Luna's Baublebilities

It has only been a little crazy here.

You know - broken ankles, new cows and all that.

But it's beautiful. 

These apple trees are done blossoming and have hard little green fruits on them.  This photo of them in the mist really got my gears turning - I'd love to do an embroidery with multiple layers of hand dyed organza for the misty background and thousands of tiny french knots for the blossoms,  maybe when I'm 80 and have time to sit around long enough to get it done!

This Spring Holiday visitor would be fun to embroider, too. 



All that texture!

And those gorgeous golden eyes.
















.....

Not.


She's very cuddly and friendly and . . . . . difficult to photograph silk with.  Luckily the cotton scarves just lie there when she goes by but silk with it's static charge sometimes slithers around or leaps up if she jumps up on the table while I'm photographing something.





And if it moves, she hunts it.


Pesky creature.

Let's face it.  I'm depressed.  It's January.  It has been freakin' cold and a lot of the supplies I had stored in my South Studio (enamel paints for filigree, acrylics, specialized glues for jewelry and textiiles)  froze and are ruined because we had to seal off that section of the house in order to make headway in the battle against Winter.

My North Side Studio looks like this.

It is the only warm spot in the house some days and this is where everyone wants to huddle.  My dye table is covered with other people's junk and stuff from other projects that I would rather do in the South Side studio but can't.  Because it is cold.






See the plastic?  Some days it billows out like there is some enormous, liquid animal trying to push it's way through into the rest of the house. 










The kids have been hacking and snotting and puking for over a week.  I've had a low level of ongoing physical malaise for most of the month.  I've been mentally incompetent and my work ethic is just gone.  Completely.

 The other day I took some time to thumb through some old journals because I wanted to revisit some favorite doodles.  And because I was too lazy to get up and do any actual work.  I discovered a few things;

First,  I was a much more interesting person before I became Maxx's Mommy.  I think that I might become more interesting again in the future - I remember feeling pretty burdened and lame when MB was small, too.  (So - if you have a friend who used to be lots of fun, deeply intellectual, insightful, creative and generally good to talk to and she now has kids and is a total bore - be nice to her, O.K?  It sort of sucks sometimes to have that part of yourself forced to the back burner or into total hibernation so that you can manage your kids and house and etc...)


Second, I found a great doodle I made during a talk by Pres. Monson during the April 2006 general conference.  Isn't he adorable?  Don't you feel bad for him?

Third, I found a good prose poem that applies pretty well to my state of mind this month.  I scribbled it sometime between 8/2000 and 5/2001 - certainly it is a winter poem and was written before we had to put our old Springer, Roxanne, down.  I miss her.

I know that what I need is to get the house clean, get some exercise and banish everything but fabric and dye from my North Studio & give myself permission to drag some beads and findings from the frozen tundra to the livingroom.  Emmeth encourages this.  He would like to help build a necklace.  Or take one apart. 



Anyway - here's the poem.  Careful.  It's ugly.








Welcome to my BioRythmic Trench

a trench = a ditch; a place to channel unpleasant/unwanted stuff from one place to its disposal; a place for smelly men with guns to lie in while they reload and to crouch in while they fire at the enemy; a long hole in the dirt; a place where people piss;

an entrenchment = a thing that soldiers dig and build to keep people out - to keep the enemy on the other side.

Who's the enemy??? 
Surely it is this old dog.

Blind, deaf, lazy, fat, stubborn, inconvenient.

I could just kick her.
But I don't
I know how she feels.

Why am I always the sucker?

This little guy spent an hour or so with me this morning.  He had been wandering around for several hours when I decided that I needed to check his temperment and lure him in before he got hit in the road.

He proved to be very sweet but skittish and likes to pee in the house.   So we waited in Zig-wiggy's yard for the animal control officer.  She said he is a blue heeler and he is being taken to the Potsdam Humane Society.

He must have been lost or a drop off.   When we leashed him, he flipped out - cried and yelped and snarled a bit and did not want to get in the truck.  He looks young and fairly healthy and well fed - he will need a good home with someone gentle and patient.  Hope he finds one.

