Monday, March 18, 2024

Looking Down

My earliest memory is deep leaves

and my feet, kicking and walking,

holding someone's left hand.

Somehow I always knew it was

my grandparents' farm, although

there is nothing else, only

deep leaves, dry and crunching

leaves all around my feet,

I'm looking down because

that's what children do.


Then, it seems only moments later,

he is walking on my left,

my son's little son,

holding my hand as we walk

along a gravel road to the farm.

He kicks the rocks and studies them.

He grasps my fingers firmly.

I watch him and turn my face

up to the blue above.

The forsythia glows like sun.

Look at my shadow! he says.

It's so big!

He is looking down, because

that's what children do.


Copyright by the author

Renick WV, 2024

Saturday, March 9, 2024

Fern

  






This year for Valentine's, Adam and I agreed to buy ourselves what we wanted instead of flowers or chocolate. He bought fabric. I bought a ceramic pot and a fern. It finally put up two little shoots.

I've been indulging in my love of wool -- cleaning, carding, spinning, plying, and knitting it. Currently on the needles is a brown sweater made from wool I bought last year at a nearby farm. 

The deep golden/orange yarn is dyed with lichen from our yard.

The daffodils are past now, and overnight it seemed all the Bradford pears in the county burst into bloom. They look so pretty in front of our church.

Wednesday, August 2, 2023

Awakened

The soft glow behind the curtains

must be morning at last.

The moon is long set.

I am in my mother's house.

She finishes one more sleep

in the room beneath mine.

I am old,

and she is ancient,

Yet still the mother bond

pulls firm as ever --

The body that encased me,

The voice that whispered

the mother secrets that

no infant can remember,

no woman can forget.

She is here yet.

The soft glow of morning,

The deep green fescue growing,

The distant lowing of cows

in a neighbor's field, calling,

Come, my love, my baby,

Come home to me again.



copyright, M.K. Christiansen

August, 2023

Sunday, June 4, 2023

Just Sitting Here --

 Hi, friends -

Since I'm just sitting here on the reclining loveseat with Adam on a slow Sunday afternoon, I might as well write a blog post, right? Sorry to be so absent. I'm definitely slowing down these days. Adam is done with school for the year, and since he's home, he's the cook for the summer. Hooray! I'm glad to get that daily chore off my shoulders for a few months. I don't mind cooking, but not everyday!

So what's going on? I'm enjoying being at home with the two dogs and the kitty cat. It's a pleasant, slow life. Most days my back gradually hurts more as the day wears on, and I take pain meds, use a heating pad, and rest a good bit. Thus: slowing down.

Still, I try to keep painting and spinning/knitting. Let's see if I can find some photos on my phone:

Here are some cards I have for sale at the Saturday farmers market.
This 9x12" piece is fairy children going into a forest. It feels magical. I very nearly achieved what I was hoping for, which can be hard with art!
Our huge gardenia bush is blooming now! I have a blossom tucked in my blouse as I'm typing now.
Painting bookmarks:

This is the "wildflower blanket" that I crocheted for my sweet granddaughter who is two years old.
Leo, my companion in the studio. He's so sweet.


Lately I've been spinning up this fleece from a local farm. It's a Shetland/Black Welsh Mtn. cross. I'm planning a cardigan sweater!

This pile of yarn went into a rug I wove. I love the mix of the dark (seen in the above photo), and the light-colored Cheviot fleece.


For those who recall that my husband Adam has been sick for several years with a severe auto-immune illness, he is getting better. He had 2 chemo infusions (the aggressive and preferred treatment), and he is definitely improving, has more energy, and will hopefully be able to go off some of his meds soon. We are very thankful. 

Much love to all of you friends in blogland!

Thursday, April 13, 2023

Hello, Friends!

 Well, everyone, I've been gone a while. I've struggled to keep up with both my blog and my Youtube channel. Sorry! But I'll try to catch you up on the highlights of the last few months.

Christmas was not what we expected! Just before leaving on our long-awaited trip to Mississippi for Christmas with our kids and grandkids, Adam tested positive for Covid. He was not very ill, but he couldn't travel. Then, on Christmas Day, I had to make a "mad dash" trip to visit another of our children to help, and Adam stayed home. I traveled quite a bit, ended up in Chattanooga for a late family Christmas. Chaos ... but it all worked out!


Adam visited a new doctor for his auto-immune illness and was approved for two Rituxan infusions in March. They've already made him feel so much better! We're very thankful for his improvement. He has much more energy and hopes to be in remission soon. 

I'm still making soaps and lotions and working with yarn a lot. I bought two fleeces at a local farm, and then my brother gave me a large bag of fleece from his sheep in West Virginia. Those fleeces have been so fun to clean and work with! I love working with fleece more than I expected, even the feeling of lanolin on my hands and the smell of the barnyard in my studio. I used the old alpaca fleece to make a rug -- a trial run on rug weaving.


The farmers market has started up again. I've been doing it for nearly 11 years. I still enjoy it, but it's quite tiring. I'm slowing down a bit on making some of my wares. But I'm still enjoying my chickens and my spinning and knitting.

I've had a little medical problem, esophageal spasms, that keeps me from being as active and productive as I like to be, so it's been a more "restful" year than usual. REST is my word this year, I think. I don't mind slowing down and realizing I can't do all I used to do. And as we get older, of course we want to use the energy we have for other people, especially family. Adam is still pastoring and teaching middle school, so that keeps him very busy.

