feeder and eater

on our last night in paris. ( sad face)

2011-10-04T23:18:00.000-07:00

foie gras tartine. last lunch in Paris.

2011-10-04T06:23:00.000-07:00

tarte au citron, my last lunch in France. poilane cafe

2011-10-04T06:21:00.000-07:00

jane on road in st martin

2011-09-28T13:33:00.000-07:00

after lunch at cabana jam, ile de re.

2011-09-28T13:07:00.001-07:00

lunch at cabana jam, St Mart de Ile de Re

2011-09-28T13:05:00.000-07:00

salt farm

2011-09-27T10:32:00.001-07:00

the oyster house in St Martin, Ile de Re.

2011-09-26T07:06:00.000-07:00

the beach on Ile de Re. We spent most of the day bicycling & swimming.

2011-09-26T07:04:00.000-07:00

le dessert fluffy

2011-09-24T09:35:00.001-07:00

lucy's dessert: spun sugar around chocolate fondant

2011-09-24T09:34:00.001-07:00

a simple coffee

2011-09-24T09:32:00.001-07:00

moules frites at l'Escapade, St Georges

2011-09-24T09:31:00.001-07:00

Royan marche

2011-09-24T09:27:00.001-07:00

Lucy at musee bande dessinee, Angouleme

2011-09-21T13:30:00.000-07:00

Lucy in the Peugeot, somewhere btwn Beaun & Angouleme

2011-09-21T13:28:00.001-07:00

after dessert sweets at Le Montrachet, Puligny Montrachet

2011-09-21T13:25:00.000-07:00

blackberry dessert at Le Montrachet

2011-09-20T07:34:00.000-07:00

jane berg at lunch

2011-09-20T07:32:00.001-07:00

lucy at lunch in Puilligny montrechet

2011-09-20T07:31:00.001-07:00

Watching tv in Bordeaux (honest)

2011-09-18T12:21:00.000-07:00

This picture is out of sequence, it was actually taken at our chic hotel in Bordeaux, before we left for Lyon. We found Bordeaux a beautiful city and spent some time sitting on a park bench watching charming French mamans et papas and their ridiculously gorgeous children walk by. Then we went to dinner and drank Bordeaux.

Saone

2011-09-16T15:11:00.001-07:00

This is the pretty river Saone which flows along one side of Presqu'ile. The Rhone flows along the other. We went to the Biennial at the Musee Contemporainianian. Before that we shopped at the marche for dinner at Carol's: les fromages, des lettus, des figues, de pain, des haricots verts, des pommes de terre, des olives.

Dessert plate in Lyon, part deux

2011-09-16T15:11:00.000-07:00

This was after the dainty nibbles. The red tart is made from nuts and is a Lyonnaise speciality. No, I don't know what makes it red.

1st lunch in Lyon

2011-09-16T15:10:00.000-07:00

We arrived on an Easyjet flight from Bordeaux, took a fancy-pantsy cab to Carol Neiley's house on Presq'ile and went to lunch in her neighb with some of her friends. This was the plate of desserts before it was daintily nibbled.

Quai in Lyon

2011-09-16T15:08:00.000-07:00

We have arrived in Lyon. Had to get out and wander around a.s.a. was p.

cognac souffle

2011-09-14T15:30:00.000-07:00

Frenchie Jane

2011-09-14T15:29:00.001-07:00

roasted peach, boule de glace vanille

2011-09-14T15:28:00.001-07:00

Jane w salmon

2011-09-14T15:26:00.002-07:00

la fille a Le Filet Blue

2011-09-14T15:26:00.001-07:00

salmon at LeFilet Bleu

2011-09-14T15:25:00.000-07:00

2011-09-14T10:34:00.001-07:00

2011-09-14T10:33:00.001-07:00

Madamoiselle Hilary at the tea shop in Mornac.

2011-09-14T10:32:00.002-07:00

Charming charming charming

2011-09-14T10:32:00.001-07:00

Hilary & Jane au bar.

2011-09-14T10:31:00.000-07:00

Biere in Mornac-sur-Seudre, a charming little town, where we spent our afternoon.

Ile de Re

2011-09-13T14:42:00.000-07:00

Here was my lunch today. Actually, it was only the 1st course, this was followed by a gigundo pot of mussels and frites. and of course we had Rose from Poitou-Charente.

This is our effing house... Yes, the one with the pointy turet.

2011-09-11T08:23:00.001-07:00

I am on the 3rd floor and that really is my bedroom with the window/French doors opening onto my balcony, which looks onto the beach. (Or should I say bi-atch?)

