Take Joy!

For Monday

Why are you waiting
    to begin your life?
Do you think the world must care
    and come soliciting?
Listen to the knocking
    at the door of your own heart
It is only faint because
    you have not answered
You have fooled yourself
    with preparations
Time left laughing
    while you considered possibilities
Wake up
    you  have slept long enough
Wake up
    tomorrow may be too late
When you finally dare open the door
    your life will begin arriving
Cautiously at first
    unbelieving that the gate
So long locked against the tide
    has finally been opened
Then with swells
    of neglected dreams
Then with waves of joyful revelation
    the sea will follow
You will be swept by the full
    and magnificent tides
    of your own longing
That no one else can give you
    That no one else can claim

            —Judith Gass (from Life Prayers, ed. by Elizabeth Roberts and Elias Amidon)

A Guilty Exit . . .

"No matter what you think you saw, it wasn't me who bit the tops off all the catnip plants! No, sir! Not me!!

"But I'll be leaving now, anyway. If you put any more catnip plants out, just call me. I'll be on top of the truck in the sun."

Hangin' Out

Things we have growing . . .

Just out of curiosity (and because I ought to be outside weeding, but it's hot and icky), I decided to make a list of things that are growing here, either planted or discovered by us. In no particular order at all:

Vegetables
Potatoes (several kinds)
Peas
Corn
Okra
Beans (several kinds; mostly greasy cut-shorts, but some bush beans too)
Spinach
Lettuce (leaf & head,several varieties)
Radishes
Beets
Carrots (not doing well; we may give these up)
Cauliflower
Broccoli
Brussels sprouts
Peppers (sweet and hot)—some in the garden, but most in empty cat litter containers on the warm side of the house
Celery
Cutting celery in pots (I dry the leaves for winter use in soups and whatnot)
Celeriac
Garlic
Onions
Asparagus
Rhubarb
Tomatoes (again, in the garden and in pots)
Cucumbers (most in the garden, but I have a couple of buckets with bush cucumbers in them)
Mustard greens
Chard
Japanese greens (several kinds)
Summer Squash
Zucchini
Winter Squash (various kinds)
Melons
Jerusalem artichokes
Ramps
Cardoons

Flowers/flowering shrubs/ornamentals
Flowering almond
Spirea
Pyracantha (firethorn)
Lilac
Gladiolus
Crocosmia
False indigo
Zinnias
Marigolds
Heirloom roses (a polyantha, two apothecary roses, a rosa mundi, and an 18th-century double white)
Mexican marigolds
Hostas
Mexican sunflowers
Sunflowers
Dyer’s chamomile
Cowslips
Daylilies
Peonies
Tree peonies
Spiderwort
Thrift
Candytuft
Phlox
Shasta daisies
Sneezeweed
Tiger lilies
Leopard lilies
Oriental lilies
Coreopsis (tickseed)
Four o’clock
Morning glory
Columbine
French mulberry (beautyberry)
Foxglove (the large tame variety and the smaller wild ones)
Iris
Bleeding heart
Lilies of the valley
Violets
Brown-eyed susan
Moss roses
Petunias
Lantana
Dogwood
Redbud
Dames rocket
Cleome
Shooting star
Lungwort
Galax
Hepatica
Wood betony
Geranium
Scented geraniums
Spider plant
Ferns (various)
Azaleas
Rhododendrons
Pansies
Violas
Asparagus ferns (inside)
Moonvine
Nasturtiums
Butterfly bush
Hyacinths
Mayapples
Daffodils
Bloodroot
Trilliums
Virginia bluebells
Dianthus (several sorts)
Lunaria (money plant)
Nicotinia (flowering tobacco)
Begonias
Annual daisies
Persian carpet (something new; it’s an annual, it’s purple, and I just liked it)
Lithodora
Turk’s cap lilies
Species tulips
Lupins
Something blue and spiky that I’ve forgotten the name of, but I planted it last  year
Russian sage
Crocus
Daffodils
Tulips
Astilbe
Clematis
Geums
Grape hyacinths
Siberian iris
Louisiana iris
Autumn cyclamen
Spotted dead nettle
Sedum (the tall one that has red flowers in the fall)
Hen and chicks
Verbascum (purple-throated mullein)
Something that is obviously from a bulb, but I have no idea . . . it’s small, pretty and blue.
Another thing that has claret-colored leaves and tiny pink flowers on a stalk, that I planted but cannot for the life of me remember the name of.
Something else that looks like a peony but isn’t, and that no one remembers planting.

Herbs
Boneset
Catnip
Borage
Catmint
Soapwort
Marsh mallow
Thistle (the huge one the goldfinches love)
Fuller’s teasel
Milk thistle
Sage
Aloe
Oregano
Anise hyssop
Pineapple sage
Parsley
Lavender
Lemongrass
Queen Anne’s lace
Chicory
Rosemary
Costmary
Dandelion
Beebalm
Valerian
Comfrey
Lemon verbena
Chinese orchids
Garlic mustard
Evening primrose
Fleabane
Santolina
Woad
Rue
Pennyroyal
Motherwort
Hops
Butterfly weed (pleurisy root)
Elecampane
Goldenrod
Basil (several sorts: Genovese, Thai, lime, and some oddments; i.e., what came up out of ancient package of assorted basils. I usually grow a couple of African blue basils, but I didn't see any this year.)
Tulsi (holy basil)
St. John’s wort (the wild medicinal and the tame bush)
Southernwood
Wormwood
Other artemisias (silver king and silver queen)
Apple mint
Mugwort
Yarrow
Red clover
Clary sage
Pokeweed
Horehound
Purple basil
Peppermint
Julep mint
Beebalm
Orange mint
Ginger mint
Chives
Garlic chives
Thyme
Lemon thyme
Nettles
Sweet woodruff
Skullcap
Tansy
Echinacea
Lemon balm
Plantain
Dock
Sorrel
Burdock
Feverfew
Lamb’s ear
Mullein
Lady’s mantle
Our lady’s bedstraw
Lobelia
Horseradish

