Thanksgiving Reflection

November 27, 2014 / handmadebyjo / 3 Comments

I woke up this morning to the silence of a house without power. It wasn’t unexpected. Around 5:00 I decided to get up and stoke the wood stove, try to get things together for coffee without a coffee maker. As I walked down the stairs the lights came on, the furnace fired up and within minutes coffee was hot in my cup. Ahh, little gifts.

The anticipation of this holiday always keeps me awake the night before. It’s a throwback from childhood when family gathered at the house for food, fun and the Macy’s parade. Most of these relatives I only saw once or twice a year. I loved being surrounded by people who loved me, what child doesn’t?

While lying awake I considered all that I was thankful for, an exercise that I do fairly often. It keeps things in perspective. Albert Einstein once said, “There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” I try to look at everything as being a miracle.

The thing that continues to come into my head as both a miracle and something I am profoundly thankful for is my ongoing reunion with Scott. It’s been difficult to wrap my head around having a son that is back in my life. Left as an infant, returned as an adult. Bone of my bone flesh of my flesh. Someone who has been with me through most of my life’s journey in spirit yet I was the only one that knew it.

My daughters bringing him into the fold – slowly, cautiously at first then with open arms. They speak of him with love and amazement at the similarities only relatives have. My husband helping me work through the demons that have followed me from one lifetime to another. My friends that continually point out what an amazing story this all is. A miracle in many, many ways.

Look around you today, take notice of those miracles – those little gifts. The beauty of the snow, the birds that grace our feeders, the fox tracks through the yard. Look at the smiles on the faces of those you love. Treasure those messages from those unable to join you for the holiday. Remember those that have gone before you that made the traditions you celebrate now.

Everything is a miracle.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Winding Into Winter

October 31, 2014 / handmadebyjo / 1 Comment

The temperature was at freezing this morning. I lit the stove using last nights coals and made my coffee. The morning temperatures have been in the mid forties for the past few weeks but I start the stove every morning to take the chill off. I love the cheeriness of that fire when I walk into the kitchen.

The past few weeks have been a whirlwind of activity as it always is when winter approaches. Most of the wood is in, the fall cleaning is finished. Things are moved around (like sleeping areas) to be the most comfortable for the winter. We do not have heat on the second floor of the house so the electric blankets went onto the beds.

Everything left was dug out of the garden, a bumper crop of carrots this year both Danvers and Atomic Reds. The Atomic Reds were one of this years experiments and I would plant them again. I was disappointed that they don’t stay red when they are cooked much like those purple beans.

The month of October was also a time of connecting with friends, both old and new. A very dear friend of mine stopped in to visit me while on a trip here from New Mexico. I haven’t seen her since 1995 yet we picked up as though we’d seen each other a month ago. It was wonderful reminder of how dear my old friends are.

Our 2nd Annual Harvest Party was a success other than the weather, but all that really did was keep us in the house. Not a bad way to spend a Saturday afternoon – eating great food with great friends and family. This event is always an interesting mix of old and new acquaintances. It’s always fun to rehash the day with newcomers who are trying to learn who the players in my life are.

Then there are the newest “friends”. My cyber community has evolved into the most interesting ways in the past few months. I have become acquainted with a few like-minded people who are working towards some self-sufficiency. They are craftsmen, farmers, artists, renovators. They have similar interests and through our frequent posts we get to know a little about each other. This has offered me an opportunity to learn a lot about some of my interests. They are generous in conversation, answering questions I might have about weaving, gardening or livestock. The readers of this blog offer words of wisdom in situations I write about. It’s a little support system.

The changes in the past few months have been interesting and not always as expected. Rowe is an isolated area and you have to work harder at being social. I’m not always able to leave and the ability to converse over the web has in some respects kept me sane. It keeps me connected with my kids, spouse and friends – old and new.

As we wind into winter, a time when serious arts and crafting come into full swing I’ll continue to share interesting tidbits of what is happening here and welcome the interaction of those who read it. I’m looking forward to the down time. Having the quiet and solitude always turns my mind towards creativity – I’m always thinking, planning. There just is never the time during the warmer months for sitting at the loom or hooking a rug. Winter will offer a respite from the yard work and gardening, it will allow me to recharge and dream about spring. By the time it arrives I’ll be ready.