2011-09-11T08:11:00.001-07:00

Not quite sure about posting on the new iPad... I have finally figured out how to get pictures to the blog but can't seem to edit on the same pages with the pix...?? The pix do a pretty good job of saying something without my €2 thrown in.

Jane & Hilary on beach

2011-09-11T08:00:00.001-07:00

That is the Atlantic beyond these 2.

Beach walk in a.m.

2011-09-11T07:58:00.002-07:00

Hilary and I walked the length of the beach the first morning. These cragg-y cliff-y walls were at the far end. I thought the sinue-y Hilar-y looked a study in opposition to them. If we keep eating the breakfasts that we ate après this walk, we will blend better.

Breakfast after beach walk, 1st day

2011-09-11T07:58:00.000-07:00

As Soon as We Got There!

2011-09-11T07:56:00.000-07:00

Photos by georgia's pictures on Flickr

2011-09-11T06:37:00.000-07:00

Photos by georgia's pictures on FlickrFriends Hilary and Jane and I flew from JFK to Paris, took 2 trains to Royan, were picked up at the gare by Francois and taken to his hotel for our first night in France. We immediately set out after dropping our suitcases to discover our new town. We started with a walk on the expansive beach of soft white sand and found the house we would be moving to the next day. We roamed through the streets and had our first dinner outdoors at a restaurant near the harbor. We were exhausted and went to to bed early, leaving the large French doors to the balcony of our room wide open.

2011-09-07T12:25:00.000-07:00

This is what I have done since my last post, in a very small nutshell.

I finished my Center for Furniture Craftsmanship class and all my pieces.
Came home in early February and found an apprenticeship with Chris Lehrecke twice a week for a couple months. Helped with chairs for a large table.
Started working with Rbt Hastings once a week, which continues (except for a summer break). Helped build a toy chest, a tack box and a tool cabinet.
Went to a CFC reunion in NYC and met Zal Sakari, a former student who lives near me and has a workshop he was willing to share. YEAH! Moved tools in and started to make a small table that was suppose to be something like Chris' designs, but haven't succeeded. Zal and I end up baking bread and cooking meals and eating cheese. I lovelovelove Zal (and his darling wife, Caro, adorable child Taige, [yes, named after you-know-who] and even Huges, the dog)
Summer came and I traveled often to Quebec to help brother Harry on his cabin-building project. Built stair/ladder in atelier.
Took a week long Women's Carpentry class at Heartwood School in Mass. Helped build a chicken coop.
Helped daughter move from Chicago to NYC. Built a lofted bed so she could put her dresser beneath it and fit it in tiny bedroom.
Worked like mad to get all book design work finished so I can go away for a month with girlfriends, Hilary and Jane, to Royan, Fr. tomorrow.

For the month I am away, I hope to write often of our adventures. Stay tuned.

Bent

2011-01-11T20:31:00.001-08:00

For the past 2 weeks we have entered the world of laminating, steam bending and veneering. Here are pictures from the steam bending demo. And, well, yes you steam a piece of wood and then bend it. It is all very Rube Goldbergesque: the steamer is this long box that is rigged up to a boiling lobsterpot with the top welded on and over a propane burner. The lobster pot is fed water from a bucket with a toilet float which is fed water from a hose attached to the bathroom sink. Okay..., never-mind.

A hot hot hot piece of wood is taken out of the steamer after it has had a good long shvitz and with great group effort, put into a contraption and bent around a form. There is plenty of scurrying, ratchetting, clamping, holding down the table which is heaving and bucking, etc. And then the wood may break or in the long run, unbend a bit so it isn't for all bendie furniture.

Laminating wood and bending it is for when you need it all to be to your will or as Tim Rousseau says "when you need to put the boot down". You glue a bunch of pliabe layers of wood together and bend it around a form, holding it with clamps or another form or putting it in a vacuum bag til it knows who's its daddy. There are a whole lotta gizmos involved and form making and jig making to make the forms before you even have bent a piece of wood that will eventually become part of furniture. My head feels like it is about to explode.

