One to Three Inches, Stacked up Nine

Last night’s weathercast promised us a little snowfall for this morning. In truth, we had been watching this forecast for a few days, hoping the promise would materialize. It was going to be another little skiff of white on the place. Here is this morning’s view:

Lovely! That was several hours ago, and things keep getting deeper. You might remember, we were thrilled when the first snow fell for us, back when we were just closing the deal on the farm. It just makes you a kid again, especially when it comes on a day when you do not have to navigate the roads to work. A Sunday snow might be a disappointment to the school day attenders, but to me it’s perfect. Let’s go to church right here in the cathedral of the woods. I stepped under the arms of the firs reaching low, and that’s what it was like: quiet, subtly lit, spacious. Here’s looking in:

And here is looking out, at the house soon to be razed and made into another one:

The sheep are mostly holed up in their shed. You can see they are not out in their yard here. Their legs are only so long, and they’re skimming the snow with their bellies. Once the novelty wears off, I think they’ll be out in it. William the mule was frisky this morning, nickering and prancing as he came to the barn. Silly thing. He doesn’t have to celebrate snow days free from school.

One more picture.

I love this! I think it reminds me of my small days in Montana, when the snow would pile up even over my head! But of course, my head was not so high then.

Fairies in the Woods

I came on this during my morning stroll into the woodlot:

Click on the picture to see better what we have here. It’s a fairy ring of fungi circling the remains of a small tree stump. I’ve seen these before, usually of capped mushrooms. These are a branching kind of fungus. I am not mycologist enough to put a name on them. But I do know that its association with the roots of a tree is not accidental. Normally, the fungus colonizes the roots of a vascular plant in what is called a mycorrhizal association: the fungus gets carbohydrates produced by the photosynthetic plant, which in turn benefits from the spread of the fungal mycelium to increase the reach of its roots as well as the ability of the fungus to take up certain kinds of nutrients the vascular plant cannot. I understand that much. But in this case, where the host plant is only a remnant, I’m not sure what the fungus is getting from the relationship.

Ah, but maybe it’s not the biology of the thing I should look for! In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Titania calls, “Come now, a roundel and a fairy song.” The roundel would be a circle. Titania wants her fairies to dance in a ring and deliver a fairy song, partly to “keep back the clamorous owl that nightly hoots…” I know that owl. She lives in our woods. I’ve heard her when I go out for night feedings. (Bubo virginianus). If the owl is there, who is to say the fairies are not there, too, dancing in the night in rings in the woods?

“Sing me now asleep,” says Titania.

Well, of course. If I’m asleep while they dance, how would I have ever seen them?

Jan. 7 — St. Distaff’s Day

There is not really a St. Distaff in the calendar of saints. “In times past,” as folklore says, St. Distaff’s Day was observed on the day following Twelfth Night, when all women returned to their work of spinning thread after the 12 days of Christmas. This seems to imply that the women were not working during those 12 days. Anthony Fitzherbert wrote in his Boke of Husbandrie (1523) that spinning “… saveth a woman from being idle…” We would certainly not want to see them idle, those women. The distaff, so long associated with the spinning wheel, well represents the work of women, and today St. Distaff’s Day is still tongue-in-cheekly kept in a spinning woman’s calendar.

Here you see a postcard photo of a French woman and her wheel, and a great long distaff loaded with flax. I think she’s posing there by the archway since she seems to have a firm hold on the flyer of her wheel. This is exactly what I would do if I were asked to pose, standing, beside my wheel when I had been spinning. “Show us the thread!” “Ouí, OK,” I’d say, and would draw some off the bobbin and hold onto the flyer to keep things from getting away. “Hold up that thing now, that’s the spindle, right?” “No, thees eez not a spindle. Thees eez a distaff.” and I would put the distaff under one arm and support it on the other wrist, so to show the thread and the distaff to advantage, and still I would hold onto that flyer.

This is a Saxony wheel, a style that originated in Europe in the 16th Century. They’re still popular. That is, they are popular among hand-spinners, who may not number greatly in the population these days. On some wheels, the distaff would have been mounted vertically onto the wheel rather than held by the spinner.