Reunion

September 1, 2014September 1, 2014 / handmadebyjo / 1 Comment

We spent the greater part of yesterday at a high school reunion. This one was a little different, the first 10 classes of Mohawk Trail Regional High School gathered at the Charlemont Fairgrounds for a festival of sorts. It felt like a small fair with the food vendors and class tents. Bands played from the past all day long, whisking us back to youth with the power only music has on one’s memory. There were activities, group photos, reminiscing along with a table of yearbooks and photographs that did and didn’t make the cut back in the day (how those survived 35+ years is beyond me).

This is the kind of thing that reminds you how close our communities are. As I have said in the past, each town that sent kids to this regional school was a small town. My class from Rowe consisted of four people (including me). In school you make your lifetime friends I believe but for those of us that grew up in such small communities our town friends become our family. Having the reunion encompass so many years, with my class right in the middle allowed us to not only visit with our classmates but reconnect with people we wouldn’t have otherwise.

In this age of social media we are fortunate to be able to stay connected with some of our favorite people with a touch of a few buttons. It is an amazing world. When I arrived at the reunion it was good to see so many of the people I talk to so often, it felt comfortable. Then there were a few of those OMG moments. Those occurred when I recognized someone I never thought I would see at an event like this.

Good moments, moments of recognition, hugs, warmth, familiarity. These were moments spent with the people I have known since I was 5 years old. Moments talking about age, family, life. It was a time, however brief, when I felt like I was surrounded by the best parts of my family. These are the people who know you so very well. The interesting thing is that many of them I have not seen in a decade. It’s the situation you find yourself in where you just pick up where you left off.

I read somewhere a long time ago that people who know each other from their youth always see each other as they were when they were young. A trick of the mind. So all of that graying hair, weight gain or loss, baldness falls away as the conversation begins – you are really seeing their soul in some respect, their essence. You see them as you know them and always have.

For me, that’s the amazing thing about these reunions. While part of it always serves to remind me how quickly time passes I am quickly reminded that even with the passage of time we all are essentially still teenagers in our minds.

Garden Bounty

August 6, 2014 / handmadebyjo / 6 Comments

My vegetable garden has been somewhat of a disappointment this year. The tomatoes have blight, the cucumbers are slow, everything is 2 to 3 weeks behind because of the cool temperatures and copious amounts of rain we have had. The things that are doing great are my perennials.

The cooler temperatures have allowed me to begin a long, long overdue garden rehab project. Yes, new gardens are going in but one of the reasons for the new gardens is that there are so many things that need division in the old gardens. I have to say that it has taken me by surprise. One iris, planted about 5 years ago, yielded a garden full of new ones.

I’m never one to complain about free plants mind you but this is a little concerning to me when I look at what I have to divide. I dug up three plants yesterday, an iris, a balloon flower and a Stella di Oro lily. The iris yielded about 30 usable rhizomes, the balloon flower maybe three separate plants and the lily went from one larger clump to six good size plants.

The distressing part for me is the fact that I haven’t even begun to dig up the garden that needs to be redone. I’m not one to throw plants over the bank but foresee that happening. How many haphazard gardens are there from plants being pitched when the gardens are redone? (You gardeners out there know what I’m talking about). I have two of those right here. Daffodils come up all over the place now where they were thrown purposefully or accidentally over the years. Hostas, myrtle, daylilies, even Jack in the Pulpits. I prefer to refer to those haphazard messes as reserves for the day when I need them.

Yesterday I gave away half of the iris to a friend that was here in the morning. I didn’t give him a choice – I told him he could pitch them over his bank, I would never know.

This is how friendship gardens happen. Someone is dividing up their plants in order to have them be healthier and bloom better, they are overwhelmed with the number of unexpected plants they end up with, they force them onto their friends and family. That gives me a whole new perspective on a couple of the gardens that I always thought of as “friendship” gardens. Maybe all those special plants are really things that were being cast off and rescued by my mother, similar to things that have happened to me recently.

Regardless of how the plants have ended up in my garden I love most of them. Even if some were cast off from another’s garden renovation I look upon them fondly. Some of them have been here since 1968 when we moved here and my mother began gardening in earnest. To identify certain specimens with certain people in an aspect that I love.

