this moment :: May Day .... wheeeeeeee!

Joining Soulemama, and many others, in  this moment

described thusly ...

A Friday ritual.  A single photo

~ no words ~

capturing a moment from the week.

A simple, special, extraordinary moment.

A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

:::

... today's reflections are  HERE.

You are welcome to share your moment, too.

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What the hedgerows had to say

Last evening, although it was getting late,
there was good sky

so the woofies and I went out for a walk.
Our land is surrounded by pastures to the south,
mixed Douglas fir forests to the north, east, west
and everywhere in between is the smell of the sea
and the wild scramble of the native understory.

Willows ... catching the late light in their freshly leafed out canopies.

Over time, mostly when I wasn't paying much attention,
I've built relationships with these plants & trees ...
they all serve an important purpose in our small ecosystem
and no matter how annoyed I might be with hauling another fallen branch
across the footpath or disentangling myself for the umpteenth time from the thorn-hold
of wayward blackberries,
I deeply believe everything residing here holds value.
Bitter berries for songbirds, rotting stumps for the tree frogs,
the mucky pond shallows for salamanders ...
the list is long
and diverse
and has become a great source of inspiration.

I'm often up late, with the owls, doing handwork ...
This bead weaving stitched to willow-dyed cloth became a personal story
about my Salix friends with branches.

On the trek home we spied this native elderberry [Sambucus caerulea]

setting off some frothy firecrackers.
If I'm very lucky this season
I may get to some of the gorgeous blue-black berries
well before the birds.
Must be quick - they always beat me to it.

I admit to being taken aback 

by the sheer size of her this year.

Why, she must have put on two more feet

upwards and sidewards

since last summer !

Me & my furry pals may head out again this evening for another ramble
for there's so much going on out there ...
and what the plants are saying now
is foretelling a fine future.


: : :


joining in with the folks over at
Our World Tuesday
[because it's Tuesday in Australia  ;>]
pop over & be transported around the globe ...

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Here they come

Finally had myself a leisurely stroll through the garden.

Amazing what one can see when it is not

lashing

with

rain.

My old friends are reappearing ...

it's so good to see them!

so I made the rounds, said a few hellos, took their portraits.

Both the white & red flowering currants are already near to bursting,

important for the hummers who have little else to feed on when they arrive

[which should be any day now].

I did spy the first pair of tree swallows this afternoon, a sure sign

that spring is winging in ...

Call me a plant nerd, but I have an enormous soft spot for clematis and 

how they appear to regenerate new limbs from

absolutely dead-looking wooden stems ... it's a wonder

and I marvel at the process every year.

And I also marvel at this beauty, the evergreen Clematis 'Snowdrift'

for she's  scented

and this year she's almost covered the arbor ... standing under there

is going to be something quite close to heaven itself.

open

open

open !

A BIG welcome back to my reliable dye friends, too ... rose leaves,

maple leaves

and my dear old scrubby friend, the native willow

who generously gave me such deep, rich color last fall.

More on that story will follow

because although my friends here have been laying dormant all winter,

I have not.

I've been finishing a few things and that feels mighty good ...

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Lobsters from the forest

So, the other evening an email arrives and in it, photographs
of a most unusual mushroom, something I'd never seen before.
My friend who lives in the center of the island has them growing in their woods
and he wrote to say that while harvesting [Mrs. likes to cook with them],
his hands turned orange.
I was practically giddy considering the dye pot possibilities,
as he probably knew I would be.
Very nice of my friends to think of me at times like this!

Thanks to some quick internet research, "Lobster" dyeing started to seem,
well, a little less strange.

Hypomyces lactifluorum, or Lobster mushroom, is not actually a mushroom at all.
From Wikipedia:

Lobster mushroom is not a mushroom, but rather
a parasitic ascomycete that grows on mushrooms, turning them
a reddish orange color that resembles the outer shell of a
cooked lobster.  It colonizes members of the genera
Lactarius (Milk-caps) and Russula ... in North America.
At maturity, H. lactifluorum thoroughly covers its host,
rendering it unidentifiable.

A quick jaunt and a full shopping bag later and I was ready for business.
My kind & generous friends wished me well
as I set myself towards home.  The laborious task of chopping away all the color
from the stalks was about to begin ...

and then came the waiting for the [watched] pot to boil ...

then I waited and waited and waited
for the dye bath to turn orange.