Fruit/nuts
Apple
Crabapple
Apricot
Bush cherries
Persimmon
Peach
Chestnut
Fig
Hickory
Black walnut
Cherry
Grapes
Strawberries
Blueberries (not bearing yet; I think they need more sun)
Black raspberries
Blackberries
Wineberries
A couple of tiny huckleberry bushes, with actual berries on them!

Plus the chickens/turkeys/guineas, and the goats, and William . . .

Eeeww! That's Ugly!

The charming Ysabeau voices her opinion of my current sewing project . . .

Wordless Wednesday

Read This . . .

“When Columbus got off the boat, he asked us who we were. We said we’re the Human Beings, we’re the People. Conceptually the Europeans didn’t understand that, it was beyond their conceptual reality. They didn’t see us. They couldn’t see who we were. Historically speaking, we went from being Indians to pagans to savages to hostiles to militants to activists to Native Americans. It’s five hundred years later and they still can’t see us. we are still invisible. They don’t see us as human beings, but we’ve been saying to them all along that’s what we are. We are invisible to them because we are still the Human Beings, we’re still the People, but they will never call us that. They taught us to call ourselves Indians, now they’re teaching us to call ourselves Native Americans. It’s not who we are. We’re the People. They can’t see us as human beings. But they can’t see themselves as human beings. The invisibility is at every level, it’s not just that we’re tucked away out of sight. We’re the evidence of the crime. They can’t deal with the reality of who we are because then they have to deal with the reality of what they have done. If they deal with the reality of who we are, they have to deal with the reality of who they aren’t. So they have to fear us, not recognize us, not like us. The very fact of calling us Indians creates a new identity for us, an identity that began with their arrival. Changing identity, creating a new perceptual reality, is another form of genocide. It’s like severing a spiritual umbilical cord that reaches into the ancestral past. The history of the Indians begins with the arrival of the Europeans. The history of the People begins with the beginning of the history of the People. The history of the People is one of cooperation, collectivity, and living in balance. The history of the Indians is one of being attacked and genocide, rather than a history of peace and balance. The history of the People under attack, the Indians, in an evolutionary context, is not very long, it’s only five hundred years. The objective of civilizing us is to make Indian history become our permanent reality. The necessary objective of Native people is to outlast this attack, however long it takes, to keep our identity alive.”

- John Trudell, Santee Sioux (from People of Color Organize, via Towanda's Window)

Darla, Blissed Out

 

Look! I have actually been doing things!!

. . . besides planting and weeding, that is. But the spring planting rush is pretty much over (except for some things that I meant to plant and didn't because the seeds got misplaced, but that I will probably plant anyway just to see what happens, and except the twenty-some woad plants sitting in pots waiting for me to put them in the ground, and except the seventeen cat-litter containers which have been repurposed as pepper-growing containers and which are all planted and need staking, and except the marigolds which were planted late and are not quite ready to go into the ground yet, and except the . . . ).

Well, OK, it isn't really OVER, but things have paused for the moment because it's in the 90s outside, so any yardwork I do has to be finished by ten in the morning, after which I plop myself in front of a fan with a big glass of water and wait for evening when I can go out and do little bit more. Not conducive to accomplishing much, but better than heat stroke.

At any rate, the yard is a glorious jungle of growing, flowering things, we have new bees and new chicks (except that a weasel killed half of them, so there are a few more on the way), the potato bugs have been [I hope permamently, but probably not] vanquished, and I have actual pictures of all this (except the dead chickens and the potato bugs), as soon as I remove them from the camera . . . if it stays hot long enough, I shall be miserable but I may possibly get semi-caught-up.

I have, however, finished the six scarves pledged to the Shannon School District (on the Pine Ridge Reservaton) preschool fall drive, and I do have pictures of them.

All made from wool that I was either given or had lying about (i.e., leftover from other things or not used as planned). The ones in the middle are the Lakota tribal colors (or so I'm informed).

This sweater went to afghans for Afghans just-finished campaign; it will be up on my Ravelry project page as soon as I find the pattern I used, which is apparently stored in a safe place . . .

Now you see from whence came the top two scarves . . . this is Patons' Classic Wool, in colors that I'm not really all that crazy about, but what do I know? Someone will like them.

And there's this blanket, which will go to the Rankin Inlet Daycare through Warm Hands. It's acrylic, which I don't enjoy working with, but I seem to have rather a lot of it for someone who doesn't use it much . . .

I have enough acrylic for two more, at least. (Unfortunately, acrylic is nasty to work with when it's hot!)

I also have a scarf for John mostly-finished, in Cherokee colors; I only have to order some purple for the lettering. And a sweater for him out of Lion Fisherman Wool, in a lovely somber brown with tweedy stripes here and there.

But for now, I need to put the finishing touches on my damselfly (which should have been mailed yesterday, but obviously wasn't . . . ) and make some bread, because I'd like to have a grilled cheese sandwich for supper and we are currently breadless—other than ancient raisin bread, which is not what I have in mind!