... long winter's nap

My friend, Parker, found the holidays to be exhausting!
Photo, courtesy of Parker's human mom, Noel.

Merry Christmas and Happy Thanksgiving

Why not make this holiday one of thanksgiving in addition to the official one that happens a month earlier in November? So, here's what I feel thankful for during this season of winter.

I appreciate having my family and friends (human and animal) without whom I wouldn't be able to make it through life. I won't be able to be with everyone this year (one nephew is again in Iraq for a third tour, another is stationed with Coast Guard in California, and other dear friends & godchildren are not here), and many have passed on. Still, all the people and animals I love make and have made my life what it is and I thank them for that.

I am thankful to have home and comforts but know that as I enjoy these so many around the world are without even basic means to sustain themselves and their loved ones.

I am grateful to have a desire to pursue artwork and to feel a sense of accomplishment and great joy from that pursuit. I'm happy also to want to share with others what I learn about the making of tapestry, and to have opportunities to do that very thing.

I am happy to know that the season of winter will yet again lead to the rebirth of spring. Even now as I write this a bird is singing a song outside. Nature seems still but really there is an ongoing vitality even if it isn't so obvious right now... at least to my feeble human eyes and understanding.

This year we aren't at home. The house has been under repair and renovation work so we've been staying at my studio for the past six months. At our house during December we usually have only a few extra special decorations out, but normally do have a big tree filled with ornaments we've both collected, inherited and been given through the past three decades we've been together. This change in living circumstances, being in the small studio, has put whatever decorative urge I may normally have 'way on the back burner! But I have placed a few things here and there throughout the studio be a bit festive. So... here's the seasonal decor for us this year:







Merry Christmas, Happy Thanksgiving... and here's to a healthy, happy, productive New Year!

Last Saturday's hike

Last weekend, Noel and Patrick opened their place for a hike through the woods by members of the Carolina Mountain Land Conversancy I was there to help in whatever ways I could since I know and love the trails well. I've posted about my visits many times but here's a link to one from December 2007--a slide show of just a few of the photos I'd taken during a visit then.



About 40 people showed up so we split into two groups, with each group taking turns with Noel and Patrick to traverse the different parts of the 150 acres. I served as "sweep" for one of the two groups as we were led by Patrick and then Noel. Sweep is the best position for me because I get distracted and have to stop and take photographs along the way! Each stage of the hike took about two hours, with lots of stops for discussing different things along the way.

Patrick pointed out a number of the hemlock trees that are recovering from wooly adelgid following his Sassy beetle releases throughout the place over the past three years. Some are still in danger of being lost but the signs of new growth appearing at the crowns are encouraging evidence that most of the trees are headed for recovery, with the aid of the natural predetator of the adelgid. Patrick has worked long and hard over the past years to determine the best way to fight the wooly adelgid. He's a research scientist and his approach has been done with study and care. And as he progresses with the beetles he's collecting data to back up his claims. His work is questioned by many in the "official" party line (read the US Forest Service); here's a link to an article he wrote last year, and some of the flames he received based on it. But, in my own unscientific way--using just my eyes and knowledge of what I've seen happening in their trees since he began beetle releases--I can say that what he's doing is working. Many of the trees on their property I call "Lazarus trees" since they seemed to be dead and now they've become revitalized.

When a hemlock tree on which Patrick wants to release beetles doesn't have limbs within reach of the ground, he often tacks up a coffee filter holding a few branches containing beetles to the trunk of the tree. Here's one that someone on the hike "discovered" and asked about.

Patrick was a presenter at the Fourth Symposium on Hemlock Woolly Adelgid in the Eastern United States held in February 2008 in Hartford, Connecticut . His presentation was on the theory and practice of his private HWA control efforts and is available online in a pdf - FTHET-2008-01 (at text pages 225-235) at the USDA site at this link. Scroll down to the 30th (!) bulleted item (lots of information buried in this site!!)




One leg of the hike went to a lower part of the property where there are numerous large boulders that contain asbestos. There was once an asbestos mine in the area, according to what Patrick has been told by one of the local residents. The map at this link shows locations where there were once many asbestos mines in the Appalachians. This part of the trail ends along the creek where water runs over and under the smaller rocks.



Noel's portion of the trails included the walk to the showy orchid cove that lights up with hundreds of wildflowers in the spring. The next stop on the hike was the upper waterfalls, one they've named "Dorothy's Falls." Noel described to the group why they'd had decided upon the name--in honor of her mother, who was the only one of their four parents who didn't think she and Patrick were out of their minds for taking on the "primitive" cabin in the woods when they bought it in the late 1980s. Since then, the falls have come to be a place where others whose mothers have since died can sit under the canopy of the trees, with the sound of falling water and recall special memories.



Noel and Patrick continue to discover wonders on their property as they clear trails, even after being there twenty years. Last week, just a couple of days before the hike, Noel found a witch's broom growing from a small hemlock tree. It's in a spot near the creek where Patrick was clearing out a bit more of the laurel.



Witch's brooms are apparently fairly rare and most may be high in a tree. This one, just a few inches from the ground, is growing, with small gnarly stems, horizontally out from the host tree trunk, and is branching all around to encircle the tree. Patrick, who has already planted many cultivars of hemlocks, may try a propagation from this witch's broom.

The CMLC hikers left after four or five hours in the woods, elated at having had such a grand time. The weather was perfect for December in the mountains, bright,clear and dry and about 38˚. Afterwards, we relaxed in the cabin and relived some of the high points of the hike... and Macaroni decided to have a recline on handspun dog hair that Noel's preparing for a ruana I'll be weaving for her soon!

Tapestry is off the loom

I cut off the hickory/oak leaf tapestry last night about 11 p.m. My husband caught me just as the scissors were about to snip above the leashes. With this weaving there's about 24" total loom waste--17" at the top and about 7" at the bottom. I've been telling people to allow for around 30" on a frame of this type but hadn't measured. I actually could have woven about 4 or 5" more at the top although I might have had to pick one shed. So the waste amount would really be more like 20".

This wool warp worked well after I got used to it being more inclined to cling to other warps than a smoother cotton seine twine. I'll wash this piece (something I haven't done before) and see what the hand is like afterwards. I have an area at the bottom of the tapestry, about 4" that I wove before beginning the cartoon, that I'll use for experimenting a bit with needle felting. I'd needle felted on a small piece earlier in the summer to cover the warp ends at the back, using a thin layer of dyed fleece. That was wool weft but cotton seine twine warp and I began to think that a wool warp would be even more useable for needle felting.




So today will be spent with tidying weft ends and then washing the tapestry. Nice to have one more finished this year--even a smaller one.