Candle shop

We're working on Holiday Season planning here at the Ozark Folk Center. We'll be open Thurdsay-Saturday through Dec. 19. One shop that's always in the spirit is the Candle Shop. Owned by Jeff and Traci Glover, they specialize in hand-dipped bees wax tapers. They take special orders and ship anywhere. They are in the process of building a web site, but for now, if you want to get in touch with them, give me a holler.

Postable momments

So often as I work through my day and my various lives, I think "This would make a great blog post."

Sometimes it's simple things, like the little Scrappy dog conning the new puppy out of his chewy toy and hiding it in a chair that is too high for him to reach.

Other times it is an indepth commentary on pricing craft items and energy flow or the importance of place to the development of any complete theme, that I work out in my head as I'm weaving.

But so many of those are lost, because I don't take the time to sit down at the computer.

Chronicling life has always been an interest of mine. A friend pointed out that it is hard though to both live a life that is interesting enough to be worth recording, while also having the time to write it down!

--------------------

We are in the process of getting ready for Off The Beaten Path Studio Tour. The tour is tomorrow through Sunday. In spite of the rain, and in large part thanks to the efforts of Sage Holland, beadmaker, whose picture is here, I think we are fairly ready. Sage has put a lot of effort into getting the studio and the area around it looking good. Sage and Tom will have their beads on display, Rosemary will have her chain maille, Lena will have her dyed rovings and yarns and Shawn will be working on some trilooms.

I'll be warping my Newcomb and weaving on the tri and rigid heddle. Hopefully you all can make it down to visit. Drive careful and we'll see you soon.

Another day gone

There was something I was going to do yesterday. I didn't get it done. Yesterday is gone, I can't make it up. Now today is almost over.
That's been my life lately. Deadlines snowball, I think of projects in terms of the ones that aren't complete. I watch unfinished projects fall into the oblivion of too late to be useful.
I'm at a wonderful retreat/seminar and not relaxing because I keep checking my email and finding complaints about deadlines missed, projects behind schedule or people needing information that is on my desk.
How sick is that?
And how can I even complain when I'm going to type up this latest project and then go soak in the hot tub.
I have no solutions.
Life and its complexities....

Fast Fruit

Lena and I went up to Foxbriar today to work in the garden. Lena picked three watermelons from her wild watermelon plants. They are still blooming like mad and threatening to take over the strawberry patch, again.
There is a muscadine grape outside the garden. Currently it grows up a tree, but we want to move it to the kitchen gazebo this fall. It is loaded with fruit this year. Today, there were 3 purple grapes on the vines. Muscadines grow singly, not in bunches. I picked them. They were still pucker-up tart.
I hope the rest are ripe and still there next weekend when I get back up to the garden.
That's been a problem all summer. The cherry trees were full of fruit this spring. It was almost ripe one weekend, and gone the next. Last year we picked cherries for weeks.
The blueberries were the same story, though we knew they were a bit scarce this year. The bushes had fruit, but not a lot. Last year we frozen 15 lbs of berries, sold several gallons and ate them to our heart's content. This year, we ate a pint - and then they were all gone.
We picked black berries two weekends, before there were none to be found. Last summer my arms were scarred well into August from the brambles.
I've been waiting all summer for the fabulous white peaches at the Ozark Folk Center. Every couple days, I'd go by and give them a gentle squeeze to see if they were ripe. They were rock hard when they started rotting at the stem end and falling off the trees. The potter's said they got a few good ones, but I didn't even get one.
The turkey brown figs all ripened quickly and are done. Now we're waiting on the big juicy Texas reds.
The weather this summer has been cool, with regular rains. It has been great for the humans, we feel very blessed, but we've had to be fast to catch the fruit.

Fall?

The air today is warm, but with a crispy cool edge. I'd swear it feels a bit like fall...
Fall - on August 22 in Arkansas?
And then I heard people walking by my office door.
"Just need a little more color in the leaves," said a man's voice.

Yup, it feels like fall. Climate change?
Speaking of change.
We all know, the only thing that remains the same is change.
We are house looking, shopping, searching. Spending way too many hours when I should be working driving. Taking time when I ought to be weaving before Studio Tour looking at houses.
But the daily drive to Meadow Creek has just gotten to be too much and too long. And one of the Meadow Creek board members told me that they are thinking that farming and a wildlife refuge are not a good mix. We have a farm.
So we are looking at houses and looking at options. One option is to move some house trailers we've found up on to Foxbrair - but it is still 24 miles to the Folk Center, which is really where I live right now and hopefully for many years to come.
We have four possibilities on our plates at the moment -
4 acres off Meisenheimer Rd., 8 miles from the Folk Center and between the Center and Foxbriar.
2 house trailers we could move up to Foxbriar for less than $3,000.
A friend's house in Alco where she wants us to house sit indefinitely.
And to keep our eyes open while we get back to work and work on stock for Studio Tour and Artisan's Market.
So, we'll see what the fates have in store for us now.
Prayers, thoughts, calls and good energy are more than welcome.
hugs to all, Jen

Summer arrives

Spring arrived right on time. On a drive to Memphis on March 21, we watched the trees begin to leaf out during a soothing soaking rain. The dogwoods bloomed and the daffodillies danced. Mom Nature followed the calendar.
Just two weeks ago I took a vacation to shear sheep and plant the garden. The whole week the weather was blustery, it was much colder than I wanted to make sheep naked. It was too cold to make playing in the dirt sound like fun. It was still spring.
I did get lots done. We cleared up lots of downed trees and limbs from the ice storm, spent time with friends and family, wove a beautiful handbag that sold right away and 4 of the nicest rugs I've woven this year.
So I headed back to work. Opening weekend at the Ozark Folk Center was a great fun event. Lots of people came and visited with the musicians and crafters. Sales were good at the Center and down on the Square. We had a few big thunderstorms that were a challenge for vendors on the Square, but the visitors seemed content to ride out the weather and stay in town through the festival.
Then, on April 22, Summer Arrived. All of a sudden, the green went from neon spring to lush. I heard my first whipporwill that night and saw the fire flies dancing in the trees. We put away the wool blanket, found the window fan and moved into summer.
It's a good thing that Lena's home to shear all those sheep!

My commute

We played a new game the other night at game night at Joy's Cafe in Mountain View. The game is call Apples to Apples and it is an incredible amount of fun. It's fairly non-competitive and gets you paying attention to the people you are playing with.
The game involves matching words and making decisions. Every player is dealt a handful of red word cards. Then a green word card is play openly on the table. You have to look at your words and match the one on the table.
So the word in the middle of the table might be "Disgusting" and the players decide to throw "Chickens" "Hairballs" "John Travolta" "the Far Left" and what ever they have in their hand that might fit with the first card. Then the person who dealt that hand gets to decide which word fits the best. They may use opposites, a weird sense of humor and their own experiences to decide. So, you learn quite a bit about the people you are playing with.
At one point on my deal, I threw out the word "Relaxing". There were several responses that were good, but the one I chose amazed me. When I thought of my current life and it's circumstances - the most relaxing concept on the table was "my commute".
When I took the job at the Ozark Folk Center, I worried about the hour commute each direction. I get car sick and our roads make some roller coasters look tame. But as the year has gone along, I have come to enjoy that time on the road. When Shawn and I go together we talk and sing and connect with each other in a way we don't during our busy days. And when I travel alone, it is quiet and meditative. I can think and plan and relax. That funny word, relaxing. My two hours a day on the road to work are relaxing.
And I wouldn't have realized it if it wasn't for game night.