Don Johnson’s dog Blue, a blue heeler, needed two people to give him a bath, one to put the dog at ease (Johnson) and the other, local dog groomer Joan Hamilton, to spray.

Humane Society member Sunny Bernardine answered Jeff Shepherd and his daughter Jaylin’s questions about pet adoption at this year’s Stand Up for Strays fundraiser.  Two dogs in need of permanent homes are pictured in the background.

Can we take her home?” Gavin Jackson seems to say to his mother, Rebecca Jackson.

Pickin’ Porch students provided entertainment for the 10 – 3 event, held at the Floyd United Methodist Church on Saturday, July 17th.  Pictured is guitarist and singer Tara Wright.

Flyball demonstrations are a Stand Up for Strays main attraction.

Craft vendor Diane Young, who makes cat and dog tug toys, is also the owner of a dog who participated in flyball, a relay game for dogs.   Young explained that fly ball is a team sport and that participating dogs at the event practice weekly with their owners and go out of town for tournaments.

Owners and trainers prepare dogs for a flyball race.

Jaylin Shepherd makes a new friend.

Note: For more information contact the Floyd County Humane Society’s website at floydhumanesociety.org.

1. It seems all I have to do to make it rain is to spend a couple of hours watering my garden, and sure enough, there will be a downpour the next morning.

2. Tuesday’s thunder storm knocked the power out but I was able to start the generator on my own for the first time, which was very “empowering.”

3. Another way to increase my odds of it raining (and we need it) is to do laundry and hang it on the line.

4. Favorite posting on Facebook this week: There is a “lie” in believe, “over” in lover, “end” in friend, “us” in trust, and “if” in life.

5. One of my favorite words is endangered because the words “End Danger and Anger” are within it. Evolves is another one I like because it says “Love Solves.”

6. I’m kicking myself for not pulling over to take a picture of the “Cowboy Church” sign I saw on my way to Blacksburg last week.

7. Speaking of weird, look at THIS car Stonehenge.

8. Also seen on Facebook: Man tries to steal a surveillance camera from a home improvement store but gets caught by a surveillance camera. See HERE.

9. I get so much done when I do nothing! Crashed out on the hammock, recovering after Floydfest, our town’s 4 day world music festival, I became a Jung meets Einstein genius because when the bottom falls out a flood of enlightened insight usually follows. The full awakening and confession are HERE.

10. In the Global Village at Floydfest I went from a talk on the teachings of Buddha to petting a milking cow named Primrose. I met a young boy who was carving a bowl out of stone in the primitive arts camp, danced in my bare feet on the grass to the music of a surprisingly good band, and then laid in a hammock to wait for the full moon. ~ Read the rest HERE.

11. Check out my FloydFest “Where’s Waldo?” video HERE. At least one person has reported finding themselves in it.

12. Did you know that the word “Cowabunga!” was first coined as a greeting used between Buffalo Bob Smith and Chief Thunderthud on the Howdy Doody Show during the 1950’s. Later, the term became widely used in the Gidget surfer movies and has been most recently popularized by popularized by Bart Simpson of The Simpsons and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

13. You’ve heard of the wind-up toy, check out THIS wind-up boy.

Mosey over to the Thirteen Thursday hub for more fun HERE.

1. In the Global Village at Floydfest I went from a talk on the teachings of Buddha to petting a milking cow named Primrose.  I met a young boy who was carving a bowl out of stone in the primitive arts camp, danced in my bare feet on the grass to the music of a surprisingly good band, and then laid in a hammock to wait for the full moon.  Video HERE.

2. At Hill Holler stage Grace Potter closed the show doing jumping jacks in silver jogging shorts and singing Gracie Slick’s Feed Your Head.  See a brief video of that HERE.

3. I had some time to wander by myself Saturday afternoon, taking in the sights and sounds and being drawn by a gypsy wagon selling paper parasols.

4. Half my clothes come from the Winter Sun Outlet Store in downtown Floyd and half the vendors at Floydfest are Floyd  friends of mine.  Here’s my friend Susan working at the Winter Sun booth. Her beautiful Winter Sun jacket drew me in.

5. The Virginia Folklife Workshop Porch is one of my favorite stages even when no one is performing there.

6. I had four staff/performers/workshop leaders staying at my house for the long Floydfest weekend, including master drummer Whit (far right), along with Charisse, who did Spoken Word with teens in the Performance Arts tent.   Watch Whit in action HERE.

7. An HAV Chair Massage (for a dollar a minute) is a favorite festival pit stop that draws the curious, as well as a wide variety of people in need of a healing boost of energy.  “There are 3 or 4 going at the same time,” Tiebout said. That’s an excerpt from a story on Floydfest’s Healing Arts Village for our regional Natural Awakenings Magazine. And that’s Jeff Tiebout (smiling), whose Blue Ridge School of Massage and Yoga hosts the village,

8. The theme for this year’s Floydfest was Breaking Ground. In the Children’s Universe Tent I saw the seeds being planted in an open mic for blossoming children who were inspired by the festival’s musical climate to perform.  Watch a video HERE.

9. I was impressed with hand washing stations, all the recycling and composting, and the plant based utensils and plates used for eating.  There was even an ATM station, a cyber café and a tent for playing board games, not to mention an aerial dance by a clown on stilts hanging from balloons 100 feet in the air – video of that is HERE.

10. Living about 6 miles from the site, I appreciated that I could go home to sleep each night, but I also appreciated walking behind the main drag in amongst the trees and seeing the elaborate and homey campsites there.

