No Time to Say Hello, Goodbye!

I have been really busy these last two weeks, the usual collision of budget season & annual mailing at work, personal and home business tax prep and preparing to leave home and work for a week of teaching at the John C Campbell Folk School.

But there were a few things I wanted to share with you before I go.

One was the beautiful misty sunrise above.  I am truly delighted by all the signs of spring: the green coming up in the new grass, three new foals in our neighbor's field, and six tiny wren eggs in the nest in the weaving studio.

Yes, I did say IN my studio.  This little outbuilding was originally a chicken house.  When we moved here in 1985, my husband cleaned it up and we converted it to a play house for the children.  There have been sleepovers there and a number of people have lived there temporarily - teenage boys who came to work for the summer and a wonderful Polish man who worked on a series on renovation projects for us in the spring of 1993.  Eventually I traded the old parlor in our house for the playhouse - two of our kids got to have their own rooms and I moved my looms out to the old chicken house.

So, it's a somewhat porous space as regards the natural world - I share my studio with a variety of insects and spiders, an occasional mouse and last spring a young Carolina wren built her nest in the basket where I keep long and short lengths of rug yarn and shoelaces for tying up warps.  I don't go in the studio much in winter because it is impossible to heat to a comfortable temperature, and before I started working in there last spring, this tiny bird found what seemed to her to be an ideal location - private, quiet, cozy.  I didn't have the heart to disturb the nest, so I let her raise her brood and then cleaned out the nest when they had fledged and flown.

It simply did not occur to me that she would return, but she has built a new nest and when I checked yesterday, she had laid six wee eggs.  Oh, well.  I will be away all next week and then busy catching up at work during the week and busy with the Powhatan Festival of Fiber on April 25th and very busy with the Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival on May 2 &3.  And I have my Wolf Pup in the house, so I will leave my wren in peace as long as she needs the nest.

But next year, I will hide that basket!

Then there was Easter... I baked two almond cakes last Saturday - one in a sheep mold especially for the holiday and one in a tube pan in case the sheep was a complete disaster.

 I really enjoy baking.  I like the process by which a list of ingredients is transformed into

a delicious, aromatic, edible thing - in this case, a cake -

and sometimes into a very special cake!


I was able to repair the nose with a bit of trimmed cake and then covered the whole cake with a bittersweet chocolate glaze.

My sister Sally prepared a wonderful spread for Easter dinner - leg of lamb with avgolemono sauce, ham, asparagus, a massaged kale salad and a complicated pilaf that my Father used to make called Armenian Rice.  It includes chicken livers, almonds, sauteed apples and onions, tomatoes, eggplant, bacon and it tastes like my childhood.

The sheep cake was a big hit, and was particularly enjoyed by a visiting neighbor who initially declined dessert because he has celiac and can't have wheat flour.  He was surprised and pleased to find that I am a gluten-free baker.






The last thing to share is a photo of Idgy with her boyfriend, Beaucephus.  They spent quite a bit of time together over the last two weeks and we are hoping that they finally figured out how to make puppies.  We will know in a few weeks!


OK, I have to finish my work reports and solve the problem with the balance sheet and pack all my materials and handouts and some clothes before I head off to Brasstown, North Carolina to teach a week of Acadian Weaving.  More on that in the next post.