While I was trying to convince Maxx to wash his hands this evening, we discovered this lovely creature in our bathroom, crawling on my bright coral bath towel.


The photos don't quite do justice to how beautifully iridescent he is, but you can get a sense of his coloring and of how dirty Maxx's hands get.




The best part of the discovery - Max saw CLOSE UP just how very dirty his hands were and agreed to actually wash with soap and water.














We would love to know more about this beetle - I've never seen one like him before and I'm wondering if he is part of a north-moving population responding to the warming of NNY.

I awoke this morning to Maxx shaking my arm and exclaiming about a mousie caught in the vacuum cleaner. I thought he was pretending to have a mouse caught so I went along with his game until I dioscovered - lo and behold - there really was a small thing moving around in the vacuum! Not a mousie - a mole.




What a crazy way to start the day.

First, I have no idea how the boy got downstairs before me. I have excellent sneaky-child radar and am usually awake before he even gets to the hallway, much less all the way downstairs.

Second, aside from the fact that we live in a crumbling old farm house, I have no idea why we have so many moles suddenly. I caught one in a snappy mouse trap a week ago. Earlier this week, one got caught in a mice cube (a more humane mousie catcher). And now this one - the vacuum cleaner mole. Maybe it is an invasion of sorts. A super cute & soft, speedy, sightless invasion.

Third, I have no idea what would have induced this particular mole to crawl into my vacuum cleaner, all the way up the tube and fall into the dust bin at the bottom. But there he was, all dusty and dirty and longing for freedom. He'll get it soon enough. Right now he's in the trash bin but soon he will also go for a walk in the woods.

We are learning a lot about rodents around here lately. Moles are vey cute in a strange sort of way. they move MUCH more quickly than you would expect and can jump quite high - they are almost impossible to photograph. They like dog food and a drink of water after they have been caught in the vacuum for several hours. They almost never stop moving while in captivity and their fur really is just about the softest thing on the planet. (I don't recommend petting a mole bare handed unless he has calmed down enough to be touched. Moles have a poison in their saliva that paralyses earthworms - it can't feel good in your finger.)

BTW - if you are freaked out by small furry, speedy things, remember that I live in the East's largest bat sanctuary. Small furry things WITHOUT wings are awesome.

It must be that my home is becoming known as a safe house for dog. Whenever the neighbor's dogs get out, they come to see me. They know that I will let them inside to get warm by the fire & have a little snack while they wait for their family to come and get them. I do this because

1 - I love dogs
2 - The other neighbor shoots dogs &
3 - We get some irresponsible traffic on our road.

This morning, I noticed an unfamiliar pooch wandering around behind the neighbor's houses. When Maxx and I went out to meet the bus, this fellow dashed across the road and greeted us joyfully, bestowing kisses and happy noises. Maxx got on the bus and Lost here trotted right up into the house.

He smelled around, didn't pee on anything, ddn't jump on the furniture, sniffed Ziggy's bed and left it alone and then settled in in front of the fire. He is exhausted and needs a home.

So - check with all your Hopkinton area friends to see if they are missing a dog. The animal control fellow will be picking him up here early this afternoon to take him to the pound. Happily, our shelter does not regularly euthanise animals. They will care for him until he gets a good home.

Lost behaves as if he has lived in a house with people who cared for him but he has no collar nor any sign of a collar. He is scrawny but won't eat out of Ziggy's dish. He did happily accept a couple of hot dogs from me as bribery to get him into the bathroom so we could bring Ziggy back inside and upstairs. His legs were very pink when he came in but are returning to a normal color and he has a few spots where he looks bruised from running in the snow. He has some matted fur on his hindquarters.

He looks fairly young, apparently likes kids (seemed excited about the school bus & gave Maxx a very enthusiastic greeting) and is relatively calm. He is exhausted - keeps laying down and trying to sleep but hopping up whenever we walk across the room or when a car goes by.

He's so sweet - Molly wants to keep him. If he is abandoned, I'd like to punch his former owner in the nose.

