, so I like preying mantis.

The night the vultures dropped in

2009-09-26T11:27:00.000-07:00

First, in the very late afternoon, lying out on the lawn chairs, Larry & I saw them way up high, circling. Many of them, maybe 18 or 2 dozen, so high & small we could barely see they were birds, and they were grey against the sky, not black. We guessed turkey vultures, because we couldn't think of what else would be in such a large group, soaring, circling in a "kettle".

Then, without my seeing their actual arrival, they were dropping into the large Ponderosa pines south of the house, slightly downhill. It was still just light enough to try to get a few photos that night. This one was taken the next morning, Sept 26, 2007. I waited a couple of hours and took the later bus to school, hoping to get a shot of them as they flew.

Instead, they sat in the trees in sunny spots, or flew to the large black oak to the east of the house and stretched their wings out in the sun. I could just hear them saying "Mornin' Joe. Cup of coffee?" as they woke up slowly.

Meanwhile, out from under the same pine trees came a flock of wild turkeys, a dozen or so, industriously scratching for their breakfasts. I can see why Benjamin Franklin admired them.

Even by the time I had to catch the bus to school at 9:30, they had not left, still waiting for their thermal. As the bus pulled out, I could see just the first few rising slowly.*

That afternoon when I got home from school, I went straight to the window, but unfortunately without the camera. There they were, 2 dozen of them, circling down just above the treetops, deciding if they were coming here again. A breathtaking sight.

*My Young Wilderness Professional book-club friend tells me that they migrate that way, by rising very high on a thermal, then gliding down to the next one. And I guess this south slope makes a good one.

I saw the owl killing a rabbit

2009-09-22T01:30:00.000-07:00

Well, not quite. Coming up the hill towards the ditch, just before 8:00 pm, when it was still quite light, I heard the screaming. As I crossed the ditch, the screaming stopped, and as I turned into the trail, the owl flew up from just beside me. The terrified rabbit was still alive, twitching and trying to jump, but not able to get up and run away. All I could do was to go by as quickly as possible, so the owl could come back and kill it.

I've seen more wildlife here than I ever did at our cabin in Northern Idaho, at the north end of Priest Lake, where we spent all our summers, growing up. This was one I'd rather have missed. Now I know what probably happened to several of my cats, over the years.

*I've seen the owl several times at the turn in the trail. The neighbors say the owl we've heard on the hillside is a great horned owl. This was the first picture I've gotten, on Sept 17th, 2009, a few weeks after the day it killed the rabbit (Aug 24). If it's a great horned, it has its "horn" feathers lowered. But it's big enough to kill a jackrabbit.

Buddy isn't so lonely now

2009-07-21T00:58:00.000-07:00

He's in with Bob & Pandora again, after years of being an outcat, (he was exported after he and the three-legged cat rolled off the roof in a fight).

Last week I saw a fox in the yard, the first time in all these years. First there was a noise sort of reminiscent of a cat-fight, but without the fire-siren effects. Then 2 things were going by that way, too fast to see what they were. Then the fox was coming back this way, without apparently having caught the other fox or the neighbor's cat he'd been chasing.

(And amusingly unseen by the fox, a jackrabbit was going off the other way, down through the orchard. I've seen one escape a coyote the same way, without ever being seen.)

The fox was mostly brindle color, like an Abyssinian cat, with some reddish areas.

Buddy was sitting on the porch observing this. He wouldn't come in then, but when he came in that night for dinner, I wouldn't let him out again, but instead put him in with Bob and Pandora.

And by now they're settling in. Bob doesn't yet quite get the point of the greeting ritual - he'll bump heads once, and walk together a bit, but turning around and going back for another pass 3 or 4 times - not yet. And Pandora - still hissing.

I let them into the bedroom area last night. And in the dark I put out my hand to pet a cat, and felt short (soft?) fur, and - a tail! Buddy! And he liked being petted.

Buddy used to be untouchable except on the feeding table, over the back of Dovey or Valentine. And he hasn't been touched for almost a year.

My taxonomy for recognizing cats in the dark is very short and simple right now, not requiring the usual subtleties of voice, size, and texture of fur.

1) Long fur?
Yes - Pandora
No - see #2

2) Tail?
No tail - Bob
Tail - Buddy

Also Bob's fur is very short & flat, and somewhat harsh feeling. Buddy's is short, but soft and plushy. I didn't know that before.

*I took this picture, and photoshopped it, years ago, when they all lived on the balcony.

Swallows' summer vacation

2009-07-17T20:15:00.000-07:00

One hot summer day on the Nevada County campus of Sierra Community College, the swallows were all excited, collecting in a couple of trees, chattering noisily. A gentleman who works on campus told me that they were collecting to go elsewhere for the rest of the long hot summer, after the babies were old enough.

One or two of them were flying back and forth into a hallway where there was a nest. Looked like she or they were checking to see that all the chicks were out of the nest.

And it reminded me of when I was a kid, and Dad just had to get himself ready, and pack the car, for the annual trip to the lake, while Mom had to get herself and all the food, and 4 kids ready to go.

"Come on kids, aren't you ready to go yet? Dad has the car started already!"

This photo was taken on July 17, 2006.

