Routines...

Been a while.  Time to write more often, as the season turns cold and my thoughts slow, clarify, and turn inward again.  Summer was wonderful – I made a purple cow lap quilt for a child thousands of miles away.  My show in the Hosmer Gallery of the Forbes Library (Northampton) went well, with six sales resulting.  My family enjoyed a week in a Vermont state park, complete with canoeing, the most intense rainstorm of my life, and a hike up Mt. Mansfield, VT’s highest peak, via its steepest trail.  (Those three events were, fortunately, on different days.)  My son’s blossoming friendships resulted in many summer  play dates by the river, and we settled into a routine of time outdoors and assorted summer camps, punctuated by trips to museums and brief visits by family.  

My new autumn routine is to sneak out of the house every morning around sunrise with a cup of tea or coffee to watch the sky and listen to the birds wake.  I can’t stay out long, my son wakes around the same time, but these little moments of solitude are my favorite part of the day.  Last month, a pair of Carolina Wrens stopped by.  Every morning, they sing – more musically than any Carolina wren’s I’ve heard before.  Perhaps they’ll stay the winter.  The first time I snuck out, the air was full of mist, the wrens were singing, and the ground was covered in damp yellow leaves.  Watch for a mini-quilt version of that morning.  I plan to enter it in a Quilting Arts Magazine challenge.  Did you know that these wrens say “tea kettle, tea kettle, tea”?  

Yesterday, our first frosty morning, the sky was that clear rich blue color that you only get just before sunrise or after sunset.  The air was so cold and still, I could hear leaves popping lose and falling from the trees.  There was a narrow crescent moon rising in the east above the sun, and Venus glowed above the moon.  I walked to the edge of the woods behind the cemetery next door, and a large flock of crows passed over, headed east.  My impression was that they were headed into the sunrise to warm up!  Watch for more crows in my quilts too!  Here’s the piece that I donated to the Forbes Library’s silent auction at the end of this month.  Auction details are here.

Recycled Sky - Ravens