Loose Leaf Notes

Our World Tuesday __________Wordless Wednesday

This is my valentine greeting this year.

Ice Storm on Top of the Pandemic Part 2: I Love You

________Our World Tuesday

Start early
Don’t leave it
to the last minute
Pull up a chair
and watch what happens
Don’t forget to breathe
before you stop breathing
Don’t leave without saying goodbye

______Colleen Redman / Poets and Storytellers United

-The following first appeared in The Floyd Press on February 11, 2021.

More than one Floyd business has closed during the pandemic, but others have opened, some as home-based start-ups, like Elizabeth’s Turkette’s Twine and Pine Fiber Arts, a macramé and basket weaving small business.

“The possibilities are endless,” Turkette said about macramé, the art of knotting cord or yarn into patterns to make decorative and functional items. It’s an ancient art that was popular in the ‘70s and has recently been making a come-back.

Turkette learned macramé at summer camp while growing up in Indiana and took a basket weaving class in high school. She was partly inspired to pick up where she left off when she was recently given a basket of free yarn by a friend.

It was just a few weeks ago that Turkette announced her new business on Facebook, and she’s already experiencing success. She’s currently building her brand and building up her inventory, which includes wall hangings, plant hangers, bottle slings, macramé and fiber-woven baskets and more.

“I also do wedding backdrops and have a couple of weddings booked this year. I can do decorations for events. I can do table runners, napkin holders, vase accents and garlands,” Turkette said.

Profits from sales have been re-invested into buying supplies. The company Turkette orders from uses all recycled cotton twine. She recently purchased materials to make keychains and earrings that she’ll sell on consignment.

“My pieces will be up at Five Mile Mountain Distillery and OuterSpace to start with,” she said, “and I’ll be vending at the Friday night Artisan Market.” Pop-up shop events that will incorporate her partner Jake Retting playing music are also in the works. She plans to forage materials to make baskets – which take longer to make than macramé pieces –  when the weather gets warmer.

“I’m working on a website so people can easily purchase online, and there will be local pick-up and shipping options,” Turkette said.  Her jobs skills in social media are already coming in handy for making connections and getting the word out about the new business.

Turkette currently balances her new home-based business with her job at Seven Springs Farm Supply, not far from where she and Retting live in Check. Seven Springs Farm Supply is a mail-order and pick-up business that sells natural farm and garden supplies. Business is booming at the farm supply, Turkette says. She attributes the growth to a mix of increased awareness of the Seven Springs brand online, along with an increase of online shopping and the comeback of Victory Gardens, during the pandemic.

The pandemic also played a role in Turkette’s new business start-up. “The pandemic brought an awareness to me of wanting to be more self-sufficient and to create,” Turkette said.  “It’s also a stress reliever,” the artisan said about her creative business venture.

“I think people now more than ever understand the importance of supporting small businesses and understand that you’re not going to get the quality of a hand-made item from a box store.” ____ Colleen Redman

1. We danced to Music Road Company at Dogtown on Saturday. The trio performed a Bob Marley medley for Marley’s birthday, which they called a “mardley.”

2. Walking in the Floyd cemetery with the library’s Rambling Readers (for a story), I noticed that the cemetery looked like a grave subdivision because most of the gravestones looked alike, row after row of them.

3. My life philosophy: Every high eventually comes down to a low. Live steady. You can’t be so easily shaken and you won’t fall so hard if you’re already grounded.

4. I confess that I only watch the Super Bowl advertisements and half-time show, and only because my husband has it on.  My favorite ad this year was a jeep one with Bruce Springsteen narrating, called the ReUnited States of America, and saying, “We just have to remember the very soil we stand on is common ground…” See HERE. 

5. I was recently moved by Rep. Dean Phillips address to Congress about the attack at the Capitol: “But I’m not here this evening to seek sympathy or just to tell my story but rather to make a public apology,” said Phillips. “For recognizing that we were sitting ducks in this room as the chamber was about to be breached. I screamed to my colleagues to follow me, to follow me across the aisle to the Republican side of the chamber, so that we could blend in -so that we could blend in.” Philips explained he believed he and his colleagues would be safe from the rioters if they were mistaken for Republican lawmakers. However, he said that he realized that blending in was not a viable option for lawmakers of color…”

6. Not like the colander I stole a decade later/ when starting out in my first apartment / with lawn chairs for furniture / and thrift shop silverware… It’s white enamel coating has chipped / revealing its black base underneath / I confessed the theft to a friend once / He told me when Pope Francis was young / he stole rosary beads from a dead man’s coffin – Read These Sins in its entirety HERE.

7. I get bored with constantly mispelling the same words over and over. I misspelled misspelling as I wrote that.

8. I can’t believe I recently used lackadaisical in a sentence.

9. “Lackadaisical may now be a single word but, in its original form, it derived from a phrase, albeit by a circuitous route. The phrase in question is ‘alack a day’ or ‘alack the day’. It was used first by Shakespeare in Romeo and Juliet, 1592, on Romeo’s mistaken belief that Juliet had died: Shee’s dead, deceast, shee’s dead: alacke the day!” – The Phrase Finder

10. I also used the word enveloped recently and was confused that it was about surrounding something completely but not about a sealed paper that surrounds a letter.

