between the rains

For weeks, it seems plants have been waiting for the sun.

The jewelweed, usually knee-high or maybe waist-high, is over my head in places - 

but has barely bloomed at all.

Even the stalwart anise hyssop has not been creating its usual sea

of bee-dizzying purple flowers.

And so many blueberries are still green or a bit red,

hanging on, waiting to ripen.

But now...

we've had a bit of sun, and the purple of anise hyssop

and the orange of jewelweed are beginning to appear.

The first few Chelone buds are opening:

Today is the third day in a row that we've had little or no rain, just a light rainfall during the night, or a passing shower in the afternoon.

It's been glorious, and I have been spending the entire day outside, including hours each day spent lounging around in the little screentent that is temporarily set up on the deck of the barn. Listening to audiobooks, markmaking, spending quality time with Moxie and Della, enjoying visits from the goats and the hens, and watching the clouds pass slowly over the treetops in a rare blue sky.

Of course there have been the usual chores throughout the day, plus the "extras" of shifting goats around in various groups so everyone can have peaceful access to the Pocket Paddock - inaccessible during wet weather - where a bittersweet and forsythia browsing opportunity awaits. But I've certainly not been knocking myself out with labor the past few days.

And - full disclosure - I'm alright with that.

~~~~~

update

Future rafters and roof sheathing on Aug 12th:

Same stack today:

(By the way, this is what $420-worth of roughcut pine looks like.)

I was hoping my next post - that is, this one - would include pictures of a barn with a roof. Unfortunately, we've had many, many rainy days and AM has injured his back - not while working here, I'm relieved to say - so there's been zero progress on the barn repair.

AM is not the kind of person who needs to be called and nudged. He's the kind of person who likes to get stuck right into a job at the earliest opportunity. So if I don't see him on a wonderful day of Not Raining, I know he's either still having a tough time with his back - which I very much hope is not the case - or else he's feeling better but trying to catch up on the backlog of work that piled because of his injury.

Either way, there's nothing I can do but wait. Fingers crossed.

Meanwhile, we all know better than to waste the precious days when the sun is shining.

(l-r) Sambucus, Campion, and Violet, in front of one of three 2nd-hand calf hutches purchased as emergency shelters on 6 April)

The forecast here is for a rainless weekend, so I expect to spend most of it outside. I hope your weekend is just as sunny or rainy as you need it to be.

~~~~~

here we go

'Deduccion loable,' from Les douze dames de rhétorique, 1463. 

Cambridge University Library MS. Nn.3.2, fo.36 verso.

drawing august

Drawing August 2024 proceeds apace.

blueberries in fluted glass

There is a special nugget of gratitude in my heart for the creators and encouragers of the annual twitter event that I took a first wobbly crack at in 2014.

Drawing every day for a month did not come naturally; during decades as a photographer I never considered myself a draw-er. But now Drawing August is folded effortlessly into what became, on 1 January 2018, my Daily Markmaking practice. 2024 is my 7th year of continuous Daily Markmaking, and it's been a discipline and a respite and an anchor.

from Petrie's photograph of an alabaster vessel fragment,
tomb of Amenhotep III

And fun. Even the night last week when, just as I reached for the sketchbook, the power went out during yet another storm. On my laptop screen was a photograph I had intended to use as the basis for a line drawing: a salt print of the Temple at Dendur taken in 1851. In situ; way back before the temple ended up in New York City.

When the power went out there was just enough of a glow from the laptop screen that drawing seemed possible, but when I started with my micron pen, I could barely see the lines. So I fumbled around in the dark for my one felt-tip drawing pen and eventually found it in the third of the three bean cans that hold my pencils, pens, and brushes. (In case you think there is one can for each category, I can only say that would make a lot of sense.)

Anyway, the fat line of felt-tip was much more visible, so at least there was something on the paper, even if not the detailed line drawing as planned.

