Last month, my son’s fourth grade class put on their spring play, The Theft of Thor’s Hammer. It was a funny story and the children performed beautifully in two performances. I only have photos from the performance in which Lucas played Thor. Doesn’t he look mighty? I was so proud to see him try for a big part—the part he really wanted—and get it. He’s never put himself out there like that before. And boy did he! I think this part required quite a lot of courage. You’ll see why in a minute.

Here’s Freya, the goddess associated with love, beauty, fertility, gold (and sorcery, war, and death—don’t mess with Freya).

And here’s glorious Frey, with Thor’s wife Sif, an earth goddess whose hair is “like golden sheaves of wheat,” in the background.

See Thor’s grumbly, angry face? That’s ACTING. I love it. I also love the wool roving used for his hair and beard.

This darling child played Loki with such athleticism and feeling. Truly it was a joy to watch Loki’s antics.

Loki borrows Freya’s falcon feather cloak.

In the play, the giant Thrym steals Thor’s hammer, Mjolnir. The Asir gods are imperiled if Thor doesn’t get it back. Thrym says he’ll return the hammer to Thor if Freya will consent to become his wife.

Several of the of Norse gods say this isn’t a bad plan. Freya, on the other hand, is highly insulted. She will not consent! (Go Freya!)

Thrym insists and waits eagerly for his bride.

Loki suggests that Thor disguise himself as Freya to go get the hammer. This is not Thor’s favorite idea, but after his fury subsides, he reluctantly agrees.

Thor and Loki are dressed as Freya and her maid. The veil hides Thor’s manly visage.

At Thrym’s home, the giants bumble about and sing a song. Thor-as-Freya is invited to a wedding feast, where he puts away a lot of food before unveiling his true god-self and bonking Thrym with the hammer. Mustn’t fight giants on an empty stomach, after all.

With Mjolnir back in Thor’s possession, the world of the Asir gods is saved. Odin and the others are grateful.

I’m catching up from last weekend. Last Saturday we celebrated Delphinia, a tradition that we have held for about 20 years. Friends come from far and wide to play on the beach at Point Reyes National Seashore and to declare that springtime has come! The time for breathing out, adventuring, travel, enterprise, and busyness has returned and we can throw off our quiet introspection of the winter months. This year, the weather was absolutely perfect! We sometimes have a chilly beach experience, but not this year.

Champagne? Why, yes, thank you!

We picnicked. The daring children splashed in the cold waves.

We played and flew kites. Sweet X has a nifty dragon kite. We had a community fire; we shared our intention and our gratitude. Two mamas are expecting. We’ll soon have two new baby friends in the world! How amazing is that?

So many of us have dogs now and we brought them along. Five dogs makes things extra exciting. This was Solstice’s first trip to the beach—as far as we know. He’s new to our family.

The guys found a giant log up the beach. They decided it was in the wrong place.

And in the wrong orientation.

Then they hatched an even greater plan. (Everyone in this photo is at least 6 feet tall.)

And brave J climbed to the tipy-top, amply proving her courage, . I watched the whole thing and I still don’t know how she did it.

Point Reyes is so lovely. This is one of my favorite places on earth. Perhaps it’s because we have been coming here to celebrate and adventure my entire adult life. It’s pretty far from home—more than three hours in the car—but it’s definitely worth the trip. As is our family tradition, we picked up garbage on the beach before we left and hiked it out. Earth Day was the next day, after all, so we worked extra hard.

We didn’t leave the beach until 7:30 in the evening!

We were tired and soggy, but very happy. And our adventure didn’t end there! Our friends, T and E invited us to camp with them in their trailer at Samuel P. Taylor campground in the redwoods of Marin county. Staying overnight there with them meant that the fun didn’t have to end, we didn’t have to drive 3 hours home at night, and we got to play and hike a bit in the forest in the morning. It was sooooo great waking up on Earth Day to all that green!

It was beautiful. Suki dog patiently tolerated all of our noise and business. We had a yummy breakfast together.

I got to play with E’s iPhone and took this funky Hipstamatic shot of her and T.

And we got silly. Nothing pleases little boys more than allowing them time to be goofballs.

Thanks for the family photo, E! (And for all the photos!)

Naturally, I’d like to show you all the wildflowers and beautiful emerald trees but this post is getting waaaaaaaaaay too long …

Oops. They sneaked in here anyway. Ahem! So, I’ll skip our stop at the Mission San Rafael on the way home. Perhaps I’ll write about that another time.

For now, I need to clean my house and get ready to have family over for a birthday party this evening. Lucas turns 10 on Tuesday!

It’s been a little while since I posted about my experience of learning to paint with oils. I’m finishing my third set of studio classes now.

