Daily Notes- August 15

My Spirit Animal, I think.   Each time I walk somewhere new--a crow feather appears.  Some large and some very small.   I have them in a majolica cup on the front hall table.  So many. And we have crows under the bird feeders--giving the squirrels some competition.

Yesterday, I was in the raised bed garden. Full of weeds as we rarely go there this summer.  The summer of not being able to breathe.  Reactive asthma changes your Life.  Danger everywhere from the unknown.  What will I react to?

Anyway, back to the garden.  Native elderberry.  Started from tiny seeds last Winter.  Planted in the raised beds when I knew I wouldn't be able to garden down there anymore. In flower. If the plants produce berries I will be in heaven.  We need to make a cloth to cover the tops and wave in the wind-"set our flag" as Grace has said.  So the birds know we want the berries.

 So my vegetable beds now are "training camp" for perennials.  Sunflowers, hollyhocks, arugula gone wild, tiny seedless Concord grapes climbing and tumbling over the arbor, small evergreens, grasses, native bee balm, blueberries, rhubarb fried in the heat,  raspberry bushes cut back early to provide September berries (not June) though we haven't gotten any fruit this Summer.  Birds and chipmunks.

I am now settled down into thinking Nature had a reason for taking all my fruit.  My store cupboard is full of jams and jellies from other years.  G found jars of the Queen of Plum jam I had forgotten. What a happy surprise and so delicious.  I am learning how to be content.

Reading today on plant based dyes--- I am going out to collect the goldenrod flowers.  And more leaves from the purple smoke bush.  And calendula flowers.  And crabapple leaves and tiny apples.
I even have blackberry leaves on my list and false indigo.  We know of sumac but it's always damp and I have read not to cut the flower/seed heads when damp or wet.  But perhaps we will have to?
Eco Printing.  I am thinking I will need to use string to pull it all very tight before heating.  To get more imprint from the leaves.  I am doing all this quite by the seat of my pants.  Trial and error.

And I have three beautiful pieces of cloth from my last Eco Print adventure.  Three out of six.  Really lovely.