Then there is veneering, which is super thin pieces of wood glued onto a flat surface. The thing about veneering is, you have a wood surface which won't really move and you can create your own woodie look. But the best thing about it is this beautiful marquetry that can be put into the veneered surface. Here is the remarkable Craig Vandall Stevens demonstrating marquetry by making an oak leaf. It was fascinating and I can't wait to try it even though I have the sinking feeling that it may make doing perfect hand tooled half-blind dovetails seem like a walk in the park, can of corn, piece of cake. My new project is a walnut desk/table with a rounded, veneered top. I would like to put a small bit of marquetry in it. I was going to steam bend the legs and laminate the front apron and put in a drawer but we only have two and a half weeks left so ambitions are falling by the wayside, and honestly, I don't think I can cram that much more info into my head.

accomplishment

2011-01-01T07:45:00.000-08:00

School ended the week before Christmas for a break but many of us stayed to work work work. For me, it was challenging and ultimately rewarding. Enough people were around to help each other (okay, there isn't much I can help others with outside of being the required other in the building for using the machines) and a sense of ganging together was all apparent; our own li'l family, when most of the rest of the world was familying up. I got a list of what to do from Tim and Austin before they left and daunting as it seemed, to just march through it without having them to check my steps every inch of the way was weirdly good for me. I got downright brave, bold even. Made outrageous decisions. And, pretty much did a fine job. Not everything is right, but now I know for the next time. The idea that they won't actually be accessible forever and that I may be able to still make something is slightly more thinkable.

I did finally go home and in the 4 days cooked food, decorated tree, tended to poor Xmas day 24hr-stomach-bugged daughter and then got in the car and drove back. A big storm was nipping at my heels, but I made it before it hit big time.

We had only 4 more days to finish our 2nd project. 4 more days with Austin before he was not just leaving but moving out of state, far far away. 4 more days meant 4 days of such intense hunkering down on our work that it was... quiet, no chatting. Thursday late afternoon, Tim and Austin were so exhausted from our super intense drawing off of them they looked like bloodless vampire victims. Monday we start learning about bending and veneering. We start our last project which isn't to be strictly rectilinear. It is to have curves. The goddess emerges. The days are getting longer. A new year has been born. Oh, where was I...? Yes, we'll see what happens when a room full of linear thinking dudes is faced with unpredictable, soft, rounding shapes. Hee-hee.

Here is Austin on his last day, chewing on a stick I peeled for a possible pull for my cabinet. It was his last day...

More "learning"

2010-12-20T17:35:00.000-08:00

New England = Christmas
At the Center for Furniture Craftsmanship we decorated the workshop for a pot luck dinner and hilarious Yankee Swap Thursday night. There was one more day of class when everyone was frantic about their project and then, poof... the teachers disappeared for a well-deserved rest until after the holiday. Many of us have hung around to work the secret extra bonus week.

Here is the frame and panel back to my piece, being glued up. Tomorrow, on my way out of town I will stop by and unclamp it, plane it a bit to fit properly and sit back and sigh with relief if all goes as planned. Am proud that I cut the grooves on the table saw with a dado blade and made the tongues in the panels by rabbetting them on the router table. The stiles and rails were joined with dominoes (floating tenons) because I wanted to try using the fancy pants German Festool but it was kinda a "learning" situation for me (read:frustrating/infuriating/throw the thing across the room/hate self/hate the Germans/coulda done it by hand faster&better/spend a day [another day, the first was drilling the mortises] hand-filing the dominoes so everything would line up). It might have been fine if I hadn't tried to line up 5 mortises per side the first time I used it. But honestly, I'm over it, really! Last week when I was going on and on about learning by making mistakes...well, I have sure been learning a lot. Below is me on the lathe. Yep, I finally "got" it, so family, if you're out there, definitely expect a Christmas tree ornament.

I had to include this shot of Cappy's Chowder House in Camden

and me donned in my gaye apparel while planing the dovetails on my casepiece.

Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays, everyone!

s-l-o-w-l-y I turn...

2010-12-11T19:53:00.000-08:00

Snow this week. Winter is officially arrived. I am slowly working through my project. It seems like such an easy concept, a simple cupboard with a door, shelves and a drawer, (maybe 2). I am a little discouraged because it really is the simplest one in the class and I feel like a dolt. I am trying to learn as much as I can from it, and I have so much to learn, but I worry that others seem to be learning more because their projects are more complicated, ...even though I am maxed out.

Here it is after I finished the joinery. The shelves each have 3 sadistic little vertical through-tenons called Alan Peters on each side holding them in the case. I could probably drop this tiny box off the Empire State Building and it wouldn't break apart. What I learned on this phase? Overkill. Everything I try has an

enormous learning curve. Tim demo-ed a sliding dovetail on the router and router-table so, never having made one before and not having any experience with the machines I decided to put a sliding dovetail in where i have a divider in the bottom of my case where my drawers will be. It took Tim 10 minutes to show us how to do it but it took me ALL day and then...I did something wrong.

