Not Inclined to Experiment

Eggplant

“I thought to have finished with peppers.  But peppers never repeat themselves:  shells, bananas, melons, so many forms are not inclined to experiment — not so the pepper, always excitingly individual.”
– Edward Weston, Daybooks

When I photograph vegetables I cannot help but think of Edward Weston’s peppers.  They are so curvy and sensuous.  (You can see his pepper photos here and here and here.)  I recently bought an eggplant, and I love its rounded shape.  But photographing it is a challenge, as it starts to look simply bullet-shaped.  I think eggplant must be one of those forms that are “not inclined to experiment.”

It looks more interesting on fabric folds.

Close-up focusing on the greenish cap

Another view

Watercolor sketch of eggplant

 

Thoreau Thursdays (43): The Granary of the Birds

“Shall I not rejoice also at the abundance of the weeds whose seeds are the granary of the birds?”
– Henry David Thoreau, Walden

Weeds, reeds, and seeds

“We are wont to forget that the sun looks on our cultivated fields and on the prairies and forests without distinction . . . In his view the earth is all equally cultivated like a garden.”
– Henry David Thoreau, Walden

I love that Thoreau appreciated weeds.  He took the time to get to know their hidden virtues — food for foraging birds and animals, shelter for wildlife, and their natural beauty.  There is a lesson here about what we might commonly consider pests.  It is not so black and white.  Life is full of complexity and shades of gray.

“What is a weed?  A plant whose virtues have not yet been discovered.”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson

Seed head in snow

Slender reeds with calligraphic lines

Work is Love Made Visible

Thimble on hand-quilted table runner

“Work is love made visible.
And if you cannot work with love
But only with distaste, it is better
That you should leave your work and
Sit at the gate of the temple and take
Alms from those who work with joy.”
– Anonymous

I like the notion of work as a sign of love — the meals I cook for my family, housecleaning, yardwork . . .  Whenever I do hand-quilting, I feel that I am stitching with love and that those feelings will bind me to the recipient of my labors.

I spent last week on a new quilting project — a table runner adapting the Zipper pattern I found in The Modern Quilt Workshop by Weeks Ringle and Bill Kerr.  The cold, snowy days made perfect weather for relaxing inside with a sewing project.  This small handmade item is destined for a wedding gift.

Searching for coordinating prints from my fabric stash

Cutting the pieces and arranging them

Sewing on the dining room table

Pressing the seams as I go along

Handquilting

Methodical stitching

Finished table runner

 

Bird Math: Is A Bird in the Hand Worth Two in the Bush?

“A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.”
– Proverb

Two House Sparrows in our bushes

This is a cautionary adage to settle for a sure thing rather than risk everything for possible, but not proven, gains.  I can agree that it is often best for me to find happiness and contentment with what I have rather than constantly strive for more and more.  And yet . . .

Why is it a given that valuing possession and ownership (the bird in the hand) is better than the freedom of birds in nature?  I loved watching these Common House Sparrows in my bushes; they are incredibly beautiful.  And isn’t it marvelous to realize that no one owns these birds and that they are free to fly in our city?  Protecting the birds in the bush for the common good brings their beauty and joy to everyone.  Maybe two birds in the bush are worth far more than a bird in the hand.  Think about it.

Common House Sparrow perched in a bush

Common House Sparrow in winter

Watercolor sketch of common house sparrow

Slushy When It’s Going

“Snow is snowy when it’s snowing,
I’m sorry it’s slushy when it’s going.”
– Ogden Nash

Melting snow droplets on branches

The melting snow looks particularly beautiful as sparkling droplets on tree branches.  Nature has decorated the branches with strings of clear, twinkling mini-lights like necklaces of strung diamonds.

Water droplets like strings of clear lights

Glowing with a halo of snow droplets

Melting snow

Twinkling droplets

Tree Watching in the Snow

Snow with catkins and curves

“All that summer conceals, winter reveals.”
–  Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker’s Creek

The leafless tree skeletons on winter reveal their unique branching patterns.  Trees have either “opposite” or “alternate” branching.  (You can learn more at this link.)

Maple trees in the snow

Tufts of snow caught on a maple branch

White web of snow caught in horse chestnut tree

“Every branch big with it,
Bent every twig with it;
Every fork like a white web-foot;
Every street and pavement mute . . .”
– Thomas Hardy, “Snow in the Suburbs”

Watercolor sketch of maple tree branching pattern

Erased Boundaries

“The light died in the low clouds.  Falling snow drank in the dusk.  Shrouded in silence, the branches wrapped me in their peace.  When the boundaries were erased, once again the wonder:  that I exist.”
– Dag Hammarskjold, Markings

Ladder partially buried in the snow

Our snowfall softened edges, erased boundaries, and shrouded our world in whites and grays.  I love how these writers and poets capture the special beauty of this transformed world.