The Pacific coast iris hybrids are blooming in the yard

2009-05-09T23:33:00.000-07:00

Some of my favorite flowers are blooming here now.

The little wild white irises and yellow Calochortus down the hill along the trail, apple trees in the orchard, dogwoods all around town, and here in the yard, many colors of hybrids of the Pacific coast irises, along with hardy Geraniums and Veronica Waterperry.

The English bluebells (Scilla) are just finishing, the last of the flowering lawn bulbs, and the rest of the spring garden bulbs are done here.

This textured picture of an iris should make fun fabric, especially in a mirrored layout, where, when the grasses meet at the edges of the image they make interesting bug-like designs.

Cheesecake in the Light

2009-04-28T23:02:00.000-07:00

Cheesecake is gone. He died last Thursday. He was just 19 years old. That summer I was going to the pound, looking for my missing mama cat, and he was just the most irresistible kitten I had ever seen. (Hence his name.) He was about 2 weeks bigger than the kittens who had been born on my bed May 5. (Wake up. Squeaking by my feet. Kittens!) So I think he just turned 19.

Cheesecake, and those kittens whose mama went missing, and later Fussy, whom I got from the pound in October, all used to do something in the dark at night. They would all oodge up towards my face, kneading and purring like crazy, as if I were their mama. If one started, the others would join. I called it a purring fest.

In recent years, when only one cat got to sleep with me, he was the one. And sometimes he seemed to remember the purring fests from when he was young. It's the season when the cat starts sleeping on the bed again

In about the last 2 years he had become very skinny, but was still mobile and eating. In fact, until about 1 ½ weeks before he died, he was eating 2 cans of cat food a day. About 3 weeks earlier, the other cats killed a mouse - and before I got back with the camera to take a picture, Cheesecake ate half of it. A last memory of his hunting past.

One thing I finally found out, almost by accident, is that when they are getting weak, the easiest way for them to drink is from a drip onto a surface, like a sink or tub. I knew a cat years ago who only drank that way. We had a hot week, and Cheesecake was not sitting on his pad by the heater, but on the cool bricks. So I put him in the tub, where he used to like to be in the hot summer. And so, he was able to drink water from the drip, his last night.

I took this original photo in about the summer of 2003, and you can see he still looked young and beautiful. Then I added a layer of a pattern of light coming through one of the old windows here at sunrise or sunset, and tried different blending modes.

Goodbye Cheesecake. I love you.

Wildflower season

2009-04-19T23:48:00.000-07:00

Lupines at Bridgeport, on Buttermilk Bend trail. Only the second time this year I've been there, since I've been working most weekends. This picture was taken on April 18 2009. Taking pictures on the way out, and trying to walk more on the way back.

I was looking for a photo op to illustrate "Only good dogs get to go for a walk on Buttermilk Bend trail", but there weren't nearly as many dogs out for a walk as on Easter Sunday.

Spoonflower hooray!

2009-04-15T21:27:00.000-07:00

At Spoonflower (www.spoonflower.com), you can upload a design, and get digitally-printed yardage with your design printed on it! I only have about 114 designs sent to them so far, and have gotten some successful samples in light and medium colors. *

This is a design that started as a small dye-painted square of test fabric. Then I scanned it, Photoshopped it to get many colors, and made an array so it could print as yardage. Soon I'll order a sample to see how the colors come out. Then if that works well, I'll get a couple of yards to make perhaps a knee-length vest, lined in a teal fleece which I got for that, and then found it didn't go with the batiks I intended to use. And it will be my unique fabric.

Your designs remain private unless you choose to make them public, but no one except your self can buy them now. Someday. Unless one of your designs is chosen to be in the weekly contest, and it wins - in which case people can buy it for a week. And you would win some fabric. Right now they're printing on a quilting-weight cotton. Other fabrics later. (Update: several more fabrics now available, in different widths.)

This is a lot of fun. Click on the fabric to see some of my other designs.

*(Dark or black backgrounds with low-contrast images don't work well.)

11-09 UPDATE Spoonflower now makes it possible for us to put our fabrics up for sale, but only the ones we have ordered swatches of. So I have a couple available for sale now, and more coming. This one soon. 11-29-09 This one is now available for sale:
http://www.spoonflower.com/fabric/111479

I'd forgotten I did these raven sketches

2009-04-12T23:12:00.000-07:00

I found them going through old class files, looking for duplicates to delete.

I think they'll make fun fabric designs.

There are three ravens who hang around in the parking lot at work. One of my co-workers feeds them. If they're flying overhead and he calls, they come down. They have him trained to call when he has food for them.

It's time to plant your flowering lawn

2008-09-30T07:07:00.000-07:00

This is Pipit, another of my favorite small narcissus. (3-30-08) Yes, I could have shown this photo in the spring when it was taken, but I'm showing it now as a reminder that it's time to plant your flowering lawns. As early as the bulbs are available, while the weather is still nice enough to sit out on the lawn. Maybe after the first rain. (We might get one this weekend.)

