The Goat

Lord, let me live as I will!
I need a little wild freedom.
a little giddiness of heart,
the strange taste of unknown flowers.
For whom else are your mountains?
Your snow wind? These springs?
The sheep do not understand.
They graze and graze,
all of them, and always in the same direction,
and then eternally
chew the cud of their insipid routine.
But I- I love to bound to the heart of all
your marvels, leap your chasms,
and, my mouth stuffed with intoxicating grasses,
quiver with an adventurer’s delight
on the summit of the world!
amen

from Prayers from the Ark by Carmen Bernos Gasztold

The photo is of a fancy gentleman we met on our last Bronx Zoo excursion.

keeping warm

We have been experiencing some frigid days over here. Overcast, grey, it even snowed last week! That was actually pretty fun, since we were having a “home day" anyway. To combat the cold and bring a bit of sunshine to the table and to the belly there were fresh buns, peach preserves, a bit of cheese. Also in attendence was the happy mouse cheese plate, a well used thrift store treasure.

The Monster Mushroom

While enjoying an autumn stroll around a favorite local haunt this past sunday the girls discovered this crazy huge mushroom. We didn’t pick it, it was already plucked and lying on the ground. As I’ve mentioned before on this blog, I dig mushrooms and I am always on the prowl for new specimens. I have never seen this type this large before, so it was quite a big deal. It immediatly brought to my mind the following quote from the book The Supper of the Lamb by Robert Farrar Capon.


“And the mushroom? Ah! It is proof of creation ex nihilo, the paradigm of the marvelously solid unnecessariness of the world. How anything so nearly nothing could at the same time be so emphatically something- how the Spirit brooding upon the face of the waters could have brought forth this... well, words fail, and mystery reigns. “

Go Ask Alice

I will be participating in a group show of doll and plush toy artists based on Alice in Wonderland. A nice person named Cimmi of the Dollhead blog is putting it all together at her gallery in Santa Barbara. So now I am immersing myself in Alice, gearing up to make the best dolls I can in about one month’s time. There are so many great characters to consider, the many faces of Alice, The White Rabbit, The Hatter, all of the unconventional queens...so little time.

Gettin' cozy

The weather here in NY is quite chilly, perfect for getting cozy with a cup of hot tea. The matryoshka tea cozy from my etsy store went off to it’s new home in Australia this week. I wonder if the weather is as brisk there today as it is here. This year I am going to make myself a tea cozy. I have been saying that for years, but you know the old saying about the shoemaker’s kids going without shoes. The maker of tea cozies drinks tepid tea. It’s pretty lame but I usually wrap a kitchen towel around my pot to keep it piping. I am determined to make myself a cozy, let’s see if it happens.