11. “The confessional poets changed the landscape of modern American poetry. In fact, the widely held view of poetry as “confession”—baring your soul, exposing truth or emotions, etc.—stems from this movement’s perspective shift. Essentially, the confessional poets asserted that all angles of the human experience are worthy poetic material. The poetry of “I” still reigns today.” – from Crash Course of Confessional Poetry

12. Confession: I don’t go out without it / my eyebrow / neatly matched / like shoe and sock / to the other one / I wonder if it’s crooked / If other people take theirs for granted / I worry that they’ll smudge it / or accidentally rub against it … Read My Missing Eyebrow in its entirety HERE.

13. “If you are a big tree, we are the small axe and whosoever diggeth a pit shall fall in it, shall fall in it.” – Bob Marley

__________Thirteen Thursday 

Hostage for ransom? The drive-by hold-up of my 5-minute driveway snowman specifically posed for me.

Although I’m not a gun enthusiast myself, I think my grandson’s homemade gun arsenal is pretty impressive.  As the mother of two sons and now grandmother of two grandsons, I’ve become accustomed to dramatic shooter games and play.

And this is destined for a natural death by sun.

___________Our World Tuesday 

There’s a poem by Barbara Kingsolver
My Mother’s Last 40 Minutes
that broke me

And I couldn’t walk away
like I did while waiting at the bus stop
when our dog was hit by a car
A few people gathered to figure out what to do
The bus to Hingham came and I got on

How can I be in two places at once?
Reverse time to stop those inconvenient
and traumatic life events from happening?

Now the dog is only a thought
Not like the colander I stole a decade later
when starting out in my first apartment
with lawn chairs for furniture
and thrift shop silverware

I keep it as a reminder
a thing that won’t go away
that I can’t give it back
and won’t abandon to the landfill
after making the choice to own it

It’s white enamel coating has chipped
revealing its black base underneath
I confessed the theft to a friend once
He told me that when Pope Francis was young
he stole rosary beads from a dead man’s coffin

Like Kingsolver, I know the sound of a death rattle
and the primal need for mother’s love
that when unrequited brings protected independence
or a disassociation stored for future reference

Last night I fed an abandoned cat
I fixed and drained noodles for supper
I don’t remember the dog’s name
If it lived or was even ours

But I know a wound is a thing
that won’t go away
until it’s acknowledged
until it’s deeply felt

______Colleen Redman / Poets and Storytellers United

-The following first appeared in The Floyd Press on February 4, 2021.

It was the first juggle jam of the year. Led by professional magician, clown, mime and circus arts teacher Geoff Marsh (aka Gypsy Geoff) at the Warren Lineberry Park on Tuesday, the jam drew about 20 Juggle Town club members and friends who showed up to learn and practice juggling skills.

“It’s always been outside in the park and it’s always been free,” said Marsh about the Juggle Town juggling club that started last summer.  He explained that he brings his props from teaching large groups and in schools and lets everyone use them to practice and play. “Everyone loves toys,” said Marsh. “And everyone can learn to juggle.”

Seventeen years ago, Marsh was inspired by a street busker to teach himself to juggle. He started with limes and with the help of an instructional Youtube video. Six years ago, he moved from Milwaukee to Floyd after meeting Floyd Countian April Kovick, who Marsh is now married to, at a Renaissance Faire. In Milwaukee, he ran a circus school, as one of the founders of Dead Mans Carnival, a vaudevillian, circus and burlesque performance troupe, which put on a show at Dogtown Roadhouse in 2018 as part of Marsh and Kovick’s wedding celebration.

“I’ve worked Floydfest, Yogajam, Cirque de Floyd and the Pride Parade,” said Marsh, who incorporates comedy, magic and puppetry in his acts, along with juggling. Marsh doesn’t normally work in town and is generally on the road touring for six months of year, but the pandemic has kept him close to home. It’s also given him more time to be with his and Kovick’s 5-month-old son.

“There are juggling clubs all over the country in almost every place I’ve ever been to,” said Crystal Hoetzl, a circus arts performer who was assisting Marsh at the Juggle Town jam. Hoetzl, who is also a seventeen-year member of the circus community, said she was in the area visiting her family in Galax and has known Marsh for many years. “The first thing I ever did was eat fire when I was 22,” she said.

“This is my first time,” said Daniel Bower, who Marsh was giving juggling tips to. Bower joked that he was the oldest student learning to juggle that day but was glad to try something new.

“Come summer we’ll be meeting more regular, maybe once or twice a week,” Marsh said, adding that the club also does hula hooping and other flow arts.  He encourages anyone interested to check out the Juggle Town Facebook page for updates.

