chickens

I just collected eggs. Judith’s offering was gloriously imperfect, perhaps even mildly abstracted. Her approach to creating is fantastically organic. Don’t you think?

Yesterday, out in the studio, I was pushing myself so hard to bring something “novel” to my work that my efforts fell flat, trembled with some caustic and synthetic overtone instead of the deep, crushing, textured velvet of organic emanation…on days like that, I wish I was like Judith pushing out wonky little mildly abstracted eggs, not thinking of anything in particular while doing my work, perhaps even working involuntarily, like a heart beat or the tickled twitch of withers on a horse fending off flies in summertime sunshine…

There’s something so satisfying about the accidental and the serendipitous. The surprise turns in creative work might be my favorite part. The stumbled upon. The ideas gone so wrong that turn out to be so righteous and genuine.

My hands want to speak honestly, always, and I suppose, even when I force them into foreign motions, there is good that comes from that too.

I always keep in mind that everything leads somewhere, even if it falls down, flat on its face, from time to time.

An egg can be lumpy.
An egg can be perfect.
But in the end, an egg is still an egg.

…whatever that means.

:::EDIT:::
Believe it or not, this egg was NOT a double yolker!
Shocking!

Things are moving a mile a minute around here.

I’m a long distance runner and the pace doesn’t bother me too much

but let me tell you, I’ve been doing my best to pull on the reins and sit deep in the saddle lately. There are so many beautiful things about the early winter months and I don’t want to miss any of the details! November is gone but I’ve been so busy meeting December that I’ve hardly noticed.

I really believe there must be magic in everything;

I find myself spellbound so often.

This morning I popped outside to give the hens some fresh hot water, spinach leaves and to collect eggs. The ladies are finally slowing down with their laying and I’ve only picked two eggs over the past couple of days. It makes me feel a bit melancholy. One of my great joys, here at The Gables, is collecting ingredients for my meals, by hand, from my property. Eggs are the only thing I can glean lately and to see the the hens slowly turning in for the winter makes me feel a bit glum.

However, let us remember, to everything there is a season:

a time to collect eggs and a time to buy a carton of eggs at the local Co-Op.

This week, for the first time in months, I ate a store bought tomato.

It was tremendously disappointing.

I’m already greedy for lycopene that bursts with flavor. How will I manage the suffering until summer arrives again?!!!

But that’s the thing about living in a climate that boasts four strongly unique seasons, I always know that the next season will come and I find myself living blissfully and fully no matter if it’s winter, spring, summer or fall. I love the season I’m in, miss the season I was in previously and look forward to the season coming.

***

My walks lately have taken me up on top of the West Bench where the snow has been sculpted into deep, sinuous drifts between the sage, juniper and tall grasses. Those walks have been hard won for me and especially so for the wee Penelope. I continuously fall through the drifts which are as deep as my mid-thighs at times. Penelope follows in my footprints, leaping in and out of the holes I leave behind in the pristine winterscape. We both gasp for breath at times as we fight our way through. The sections of trail that have been scrubbed clean by the wind come as welcome breaks from the tough going.

Occasionally, I fall down into an invisible hole or dip in the ground beneath the snow and am jarred when my foot finally connects with terra firma. It’s not nice walking. That’s for sure. But it makes my cheeks ruddy, forces my lungs to push and pull air rapidly and it gives me a new appreciation for the animals that are out there, hunkered down in the coulees and drainage ravines on the sides of the Rocky Mountains. They paw through the snow to find their fodder, and are eventually drawn deeper into the low country in order to successfully forage. I imagine them walking through these snow drifts, on four matchstick legs, heaving their quadruped weight through the season, step by step: winterthick fur pushed and pulled by the down valley drafts.

I’ve been on the backs of horses as they push through snow like this. I know it’s hard work, I’ve felt the effort of a horse with every silent hoof strike, lift and pull of legs through white, the slow movement of my hips absorbing a gait, their animal warmth beneath my legs and the two of us, melded together and acting as a conduit for winter to pass through. We snort our breath at the sun in tall white columns. Beneath four hooves there’s the collected snowfall, there’s that residual build up of flake upon flake until we find ourselves wading through the thickness of solid state water; we press on even when our bodies crave the fuzziness of sleep. We’re blinded by the horizon gleaming in every direction beneath the face of the sun.

Now I’m just writing.

Free rein on my fingertips as I sit here and type.

I guess I just feel like talking with you.

Two days ago, while walking, I was pushing through the snow when the tip of a snow cloud pushed up and over the peaks on the West side of town. The cloud was a few miles away, clinging to the mountain tops and shrouding Kinport Peak in a white lace grace seasonal veil. Though the clouds were relatively distant, the wind grew stronger and pushed large snowflakes down to where I walked. The sun was bright in blue heavens. The sky was full of diamonds. I felt an alleluia rise in my throat.

The older blanket of white on the ground caught the new flakes lightly and held them carefully on the surface of things. There was a quiet tension there between the old and the new. An inability to blend: snow on snow acting like oil on water. I dropped to my knees to further observe perfect crystalline structure in bright sunlight and whipping wind. Penelope whined beside me, deep in the snow, anxious to move, anxious to build body heat. A hawk passed over, racing against shadow and wind. I squinted as I looked West. Stood. And kept walking.

***

I suppose this is all to say I’m kind of busy over here.
December has come to call and I don’t want to miss a moment of it.

Plume

PS

There are new things coming…

Cluck Cluck

The Art of Egg

Open Invitation

Meeting December

Mondo Egg