Tent Homes, Wave of the future?( no pun intended)

 In light of the recent Hurricane Sandy and it's aftermath, I remembered this small town of Ocean Grove New Jersey and it's tent cottages  developed in 1869 as a Christian Camp Community http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_Grove,_New_Jersey

 https://www.google.com/search?q=tent+homes+ocean+grove+new+jersey+images&hl=en&client=firefox-a&hs=rL4&tbo=u&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&tbm=isch&source=univ&sa=X&ei=QiOlUKzEK4Hs2QX0oIH4Bg&ved=0CC8QsAQ&biw=1366&bih=595
Perhaps these types of dwellings would be easier to insure, and replace if need be.  I remember a time when it was considered cool in popular culture to have a shack on the beach. Curious how people in 1869 seemed to have more common sense even before the days of global warming, than those people of  today, perhaps they still remembered the Biblical quote about building your house on the shifting sands. 95 percent of my relatives live in New Jersey, they are all safe and basically okay(despite being without power for over a week), even their homes, luckily. I found that in  this disaster, the blogosphere was more helpful in obtaining information than the local authorities. Thank Goodness that there is a blog in my mom's hometown that was able to be updated in terms of power , gas and food issues.I had to relay information to her via cell phone, since I live in Idaho USA. I have now realized that in a major crisis one needs cash and not credit when power goes out in order to buy any essentials like food or gas.I kept thinking of the Mad Max II Road Warrior movie quote from Gyro Captain something to the effect of "it's all about the petrol mate"  One of my relatives said to me that the shore will never be the same since those days at the beach we remember, but in my mind, N.J. hasn't been the same since I was a kid, in many ways, as there are almost twice as many more people, cars, and buildings. The farms and wild wooded places I remember are now subdivisions  and shopping plazas.I often wondered why I was so inclined to go back to the land in rural America and aim for self sufficiency, despite one of my cousin's sarcastic comments about living in the boondocks. I have my own woodlot and cut my own firewood for heat, and grow a lot of my own food. I now see how big urban systems break down, quickly and leave people unable to take care of themselves. So maybe, my hybrid life of retro/ modernism
 spinning yarn on a foot powered spinning wheel while listening to lectures at the European Graduate School http://www.egs.edu/on the web, is not such a strange lifestyle choice after all. Sorry for the devastating loss of the Hurricane victims and many New Jersey-ans, nature can be rather callous,  it is up to us humans to find balance between progress, business, and  nature. Perhaps the marketplace i.e. insurance marketplace will be one of the arbiters. Here's a poem I wrote concerning the situation

              Chess Match
the houses swallowed up the land
the sea swallowed up the houses

Abstract Expressionist found art photography

Found art Photography

playing with color- new ceramic work/bowl

winter projects, and a story

I finished these two sweaters recently with Icelandic Lopi yarn from my friend Lee's sheep
http://www.sheepskinsnyarn.com/ It's the same sweater in different sizes and knit in 2 different colors with two separate sets of vintage buttons sewn on. I got the buttons from a wonderful hole in the wall store, called "The Button Lady" run by, at the time, a 90 year old woman proprietor. The store was in a small town in Northern New Jersey and is no longer there.I had one of those peak, memorable, mother daughter experiences in the store that many women with overly controlling mothers can most likely relate to. My mom was talking to the elderly proprietor while I wandered around the narrow shop with a wall of floor to ceiling long drawer type boxes of buttons. As I walked around, in overwhelming awe at the wide array of beautiful, vintage, buttons, I finally zeroed in, and made my selections from the drawers of buttons, each of which had a price sheet included inside the box. I carefully selected the sample button, laying it on top of the price sheet, and then placing the button and price sheet on top of the corresponding drawer box, making it easy for the elderly woman to tally up my purchase and keep her inventory in order. I had selected about twelve separate button styles and neatly laid the boxes and info sheets on the counter. The woman asked " are you ready?" as I said " yes" my mom who wasn't paying any attention to the care and organization of button boxes I had made says" Oh lets organize this for the woman" and quickly starts grabbing boxes and buttons, haphazardly, completely screwing up the meticulous order I had so painstakingly arranged. The buttons fell on the floor,and my orderly selection, ended up in utter disarray. Not only had my mom ruined the tally, but insulted me by insinuating that I was a sloppy idiot, that was too lazy or inconsiderate to carefully arrange my purchases for a nice elderly woman. Well, the mentally sharp, elderly, Jewish, woman had not only been able to carry on a conversation with my mom but also noticed all the efforts I had made with her inventory, and sternly chided my mom, the kind of chiding you give when you realize someone went out of their way to make your elderly life a lot more difficult!" your daughter already had the buttons in order"she said to my mom with an edge in her tone on the verge of yelling. My mom kind of brushed it off " Oh yeah I guess she did" in the same inattentive manner in which she caused the problem, not realizing the enormity of work it was going to take to put the inventory back in order. That behavior, unfortunately,arose from a long history of assuming authority, starting with my mom's role as a middle child looking after younger siblings. She was also a former teacher of young students.My mom had a habit of always taking control, regardless of whether it was needed or not, and assuming a position of authority without the sensitivity of observing her surroundings and seeing if authority and taking control was called for. On top of it all my mom was complaining to me in not such a soft voice about the price of the buttons, all the while, I knew how rare it was to find matching sets of 4-5 beautiful vintage buttons in one convenient place. As an adult woman who is careful with my money I had already made these assessments and deduced that the buttons were well worth the money, but such are the experiences one has with parents at times, regardless of your age they tend to see you as their hapless 10 year old, at least in my case. I suppose old habits die hard and people don't always see what is, but leap to conclusions based on old patterns of behavior. Nevertheless these buttons I sewed onto my handmade sweaters are tied up in so much memory for me!