11. There were mindful moments of ringing Tibetan Singing bowls on various stages throughout the 4 days.   Here is my husband Joe, from Inward Bound Mindfulness Education who helped run the Imagine Tent, asking a crowd in front of the Dreaming Creek stage to take a moment to be still, listen to the sounds around them and feel the ground beneath their feet.

12. After Grace Potter rocked the house down all the staff came up on the stage.  Floydfest co-founder Erika thanked everyone and her partner Kris bid us Peace Out. See that HERE

Post notes: Part one of my Floydfest  photo/video journal is HERE.  Part two is HERE. You can read about and see photos of  past festivals in my archives HERE.

My husband and I are shipwrecked in the hammock with no energy to save ourselves.

It’s so hot and we’re so tired that we have to drop our extra baggage, drift aimlessly through the morning, and conserve our resources to stay afloat.

I don’t want a life jacket tossed to me, like I don’t want somebody else’s answers to my questions, which is why I resist churches and gurus. I’m trying to navigate a personal journey with no map. I’m only interested now in what my soul and psyche want.

After four days of fun and sun at Floydfest (our town’s yearly world music festival), I feel fulfilled and blessed but also purged.  My defenses are down, as if I’m coming out of a sweat lodge, altered and full of prayer.  I have a dream to interpret, a theme to unravel, and a metaphor to craft.

For me, when the bottom falls out a flood of lighted insight usually follows, and I have to look hard at myself.  Why did I wear that top with buttons that kept popping (causing friends to point it out)? Why did I tell an intimate story so easily to someone I hardly knew?

I’m rocking the boat, showing myself off and it all happened so fast.  But I’m not necessarily feeling that I should contain myself more.  I need to feel what it’s like to be exposed at the festival, on the internet, and through the written word, even though it opens up my “love me but leave me alone” Pandora’s Box of paradox.

A little girl at the festival pointed and said, “you’re a beautiful woman.”  I didn’t think it was a compliment as much as a archetypal arrow hitting its psychic target.  I wouldn’t have heard it fully from a man, or any adult, but a child?

My husband reflects back to me that I am not becoming invisible.  He sees my inner and outer beauty.  I love him for that and I hear it. But I deflect it too.  When I’m tired rest doesn’t penetrate. It rolls right off like water rolls off gortex. Compliments tend to do the same.  Too much pressure to live up to, and besides, ‘do we really want to be beautiful or do we just want to be seen and loved?’

These days, I’m like a person in autumn who is mourning the loss of summer because I’m not ready for winter.  But I can’t enjoy the beauty of fall if I’m trying  to hold on to summer.  I resist aging, but I also know that it takes energy to deny who you really are in the present moment and when you do, you do so at your own peril.

A bumblebee flies by, sounding like a cell phone vibrating on a table.  I don’t answer.  The view from the hammock looks out onto the grass, dried and brittle from days of brutal heat.  The garden looks wilted and desperate, and I know how it feels.   I finally save myself when I remember I can walk and that I need to go to town to buy a new hose.

1. Old Crow Medicine Show sang my favorite song about the “Down Home Girl” who came right off Maggie’s Farm … Well I swear your perfume, baby, is made out of turnip greens … Every time I kiss you girl, it tastes like pork and beans … (Video HERE .)

2.  The heat didn’t hinder festival attendance. It was at full capacity on Saturday. Can you find yourself here, or maybe find Waldo? If not maybe you will in the video HERE.

3. My two year old grandson Bryce was a happy highlighted part of Saturday’s scenery.  He’s his nana’s favorite photo-op.

4. Somewhere after Spiral Hoop’s dance performance and before Old Crow Medicine Show, Senator Warner showed up with his daughter Madison and made a brief appearance at the Dreaming Creek Stage, saying “Virginia is for lovers and for music lovers.”    Later, when I saw him back in the hospitality tent he said he didn’t remember meeting me at Floydfest 2 years ago when he as an unemployed governor.  He’s a senator now,  still a nice guy and still happy to pose for the camera when asked. (Video HERE.)

5. Homegirls!

6. Along with the full moon and the giant fire breathing junkyard dragon, dancing with Bryce on the new floor in the dance tent was definitely a Floydfest 9 bright spot. Bryce has  inherited my dancing gene.   My face was so red after dancing that a woman who saw it thought I had such a bad sunburn that she  wanted me to check in at the First Aid booth.  (Video HERE.)

7. Did I mention homegirls?

8. I got my yearly blessing from my favorite Blue Fairy, aka my friend Alina Ever.

9. I attended the Children’s Universe parade and took a video clip, which is HERE.

10. Bryce made another jamming appearance, drumming with his Opa Joe at a drum workshop taught by Charlottesville’s William “Whit” Whitten (far left) and Charisse Minerva (video clip HERE).     Both Whit and Charisse stayed at our house over the festival weekend. Charisse works with Joe putting on meditation retreats for teens.

11. Other Floydfest highlights were seeing friends, old and new, and some I only see now at Floydfest.

12. Family time is a big part of what makes Floydfest so special.  Saying goodbye to Bryce, his mommy, daddy, and big sister was bittersweet.  More highlights to come …  Read the Floydfest story I wrote for The Floyd Press “Music Remains Mainstay of Festival” HERE. More photos HERE.

1. We could have been in Florida.  Flamingos fit right in with the hot and hazy temperatures (in the high 90’s) at Floyd fest on Friday.