“I feel like if everyone in the world juggled, we’d have world peace, since we’re throwing things at each other for fun instead of aggression,” said Marsh. _______Colleen Redman

1. When Poetry Becomes Dictation: It’s like having an imaginary friend that no one but you believes in.

2. File the below poem under the heading: At least I got a poem out of it.

3. Reading her poetry / is like splashing liniment / on my right shoulder / that is stiff / My range is limited / only improves by increments / Is measured by stretches / and tasks out of reach / by scrawling warm-ups / of the best blind intentions / to throw the first pitch / that will lead to finished work … Read How to Read Barbara Kingsolver in its entirety HERE.

4. Yes, our Floyd girl Morgan Wade got her picture on the Rolling Stone for “Pics of the week of January 26,” which includes a video clip of one of her songs on her upcoming album HERE.

5. “Even to this day, if I write something, I’m writing it for me. It helps me not to look at what everybody else thinks as much.” Morgan Wade

6. Pun or punch line?

7. “Glamorous or clamorous?” asks Barbara Kingsolver

8. When someone calls a poem I wrote ‘clever,” I always get the idea they think I tricked them.

9. “If you’re a young writer and a smoker, you should probably quit, because that will increase your odds of getting old enough to accumulate wisdom. That is the main thing readers want, I think: wisdom. When I pick up a book, I want it to rock my mind. That only happens if the author knew something I didn’t. Wisdom tends to accumulate with age, as we survive misfortunes and distill what was useful. So, while dancers and athletes peak at 25, writers have the career advantage of doing our best work in old age. And that’s good, because given the average writer’s income, there is rarely much of a retirement account.” Barbara Kingsolver

10. That’s the Narnia part of our yard.

11. “I missed out on the GameStop frenzy on Wall Street last week and didn’t earn a bundle of money, but for me, it was enough that the temperature got up to forty, a slight thaw that made me think of spring, I being the registered optimist that I am. After all, I am a Democrat, the party that seeks to legislate against ignorance and cruelty. I believe in the goodness of people I pass on the street and I think that by July, we’ll be crowding into comedy clubs and laughing at pandemic jokes.” Garrison Keillor

12. Joe and I both recently had our first dream where we were wearing masks.

13. Remember when masks were for winter weather? HERE We Snow Again or Nothing to See HERE? 

____________Thirteen Thursday

Aka: White Out – When roads, fields and sky blend into each other

Our World Tuesday   /  Wordless Wednesday

Reading her poetry
is like splashing liniment
on my right shoulder
that is stiff

My range is limited
only improves by increments
is measured by stretches
and tasks out of reach

by scrawling warm-ups
of the best blind intentions
to throw the first pitch
that will lead to finished work

But there is no instruction
to unleash the mind
no way to know
how she makes it look easy

I read only one
with no heavy lifting
and swing my aim
in the right direction

I pay attention
not to add insult to injury
I lower my standard
to increase my chances
and remember
that no one
has the final word

_______Colleen Redman / Poets and Storytellers United

-The following first appeared in The Floyd Press on January  28, 2021.

“It’s cold.” That was the headlining quote of the day at Floyd’s (unheated) indoor Winter Farmers Market, located along Locust Street in the warehouse garage at the back of the Farmers Supply building.

But business was good and the vendors didn’t mind the cold, “I’m almost sold out,” said Barb Gillespie of Grateful Bread Bakery. By noon, Gillespie’s artisan bagels, loaves and cakes were sold out, but she still had cinnamon rolls, scones and some cookies left for purchase.

“It keeps the vegetables nice and crisp,” said Tanya Cook about the cold temperatures. Cook and her husband run Wild Mountain Farm, but they are also local food aggregators and sell products from other Floyd farms, such as Field’s Edge Farm and Riverstone Farm.

Wild Mountain’s winter greens and lettuce blends had sold out, Cook said, but she still had plenty of product for sale, including medicinal tinctures from Itol Acres, grains and granola from Gracious Day and Alice Walker’s artisan vinegars.  “Next week we’ll have our first Wild Mountain cabbages,” she said.

The Winter Market is a scaled down version of Floyd’s outdoor Farmers Market, a SustainFloyd project for supporting sustainable agricultural practices, which operates at the Floyd Community Pavilion from May to November every Saturday, 9 am – 1 pm.  The Winter Market runs from 10 am – 2 pm on Saturdays with two weekends remaining before it closes up shop for the season.

Farmers Market manager Melissa Branks said she’s currently working on online pre-order system, where customers will be able to order ahead and pick up their filled bags at a designated time. Online shopping will provide another option to connect consumers with locally produced food, as well as better serve those who are quarantining during the pandemic. The plan is for the system to be up and running before the Farmers Market season starts in May. Pick-ups will be scheduled for a day other than Market Saturday, Branks said.

Vendors agreed that Saturday’s Winter Market traffic was steady throughout the day and was especially busy during the morning. Piemonte Farms had hot empanadas for sale, along with their handcrafted nut butters, jams and pimento cheese spreads. Gnomestead Hollow Farm and Forage provided samples of the farm’s raw fermented products, kimchi and krauts. They also had medicinal and gourmet dried mushrooms for sale.  ________Colleen Redman

Note: Visit floydfamersmarket.org or the Floyd Farmers Market Facebook page for more information.