Lichening

We have windfall lichen in abundance ...

scattered in the leaf litter ...

beneath the live oaks ...

It was easily gathered ...

then laid upon Mo's satin pennon ...

which was folded over ...

rolled and bound ...

Layered above and below with more lichen-clad twigs, which will provide tannin ...

then covered in boiling tap water and left to steep, the heady fragrance of rain-soaked woods drifting from the pot ...

The hardest part will be the waiting.

Addendum:

A sneak peek ...

So far, the cotton tie is picking up more color than the satin.

- Doomed

Retrospective (5/28/2016)

Patch #146 ...

is a patch of muslin dyed last year with windfall lichen ...

The stitching was done with one of the new flosses below, which perfectly matched the original color of the lichen, although sadly my camera failed to capture its subtlety.

Original Post

Montana Joe posted a basket-full of floss, which led me to ask where he got it.

That in turn led me to a needlework store in Austin which I've been meaning to explore. In truth, I hadn't yet done so as I knew what would happen.

"If I win the lottery, I'll just take one of each," I muttered to myself.

But I haven't won the lottery (yet), so I stuck to my self-imposed limit of ten ...

Until the next time ...

- Worth waiting for: On the banks of Sink Creek

Looking upstream

In the nearly five years that we have lived on our homestead I have never seen Sink Creek. Oh, there was evidence of its existence on the aptly named flood plain, but whenever there was a gully washer I was either at work or it was the middle of the night or there was too much thunder and lightning to safely go outside.

Until yesterday, when the storm clouds dumped 3.5 inches of rain in a  few hours, making a river out of our front yard ...

then quickly pushing off to the east, enabling me to finally take a look before the water soaked into the aquifers below. 

Our fire pit, which has stood unused through the recent years of drought, became a nascent mosquito pool ...

So I undammed one end to let the water drain out ...

Slogging through the recently mulched West Trail lichen farm, we were glad to see that our efforts were worthwhile as the water pooled under the branches without breaking through and washing out the path as it had in the past ...

But it was the flood plain that inspired the most excitement. Water was moving, rapidly ...

The creek already receding ... sinking into the earth

and up to a foot deep, carrying with it seeds and silt, Mother Nature's best planting method ...

Indeed, last year's heavy rains carried bluebonnet seeds from upstream where they bloomed for the first time on our property earlier this spring ...

With this most recent deluge, I have no doubt new seeds have been spread even farther downstream.

But it was the voice of the water, chuckling through the rocks, that most delighted me (if only I could figure out how to insert a video into Blogger, you could hear it, too). Instead, I'll just leave you with one last look from the headwaters of Sink Creek ...

Looking downstream

already gone, but not forgotten.

- A window on my world: Walking the land

I begin most days here, sitting by the front window, my cup of thread ends and trusty Fiskars close at hand ...

However, with the tipping point of spring having been reached, I now find myself drawn outside earlier in the day, no longer needing to wait until afternoon for the sun to warm things up.Yesterday, I walked the land to take some pictures, like this agave for Mo who loves how the leaves imprint on one another ...

Right across from the agave, our crazy wind vane is a favorite perch for the Carolina wrens, so I left them some thread ends for their nests ...

Close by, Don's latest rusted bucket awaited a new tenant ...

while just beyond, the lichen-crusted driftwood anticipated the new crop of mealy blue sage growing up behind it ...

Everywhere I walked I smelled the soft honeyed scent of agarita ...

my eyes catching every so often on bright red Yaupon berries still left after a winter of critter foraging ...

I walked the new wood mulch trails ...

leading out to the flood plain ...

where wildflowers were already  rising up to greet the sun ...

and the bluebonnets showed the promise of more to come ...

Surveying the compost rows ...

I thought to look up ...

then heard the clarion call of sandhill cranes wheeling overhead in a thermal before reforming their northward-bound V ...

Lichen was growing ...

on rocks harvested from the floodplain and carefully placed in the succulent garden ...

although most of our flowers get planted by Mother Nature, like this stand of thimble flowers ...

The grasses were greening up so quickly I could almost see them grow ...

some racing ahead of the pack, already setting seed ...

And when I came at last to the breezeway, where Don was preparing the outdoor shower for the next three seasons ...

I startled one of our anoles into a brown funk ...

But after reconsidering me as friend rather than foe, he reverted to a relaxed green ...

and pulled up a chair ...

the better to enjoy the breezeway ...

- It's springtime in Texas, so of course the leaves are falling

Here in the Texas Hill Country we get "fall" in the spring.  The live oaks are currently in the process of shedding the leaves they held on to all winter. It's a great system: the new leaves push the old leaves off and grow in their place. So these trees will bare their branches over the next couple of weeks and then be covered in completely new foliage shortly thereafter ...

Consequently, leaves are everywhere, blown off by the March wind and rain that roared through earlier this week ...

Likewise, much of the ash from the deadwood and brush that we burned last weekend has blown and/or washed away, leaving the burn pit empty, awaiting the next installment ...

Fortunately, before the rain fell I was able to shovel some of the ash onto the inner wall of the burn pit ...

where it now serves as a kind of mortar for another layer of stone ...

And this is the windfall lichen that was spared from the flame, a patch about 6' wide and 12' feet long ...

bound for the lichen farm along the west trail ...

Last, but not least, here's a shot of Don using my wheelbarrow alternative, a 2' x 3' cement mixing tub with rope attached so it can be pulled over rocky ground and wood chip trails alike ...

and an odd bit of wood found along the way ...

Who knows what Don will find to do with it ...