2. Some tried out the new floor the dance tent (video HERE).

3. The heat didn’t keep people from attending in droves.

4. The view from one person’s living room.

6. Members of Flam Chem aerial troupe prepare for their high rise performance

7. I rarely see my blogger friend Deana in the blogsphere anymore so it was nice to run into her in person. How does that happen in the midst of many thousands of people, we wondered.

7. View from the iBme, Dharma Punx Imagine Tent in the Global Village where Dot Line Projekt was performing (video HERE.)

8. Floydfest’s resident balloon lady outdid herself with this birthday cake hat for Aiden (who really was celebrating his birthday).

9. American Dumpster’s Christian Breeden’s fire breathing junkyard dragon drew a crowd (notice the nearly full moon).

10. Only a few vending tents remained in operation after the power went out for a few hours, like this one that was solar powered.   More photos of Floydfest 9 are HERE. and HERE.

For 9 years now Floydfest has been growing its reputation of presenting quality music entertainment, arts and crafts, performance arts, healing arts, and family-centered fun.    This year’s theme “Breaking Ground” refers to the progress that’s been made and the fruition the four day event is enjoying as a premiere eco-friendly festival, say its founders Kris Hodges and Erika Johnson.

Opening today through Sunday, the festival features 10 performance stages for more than 100 bands on 80 acres off the Blue Ridge Parkway (milepost 170.5).  With a vibrant Children’s Universe, a Global Village, outdoor camping, dance performances and lessons, hammock stargazing, bike trails, free workshops on holistic health, homemade ice cream and solar smoothies, a food court that uses bio-degradable utensils and composts its waste, music workshops at the Folk Life Workshop Porch, a regional wine and microbrew garden, sustainability awareness and primitive life skills presentations (including a cow name Primrose for a milking workshop), the festival is about so much more than music.   “It’s really like nine festivals for the price of one,” Johnson joked, playing on the number 9.

But music remains the festival mainstay and has a history of showcasing the cutting edge, the renowned and under the radar regional, national, and international acts.   This year’s line-up boasts Levon Helm, best known as the drummer for The Band and lead vocalist of Band hits like Up on Cripple Creek, The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down, and The Weight. Helm’s 2007 solo album Dirt Farmer won him a Grammy for Best Traditional Folk Album.

Other festival headliners include Grace Potter and The Nocturnals, recently named one of the ‘Best New Bands of 2010’ by Rolling Stone magazine, and Old Crow Medicine Show, who Public Radio host  Garrison Keillor said was “one of the greatest bands that A Prairie Home Companion has ever had the pleasure to host.”  The Harrisonburg band now based out of Nashville seems to channel early Bob Dylan in their song Down Home Girl, featured on the floydfest webpage (floydfest.com).

Americana jamband Railroad Earth will be returning for Floydfest 9, as will Charlottesville’s Hackensaw Boys, whose CD “Lookout” was reviewed as having a “celebratory but defiant sound culled from old-time mountains, backstage doorways and punishing drives through the evolving American landscape.” (Isthmus: The Daily Page).

Wayne Henderson and Crooked Road friends will be performing at Hill Holler stage.  Blacksburg’s Dot Dot Dash will be playing a contra dance in the Dance Tent, and 34 bands will be competing in this year’s Under the Radar Series.   The audience chosen favorite wins a monetary prize, studio time, and an invitation back to the festival to play on a main stage.

Always breaking new ground, Hodges and Johnson add new attractions every year. This year’s “must see” new highlight is Flam Chen, a performance art troupe that combines daredevil acrobatics, pyrotechnics, and a mastery of light, air, and fire.   “They’ll be flying about 16 helium balloons 100 feet in the in air,” Hodges reported. “There’s going to be a stilt walker in costume raised up into the balloons doing aerial dance. We’re going to have flares, a huge light show, and about 2 dozen fire dancers below in a sort of Cirque du Soleil festival show.”

Also new this year, is a teen scene in the Global Village’s Imagine Tent, where Rebel Dharma and Inward Bound Mindfulness Education (iBme) will be hosting a place for teens to engage in conscious raising games and workshops, meditation, African drumming and dancing, spoken word performances, and more.

John Marye, who moved with his wife to Floyd from Petersburg, Virginia, in 2008 is looking forward to “the whole experience.”  The first time Floydfester will be earning weekend tickets as a parking volunteer.  “I’ve heard great things about it. We have wanted to go but never had the chance,” Marye said.

Also enthusiastic about attending Floydfest for the first time, Pierre Bouchard wants to hear The Budos Band.  “It’s an Afro/Soul/Funk band that seems to have fallen right out of the 70’s.  I’ve been following them for the past four years,” he said.

Nick Gucciardo, who says he will be juggling working at his family’s restaurant with the four day Floydfest weekend, is particularly interested in catching the music of Galactic, a jazz/funk band from New Orleans, and Konono No 1, an African band that incorporates thumb pianos (likembés), singers, dancers, a megaphone sound system, along with makeshift percussion of pots and pans and car parts.

Groundbreaking since its inception, Floydfest is still breaking ground, both musically and with its commitment to clean and green sustainability.   “Breaking Ground is what we’re all trying to do and I can see it happening in my personal life and in the festival,” Hodges noted.  Pointing out the past hurdles the festival has faced and the years of careful tending before its flowering, he added, “It’s all about sowing seeds of hope and healing.”          ~ Colleen Redman

Post notes: The day after I interviewed Kris and Erika for this Floydfest preview story, I got interviewed by Lindsey Macdonald who was writing a preview story on Floydfest for the New River Voice. Check it out HERE. Look at photos and read about past festivals in my Floyd Festing archives HERE.

