fine twined linens

My mother has given me many things, including:

                       these legs                                      and good taste in textile design

also,                 these sweet Pumas                         and this gorgeous new duvet cover

which were exactly what I wanted for my birthday.

Plus, she threw in the matching shams and coordinating sheets, AND two surprises:

How adorable is that?

Not to mention a plethora of throw pillows (she made the black&white covers herself).

Thanks, Mom!

(Now it's about time for me to crawl into that stylish bed. 'Night!)

21: replenish

I suddenly want to be a farmer.

I have been reading The Omnivore's Dilemma, Michael Pollan's fascinating exploration of our nation's industrial food system and some possible alternatives. Representing the alternative in food production, Joel Salatin attained something akin to rockstar status once he was featured in Pollan's book in 2006.

Mr. Salatin spoke at Stanford on Thursday evening. Several hundred people turned out to hear him, and he did not disappoint. Certainly no country bumpkin, he is clearly a very intelligent man who is entirely devoted to (a stance which includes motivation by love) his farming by smart and unconventional (oddly, most conventional methods in this country are simply counterintuitive) methods. Plus, he is a thoroughly entertaining speaker (not to mention inspirational, even though that sounds kind of cheesy).

A self-described "Christian libertarian capitalist environmentalist lunatic," Salatin is the owner of Polyface Farms in rural Swoope (pronounced swope, with a long o), Virginia. His "beyond organic" farm is grass-based and thrives on naturally-evolved interspecies relationships. He calls it allowing chickens to express their chickenness, pigs to express their pigness, and so on. As descriptors of Polyface, words like holistic, circular, and sustainable join the ranks of idyllic, pastoral, and communal.

As a Christian, Salatin believes that his mission is to be a steward of the land and to return it to its Garden of Eden state. 

There are plenty of good reasons why people of faith ought to be conscientious of the way they treat the earth and all its inhabitants, including humans of course, but also all other forms of life. I remember attending an excellent lecture with Julie in our freshman year of college. Professor George Handley spoke about LDS perspectives on environmental stewardship. I don't remember any specifics now, but I do remember getting a general impression that I might articulate as "Duh, why don't more people see how much sense this makes? The gospel + environmentalism = resonance." I really ought to write more about this another day; I think it's just one facet of how the gospel can be applied, as we like to say, to everyday life, and with eternal consequence for good. (I just discovered this LDS Earth Stewardship website; will be checking it out and likely reporting on it here later.)

Mr. Salatin reports that, based on the demographics of current U.S. farm owners, about 50% of the nation's farms will change hands in the next 10-15 years. Somehow I find that really exciting. Without too much imagination, I can see myself in a decade or so farming a nice green patch of land in the central valley, perhaps. Maybe you'd like to purchase the farm adjacent and we can be neighbors as we return to our agricultural heritage and commune with the land and its creatures?

(photo: turkeys at Polyface, by Spicy Bear)

13: crawl

It's raining again, like it was last night.

When I left home this morning, though, it was not raining. Walking through the courtyard toward the street, I nearly stepped on a six-inch long earthworm that had ventured out to check out the sunshine while the pavement was still wet, I suppose. I don't really know why worms appear on the surface after it rains: maybe to escape underground flooding? Anyway it's a delicate balance, it seems, since they dry up if they stay out in the sun too long. I've seen the evidence. Can you imagine living in a body so fragile that it would shrivel up completely after, say, a day at the beach or an afternoon in the park? And that's it. No more earthbound wanderings.

I remember tiptoeing up and down the long driveway in front of our house, dodging the scores of worms that would wriggle across the black pavement after a summer rainstorm. I was always really sad to see one that had dried up, and sometimes I would whisper to the others that they should be careful and go back home soon. On other days I might look more closely at this same terrain and see a single ant trudging along, and for some reason I found it fascinating to watch how it reacted when I placed my foot directly in its path. Ever tenacious, it always set immediately upon an alternate route.

In the fall I would gather helicopters—maple seedpods—by the armful and release them (the higher the starting point, the better) just to see them whirl ecstatically toward the ground. A related hobby was exploring the beds of impatiens (of which we had tons when I was very little) and popping the seedpods. They have a sort of rubbery, elastic epidermis, and when they are good and ripe, they have inflated like little balloons that, at the lightest touch or gentlest squeeze, burst and curl up on themselves. It was always so satisfying to play a part in that transformation. I could entertain myself for hours with these simple activities, micro-interactions with nature, just outside my front door.

Sometimes I miss that purity.

(photo credit: ian boyd)

avian drifters

[natural bridges state beach, santa cruz, california]

That's right, it's Skywatch Friday again (where did the week go?)! Check out the views here.

sky of eighteen winters

Lake Kittamaqundi, Columbia, Maryland

26 December 2008

and the boxcar goes to...

Thanks to all of you who participated in the first ever etxerantz balderdash contest. It was fun to see what you came up with, and many of your answers made me laugh. Out loud. Repeatedly. In a manner that might have been embarrassing had anyone been around to hear it.

It was not easy to choose the winners. But I said that I would, so here we go:

First of all, a bonus point goes to Kim for cross-bread. I don't know about you, but whenever I go to the grocery store I see a number of products that easily fall into the category of cross-breads. Sprouted wheat sourdough with flaxseed, anyone?

Honorable mention goes to Mac for his definition of mysteriopus: 

/mi steeree ō'pəss/ n - a large cat-like carnivorous dinosaur from the Late Cretaceous period whose method of hunting involved spreading mud on the upper part of its face and around its eyes in order to paralyze its prey with suspense. [etymology 'unknown']

Honorable mention goes to Vanessa for both of her entries. Although I had to disqualify mysteri.opus on the grounds that it was not a clearly circumscribed definition, it deserves comment because (1) the film in question might be a good example of a mysteriopus, as Vanessa implies (i.e., a work—in this case, a film—focusing on a mystery), (2) that scene always makes me laugh, and (3) it was uncannily appropriate in light of the fact that when I saw Vanessa's answers I happened to have just finished reading And Then There Were None, which continually made me think of—and want to watch—the movie Clue. 

Vanessa's second definition:

lanudary=wool milk

kind of makes me gag, but it was too charmingly nerdy in its etymological literalness to ignore.

First prize goes to Claire for her definition of mysteriopus:

a many legged (and therefore footed) creature whose leg count has yet to be determined by science.The centipede and millipede look practically footless in comparison.

And the grand prize goes to FoxyJ for her definition of lanudary:

what happens when you need to do laundry but have no clean clothes to wear while doing it; hopefully this doesn't happen in a public place.

The winners do not really get boxcars. Sorry. I know that would be cool. Mostly I picked that word because I like it and it sounds a little like Oscar. FoxyJ wins a Librarian Action Figure with Amazing Push-button Shushing Action (not in its original packaging, but like new. includes stack of accessory books and trading card). Claire wins the pleasure of my company in Toronto, probably sometime in March. Okay, so that was going to happen anyway. I'll bring some other prize, too. I don't know what yet, so it'll be a sur-prize. You honorable mentionees, well, you win all the glory that comes with being mentioned honorably on my blog. 

Thanks for playing, everyone, and Merry Christmas! Look out for the dangers of public lanudary and lurking mysteriopuses.

'Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the edifice

not a creature was stirring, not even a mysteriopus...