So far there have only been two or three days in August when the weather made outdoor markmaking a good idea. Or even a do-able idea. Those opportunities have not been squandered. I've put a little temporary screen tent "studio" on the deck of the former barn, and of course there are trees in every direction so plenty of inspiration. Some of the trees have been sketched multiple times over the years, from different vantage points. Sometimes I think a person could draw from the same tree every day for a lifetime, and never be finished. Or unchallenged.

massive red oak 

~~~~~

adventures in oatmeal

Since at least last December, my day has started with oatmeal. 

Sometimes it's at 6 or 7 AM. If it's later than 7 when I get on my feet, I'll go out and greet the sky and start chores before breakfast.

Sometimes my day starts at 2 or 3 AM, when I can't get back to sleep due to some sort of discomfort and finally throw in the towel and embrace the morning.

Even at 2 AM, the oatmeal is a cheering start.

Of course there's been some experimentation over the past 8 months or so. At first I owned only one bowl, my favorite handmade ceramic bowl, that was the right size for creating a bowl of porridge instead of a microwave volcano. Eventually an etsy/eBay search for a second bowl began. I was struggling to justify spending thirty dollars plus shipping for another ceramic bowl when I had the great good luck to discover a clear glass bowl that is just the right size and which I genuinely like. At a local dollar store. For $1.25. I now own eight of them. Yes, friends, I am a wealthy woman, shamelessly reveling in an abundance of bowls.

After some playing around with cooking times and added ingredients, the foundation has been: oatmeal, water, and 1/6 cup of cashew pieces. The usual additions are either milk or butter, and brown sugar. When I've got diced ginger left over after making water kefir, I add that and leave out the milk or butter. When I had a jar of Chyawanprash herbal jam from India, I added a little spoonful of that and nothing else.

When I have fresh fruit, I use less sugar:

Had to pretty much go swimming to reach these blueberries.
It was worth it!

You know that phrase people use..."I was today years old when I learned [insert simple/obvious fact here]" ?

Well I was this many oatmeal packets old when I learned that it's much better to add the sugar after cooking, not before.

Each packet held 2 pounds of rolled oats.

Initially I added the sugar before cooking, so it would be distributed throughout all the oats as the water was absorbed. Rational, right? Or did everybody but me know that porridge actually tastes sweeter when the sugar is on the oats, not in the oats? Which makes sense. Now.

Do you have a favorite morning ritual, food or otherwise?

~~~~~

bye july

A view from the deck of the barn as the next downpour began.

If there was a single theme running through the month of July, it may have been sweat. So many thunderstorms and so much excessive heat. And even on the rainless days, and the occasional day of reasonable temps for July, the constant, enveloping, stultifying humidity. Like walking into a sauna. Like breathing through a steaming towel. Every single day, several times each day, sweat would literally run down my face as I walked slowly through the paddocks, drip into my eyes as I leaned to pick up an empty feed pan, and saturate my hair before I returned to the house, threw my wet jeans and shirt into the dryer for a few minutes, and blotted my hair with a towel.

If this sounds like a lot of whining, I'm sorry - I don't feel that way about it. It's just been my reality. And the goats' reality as well. With added mosquitoes. I try to provide a high quality of life for all the animals, and there's no way around it: July has been rough. 

I feel so much concern for the people in other places who are desperate for rain. For people from places that are literally on fire. Again. Situations that are totally beyond our control, and which affect our lives in very real ways.

I think people generally become accustomed to the rhythms and range of weather patterns in a place where they have lived for a long time, and do their best to prepare for expected events and even occasional extreme events - hurricanes in my neck of the woods, for example. Maybe there's an unusually dry summer which raises the threat of fire. Or maybe there's a huge storm that causes local flooding and washes out a road or bridge. But now it seems the extremes and "hundred-year" events just keep coming, on and on, one after another, year after year. Have the extremes become the norm?

Well. When I began writing, I had intended to simply post a few of my Daily Markmaking sketches from July, which was World Watercolor Month. But starting out with that first painting of rain through the trees kind of sent me off on a tangent. Yikes. 

I'll close with a few watercolors of trees without rain:

Here's hoping August will be kind to all of us.

~~~~~