Ellie and I signed up to take a ornament-making class this week-end where we are learning about the lathe. Pretty exciting, except I couldn't quite get it right. By the end of this 1st day I was really wondering what is the matter with me. The teacher was talking about a book he is reading called The Talent Code, and that we learn a lot more when we make mistakes. I came home and hugged my dog, did some laundry, went to the grocery store and made some chocolate petit-fours:

Yeah, I guess I just needed to know that I can do something sorta okay. But just now, I looked up the book and sure enough, it is about how much more we remember and learn when something doesn't go perfectly, and also, that if we keep practicing and go very slowly and actually make errors but keep at it, there is a possibility of getting really really good.

I am taking that idea to sleep with me tonight ...along with Betty.

Sights

2010-12-05T17:05:00.000-08:00

On Thursday we went as a class on a trip to 3 professional woodworker's shops. Here is a picture of us listening to Kevin Rodel in Brunswick. The men were all extremely generous with information and time.

I went to Liberty Tool on Saturday, a famous local source for wood workers looking to rummage through 8 tons/8 million possibilities. I scored a few simple treasures, then perused their museum across the street.

On my way home I passed through Lincolnville, a town right on the beach, just as they were lighting their tree. There was a small crowd and large bonfire and the sun was just setting, quite a sight.

over the moon

2010-12-01T18:13:00.000-08:00

It is week 5 and we are in the middle of our case piece project with Austin Matheson co-teaching/assisting Tim. Mine is a rather simple wall cabinet but I didn't want to be stung not finishing it or learning everything thoroughly. I have finished the joinery for the case construction (the 4 walls) and today made dados (grooves in the inner walls for the shelves to sit in) which took me all day. When it is laying on my bench it looks like a baby coffin or a cat coffin. That is what I, and now others, refer to it as.

Everyday we learn another way to make a dado or whatnot on a different machine: the router, the table saw with a dado set, a horrifying old German saw referred to as "the green monster" or other scary instrument of terror. Usually the demos panic me cause they all seem to be in Greek. But my teacher assures me that I will be making dados, rabbets, grooves, mortises and finger joints on all the machines and become proficient ...yeah, like I am in Greek. Others in the class are, of course, more experienced than moi and are making QueenAnn Secretaries and such for their casepiece projects. For our last project we will learn veneering and steaming and I have definitely decided that I want to make something with legs, like a demi-lune table or a simple, one drawer desk. I finished my 1st project bench right on time, but of course the sides were already done from my 2 week class last June. I don't care, it felt good to finish it and to be the first in the class. Some people are still working on their bench projects when they can squeeze in the time, and mine is finished, in the bag, yea me. Today I glued and clamped quarter sawn boards together to make my door. It was fun and I got to use my schmancy Lie Nielson plane for the edges. Tomorrow we have an all day field trip to famous furniture makers Kevin Rodel's, Alex Hamilton's and Howard Hatch's workshops.

Peter announced that there is arsenic in the water and there always has been but the rules and regs changed and now we can't drink it till they put a filtration system on. Also, we found out some good dirt about last winter's 9 month class: there was a fellow so cantankerous and irritable that he had to leave and Peter had to get a restraining order cause, I guess, they were afraid he might have gone postal! Another time there were 2 guys who just could not get along and the school brought in a mediator! I can't imagine jeopardizing the time one has at this amazing place! And I loved hearing the smut.

I came home early tonight and made dinner with Amy. We had a piece of halibut, which I finished before taking this picture, some salad with pomegranate seeds and fried oysters which we ate with these fab quail-claw grabbers from her silver set!

Here is a bunch of seagulls sitting on top of a house which looks out over the water. The bird at the far left is a fake owl which is probably suppose to scare gulls from landing on the roof.

It has become warm and foggy out tonight so the Rockport foghorn is eerily om-ing away. Before I left home I reminded people that I was only going away for 3 months and just to Maine, not the moon. Sometimes though... I feel like I am on the moon.

holiday break

2010-11-27T20:13:00.000-08:00

It was my birthday yesterday and my sweet hostess, Amy, made me dinner and enfolded me into her extended family and I got cheesecake cupcakes cake!

Thanksgiving was spent with Betsy and Paul (and daughter Mason) in Falmouth. We had GOOSE! Delicious and all dark meat, the only good meat on any bird in my opinion.

I made a thin lobster/orange broth to start (and not end) the meal.

There were carmelized white onions, too.

specialty

2010-11-27T19:39:00.000-08:00

Here is my first project, when it was nearing completion. It is a maple step-stool with dovetail joinery between the top and sides, and mortise and tenon joinery for the stretcher.