This is my biggest painting yet—a 16 by 20 canvas. I used my photograph of my neighbor’s magnolia blossoms as a reference. I am very pleased with how this came out. I tried to paint quickly and with emotion. I allowed the underpainting to show through for the first time in the hopes that it would lend a dreamy kind of atmosphere. I see a couple of things about this that I would like to fix, but I think it’s basically done. I think I’ll even sign this one.

I’m really enjoying my teacher, Randy Blasquez, and my classmates. I’ve now been coming to class long enough that I’m getting to know other painters and see and learn from their processes, too. Everyone is different. Everyone struggles with different aspects of painting. Each subject we attempt has its own challenges. I love tackling new things, and I feel I’m learning with each painting I do.

I’ve done a very little bit of work at home, which was very fun. My new easel, whom I named Anaïs, and my new “French Mistress,” whom I named Genevieve, are working out really well. Genevieve is a wood palette box that holds my glass palette and keeps paint from getting everywhere. These gizmos are beautiful and functional. I waited about six months before investing in these items. I think I had to prove to myself that this painting this wasn’t a fly-by-night whim.

This is a shot of my slightly damaged painting I did in class back in February. Some “helper” seems to have dragged a little finger from the dark center of the poppy down into the pot and the blue of the tablecloth. I’ve managed to take out most of the line with some very careful scrubbing, but I still have to repaint part of the poppy. I like this painting, too. I like the shadows especially. While working on this painting I was consciously trying to use more paint. That probably sounds funny, but I have a tendency to be conservative—oils are pricey. I wanted this painting to have more flow and texture.

Last Friday I got to go to a plein air workshop. It was my first experience painting landscapes outside. I’ll write about that another time. For now, I’ll say it was amazing and fun—and full of new challenges.

“We must protect the forests for our children, grandchildren and children yet to be born. We must protect the forests for those who can’t speak for themselves such as the birds, animals, fish and trees.”

~ Qwatsinas (Hereditary Chief Edward Moody), Nuxalk Nation

Mother Earth, Mother Earth.

Take our seed and give it birth.

Father Sun, Gleam and glow,

Until the root begins to grow.

Sister Rain, Sister Rain.

Shed thy tear to swell the grain.

Brother Wind, breathe and blow,

Then the blade all green will grow.

Earth and Sun and Wind and Rain,

Turn to gold the living grain.

—Eileen Hutchins

Happy Earth Day everyone!

I hope this little list will inspire you to do something good for Mother Earth and all her children. Start small, start anywhere, just start.

1. Release ladybugs in your garden.

2. Start an herb garden and maintain it organically.

3. Go for a bike ride and picnic in a green space.

4. Write a poem. What does the earth mean to you? Show it to teachers, at church, or send it in to the local newspaper.

5. Make a birdbath so our feathered friends have a source of clean water.

6. Participate in a community cleanup; or just walk through your neighborhood with a trash bag and pick up (safe) trash you see along the walk.

7. Make natural soap or shampoo without chemicals. It’s good for your body and good for our waters.

8. Buy something you need at a garage sale or a thrift store, instead of buying a new item at a department store.

9. Symbolically adopt an animal at your local zoo or favorite wildlife conservation organization.

10. Teach your children well. Teach them about stewardship and never be afraid to express your love of nature. Let them see your love of the earth in action.

Blessed be.

No words are needed, I think.

Last year, while we were dyeing Easter eggs, we also dyed some plain white wool batting. I am so pleased with the results. In the photo above are a wool colors from both natural and artificial dyes. I’ve saved this wool all year and now I’m making goodies for my boys’ Easter baskets out of it. I doubt that they’ll appreciate the cyclical nature of this, but I do. And don’t forget, this is science! So by all means, get the kids involved.

Materials

• natural dye ingredients (such as turmeric, boiled yellow onion skins, boiled red cabbage, boiled beets, etc.)
• or food dyes from the supermarket
• or Easter egg kit dyes (capsules or powders)
• white wool batting or roving (or get fancy and dye silk cloths to make your own play silks?)
• distilled white vinegar
• mugs or drinking glassware
• spoons

Tutorial

Really, this is totally simple. While you’re dyeing your eggs, add in a good handful or two of wool. We found this was easy to do with the natural dyes as we had a big bowl full of each color, rather than a mere mug full of color.

Onion skins turn wool a pale, golden yellow.

This is the red cabbage dye. It will turn both eggs and wool bluish.

This is beets. It turns the wool a warm light brown. The eggs and wool at first are a beautiful mauve color, but I think they then oxidize and end up brown.

If you are using kit dye or food coloring to dye eggs, you probably have your dyes in mugs or glasses. (Right? That’s the way we always do it.) So you can just keep the dyes for a day or so after dyeing eggs and dye wool in the mugs. You can do handful after handful if you like. We used about a 1/4 cup of distilled white vinegar in each cup, added the dye, and then added water.

Our yellow dye bath was completely exhausted by the wool. None of the color was left when we pulled the wool out. It makes me wonder if the other colors might have done that if we had left the wool in longer.

