Bucket List

   On a normal day, six miles is the distance I like. Today is a day for helpful people and travel, for metal, for keeping things moving. It is also a six day by virtue of  the sum one plus five. This is arbitrary: this is part of how I organize.

   The creek is high and full at 6:30 a.m. The barest hint of dawn’s early light strikes the flowing water, looking gray. Orange and yellow reflected light from the houses and street lights bounces off the surface edges.  The creek is so high and full it looks like a river. A cloudy day looms ahead.

   Some mist, just five fellow travellers: three runners and two walkers and I. One heron flies up from the bank at the eight marker. Thoughts about work intrude as I think about the season, observe the tree trunks and the condensed vapor. On my way to the park, a box truck rode in front of my car. The eidetic memory of its rear doors provides the basis of today’s puzzle. Plus a bucket. Value in relationships. A fireplace makes a nice focal point.

    Ashes, ashes we all fall down.

So Often Tender, Fun to Do

So Often Tender, Fun to Do by Allison Huyett

 

 

  Women are the strangest creatures the way they fly around. Myself included and I am unlike other women. Soft, yet hard to understand, something fit to be placed on Mohs scale of mineral hardness. Chalk to diamonds. Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust. We all fall down.

   Monday set out some frames and fabric to fulfill request on Craigslist. When I returned home from swimming, the wanted objects had been picked up and it was a fabulous feeling to have met someone’s need. If only everything else were so simple.

   This drawing began as the leaf I found and 13 for the day and ten for the month. “Of ten.” To add an ess and Soften it made all the ramifications possible. A heron flew over the creek and not far from the cuckoo’s nest.

Juglans nigra

 

Poplar & Walnut -12 by Allison Huyett

    This green parking garage stub Poplar & Walnut – 12 makes the pick of the litter, to pick up where we left off. The black walnut grows here; Juglans nigra, with its round green nut casings aplenty, secreting pungent messages. The tulip poplar is one of the more dominant trees in these forests. Tall and proud and straight. The flowers that look like tulips and leaves that second the motion. But the parking stub is from Philadelphia, travelling here like a burr on wheels.

    Two boatlike wooden shapes are stacked near the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers sign at the upper lot. The bottoms of the skiffs are wire mesh, like large dirt sifters, what are they for and why are they here?

    It’s a dark day on the trail, overcast and damp, yet dry. It could rain but it isn’t now. A heron stands perfect and straight on a midstream stone near the pipline, it looks like a yin-yang symbol stretched tall, the way its neck bends and the legs descend. It is curvature & armature – 12. (Today is a twelve day).

Sorry, This Box is Not a Winner

Sorry, This Box Is Not A Winner by Allison Huyett

Tall, Cool & Freshly Brood

Tall, Cool & Freshly Brood by Allison Huyett

 

 

    Herons wading: one, two, three and five.

    Number four is perched and brooding, the rest tall and cool, looking for fresh fish on a crisp morning.

    Smooth and beautifully groomed, a sixth heron stands on a nice flat rock to the near side of the creek. Its own piece of the runway.

    Walk across the covered bridge on the return trip, find a movie ticket stub from 9/27, folded like a little chicken coop or table tent. The film abbreviation LOVEHAPPEN inside.

    Other pick of the litter: a big styrofoam cup from a major fast food chain.

    Contemplation is its own reward. Brooding is a fine art. Batten down the hatches!

Gypsy Guppies

   Having received an e-mail and circular for T.J. Maxx, inviting the recipient to visit the remodelled store, we were surprised Saturday to find much of the layout had stayed the same. We noticed new fixtures and a facelift for the dressing rooms, including a concierge-like attendant station. We were not in the market for clothes and plan to inspect the try-on rooms later. We performed a rescue operation in the racks. A black cat stuffed animal, dressed in a tiny pumpkin shirt, lay on the floor with dust bunnies. We picked it up and set it out of harm’s way.

    We purchased some hair product, gifts and stationery. Many of the gifts came in delightful, colorful boxes and packaging and smelled good. The register area has the aura of a bookstore chain, with copious displays of goods and trinkets for those all important impulse buys.
  While walking this morning, we contemplate the magic square. A crazy-quilt gypsy idea came forth and linked itself to guppies.

   One heron today, supervising the unfolding of the Heritage Festival.

Faded Cloth

 

Faded Cloth by Allison Huyett

  Overcast day. What shall we have? Tall coffee and a smile. Pick of the litter: packet of on-the-go clean up cloth and a bit of bark in great shape. It’s October! Squirrel in the knot of tree nibbles on nut. Leaves a plenty. Heron roars like lion on Tully turn and swoops over the creek like stealth plane. Helicopters in air last night and now. What’s up? Overcast and castaway. Castaway all cares. Care for. Far and away the best.

Tiger Dew

Tiger Dew by Allison Huyett

   Snail. Moving like snail today. Did Tiger Woods win again? Lost the battle, won the FedEx 10K. Dew on driver’s side window has a striped pattern. Tigerish stripes. Write that down.

   A heron wades, stalking fish near the footbridge of picnic peninsula.  Second heron in repose on a log just upstream of Wertz’s red bridge. Another close by, also on a log. The light today brings out some of the lighter hues.

   Some days the herons look monochromatic. How many colors of green has Ireland? That’s how many grays and blues and whites paint the feathers now. 

   The daylight strikes the gambrel-roofed barn and Mildred the houseboat, making her gold golden.

    Dawn spotlights the sculpture on the hill – a Pennsylvania Dutch bird with a bowed neck, a folkloric good-luck creature rendered in buttery yellow with a coil of bright splashy colors – and I think a person hasn’t lived until they see sunlight on a Distlefink.

    P.S.  There is more to distlefinks than meets the eye.

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=distlefink

Pick Five 4

  

Pick Five 4

  

 

 

 Wet. Wet. Wet.

 That’s what we get.

 Straight from the grocery store,

 sticky. Pick 5 for:

 Why are you rhyming?

 Checking my timing.

Tree of Liberty

Tree of Liberty by Allison Huyett

   Grumpelstiltskin brings up the topic of the Tree of Liberty Thursday morning, quoting from Thomas Jefferson. He brings the quote of  Mr. Jefferson to his virtual fingertips in a real time of 0.38 seconds, much faster than fetching from the archives.

   Art Group meets up at 6:30 Thursday night. The tree of liberty is planted in my brain.

   At 4:00 P.M. I have yet to make brownies and something driven by the chosen theme: Lettering. This pre-ordained inspiration makes me think first of a scattering of letters into the shape of a ring.  I rearrange the letters in lettering and prune away an “e” and “t.” I make a few leaves for the tree of liberty. Real simple leaves.

   Art group is a company of generous shareholders. One stockholder brings downloads about two quilt artists she finds interesting, another brings information about Splash for watercolorists. One voting member brings a catalog to place bulk orders for canvases and art supplies to save costs. I bring made from scratch butterscotch brownies.

   We take turns showing and telling about our work, some of which has been resurrected from the previous century. Art Group is especially valuable to learn about things beyond the framework of drawing, painting and quilting. For example: karate for kids and adults. The discipline of karate helps develop  gross and fine motor skills. It is an aid to concentration and focus.

    We also learn about museum hands, a close cousin of the indoor voice. Our time together is also indispensible for trading tips on party and craft ideas for children and learning an ingenious method to avoid a parking ticket.

   Our hostess shows us the fabulous paper mache teapots she and several collaborators made for a tea party. We adjourn happy, content and ready for more.

http://www.monticello.org/reports/quotes/liberty.html