It’s been a busy week full of brainstorming, reading, thinking, and meeting. I’m not caught up on everything I would like to be doing, and I am coming to terms with the fact that there might not be time enough in the world to accomplish that. So I’m trying to reschedule, delegate, and just plain let some things go.
One of the very enjoyable tasks I had this week was to drop off some items with a local framer. I had a 30 minute appointment and we chatted for just over an hour about the layout, the colors involved, and which items might be included in the final framed piece. It’s a joy to work with this artist. Yes, I could use a coupon and drop off this work at a Michaels. No, I don’t want to do that. This particular artist did such an excellent job framing up the TYPEFACE poster that you saw in last week’s post that, of course, I couldn’t wait to work with her again.
I’m trying to place more emphasis on events and tasks that restoreth my soul. One of these was going to dinner on Wednesday night at a local bar that hosts live Irish music every Wednesday. Two (so far, Casey) of the musicians work in my department at the university, and it’s easy to see that this night of music restores their souls, too.
I don’t have a video of last week’s jam, but here’s a link to one of the last songs the group played in last week’s session. It’s a group favorite, and I never knew its name until now (John Ryan’s Polka). This isn’t a video of our group, but the instrumentation is roughly similar. The song gives individual performers the opportunity to play (or decline) a solo. https://youtu.be/qqUhF5xzWRE?si=IpU07uZ07OJuYHNU
One of the musicians, Colleen of the tin whistle, said that she expects to see me in the musician’s circle within the next two years. While Irish music allows my heart to dance, it isn’t exactly scored for the alto saxophone. If I’m going to perform with this group — and it’s important to note here that I wasn’t asking to do so — I would have to learn how to play a different instrument. We’ll see how that goes. Currently I possess a piano, an electric keyboard, an alto sax, a tenor sax, an acoustic guitar, an accordion, and several abandoned grade-school recorders. And perhaps a trumpet? I don’t remember, though I’m pretty sure that I gave away the flute and delivered the clarinet to my mother. I hope I’m not missing something obvious besides the standard and chromatic harmonicas.
But you’re probably curious about why I titled this post “roots and wings.”
There are only two lasting bequests we can hope to give our children.
One of these is roots, the other, wings. — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Today I checked on the peach seeds, and found that one of them had begun to create roots in the course of another week. Other seeds had split apart in the little plastic incubator but not gotten to the rooting stage; I’ll give them more time.
I’ll have to watch that YouTube video again to get the details of how I should plant this sprouting seed. Peach pies, here we come!
Those were the roots, and here are the wings. This summer I’ve been collecting most of the feathers that I’ve found in the yard while walking the dog. While we host quite a wide variety of birds on the property, from hummingbirds and house sparrows to Sandhill Cranes, crows, and hawks, I’m not always sure which feathers came from what birds. This afternoon I found the tiniest feather yet, and I imagined it as the quill pen of a studious, literate mouse. (Perhaps this is how the Country Mouse in the fable wrote his correspondence.) In the next photo it’s compared to a much larger feather that likely came from an owl or a hawk.
This weekend I finished reading a wonderful book about owls (The House of Owls by Tony Angell) and am poised to read a book co-written by the same author, In the Company of Crows and Ravens. Maybe I should wait to start reading it until after I’ve recorded my impressions of the first book in my reading journal.
Knitwise, I have cast on for the Striped Scarf but think that 15 inches might be wider than the recipient would like. I have queried the Facebook Friend who supplied the pattern, and I plan to treat this effort as a swatch. I’ll frog this effort and cast on again in accordance with her advice, perhaps with a smaller needle and surely with fewer stitches.
Maybe I should have measured the scarf-start against the owl-feather….
Chocolate Sheep 