The Life and Times of the Plume — Page 247

Six Things and The Zany

July 15, 2010 by The Noisy Plume

1. It’s raspberry season!

My black raspberries are ripening at a lovely rate that affords me ten or so berries every morning for my cereal, warmed by the sun, fresh off the vine. I walk out to the raspberry patch, sometimes barefoot, and fill up my hand with my favorite little aggregate fruit of numerous drupelets. They are so sweet and sleepy looking. I adore the action of raspberry picking. It’s so satisfying to pull the fruit from the plant. One has to grasp the berry gently, so as not to squish it, but firmly because it takes a bit of force to separate the fruit from its stem. This fruit is so squashable. So vulnerable without the protection of a thick skin. No wonder they hide so well under broad leaves amidst the prickles.

What’s your favorite fruit?

I’m the queen of the raspberries.

2. Mister Pinkerton, the railway cat, throws you the stink eye.

I love to nestle my feet under under Mister Pinky, wherever he lays, because I like the feel of his paws on my bare feet. He has killer claws but he never pushes them into the tops of my feet. He just rests them there, soft and warm and if I get to feel his warm little pink and black pads on the roof of my foot, it’s pure heaven. Try it. It’s a glorious sensory experience — like petting baby grass.

3. My sweet peas are blooming. They boast the sweetest smell of all. I linger by the section of fence they are clambering up and I breathe deep. I hope the flowers last forever. When they are close, I feel cradled by their lanky tendrils and long legs.

4. Judith is the silliest chicken. I love it when she looks straight at the camera with this goofy expression on her face. Chickens are always so wide eyed. They’re never lazy looking. They’re all bright eyed bird, beak and wattle.

Winona is looking especially pretty this morning and was willing to pose for a photo. Rhonda is always quite camera shy so I failed to capture a shot of her but I’d like to point out that I DO think Rhonda the resilient red will be the first to lay an egg. She seems like the most physically mature out of the three ladies. She has the most developed wattle and comb. See Winona’s wattle there below her beak? It’s just been developing this past week and a half or so. Judith doesn’t really have a wattle yet even though she’s the largest of the three girls — she is, after all, six weeks younger than the big girls. Every day I check the nesting box expecting an egg. I think I’ll find one any day now and Rhonda will be the one to give it.

I love chickens.

Even if my radishes don’t.

5. Meanwhile. Out in the studio I’ve been hard at work on a handful of resin projects. There are two Bliss Necklaces featuring poppy pods, resin and aspen branches that I am hoping to finish today as well as a zany ring design I sketched up a couple of months ago that is taking AGES for me to finish. It’s quite sculptural, somewhat otherworldly and it involves resin. The resin work on this ring is taking me ages to finish since each layer needs about a 6 hour cure and it will probably take me 8 resin treatments to complete the pod filling. Whew! Resin is not for those who require instant gratification! That’s for certain. This ring will be zany if I can carry the design off without wrecking it! Keep your fingers crossed for me. This design is unlike anything I’ve made in the past! I can’t wait to show it to you!

6. I really like it when I line my fingers up wrong on the computer keyboard and then I look away while typing and when I glance back to the screen I’ve typed a paragraph of jumbly garble that doesn’t make any sense. I always laugh out loud, delete the nonsense and then start again. But I think it would be fun to type someone a letter with my hands shifted slightly to the right They’d have to sit down at their typewriter and figure out what the heck I was trying to write by translating my typing shifted back over one space to the left.
Wouldn’t that be infuriatingly glorious?

Happy Thursday.
You zanies.
xx
PLUME

Filed Under: chickens, chores, pinkerton, plume gables

SOS & Sandwiches

July 14, 2010 by The Noisy Plume

By the time I got around to having breakfast this morning it was time for lunch. It’s been like that, lately.

So I made a sandwich.