I suggest keeping your wool in the dye for about 24 hours. When your wool is the color you like, squeeze out the extra dye into the cup, then rinse it in cool running water until the water runs clear.  Set it on a wire rack or pin it to a clothesline outside to dry.

Here are the wool colors we got. I’ll name the colors of food dye baths starting with 12 o’clock: purple, dark red, pinkish brown, blue, yellow, dark green, blue green, and yellow green. It seems to me like the blue should be darker and brighter. It may be that my sons sneacked extra green drops into the blue? In any case, I consider this experiment to be a success because it means any frugal crafter or artist can get a wide range of beautiful, bright colors without breaking the bank, using standard McCormick brand food dyes. I love buying new colors of wool to use in projects, but this is a simple way to get many colors cheaply!

Wool batting doesn’t spin into yarn all that well because the fibers tend to be short. It works very well for needle-felting or wet-felting, however. Wool roving, however, is great to spin or felt.

I’m thinking that a rainbow of simple wee bunnies made from wool we dyed ourselves might be just the thing for Easter baskets this year. What would you make with Easter wool?

Yesterday we said good-bye to a favorite hen. Midnight passed away in the afternoon. She was a great hen with a lovely disposition and gentleness, and she laid gorgeous, huge brown eggs steadily for us for a year and a half. She was two or more years old when we rescued her. She seemed to have a steadying influence on the other hens. She was large and fluffy and her black feathers were soft and iridescent in the sunlight. She was Ian’s favorite of all of the girls.

Last fall, we noticed her belly was distended and so we researched online to find out what might be up with her. We found evidence to suggest that she was perhaps egg-bound, and although we did the things that were recommended to remedy it—ridiculous things like giving her a bath in warm water—nothing changed for the better. Yet, she didn’t die like the Internet said she surely would do within a few days. In fact, she lived another three months, ate heartily, grew her bottom feathers back in,  and …. then lost them again. Our theory is that she overwintered OK because she wasn’t laying, but now that spring has ramped up the hens’ egg-laying, she was egg-bound and it did her in.

Or we could be totally wrong about all of that. We’re just guessing.

Anyway, although I thought there might be great grief when I told my children about losing Midnight, they surprised me by taking it in stride. Lucas wanted to see her dead body, and then seemed to accept that she was gone. Asher was mildly interested but not upset. I’m grateful for Emily Mouse (our deceased pet), who paved the way for our experience of losing an animal. I also think that the addition of Solstice Dog to our family has given my children an understanding of what is a “proper” pet, and so the chicken seemed less important.

And while it’s quite silly to be very sad about losing our Midnight when we are a family who eats chicken three times a week, she was, nonetheless kind of a pet.

Rest in peace, Midnight. You were a great chicken.

Or, What I Did on My Vacation

OK, I admit I’m completely obsessed with window stars lately. I think I mentioned that here a little while ago. Anyway, we had some time off last week and I took all my kite paper and window star books along with me to the mountains. I was determined to challenge myself to make some of the more complex stars. While I was there, in between working, eating, and playing outside, I made eight new stars.

I also accidentally wrecked one, but shed only a few tears about that.

The more you make them, the easier it becomes. I guess I got into a kind of flow.

Lucas helped me make this beautiful multicolored star. He did most of the white center. I’m hoping he’ll want to make some more with me. I think stars like these may be our birthday gifts for everyone this year.

I love the way the light shines through them and I confess I’m crazy about the colors.

My boys wanted one for their room in their favorite colors, blue and green. Now that we’re home again, the stars have all found spots on our windows here, sharing space with the Valentine window transparencies I made last month, which are still up because I adore them.

I’ve also been experimenting and will share my results very soon, if it all works out the way I think it will.

We were on a school vacation last week, and Ian carved a few days off his work week. So we were able to leave town for one of our delicious, infrequent snow vacations.

We had a new family member along with us this time. I fell even more in love with Solstice. What an intrepid snow dog he is!

I love to see my children roaming, to see them march off on their own mission in whatever direction they choose. I love to see them free.

We had plenty of time for games and new hobbies, and that was enchanting, too.

What more can I say? It was perfect.

—Painting by Edith Holden, naturalist, artist, author, and art instructor (1871-1920)

Well, hello March. It’s been so long, and I’m delighted to see you back again. February and I don’t get along as well as I would like, but we’re making progress and our relations are more comfortable in recent years than they used to be. But you, March. You are lovely, a breath of potential that stirs me up and fills me with a yearning for adventure and romance.

Spring Signs

Everywhere the wind blows

There goes spring—

Red kites and blue kites

Are tugging at the string.

Walks have hardly dried

Until marbles roll about

Long before the colored flowers

In the fields are out.

Maybe there is frost yet

And a touch of snow,

But there are little spring-signs

Where the children go.

—Mildred Bowers Armstrong