These are some of my current projects, presented in a dish rack.
The one legged minecraft sheep looms menacingly, demanding to be finished before I knit anything else!
A poem currently on my mind.
I encountered a quote from this recently – a few lines of the last stanza, and was so star struck that I had to find the whole work. It’s a fine read, and worth memorizing. I’ve taken a great deal of comfort and insight from reflecting on it.
The Old Astronomer to his Pupil – Sarah Williams, 1868
Reach me down my Tycho Brahe, I would know him when we meet,
When I share my later science, sitting humbly at his feet;
He may know the law of all things, yet be ignorant of how
We are working to completion, working on from then to now.
Pray remember that I leave you all my theory complete,
Lacking only certain data for your adding, as is meet,
And remember men will scorn it, ’tis original and true,
And the obloquy of newness may fall bitterly on you.
But, my pupil, as my pupil you have learned the worth of scorn,
You have laughed with me at pity, we have joyed to be forlorn,
What for us are all distractions of men’s fellowship and smiles;
What for us the Goddess Pleasure with her meretricious smiles!
You may tell that German College that their honor comes too late,
But they must not waste repentance on the grizzly savant’s fate.
Though my soul may set in darkness, it will rise in perfect light;
I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night.
Black Friday Spinning
After being brutally knocked about all summer, Little Diana needed some work. I spent an hour or so tightening, oiling, adjusting and tuning her all up, then got to spin!
Since my whole thinking about this Black Friday thing is best summed up as “Screw that”, I was dead set against going out on Friday – but my daughter wanted too, and she can’t drive yet. Compromise – I drove, but we only went to two locally owned small businesses. She wanted to check out Sir Troy’s Toys, and for me we visited Artist’s Gallery Yarn, where I found a nice local hank of hand dyed Coopworth!
It was hidden in the back in the fiber room, sort of buried in plastic bags full of other fibers, and I was delighted to spot it. It’s got all these lovely sort of autumn wine grape colors. I practiced my woolen draw to spin some reasonabley consistent sock yarny sized singles, and then triple plied it. Yield – approx. 60 yards of extremely bulky yarn.
After spinning it looks like this –
A Tale of Two Wheels
I saw in the old antique mall two histories
Two old spinning wheels, the same in birth and form.
So differently polished by time that the light of each
illuminated the other.
—
I haven’t been able to identify a specific model, but I’m fairly certain it’s an old Kromski – they looked like a cross between the Polonaise and the Symphony, and had that distinctive sliding mother of all that Kromski’s do. They also had direct drive setups – the flyer and bobbin all in one solid piece, which I’ve never seen before.
It was really fascinating to be able to see both of these wheels at once, and compare the different conditions they were in. One was very little used, but damaged in some pretty serious ‘no more spinning for you’ ways – most notable a broken off flyer arm. The kinds of damages that come of not being used and being carelessly stored.
The other was extremely worn, and had a number of obvious repairs, but was still in excellent working order – it just needed a new drive band. I turned the wheel by hand, and it spun as smoothly as if freshly oiled.
Chinese tea, gongfu style.
dasHusband and I went downtown the Journey Art Gallery and spent a pleasant couple of hours tasting a nice selection of Chinese teas and watching and learning from the host, Laura Kolinski-Schultz, as she demonstrated Chinese tea ceremony wares and the gongfu brewing style.
I wish I’d gotten a good photo of the host’s tea table that she worked from – it looked similiar to this :
The slats in the wood allow water and tea to drain away to a basin under the table. The various tea pots she used were displayed in front of the table, while the pot in use and the serving cups were on the table.
The set up was this (edit:I found a picture of it! that isn’t a fuzzy wasteland of blur!) 
– the tea table was set up at the end of a long table, so all of the guests could sit and chat with each other and the host, and nibble the awesome snacks she’d made. Off to the side was an electric water kettle, and each guest had a plate and a shallow tasting cup, while the host had the tall aroma cups arranged neatly on her tea table. She would tell us about each tea as she brewed it and filled the aroma cups. Her partner served the aroma cups around the table, and the guests poured the tea from the aroma cup into the tasting cup. Then we could sniff the tea scents left in the aroma cup, and sip the tasting cup. Very cleverly, our host had twice as many aroma cups as guests, so she could brew and serve the successive teas very easily, simply by collecting the aroma cup of the previous tea while serving the next one. This is an aroma cup and tasting cup set, but not the one we used today. Our host today is also a potter, so we got to use tasting cups she had made!
Gongfu style brewing is very interesting – it uses more tea per oz of water than western style brewing does, but steeps the tea for a much shorter period of time. These short steeps – starting in the 5 second range – allow the same tea leaves to be steeped more then once, creating a tasting experience that changes with each brewing. It’s a really neat way of exploring the layers of flavor in the tea, by sort of gently brewing them out one at a time, instead of all together and at once. The teapots and cups are all very small, so that you can drink the repeated infusions without drowning yourself in tea, and without having to use huge amounts of tea. I brew western style tea with 3 grams of tea to 6 ounces of water, while the rough guideline for gongfu style brewing is 1 gram of tea per ounce, about double the amount.
