two kinds of skein

two kinds of skein

but i'm looking at milkweed

 my camera and me are limited

we focus on one thing

and then another shouts to us

but we become confused

enamoured

aroused

full of wonder

 until i look up and see it:

landskein

 this lovely word, 

landskein,

 is exactly what i've been seeing

for a long time

 in robert macfarlane's book 

about lost or disappearing words

related to landscape

 LANDMARKS

 he mentions some new words

honeyfur, slogger, wolfsnow, sutering.

landskein is "the braid of blue horizon lines in hill country on a hazy day"

exactly.

 the word was first spoken by "a painter in the hebrides"

and it is 

like hortus siccus

a word for a new body of work.

landskein. 

i am making landskeins in a landskein.

the work began and the word found me, beautiful.

 i am also finding seeds.

i'm guessing it's dogbane

but i need to check.

it arrived in my living room

and took up residence on my warp.

 a new flower for me--

still looking this one up

but notice it has those odd stems

 tiny and bold.

 i have been in a struggle with emotion and exhaustion,

so

 the weeping of spent daylily blossoms

has properties i've tried to catch

 on spun lokta

another landskein.

and today,

another pot of contact prints. 

here, again

the sky

 to the south and west was wild

and to the east,

here,

was quiet

 turning to this

that view--
turning

 i saw there was some action
where that white and bruised indigo meet

that's where the new place is!
and indeed there was a thunderstorm.

 back to the east there were 

delicious, qiuet

 i've been enjoying reading 
robert macfarlane, 
thinking about words and land

 many colors and threads,
mostly indigo and evergreen
around here, anyway.

~~~

continuing walking i find this 

 coyote berryeater has been by

 leaving notice all up and down the middle of the road

one for each night,

 walkers beware!

coyote is announcing stuff! 

 chamomile is richer than
i've ever seen it here before. 

 paths: coyote?

whitetail?

gray fox?

cottontal or showshoe hare?

 here, we got a paintwork

 strong color

 oh

 oh

 and then a second one showed up

 clouds lowered and a few drops hit
but i didn't get wet, not very.

looking down 
at my feet was a little bookish chunk of steel.

~~~

my wizard friend
carol blinn

presented me with this:

 a little book showcasing my paper

out of the blue

(and the press)

here it is with one of the latins newly named.

 at w.s.w. i took a chance on some weird pop.

  nifty bottles

and the flavors were curious
they say
BOTANICALLY BREWED
(so appropriate, maybe i should name my blog this!)

 and then this

became this

 a dye experiment

on spun lokta.
and then as i've been thinking and working 
with blossoms

i printed with daylily blossoms
the ones that drip rich magenta
syrup 
on the green leaves below 

so i contact printed/dyed on piece of case paper and 
teamed it up with indigo
and we'll see where they go 

 daylily and one lone hibiscus 
spent blossoms...
that weird experiment above?

we're half way through.

return gift

before the trip to rosendale

i harvested a handful of st johnswort

and made a bundle with silk,

did a low temp cook

and put the whole shebang in a jug

in the sun

and subarued away.

 there was some color

 and some foam

 and some interesting smells

 and this

 a nice surprise amidst the unpacking

and all the sleeping i caught up on

 chris,

my australian student at wsw

made some mountains on flax,

the catskills,

and then the indigo vat

 got tired.

i woke it up a little bit

 and got some indigo after a little while
and got a wee bit of blue.

back home i slept a bunch and then

here the gray fox mama

put in an appearance in the side yard on sunday. 
i was gathering daylily blossoms 
and she, well, she 

had a nice fat rodent

in her jaws. 

she looked at me and then said she was leaving,

and off she went. 

she looked very comfortable here

and with me sharing her lawn.

but i won't try to find her den.
for you who know claudia
my sister
she had successful knee replacement surgery yesterday.
today i went to work to do 
reports.
tomorrow training,
then back to summer.
claudia will go to appropriate rehab 
and i will try to get organized.
today i found this again:

Osmia avoseta bees do not live in colonies. These solitary bees make their nests from collected flower petals. These tiny nests are about half an inch tall and hold a single egg. The mother glues the petals together with nectar and fills the inside with nectar and pollen before laying the egg inside, so that her offspring will have food when it emerges.

More pictures and info: http://bit.ly/LM91Kc 

Photo credit: J.G. Rozen, AMNH