Random Thoughts, Part 10
Posted: Monday, September 06, 2010
by Dianne Lehmann
Artisan Jewelry from SyZyGy
I am not a Fiber Person
By that I do not mean that I do not eat fiber. I eat a lot of fiber. A lot. Sometimes I think it might be too much. But then you can't really knock regularity, right?
I spent the afternoon working with horse hair; specifically tail hair. This is my first experience with it. I'm not much into sewing because fabrics (just another form of fiber to me) are so unwieldy. They bend all around and stretch and twist and are just generally unmanageable (don't ask me how I ever learned to crochet). I much prefer working with sheet silver and silver wire and nice hard rock. You know, things to which you apply cutters and pliers and hammers and torches and the like. Working with hair is even worse than working with fabric.
A friend's horse died over Christmas and I am just now getting around to making these couple of items. A testament to how much I detest fiber. I collected the bits of tail hair while cleaning out her horse's stall. She was away on vacation and didn't get back until well after her horse was buried. I figured she might like a keepsake. There I go figuring. That's me, always figuring.
In my defense, she is only just recently able to talk about her horse without crying. So now would be the better time to present her with these gifts, rather than months ago. Yah, just keep telling yourself that. And by the way, don't any of you try to contact me with requests to make horse hair jewelry or keepsakes for you. Ain't gonna happen.
Weeds
It's been a really wet Monsoon this year and the weeds are just incredible. Normally, Bernd takes care of weed eradication, but because he is working well over 40 hours a week, this task has recently fallen to me. I may also be learning how to change the oil in my Jeep. Oh joy.
I don't really like using herbicides, even one as reputedly (you always have to ask yourself who is doing the reputing) innocuous as Roundup. Well, the bunnies eat the weeds, you know; though not nearly enough of them (come on bunnies, get with it!). So instead of using Bernd's method of spraying, I decided to pull all the weeds in the yard. You have no idea how many weeds there were. And what's wrong with weeds anyway? Couldn't I just let the yard go natural? Well, no actually. Our Property Owner's Association has rules against that. Darn.
And there are some that despite the looseness of the soil (due to all the rain, its normal condition is that of rock hard caliche clay), just would not pull out easily. And don't let's talk about those ground hugging, sticky-sapped bastards that nestle tight down in and around the decomposed gravel rock that makes up most of our yard.
I pulled all that I could and then gave in a sprayed the ground huggers to death. Oh! And we have these self-planting elm weed-trees. The stupid things put out about a billion seeds every year and about a tenth of those sprout in just about any spot that is even remotely protected from wind and bird and bunny rabbit. You absolutely can not let them get a grip on your dirt. They don't let go and if you don't get rid of them in their first year about the only way to get rid of them is to call a tree removal service. I've watched a neighbor let one go and in just one year it has reached 20 feet tall! There must have been a hundred seedlings in our yard.
And the worst part of all this? Yesterday I went on weed patrol, not even a week after last time, and there is already a brand new crop of happily thriving weeds. Consider the lowly weed, downtrodden and despised. And yet it could be the "poster child" for persistence and tenacity.
Wildflowers
I mentioned how wet this Monsoon has been. Well the upside to "weeds" is wildflowers. You would not believe the variety we have this year. I don't know the names of all of them, but there are several types of sunflowers. Some that look like daisies. Some are so small (you get that in desert type environments) that you can barely see them. There are yellow flowers and purple, red and orange. The tiny fuchsia ones are adorable. The coyote squash are blooming and so is the datura. The loco weed, belladonna, makes these pretty little purple flowers. And this doesn't even take into consideration all the grasses.
The wild grasses are flowering and the fruiting heads are ripening and turning all sorts of delicious colors. The free ranging cattle are having a grand time this year. They all look fat and happy. They've been getting by eating prickly pear cactus and bunch grass for the past few years. The cattle paw at the cactuses to get the thorns off and then munch away. I've watched them do this. So I harvested some and did my best to remove the thorns without injury. Hah! I sliced it up and sauted it in a frying pan with olive oil and a little pepper. It's very slimy and astringent and I don't like it for the same reason I don't like okra. Gah!
Now if some of those pretty weeds were growing in my yard I'm not sure what I would do. I'd be sorely tempted to just let them grow and the POA be well you know.
Things I Have Learned Recently
It's not a good idea to invest too much emotion in a specific outcome; like wanting to win a blue ribbon. It makes me nervous and then I don't perform well.
My horse knows when I am nervous and it makes him nervous when I am nervous and then he doesn't do what he is supposed to do because he is too busy worrying about what it is that is making me nervous.
Three geese can really disrupt a horse show.