The gongfu brewing / Chinese tea ceremony process is also very different from the western and Japanese styles I am familiar with. First, the dry tea was passed around to smell and admire, while our host told us about it, and poured hot water in and over the teapot she would use. Then the water from the tea pot was poured over the aroma cups to warm and clean them as well. Next, the tea was put in the pot and washed – hot water was poured over the leaves, and promptly poured out into and over the aroma cups. This washing wakes up the tea leaves so they will infuse evenly in the coming brews, and also washes away any particles of tea dust that might give a bitter flavor to the tea. The aroma cups are emptied, and brewing temperature water is added to the teapot. It is infused – anywhere from 5 seconds to a minute – then served. Our host today served the tea by moving back and forth over all the cups as she poured, but many people serve by pouring the tea from the brewing pot into a sharing pot, then filling the cups from the sharing pot. Both methods are meant to insure that the tea liquor is evenly mixed.
Now for the teas! We had four different teas today, and two servings of each tea. This let us taste a little of how the teas evolved as they were brewed, but without taking too long.
1. Organic White Silver Needle, 2013, from Red Blossom.
White teas are very light and aromatic, so having the aroma cup with this tea was a real treat. The first serving had very floral almost rose like scent, and a very light simple taste. The second serving was still floral, but with an additional toastiness to it, and was much richer in the cup. Our host actually brewed this tea four times, using a very tiny yixing teapot, and combined the 1st and 2nd infusions for the first serving, and 3rd and 4th for the second. I thought it was an intelligent way to heighten the flavor of a very subtle tea.
2. Tie Kuan Yin, from The Republic of Tea.
This is a nice basic tieguanyin, and was a pleasant bump up the intensity ladder. The first serving was very floral, with a ton of the clover/honey notes oolong teas are known for, as well as a note of toasted coconut. The second serving was much smoother and more mellow, with a pleasant creaminess to it.
3. Organic Formosa Red #18, from Red Blossom.
A very interesting tea, both in terms of tasting and in history. It is made from a tea plant which is a hybrid of the native Taiwanese C. sinenses v. sinensis and the Indian C. sinensis v. assamica , which was imported to the island early last century to help establish a black tea industry. It was a very nice tea to drink, full of the malty peppery chocolaty notes that Assam teas have, all wrapped up with a vegetal bell peppery kind of greenness that was quite interesting. Unlike the previous more traditional Chinese teas, this black tea didn’t come through the second serving as strongly, and our host told us that is is pretty normal. Apparently the highly oxidized black teas infuse much more readily and thus don’t support multiple infusions as well.
4. Dragon Pearl Jasmine, from Red Blossom.
A classic jasmine scented white tea. A tasty tea, head knockingly floral in the first serving, and showing a nice hint of citrus-like astringency in the second. I didn’t care for it much personally, though it was a nice tea. I think I’d like it more brewed western style, so the intense jasmine was toned down and balanced a little better.
Schmaltz and gribenes. Finally right.
I’ve been practicing making schmaltz and gribenes for a few months now, and I finally can report success! It’s not a hard thing to do but, like any new technique, I needed to figure it out.
Schmaltz is rendered chicken fat, and gribenes are the crispy chicken skin bits left after the schmaltz is made. Think pork rinds – but chicken. They make a tasty crunchy salty bit to nibble or garnish with. The schmaltz is beautiful and golden, keeps forever in the fridge in covered container, and gives anything you cook with it a lovely chickeny richness — it’s a great cooking fat for frying potatoes or sauteeing the veg for a chicken soup.
For today’s attempt, I took the skin and fat from three whole chickens and froze it in a loaf, then diced it up fine. It went into a 2 quart pot over medium heat to cook.
And cook.
And cook.
And cook.
And cook. Finally starting to brown!
And it’s done!
The schmaltz is drained off.
And the gribenes are salted liberally.
Gribenes! 
Schmaltz!
This is my third go at this, and I am very happy with the result, finally. Often, chopped onion is added after the fat is rendered but before the gribenes are well browned, and that gives a very nice flavor to the fat, but it kept burning when I did that. Also, freezing the skin and fat so I could get it really evenly chopped into a nice small dice made a big difference in how evenly the gribenes came out. They are all nice and small and thoroughly crispy.
A poem written on the back of a checkbook register in a moment of despair.
I got my reading done young.
a mind filled with the corpses of books
I read as a child.
Edward Abbey, who am I now?
Robert Pirsig speeds away, Cosette’s hair streaming behind the bike.
Ayn Rand buildings shimmer in the distance
and I learn of lust and idealism
among mingled dreams of cave bears and architects.
I don’t remember Raskolnikov,
but I still drink lapsang souchong tea
echoes of the summer I read Michener because I’d never seen a book
about a place I’d been before.
All these old ghosts rattle their chains at me tonight.
Who am I now, Edward Abbey?
It’s not too late.
One of the most debilitating aspects of depression is the way that it steals hope. The tides of darkness sweep in and out of my mind and heart, leaving a flotsam of despairing memory, so all consuming that nothing else can be felt.
I cannot begin to describe how hard it is to escape from this rip tide. Once I was at the oceanside, and got swept off my feet by a strong wave, and for a brief time lost any sense of up or down or direction. All was spinning stinging lightness. This is like that.
Right now I am holding on to one thought, hoping that it is buoyant enough to serve me as a lifesaver in this thrashing sea. It is not too late. Not too late for anything – for learning and living and loving and reading and writing and breathing. That there is still time coming towards me, that this is not the end of all things.
It’s not too late.
Friday Haiku
is it my mind or
is the poison in my mouth
spring tea sullies fall
Friday Haiku
Light skims the surface
beneath which the goldfish swim
shimmer. August heat.
Knit-Write 