Merry Christmas!

This pic is from the greenhouses at Buchart Gardens on Vancouver Island. There were prepping for the Christmas display.

Linda Lee's Scarf

Here's you scarf, Linda. I hope you like it! Give me a call at 415-533-7284 to let me know where to send it.

Merry Christmas!

Shoulda, Coulda, Woulda

I hate the shoulda-coulda-woulda's. I don't get them very often, but when I do, I really don't like it. I have a case of them today.

I entirely missed RENT in the theatres. It's been my favorite broadway show since it was an off-broadway show in the early 90s. It was recently turned into a movie, apparently not a very popular movie.

I shoulda seen it when it first came out.

I coulda been more dilligent about movie showtimes. I didn't see it in CA because I wanted to see it with Dad, who also loves it. We intended to see it on Wednesday, but it left Columbia on Tuesday. So, I'm in St. Louis before I pick up Mark and I intended to see it this afternoon, but it left St. Louis yesterday! Movie theatres don't really tell you when something's leaving.

I woulda enjoyed it.

This sucks. Wah.



Ok. I feel better now.

Meet Orson

Orson is our new cat!

He's an excellent hunter. Here, he's caught me taking his picture!

Oh Christmas Tree

This morning Dad and I picked up some fried chicken and headed out to the farm. Grandpa and I had a date to go find the Christmas tree. After fueling the chain saw and ensuring that it still worked, we set out in the new pickup over to Sandy Hook Farms to find our cedar. I liked the one on the edge of the ledge in the photo. Except for the mud being a little slick because of the light thaw, it was easy enough to get to. Grandpa cut it and I hoisted it to the truck.

In the last post's photo, you can see Dad and Grandpa in the background (behind the bob cat) fixing the tree for the stand. The tree is destined for the back porch because it makes too much of a mess in the house and Grandma doesn't want to clean after it. To trim it, we just put on lights and screwed the stand to the porch, so that it wouldn't blow over in the wind.

Meanwhile inside, Grandma decided to put a few ornaments on the potted tree in the living room. It's a little thing, so most of the ornaments (which are older than I am!) won't make it out of the box.

Worth a 1,000 words

This picture tells about a million stories. I hardly know where to begin. I'll just try and tell part of one.

I guess I'll start with the dead bobcat. Grandpa shot it last week with his cross-bow. It's properly tagged. It's frozen and hanging by the screen door on the back porch, which considering that the average high temperature in the last week has been 31 degrees, is just as effective as the freezer.

There are bobcats around because there are rabbits around. There are rabbits around because the river bottoms that my Grandpa used to farm were bought by the MO Dept. of Conservation for, well, conservation after the 1993 flood. The 1993 flood was a five hundred-year flood, because it only happens about that often. It was big. It broke huge holes in the levees and damaged a lot of good farmland. It brought in the "asian" carp, aka the jumping fish, and "Conservation".

Conservation let the Marion Bottoms grow up into woods, an area that the river can go into anytime it needs to. With the growth of woods, there has been a proliferation of mushrooms, rabbits, bobcats, mountain lions, otters, deer, coyote and, finally, bears. The wealth of game has brought hunters, who go into the bottoms, and get frustrated by the thick undergrowth of the young forest. They're out in the country and they see all of the surrounding area, which is great for hunting, but it's on private land, so they trespass. They shoot from the road. They're not safe or polite.

So, back to the bobcat on the back porch. Well, bobcats aren't endangered anymore, so they're fair game. Grandpa was out in his blind last week with his cross-bow hunting wild turkeys. He shot twice and missed, which is unusual. He's been hunting all of his life and has deadly accuracy. But he's old. His shoulders don't really work anymore. He can't lift them high, so maybe aiming isn't as easy as it once was. One arrow, though, when he went to retrieve it, had leg feathers from the turkey on it. So, he was close.

He may not have gotten a turkey, but the bobcat came right across his path. He wasn't sure he'd gotten it, but the trail of blood led him and his loyal dog, Lady, to where it had been killed. This, at first thought, can easily seem revolting. I always have a gut jerk reaction when I see a beautiful creature that has died. But I know that my Grandfather does not kill indiscriminately. I know he values the health and life on and of land much more than I can realize in my own life. If he kills something, he has a reason. I have to trust that and listen to his stories to see what that might be. For most game, it's easy. We eat it. But bobcats we don't eat, so I'm still learning about this.

I know enough to not ask directly what that reason might be. When I ask, I'm interpreted as attacking because I'm a city-dwelling environmentalist, which can be a dirty word out here. I'm in with the city-slickers who think they know better than someone who's been living from the land for 70 years. It doesn't work well when we go in and tell them what to do, even if we may have a better way, or at least something that may improve the situation. And oftentimes our understanding, from the desks in town, is a simplified or partial understanding of nature's fragile balance, and can genuinely, if unintentionally, mess things up. We have to close our text books, shut our mouths, and listen to the people who are stewards.