We have moved on to our case piece project. Mine is a small wall-hanging cabinet with a 2 drawers, 3 shelves and a door, incorporating both slab and frame & panel construction. It is quite modest but I want to be able to learn everything thoroughly (and finish it!) Maybe I'll be a wall-hanging cabinet and step-stool maker. I'll get really good at making 2 things, ...kinda like my cookies and granola. I'll be a granola/cookie/wall-hanging cabinet/step-stool maker.

The rest of my class all seem to have taken on bigger and more complicated projects (but then everyone has more experience than me). Sometimes I dream that I have a more complicated piece, like one with legs. I do want to learn how to make legs. And yes, I even dream woodworking.

buildings

2010-11-27T19:14:00.000-08:00

Here is a little tour of Maine architecture, specifically the natural brown shingle/shake style. Photo #1 is a sweet, small cottage in my neighborhood. Photo #2 is a gorgeous estate I passed while walking along a Rockport coastal road. Photo #3 is a barn, photo #4 is a treehouse and photo #5 shows that even the trailers in Maine can be part of the proud shingle/shake architectural tradition. I haven't found a doghouse yet, but will post as soon as I do.

half way

2010-11-14T19:58:00.000-08:00

This is a shot of my deconstructed bench on the sanding table. I have just planed, scraped and random-orbital sandered it. Tomorrow I hope to glue it together and put finish on it. I read in Peter Korn's book that at this stage right here it is only about half finished (!) Okay, maybe before I planed, scraped and sanded it was only at the half-way mark but it sure feels like it should be beyond that after cutting all those dovetails, mortises and tenons.

Here is the moon on this lovely night. It doesn't look like it in this IPhone picture, but it is exactly at the half-moon stage, itself.

MOOSE!!

2010-11-11T18:58:00.000-08:00

Okay, for any of you who are wondering about this state of Maine... voila. I didn't take this picture, but Ellie, a gal in my class did, the other morning right out her kitchen window!! This young moose was contentedly munching on apples straight off the tree.

Here is another typical Maine winter sight that some might say looks like a cocoon. But I think it looks like a gigantic floating maggot.

This last picture shows fine examples of a prominent variety of a Maine human: the furniture-maker. They are my teachers, Tim Rousseau (l), Aaron Fedarko (c), and Mason McBrien.

Bravery

2010-11-06T19:39:00.000-07:00

This morning Betty and I came here for a walk. If you squint, you'll see a lighthouse at the end of this seawall. It is 7/8ths of a mile long. When I read that on a sign I cracked up, it is just so furniture-making-school. Actually, if it had said 29/32nds it would really be furniture-making-schoolesque.

Anyway, at 10 AM it looked like this and we got about 11/36th of the way and waves were splooshing over the rocks. I was wondering if maybe the tide was still coming in and we'd get out to the lighthouse and be stuck for hours waiting for it to go back out. I asked some fishermen who said that they'd been out on it walking through 2 inches of water in the past. It is November. I was wearing sneakers. Amy told me that a woman had recently been swept into the brink. We turned around.

We came back at 5PM. The tide must have been all the way out cause there was at least 10 feet of wall and tons of beach. The sign in the parking area said open sunrise to sunset and the sun was definitely setting spectacularly over Rockland, when we were only about 9/32nds of the way out. Betty was a bit wary of the gaps between the rocks, but we booked on. It started to feel like something from a surreal dream sequence in a French or Spanish movie from the 30s. The thing just kept going and going. I reeeeally wanted to get to that lighthouse and not be thwarted yet again in the same day, but it just felt like we weren't getting anywhere. And it was getting darker. Then and there I made up my mind not to give up. A personal challenge to be brave. Hey, was I holding myself back in my ambitions in my class? I have been leaning toward the idea of concentrating on learning the "skills" very well - even willing to forego a lot of "construction". But I realize that is wimpy. Fearful. Like practicing hitting a tennis ball your entire life but never playing a game. No matter how sucky you may be, playing the game is when you improve/move forward. I decided I did want to make stuff and so what if the first few pieces were homely? They can only get better. How will I ever know how good my skills are if I don't give myself a chance. And besides, I love the idea of designing something beautiful. We got to the windmill, - I mean, lighthouse, walked around it and then picked our way back. It wasn't even that dark by the time we finished, Mom! We're fine. I took myself to a dinner in a nice place. I sat at the bar and ate Pemaquid oysters with an apple mignonette. It is good to be brave.

Ocean

2010-11-04T18:56:00.000-07:00

Here is the port in Rockport on this windy rainy day.

