Ooo-eee ooo-ah-ah, ting tang Walla-walla bing-bang

A few weeks back,* Luke told me that if he lived in the middle ages, he'd want to be the village baker. He likes the idea of waking up in the wee hours of the morning to bake big loaves in a stone oven. When he lived in Guatemala, there was a baker in one of the towns that was a good example of what he has in mind: a fat man with strong arms and a big laugh.

*On a side note: I have no concept of time. Anything that was longer than a week ago is "a few weeks back." It could've been two weeks, it could've been six months. I don't know.*

When he asked me what I would be, my first thought was of taking the job of midwife. But I should leave that to someone who actually likes birth, and not just the idea of liking it. The job I would really choose is the herbalist/medicine woman/witch doctor. I like learning about herbs and plants and mushrooms- edible things that can be foraged, medicinal properties, etc. It would be fun to have a job of it (and if I was the baker's wife we could combine the two and give medicinal breads).

For my friend Drew's birthday I got to play medicine woman, and made him some tinctures. It was fun to research which herbs I wanted to use, which medicinal properties they had, etc. I ended up making a St.John's Wort tincture for mood elevation; nettle tincture for colds and hay fever; and a sleep tincture using chamomile, spearmint, lavender greens, and lemon balm.

 

 

As I do any time I want something to have a cute label, I asked Luke to do it.

Also for his birthday I finished his Christmas present that I never gave him. It's a magic bag. It can hold his tinctures, stuff for reiki sessions, books on shamanism, whatever. The front of the gray linen bag is embroidered with wheels ("chakra" means "wheel") with the corresponding color and number of spokes for each chakra. The crown chakra is represented by a lavender lotus (just to make it more interesting and because I was not about to embroider 960 spokes). This was a fun project. Though I don't believe in chakras the same way Drew does, it was fun to learn about them and the ideology behind taking care of them. And it seems like something a witch doctor should make, right?

Wild Plums

My BFF Whitney picked me a big bag of wild plums from one of the houses where she dogsits. Last night I made jam. Deciding I wanted this jam to be thicker than usual, I boiled it a long time, forgetting how much pectin plums have-- turns out, I have a plum jelly with clumps of fruit. Still, a good flavor.


I had Lukey watercolor little plums for labels, because as easy at it seems, I couldn't draw plums that looked like plums (if we every make an apple jelly, though, I'm ready! I could also probably handle a banana, too. Too bad those aren't good for preserving). I liked the tags so much I made him do one for the plum chutney we're giving to my grandparents when we see them next week. Isn't it the cutest?

Excellent Flavor

I adore this painting/plant marker that I got from my friend Christopher. I saw some he'd made for himself and loved them so much I commissioned him to make some for me. This one came in the mail yesterday, and I couldn't be more pleased with it. I've always liked his style (more examples of his cool art here and here and here), and am glad to have some of it in my house. Thanks, dude!

Rolly Pollies

Here are some more pictures of a hobby that isn't mine. Luke drew/painted these little rolly pollies (potato bugs, pillbugs, whatever you call them) for me for Christmas. I just barely got around to finding frames for all of them and getting them hung up in our bedroom.

Look at this!

Tonight I stumbled upon the work of Carol Hummel, and man, is it cool!

Here's a tree cozy:

This one is in Ohio, but Hummel has also done one in India and some palms Florida.

She also crocheted these huge doilies (she calls them "cells", and they're between one and three feet in diameter) in the salt flats/Wendover as a statement about (wo)man's intrusion on nature, comfort vs. confinement, etc. Some of them look so natural, like they could be part of the landscape. Some are beautiful in how much they stick out. At Silver Island Mountain:

At an abandoned barracks at the Wendover Airforce Base:

At some wooden pallets left on the salt flats:

At an oil drum:

And here's one just in the middle of the salt flats:

Cool stuff, huh?

Oh yeah, and she also put underwear on trees!