This lesson has been a long time in learning for me. I just hope that I can be around enough to earn their trust and learn their stories. I often have to swallow a big humility pill and bite my tongue hard, but I'm sure it will be worth it. People who love the land as much as my Grandparents do have a lot to teach, if I'm willing and present to learn. Maybe then, I can make my contribution to it.

Exiles

"Dozens of exiles were back, including some whom their families weren't expecting because they'd said they weren't coming, couldn't come, were sorry but it was just out of the question. But Christmas exerts powerful forces. We turn a corner in a wretched shopping mall adn some few bars of a tune turn a switch in our heads and gates open and tons of water thunder through Hoover Dam , the big turbines spin, electricity flows, and we get in our car and go back, like salmon."

-Garrison Keillor, Leaving Home, page 182

I'm not getting in a car, but I am getting in a plane to go back to Missouri. For the first time in several years for Christmas. Grandpa and I will find the right tree. I'll untangle the lights. We'll have Christmas Eve at Grandma's. But other than that, I don't really know what to expect.

For Women Who Have Something to Get off Their Chests

If you're not already familiar with the magazine Bust, you're missing out! Not only is it a great glossy mag for the feminist, hip chick (and their fans), this month it features St. Louis in the travel column. They did a good job. They put in Left Bank Books, Ted Drewes and the City Museum.

(Thank you, Jen!)

MadeByVelma.com

Check it out!

Thrills! Intrigue! Suspense! Mystery!

The Neverending Story (at age 7)
The Matrix
ER
Law and Order
Harry Potter and the Socerer's Stone

and most recently...

Lord of the Rings

I've never been good at watching any sort of suspenseful, scary or violent movie. Mark knew this, but only now, is he realizing the extent to which I am affected ... or the extent to which I let myself be affected. It's not very pretty. I close my eyes. My heart races. I get hot flashes and then the chills. And, if it's too close to bedtime, nightmares.

I've said I can't help it. But I can. I have with many other things - like living, for instance. Living is risky. There's driving, eating, riding a bike, sex, listening to the news. Dangerous stuff! And I've never been much of a voluntary risk taker or thrill seeker. That is definitely an arena where I've had to push my boundaries.

And it may be time for me to push them far enough to include ... (insert dark, moody music here) ... scary movies. Because, Mark quite likes scary movies, and, yes, some of the are good stories. Like the Lord of the Rings, for instance. I was so scared by the first one, though, I've never watched the last two. I didn't particularily enjoy the orcs in my dreams. But we're watching them now, in hour installments. We're still only on the first movie (extended version).

Mark hates the idea of watching the ending first, which, on occasion, really does cut the suspense for me and allow me to enjoy the movie with a fairly moderate adrenalin level. Not watching them is less of an option. So, any other advice on how to enjoy scary movies? Don't keep me in suspense here!

Scarves

In the last several days, I have made 21 recycled sweater scarves. Want one? They're a mere $20.

Balboa and Binding

I just finished the quilt for Nanette! You'll have to wait for pics, because I'm down at her place in Mountain View and I don't have the camera umbilical cord. But, I can tell you it's beautiful and looks great with her living room. I had to take a few minutes to remember how to get started on the binding, but it went quickly after that. I always dread the binding because it has to be done my hand and it always seems so slow.

In the past two weeks, I've been on a creative frenzy. I've made 9 recycled sweater scarves, three knitted scarves, two quilted blankets, one quilt top and two more quilts. Whew.

So, I'm spending a few days down on the Peninsula. That means I don't have my sewing machine with me. As I was leaving this morning, I was having small fits of seperation anxiety. I think I'm over it now. I can get by the next few days with just making a few scarves. Plus, this may give me a chance to do some of the photo sorting I've been putting off for a month or so.

I went into Eddie's Quilting Bee tonight to get more needles and thread, which happened to be on sale today and today only. I love it when that happens. Eddie's is where Andi and I took our first quilting class. It's where I won the embroidery machine in the holiday raffle two years ago. It's a place of color and inspiration. They may not have the most expansive selection of batiks (that's the shop in Corvalis), but they have one of the best collections of colored/patterned fabrics for quilting. So, beautiful.

It is VERY challenging to leave there without buying a little fabric. But. I did. I took a deep breath and pictured the six drawers and three shelves of fabric I have back at the loft. I remembered the five or six more quilts I already have the materials for. And I left. I came back and finished the binding on Nanette's quilt. I'd needed the thread.

For the past twenty minutes, I was swinging and sliding around her condo. (She's not home. Had a mandatory business meeting. Which is good because I wanted to get her quilt finished before she saw it.) I'm listening to big band and swing music on her cable, because even with several hundred channels, nothing good is on. And listening to big band music makes my feet slide and my body swing. Can't help it. There are no curtains yet on her windows, though. Oh well.