Today was the plane lecture and even though I have heard it before, it was overwhelming.The information is staring to snowball. I can't possibly absorb it all. I am trying not to panic. I know everyone is struggling with the "ocean" of material. "Ocean" is a word my teacher uses when he describes something numerous, vast or monumental. The usage is perfect, being

right here...by the ocean.

This is my 2nd set of dovetails of the day. The first were actually better but there were fewer pins. The methodical practice quells the fears. I used to just get terribly frustrated but now I'll finish a set, cut them off and start over, hoping to remember everything I did wrong and everything I did right.

Familiarity

2010-11-03T19:43:00.000-07:00

This was my greeting this morning, frost on the windshield! It warmed up and became a beautiful day. I walk with Betty before school in my new neighborhood and things are beginning to feel familiar.

Class was all about mortise & tenons yesterday & dovetails today. I know more than I did before my first class but lost some ground in the time between then and now. I like hearing it all again and the differences and the new information imparted by someone else's telling. The steps are methodical and I wish I could spend a whole day on each one, going deep:

1) Decide which piece will be the mortise and which will be the tenon. (How? What makes a board good for one over the other? The grain of the wood? The color, flaws? What are considered flaws, good color? Is there more strength in the verticle piece or the horizontal?)

This is where I lack familiarity, and realize only experience will grant that.

Back Down East

2010-11-01T18:09:00.000-07:00

I have returned to Maine for the 12-week Intensive class at the Center for Furniture Crafts manship in Rockport. I am staying with the host I stayed with in June in her Camden home with her old dog, Indie. They have both graciously welcomed Betty, too. It was early June when I was here before, daylight from 5a.m. til 9p.m., balmy early summer temps, lupine blooming everywhere a seed could wedge into dirt. Now it is cold, it snowed a bit yesterday, this morning there was barely daylight at 7 when I woke to let Betty out and headlights were on when I left the parking lot at 5 this evening. The tourists have disappeared, beautiful huge sailboats are weirdly, white shrink-wrapped in the harbor.

Returning to school today was a relief. I was anxious, but as soon as I arrived and greeted by Dorrie from the office, I felt just happy. My June teacher (and director of the school) addressed and welcomed the class.The teacher for this class, Tim Rousseau is a calm, instructive, funny, attentive, confident. The assistants are wonderful, too. All pros. The first 2 weeks will be a review of the class I took in June, which is just fine with me. On this very first day I feel like I learned a million more things.

This picture is Lake Pythonga in Quebec where I was a week and a half ago. Between then and now there were so many demands on me I am surprised I am not sick. I want to concentrate on only this now. After months of wondering (and worrying) I finally know that I have done the right thing. I can't wait til tomorrow.

obsession?

2010-06-28T16:15:00.000-07:00

Okay, I came home from my furniture making class but haven't been able to work on my project because I don't have a workshop set up or even a vise, or worktable to attach it to. It has been frustrating. I went to Lowes and stared at the tools; the table saw, drill press, the band saw. I saw a wood vise. I don't have a proper space for a worktable. It has all obsessed me a bit. So much so that as I was standing at my butcher block counter eating watermelon for breakfast early the other morning, still in my nightie and already thinking about my joinery, I looked at the pulpy fruit, and at the knife in my hand, something about the wooden counter...and then, well, here is a movie I made to show exactly what happened:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5EJ9wWKxMI

school

2010-06-25T18:27:00.000-07:00

Here is my school on a Thursday night in June, after the potluck dinner and croquet tournament and everything is cleaned up and we're ready to work on our projects some more...until maybe 11 pm or even much later. It was what I had to do and couldn't not do. I came home from Maine, my little bench still in pieces, still at step one, but what a step it was.

I have always considered the process. I have wanted the process to produce something beautiful, but have rarely cared that it remain. Food is eaten, I hope enjoyed but still, it's gone after moments. Knitting scarves and hats in winter- they're always given away as gifts. Methodically washing the floor is enjoyable to me even as I walk across it after it is cleaned, leaving footprints. However, I learned something at this school about process that changed everything about process for me. I must start with my feelings about perfection: I have always thought that imperfection is so much more interesting. I've held strongly to the tenet that perfection is not only unattainable but undesirable. I never knew that that may have limited me in the exact way that I believed perfection must limit things. Wood is quite unforgiving and I wanted my joints to fit together and I couldn't get them to. I wanted them to be good, not perfect, but the pieces wouldn't accept each other. It was challenging me. Then, one night I heard my teacher give a talk and show slides about his work and himself and the eventual creation of the school after a lifetime of being a furniture maker. It was all interesting and inspiring. At the end he made one last comment, and I had my process-altering moment. What he said went directly to the brain of me. He said that it is not enough to consider the process while transforming material, one must consider the transformation in ones self during that process. ...Whoa. I change while I "do" something?? It isn't always all about the "doing" or the thing?? I then recognized that something was changing in me while trying to transform these two pieces of unforgiving wood. I had to forget about non-perfection and really go for something more perfect than I believed was in me...or that I even wanted in me. That was the transformation! I never really got the things perfect but they were quite beautiful in the end and they did accept each other and it didn't matter anyway because I changed too. My lesson about perfection AND my lesson about process. Does this make sense to anyone? Does everyone already know this?