If for some reason you'd enjoy watching my Youtube videos, here's a link to my channel. A lot of the things I mentioned here have dedicated videos there. Wishing you all the best, blog friends!


Tuesday, November 8, 2022

And Now It's November --

 It's been over a month since I last posted. What a whirlwind! October was lovely, but it sped by. The main thing that happened is that my daughter, son-in-law, and two adorable grandchildren came for a visit! The grown-ups quickly left for a much-deserved vacation, and the little ones stayed with Nana and Poppi for 7 days. Wow! I haven't done that before in my own house. (I usually go to theirs.) We had loads of fun, were very relaxed and mostly played inside and outside, and watched lots of Clifford the Big Red Dog and Beatrix Potter's World of Peter Rabbit and Friends. I missed them so much when they left to go home, but I was wiped out! I think it took me about 5 days to recover, haha.



At last I finished knitting the sweater vest that I made from my handspun yarn. It's a bit large, but that's better than too small. It's an extra layer for winter, to wear around the house.

I've been picking up so many pecans; this is a great pecan year! Today a friend is coming to pick some too. There are far too many for me. As you see in the photo above, the pecan leaves are covering the ground. We crush pecans when we drive out the driveway -- crunch, crunch -- and the chickens eagerly eat the meat inside. The baby chicks are babies no longer! They're nearly as big as the smallest hen, Bibby. I don't have a recent photo of them. And shockingly, I think they are all females! It doesn't seem possible, but I'm hopeful.

I'm slowly working on yet another children's picture book, this time a bedtime book full of sleeping woodland animals (well, except for the cat). Yesterday I finished the foxes.

I'm starting to write the text, which I want to be a poem, and yesterday I think I decided on its meter. I'm really enjoying this project. 

The farmers market is picking up speed as of last Saturday, and I must paint lots of cards this week, make Healing Herb Ointment today, and make a batch of soap. Phew! I also ordered more of my printed cards from the printer in New Bern. My packs of prints are selling faster than the hand-painted cards. 

I can tell Adam and I are getting older because we spend more time at the doctors' offices, and we talk about illnesses and medications. Ah well, that's what's important to you as you age, right? We are both doing fine. I've made some changes to my eating habits, and I'm feeling better than I have in the past 5 years. I cut out all sugar/desserts about 6 months ago. Then this fall I decided to begin intermittent fasting each day. It's not very radical, really. I try to eat supper about 5:00, and I don't have anything but water until breakfast the next morning, at about 9:00. It just gives my body a good fast, and gets my insulin levels down. It's a way to reverse pre-diabetes and (hopefully) avoid the awful medications for that disease. We shall see! I get blood work done next month, but for now, I feel really good -- less body pain, more energy. Hmm. See what I mean about talking about health issues? 

We have so many activities coming up with church friends and community events. It's a busy month. Enjoy the lovely autumn weather, dear friends, and remember to be thankful each day! 

Sunday, October 2, 2022

The Beloved Month

I told Adam that October 1st is my favorite day of the year. October is my favorite month, and on October 1st, I have thirty-one days of it to enjoy! 


Friday was an interesting day. Hurricane Ian was passing to our south, swinging strong winds and rain our way. With schools canceled, Adam was home. We enjoyed the day indoors, him sewing and me knitting and spinning. It was lovely. He made pumpkin scones.

I'm feeling so much better already, with cool weather and the departure of summer. Hooray! I'm also on a new eating schedule. Pre-diabetes (insulin resistance) has caused me to start a 16/8 diet schedule, where I don't consume anything but water between 5:00 pm and 9:00 am. It's not that hard to do, and it can really be good for you ... and it's so much better than taking medication, although I may have to do that too, eventually. But so far, I'm feeling so much better!

My doctor also prescribed a little something (medication) for anxiety, a first for me. I think that's helped also.

What have I been reading recently? Well, I read Miss Read's Changes at Fairacre, Tea by the Nursery Fire by Noel Streatfeild, and am now in the middle of Haven Kimmel's interesting pseudo-memoir, She Got Up Off the Couch. I have a precariously leaning tower of books on my bedside table, and another on my vanity, all of them waiting their turns.

Life has been fairly quiet here (except for that hurricane). I've adjusted to being home by myself during the day, and have taken the "be productive" pressure off myself. When the weather turns cool, my favorite thing to do is burn sticks and branches in the burn barrel in the mornings. It's sheer delight. 

I've started making my own pecan/peanut granola.
And how could I forget to tell you about the five baby chicks that were hatched by Henny Penny about 3 weeks ago?



They are so healthy, and she is such a good mama. I'm thrilled to see that all five have survived thus far. Three are "naked neck" birds, like their daddy Mr. Sparky. I'm not at all certain, but I have hopes that four of them are hens. We can hope! Think of all the eggs I'll have then!

I've been doing a lot of knitting -- LOTS of felted slippers, and I'm quite far along in a sweater vest, but not far enough along to show you photos of it yet. But it uses this yarn that I spun in July:

I did make a second wet-felted bowl, but no more. I'll wait to see whether I can sell them before I make a dozen, haha.
I take way too many photos of Leo. He's so very cute. I'll go find a few of them to share with you, and end there. All is well with us, and I hope all is well with you also, dear friends! I'm over on Youtube more than I'm here, if you're looking for me :) Take care, and God bless --