Sit on a bit of not-too-bad lawn with a bag or two of small bulbs: dwarf narcissus, grape hyacinths, small Scillas, crocus, especially the smaller species crocus, Chionodoxa, lots of others.(See Gardening list of posts in the sidebar.) Dig out a weed and stick in a bulb; that will give you a nice natural distribution. Transplant in some old-fashioned fragrant violets to cover the holes. Water. If the fall rains don't arrive, continue to water.

Come Spring, enjoy months of fragrance and color. For decades. Have fun.

How to make gingko leaf fabric

2008-09-29T07:03:00.000-07:00

First you catch your gingko tree. That is, now, while the leaves are on the trees, go around looking for one. If you don't have one in your neighborhood, nor room to plant one (or none at the local nurseries), try a nearby college campus. They often have them.

(I actually bought a gingko tree for this and Precious Metal Clay jewelry, with a rootstock that had different shaped leaves from the top, so I have 2 shapes to use.)

You're going to want to collect the leaves to make your real fabric in the early fall, when they're freshly-fallen and still soft. But it should be ok to pick enough leaves to do a few fat-quarter color samples like this one. They're easiest to use while fresh, pliable and strong. If it's going to be a day or two, press them to keep them flat.

I suggest doing your tests on cotton fabric, ready-to-dye or prepared-for-dyeing. Your local fabric store may have some, or your favorite internet fabric store. If not, try the fabrics at dharmatrading.com. Use Procion MX dye with cotton, linen, or rayon fabric.

You may find a color you like straight out of the jar; I prefer mixed colors, and mixed from mixed colors themselves, not from the clear primaries, which to my eyes give bland bright colors. So you will want to experiment with colors too, separate from the leaves. I suggest using 2 colors only, choosing some near each other on the color wheel, which will blend harmoniously, unless you have favorite dye colors already.

The easiest and most direct way to do this will be to fix the dyes with a paint-on fixative, like Afterfix from Dharma Trading. The alternative is to batch-fix the dye, which involves covering the dyed fabric with plastic to keep it moist for 24 hours. Either way this is best done in warm, even muggy weather. The only thing about the Afterfix method is that it is harder to do on long pieces of fabric. (It's great on fat quarters & half-yards.) You may want to work with 2-yard pieces max, and do more than one if you need more.

Supplies for dyeing;

Procion MX powdered dye (or liquid), 1 or 2 colors, and instructions from your dye supplier for tub dyeing and dye-painting
Plain salt (not iodized) from the grocery store
Warm water (tap water)

Afterfix paint-on fixative (from dharmatrading.com)
OR soda ash for batch-fixing,
AND soda ash for immersion dyes for coordinating fabrics.

Spray adhesive, especially a kind which can be removable if sprayed lightly. Test.

Cotton, linen or viscose rayon fabric, ready to dye. Prewashing and drying before use is a good idea. If you are going to batch-fix, presoak in the soda-ash solution, let drip dry before use.

Helpful: Synthrapol detergent, for washing out dye, and Reduran for cleaning hands.

Tools for dyeing and dye-painting:

Dust-mist mask for mixing dye-stock solutions (and soda ash solutions)
Measuring cups and spoons (not to be reused for food), and old milk or water jugs with lids, and cups or jars to mix dye-stock in (disposable), plus disposable plastic spoons for mixing. (You don't have to throw these away each time, usually they clean easily.)

Rubber gloves, especially for putting fabric into immersion dye baths.

1 to 2 very fine mist sprayers - pump-types work well. From a dye supplier, or maybe hardware store.

2 sawhorses, with scrap fabric strips, pushpins or staples, and sewing pins, or other method to stretch fabric outdoors, or a clean grassy (or concrete) place to lay out the fabric

Instructions for leaf-dyeing

Read some dyeing instructions first. Dyes are mixed at different concentrations, depending on the density of different colors. Your dye supplier should be able to tell you.

Wear old clothes that you don't mind getting dye spots on. Maybe an apron too.

1) First, lightly spray adhesive on the back of each leaf, and attach them to the fabric in a pleasing pattern. Work on a hard surface, so you can rub them down.

Attach fabric scrap strips to sawhorses with staples or pushpins. Attach your fabric to these strips with sewing pins, or lay fabric out on grass.

2) Mix a scant teaspoon of plain salt into 2 cups of warm water. You will mix your dye-stock solutions from this. The salt gives you a longer working time before the dye bonds to the water and won't dye your fabric.

3) Put on your dust-mist mask while you mix the dye. Close the jar after measuring out dye, and wipe down surfaces with a damp paper towel. Rinse utensils after use. (Use a damp paper towel, or damp paper towel in a plastic dish, to mix on - that way you see any spilled dye.)

For each color, mix 1 to 2 teaspoons of dye into 1 cup of the salt stock solution. Fuschia-based colors are strong; use 1/2 to one teaspoon. Turquoise-based colors are weaker; use 2 teaspoons for a equivalent strength. Like making gravy, start with only a little water, making a paste with the dye in a mixing cup, then adding more water gradually. If some spots of color don't dissolve easily (some reds and golds and grays, I've found) you might filter the solution through a disposable coffee filter.

For darker colors, use more dye, and spray more times.

Put some of each color into a sprayer. Don't breathe the spray! If you are working outside, and spraying away from yourself, that may be fine. Or wear your mask.