I was able to grow and eat salad from my greenhouse on the winter solstice. I experimented with growing greens, lettuce,arugula, spinach, kale, parsley, cilantro, mint, collard greens, Swiss chard,so far I've been able to harvest everything but the Swiss chard which has grown to half it's size and then stopped.I'm in zone 4 and my greenhouse is in an area protected from the wind, that is not full sun but gets an adequate 6-7 hours.
Winter this year is quite bearable, with high doses of vitamin D, my stack of 12 books to read, fresh vegetables in the greenhouse, and lots of knitting projects, besides work.

Paring down form- new ceramic work

winter landscape/color photography

Dec. 3rd Winter Market at the 1912 Center Moscow Idaho 10-2

I will be participating in the December 3 Winter Market in Moscow Idaho at the 1912 Center http://www.1912center.org/index.phpfrom 10a.m. to 2p.m Directions are 412 E. 3rd street. Moscow Idaho
This is the only Holiday event I will be participating in locally this year. Hope to see you there

color landscape photography

Entropy-poem

cleaning up the dishes, the ones that never end- Hard work and effort turned into debris- birth and death- eating, cooking cleaning, -"Entropy is the tendency for natural systems to go toward a state of maximum disorder"- can't help thinking that this man in my life is playing a part here- that loaf of bread, now crumbs on the counter- I read that space junk is floating around, interfering with the space station- wonder what man left his junk lying around, even up in space?- a woman would never do this, she would package it and bundle it and send it to the sun for recycling- Oh but there is an energy exchange here- the Law of conservation of energy- the same man that drags the house down into disorder- is the one who keeps the car running by changing the oil-the energy changes location within our isolated system but it is neither created or destroyed-all in this perpetual motion machine called marriage - I trudge on, trying to keep up with it all- at the speed of light

Simplicity of Farm

My farm is a little more along the lines of John Jeavons, permaculture style http://articles.sfgate.com/2002-04-13/home-and-garden/17541149_1_organic-gardening-farming-food-shortage , http://www.johnjeavons.info/ than Martha Stewart magazine style, at least for now. Besides Martha has staff, and for the most part it's just me with a little help from my not so interested in gardening hubby. For some reason, I'm guessing the volcanic activity in Iceland, and Chile this spring, we have had a cold rainy Spring and Summer so the veggies are a bit behind. I'm in a zone 4/5 so the raised beds not only keep tunneling creatures out(I drilled small drainage holes and put wire screen mesh on the bottom of the troughs)it also warms the soil. My dear friend gave me the troughs which I am eternally grateful for. I think she was surprised to see how happy I was over some old horse watering troughs but I'm the kind of person who gets more excited by second hand garden supplies than, fancy jewelry. So far, I have potatoes and peas growing in them. In the greenhouse I have tomatoes, peppers, tomatillos, eggplant, basil etc.., that I started from seed and in the other half of the greenhouse I have kale, lettuce, arugula, spinach, parsley and cilantro growing in containers which I have been able to harvest since April.I bought my greenhouse for a great price with a discount coupon at Harbor Freight in Spokane. For anyone in North Idaho, my greenhouse has held up well in the snows as long as I raked off the snow. I placed it out of the wind because around these parts, we get high winds from time to time. My husband and I cook with a lot of garlic so I grow garlic and onions which are what's planted directly in the ground.