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Top-level comments on this article: (8 total)That's so nice of you to do that for your friend. Even more so because you just don't like working with the material. If you ever find out who does the repudiating, let me know. I have a few questions for them ;)GraceHi Grace.I'm pretty sure it's Monsanto. But I know that a lot of people use it, buying into the hype, maybe hoping that it is true. The stuff is supposed to break down into "harmless" components that do not persist in the soil. But when it is the manufacturer saying that, well you gotta take it with a grain of salt. I learned recently, I think it was on PBS, that Monsanto developed Roundup to kill weeds around their genetically modified soybeans. The soybeans were modified to resist the Roundup. That way it could be sprayed without worry of killing the crop. Wonderful.I haven't finished the keepsake yet. It's just sitting there on my work bench waiting for me to get up the "courage" to take the next step. :)Thanks for stopping by!Hugs,Dianne
Very nice article sister!Its a great feeling reading your articles...RegardsCPHi Chiradeep.Thanks so much! That's a very nice thing to say. It's made my day.Hugs,Dianne
Love the "flight of thought" style - you drew this reader in! Thanks for sharing your humor and your heart once again!Hi Marijo.It's scary sometimes, though. Bernd will say something and two or three seconds later I will say something in return that would seem to be a complete non sequitur to him. He wasn't in my head to follow all the little connecting dots. :)Thanks for reading and taking time to leave such a nice comment.Hugs,Dianne
I always jump into your articles because I enjoy them so much and today I started reading without looking at the title, and was waiting for horsehair to be somehow tied in at the end, along with weeds and wildflowers, but ended up with geese and a horse show! It amused me no end, and I can't even say why.Then I got clever and read the title. Aha moment! I was still amused, though :) I like this format; I don't know how you manage to do it, to write about everyday things so entertainingly. You always carry me with your writing, Dianne.I absolutely love the things you've learned recently! :)Hi Jennifer.Thanks so much!I think we humans are all story tellers. I just seem to see stories in the mundane stuff. Someone once told me that I'd make a great teacher because I could make even toast seem interesting. I don't know about that. But I do know that performance anxiety kept me from even considering it. Didn't think I could handle the stress on a daily basis. I've heard it said that Johnny Carson (of Tonight Show fame) never got over his stage fright. He'd be all stressed out and nervous before every show. Don't know how he put up with it for all those years. So don't tell me I might have eventually gotten over it. :) :)Anyway, I'm so glad that you enjoyed it! The nice thing about these Random Thoughts articles is that I don't have to tie things together at the end (self-imposed allowance :)). Although, if I could that would be really clever.You should have heard those three geese. They were so loud. They'd be standing quietly until a horse would approach and then as the horse passed them they'd honk up a storm and scare the poor horse. I'd had experience with them (they are resident geese) at prior shows, so the first thing I do is walk my horse over to them and let them honk all they want so he can see that they are not something to be afraid of. It got so bad this last show, though, that they had to move the geese. I'm sure the geese thought it was all very funny.Then there is the loud speaker hidden in the fake rock. We always have to go have a long hard look at that too. Sometimes it takes me several minutes of walking in small circles to get him anywhere near to it.Many hugs,Dianne
Loved your last line. Thanks for the chuckle. I sympathize re: the weeds, but FYI, Roundup is NOT innocuous. Salt water might be better. :)Hi Joyce.Oh, I know very well it is not innocuous. Hadn't thought about salt water. I'd really rather be living somewhere they didn't care whether or not I let the weeds go. Well, you do have to mow or scythe them down because they can be a fire hazard. But I much prefer a natural yard. Nature does such a wonderful job of balancing things when left alone.Thanks so much for reading and for the suggestion as well.Hugs,DianneYep, I love the (controlled) natural look, and have always been grateful we don't live in a neighborhood with those kinds of rules. My house, my rules. :)
I am convinced that you could make a nasty old ant bed sound like a sprawling kingdom of glory. I don't like ants, don't do that, please. Stick to horse hair and weeds, least I can cozy up to those..a little. Your writing is magnificent! I look so forward to seeing your thoughts on paper, it's kind of like watching a beautiful sunset on a cool autumn evening.Hi David.Wow, David, I'm just blown away by your comments. The thing about the ants made me smile and laugh out loud. Sounds like an amazing challenge. Sure you don't want me to give it a try? :)Thanks so much for reading and for your very nice comments. Much appreciated!Hugs,Dianne
Dianne a really nice work. You filled in all the blanks about jewelry designing and then some. Plus you did it with humor. Nice to see that Arizonians still can smile.Good luckHi Robert.First, before I forget, thank you so much for joining my fan club!Yes, we Arizonans may have little to smile about these days, but we still remember how. :) At least I do. And laughing at myself is the best way I know to bust out of the seriousness that sometimes mires me. I can be sooo stupid.Many thanks for reading and taking the time to comment.Hugs,Dianne
You certainly allowed your mind to go on many trips in this article Diane.Hi Linda.There's no allowing it at all. It's just what it does. All day long, seven days a week. Don't think I could stop it even if I tried. Doesn't even stop when I'm asleep. :) You should see some of my dreams. Aargh!Sometimes I'm grateful for it because it lets me connect dots that might otherwise go unnoticed. The rest of the time, I have to be careful not to take more meaning out of pure coincidence than is really there. Though, some people do not believe in coincidence at all. Me? I don't know.Thanks for reading and taking the time to comment.Hugs,Dianne
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