2. I’m a bit of a wallflower myself, when it comes to parties (unless there is dancing or Scrabble playing). I don’t so much resemble the inanimateness of wallpaper, but I do like a wall I can lean against and people watch from.

3. I inadvertently got the name “Soul Crusher” as a spoken word introduction bio when myf riend Tom Ryan referred to me that way in his satirical publication, The Floyd Enquirer, after reading my book The Jim and Dan Stories, which made him cry. I’m ready for a new nickname. Any suggestions?

4. The white streak I’ve had in my hair since I was 13 is spreading. My hair used to be chocolate and vanilla. Now it’s vanilla and chocolate.

5. As if that isn’t enough, a few years ago I started to streak a little color into my bangs and when that wears out it takes on a reddish tint, adding strawberry to the mix.

6. Favorite search phrase that landed someone on my blog this week: HOW DO YOU SAY LEAVE A MESSAGE AFTER THE BEEP IN CREOLE?

7. Burning question I recently asked my friend Mara Robbins: how do you feel about having a last name ending in an S, and do you do this Robbins’ or this Robbins’s?

8. As a writer, I’m a hard worker. My version of rest is to lay down with something to edit. There also must be a cup of tea.

9. I start notebooks simultaneously in the front and the back and continue to take notes until the writing meets in the middle.

10. Wanted: more blog friends to make up for the many I have lost who have stopped blogging.

11. Speaking of blog friends, Susan from Patchwork Reflections sent me THIS. You paste in a sample of your writing and it tells you who you write like.

12. Mostly it determined that I write like David Foster Wallace, who I did not know but have started researching. He seems like a very cool guy, except for the part where he committed suicide.

13. Papas Got a Brand New Bag: My husband Joe has a new business and webpage Inward Bound Mindfulness Education (iBme) HERE. He’ll be running a teen tent up at Floydfest, which starts today! (Story on that tomorrow).

More playing 13 Thursday are HERE.

More Wordless stories are HERE.

Glow in the dark kick-off

Across a field of sky

Paused in mid-air

Everybody’s watching

Won’t touch down till morning

It was a busy night in downtown Floyd with Laura Reed and Deep Pocket playing a free in concert as a Floydfest (our town’s four day music/art festival) kickoff at Dogtown Roadhouse.  The parking lot was full at the Jacksonville Center for the Arts, and I knew of at least one party taking place (an 80’s workout party at my friend Rowan’s house).  Even with that, we managed to draw a crowd of familiar and new faces presenting haiku, essay, storytelling, song and more.

Hot of the press?  Inspired by an image of the recent crescent moon, still burning in my mind, I scribbled a poem while driving to spoken word.  “Is sickle spelled with an S or a C,” I asked some of the resident kid poets when I arrived at the Loft.  Still hot and glowing … the moon is branded … a silver sickle … in a pasture of sky … After opening with that bitty ditty, I read some “Fit to be Quipped” one-liners from my blog and an essay about last year’s Floydfest.

I loved Mara’s poem “Weed Whacking the Graveyard” (written for her father), which I had heard earlier in the week when we played Scrabble … No grave marks the place your ashes lay …Creek stones, perhaps, still cradle your remains … She also read and performed the poetry of others and acted as town crier (calling to people on the street from the Loft’s high porch), and our eloquent evening’s emcee (video HERE).

It’s about time, Tom Bruneau, that you showed your face. We missed you.  Tom was a first-timer in this latest incarnation of spoken word but years ago was instrumental in bringing spoken word to Floyd.  A teacher (the short version of explaining him), Tom read (reading each stanza three times) “the oldest poem in this hemisphere,” that was discovered carved in rock: Your eyes … The stars … 10,000 years. He also read a poem that has recently been accepted for publication, another titled “Cosmos the Most Almost,” and his original haiku (the hallmark of which is that each line can be read in any order, Tom explained).

Precocious and poetic, Coriander Woodruff (pictured in black in the first picture) delivers poetry rants that are always moving and poetry is just one of her many artistic talents.  She is an actress, photographer, a GarageBand music composer, and an always creative dresser.

Another proven young talent and spoken word regular is Carolyn Romano, opera and folk singer who graced the stage with two of her original songs … I only dance in the afternoon … she fell in love with a midnight moon … My favorite dish ran away with the spoon … and the cat plays classical guitar … (video HERE).

I love to see new faces! It was my first time hearing readings by Roger Orton and Carmen Lytle, both from Roanoke, (because due to my grandson’s 2^nd birthday and going to Massachusetts to help my mother, I missed May and June’s spoken word).  Little girl, twirl your paper parasol … Roger read in a poem titled “Days of Sun and Sand.”

Steve Saft read a new poem about Abe Lincoln. Bethlehem Cherrix read her reflections about Floydfest, created on the spot, and Cameron Woodruff chocked us up with a story/poem about a daisy chain and his little brother Natty who died at the age of 2.

Because Greg Loft (picture above in tattoos) had earlier read a poem lamenting the loss of handwritten letters and denouncing texting and email, Mara wound the evening even down by reading a just crafted handwritten letter thanking everyone for coming and giving thanks for the welcoming comfortable space.

After letting it rip, one by one, we then Let it Be, closing the evening’s entertainment by singing along with Kyla Robbins’ sweet rendition of the Beatle song.

Post Note: Read about and view pictures of more Spoken Word nights HERE.

~ The following essay about last year’s Floydfest was written for and submitted to this year’s festival program.