So as the garden renovation continues I will be giving away a lot of things and hope that some years from now someone will say, “Oh I got that from Joanne in 2014 during the big dig”. For that reason I’m careful what I give away and make sure it is weed free. The last thing I want is someone cursing me out for some invasive species that I introduced to their garden. Although at this point irises are feeling a little invasive.

Hand Made

August 1, 2014 / handmadebyjo / 10 Comments

Yesterday the weather wasn’t conducive to gardening, or much of anything outdoors. Although there was plenty to do in the house (like vacuuming) I decided to finish up the project on the loom.

This is a 72″ runner with a linen warp and wool weft. I made it for a friend of mine who has been one of my weaving cheerleaders since the beginning. She has an older home and her love of blue and white traditional overshot drove the project. I told her last year that I would make her something and that’s what lead me to the linen warp. It was an experience.

These are my favorite projects, the ones I make for particular people. It’s a different kind of effort. As I said before it’s really the process not the project. Once it was off of the loom, fringed and wet finished I photographed it and then folded it and got it ready for presentation. The gifting is my favorite part.

The end of last year I was weaving some beautiful twill towels with the intention of gifting one of them to one of my biggest cheerleaders. The intent was Christmas as he wondered how he could get on my Christmas list. Well, as usual, life got in the way and they weren’t ready by Christmas, or by January. His health took a turn for the worse after the holidays and in my heart I knew this was the end. It all but stopped my progress on that project. It came to a screeching halt actually. He passed away in March and with that I had to change my entire mindset on those towels. I did finish them and gifted them to my oldest daughter – they were her colors. In weaving the last of the warp though he was constantly on my mind.

I don’t know how to explain what happened when he died honestly. The week after his death I was a total mess, trying to find meaning in what had transpired surrounding it. After his memorial service I was at total peace. Not just peace with his passing, peace with everything. It was as though the moment he died he took all of my lifetime crap with him when he left. I just had to be quiet enough to see it. Now I always knew we had a connection and over the past year or two he was more than ready to lend an empathetic ear but this was unexpected. There is no other explanation, the calm with my life came when he left. Thank you.

The loss of a dear friend, in the middle of a project like that gives urgency to finishing things when they are made directly for someone. I really want this to go to its intended home. Although I have never seen her table I imagine it laying there and the pleasure it will give to its recipient.

Last year, after winning a blue ribbon on an overshot throw at the Eastern States Exposition, Paul wrote on my post about it. “Hands made this. Hands were used by a person. A person made this. It holds and conveys the sense and feel of those hands and the spirit of that person. Yes, it is beautiful.” There are people who intrinsically understand this about things that are hand-made. Maybe it comes from making art of your own because I know many people who don’t get it.

I will continue to weave and create beautiful things and giving many of them away. I think a little piece of my soul goes with them most of the time and I gift to those that can see it.

The bonus on most weaving projects is I always warp a little longer than required so I can play at the end. The photo above is a small table runner I made in a variation of the pattern and that one stays on my table.

Digging Sod

July 24, 2014July 24, 2014 / handmadebyjo / 2 Comments

I have been thinking about expanding this garden for a couple of years now. I blame the weather for my lack of commitment to the project. It’s been too hot during the window I have every summer to move things around.

An opportunity presented itself in the past week or so that has pushed me to do this. A lifetime gardening mentor is dismantling her perennial gardens and I am the recipient of a lot of her plants. This is a mixed blessing. I’ve written before about how I feel about plants in my garden that come from friends and family, they hold a special place in my heart. For the most part perennials last more than a lifetime, that’s the reason you often see flowers blooming in odd places. They are very often in spots where homes once existed that are long gone. I have many, many plants that I can tell you came from people I love. Friendship gardening.

The difficulty in this particular gardening adventure is that I have been visiting Mabel’s gardens for decades. They were spectacular in design and there were always new and unusual plants in them. I learned a lot about the gardening of perennials from her. There are many reasons why she has decided to dismantle her gardens but for me to go there and dig plants out of it seems so wrong to me. They are part of how I think of her and it seems so sad to me to know that I will not be visiting an amazing array of plantings and have the narrative to go with it. And it’s not that I visited often but it was just knowing it was there.