[hippy hairs, tomato, avocado, turkey, white extra sharp cheddar cheese, mustard, purple onion, gluten free bread]

[Odwalla lemonade, Pellegrino, mint from the garden]

[I tend to be a bit heavy handed with the mustard…Kettle baked salt and vinegar chips on the side…]

Thanks to a local bakery, local like 10 minutes by foot from my back door, I am on a freshly baked gluten free bread list and I pick up my loaf once a week. It’s actually awful stuff, keeping in mind that I’ve spoiled myself for a few years by baking my own bread, from scratch, on a weekly basis. But, if I toast it a bit I can almost pretend it’s delicious. When I build a sandwich with it, it tastes quite good and it feels strong to have a bready substance in my body. As for the meat, you know I don’t really like to eat anything we haven’t harvested from Idaho and Wyoming lands, but our freezer is empty and I’ve been working really hard lately; climbing, running long 9 mile loops in the mountains, an interval weight class at my gym once a week (which has been AWESOME for my chronic rib displacement issue) and biking — when that’s all said and done my body is really craving meat. Lots of meat. So I’ve been buckling down and consuming poor little barnyard fowl in the form of sandwich meat and sausage (as well as fish). I still can’t seem to eat enough. Ever. How does one fill a bottomless pit, anyway??? Impossible (say it with a French accent)!!!

In other news, this ship was sinking this morning. Seriously. Struck-by-an-iceberg-all-hands-on-deck-ready-the-lifeboats-geez-that-Atlantic-Ocean-is-frigid- SINKING. I embarked on an endless search for sodium bisulphate all over town. Everybody was out! Rather frustrating. I finally found some in Chubbuck (a neighboring town) at a Lowe’s hardware store and I was so annoyed with having wasted so much time that I swore a bit in my head and at one point I even stomped my foot. Poor behavior for a lady. I know. But I’m not perfect…

I tried to sit down at a coffee shop for a calm little latte and a bit of letter writing but I felt guilty sitting there leisurely when I have (had) a handful of gardens that are full of weeds, six pairs of earrings to package and ship out, a kitchen full of dirty dishes, dogs that need exercising, bills to pay, emails to answer and sodium bisulphate to hunt down. The panic was rising. Rising all around. I was swimming in the thickness of it. Then I sent a SOS text to a friend and she talked me down off the ledge. Everything is fine now. Everything is fine. One thing at a time. One day at a time.

The most beautiful thing I’ve seen today would have to be the small flock of sparrows inside Lowe’s. They were perched on a shelf in the seasonal section. I sat down in a patch of orchids over in the plant section and just watched them and leaked a few tears. Then I stood up, paid for my sodium bisulphate and drove home. Now that I’m here, the gardens don’t seem so weedy, I’m not quite so overwhelmed, someone patched the hole in the starboard side of this ship and we’re seaworthy once again. We’re going to keep cruising through these cold waters. I can see a big white albatross coasting about on a curl of wind, straight ahead.

Land is near.

I’ll do my best.

I’m doing my best.

Tell me about something beautiful you’ve seen today.

I need some beautiful.

I need a truckload of beautiful.

Love,

The SS Plume

Filed Under: food, sinking ships

The Holy of Holies: Idaho Edition

July 12, 2010 by The Noisy Plume

Sometimes heaven is a place on earth.

Welcome to City of Rocks, Idaho, USA:

The thing is, The City is one of the most beautiful places I have ever climbed. It looks like Tolkien’s Middle Earth. Granitic forms rise up and out of the sage, juniper and aspen stands and tower there, hundreds of feet above the earth in unique and beautiful forms. It’s nearly too much to bear. I don’t know where to look so I take it all in at once and feel a bit dizzy, a bit tiny and a little bit justified beneath all of that magnificent and exposed igneous intrusion.

I consider The City to be one of the Holy of Holies in this state of mine. The rumble and fumble of creation is heard here in the whisker twitch of a jackrabbit and the soft, slow crumble of gorgeously formed granite; firm in crystal lattice: like prickly liquid under the softness of my hands. This is living rock.

When I’m on it, something that once slept in me becomes wild and alive.

I become a wedge of lichen clinging to its surface; a burly little fern pushing up and out of a fissure.

