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July 29, 2006
Roots
We've lived in this rental house for a year now, and the place is finally beginning to fit like a glove. Though a temporary rental (we begin building this year on a lot down the road), we have given it our patina. We have adopted and lost two pet fish here, but also begun raising the chicks, who have, for their part, done a tremendous job connecting us with the outdoors. In mid-July. In Texas. Which seems entirely difficult, given the heat, but by God we have learned to enjoy it and sweat it out. By the bucketsful.
Today in a tube dress, straw hat, pigskin gloves and flip flops, I cut and nailed rolls of galvanized builder's cloth to the pesto-colored poultry tractor. As I tatted away in the shade, the little chiquitas chased each other for earwigs, sometimes peeping quietly by my side, asking for a wing. Boo, the bold one (because they really do have different personalities), flit perch-by-perch to my neck, where she inquisitively pecked at my moles and freckles. The other two weaved around the timber, little Buffalo shortshanks they've become, content to scratch around my workspace, dusting themselves occasionally in a patch of dark topsoil, peeping their quick, velvety peeps of contentment.
I've gotten to know the deer, who rarely make themselves seen anymore, much less sleep with their twin baby fawns out in our front yard (they did this daily, last year) but still continue to eat the runner beans, flowerheads, morning glories, sweet potato vines and god-knows whatever gourd/pumpkin/squash seedlings I tried to grow from seed. They continue to surprise me, sometimes grazing feet from me as I jog along the trails, with their fawns stumbling close behind them and at other times, sneaking about like elves in the moonlight, grazing tiptoe across the lawn.
I am finally proud of the boy's room. Finally, because it has never felt, no matter where we have lived, to be their own-- it has always been a post between travels: en route from the bathroom, to fetch a toy before going to the living room; the halfway point between breakfast and brushing, where they can dilly dally five minutes while I clean, playing with forgotten toys. Never has their room been theirs in the sense of belonging until we added the bunk bed. That was two weeks ago.
In the time that's passed, since the purchase of the bunk bed, the room has taken shape into a sleep playground and a place to stay and play. The quilt my mother made during the 1972 summer Olympics (when she was pregnant with me) is now draped over the top bunk rail, making Chas' lower bunk the sleep fortress. Before naps I lay there and read to them as they scramble over me like lion cubs, and I, heavy with exhaustion, lay there and read. At night, I sit at the foot of the bottom bunk, reading Grimm and Anderson by the light peeking out of the closet. I'm surrounded by goose down and log pillows and quilting and childbreath and the warm pads of feet resting against my legs. Ford is content to lay in the bunk above while I read "because there are no pictures in the book" but also because he delights in his new space to sleep. The sleep king, who has to be awakened in the morning because he is so heavily renewing his energy during the night.
When I pause mid-Ugly Duckling, I ask "Ford?" and listen for an answer. Only the soft sound of a stuffed nose: slowly in, slowly out, waltzing in the summer nightmusic of the air conditioner, turning pages and other little snores here and there (I think Damon must be asleep, too, now). I reach over to rest the book under the bed. The floor beneath the bed has become a charter library: The Story of Pooh, The Story of Ping, Aeson/Grimm/Anderson classics, Baby Animals, Hedgie's Surprise, Make Way for Ducklings, Blueberries for Sal. Pilgrim at Tinker Creek makes a cameo appearance.
The place feels like home in the way I'm starting to settle in: a mixed bouquet the color of sunrise on the kitchen table; the way I can make stovetop coffee blindfolded; clothespin artwork to the back deck's lattice, and hang my jewelry to a piece of driftwood in a windowsill in the bathroom; I smile to see Damon shepherding his harware in the garage, replacing stagnant unused stuff with the stimulus of welders and grinders and routers and saws, all in singlefile attention. Some people settle in quickly to a new domicile, but I think we've grown jaded to constant change. After all, we lived for a year in a 22-ft. trailer. With a baby. We want a sense of permanence so badly against the the tech industry flux. Here, we can at least afford to stay; it's now only a matter of believing that roots are, beneath all our lingering doubt, indeed growing.
Posted by Steph at 09:11 PM | Comments (7)
July 27, 2006
Illustration Friday: Opposite
Goats are always eating, night and day.