Anyhoo, the day after the class ended I rode my bike around town, sat by the harbor and drank coffee with my new friend/host and then she drove me to the top of Mt. Battie. I saw the plaque with Edna St. Vincent Millay's poem that she wrote while standing in the same spot. Here is a bit of it:

ALL I could see from where I stood

Was three long mountains and a wood;

I turned and looked the other way,

And saw three islands in a bay.

So with my eyes I traced the line

Of the horizon, thin and fine,

Straight around till I was come

Back to where I’d started from;

And all I saw from where I stood

Was three long mountains and a wood.

Over these things I could not see:

These were the things that bounded me;

And I could touch them with my hand,

Almost, I thought, from where I stand.

And all at once things seemed so small

My breath came short, and scarce at all.

epiphanies

2010-06-11T04:06:00.000-07:00

I am at woodworking school in Maine for 2 weeks. My classmates ask me why I am here. I know it is because it is the process that attracts me to the endevour. Here is my first dovetail joinery. It took me forever to do, isn't much, crude, and I plan to do many more, but I am enjoying the process. The dovetail ends of these boards will be cut off and I'll start again. Everyone else in the class has at least taken a shop class sometime and as it happens everyone seems to have a home workshop and has made things... except me. What was I thinking coming here having never made anything before, my workbench neighbor asked. Then later I realized that I was starting pure, if not just ignorant. There is nothing for me to unlearn. I didn't know there was a difference in how things are constructed and never will. It was the second epiphany of the day. The first was touching the back of a cabinet in the school's gallery. It was like glass, but warm and instead of reflecting the wall and my hand, it spoke of tree. It was humbling. It is another universe. What was I thinking coming to this class?

I just like to do.

2 flowering bushes

2010-05-24T06:44:00.000-07:00

Say what you will about the hot-cold-hot-cold weather, you can't beat the Spring fleurs this year. Even the dog willing posed next to a monster flowering bush in the front yard. Hmm...maybe she feels a kinship to it.

sugar

2010-05-21T19:32:00.000-07:00

Here is my daughter covered in sugar for a photo shoot she was in while in Portland Oregon a coupla weeks ago. She lives in Chicago. Now. But today, with a tip from a friend (thanks Ron!) her mum-zy found an apartment for her to rent in NYC. And with the help of her dad, his quick action, decision and a run to the bank, it became her future home. I am so excited. She is really really coming east and to a great neighborhood, to a cute studio. I love Chicago but it is far away and at 25, with a book contract, agent and publisher in New York, she should spend some time here. And then if she wrangles a fellowship to London next year, her dream, she'll be ready. Sweet.

shiny

2010-05-14T15:59:00.000-07:00

Voila, my beautiful new kitchen is almost fini.

What it was is below (and that was on a good day.) Amazing what only new cupboards, countertop and a minor rearrangement of things will do. (Okay, and I had it painted.)

But I am:

~proud of how little I spent

~kick myself for not doing this ages ago

~and ready to get back to cooking!

I am going to go butcher on that butcher block.

fern giant

2010-05-10T08:15:00.000-07:00

These amazing ferns grow in a damp, shady spot next to the house. I don't remember planting anything so they are there of their own free will and each year there are more, and they're bigger. I used to try to eat the fiddleheads but had to admit that it was like eating grass. I am much happier marveling at their marvelousness.