“The snow had begun in the gloaming,
And busily all the night
Had been heaping field and highway
with a silence deep and white.”
– James Russell Lowell, “The First Snow Fall”

“Snow is white and gray, part and whole, infinitely various yet infinitely repetitious, soft and hard, frozen and melting, a creaking underfoot and a soundlessness.  But first of all it is the reversion of many into one.  It is substance, almost the idea of substance, that turns grass, driveway, hayfield, old garden, log piles, Saab, watering trough, collapsed barn, and stonewall into the one white.”
– Donald Hall, Seasons at Eagle Pond

Snow patterns, in white, on the rooftops

Canopy of white over these snowy steps

Not a Saab, but another snow blanketed vehicle -- graced with a snowman

 

Snow Day!

Playing in the snow at Green Lake

“It is sometimes mistakenly thought by city people that grown-ups don’t love snow.  They think only children who haven’t got to shovel it love snow, or only people like the von Furstenburgs and their friends who get to go skiing in exotic places and will never backslope a roadside in all their lives:  that is a mistake.  The fact is that most country or small-town Minnesotans love snow.  They relish snow in large inconvenient storms; they like the excesses of it, they like the threat of it, the endless work of it, the glamour of it.”
– Carol Bly, from “Great Snow” in Letters from the Country

This girl loves snow!  Of course, I am a Minnesota country girl at heart.

Yesterday was a Snow Day!  The Seattle public libraries were closed, and I did not have to go in to work.  It felt like the old days when we listened for school closure announcements on WCCO Radio.  These days the announcements are likely to be made by automated telephone or on a website.  So nice to have a day to play in the snow before it all melts!

“Oh, winter!  one never, never loses the surprise and wonder of new fallen snow, that inexplicable something that touches the core of your innermost being as you stand in your nightie shivering and amazed at the pure glory of the transformation.”
– Emily Carr, Hundred and Thousands:   The Journals of an Artist

The sports fields at Green Lake were full of people and dogs romping in the snow.

Building snowmen and sledding

Snow Day at Green Lake

Walking down the sidewalk in my neighborhood

Thoreau Thursdays (40): Appointments with Trees

“But no weather interfered fatally with my walks, or rather my going abroad, for I frequently tramped eight or ten miles through the deepest snow to keep an appointment with a beech tree, or a yellow birch, or an old acquaintance among the pines . . . “
–Henry David Thoreau, Walden

Pines with wavy boughs

“Instead of calling on some scholar, I paid many a visit to particular trees . . . Sometimes I rambled to pine groves, standing like temples, or like fleets at sea, full-rigged, with wavy boughs.”
– Henry David Thoreau, Walden

Thoreau was an early tree-watcher.  He called trees “the shrines I visited both summer and winter.”  Thoreau is a wonderful role model for a self-taught naturalist.  I admire his curiosity and powers of observation, and I read with delight the many passages in Walden devoted to descriptions of his natural surroundings — birds, trees, ponds, soil, etc.

As I observe my “adopted” trees this year, I will try to emulate Thoreau’s natural curiosity and fresh eyes.  If you haven’t already noticed, I have created a special “Tree-Watching Project” category for my tree posts — you can find it on the right-hand side of the page, beneath the monthly archives.

The Snow Was Our Pride, Our Beauty

“The cold was our pride, the snow was our beauty.  It fell and fell, lacing day and night together in a milky haze, making everything quieter as it fell, so that winter seemed to partake of religion in a way no other season did, hushed, solemn.  It was snowing and it was silent.”
– Patricia Hampl, A Romantic Education

Yesterday's snowy day at Green Lake

We get excited about snow in Seattle because it seldom lasts too long.  I find it’s best to slow down, park the car (there is no snow removal on most residential streets, so the snow packs, becomes icy, and stays that way until it turns to slush and melts), and walk if I need to get anywhere.

It’s nice to get a taste of winter wonderland, especially if the inconveniences are short and sweet.  Snow gives a time-out from our regular routines.  Who doesn’t enjoy the special pleasures of an unexpected “snow day.”

Here are some photos from a walk around my neighborhood:

Scalloped-edged fence

Snowy steps

Weathered clothespins

Patterned snow on paving bricks

Pine cones with snow

Basketball hoop in the snow