magic

magical puffball mushroom

Oh shoot. I completely missed October here. I'm going to blame it on being glamored by a new photo-taking phone and my complete inability to figure out how to manage the resulting photographs in a way that is conducive to sharing them here in this space!  Bedazzled by thousands of photos and no slick way as yet to move them about...I am a slow learner, so I will figure it out, but not in any short order. I've gotten these on by winking, pulling on my earlobe and looking sideways at the computer while crossing my fingers. And hey, it worked!!!

chickweed! Stellaria media

We are embracing the magic here these days. The magic of a Samhain day spent in the woods, marveling over all the greens and the critters in our path. The magic of a huge rock with a person-size hole in it, beckoning to be sat in. The magic of leaf pile and living walkingsticks and stories told out of doors.  Autumn songs, pomegranate seeds, slow walking and shuffling through the leaves.

Eastern American Toad

walkingstick and Ray Bradbury's The Halloween Tree

It was a month of making magic - costumes and parade puppets...

                           

beak doctor, time travelers, a lovely piggy

YES! origami TIE fighters and the Deathstar

 It was our fourth year working on the Honey for the Heart parade, and it was a bit different.  The studio was located on campus, which resulted in more participation by students (I think) and a different level of participation for us and for much of the community. Ani was the most committed of us, and though we didn't make our own costumes, we had a hand in making different puppets and costume pieces - paper mache, painting, sewing, hot-gluing, drawing, tying balloons. When the day came, Dan was out of town for a different performance, Eliza wasn't feeling it, and Ani and I were so tired...but we rallied and walked uptown and found the joy!! We were so glad we put in the effort, there was such a warm happy crowd enjoying the fun.

that's us!!

The best magic not to be overlooked has been the juju of two sisters getting along, enjoying each other's company, getting better at learning to read each other. This is huge, my friends, and it warms my autumnal cockles.

sister magic

Uffda. I am feeling the pressure of so much catching up, the compressing of so many juicy days into a few phrases and photos! Maybe November will offer more corners of time to work on getting back into the groove...

(Never have I posted so many photos of myself in one post. What is happening??? I'm also taking
a class on herbs - a most transformative experience. Apparently.)

June

It's only a week past the Solstice, and already I feel like we've had Summer on Steroids around here - trips and visits and swims and the ocean, and to be honest, I'm ready for some lying about, reading and drinking ice water and reading some more. A bit of a vacation from the vacation.

Dan's got a new job this summer - well, the fruiting body of the long mycelium roots of his new job, to put it in fungal terms, as he's truly been working at this job for over a year. He is the Artistic Director of Tantrum, a new theater with two homes: here at Ohio University, where they rehearse and build the shows, and up in Dublin, north of Columbus, where the season is performed.  Our summer was really kicked off with the opening of Little Shop of Horrors at the beginning of June and it hasn't stopped!

Dan is a bit Ohio-bound this summer with this job, so the girls and I are on our own for some travels. After the opening, we drove to Virginia to visit friends we've had since we lived there eight years ago. We convinced them to travel to the coast with us, which they did willingly, driving to Virginia Beach and Chincoteague, by way of the twenty-three mile long Chesapeake Bay Bridge and Tunnel.

I think one should visit the ocean every summer. Isn't that reasonable?

Off to fight mosquitoes  find ponies and birds

Eagle spotted! and Sika Elk

and many swallows

ponies - can you see them staying cool in the trees?

We stayed in a beautiful house on Chincoteague that boasted an original owner who raised Black Diamond Terrapin, owned a shop, took people out in boats to go fishing, and whittled decoys - but what I was excited about was the white ibis who regularly patrolled the yard.

treasures. many, many treasures.

 Not pictured: humongous ice cream cones, eaten before dinner; a living horseshoe crab in the shallow water on the beach, smooth slipper shells covering its carapace; a pony and her foal, visible through the binoculars; wheeling egrets as numerous as a flock of canada geese; the breeze that filtered through the porch screens in the morning and evening, making you wish you could actually stay for the whole entire summer...

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The rest of our time in Richmond was spent hanging out with more friends and visiting the Ginter Botanical Garden,  following butterflies and lego creations around the park.

the elusive sixteen-yr-old

a lego rose

Magic: the Gathering

making faces for Face Swap

Summer.

ahh, old buddies.

Little Shop closed this past weekend, we've had two sets of houseguests, and the girls and I are off on our last June adventure, camping for a few days in West Virginia.  July is looking alluringly normal: reading, drinking ice water, and reading some more...