I painted this about sixteen years ago. Back then, I had dreamed about having a small dairy goat operation in the hill country (the rolling chaparral in central Texas). But I think I may have outgrown it for the want to live aboard a roaming sailboat someday, when the kids are in college. Talk about opposites.
More Illustration Friday.
Posted by Steph at 10:12 PM | Comments (4)
July 26, 2006
Chicken Tractor Links
I'm sensing that a few of you may be brewing a little chicken ideas in your mind, dreaming up having a backyard brood of your own. After all, it's a great idea. Pest control. Companionship. Eggs. That cute sound of gossiping hens in the middle of the day. It's really cute. Well, if you are thinking about housing options, let me share a few links I've used.
We're building what they call a chicken tractor. It's a henhouse that you can move throughout the yard, so the chickens always have a fresh patch to scratch on. They're just as safe as a regular henhouse.
I like the ones below, which obviously required more time and labor to build. We don't have much of that around here, which is why ours is, well, amateurish. But the hens will love it anyway. Here's my thirty second link list:
Chicken tractors
Chicken tractor project idea
& etc
And here's an article about the benefits of using a chicken tractor to benefit your soil.
I'm sure you can google all you want and find a good clutch of ideas out there. I say go for it. And let me know if you, too, decide to get a few chicks. We're having a blast! Now, off to add the chickenwire...
Posted by Steph at 10:43 AM | Comments (2)
July 25, 2006
...Painted a First Coat...
I got a blob of paint in my hair. On top of my head it looks like green bird poo. How does one get exterior water-based latex paint out of hair? Or maybe I'll just have fun explaining to people how it got there. Any suggestions? It's just not silly enough that I got it while painting a henhouse.
edited to add: the paint came off after I washed and dried my hair. I was able to slide it out gently, running the globs down the strands of hair ;)
Posted by Steph at 10:39 PM | Comments (4)
SPC: Me As A...Farmer
No time. Gotta run. More SPC. More later.
Posted by Steph at 08:38 PM | Comments (10)
July 24, 2006
Getting the Chicken Coop Did
Damon thinks the chicks will be gone in less than four weeks. Such shallow hopes! Still, he spent another day grunting in the oven outside, throwing lumber around like an ogre and eyeballing his way through his final weekend project. Which was more a honeydo than a "project" in his queue. But the reality was that I was too preoccupied doing God-remembers-what inside with the kids, probably sitting inside under a ceiling fan with a child on each lap, sipping iced tea, laughing about how crazy Daddy was to be outside in the sauna, sweating over a heap of lumber.
When he'd thrown in the towel for the day, after completing the first phase of construction, I stood back and grinned at the expressive fabrication. I'm usually a perfectionist, but I found the artsy, passive-aggressive unevenness oddly charming. Or maybe I was just very grateful that he had spent his entire Sunday afternoon laboring over my whimsical chicken fancy.
This design is an A-frame chicken tractor. It has hanndles on the bottom so you can move it around the yard. Encircling this frame that he built will be chicken wire, even on the bottom, for predators. We'll find some scrap wood and I'll get the kids to help me nail together a ladder, so the hens can scamper up to the little roost at the top. And looking at it now, this will certainly be a feat--can you see what I mean? Look how steep that grade is going to be?! Oh, dear. And hopefully there will be enough room for three hens, but we can always add another loft, if necessary. We, meaning Damon.
So, this evening at the local DIY megaplexx he helped me wrangle children and pick out a buttery avocado exterior paint that will weatherproof the lumber. Such good taste. And all for a mere four weeks. P-sha!
Posted by Steph at 11:16 PM | Comments (3)
July 22, 2006
You'll Never Guess Who the Mother Is
On the drive home, as the kids fought over who would hold the chicken box on his lap, I began to doubt the success of the kids with the chicks. I figured it was a good idea I'd arbitrarily chose three versus two chicks: one would certainly meet its fate under one of the boys, and being left with two chicks is far better than being left with one.
But I may be wrong. In fact, the prognosis is GOOD. I watched them with a smile all day long, as they gently trod around the garden, the chicks weaving in and out of their footpath. They encouraged us outdoors the entire day, and I found time to rearrange the rosemary and trim the papyrus, harvest parsley bolts and this and that. Ford mentioned "I never knew there were SO MANY BUGS in our yard!" because the chicks: they never stopped harvesting them, too.