If you know who he is, give me a shout or call the Potsdam Animal Shelter where he will be going later today. If you don't know who he is but are looking for a largeish, friendly dog, stop by the Posdam Humane Society to meet this guy. He comes highly recommended.


UPDATE - Lost is on his way to the Shelter. Mr. Phillips just picked him up. Lost greeted him very happily and hopped right up into the truck. Good luck, Lost!

I woke to an interesting surprise this morning , , which I will tell you about in a minute. First, let me remind you that a couple of weeks ago, I featured a product from Twin Birch Bath and Body and mentioned that it might be time to get some Shake! Dry Doggy shampoo for my Zig-wiggy because Bry has been complaining that he is getting stinky.

I tend to disagree. Ziggy is a clean dog - he hasn't rolled in the mud or played with anything rotten or hiked through a swamp or tangled with a skunk lately. He just smells like a dog.

I like dog smell. Little Puppy smell is one of the best possible smells in the world, in my opinion, but I had an unusual childhood. I spent a great deal of my pre-school childhood - most of it, in fact, living at my paternal grandparents' home. There were rarely any other children to play with but there were always 5 or 6 dogs around the house and at least one batch of pups a year. If I was really lucky, there would be two batches of puppies at a time! I woke each morning to a joyful gathering of doggie tongues and snouts and paws and tails waiting for me outside my bedroom door. I don't think my feet ever actually touched the stairs on the way down - they just sort of swept me along on their backs. I played and cuddled with dogs inside and outside all day long. Dog smell is good and I prefer the company of dogs to that of most humans. A house without a dog is like a mausoleum, as far as I'm concerned.

Anyway, as a concession to the Holiday spirit, I agreed that Ziggy needed a bath. I don't like to wet bathe Ziggy in the winter because he has so very little fur on his belly and he generally resists bathing anyway. Do you have any idea how hard it is to get a Shepherd/Boxer mix to stay in a tub of water? Ziggy can leap straight up about 3 feet in the air without any warning whatsoever and land wherever he wants to in the room. Bathtime is very messy.

So I bought the Dry Doggie shampoo and we gave it a go. Ziggy had to sniff the bottle of powder and seemed to find the contents agreeable because he stood patiently while I sprinkled it on him and rubbed it in. Then we waited a few minutes and brushed his coat with a comb. Boy, does he love to be combed! Mollly must not have been doing a thorough job lately because I combed and combed and when I thought I was done, he has stayed and leaned against my legs looking up at me until I combed some more.

He does smell sweeter now (sort of an outdoorsy, herbal scent) but the really amazing thing is how soft his fur is. He feels like a puppy! As he has aged, his fur has gotten a bit coarse along his back but today his coat is shinier and softer than it has been since he was young. So, happy Ziggy not only smells more agreeable to those who do not think that dog smell is the best smell in the world, he is also nicer to touch.

He must be feeling younger on the inside as well, because he had a great, victorious adventure in the early morning hours today.

We have been growing a great monster of a mouse here. I think Ziggy has been raising it, actually - he is rather messy with his food and gets it behind the fridge and the cupboard all the time. Lately, he has taken to barking and sniffing at little corners and under the piano and behind the stove. If you say "mousie," to him, he will jump up and start barking and snuffling and whining all over the house. So we knew one was here, and that it was big, so we put little "mice cube" traps out in hopes of catching it safely. We hadn't had any luck, though, which seemed strange - the traps usually work quite quickly.

I had to come downstairs around 5 this morning and as I stepped down the last stair, a large mouse shaped shadow scurried across the floor.

Actually, it bounded. The floor shook. It was a big mouse. I was worried that it might not be a mouse, it was so big.

Ziggy had been sleeping but as soon as he head the pounder-patter of big-little feet, he jumped up and gave chase. He missed it the first time around but the mouse must have been either stupid or bold or too big to squeeze into his favorite hiding space because I head a great commotion in the living room after I went back to bed. The was a great deal of scuffling, some barking and thumping and then things settled down.