I catch myself smiling a lot at Floydfest, like I do at home in the garden.  Every whimsical encounter and seemingly random exchange with others feels like a line-up of destiny and adds to the whole of the enchantment that makes the festival weekend seem charmed.   And like dreams, the weather and other unpredictable events work their way into the Floydfest storybook narrative, a two hour black out, a full moon over Dreaming Creek stage, a drenching downpour.

This year, Donna the Buffalo played the torrential rains away with some shamanistic good licks and lyrics about the river of love and mystic waters.  As the clouds gave way to growing lakes of sky, I peeled off my oversized black hooded raincoat, given to me by my husband to wear after the wind turned our umbrella inside out.  Like a butterfly shedding its cocoon, I raised my arms in greeting to the sun and cheered with the rest of the crowd, joining those who had huddled under tents and now returned to be unified by a rousing sing along jam.  “Just a drop in the Floydfest weather bucket,” I turned to say to my sister Trish, a first time Floydfester.

The shower brought clouds with silver linings and breezes that felt inhabited by magic.  We must have been affected by the Blue Fairy’s dust because after that set, Trish and I flitted about like butterflies going from flower to flower.   So much nectar to be had everywhere we landed, a palm reading at a gypsy caravan wagon, a  homemade ice cream cone, a camel, a purple parasol, a microbrew in a bio-degradable vegetable-based cup, a 12-year old playing the fiddle by the side of the main walkway, and a hula hoop that made us giggle.

My sister has a high-stress banking job in Boston, Massachusetts. After a day spent at Floydfest, she saw the light of revival.  “I’ve been to the revival and I’m revived!” she shouted while listening to Railroad Earth at Hill Holler Stage. The band’s lullaby tunes gave me goosebumps.  Their rocking jams made me scrunch up my face while dancing.

As the afternoon settled into early evening and we were finally tired from dancing, we lay on the grass to watch the billowing clouds and people pass.  Later, at the Dreaming Creek stage, we gasped when we saw a large arched rainbow behind the stage. Like an exclamation point at the end of a fairytale day, it seemed to say, “This year’s festival is pure gold.”

Post notes: Floydfest 9/Breaking Ground, four days of non-stop music and entertainment off the Blue Ridge Parkway, is scheduled for this long weekend from July 22 – July 25.    To read last year’s preview story go HERE. For more information visit the Floydfest site go HERE.

2. Some days come with everything on it. Others are plain.

3. Speaking of pie, my son Josh’s favorite birthday cake is a blueberry pie (see post below).

4. I relive my mother’s frustration … while patching the dough where it’s spotty or torn … trying to stretch what isn’t enough … nine kids … two hands … and a sticky mix … that clings to wax paper … Finish reading A Blueberry Pie for Joshua HERE.

5. Last week while playing Scrabble with my poet friend Mara, she forfeited points because she didn’t want to play a racist word. She played ogre instead and later I played troll.

6. Recent words searches that landed people on my blog: pieces of loose leaf from one tree, loose leaf on word, loose leaf appointment, students use loose leaf, loose leaf magazine, loose leaf double wrap black journal, looseleaf natural hand made, red man leaf, Lose Leaf, and how to say looseleaf in Italian.

7. Great line seen on Facebook: When I die, I’m leaving my body to science fiction.

8. I think its stranger than science fiction that we all keep using plastic even though its known to leech a chemical that is linked with breast cancer, early puberty, childhood obesity, and neurological and behavioral changes such as autism and hyperactivity.

9. And it’s sad that so much is invested into disease treatments (because pharmaceutical drugs are such big business) and not enough into finding the cause and preventing the disease from happening in first place.

10. I must have looked strange to my neighbors today when I walked to the mailbox with a sharp knife in my hand. I was intending to go to the garden to harvest beet greens for lunch but had a change in plan.

11. As a writer, my blog gives me the opportunity to break down my body of work into digestible bite size pieces. About a week’s worth of posts will fit on one page at any given time. I think of them like I think about a 7 course meal. I like to have a variety of short and long entries highlighted with a photo or two, a quote here, a link there, and a poem for those who have room for dessert. Sometimes a post is meant as an appetizer to whet one’s palette for a future main course and often the entries (knowingly or not) are loosely related or compliment each other in some way. After preparing and serving up my own offerings, I frequently go to someone else’s site to see what they’ve been cooking up.

12. What ingredients do you think make for a good blog?

13. Soundtrack for this entry: HERE

See what else is cooking on Thursday HERE.

A Blueberry Pie for Joshua

Rolling out pie dough
into continent shapes
first Asia, then Africa
I feel my grandmother’s wildness in me
navigating rough edges of coastline
as I steer the rolling pin like an oar
like an antique relic from her “roaring 20s”
it rocks back and forth

I relive my mother’s frustration
while patching the dough where it’s spotty or torn
trying to stretch what isn’t enough
nine kids, two hands, and a sticky mix
that clings to wax paper

As I search the bowl of blueberries
for the bluest black ones
I remember 4 and 20 blackbirds baked in a pie
and my son arranging battles
between blueberries and grapes
The blueberries always lost because he ate them

Soon he will come to collect
a last sweet taste of his childhood
He doesn’t care that the pie center has sunk
that the blueberries aren’t wild from Cape Cod
He doesn’t remember when women wore aprons
and mothers taught daughters how to bake

With two potholders I carry the pie
set it on the table to cool
something in-between
wild and tame, sweet and sour
something in-between
“Three little kittens that lost their mittens”
and Eve’s holy offering of fruit
all exist together in an archetypal pie

Raised by her German carpenter father
my mother never taught me how to bake a pie
but I saw her do it and learned by osmosis
and with the help of my friend Jayn’s recipe
It doesn’t matter that my mother didn’t teach me
because Jayn’s mother taught her

and now my pie sits on the table
an icon at an altar
an enduring reminder
of every mother’s love

Post Note: The above poem was written for my son Josh’s 24^th birthday. He just turned 31 and came home from Asheville over the weekend for his birthday pie.