Ford is, to my surprise, the new mother hen. And he's a natural. To watch him cradle the chicks, or sprawl across the grass while the chicks scramble over him, for hours at a time, and compare this sight to the same child in a playdate full of little boys: one would never suspect the two images belonged to the one Ford. But it's true. He's come into his new role with all the fever of a new mother. Periodically, I'd have to come outside and feed him a yogurt or a half-sandwich because he was so preoccupied with shepherding the chicks.
But, as it turns out, they follow Ford everywhere; there's no need to chase them down. They believe that Ford is the mama hen and will run up to his feet, peep imploringly with pinched eyes, and all he has to do is pick them up before they drop their heads on a thumb and fall asleep. Ford looked up at me after his pullet, Abby, fell asleep this way. He had reddish purple circles under his eyes, his face flush with afternoon sweat, dry grass dangling from his knees. "Don't you just love the baby chicks? I'm not going to let anything happen to them."
He is drinking water from a glass right now, pausing after each sip to raise his chin to the ceiling and gulp it down, just as he's seen the chicks do when they drink from their shiny metal tray. He licks his lips and smiles, and I wink back. As I read him a new book at bedtime, he reaches over and pecks at my arm with his fingers. He's just so impressed with his new brood. For fun, I paint little glittery dots on his finger- and toenails, and we'll wait to see how the chicks respond tomorrow. But the young Mama Hen needs to go to sleep. And so do I. Tomorrow we build the coop!
Posted by Steph at 10:58 PM | Comments (11)
Baby Chicks!
Last weekend, the kids were so thrilled with the new chicks at the grandaparent's house that they insisted we get some of our own. So we did! Three Auraucana chicks. And when I get more sleep, I can talk all about them: Abby, Boo, and Betty. The kids named them i the car on the drive home.
Posted by Steph at 12:33 AM | Comments (6)
July 18, 2006
Free-Range
I was a free-range child, roaming on foot and bike throughout the neighborhood like most kids did. We were barefoot with scabs on our toes from the Big Wheels, flags forever flapping behind us on our bicycles. We came home for popsicles. There was a corner of the yard where we corralled box turtles, but we were always hunting for more. But we sold other reptiles: anolis were 10 cents; geckos I sold for twenty-five cents in class. I kept them in coffee cans. Back then, I thought the smell of the coffee cans was gross, like metallic urine.
Free-range days continued once we moved to Houston, but the experience matured quickly. I discovered perverts in fourth grade when a man approached me and asked me to follow him to his van. Sitting on the bench opposite me and my brother, he smiled confidently and touched my hand. Asshole. Sadly, he was only the first jerk to taint my adolescence, but I'm still alive and I was never seriously molested as a child. But I read stories all the time about those less fortunate than me.
I can smile as I look out the window at the boys in the backyard. They run half-naked around the house, building mud volcanoes on the deck, lava plumes in the rivulets running off into the woods.
What will I do when they're able to bike around our neighborhood? What will I do when I can't supervise them?
Posted by Steph at 05:16 AM | Comments (3)
July 16, 2006
Nonstop
Posted by Steph at 08:01 AM | Comments (0)
July 14, 2006
The Quilts of Gees Bend: The Soul of the Quilt
I arrive in Houston at six o'clock, scarf down a plate of italian sausage and spaghetti and my parent's house, and escort mom to the Gees Bend exhibit at the MFAH. We have an hour before the museum closes and I get momenntarily lost navigating my way to the museum's new addition, through the same corridors I used to browse with a trail of small children in my teaching days at the Glassell School, across the street. It's embarrassing and I smile to an Asian security guard who doesn't seem to remember me this time.
The glossy terrazzo floor reflects little observational discussions, the tapping of fancy shoes and the muted cast of each bold, vibrant quilt in this collection. And boy, are they something. If the colors and assymetry of the quilts don't immediately make you smile, look closer.