At the same time I will be taking a piece of her for my yard. My sister and I walked her gardens over the weekend with her and she made a mental list of who was taking what. There were tips on how to dig up certain things and where they might go. There was also the excitement of having practically a ready-made garden for the moving.

Then comes the hard work. I have been digging out the sod for a couple of days. I finished yesterday early in the morning and have been thinking about other spots that should be dug up. Plants will be moved in the next week or two to various spots around the house, some love sun, some shade. It has also forced me to do things that I haven’t done in the past. I had to remove the forks from the tractor and put on the bucket – I’ve been shown once but never actually did it. As you can see that was a success.

All in all this project has given me perspective on my physical capabilities. It’s easy to say I’m too old and out of shape to be digging this much space by hand but honestly it feels so good doing it. Pace yourself I keep saying, stay hydrated my brain reminds me. Focus remains a bit of a problem, I want to dig up all sorts of places and know that I could get myself into some trouble with the amount I’ve taken on.

I came in for another large glass of water the other day and my father said, “You know this place once had the most beautiful gardens in town”. That, my friends, is something to aspire to.

Wise Words

June 18, 2014June 18, 2014 / handmadebyjo / 7 Comments

I visited with an old friend the other day. I see her much more often now that I am in Rowe than I ever saw of her in the past 35 years or so that we’ve known each other. She has gone through some major life changes in the past few months. She is a wise woman. We talked about others that we know who are dealing with life changes of their own (myself included). Some are retiring and moving away from the place that has been their home for over 50 years. Others are taking care of aging parents, their children are moving out or they’re recovering from the loss of a loved one.

She said “You need to learn to love your new life.”

Profound words those. We are all hit with changes – some predictable, some not. For me, the changes were seen and prepared for in the best way I knew how. That doesn’t mean there aren’t things that are happening that I hadn’t anticipated. When life changes are made (or happen) it can take a while to truly get the big picture of how those changes are going to affect you and yours. It takes awhile to get into that new routine.

I confess to be floundering a bit here. There’s so much to do and so many of the decisions have to be made in somewhat of a vacuum. The idea of being in a situation where I can work on producing the kind of life I only saw myself doing after “retirement” has been a bit overwhelming. I think I thought I would have a more concrete idea of what I was going to do than I do. Things are getting done, not necessarily in the time or way I thought they would. I just have to roll with it.

In realizing that things are never what they seem or intended those words about learning to love my new life were exactly what I needed to hear. Decisions were made based on the realities of my life whether good or bad – this is the way life is. Learning to love it – working on loving it – is probably the most important thing I can do to have things be just as they should be.

Flashback Friday – Water

February 7, 2014February 7, 2014 / handmadebyjo / Leave a comment

For the past thirty years or so weekends in the summer have been spent on water. Our daughters know nothing else really, their entire childhood summers were spent in a boat, on a beach or in a lake somewhere. The photo above is a testament to their lack of fear. Cait was three years old giving us a thumbs up to tell us to go faster. The two of them were born to do this. Fast forward a few years and Cait is still about the speed (so in Amanda) with her whole goal being able to stay on the tube no matter what her father throws at her.

It’s always fun to watch and photograph. Twenty years of experience has made for some crazy rides.

Boating is about a lot more than pummeling your kids on a tube behind a speeding boat. It has always been about friends and family for us. Our vacations have always been spent on water with various other people sharing our experience. Some of them are avid boaters and have brought their own boats. Others spend a weekend on the water as a first time experience. These are the best times for me – introducing them to the joys of floating on the water on a hot summer day. Showing them the beauty of “our” bodies of water. There truly is nothing like seeing the landscape from the middle of a lake, it opens it up.

This is what boating is all about for us – gathering many for a day of fun and relaxation. Finding a beach, setting up your chairs, worshiping the sun, listening to the birds, reading, laughing.

And it isn’t just the kids that enjoy a day at the lake.

So it’s 14 degrees this morning and we had over a foot of snow two days ago, that could be why I’m waxing nostalgic.