4) Your fabric should be laid on the grass, or stretched between sawhorses, with leaves attached, leaf side up.

The important part of spraying the dye is to spray each color lightly several times. Do not saturate the fabric. If the fabric gets too wet, the dye will run under the leaves. Too few passes with the sprayer will leave the fabric looking dotted. Don't let the sprayer drip on the fabric. (Try to hold it off the edge and spray onto the fabric, walking around the stretched fabric to get all areas. Or keep a paper towel under the sprayer to catch drips. Test first! Find a sprayer that doesn't drip.) Test this whole technique before trying your real fabric.

( 5) If you have dye stock left, mix up 2 or 3 gallons of soda ash and salt solution, pour into a large white bucket, and add 1 or 2 colors of dye. Scrunch another piece of fabric to fit, and wearing rubber gloves, push it down into the bucket under the liquid. Leave for 3 to 24 or more hours (turquoise-based colors for 24 hours minimum). This immersion dyeing will make rich colors to coordinate with your leaf fabric.

Or use a large ziploc freezer bag, and 1/2 to 1 gallon solution. This will hold a t-shirt, or some fabric. Less mess. )

6) Let the dye dry completely, maybe 24 hours. Leaves are still on the fabric. If you used sawhorses, take the fabric off and lay it out on the grass. Paint on the Afterfix, leave on for 1 hour, then rinse off. Take leaves off, thoroughly rinse fabric in warm water (Synthrapol detergent is helpful), then wash out.

OR after spraying the dye, in warm muggy weather, cover with plastic to keep warm and moist for 24 hours. This is less useful for this spray technique, where the fabric should dry between spray coats. It is useful for dye-painting on cotton.

©MinaWagner2008 You may print a copy of these instructions for your personal use. Please do not print more copies, or use this as the basis of a class, without contacting me.

Leaping Lizards

2008-09-28T19:00:00.000-07:00

11-30-07
I always thought that was just an exclamation. Then last summer, waiting for the bus, I was taking some lizard pictures. And I was waiting for one to go by at ground level, when suddenly he was coming down the other tree, a foot away. He'd crossed in the air. I didn't see that, but I did see one jumping between rocks.

And I suddenly started noticing arboreal lizards, and lizards climbing the 2-story pillars on campus. And in the evenings after working at the campus library, flat lizards.

That is, lizards flattened against the sidewalks, not moving. After a brief encounter with a lizard of the opposite sex. I've one picture of both of them, flat on the same rock, after a picture of them together.

This little lizard came out beside me when I was sitting and eating my lunch on a planter at the college campus down in Rocklin last summer. Miss Muffet on her tuffet might come to mind, but actually I was thinking "Photo op!".

9-28-08
Right now it's the season for baby lizards. Several of them scurry aside from my path on my way down the hill to work every morning.

Buddy misses her

2008-09-18T20:30:00.000-07:00

This was Dovey's and Buddy's greeting ritual. I tried to get pictures of this for years, but since it was always in motion, I wasn't very successful. They would walk together, and rub against each other, and entwine their tails. Then one would turn around and they'd pass each other, with more head-bumping. I think I remember that that means they think of the other as family.

After Dovey disappeared, when Buddy was let out he went around the house calling, and over the roof and into a window that had been open for weeks with no one coming in it. Buddy and Dovey were both named as kittens for their friendliness to other cats, but as adults it was mostly each other they were friendly with.

And now Buddy doesn't have his friend.

He spends more time with me, at a safe distance. Maybe someday he'll let me pet him again. He used to be pettable only on the feeding table, over the back of Valentine or Dovey.

These pictures were taken July 28, 2008.

Live by the Sword . . .

2008-09-07T23:23:00.000-07:00

Die by the sword? Or, in this case, by tooth and claw.

Dovey is gone. It's been over 2 1/2 weeks now. I used to tell her that, when she was busy hunting, and didn't want to come in at night. But I never thought it would happen so soon. She was young, and a wary former feral cat, more likely than most to survive. Photoshop fun

8-24-08 Dovey the black cat has not come home. Wed night I got off work late, & didn't call the cats for dinner and to lock them in safely for the night until almost midnight, and she wasn't there. I haven't seen her since.

I haven't heard the coyotes singing in the orchard for a couple of months now, but that's most likely what happened. At least that is quick.

Buddy misses her.

Dear Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream

2008-08-15T23:15:00.000-07:00

A couple of summers ago, after reluctantly going completely decaf during the spring, I bought a carton of my favorite coffee ice cream, and had some for dessert. That night I found myself sitting up in bed, wide awake at 3:00 AM, saying "Coffee ice cream!?!"

I'm sure there are many more of us who still love the flavor of coffee ice cream, but would like to sleep at night. So please, where you lead, others will follow; let there be decaf coffee ice cream.

You are so good at names, I'm sure you'll come up with something great - but Decaf Café comes to mind.

Hopefully yours,
Mina

Larry & Tom at Bridgeport

2008-08-02T22:18:00.000-07:00

My walking/photographing companions. As you can see, we do more picture-taking than walking.

Well, the wildflowers and scenery at Bridgeport California in the spring are worth a lot of attention.

