Month In Review

This month has been a whirlwind. Yes, our town almost burned down. The smoke was intense so most of us spent a few weeks evacuated to someplace less smoky. Oh, yeah, the national guard troops barring us from going home helped make the decision easier.

Every few days a few of us would drive back for a town meeting to find out what was happening. In the end, one barn was lost, but no homes. The fire crews were numerous (over 3,000 at one point) and incredibly skilled.

In the midst of the evacuation I went into the moist mountains and vended at a music festival called Beloved. It was sweet and beautiful and, perhaps best of all for me, gave my lungs a break from the smoke.

When I came home we had a few days in a row with little smoke in the air so I set up the yurt again and enjoyed the beauty of the forest more than ever.

One fantastic feature of my garden right now is a giant moonflower. The plant is over 6 feet wide and puts out about 5 flowers each night. When the air is still, the beautiful fragrance wafts onto the deck and into my yurt.

Even in the midst of evacuation and shows, I've been making progress on the next batch of cloth, called Wildfire.

This past weekend I sold at Art in the High Desert up in Bend. It was a great show with jaw-dropping quality. I'm incredibly honored to have been chosen to show among these talented artists.

The show ended a couple of hours early when we were hit with driving rain. In a few minutes everything was drenched and every customer had gone running. It was kind of perfect, really. That same rain on Saturday or even a few hours earlier on Sunday would have really decreased our sales, but the skies took pity on us and waited until the show was about ready to wrap up anyhow.

After we finished packing I ran home to get all of the garments and booth parts spread out in the studio to dry.

There wasn't one inch to move in the studio yesterday so I went and got an eye exam for my first pair of bifocals. My eyes were so dilated that I couldn't even see my reflection in the mirror so I snapped a photo to look at later. Wow!

In the second picture I have temporary shades on over sunglasses and still had to spend a few hours in a coffee shop before I could drive home.

But now I'm back with no shows for a month. I'm really ready to get the Wildfire cloth designed and a few pieces woven before my next show in Arcata.