When I came back into the house, I got my camera and was surprised that I was able to take pictures of the stars
One shooting star a minute I heard of the Geminid Meteor Shower. But half a waxing moon would brighten the sky till it set around 3 am, and it might be cloudy.
At 9 pm the sky was clear, the moon high above the big old birch tree. I was tired and thought I might sleep through the night, but I didn’t.
I woke up around 3:30 and had to pee. I put on my nightshirt and wool socks, I knew I was going out. I bundled up in my winter coat, hat and boots, then let Fate out of her crate.
Without the moon, the stars crowed the black sky.
I stood in the backyard looking up. Within seconds I saw the streak of light out of the corner of my eye. I looked up turning slowly, not wanting to miss the “next” one. I wasn’t disappointed.
As my eyes adjusted I walked into the barnyard towards the back pasture where up on the hill I’d have the best view of the sky. Fate followed me, but the donkeys and sheep stayed behind.
I hardly noticed, my focus was up.
The stars fell around me as I stood on the hill. Some blurs of light in my peripheral vision, others long slow lines directly in front of me.
All that activity should have made a noise, but I only heard the trickle of the creek on the other side of the fence. I thought of the silence of falling snow, the quiet of hundreds of thousands of bats as they fly out of Carlsbad Cavern every night.
I didn’t count shooting stars, I don’t know how many minutes I was out there watching them. It was long enough to remind me that while I sleep, the universe is still happening.
Maybe six years is long enough for my Monday Morning Videos. I seem to keep forgetting to put them up in the morning. Maybe there’s a message in that. But at least I remember to take the video….
Emily and I did our first Live Instagram video today. We had a couple of technical problems, but we were both happy with the way it turned out and want to do it again.
We talked about how our Zoom Studio chats began and how helpful they are to us and why.
Emily did a short collage demo using fabric in the beginning. One is a series of collage video’s she’s been doing for a few weeks now.
Towards the end we had a question from a viewer, and the sound went out on my voice. So Emily gave her some good advice, but I never had the chance to answer her.
Hazel asked what if you’re not creative or artistic but want the outlet of a creative hobby?
What I would have said is that I believe everyone has some creativity in them. It’s a matter of knowing yourself well enough to have a place to start experimenting. What I mean is that you have a sense of what you might like to do so there’s a place to be experimenting with mediums. The other thing is that whatever you do, enjoy it. The idea of playing is an important part of creating. Especially at the beginnings. And there are many beginnings in being creative.
My creativity takes many different forms now. But it didn’t when I first began. The more I do, the more ideas I have. One thing leads to another and the next….
If you’re on Instagram, you can see Emily’s and my live video here.
My Wool for sale in my Etsy Shop. 200 yards of 3 ply worsted. $27 + shipping. Gray, Blue, Teal, Rose and Black
I picked up my Spring Bedlam Farm Wool on Saturday at the Fiber Festival at the Washington County Fair Grounds. Deb from the Vermont Fiber Mill was there selling her llama wool and products and she brought my wool with her.
The natural gray wool and Blue wool come from Suzy and Lori. It’s the first time I’ve ever combined their wool and I see they make a lovely gray. That’s a mix of Romeny and Border Leicester.
Issachar’s natural black wool is soft and springy. Like Issachar, it’s a mix of Romney, Blueface Leicester, and Cormo.
The Teal and Rose are dyed over Biddy, Pumpkin, and Socks’ gray wool. A mix of Romney, Border Leicester and Cheviot.
The skeins of wool are all 200 yards of 3 ply worsted. They are $27 each + $5 shipping for one and $1 for each additional skein.
I’ll be using the roving from Kim, Liam, and Asher’s wool to make dryer balls. I have orders for about 55 dryer balls, so I’ll be busy working on those for the next few days. I should have enough for everyone who is on my preorder list from last year to get dryer balls this year.
Thank you, everyone. You did it. As of this evening, I have $130 to buy the quilt batting and backing sheets for the quilts for Bishop Maginn High School.