These photos were taken on April 19th, 2008.

Catching up

2008-07-14T10:01:00.000-07:00

I intend to interpolate some posts at the approximate time they should have been made. So for anyone who has been reading, and think you have seen all my posts as they were made, this is a list of newly interpolated ones, with their dates, and the date they were added.

This image is a version of my picture of the Jack Snipe miniature narcissus, blooming in the spring. I like the posterized effect of the background shingles.

Post date - Title - - - - - - - - - date actually posted:

5/3/08 Always save some film for sunset 7/14/08

4/20/08 The lupines were beautiful 7/14/08

3/28/08 Jack Snipe miniature narcissus7/14/08

12/21/07 Papercut color updated 7/6/08

What is visibility anyway?

2008-07-11T23:56:00.000-07:00

I heard on the radio a translation from visibility in miles to healthy vs unhealthy air quality. ( And found a chart here: pdf )

If visibility is 10 miles & up, air quality due to particulates (smoke) is Good & particulate levels are 0-40
6-9 miles Moderate air quality 41-80
3-5 miles Unhealthy for sensitive groups 81-175
1.5-2.5 miles Unhealthy 176-300
1-1.25 miles Very Unhealthy 301-500
.75 miles or less Hazardous over 500

So my question was, just what do they mean by visible? The very farthest haziest hill? One of the intermediate layers of trees? Just where do we draw that line?

I found a reference to interpreting visiblity data, which might be helpful in answering that almost philosophical question in a useful way. USDA Forest Service- Interpreting visibility data
But I haven't found a real answer yet.

This picture was taken in Nevada City on a recent particularly smoky day. We have had lots of days with particulate numbers over 100 (microgams/cubic meter) and several over 300.

And for days now, it is noticeably hazy between 100 and 200 feet - not as bad as it has been, but smoky. And with an orange moon.

Well, I just checked another search result, and found this at Montana DEQ
1) Face away from the sun.
2) Determine the limit of your visible range by looking for targets
at known distances (miles).
3) Visible range is that point at which even high contrast objects totally disappear.

Batik Mandala

2008-07-06T23:29:00.000-07:00

12/18/07 This is a new design for a Cafepress t-shirt. It's based on a scan of a copper batik stamp (tjap). The color scheme is right out of the textbooks: purple, red-violet & blue-violet, and the complementary gold & yellow. I have to admit it works. The version I'll use at Cafepress will have the background removed, so the color of the t-shirt will show through. I think it will look particularly good on black, navy, and the brown longsleeved women's tee.

If I can do some fabric for a skirt with the stamp, just a simple natural fabric color design on purple-dyed fabric, that ought to be fun to wear with a tee. I got this stamp to give away, so if I do anything with it, it has to be soon.

Unfortunately, since it's a large one, it does not fit into the little electric frying pan I have to heat wax in. I have been trying to find an old electric fry pan at the thrift stores, but haven't turned up one yet.

6-20-08 I just got a section made at Cafepress for this design: WRW Color by Design - Fabrics by Design section

7-6-08 I hope to do some experiments these next 2 weeks with soy wax for batik: lower temperature, easier cleanup and removal from the fabric, and can use cooking pans too, not just wax-only containers.

It's time to test the roof sprinklers again . . .

2008-07-06T20:00:00.000-07:00

When Grandpa Hubbard had this house built in 1917, he saved $300 by doing the plumbing himself. (Three floors, plus an attic, and the roof sprinklers.) He put a hose bib in a closet on each floor, with a hose ready in case of fire. And the roof sprinklers. This is the California foothills, and fire is always possible, as we can see now. And originally the house had a shake roof, as well as sides.

This is gravity-flow water, coming down from the mountains, so it should still be available near a fire.

It has been my custom to test them each year on the first really hot day of summer. The best time is when the very last sun is on the roof, for the maximum evaporative cooling, but so the sun will be gone when I turn them off again. It has the advantage then of starting to cool the house off for the night - acting like a giant swamp cooler.

On the usual hot day, this is lovely: it smells like rain, it sounds like rain, it looks like rain, it cools things off. I open all the windows that won't splash in, and after walking around to get a view of all the sprinkler heads, I sit on the porch for a few minutes enjoying it, before turning the water off again.

But Mom called to say that the sprinklers should be tested right away, after all there are fires all over - and I had to agree with her. But it is all smoky and muggy today, and I couldn't open most of the windows. And since it is so muggy, probably the sprinklers didn't cool the house off much.

But it still smelled like rain (and smoke), and sounded like rain, and looked like rain. And I sat out on the porch and enjoyed it.

PS You can see that some sprinkler heads need replacing.

PPS The sky is not blown-out in this photo; that's the color the sky has mostly been for weeks - greyish brownish white.

The Sun has been practicing the moon illusion

2008-07-05T10:49:00.000-07:00

This was taken June 26, about 8:00 PM daylight time. As you can see, not yet sunset. But the sky was very smoky, and it was possible to look right at the sun, which looked overall orange. And, as it neared the horizon, it looked very large, like a harvest moon.