Mothers Day

2010-05-10T07:03:00.000-07:00

Organic, New Paltz farmer Pete Taliaferro gave me these beautiful columbines on the first day of the season for the Rhinebeck Farmers Market, yesterday. It being Mothers Day and all, I graciously accepted. It was just what I needed seeing that I was not with the one who makes me a mother and the day was chilly and my own mother had just hung up on me. Whimper. The rest of the day went well; a divine felafel from the new vendor, Aba, heavenly sheep cheese from the charming couple at Dancing Ewe, who travel hours to participate, a celebratory micro-mini kir from Clinton Vineyards, and happy, beloved Meri who sells my granola for me at her stand. After all that good goodness, we took ourselves to a late afternoon screening of Babies. Lots of awwwwwws. The day ended with the anxiously anticipated phone call from the busy, peddling daughter at the Toronto Comic Arts Fest (lerve) and even an apology call from mom (wha..?!)

a moment

2010-05-05T16:59:00.000-07:00

This is Pip enjoying the sunset. She is a "sensitive" person, read: a nasty cat. When she was a kitten she had a bad eye infection which was probably brought on by the stress of too many in the litter for her comfort, thanks. And then when she came home with us the old household cat terrorized her. We finally moved her to the office in the barn. She refuses to go into the house ever again, even though the other cat has been departed for years. She was not happy about the addition of the puppy (now dog) to the family and what's more the dog's neighborhood dog-pal, Maxx hangs around the office, too. Pip skulks around, fuming, batting with claw extended at anyone who accidentally comes within her reach. Many have tried to break through the shell - and she will allow herself to be petted. Then, as you pull your hand away, she flails quite precisely and often draws blood.

However, like any sensitive person, she truly enjoys a beautiful moment.

lilackia

2010-05-04T19:18:00.000-07:00

Okay, there is nothing I can say that these lilacs aren't saying, better.

green juicey juice

2010-05-04T18:08:00.000-07:00

Good friend Hilary has recently been converted to raw eating and is now aglow with health - and boy, was she sick! Read about it on her blog (see below).

We have been treated to her new (not)cooking and it is all divine. She doesn't use anything but vegetables, seeds and nuts, some nori, she makes noodles from zucchini. She got lots of new toys and gadgets and is growing wheatgrass in her elegant kitchen.

We wanted in.

The fates seem to conspire because our newest author (we're publishers) is a cool old dame who just made her first skydiving jump (see youtube video- link below). She has spent 70 years being a vegetarian and most of that as a raw foodist. We were visiting her on Sunday and she gave us each big doses of what she has for breakfast, green juice. I have never been a big juicer or even smoothie-er (something about the banana thing),but when an 82 year old beautiful woman hands you something to drink from her fountain of youth, you drink. It wasn't awful or even bad, it was even kinda good. We went home and pulled out of the refrigerator kale, cucumber, carrot, celery, ginger, a pear, lemon and some pear cider. Threw it all into the blender. This is a picture of the beautiful colored stuff that was wrought. It is pulpy but I do not mind that. We drink it for breakfast ...and whenever we feel like it cause it can't be bad, it just can't.

http://hhhforecast.blogspot.com

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AzB906wGlL4

ramp pesto

2010-05-04T17:53:00.000-07:00

Here is what ramp pesto looks like. It has walnuts instead of pine nuts and no garlic or basil but other than that it is the same as regular pesto. And I only used the leaves of the ramps. It is delicious. I make pestos all year, the parsley or cilantro kinds in the winter but have never tried this before. As soon as I made it I cooked some rice pasta (trying to cut out glutens), chilled it down and threw on a blob. A perfect little Sunday lunch. Yesterday I swirled it on soup. Today I schmeered it into a bowl of sauteed vegetables for lunch. Make hay while the sun shines.

ramp butter

2010-04-30T14:24:00.000-07:00

I pulled these out of my woods and gently cooked them in some clarified butter. I haven't clarified butter in years, thinking that the butter meats had all the flavor, why remove em? But I made baklava for Easter, which required clarifying the butter, and I had some left over so I used it to.. gently cook the ramps. O.M.G. They were heavenly. When I pulled out the left-overs the next day, they were stiff with the hardened butter, but not white like most things with hardened butter all over them. I ate em cold and it was like eating ramp butter. I know that ramps are having a bit of a moment right now and after being consigned to the weird foraged foods category for so long they well deserve a little stroll on the red carpet. I used to dig them up and sell them at farmers market but that was many years ago and it all felt a bit secret societyish. When they're young the bulbs are tender and edible, but as they mature the bulbs become woody and.. well, bulbous (yuck), but the greens are delicious. I just saw a recipe for ramp pesto on rural intelligence: http://www.ruralintelligence.com/index.php/food_section/food_articles_recipes/

I have a woods full of ramps and find that if you wipe them as you pull them up, they are almost completely clean (see picture, straight outta the woods). If you don't wipe them as you pull them, they are a bear to clean. I am going to try the pesto tonight and report back.