I washed four of the quilt tops today. A lot of old fabric and quilts don’t make it through the wash. And that’s something I need to know when I’m using vintage fabric. So washing the quilt tops serves two purposes, making sure they’re clean and making sure they can handle the washing machine.
Two of the four quilt tops came out fine. Two others were frayed and had some holes when I took them out of the wash. Three more of the quilts are handstitched and look fragile, so I won’t be using them.
But I went through the quilt tops that I had in my studio and found four that are machine-stitched and in very good condition. I’ll wash them tomorrow and then I’ll have a total of six quilts to bring to Sue and the kids at Bishop Maginn.
I found a couple of good deals on quilt batting, I’m just going to double-check my quilt sizes to make sure I get enough before buying it. Tomorrow I’ll also go through my stash of sheets and large pieces of fabric to see how much more fabric I’ll need for backings.
Thanks again to everyone who contributed to the batting for the quilts. Your donations have been a big part of making this happen.
Susan left the box on the front porch with a note saying she was glad that I could use the fabric and quilt tops in it or find good homes for them.
I didn’t know what to expect. I rarely do when people ask if they could send a package of fabric. Even if they tell me what they’re sending, it often turns out to be different than I thought.
The fabric was great, I knew I’d be able to use it, but the shopping bag of quilt tops really intrigued me.
They were in such good condition I knew I didn’t want to cut them apart. It seemed to me they should be made into quilts.
That’s when I thought of Sue Silverstein and the kids at Bishop Maginn. Sue had a great idea to make a quilt square using the masks from each of the kids at Bishop Maginn. Each quilt square would have a mask and something about the student who wore it.
Then they’d sew all the squares into a quilt.
That was before the Delta variant made it necessary for the students at Bishop Maginn to keep wearing their masks to class every day.
Unfortunately, Sue’s quilting idea will have to wait. But, maybe, I thought, we could put Susan’s quilt tops to good use.
So I asked Sue if I brought her the quilts already put together with backing and batting if some of her students could tie them off with yarn. Then she could give them to a few of the families who will need blankets this winter. Bishop Maginn has opened its doors to the refugees that will be coming to Albany from Afghanistan so there’s sure to be even more need than ever.
Sue loved the idea.
I still have to figure out how many quilts we’ll be making and how much batting we’ll need, but I know I’ll be buying at least one big roll of batting. Polyester batting would be perfect for filling these quilts. It’s warmer and more durable when machine washing than cotton.
I’ll also be looking for sheets or large pieces of fabric to use as backing. I just got two twin sized sheets in the thrift store in Bellows Falls this weekend (they were $2.00 each) but I’ll need more. So I’ll be scouring the thrift stores for inexpensive sheets in good condition too.
I’m asking for small donations of $5 and $10 to buy the batting and backing fabric.
Small donations let a lot more people participate. And the idea of a lot of people doing something small to create something big, is like each tiny stitch in a quilt.
I have received enough money to buy the quilt batting. Thanks so much to everyone who donated!
Any money that I receive beyond the cost of the batting and backing fabric will go to Sue to buy supplies for her art class.
You can donate through Paypal or venmo, just click here and please write the words quilt batting when you send the donation.
Or you can send a check to Full Moon Fiber Art PO Box 205 Cambridge NY 12816. And again just mention what the donation is for on the check or enveople.
And as usual, I’ll be sharing the whole process with you all, from washing the quilt tops to tying them off at Bishop Maginn.
Flo usually sits on top of the crate on the back porch. But this afternoon there was a wolf spider there instead. And she was holding onto a sac of eggs.
I thought maybe she was just passing through, looking for a good hideaway to have her babies, so was surprised when I came back a while later and she was still in the same spot.
It takes a wolf spider one to two weeks for her eggs to hatch, so maybe she was out looking for something to eat. Unlike spiders who make a web wolf spiders hunt for their prey. And a female will walk around carrying her egg sac, looking for food, and even making repairs to the sac if it rips.
