The Tyger Voyage

I was asked this question at my first 'back to school' staff meeting. A moment to pause and reflect, before the race of the school year begins.

I need sunlight and flowers and raindrops. I need walks in the woods, on the beach, on a city street, in a museum, or a beautiful garden.
I need some animals around, usually a dog, who love me just cause I walked in the door.
I need my bike to ride, my legs and arms to stretch and run and do yoga, and someone to rub away the pain. Or a hot tub soak now and then.
I need and am grateful for good health.
I need the laughter and comforting acceptance of old friends, and the possibility of new ones.
I need ART and music and dancing and great food and drink and someone to share it all with.
I need all the colors of the rainbow. And some paintbrushes, paint, fabric, thread and yarn.A sewing machine, too.
I need BOOKS, piles of books. And time to read them.
I need explorations near and far, sometimes alone and sometimes not.
I need to do …

My vegetable garden has been rather wimpy this summer. I did get some great kale, chard and lettuce in June. But the rest of the summer it has been one issue after another. Battling with the squirrels, above, over squash. This was going to be a beautiful butternut, one of my favorites for making soup.

 It remains to be seen if we get any red tomatoes, September is usually when they ripen. It was a fog in the morning- sunny afternoon kind of summer, with many warm days, so I'm not sure why my vegs have been so lackluster.





Here is a leaf painting I made last week. A photo will have to suffice. Just got a new computer and now I have to upgrade everything, CS 5 or 6, Word, etc... it''ll take a while to get all the bits working. It's one of those 'if you give a mouse a cookie' sort of things... one thing leads to twenty more. Ugh!

We did get a lot of gorgeous anemones, though. Usually they don't bloom til September... and this was last week. Do you think we'…

Here's another amazing woman I've been reading about:

Maria Montoya Martinez. She was born in 1880, in the town of San Ildefonse, in New Mexico. As a little girl she almost died of smallpox, but was taken to eat the sacred dirt at Chimayo, a holy spot nearby, and recovered. She learned traditional pottery from her aunts and women in her pueblo. She and her husband Julian worked on an archeological dig nearby and helped uncover ancient black pottery, which intrigued her. She worked to figure out how it was made, experimenting with burnishing and firing methods.
Her husband painted decorative symbols on the pots, exploring glazing methods.

She taught what she'd learned to the people of her village, for her people believe in sharing everything with each other. Her village became prosperous because of San Ildefonse blackware. People came from all over to buy them. Along the way, she had four sons, and a daughter who died as an infant.
 Her son Popovi Da, became a potter as w…