I made some linen sun dresses from fabric I bought in the garment district in N.Y.C. the last time I was home visiting my family. My mom taught me the basics of sewing, in her own way, as she calls the sewing term"notches" the term "darts" because the notches look like darts. We took the train into N.Y.C. and she came with me as I proceeded to buy so much fabric that we looked like a couple of bag ladies wandering the streets and could barely squeeze onto the bus with all our stuff. Mom was very tolerant in helping me pursue my fabric obsession. The way our spring and summer is going here I just hope I actually get to wear them, perhaps with a homemade sweater at least!

photographic studies in color landscape

black / white photography- striated

winter landscape photography

Abstract Expressionist Found Art Photography

Abstract Expressionist found art photography

simple-vessel-forms (2 separate forms)

my handmade pottery - new work

the Blackberry bush as economic metaphor

I was picking blackberries recently down near the river. There is a bike path next to the area where blackberry bushes and other
fruit trees and bushes grow wild. I took the dogs with me and a backpack full of plastic bags. As we were walking and picking I couldn't help but see the metaphor of blackberry bush as economic model. All the old adages kept coming back to me about "low hanging fruit, going out on a limb,seek and yee shall find. I was struck by the nature and abundance of this plant. I walked in search of good berries and noticed that there were other people also looking for the fruit. I didn't panic or feel the tension of competition as I, knew that there were many more bushes with tons of berries on them. All I needed to do, was to walk in a different direction or look at things from a different angle and I would find enough fruit for myself. As I picked the fruit, the dogs ate the berries hanging in front of them. I started to ponder the number of people and animals that were sustained from these bushes. People picked the berries for their families, there was a blackberry festival, some people picked the berries and then sold them, the birds ate the berries, insects ate the berries particularly when they were rotting, bears ate the berries and I'm sure many more animals that I was unaware of were sustained from these bushes. As the people and animals collected and ate the berries the seeds traveled and spread. As long as there was water from the near by river, and sunshine,the right conditions, the plants thrived.

At first I just walked along trying to find the bushes with the biggest fruit on them. I noticed some of the best and biggest fruit was in hard to reach places, where I'd have to take a risk of falling into the sloping thorny bushes, or tumbling into the river to obtain it.I passed on this fruit but admired it from a safe distance. I wanted fulfillment with minimum risk. I then noticed as I bent down to pet the dog, that if I looked at the plant from a different angle, looked at the situation from a different perspective than most people, I found some lovely large berries hiding just out of site. I collected a back pack full of berries and thought of all the wonderful dishes I could make from the berries;cobbler, scones, pie, sauce jam. I realized that I had to come prepared to reap the abundance. I had to have the protective clothing, containers, good walking shoes. I had to be aware of the right timing to drive the 12 miles in order to pick the fruit when it was ripe. I had to have a strategic plan that entailed not going on the weekend when many more people would be in search of ripe berries, and I had to have enough time between the weekend and the next crop of ripe berries to ripen. So my free abundant harvest entailed some foresight and work to have a successful harvest, but the conditions were there if I paid attention to the details of attaining my goal. So in these turbulent times, I can't help but think that there is a way for abundance to flow freely, a way for people to find enough for themselves and others. Namaste

riffing - spring poem/ rant

two months of what seems like
solid rain - yesterday sunshine, good moods, and smiles all around -
How lucky can I possibly get? - sunshine and a gorgeous Eileen Fisher sweater find at the Goodwill, for $5 - thank you universe, and whoever donated it - trying to play the glad game - I can be thankful that the weeds are easier to pull out with all this rain - thankful that we built a greenhouse - thankful that it didn't ruin the marriage, when certain said person accidentally let a wheelbarrow of heavy dirt go careening into the side of the aluminum frame,denting it - and other certain said person bit their tongue and refrained from letting loose the torrent of words, that seemed rather in order - thankful that some power watching over us, may have been dad's departed gardening spirit, saw to it that the damage was repaired and it now stands finished, as if nothing ever happened -
glad for my friends, classical music, and a new assortment of birds
that have come to feed and entertain, on the feeders we put up this year -
so I live with the rain, knowing that there is winter reading still, to catch up on,
wool to be spun and knit, and hot food to enjoy along with the fresh garden greens
until the sun and warm weather return