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I’ve had a batch of old metal sunray-shaped findings stashed away in a drawer for years. Every so often I’d take them out and think how I wanted to make something with them, but instead they’d end up back in the cabinet.

Last week, I gave myself some time off to refill the creative well. I went to the library and chose randomly inspiring books on Andy Goldsworthy, Shaker furniture, Antique Jewelry and William Morris. I scribbled ideas in my sketchbook. I wandered off and washed a couple of windows. I tidied my desk. Eventually I dug through my drawers of materials… and there were the findings, waiting.

So I made something that isn’t strictly anything, and had a wonderful time doing it.

Now this blanket-curtain-whatever-it-is is hanging on the wall, catching the light in its old metal shimmery way, and delighting me. I want to make a GIANT one if I can hunt down more of these findings. The bagful is all used up.

“It doesn’t matter who you be, just be who you be. Be different.”

The Hudson Valley is packed with artists and it’s exciting to discover who is just down the road. I love these guys.

How it stands there against the dark
of this late rainy hour, young and clean,
swaying its generous branches
yet absorbed in its essence as rose;
with wide-open flowers already appearing,
each unsought and each uncared-for.
So, endlessly exceeding itself
and ineffably from itself come forth,
it calls the wanderer, who in evening contemplation
passes on the road:
Oh see me standing here, see how unafraid I am
and unprotected. I have all I need.

~ Rainer Maria Rilke

The color. The patience. The detail. I love this.

Seen only feet from these newly planted sweet young things…

Needless to say, she is not alone. This morning I saw a baby bunny inside the vegetable garden. At least the little ones run away fast and give me some sense of righteous satisfaction.

I am connecting with my inner Farmer McGregor, and dreaming of electric fences.

Your worst enemy cannot harm you
as much as your own unguarded thoughts.

~The Buddha

Weeding the asparagus patch, it strikes me how much like thoughts weeds are; ubiquitous, tough and insidious.

Now that I tend a garden I’ve discovered that weeds are clever, growing as close to a ‘good’ plant as possible, twining in and around the stalks and leaves, making it difficult to tease them out. My thoughts twist together as well, the undermining, repetitive, hopeless ideas tangled up with the useful, helpful, hopeful ones.

So I weed carefully, and I meditate. I can’t get rid of all the weeds, or of my negative thinking, but I can tease out the difference between constructive and negative thoughts, between the ground ivy and the asparagus, making room for sunshine and water.

I have a confession. I am a sock knitter.

I’m not sure what happened. I was going along, knitting a little here and there, reading blogs about how fabulous hand-knit socks are and ignoring the hype… and then I knit a sock.

It started innocently enough; I made M some slipper socks for Christmas. The problem is they were easy to make and they came out looking like a pair. AND they were well received. Next thing I knew I was trolling through Ravelry‘s sock patterns, and digging out some lilac-colored alpaca from my stash. It still seemed like a manageable experiment. I can stop at any time, I told myself as I plowed through the Kalajoki socks. No problem.

No problem until I put them on and wouldn’t take them off for longer than I care to admit. They felt soooo good. Turns out all them sock knitters weren’t kidding about how comfy-fabby-warm hand-knit socks are.

M’s birthday was in February and I used the celebration as an excuse to knit him some socks. And, tellingly, to buy more sock yarn than needed.

By then I’d read a blog post about 12 sweaters knit in 12 months, and had seen that The Yarn Harlot knits a pair of socks per month, on top of her other projects. I just knit 3 pairs of socks in 3 months, I thought. I could totally knit 12 pairs in a year!

So March found me knitting my own pair of stripey socks with the leftover birthday yarn + some old green stash yarn. I’m just using up leftovers, I told myself, still in denial.

But then came April. And books about sock knitting were openly checked out of the library. And I shamelessly knit myself a big chunky pair of welly socks, telling myself that if next winter is anything like the one we’ve just escaped then I’ll be needing lots of socks. Thick socks. Long socks…

I’m in trouble, friends. We’re a third of the way through the year and the rash shows no sign of abating.

I was looking through my photo archive and realized that all Fall and Winter I’ve been taking pictures of patches of sunlight, welcomed gratefully by my friends and I, and of the accompanying shadow patterns.