If you have a sensitive conscience, then you have questioned the way we live today: the overlooked luxury in each car parked in the driveway and the way you can choose your way each day, the piles of fashion magazines and the excess clothes, garages filled so full of crap because the house is spilling over and space is limited-- this is the typical American family way of life (not that I am the exception) and this is a way of life that starves people of happiness and groundedness and peace. I think about this a lot and was brought to tears when I listened to an interview with one of the quilters as I scrutinized a soulful patch of denim in a quilt, a piece taken from a pair of worn-out blue jeans, that included the dark blue ghost of a pocket, the reminder of the fabric's former life. I wanted to run my hands along the seams, feeling the backbone of handiwork and sweat and conversation that birthed these colorful objects. I cradled the idea of reuse, inspiring the happy purist in me.
I thought about the stiff smell of rows upon rows of fabric bolts, the angst of shopping for the perfect hue, specialty scissors and quilting stores with basketfuls of fat quarters in every imaginable print: cats drinking milk, cats dancing, cats pouring milk, cats stargazing, cats chasing balls of yarn, cats chasing mice, cats napping, cats making me dizzy with a cascade of possibilities, for some reason(pardon me if cats are your thing--and I still think cats are cool). I thought about my own sleeping, shelved monster of a fabric stash. I thought of the closetful of clothes in my bedroom that I will never wear again but refuse to give away, holding them for some special deconstruction but not finding the time just yet. And so they sit there, looking stale. And smelling about the same. I think I vowed right there to boycott the purchase of any more fabric from a store or supplier for a good, long time--at least until I can manage to recruit much of what I already have. You know the old adage, Waste Not, Want Not. I mean, I value the use of new fabric for projects (and man, can some of you SEW!) but for now, I will value myself more if I downsize.
Plummer Pettway 1918-1993 "Roman Stripes, variation (local name: "Crazy" Quilt) cotton twill, denim, cotton/ polyester blend, synthetic knit (pants matieral), 86 x 70 inches.
These isolated women had only the outgrown and worn-out clothes and bolts of local fabric (I think Sears once gave them bolts of the avocado fabric that shows up in nearly one hundred of the collection's quilts). One of the quilters, in the interview I was listening to, struggled as she tried to convey what it was like not to have much of anything to work with. Work shirts, blue jeans, feed sacks--nothing was wasted. Nothing.
I smiled to read little excerpts about the children, sitting on the front porch beneath the quilting table, watching the needle poke through the underside of the quilt. I told Ford about the way the children (who became the artists of these quilts) picked up scraps of fabric that had fallen to the floor and began making little quilts of their own, right there on the floor. "We didn't have much, but we was happy" echoed similarly among them. And I still get tears to remember one woman share her surprise in knowing that someone else besides herself appreciates them, not to mention put them up on a wall.
Missouri Pettway, 1902-1981. Blocks and strips work-clothes quilt, 1942, cotton, corduroy, cotton sacking material, 90 x 69 inches. Missouri's daughter Arlonzia describes the quilt: "It was when Daddy died. I was about seventeen, eighteen. He stayed sick about eight months and passed on. Mama say, 'I going to take his work clothes, shape them into a quilt to remember him, and cover up under it for love.' She take his old pants legs and shirttails, take all the clothes he had, just enough to make that quilt, ahd I helped her tore them up. Bottom of the pants is narrow, top is wide, and she had me to cutting the top part out and to shape them up in even strips." --both quilt images from Auburn Universitys: Quilts of Gees Bend in Context's website.
Posted by Steph at 11:24 AM | Comments (9)
July 12, 2006
SPC: Me As... A Dental Student
Once upon a time, I used to be a dental student! I did, I really did. I was so proud of myself: I had this great routine where I never had to figure out what I'd wear the next day, because I owned an endless supply of antique green surgical scrubs. And they were SO comfortable, like a pair of pajamas, that I often found myself sleeping in them with my books lying across my chest, the booklight still beaming down on me, my glasses resting on the arm of the sofa. At three in the morning, I'd have to turn on The Weather Channel just to have a chatty person to keep me company while I pored over flow charts and glossy Netter illustrations of nasal conchae, nerves, shiny pink mounds of taste buds.
On the first day of class, I sat in the front row, careful not to miss a detail. But with every day came another quiz or exam, so in no time I migrated towards the back of the classroom, where I was able to efficiently gather notes and vent stress by making fun of geeky professors along with the other juvenile students in my class. I could rest my feet on the back of the chair in front of me without being noticed, and eat the rest of my egg McMuffin and orange juice, or study for the next exam.
