turn turn turn

Life here at Acorn Cottage moves forward round the circle, with small signs of healing and repair poking through the detritus of daily life... In this season of spirit, here is music for cheer, both solemn, and silly, as you prefer, as well as a cartoon that stubbornly refuses to be embedded...

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/^-.-^\___}}
dog is on watch,
there is danger at the door

Saturday snippets

Canned the farmers market tomatillos, turned into salsa verde. Was very baffled to have fewer jars filled even though using half again as much as last year. Apparently, some tomatillos are more watery than others, and when cooked down, yield less. I'll have to see if the last farmers market of the year (this weekend) has any more, four jars is not enough for my pantry. There are still the plums, waiting in the freezer, to be turned into this years plum sauce. K brought me a dozen tiny 4 oz canning jars, my favorite size for condiments like salsa and savory sauces - I intend to send some of them back to their household filled with various treats...

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This has been a really social week here at Acorn Cottage. C from Olympia stayed here for three nights, which was a real treat; I rarely have that much time to visit with her when I am up in that neighborhood. There was a sushi dinner with our pals I and K one night, a trip to Ikea (in which our plucky heroine came home with not only another light to keep the other smoke alarm from chirping, but a nifty and not-spendy LED undershelf light, which, with a little work, will eventually grace the niche over the sink here, stay tuned for further developments...), and no Olympia visitor ever leaves our fair city without a trip to Powells. We both sold books for store credit, and I was astonishingly restrained and merely window shopped, C was able to find an excellent cheese making reference book to add to her library.

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Yesterday E met me at the Lan Su Chinese Garden, and we were most pleased to continue to explore how the changing seasons change the garden there. I was surprised to see how much was still in bloom, and sweetly scented! There were a few lingering gardenia blossoms, and two different osmanthus trees, one with white blossoms and one with orange.

As you approach the garden, decorative grillework set in the walls allows a glimpse of the world inside; the garden fills a whole downtown block, and mostly while inside you do not think about the surrounding city...

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Covered walkways of stone and carved wood, wind around the rooms and courtyards and bridges of the garden; archways beckon to another courtyard...

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leaves fall, and cover the reflected trees, while autumn color blazes bright against pebble mosaic paving

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Do look up, there are decorative details everywhere, these are some of the most interesting rooflines in the city... look down and see the lovely, October blooming toad lily... (does Acorn Cottage needs a toad lily or two for the shady front garden?)

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I have long wanted one of the Bella Luz luminettes, have admired her work during my years working at the Country Fair, and finally decided to treat myself to a little bit of night-time beauty. Really, is a small thing indeed, to be another bit of brightness both literally, and in many more subtle ways.

this moon face looks so peaceful

...here is how it looks between the cabinet and the sink
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Yesterday, before it rained, I raked the leaves from my front yard . My hand was tired, I had to rest a few times. But got the job done. I toted the piles of leaves to the leaf compost bin in the back yard, using the burden cloth made several years ago. Just a big square of canvas, with webbing loops in each corner; 'tis easier than lifting the leaves into a wheelbarrow, to just lay the cloth down near each pile and use the rake, then pick up the corners and carry the leaves that way. A real treat, to rake and scoop without hand pain. I woke in the night, wondering why my shoulders were so very sore; in the morning, remembered that labor which had not been possible for a long time now, and was happy to stretch and know that work will be more and more an option.

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/^-.-^\___}}
dog is on watch,
there is danger at the door

Grace is not my middle name

In the shadow world, I look tall. I am struggling to be at peace with the need to have surgical investigation, and my terror of deep anaesthesia. G wrote an amazing essay, ".....Waiting Patiently - a dog's tale"; I read it with tears running down my face, and remembered that Her Own Darling Self is waiting and watching out for me on the otherside, and that gives me an anchor, should they send me into the scarey dark alone, which is likely.

Today I began to wonder how much of my fear is being attached to being scared; while I do not have the happy confident faith in a benign reality that some do, it does seem like it could possible to surrender to necessity with a modicum of grace. I'll always be an information-gathering, suspicious/aware kind of gal, resistant to being pushed; yet somewhere somehow is a pathway to be found. (no way around this but through) This is not the road I looked for, but it is the one I am on. You'd think, after all these decades I'd have made peace with that as well, since that is, in a way, the yang to the yin of my choosing to build a life that makes sense to me, rather than the one that was prescribed....

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In more exterior news, some progress has been happening around the homeplace.

Meeting with the hand surgeon today, and my recovery has progressed far enough to allow a return to my former regularly scheduled work; this is a happy thing indeed, for all that I will miss the freedom to be social at will. Soon there will be time in the workroom, and time with the torch and the kiln, and sketches on the table (not to mention all the other jobs that were left undone these months both here and in other peoples houses) This is coming just in time, as the year turns towards wintertime, and the air gets colder both outdoors and inside, having some income again will be welcome indeed. Not to mention sewing and knitting and garden work in what some folks know as free time...

Sunday last, a trip to the King Farmer's Market, almost the last one for the year of the local markets. Not a lot came home with me, but a few pounds of local cornmeal, destined for Sister Gigi's Sweet Corn Cakes now and again, and a bag of tomatillos, destined to be turned into salsa verde and canned in small jars, to go with said corn cakes...

Tired I am of the mismatched and scant; there will be new curtains for the living room this winter. Ikea yielded up three indigo bedspreads, that are thicker than the current linen, with a textured almost handwoven look. When cut and hemmed to size, will be a much better choice. Not sure if there is fabric here suitable to line them with, but should some turn up at some point, 'twill be easy enough to add.

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/^-.-^\___}}
dog is uneasy,
looking at the door