For a couple of things about the moon illusion:

http://illusionsetc.blogspot.com/2005/11/moon-optical-illusion.html

http://www.lhup.edu/%7Edsimanek/3d/moonillu.htm

One of them mentions that the sun does it too, except that we can't look directly at the sun, usually. Well, that day it was smoky enough that we could. Here it was large and orange. Some places, the smoke caused a lavender sun, as at Arcata over on the coast. Wish I'd seen that.

http://yubanet.com/scitech/Unusually-widespread-haze-is-causing-a-rare-atmospheric-optics-phenomenon---the-lavender-sun_printer.php

A couple of days later, it was a surprise to see real light and shadows again, it'd been so long.

It's getting smoky again.

Where there's smoke . . .

2008-06-25T22:03:00.000-07:00

There's fire? Well, somewhere, but not here. The closest is near the little town of Washington. But there're fires all over N California, more than 840 of them started by one lightning storm last weekend. The previous record was 73.

On Saturday, some friends and I had gone to Downieville for their Gold Rush Day; costumes, shootouts (picture 2 terrified little kids in a twin stroller, 10 ft away from a victim), stagecoach rides, food and crafts. And an appearance at the little local theater by "Mark Twain", the celebrated lecturer. We went especially to hear a friend who was providing the live music for Mark Twain's performance.

During Mr Twain's talk, the lights went out. When they came back on a minute later, and Mr.Twain was reclining in a chair, instead of standing behind his lectern, we thought it was part of the show. Then the lights went out again, and stayed out, while we heard repeated thunder outside. So there was Mark Twain, lecturing in the dark, in a little old theater, in a thunderstorm.

Very Old West. But unfortunately, no rain. So there are lightning fires all over, many still burning. And smoke everywhere, for days now.

Looking at the hills and trees receeding into the smoky distance, it made me wonder just how smoky the Italian Renaissance was. I think I remember that that was when painters discovered "atmospheric color", in which the more distant landscape elements are, the lighter and bluer they are. And I think the answer might be, not this smoky, but more than nowadays, judging by the backgrounds to some of the pictures.

I had opened some windows last night, to cool the house off, and because there was less smoke. Then about 3:00 AM it got more smoky again, and I went around closing windows. (Well, not the ones that require climbing a ladder to take the screens out, not in the dark without my glasses on.) And the moon was as copper-colored as it was last summer during its eclipse. And the sun rising this morning was flame-colored.

Another thunderstorm due this Saturday.

Always save some film for sunset

2008-05-03T10:11:00.000-07:00

That's one of the things I've learnt the hard way, as here. Another is always have a camera with you, because as soon as you don't, there will be a great sunset, or something.

This picture is also an illustration of another rule I often forget: always read the fine print/ schedule/instructions before it's too late. In this case, I thought I remembered the bus schedule, but it changes at 6:00 PM. And so I was not watching when the bus came back, after I'd gotten off to take some photos. And, I'd just filled up my camera card, so I didn't have any "film" left for sunset. So I walked home, because I could get home almost by dark by walking rather than waiting an hour for the next bus and walking up the hill in the dark. So I didn't even see a spectacular sunset (since I was walking through the woods), let alone photograph it.

Then I Photoshopped this picture to look as if I'd seen the sunset.

The lupines were beautiful

2008-04-20T22:31:00.000-07:00

Yes we made it back to Brigeport in time to see the lupines in full bloom. They were beautiful.

(Well, I like blue better than orange, so I like them better than the poppies. When I first moved here, I used to fall asleep reading the Western Garden Book every night, and I memorized all the blue flowers. And I learned to store that book not in the bedroom with its light blue rug, so when I needed to look up how to plant something, and came tromping in with muddy boots, I wouldn't get red mud all over the rug.)

Unfortunately, by a stupid mistake trying to reset my camera, which had gotten changed to smaller sized images, I lost lots of the pictures i had taken. Don't count your photos...

Don't count your bridges...

2008-04-11T22:05:00.000-07:00

Before they're hatched? Well, before you cross them. Last week we did not make it to Bridgeport for a walk, since one of us was ill.

The weather has stayed cool, but without storms. But it has warmed 20°F since two days ago, and is supposed to be sunny and warm this weekend. So maybe the flowers haven't gone by yet, but they will be beginning to go in this warmth.

It's only superstition, of course... but every time I try to run into the grocery store and catch the bus on its way back, and I say "I'll catch you on your return", I miss it. Every time. And those are almost the only times I've missed it. When I say "If I'm lucky I'll catch you" I make it.

So, as Grandpa used to say "God willing and the creek don't rise", we'll get to Bridgeport for a walk and some photos tomorrow.

Going for walks at Bridgeport 1

2008-04-04T23:46:00.000-07:00

For the last month I have been going for walks on the wildflower trail at Bridgeport with friends. Well, 2 out of the four weeks - the others it has been raining. The wildflowers had started the first time, poppies and brodaieas. And the redbuds were in bloom. The second time, 2 weeks ago, the poppies were in full bloom, the lupines were just starting, and the shooting stars (Dodecathon) had their last few flowers. And I saw my first pipevine.