Too many castles in the sand

Overdrawn and in the hole

Going with the flow

Hitting rock bottom

I joked with my good friend Rowan (one of my son Dylan’s best friends growing up) that I was routing for the Netherlands’ team because I had a past life in that country.  He, whose brother and his family live in Spain, thought differently on the matter.

It was my first time at the new Dogtown Pizza Roadhouse.  We were there to meet my son Josh and his girlfriend Jaime who were in town from Asheville for Josh’s birthday dinner (and for  him to watch the finals with his homeboys).  About 35 people gathered in the Winter Sun Hall (now an extension of the Dogtown restaurant and managed by the Dogtown crew) to watch while sipping some good brew.

I couldn’t help but flash a peace sign when I walked past the screen.  Everyone was so quiet, except for when they were erupting into cheers or jeers.  At halftime it was hard to tell the difference between the spectators and commentators.

The restaurant part of the Roadhouse (that used to be Café del Sol) has been extended into the Sun Hall and a movable wall connecting the hall and the restaurant has been added.  I was in Massachusetts for the Roadhouse’s Grand Opening and so missed it.  This was my first peek at the place.  You can read co-owner Katy’s blog about the changes HERE and the Roadhouse’s event schedule HERE. Watch a video clip HERE.

Floyd’s Blue Mountain School, the independent school that my sons went to when they were young, had an open house at the end of the school year.   Visitors were invited to tour the buildings and teachers were on hand to answer questions.  Here, BMS board member Ed Gralla (pictured seated) and BMS director Shelly Emmett (wearing a skirt) greeted visiting families.

Upper elementary class students, Madeline Emmett, Maggie Avellar, Kyla Robbins (standing), and Maggie Kovick pose for a photo in the school butterfly garden that they helped to create.

Reading material relevant to the school’s Progressive Contemplative Educational Community model was on hand for visitors to browse through.  Students and teachers helped to design Blue Mountain School T-shirts shown.

Parent and Contemplative Program teacher Sarah McCarthy talks with a prospective BMS parent and her child.

BMS pre-school teacher Amy Myers answers a visitor’s question.

Young students gather around as one sharpens a pencil at a sharpener in the main building’s pre-school room.

Upper class students Maggie Kovick and Maggie Avellar helped with Open House tours.  Both girls have been going to BMS with their parents – music teacher Kari Kovick and upper class teacher Corey Avellar – since they were babies and have been friends that long. Here, in teacher Jamie Reygle’s classroom, they proudly show off their year’s reading list, which included Tom Sawyer, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Just So Stories, A Christmas Carol, Tao te Ching, various biographies and more.

Teacher Jamie Reygle pauses in his classroom while one of his student’s works at the computer.  Reygle noted that some of the projects students tackled this year were Adopt-a-Highway, making a family tree, creating a school newspaper, building a worm farm, and making a Halloween film.  Students did presentations on Virginia presidents, world religions, the solar system, honeybees and more.  Field trips include those to the Green Living Energy Expo, the Eastern Continental Divide, and the Barter Theater. Poetry, debates, science experiments, and visits from knowledgeable members of the community were also part of the curriculum.

Note: For more information about Blue Mountain School and its Contemplative Progressive Educational programs visit their website HERE.

A free ride on the Paratrooper was a popular feature at the Floyd Fandango Wine and Beer festival, which took place at the Floydfest site on the Blue Ridge Parkway over the July 4^th weekend.

Festival goers, many under tents and umbrellas, enjoyed the roster of musical entertainment, which included Grammy award winning Sam Bush, Blue Mule, Goose Creek Symphony, DJ Williams Project, Missy Raines and more.  Pictured next to the main stage are new festival speaker towers built by Streamline Timberworks.

A festival-goer checks out the T-shirts and CDs in the festival merchandise tent.

A craftsman creates a coin pendant for a customer using a hand built wooden minting machine.

Jeanette and Thomas Gilley played a game of air hockey under the shade of the beer tent.  Jeanette and Thomas are the children of Helms and Karin Gilley, who were in town from Michigan visiting family in Stuart.

Becki the Balloon Lady looks pleased with the zany hat she created for one festival-goer.

Goose Creek Symphony played the final show of the weekend festival.

Post notes: Watch a Fandango video clip HERE and HERE.

2. As if playing musical chairs, the butterflies periodically jump from flower to flower and sometimes land on a flower that’s already been taken and someone gets pushed off.

3. Overheard at a porch cookout at my friend Katherine’s house, where someone was making smores. Amy: I prefer all marshmallow that’s burned. Colleen: Burned marshmallow is good like the skin on chicken.

4. Check out my two-year old grandson Bryce hopped up on cotton candy and bluegrass music on the 4th of July HERE.

5. I went out on our porch while my husband was watching the World Cup the other day to get away from the incessant horn blowing buzz but the buzzing of bees around my house gave me no peace.