I imagine the crate is a good place for a wolf spider to hatch her eggs. It has plenty of hiding places under and around it and both Minnie and Flo didn’t seem to mind her company.
But when I showed her to Jon, he uncharacteristically got concerned. “The chickens will eat her,” he said.
I like spiders and I don’t kill them when they’re in the house, but I also don’t like to pick them up. Especially a wolf spider who is protecting her eggs. So I got her to walk into an empty flower pot and from there she jumped onto the chair and stayed there. I made a little barrier around her with empty flower pots so the chickens wouldn’t see her, then I left her to her business and went about mine.
When I came home an hour later, the chair was on top of the table, surrounded by a barricade of succulents.
“Those chickens will jump up on the table to get her,” Jon said when I asked him about it.
Jon has evolved when it comes to spiders. He used to just kill them. In the past year or so, if one is in the tub (where they often are) he’ll ask me to get it out instead of killing it.
But this was a whole other Jon, worrying about a spider. He’s probably online right now looking for spider treats.
By now our wolf spider may have decided it’s too much trouble living on the back porch. Between the chickens trying to eat her and the humans building her a fortress, she may have decided to move on.
I hope not, I read that when the babies hatch the mother carries them around on her body for while till they’re old enough to go off on their own. I’d love to see that.
Sue Silverstein and Zinnia at Bishop Maginn Today. Y
“What are you thinking about?” Jon asks me as we make the turn from 787 onto Route 7. We’re on our way home from Albany where we met with Art and Theology teacher, Sue Silverstein and the principal of Bishop Maginn HighSchool, Mike Tolan.
Sue put up an Amazon Wish List for art supplies and books that the school needs. (The list sold out quickly, in just one day. Thank you all! )
Last year she couldn’t have in-school art classes because of Covid 19, so she sent her students home with all the art supplies she had. And the new English teachers is looking to expand their reading materials including books by Zora Neal Hurston and Sandra Cisneros.
Although the enrollment at Bishop Maginn has gone up since last year, the school still can’t afford some of the basics.
Bishop Maginn was able to partially open up last year during the pandemic in part because of the Army of Good. All of you donated enough money for them to buy what was required including social distancing signage and plexiglass barriers.
That’s when word got out that Bishop Maginn was a safe place in more ways than one. Not only was the staff able to keep kids safe from the virus, but the school’s reputation for making kids feel welcome and physically safe from bully and violence had spread.
But like many places in the country right now, gun violence is up in the city of Albany. And the kids who go to Bishop Maginn are feeling it.
Driving home I was thinking of the two kids that Sue told us about who saw one of the shootings. “They’re not the same anymore,” Sue told us. “They used to be happy just to come to school to get some special attention. Now they’re distant, angry.”
Life for so many of these kids is hard enough. To witness a shooting, especially in their own neighborhood is a trauma. I wonder how they’ll deal with it. Certainly, it’s good that the staff at the school knows about it. They will do what they can. But they can only do so much.
I couldn’t stop thinking of how the shooting those kids witnessed will affect their lives. In my mind I was going down the potentially troubled path they might travel because of it.
Back at that farm, everything is green and the sun is shining. It’s the safest place I can imagine, I feed Lulu a piece of bread and feel guilty for having so much.
“You can’t take it all in,” Jon tells me. “That’s why I try to do something good each day, even if it’s a little thing. And we are doing something. We’ll help get the kids the books and art supplies they need and make it a little easier for the teachers to do their jobs.”
With the help of teachers like Sue Silverstein, last year every student who graduated from Bishop Maginn and wanted to go to college was able to. And that can certainly make a difference in their lives.
So here I am, doing one small thing.
I’ll buy some paint or a book from Sue’s Wish List as well as spreading the word by writing about it. Because not only is it a good thing to do, but selfishly, I know it’s going to make me feel a little better.