Two years ago, when I was there with a walking class, and taking more pictures than getting exercise, I got some good pictures of the Pipevine Swallowtail butterflies. I didn't know what they were - and when I tried looking in a butterfly key at the college, I thought I never would. Hundreds of butterflies looking all alike, and none like the ones I'd photographed.

We meet friendly people on the trail. Last time we saw a rattlesnake, moving rapidly up a steep slope, being guarded by a couple of walkers until it was out of harm's way.

This week the lupines should be in full bloom. And the river is always beautiful.

Birds

2008-04-03T22:03:00.000-07:00

This charming little bird was taking a dustbath next to the bus-stop when I left work this evening. Then he returned to sit on this rock, and then joined his mate to hop around briefly on the ground. This is the first day that there have been any birds besides blackbirds and ravens in the parking lot. Yesterday one of the ravens was making that molasses-gurgling-out-of-a-jug noise - an unexpected sound coming from such a source.

Yesterday morning (Apr 2nd) I heard the first song of the mountain chickadee for this spring. It's a distinctive three-note call that I'm told is supposed to sound like "cheeseburger". For about 20 years I whistled ineptly back at the unknown bird who was making the call, hoping to get him to come closer. I could hear them coming closer towards me sometimes, but I never saw who made that call. (I even ran after someone whistling it, when I worked in the nursery. "What 's that bird?!" He didn't know. He had been taught it by a friend. They used it to keep in touch when out in the woods.)

Since I only heard it in spring & summer, I assumed the bird was a migrant. Then one of my book-club friends (young wilderness professionals, mostly) identified the bird as a mountain chickadee. She explained that they live in old-growth forests, where they can shelter in the deep cracks in the bark of the mature trees. They are not supposed to live at this low an elevation. (2500ft)

I had seen chickadees here, without knowing they were my mystery birds. My early attempts to begin to identify birds were discouraged when they seemed to look like pictures of the mountain chickadee, which could not be here...

They don't migrate, but overwinter. And of course they make their distinctive call only in spring & summer because it is a breeding-season territorial call. I should not have been disturbing the birds by whistlingly back at them all these years...

And what is it doing here? Well, there is a line of trees that was left as a property-line division when the whole county was logged off to feed the mines. Oaks and ponderosa pines. They were mature when my grandfather bought both parcels and built in 1917. They were the only mature trees when my mother was a child. Now there are others as large. And the chickadees might be a relict population since then, maybe?

Maybe someday I'll find out what this little bird is, or the one with the bright yellow breast, who was up in the tree.

Jack Snipe miniature narcissus

2008-03-28T21:40:00.000-07:00

This picture is from 3-27-06, and is of the Jack Snipe on the South side, with the shingles behind it. This year that South side bunch was done flowering a week or two before that date.

I think of these and Tête à Tête as early-middle blooming dwarf narcissus. They start after Narcissus minimus and Little Gem, and about the same time as Jenny.

My flowering lawn, which includes these and other miniature narcissus, plus Chionodoxa, Scilla, Tritelia uniflora, grape hyacinths, and other miniature bulbs, is the best bit of garden I ever did. (It no longer has crocuses, because one year there was a gopher.)

It is on the East side of the house, where there was a bluegrass lawn in pretty good shape. So for several years, when I was first here, as early in the fall as bulbs were available, while it was still nice to sit out on the lawn, I'd dig out a weed and stick in a bulb. No need to "gently toss the bulbs to achieve a natural-looking distribution". And for 20 years since then, it's bloomed for more than 4 months every spring.

My more ambitious gardening attempts are long gone, eaten by deer, fat jackrabbits, or blackberries and weeds, but the flowering lawn still blooms every year.

The flowering plums were lonely this year

2008-03-28T21:03:00.000-07:00

These beautiful flowering plums usually bloom in March. The paperwhite narcissus under them usually start in late January and bloom into March so the two overlap. The violets start earlier, but also usually are in bloom with the trees. This year the paperwhites started much earlier, and were done before the trees started flowering, and the violets were just finishing too. These pictures are from last year in early March, when they were blooming together.

The paperwhite narcissus are the kind usually used for forcing to bloom early, since they do not require chilling like most bulbs. If they're forced in good potting soil with fertilizer, and planted out soon after with bulb food and rock phosphate, they will successfully naturalise here (zone 7, south slope, 2500 ft).

They regularly bloom for 2 months in the middle of winter, cheering up the view. They usually get snowed on or frozen, and survive it just fine. This year we had early rains (September, I think), which started a lot of bulbs growing early. The winter iris and violets started early too. Then we had extra cold in Jan & Feb, so the plums are maybe late.

So the flowering plums were lonely this year.

They finished this last week. The pears are starting to bloom this week.

New necklaces

2008-03-23T09:08:00.000-07:00

Just finished knotting these new necklaces this week. Cyndi gave me the silver & enamel beads years ago, and it took me a long time to figure out how to set them off best.

Then I saw that the hexagonal-cylinder sodalite beads I'd picked up somewhere would alternate perfectly with them, added other sodalite and amazonite leftover beads, to pick up from the enamel colors that I wear. And I found the perfect clasp.

Usually I use handmade hooks, and make the length adjustable with beads. This time I wanted the necklace longer, so I could see it too, and since I was using the clasp, lengthened it with chain.