6. Bird droppings on my porch from baby birds practicing flying look like cigarette ashes after they’ve dried.

7. I had a dream that a pop-up message inadvertently came up on my laptop that ended up ordering two books that were that delivered on the spot from the computer’s innards, making me wonder whether I was dreaming a science fiction premise or the future.

8. I also dreamt I kissed a cute guy whose mouth was full of snuff.

9. According to a post at Kenju’s, a group of rhinos is called a crash, a group of frogs is an army, and a group of kangaroos is called a mob. It’s also correct to say a charm of hummingbirds, a smack of jellyfish, parliament of owls, a murder or crows, which makes me think the people who make up these labels are more comedian than scientist.

10. A group of butterflies is a rabble, which feeds right into my suspicion that flowers are like bar stools they perch on while getting drunk on nectar.

11. My husband Joe was out of town and I was home alone at night when I got scared about a series of curious noises. It turned out to be my own stomach rumbling.

12. I just saw the words “Joseph’s Dreamcoat” on a poster in Joe’s office and thought it said “Joseph’s Democrat.”

13. You can set off your fireworks HERE.

More playing Thirteen Thursday HERE.

Shhh… More Wordless Wednesday Photos are HERE. Staircase play in winter HERE.

~ The following was published in The Floyd Press in June of 2010

Congressman Rick Boucher met with members of Floyd’s Coffee Party at the Floyd Country Store on a recent Saturday morning.  The meeting preceded a Town Meeting with the Congressman at the Floyd County High School Auditorium.

Seeking to be more engaged in the democratic process, a dozen members of the local Coffee Party chapter were present.   Also in attendance was the current Chair of the Floyd Democratic Party, Deborah Baum.

At the meeting, several questions were raised concerning corporate power versus the will of the people, and the Supreme Court’s recent decision to lift restrictions on corporate campaign spending.   “If they have all the money and power, we don’t have a chance,” voiced one frustrated attendee.

Pointing out that a polluting industry or corporation can campaign for a candidate under a misleading name like Virginians for a Bright Future, Boucher said he was working on legislation that would hold campaigning corporations more accountable.  “We can’t overturn the Supreme Court decision but we are working on legislation called Stand by Your Ad,” he explained.

Community Organizer Freeda Cathcart spoke about the importance of teleconference calls for uniting supporters and activists.  Deborah Baum announced that the Floyd Democratic Party would be hosting an information booth at the town Jubilee on June 19th. She invited everyone to a dinner for Boucher at the Pine Tavern that evening and encouraged people to attend an upcoming Democratic Party meeting at the library.

Boucher spoke of his support of SustainFloyd’s new Farmer’s Market, which was in full swing across the street.  He also talked about his work on the Energy and Commerce Committee, which he said considers issues that corporation and citizens care about, related to health care, consumer protection, telecommunications, energy, and environmental laws.

To a concern voiced about offshore drilling and the current BP oil disaster in the Gulf, Boucher replied, “BP may be criminally negligent.”

He stressed the importance that individual supporters have in the outcome of an election, noting that he would need their efforts in the next election.   “I’m happy to see so many people around this table,” he concluded.

A little boy with an Easter basket in our blueberry patch (video HERE).

A pony ride with his dad at our town’s July 4^th celebration (video HERE.)

Popcorn, cotton candy, dancing to bluegrass  an adventure in an inflatable moonbounce house (I didn’t know what I was getting into but he was a pro). Video HERE.

It rained fireworks, like Einstein’s hair, Mary Poppins psychedelic umbrella, and Tinkerbell’s fantasy island.

He just called them rainbows.

Happy Hour

Redhead

Best Dressed

Bluest

Social Butterflies Playing Musical Chairs

Note: Watch the video HERE.

~ The following was published in the spring issue of All About Her, a regional newspaper insert publication.

Gibby Waitzkin comes from a family of gardeners, so it’s not surprising that she grew-up to be an artist with a passion for handcrafting paper made from plants she has grown.   Waitzkin, a member of Virginia’s Round the Mountain artisan network, describes her art as “a personal exploration that blends artist-made paper with photographs, scanned imagery, and dried and encaustic-preserved flowers from my gardens to evoke memories of family, friends and places.”

As a child with a hearing disability that was eventually corrected by surgeries, Waitzkin showed an early interest in drawing.  She was raised in Greensboro, North Carolina, and went to art school for photography and printmaking at the University of Georgia.  In the 1960’s, when Waitzkin was in high school, her parents bought land in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Floyd County.   “I always wanted to have a place here.  All my journeys have been about coming back,” she said.

Looking out from her Floyd home to a pond where an old sarvisberry tree (the namesake of her home-based studio and gallery) sits prominently on the bank, Waitzkin said with a sweeping gesture, “Most everything you see, we planted.  We’re trying to bring back the natural eco-system.”

Twelve years ago Waitzkin and her husband Buz bought their 30 acre Floyd home site from her parents. Living in Washington D.C., they commuted to Floyd regularly, building their home, Waitzkin’s art studio, and an office studio for her husband.   It wasn’t until March 1^st of this year that the couple moved in permanently.  Waitzkin explained how she started making paper soon after they purchased their Floyd property and how her immersion into it was prompted by a rare nerve disease – the result of a series of foot surgeries for bunions that began when she was 18.

“I had gotten so handicapped that I couldn’t walk more than a block,” she related.  “My husband said ‘there’s no more excuses.’ He encouraged me to focus on my art.”

Although Waitzkin’s disability forced her to give up her successful 25-year design communication business in D.C., the life changes she made because of it have not only led to a flourishing of art but have been instrumental in her healing.