In gross anatomy, we were assigned a woman in her mid-seventies. Her lungs were matte and moldy black from years of smoking. Her withered terrain made me sad and her cross-section was so yellow with fat that I couldn't eat enchiladas for the entire year. For weeks I tried masking the smell of formaldehyde with Vicks Vap-O-Rub, but it left my nose chilled and my chest filled with a heavy ghost of tank juice (which is what I called the bath). By the end of the year I'd resigned to the smell of gross lab, because there was little time to fret over odors during finals.
In this hilarious and surreal picture above you see me posing, as if I were about to grind the surface of a tooth down with a huge burr. We were clowning around that day and I think this was a halfass attempt to be amusing. I look possessed. What do you think?
When I transferred to California (University of the Pacific) during my second year, I suddenly felt at a crossroads where dental school, and all the rigidity it imposed on me, represented a dead-end road. So, to sum up an emotional month or two that followed: I quit. And I haven't looked back.
...But I would like to know where I put all those probes and scraping tools, because they'd come in handy right now with the encaustic painting!
Enjoy more Self Portrait Challenge.
Posted by Steph at 05:08 AM | Comments (13)
July 06, 2006
Illustration Friday: Sticky
I've never seen a bear do this in the wild. In fact, I've never seen a bear in the wild. For that matter, I've never seen a wild beehive, either. But I've read The Story of Pooh many times before. This is exactly what I believe bears should be doing all the time: raiding beehives and foraging blackberries and slapping salmon out of the water. Of course, bears eat what they can, because honey and blackberries and salmon aren't always in supply. Have you seen Grizzly Man?
More Illlustration Friday.
Posted by Steph at 11:33 PM | Comments (4)
Sunprints
There's a Storm Trooper maintaining his aquatic fleet.
Waiting for Chas to finish napping so we can go out to play. These short, quiet little projects are sweet fillers in a day jammed with chaos, amped-up play and an onslaught of noise.
Posted by Steph at 10:31 PM | Comments (5)
Studio Friday: PLAYTIME: 7 Layer Salad
It's difficult at first, resisting the urge to keep working, but in order to create a smooth surface texture on encaustic paintings, such as these, you have to wait at least two days for the top layer of wax to cure before you can buff it. And these have been stacked and waiting patiently on my windowsill for a week (which, incidentally, is not the best place to cure an encaustic painting in the middle of summer, but it's somehow worked so far in my home--at any rate, it's safer than leaving them on a countertop or table, where the kids can reach them!). Now, all I have to do (if I decide each is finished) is take a chamois and buff the surface smooth. The result is so buttery soft and shiny. I REALLY dig this medium. When I'm finished with thee, I'll share more pictures....
More Studio Friday.
Posted by Steph at 10:10 AM | Comments (7)
July 04, 2006
Post-Finale Depression
On bikes, we sailed past the footed caravan of quilts and igloos into Zilker park, where the symphony began playing William Tell overture. Chas clapped, mimicking the shiny brass cymbals on stage before him. When it began to rain, a crowd of families followed us under the Riverside bridge, and as we waited for the lighting to pass, floodlights illuminated wet spiderwebs along the handrails and the smoke from the cannon drifted through drizzle. A religious fanatic brayed like a jackass through a megaphone, but we escaped that, too, once the thunder abated: across the meadow we found the perfect place for firework-watching, and I stood grinning and wet in the rain as I watched Ford and Chas gape at the spectacular display. And when it was over, Ford was left completely devastated, sunken and slouching in disbelief. How could it ever end?! How dare they?! HIs reaction was so cute I could hardly stand it.
Posted by Steph at 11:57 AM | Comments (4)
July 02, 2006
Ford,
|
While I'm not happy about the fact that you watch Chicken Little three times a day on occasion, I can at least smile knowing it slowed you down enough for me to paint your portrait.
Also, thank you for letting me paint again today while you watched the movie. Again.
I'm trying to be the artist who can write a check for a trip to the Cascades so you can finally see Ranier and Hood and St. Helens in person. Because you are so so so worth it. And because I love you so so much.
Well, I'd better get back to work. |
Posted by Steph at 04:46 AM | Comments (7)