Raven and Sparrow

We're not as bad as we look

Yesterday at dusk some neighbors dropped by to introduce themselves. They were very nice and it was pleasant chatting with them, but when they left I looked with new eyes at the state of the house and yard. Oh. My. God. We are living in a disaster zone. The guts of the kitchen are all over the lawn, and the dye pots I just scrubbed out are sitting at crazy angles amongst the debris. Inside, the sitting room/makeshift kitchen is piled high with all the stuff that usually goes in a kitchen, covered with a uniform layer of thick dust. The entry is filled with tools, dog food dishes and miscellaneous stuff we drop on the way into the house. I have been averting my eyes as I pass, pretending all is well, but I can no longer maintain the illusion. Unfortunately, it will be a while before it will make sense to do more than surface tidying. In the meantime, I can look beyond the mess of my immediate surroundings to the beauty all around. I am lucky to live with a lot of that kind of distraction.

Spring fairies return

Spring is here when you come upon one of these little beauties in the woods. They are our only native orchid and we call them fairy slippers or calypsos. They are so tiny it is easy to overlook them, but then that fierce purple catches your eye. They appear on the edge of the woods in dappled light, and once you see one, you suddenly see many. I grew up on this island and always heard about fairy slippers, but never saw one until we moved to this place. We have an abundance of wildflowers here. Its kind of funny how each island has its own palette of native plants. For instance, trilliums are common in the San Juans, but not on this island. Also, vine maples. Sinclair Island has huge stands of this weedy little tree, much prized for its fall color, but there are none here. I have been thinking it would be nice to have some around the house, but I am reluctant to deviate from this island's natural plant selection. That's probably overly doctrinaire, because of course all kinds of non-natives have infiltrated, most obnoxiously scotch broom and himalayan blackberries. I have to work religiously to keep the scotch broom from taking over the hillside. There are some plants that are practically trees. This property hasn't been messed with much and so is a haven for natives. I love that.

Another wildflower I never saw until here is the fawn lily. We only have two little plants. They never seem to get bigger or propagate themselves, and they only last a week from ascending stem to withered flowers. I thought it was too early when I went to check on them yesterday, but no, here they come. Their graceful necks add to their shy mystique. The bad thing about these lilies is that they grow right in the path of our proposed new house. I want to move them, but I am afraid it will kill them. However, they will certainly die when the concrete gets poured. I am really excited about the house, but the destruction that building will entail is discouraging.   

Setting the table

The weird thing is, as soon as I try to start blogging about tablesettings, my own table goes away. We are ripping out our kitchen and have set up a camp kitchen on the dining table, so now we eat hunched over our food in front of the TV like stereotypical American slobs. Don't get me wrong, sometimes we do that anyway; watching TV during dinner can be a real treat, but doing it every night is getting old. The carpet isn't looking too good either. Without a table to set, it is pretty hard to talk about place settings, so I moved an old table up to the deck in front of our bedroom and set that. It is a little fakey, because we aren't actually eating there (no room to sit down) and I think tablesettings should reflect real world occasions, but it least it gives me an outlet, and something to show.

This is a very simple setting meant to reflect the change from winter to spring. The undercloth is grey silk, (totally washable,) and the white cloth and napkins are a vintage embroidered linen luncheon set I found in my mother-in-law's stash. Vintage table linens are everywhere, cheap and interesting. You have to watch out for stains and wear, of course, but they are an easy way to build up your linen wardrobe, if such is your goal. They are fun to dye, too, although then grease and spots are really a problem. Anyway, the plainness of the cloths, and the neutrality of the color scheme, is wintery, in my opinion, echoing the lichen-covered branches we have so many of around here. The pink flowers are blooming right now in the woods, often among other branches, so this looks like what is going on at this time in March. The little silver birds remind me of the winter birds that huddle in those bare branches, just now giving way to their brighter relatives returning from the south. This is not very elaborate, but that doesn't bother me. If tables get to be too fancy they are intimidating instead of welcoming. All tables are stage sets, meant to facilitate what really happens around them: eating, conversation and connection. The settings aren't ends in themselves. That doesn't mean they aren't important.

Early spring

Table settings are my life. That is a little humbling when I think about it, but I have to admit that my most intense interests find expression at the table. Food, of course, is a primary element of dinner, and I think I am a reasonably good cook, but my talents and inclinations are better expressed in textiles and arranging things, so I put a lot of thought into the setting. It is a service of sorts, in honor of the ancient rite of breaking bread together. There is no more powerful way of connecting with someone than to eat with them. Sitting around a table that brings you face to face, with no other distractions than the (hopefully) delicious food you are sharing, dinner is a ritual of human interaction. I can't think of any other ordinary event so laden with symbolism, memory, and possibility. It is a mundane daily occurance with many layers.

Growing up, we always, always ate dinner together as a family, and took it totally for granted. It wasn't until I had a family of my own that I realized how hard it can be to maintain family dinner as a daily event. At the same time, I began to have dinner parties as a way of seeing my friends and found a whole new appreciation of dinner as a way to bring people together.

Sunny

Okay, success! A picture has arrived that has some connection to the size I thought it would be. This is my Pembroke Welsh corgi, Sunny, looking a little like a fox in the woods, except for the dog tags. She is a character, like all corgis, and a wonderful companion.

Hello

Hi. I'm Dana, and this is my toe in the blogging pond. I have been lurking around other people's blogs for a while now, and have been charmed by this ability to connect with people I would never have otherwise known. I have been encouraged and inspired by what I have read, and want to take a more active part. I am hoping writing for a blog will help me organize and express the myriad thoughts floating around my head, and uncover other people who have similar thoughts. My interests are varied, but most of them coalesce around the dinner table. Textiles, in all their forms, are fascinating to me, but I confine my own work to tablecloths. I use natural dyes and natural dye extracts on cotton and linen, and would love to hear from others who are working with these materials. I love food, gardening, and reading.  I am fortunate to live in one of the most beautiful places on earth: the San Juan Islands north of Seattle. My husband and I have a house that can only be described as interesting, in which we are making slow changes. Today he is re-doing the plumbing in the kitchen, so there is no water. There is plenty of water outside though, both Puget Sound and what seems like never-ending rain. Happily, the eagles don't let rain stop them, and they are very active this morning.