“Every time I came to Floyd my pain syndrome was less.  I realized that the plants I was growing had healing powers and that working with them helped to heal me.  When I was making my paper, I found I could spend hours on my feet,” she said, adding that the peaceful beauty of the countryside also contributed to her improved health.

Making paper is a time intensive activity that, in Waitzkin’s case, involves growing, harvesting, shredding, cooking, rinsing, beating, pouring, and drying before plants or digital photo images are added.

“I spent several years only cooking and beating fibers before I made a single sheet of paper.  I was just learning everything I could,” she said.  Because of the steps and care it takes to make paper, Waitzkin – who has worked with author Helen Hiebert and other master papermakers– has a hard time estimating how much time her pieces take to create.

A visit to Waitzkin’s Sarvisberry Gallery & Studio is like going on a Green Living tour.  The energy efficient space was built with sustainable technologies, has a cistern that collects rain water for paper making, and blown in insulation of recycled paper.  Waitzkin personally knew many of the trees that were used in the building’s construction and in picture frames that hold her works.  She enthusiastically pointed out frames that were custom-made from blighted Hemlocks that were harvested and milled on the property.

Waitzkin’s gallery and studio also reflect her years of artistic study and experience.  Grasses, ferns, milkweed, cat tails, bamboo, lavender, iris, and other botanicals are used either as the pulp base of her paper or are embedded into it.  The plants are chosen for their healing properties, the history of their names, and the different shades of earthy color they produce.

“Every piece has many levels of meaning for me and I love sharing that. Iris means “a message.” The Scottish meaning of thistle is “hard work.”  I’m probably the only person who actually grows thistle,” she joked.

While showing her papermaking beater and press and a freezer full of fiber pulp, Waitzkin noted that acid free paper and inks give her work an archival longevity, which is particularly important for pieces that showcase family history, such as the three panel piece that hangs over her studio desk.  It features old photographs and postcards sent by her grandfather to her grandmother when he retraced his father’s journey out west during the Gold Rush.

Honoring family is also evident in a composition displayed in Waitzkin’s gallery in which botanicals have been embedded on patchwork shapes replicated from a quilt her grandmother made.   A work in progress that incorporates a friend’s wedding flowers onto long sheets of handmade paper will be used in the construction of a screen room divider and shows Waitzkin’s varied range as an artist and her interest in marking life passages.

Another piece made by Waitzkin that’s been getting a lot of attention hangs in the Troika Gallery, the new contemporary craft gallery in downtown Floyd that Waitzkin co-owns with potter Silvie Granatelli and Susan Icove, a lighting designer.   The 44’ x 33’ image, titled “To Sustaining our Future,” (pictured above) features an image of Buffalo Mountain, Floyd’s highest peak.  Re-designed from a photograph by Fred First, the image is the logo for Floyd’s SplitRail Eco-fair, an annual event that Waitzkin helped to launch in the fall of 2009.   The image is bordered with an arrangement of flowers and plants symbolizing simplicity, justice, strength, unity, and more.   Proceeds from its sale are slated to go to SustainFloyd, the grassroots group that hosted the eco-fair and recently built a community farmers market in the center of downtown Floyd in an effort to foster sustainable local economy.

Always active in the community, whether she starting a community garden (as Waitzkin did when she lived in New York), participating in climate change action, serving on non-profit boards, fundraising, or hosting papermaking workshops at her Sarvisberry studio, Waitzkin brings passion to her life’s work and all her activities have an underlying theme.  “Everything I do has grown out of my love of nature and my connection to it,” she said.            Colleen Redman

Photos: 1. Gibby points out some of her pieces on display at Troika Gallery. 2. Gibby with the room screen divider she is working on for a friend’s wedding gift.  3. To Sustaining our Future.   Visit Gibby’s website HERE.

2. Good tea and good beer are like twins that I love equally for completely different reasons.

3. They’re like bookends, like the sun and moon, and ocean and bay are like bookends on the hometown peninsula I grew up on.

4. The word tea is in treat

5. I was out in the garden picking overgrown green beans today when the teakettle inside started to whistle. A little while later I noticed it was silent, like a crying baby who finally gives up. I ran inside, but it was too late. It’s the second teakettle I’ve killed in the last two weeks.

6. Doing my mother’s recycling at the grocery store last week was like hitting the one arm bandits in Las Vegas. I had to reach up and push each can in a machine slot while collecting reject cans and tickets below. I must have hit the jackpot; I made $5.

7. My mother thought I’d be dying to go home after 2 weeks of caring for her. I told her that I’d be ready to go home after two weeks even if I was in Aruba.

8. THIS is what I did for nightlife while at my mom’s in Hull, Mass.

9. Seeing THIS on the beach was a first for me.

10. 1st comes the heartbeat … then the search for the nectar … in the Garden of Eden … on an island called Mother … Next comes the first cry … and the need to be rocked …

11. Keeping time with the poem eternal … I got my start in rocking cradles … I got my start in amniotic fluid …on a planet in orbit … in a primordial sea! ~ Excerpts from Rock and Roll: The Early Influences 1995 first read at The Teahouse Jam.

12. In the last two weeks I’ve gotten the following strangely misspelled searches that have landed people on my blog: bloose leaf notes, rooseleaf note, note loose-leaf. loose leafn otes, and cute loose leaf.

13. Oil is spilling into the gulf as we speak. It’s worse than standing by while a loved one bleeds to death.

More playing Thirteen Thursday HERE.