Much to my dismay, the color from this gosh-awful-rank-smelling broth

[after cooking for well over an hour] was nothing but a pale, tawny gold.

WHUT?    NO ORANGE?!

Not a chance I was going to let all that chopping go to waste [two nylon knee

stockings stuffed to the gills], so having read someplace

that 'shrooms are particularly sensitive to pH, I decided

to play around and see if I could get this brew to go

way, way alkaline ...

Lobster rolls, anyone?

Now I was gettin' somewhere.  In went the test strips of silk, initially

turning a delicate shade of pink ... yawn ...

but with a bit more time

and a little more alkalinity [aka ordinary kitchen baking soda]

you may be quite surprised to see what became of the color ...

are

you

ready

for

this?

Fuchsia-purple

Take THAT, you lobsters.

A certain dawg around here was highly interested in the "fragrant" bundles

[paw prints above ... sure sign of a nose on patrol]

Fortunately, the smell completely disappears once the cloths dry.

Now THAT  is  a miracle.

If you're not a fan of fishy smells, this may not be your dye of choice;

the stench is overpowering, I kid you not.  And don't even consider for one second

cooking up a batch anywhere other than outside - although on second thought

this may be quite useful in ridding oneself of an annoying roommate.

Since having India 'round these parts to pull various rabbits out of her sleeves
and offer up a host of helpful tidbits about her working methods,
I've adopted a change or two to my former habits.  For instance,
I no longer stir the bundles in my dye pots, thus assuring each one gets even coverage.
[why in the world would you want that?, she wondered]
Why do that when some of the most interesting marks come from being
partially submerged?  Duh.  Photo above for example ... driftwood floats so the top side
of the cloth above the water line shows little color while underneath
it soaked up the dye like crazy.

Unrolled it's even more obvious ....
yup, no more stirring.

My friend tells me the Lobsters don't appear every year ... in fact,

he hadn't seen them for a few years.  Just to secure a little bit of the future,

I scattered the leavings in my own woods in hopes that one day

some parasitic wonders will appear on my own patch.

Maybe one day I can return the favor.

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Tossing in the whole shirt

After the workshop with India finished, my feet did not touch the ground

for about two weeks.

The first dye pot to hit the little hot plate on the porch 

became a native "soup" ... still riding high on inspiration,

I took a gamble with a weedy willow by the back pond

and after a vigorous haircut ~ leaves, branches, twigs, bark and all ~

simmered up some [surprising] tannin-rich color.

Then I decided to dye an entire shirt ...

yes, me ~ the one who only dyes small scraps of things.

- spent innards from the dye bundle & the wrapping stone -

During a jaunt to the village earlier in the week there had been a gentle query:

had I ever used  those leaves  [pointing to a purple-leaved maple] for dyeing? 

to which I replied, no.

When it was heartily suggested that I give them a go,

I knew that not heeding this very wise voice of experience

would be foolish.

A carpet of windfall was conveniently at hand on my next visit.

- saving string -

It was a challenge wrapping an entire piece of clothing.  I hadn't done it before

and found myself imagining where the stronger marks would appear; 

should leaves be face-up or down; would I

wrap around a piece of wood so as to float half submerged, or a stone,

to sink to the bottom.

This wrapping string

Red Silver Maiden Grass ~ Miscanthus sinensis 'Rotsilber'

had quite a lot in common with the plumes of the maiden grass

next to the house, I thought ...

which relates to the outcome in a way, too.

Everything is so connected in this arena

of the natural world.

Echoes everywhere.

I am so comfortable here.

Now, if I only had a tad bit of tailoring ability I'd be able to

deconstruct this silky number and turn it into something that fits.

[must keep that in mind the next time I decide to save a whole shirt from the scrapper.]

:::

When next I post, it will be my  200th  ... how is that possible?

Perhaps we should celebrate, mark the event with a small *giveaway* ...

a name-in-the-hat thing for those of you who visit.

I'm so grateful.

Oh yes, this could be fun ... I'll see what I can come up with.  

Maybe dawg will have a paw handy 

to pick the name.

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