I apologize to my spinning friends now, who know what follows, but some of you, my readers, are not spinners, and this will be new to you. Here is how a treadle-driven spinning wheel works: The drive wheel on a Saxon wheel extends off one side of the table; the mother of all with its upright maidens, flyer and bobbin rests at the other end above a screw-operated tensioning device. The last can be seen sticking out from the end of the table. The footman rises from the back corner (that is, the corner away from the spinner) of the treadle to the wheel axle crank, driving the large wheel as the spinner operates the treadle with her foot. The drive band transfers the motion of the wheel to the whorl of the flyer, causing it to turn much faster than the drive wheel itself (like the chain drive of a bicycle). The fiber as it is spun is drawn in by way of the tension adjustment that regulates the amount of slack between the drive wheel and the flyer whorl (or in some cases, the bobbin whorl) and accumulates on the turning bobbin in the flyer. Clear? I thought so.

Now, this next woman is clearly distracted and not really paying attention to her work.

Perhaps she would prefer to be doing something other than attending to her spinning.

Notice the differences between the two wheels. This second wheel, is known as a Castle Wheel. It has generally the same parts doing the same things as the Saxon wheel, but they are arranged vertically. Castle wheels are practical from the standpoint of saving space, and modern design spinning wheels often show their relationship to older traditions in this arrangement of parts.

Here below is a lady who is completely out of her milieu. Click on her to make her bigger — she wouldn’t fit well in my margins.

She’s wearing an Arthurian legend style gown, and sitting before a Saxony wheel which, as we have learned, she could not have had in her time. Further, she is addressing the wrong end of the machine. Make the picture as large as you can, because there is a lot of visual distraction there. The woman is at the drive wheel, not the flyer. It’s common for people who do not spin to think the thread goes around the big wheel, and when they first watch a spinner at work, they have trouble seeing what is actually going on. The big wheel is an accelerator for the flyer whorl, and that’s what makes the fiber twist into thread. All the action takes place at the flyer end of the machine. Maybe if it were not called a spinning wheel it would be easier to understand.

But I have digressed. This lady has a distaff as well, though it isn’t doing her much good. She is advertising the virtues of Pabst Malt Extract. She says, “Here is a truth you should know. A truth for the weary mind. If you take Pabst Malt Extract you will drop off to restful slumber the minute your head touches the pillow. It……………Brings Strength. It quiets the nerves, rounds the form, builds, braces and lifts the body and brain from weakness to power. Gives youthful vigor………………. To win back your health take Pabst……………….. Malt Extract.”

We were discussing the distaff, however. At last I would like to share with you an earlier portrayal of the distaff in use. Below is a page from the Luttrell Psalter, written and decorated by anonymous scribes and artists around 1330. This is  Psalm 31. Note the woman in the middle of the right margin who is smiting her poor man with her distaff, and he, the Psalmist I presume, pleads for rescue. He must have done something very wrong, and it’s right he should pray God for relief.

Best to you all on St. Distaff’s day, 2008!

CSI: Back Yard

We had a good stiff wind come through, and quite a number of kiwi fruits came off the vine. I collect them up. Some are good for the table, some are good for sheep treats. And some, I notice, have been nibbled.

More than nibbled… Someone has been taking good servings of pre-dawn fruit portions from the garden, tidily sampling their way from one berry to another.

Hmm, I think as I go through the gate in the morning, I wonder who that is? And I think it could be raccoon, ‘possum, squirrel… but this morning we had a new snowfall again, and the suspect left her tracks behind:

It’s the rabbit who often picks up fruit drops in the orchard. If you haven’t seen rabbit tracks before, the above might not look like a give-away: a three-legged rabbit? But if you think about how a rabbit gets along, it will be clear: the two marks at the top of the picture are the hind toes of the rabbit coming down ahead of the close-together front toes.

I think ours is the little Western Brush Rabbit, Sylvilagus bachmani. She will be mating next month, and I imagine she’s filling herself with every delicacy she can find right now.

Elmer: Oh boy!! Wabbit twacks!!

(Go here: Wabbit Season to actually hear Elmer talk about rabbit tracks.)

2008!

We made it!

Funny old people that we are, we are most content to spend New Year’s Eve at home on the farm. Safe inside and off the roads, we shared some chips and dips, made up some hamburgers from home-ground beef brisket (brisket makes the best hamburger you ever ate!), let the grease, mayonnaise and mustard run down our arms and the onions inch out from the buns, tipped a glass of bubbly at midnight, and kissed one another into the New Year. Oh, and we let off $1 worth of party poppers before falling asleep. Whoopee!

Best to you all in 2008. It’s the only 2008 we’ll have, so let’s make the most of it.