hill of the chickadee

deep snow is poor man's fertilizer.

 and the corn ladies

lean away from the west wind,

the wind that here means business and

sometimes destruction.

they who were so tall

bend and almost break in this fierce

cold bluster.

 some endings are so small

they seem pointless,

the why.

this one i lifted to my face.

touched it's silken down,

amazed,

and i brought it to my frozen garden

to be this woman's rich fertilizer.

printing paper and books

todd pattison is the president of the new england branch of the guild of bookworkers.

he is one of those people who is delightfully surprising.

last year i received in the mail a small book he made

with my contact printed paper as cover.

lizard spine, maybe?

filled with katie macgregor's light blue handmade papers.

an absolute surprise, i might add. 

i did a happy dance.

it's one of those things i tootled out to show

hannah and nicole

who came by on saturday

 after i met them friday

at caliban press

 where they are slu students, employees of caliban

learning the letterpress trade

 with mark mcmurray

hannah bravely asked me if she could see me working

something i always say no to

(but i said yes

thanks to fred, who has been plowing my driveway this winter

has had an effect on my doing unto others)

for a wee look at the doings in my dye kitchen. 

 the mill is closed down for the winter

so my wet studio is my kitchen right now.

and i tried printing on some old japanese papers

complete with worm holes...

in my kitchen sink

 i wash my wool socks 

my daughter hannah's knitting

 and the dining table acts as the bottom plate 

for pressing dyed papers.

the young women brought with them such positive energy

full of purpose.

it fed my soul somehow,

so it was a good two hours.

~~~

...and over at jasper's

church may indeed be in session.

though i've never spotted anyone there

during worship hours.

winter break

so many pages

create a garden of color and shape.

and therese sent me her experiments

with that amazing fiber

hemp

which looks like air, but feels like

well, i'll leave that to your imagination

so i have also been playing with 

shapes as pages fall together

i do get out some

for years this small building has been

one of my absolute favoites 

in the north country

it's very satisfying

and these beings

live on the same farm

this barn foundation is huge

i love it,

i could imagine planning

and caring for 

many many animals.

how changed my life 

if that were me.

turkeys eat sumac now

one of the few available feeds,

near a stretch of road where the road crew

mowed down the entire stretch of very large shrubs. 

and in this deep extended stretch of cold

they are eating the

lemon scented furry berries

which stain my fingers

this break.

 on some days brilliance breaks your heart

and indoors

a new pigment 

stains my fingers

and some hosta paper

ochre, hosta

ochre, fern magic

the ochres are from the same road cut

the hosta from my plants.

the first book from the winters

contact prints

bound overnight in silk

a little piece left over from beautiful silks

a gift from marion.

milkweed kigami

and a weak winter sun

working muscles to make

more of us a wee bit happier.

full disclosure

a little piece of hosta paper

very strong

made on my miniature lee macdonald wove mould

with pigment

i've been rubbing north country soils into my little papers

and shifu,

taking ochres from road cuts

soils from marshes

and this

this!

this is something left over from the dye pot.

guesses?

"The fertile fronds of sensitive fern bear spores in the bead-like structures."

after dyeing papers in the contact print dyepot

then drying out

they shed powder.

dyed spores,

a slightly different take

on 

local pigment gathering.
oh--

and here we are
in print

X

T

A

E

S 

done

rime or reason

the gentlest curve of snowfall

looks to my eye like a curve of bone

salvaged from the woods

at the site of coyote kill.

way off in the corn field

the ladies line dance

to the tippy frigid cold

keeping balance precariously.

or is that me,

balancing sanity and foolishness

in this gray?

they seem to come closer

but my camera is playing the trick

and the lack of light 

and the snowfall

turn it into another kind of grain

the next day

still gray

but less airborne snow

and more earthbound snow

and corn ladies deeply bound.

i can get a little more personal

say a howdy

and shiver.

(my neck shivering despite the silk)

the weirdest snowfall left

rime

icing in the bitter cold.

a rain freezing

left another kind of trace

a powdery gray

on the grandmother maple.

rime.

umber gray on blue gray

gray and gray and then this afternoon

 late,

the sun shone

dancing on the weird snow carvings.

bringing out some colors 

through my window.
next week is winter break.
i'm grateful.