I have no idea what will have to happen to stop the rise in gun violence around the country right now. But I do know that Bishop Maginn High School is a safe place for kids who live in the city of Albany NY, and we can at least do something to help keep it that way.
Today’s Barn raising at the Miller’s farm. Photo by Jon Katz
I almost expected them to break out into song. The Amish barn-raising was so well choreographed, the movement of men and boys never stopped. Like a dance, they all seemed to know just what to do, flowing from one task to the next seamlessly. The beat of their hammers was the music, the barn an evolving stage.
They stood on the first floor of the barn with their backs to us, dark blue pants, shirts faded to various shades of the same blue, and straw hats. I thought they were praying then they all bent over at the same time and up came the first bent, the east wall of the barn. Once it was standing, wedged into the grooves cut out to accept the posts, the hammering began.
We in the audience, stood on the hill watching.
More cars pulled up as the morning went on. Our friends Kim and Jack came with coffee and chairs as did many others.
“I feel a little guilty just sitting here watching, while they do all that work.” Kim said, “But I could go for one of their donuts.” A cup of tea and donut sounded good to me too. It was a cool morning. But I felt no guilt watching, just wonder at what I was seeing. I was grateful not to be swinging a hammer and hauling wood.
Jack offered me his chair and I sat next to Kim while Jon circled around taking pictures and talking to some of the other people who came to watch.
“Look,” Kim said, “how they swing that up.”
The older boys balanced on the top beams of the highest bents swinging “v” shaped lumber that had been nailed together, till the bottom of the “v” was over their heads. Then they nailed the first roof joists into place.
Again and again, we pointed out what was happening next. It was hard to keep up with them because while thirty men lifted a gable wall, on the other side of the barn men were getting ready to lift another bent.
The frame of the barn became the scaffolding and ladders the men climbed and balanced on to reach the places they needed to get to. All the wood was premeasured, ready to fit into place, like assembling a giant three-dimensional puzzle.
Lines were measured out on the siding and three nails were preset on each one. One plank at a time was handed to a man standing on a beam halfway up the wall. The bottom edge of the plank was set on a ledge just big enough to rest on. Then the man reached around the plank holding on with one hand and hammering the preset nails with the other.
The only tools I saw them use were hammers, hand saws, and ropes.
Boys big enough to wear a small toolbelt hauled rafters and drove the two draft horses pulling a wagon loaded with lumber. The even smaller boys played together, until someone asked them to bring a saw or gather up the scraps of wood in their wagon.
Sara showed up, holding the hands of three children even younger than her, but none of the women or older girls were there. When Jon and I dropped ice off earlier in the morning I saw the long tables set up in the kitchen where they would all be eating. I’m sure the women were busy cooking.
At some point during the day, the women and girls will also be hand quilting a quilt that Lena made. I hope to get to see that too.
Jon and I got to the site at 6:30 am, by 8:15 am all the wall bents were up, the rafters were on the roof, and they were putting the wood siding on the walls.
Once again, I was stunned by the way the Amish work together.
There were over fifty men working, and no one argued over how things should be done or who should be doing what. No one complained. The foreman set the agenda but other than his occasional shouts with directions, there was little talking.
Sitting in my studio I can still hear the sound of the hammers echoing from our neighbors building their barn up the road. I have no doubt that by the end of the day the siding will be up and the roof done.
It was stunning to see this barn come together with just manpower and hand tools. I think it’s the simplicity that makes it so beautiful. The whole thing from the building materials and construction, to how the work is actually done, as well as the interaction between the workers, is so direct, all right there for anyone to see.
And we did see it.
“I feel like we should be applauding,” Kim said. I agreed. It was a spectacular performance.
It was a glass sliding door with a screen. And the glass part was open just enough for one of the wolves to come through but the screen was closed. There were two brown wolves, showing their teeth on the other side of the screen.
A friend who I haven’t seen in a long time was visiting and she closed the door.
But I opened it again. I knew I should be afraid of the wolves but I wasn’t.