When I got up to get Maxx ready for school, I turned on the light downstairs and saw the carnage left behind. There was blood all over the couch and scattered throughout the room. The mouse monster was dead on the floor. Ziggy was so proud!

The thing was a good 6 inches long NOT counting the tail and weighed a full 4 ounces after significant blood loss. That mouse represented more protein than many third world families get in a week.

It was not a rat - it had a nice, furry tail and was built & colored like an average field mouse - just a really, really well fed field mouse. The reason that the Mice Cube traps hadn't worked is because the thing was far to big to have fit inside one. The idea of catching a monster like that one with such a trap is laughable! It took a bold, leaping dog to catch that mousie!

Today I had better re-inspect my food storage to make sure that Mousie and his possible family have not also been eating away at that and then I need to paint 2 more scarves, cure and embellish 6 other scarves, post new products at Goblins Market and make Peas & cheese for tonight's Christmas party.

And make a special snack for my mouse-slayer.

What a day we had here yesterday! The weather has been hot and sticky - in the 80's with about 115% humidity - all week. We had been working on growing gills and I was opening a new Etsy store yesterday afternoon when thepower blipped off and sky began to grow dark. Ominously dark.

I said to Molly "You stay in here and keep Maxx in the house. I've got to go out and bring in the tomatoes." (I still have 72 tomato plants in a flat that were sitting under the lilac tree waiting to be planted. Don't ask why I started so darn many tomatoes. Do you need some?)

I grabbed my Tevas and slapped them on my feet, stood up, opened the front door and was immediately blasted with a horizontal deluge. (Is it a deluge if the rain comes into the house horizontally?) Maxx started screaming so I left the tomatoes to sink or swim on their own and started closing windows instead. I was honestly beginning to think that I would have to take everyone down cellar when the wind started to let up a bit. It was blowing in every direction and I couldn't see out the windows to the trees that are 15 feet from the house. When the driveway became visible again, I realized that one of our beautiful young maples had lost a major part of its crown and split down the trunk with the force of the wind. Upon further inspection after the storm, I could see that the crotch of the tree had been rotting out for some time. I guess we were lucky that it fell away from the house - though an insurance settlement might have been handy to fix the roof and get rid of the bats. . .

We fared better than our neighbor down the road. A huge Cottonwood was uprooted in her lawn and landed on her roof. She is an elderly widow and has been in her home for a long time. This event is turning out to be very stressful for her. You can see the roots of that huge tree in this photo.



Speaking of Bats - we had another one in the house last night. This is a regular occurrence in the summer as we are running an unofficial bat sanctuary in the attic and game room of our home. We attempted removal of them our first year here but they have been very persistent about coming back. We've sealed off parts of the home where they have access so that they do not get into our living space unless something is left open but the smell is bad on hot days. A permanent exclusion will probably cost $20,000 or more for new roofing, soffets and siding so we just practice vigilance and try to keep them out. Here is what to do if you get a bat in your house:

Don't panic. Screaming and ducking is fun, for a while, but not really effective. If it is evening, the bat is flying and you know that it came in recently and has not had contact with humans or pets in the house you should open a door and watch to make sure it flies outside. If the bat is too stupid to fly out on his own, catch it in a fishing net and release it outdoors. Wear gloves and be very careful not to touch the bat with your bare hands.

If the bat is resting on the wall or floor and you know that it came in recently and has not had contact with humans or pets, place a can, jar or net over the bat, scoop him up and release it outside. Again, be very careful not to touch the bat.

If it is morning or daytime or if you have any doubts about how long the creature has been inside and about whether or not it has touched any person or pet, you must catch it and send it in for rabies testing. Again, catch the bat in a net or by placing a can or jar over it while it is resting. Put the sealed container with the bat in it into your freezer. Call your local department of health and arrange with them to have the bat picked up for testing. You'll have to fill out a form and you'll be contacted in a few days to let you know whether or not the bat had rabies. So far, we've never had a rabid bat but I've always been relieved to get the 'all clear' call.

Time to wrap it up - here's a photo of some things about to go up in my new Etsy supply shop - GoblinsMarket.