When I was taking a design class in the art department a few years ago, I suggested to the teacher, at the end of the course, that she use a string of beads as a basic design exercise. Design classes start with 2 dimensional design, and just black & white. Here's one-dimensional design! (She was worried about the expense for students - but there are wooden beads.) You certainly use the design principles of unity and variety, and elements of rhythm and repetition and contrast. In fact, bead design is seemingly simple, but really quite sophisticated.

That's when I knotted up the green necklace, to go with a color of green I was beginning to wear. I was just starting to think of jewelry again after a break. My design abilities had grown during the fallow season, as often happens. Didn't finish it until just this week.

Violets with a scent as strong as wine

2008-03-21T14:46:00.000-07:00

The violets start blooming in late December or January, and bloom for a couple of months. The last of them, in some shady spots, are just finishing now. My very favorite lawn weed.

They don't get tall and luxurious for me, since my fat jackrabbits eat them, and sometimes after a rain or watering the deer apparently weed them out by the roots. But they still bloom like crazy, through the pine needles. White ones too, and lavender.

I like to plant them at the base of roses. They are fragrant when the roses are being pruned, and that is nice, but the main reason is to shade the base of the roses. One year an early hot spell sunburned the bud unions of almost a whole bed of roses, just starting to leaf out, and the bark cracked, and flathead borers got in, and by August almost the whole bed of roses was dead. The only survivor had a violet growing at its base, shading it from sunburn. So I plant violets at the base of the roses.

One year I was on the roof in February. I am not usually on the roof in February, but the chimney sweep had the flu, and the main floor fireplace was smoking, and I had reason to suspect that the blockage was in the chimney cap, not the chimney itself, (the ectoplasm incident), so I was on the roof in February.

And from three stories up I could smell the violets, strong as wine.

My favorite miniature narcissus is blooming

2008-02-23T18:02:00.000-08:00

This is Little Gem miniature daffodil. It usually blooms for several weeks in February, surviving snow, rain, and sometimes hot weather too. It, with the old fashioned violets which start in late December or January and bloom for a couple of months, start the season for my flowering lawn.

Little Gem has a beautiful shape and poise to the flower. Even the dried, dead flower is an elegant shape. It is small, only about 10 inches tall.

The ones on the South side started approximately mid-Feb this year, while the East side ones started as those were finishing. Now, Mar21st, the first day of spring, they are almost done, only a last few flowers.

Jenny, another early narcissus on the East side, is getting nearly finished. The Jack Snipes on the South Side are blooming now (Mar 21), and the East side flowering lawn ones are starting.

Missing Valentine

2008-02-14T20:57:00.000-08:00

This was Valentine. Today I am missing her and Lovey and Claudia and Lisa and Fussy - and all the other dear loving cats who have lived with me over the years. They gave me someone to love, and they loved me back, and purred in my ears at night, and licked my face to wake me up in the morning. They were there. Today I still have Cheesecake, though he is old and frail, and Pandora & Bob.

Living alone over the years, one learns to take care of oneself emotionally. To buy the roses & chocolates, if necessary. To read books instead of talking with anyone in the evenings. To do projects, or garden, or design things on the weekends. Or sometimes just read more books.... an average of a book a day, until I went back to school a few years ago. To think about things - like animal intelligence and emotions. To carry upstairs my own firewood, and home my own groceries. To build my own fires.

But the cats made it possible. They still do.

There's no such thing as "normal" weather here...

2008-02-02T12:29:00.000-08:00

More than 20 years ago, shortly after moving here to my grandfather's house, I heard from a local orchard owner, in a gardening class "More years than not, we have spring here in January & February, and winter in March and April." And more years than not, in the years since, that has been true. This year is the exception that points up the truth of the rule.

It is snowing. Again. Twice last week I walked home from work (early) at night in the snow because the buses had stopped running. Others who depended on cars had had to leave lots earlier, or not get home, because it required chains to go downhill from here (2500ft). This is my only day off this weekend. It was not supposed to snow today, just rain. It is supposed to snow tomorrow.

That's the other rule I learned during my years of working outdoors here: "If they say it will snow at this elevation, usually it won't. If they say it won't, often it will." That's been true both ways several times in the last 2 weeks.

But the "no such thing as normal weather" you ask? Well, you might think of "average" weather as normal. But here, average is made up of an El Niño year, and a La Niña year, and several drought years. There is no year in which we have weather equal to the average of all those.

In a drought year, we have lots of beautiful days in January & February, gardening weather. (We can't dig in our red clay soil when it's too wet, unless we want red clay bricks.) This year, we did have a couple of chilly sunny weeks before the snow started.

The year I moved here, it was too wet to garden every day off I had from mid-February though May (El Niño). The year my sister died in March, after I got back here, all of April was cold, snowy, hailing, not just the first few weeks. The apple trees didn't bloom until May, a month late.

No such thing as normal weather. But I miss my favorite days of the year, gardening weather in January & February.

This picture has been Photoshopped, but only to bring out what the eye can see that the camera doesn't; the brilliance of the Geranium blooming on the windowsill against the snow outside; the texture of the screen, pixellating the image; and the color of the trees in the snowy landscape.