I feel small and mighty. All at once. I’m part of a greater whole.

My perspective grows wide.

God feels bigger than ever.

I was in good company with people who climb safely.

My partner, Sue, pushed me to do routes outside of my comfort zone. And each time I sent a route, I howled at the top like a wild thing and shook my mane in the wind before looking out at the vistas below me. We perched atop rocks like wise ravens, like stone mavens. We felt the burn of rock on skin, felt the rush of tenuous grips, watched the clouds roll in and roll back under the hand of the sun. We pushed through mental barriers. We never quit. Not even once. We hid in a cave when it rained. We sweated like men, called out encouragement to each other and pulled past pigeon rookeries on our way to the top.

We watched the sun sink, we ate, we laughed around a fire and then in the morning, we did it all over again. Skin under sun on rock in wind.

We made gravity mad; no matter how she tried,

she couldn’t keep us down.

And then we jumped in the truck and traveled home

through the sunset

through the twilight

past the fields with their irrigation ballet

into sleepy Pocatello

onto our street.

And we wondered:

Why don’t we go there more often?

Hope your weekend was rad.

PLUME

PS Gosh. I. Just. Really. Love. Idaho.
It makes my heart sing opera.

Filed Under: city or rocks, climbing, idaho

Leaning into the Leather

July 9, 2010 by The Noisy Plume

It’s a leather day here at The Gables.

Well, other things are also happening, like:

1. The quinoa cooking on the stove top.

2. I’m irrigating with my creek. I pulled the gate earlier this morning.

The grape vines looked thirsty.

3. Loretta Lynn is singing to me over the stereo in this little room:

“Have mercy on me baby….you’re tearing me apart…the way that you do me you know you done got to me…have mercy on me baby…“

4. My cabana boy has come and gone and the lawns are looking lush and cleanly trimmed. Thank you Brother Bradley — Brad is one of RW’s best friends, a firefighter, and he mows my lawns on Fridays. How awesome is that? I love fire community more than most other communities I’ve been part of, which is kind of shocking. But I love that these men and women view me as family, as well as RW, and they help to take care of me while he’s away. I know there’s always someone I can call if I need help with heavy lifting or some other task that I’m too little for — there seem to be a lot of those sorts of tasks. I am small, after all.

_________________________________________________

It’s a beautiful day here today. Slightly overcast with the wailing promise of thunderstorms on all of the horizons I can see from my workbench. I hope to feel the cackle of lightning and a sudden rush as those rogue plough winds rear up and sweep down off the West bench.

I feel so content today.

I’ve talked to RW three nights in a row.

I feel loved.

I feel precious.

I feel appreciated.

I am missed.

I feel the fullness of the good, strong and healthy love I have with that smokejumper of mine. It’s been so fun to listen to him talk about his work. Every time I talk to him, my heart, the very roots and timbers and branches of my heart shake with the joy that’s found in the fact that my man is living one of his dreams. I’m so glad I am able to give him the freedom to chase his dreams.

I have lovely weekend plans in place and I feel I’ve earned them. That’s right. I plan to pull down.

I’ve walked the line this week.

I’m ready for a Sabbath.

My gardens are responding to my touch.

My dogs can’t stop smiling.

My legs long to run and I want the sunshine in my hair.

Happy Friday to you all and thank you so much for your incredible support this week. You’re amazing. Life is amazing. The bliss is raining down.

PLUME

PS Today someone claimed my Bliss Ring for herself. She plans to wear it at her wedding later this summer. She said that she has “been with me since 2007” and that this is her first and long overdue ring. Amazing. Amazing that I can have a history with a person I’ve never met. I couldn’t help but cry at the beauty of that realization.

Yesterday, a woman fired me a note about how she had just lost her cat to a tragic accident. She said she didn’t know why she wanted to tell me but she did and I was so glad to connect with her, even in the event of her grief.

You are all

incredible.

You’re all so real to me!

Thanks for letting me into your lives.

Thanks for being part of my world.

Filed Under: leather