Tuesday, April 19, 2011

A Day of Strings

Our school system is very fortunate to have a wonderful string program!  Every year they gather up the students during school and bus them over the high school for some intensive practice, feed them and then end the day with a massive concert and a special guest.  Last year they featured a local composer.  This year it was a Bedford Alumni and musician, Matthew Bell.  His skills are amazing and he began by serenading us with a round of 'The Devil Went Down to Georgia' on his amped up violin.  Just amazing!  Overall it was a great concert and we're very proud of Andy.

Andy, just to the right of Mr. Koch
Matt Bell and his electric violin

The entire assemblage, fifth grade to high school (off camera to the right)

Monday, April 18, 2011

April 'Snow' Showers

Daffodil
This is not completely unexpected - it's happened before.  I have photos from when we lived in Jackson of snow covering our hyacinths and forsythia.  But it is still a rare occurrence and always worthy of photographing.

Pachysandra
Euonymus

Friday, April 15, 2011

Musical Masterpieces

Last night, my middle child had a concert at his school with his fellow third-graders.  It was awesome!  The idea was this: they chose a painting, painted a backdrop and wore costumes to recreate the piece and then sang a song they felt was related to the painting.  For instance, my child's picture was Baile an Tehauntepec by Diego Rivera.  So the girls dressed in red and the boys in white and posed in front of a backdrop painted by a student and sang La Bamba.  Logan insisted on sewing his own costume (he would have tried it himself if I hadn't intervened) so I taught him the basics of sewing and I'm proud to say he pretty much sewed his own pants.  Pretty clever, this concert and definitely complex.  Kudos to the teachers for putting this all together.  There were 13 paintings and songs all together.  Here are a few of my favorites.





Logan is on the right, in yellow

 


Baile an Tehauntepec, Diego Rivera







The Lantern Bearers, Maxfield Parrish






The Drinkers, Vincent Van Gogh







Buying Ponies in the West, Frederick Remington






The Umbrellas, Renoir





Thursday, April 14, 2011

Indoor garden: April, 2011

Tomatoes, peppers, eggplant and tomatillo
So far, the garden is growing well.  I have much to plant this year and only a fraction of it is started indoors.  I have here both my dyer's garden and my vegetable garden.  I save up plastic trays that I get at nurseries for my transplants and make other pots out of newspaper (see the tomatoes).   As per usual, I've planted more than I can grow and probably planted things that really ought to be directly seeded outdoors but after our long, dreary winters, I can't help myself and plant extra just to see green.  If they don't make it to planting time, I will simply direct sow and play the taps at the compost heap for the ones that didn't make it.


Weld and chamomile


Other veggies I will plant this year are corn, squashes and beans.  The strawberries that I planted last year from seed are doing well and are growing already, even though the weather has been fairly cold.  The salad garden that I planted in March is up as well.  I'm still waiting on the asparagus and horseradish to sprout.  The rhubarb is growing (I planted more too).  The grapes this year seem to be holding off, which is good considering they usually sprout leaves and bunches well before the last frost date and get frozen.  Hopefully they hold off a little longer.  We still have until mid-May before planting time.








Madder



I have a ton of plants for dyeing too.  The Calendula is already planted and growing outside. Madder, weld, indigo, anthemis, coreopsis, calliopsis and dahlia are some of the others.  I'm sure some of these won't fare as well as others but it is experimental so we'll see.





More weld and dahlia
Tomatoes

Indigo vat dyeing

This is my first time experimenting with indigo vat dyeing.  I followed the instructions in my natural dye book.  Next time I will likely follow a different set of instructions as I'm not particularly fond of spectralite.  I've heard of methods using simple fermentation that sound much more appealing to me.  I am, after all, versed in wine and bread-making so it should be no issue. Following are some images of my efforts. 

It is important to remove all of the oxygen from the dye.  This what the spectralite does.   Reduced indigo is yellowish or bronze.  Oxygenated indigo is blue.  Other additives are salt, dish soap, and soda.  Pretty common stuff.
The stock jar of reduced indigo.  It has a distinctive smell.

Straight-up indigo-dyed muslin rag yarn



Exhausted indigo vat
Stained yellow gloves
Columbian cross wool dyed with weld and indigo to varying degrees

Columbian cross and llama dyed for different lengths of time in the vat.
Indigo and tea-stained muslin rag yarn
This dyeing method also varies from other traditional methods in that it requires no boiling and cooling, etc.  One simply dips the fiber to be dyed in the vat until  the desired shade is achieved.



I found myself dunking in anything I could find, including some old pink towels that didn't match our "decor".










One of the most beautiful greens can be achieved with the use of weld, another plant dye.  Then the wool is put through the indigo.  Yellow and Blue make GREEN!

















Tea-staining gives the indigo a nice faded blue jean coloration.




Sandalwood, which I have grown fond of for it's
easy pinks, makes a great (albeit unpredictable)
color combination when dyed with indigo.  I found that the spectralite tends to remove the pink if it is pre-dyed.  I'm hoping the fermentation method will eliminate this side effect.
Sandalwood and indigo-dyed muslin rag yarn

The sourdough experiment

I love sourdough but it's really hard to find decent sourdough out there, that isn't flavored.  I once made my own starter out of store-bought yeast but just didn't find it that special (though admittedly better than Kroger sourdough loaves).  So I found this company that sells vintage yeasts from around the globe http://www.sourdo.com.   They had San Francisco sourdough yeast so I purchased some of that.  Now I have embarked on a journey to raise, feed, breed and sustain this pet yeast and then slaughter it ritualistically for my bread.  I can't wait!  With special care, it could last my lifetime and it all starts with activating the little yeasty beasties.  They recommend building a proof box but I've managed to rig my oven to maintain a steady 90 degrees Fahrenheit with only the light and a wooden spoon propped in the door for ventilation.  The initial 24hr proof is almost complete.  THEY'RE ALIVE!  Eat up little creatures, eat up!

It will likely be a week or more before I will have my first loaf but I believe it will be well worth the wait.  This is how it's done folks - slow, honest to goodness food.