Winter is Here

December 16, 2013December 16, 2013 / handmadebyjo / 1 Comment

From Saturday into Sunday we had about 12 inches of snow in Rowe. It was very cold, getting into the single digits overnight so the snow was light and fine. When we arrived on Friday night we cranked up the wood stove to get the chill out and banked it for an overnight burn. Saturday we went and picked up a few supplies figuring we would be snowed in and then went to Russell and Carmen’s to pick up maple syrup for Christmas presents. When we arrived we found out the beef had come back from Athol. Since it was all mixed together and Russell was out showing off the nine-point buck he had shot the night before we knew we would have to come back a little later.

When we returned to the house we worked on a couple of indoor projects waiting to go back and pick up the beef. Bill turned up the heat in the ell remembering that the antifreeze wasn’t good for the temperatures that we were having outdoors and with the stove going we still needed to have warm water running through the system. I had to add to the bird feeders outside, make sure everything was full. The birds know when bad weather is coming so they came in droves to eat. Later in the afternoon we went back over and picked up around 150 pounds of beef, packaged and frozen. We checked out the bucks head on its way to taxidermy and talked about where he had taken it and the other 3 that were still out there. It was beginning to snow as we went back to the house but before we left Bill told Russell he was concerned about pipes freezing with the stove running and not having cranked the heat up overnight. Russ told us he had a two really large BTU heaters if we ran into trouble.

Well, we ran into trouble.

About 5:00 or so, when the snow was really coming down we realized that the heat wasn’t circulating through the ell zone and that we were going to have to do something or we would be dealing with burst pipes. It was 9 degrees out. We called Russell again and he drove over and unloaded his heating rig (this was big time – ductwork, heater, exhaust piping, thermostat, yeah). They ran the heat duct into a back shop and set the thermostat at 70, we kept the heat as hot as we could with the stove and found a couple of fans to circulate it all around the zone. Russell had dinner waiting for him at home so he gave Bill a little instruction and left. Bill and I discussed the worst case scenario and the fact that I would have to stay to keep the fire going so the water pipes wouldn’t freeze and deal with having the situation remedied by someone else. By 10:00 the hot water was flowing and we were breathing a sigh of relief.

With all of the holiday celebrations all around us we sometimes forget that these are the kinds of things that are the best gifts. Having friends that we do so much with and can count on in a near disaster. Bill and I returned the equipment to Russell’s shop yesterday while they were at a holiday party. On the ride over and back we talked about how important our friendships are in this rural area. Life is different here. People drop what they are doing to help out their neighbors and friends. There seems to be more of an attitude about all being in this life together and many hands make light work. I felt blessed to have them in my life this past weekend.

The icing on the cake was being able to thank Russell on the phone last night for helping us and his comment was “That’s what we do.”

Indeed.

I still think I need to make him an apple pie.

Little Things

December 3, 2013December 3, 2013 / handmadebyjo / Leave a comment

Every year for the 18 or so years of my daughter’s lives I photographed them around this time of year for the annual Christmas card. It was a personal challenge to send out the best photograph I could of them to all of our family and friends.

In the beginning I owned a photography studio in Enfield and was photographing many, many children – most of them were under 10 years old. There was a decided difference in photographing my own and someone else’s. The easy part is that these girls were conditioned to be photographed. I knew the words and ways to make them smile a natural smile and I had nothing but time to spend doing it. The difficulty came in the fact that they knew what buttons to push.

I would meticulously plan the dresses and where the photograph would be taken. I would dress them and drag them to the desired location and wait for the light to be just so or set up the studio before they arrived. Each session over the years had its problems (as every session always does). It also brought me great memories of the “behind the scenes” kinds of things that went on. They would manipulate me and I would manipulate them as parents and children will always do.

What seemed to every recipient of the yearly photograph to be of well behaved, well dressed little girls really was the product of hours of coercion, bribery, threats. It was also, in the early years, the power of bathroom words. Telling them to say something that they knew was considered a bad word took their minds off of the fighting between the two of them.

It’s this time of year that I look back fondly on those sessions – some great, some not so much. They are the fabric of our collective past and what makes up a little part of who we are now and our relationship to each other. I’m sure their perspective is totally different – everyone’s truth and story is but we are all on the journey together.

As the holiday season is upon us take the time to look at the little things that make up your traditions. Take out those old dusty family photos (God knows mine are) and reminisce about what was important to you then with the loved ones you have now. It can give you a fresh perspective on the journey you’re taking and bring home it’s the little things that really make up who you are.

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