Waxing philosophical.

Raining again.  I never mind the rain, but today I am thinking of the people in so many areas of this state, and the country, who are homeless because of the destruction from so much rain.
I am grateful for my warm, dry house.
I did some work at the studio this morning, there is always something to do.  There is always LOTS to do.
I have no idea how I did it all by myself, before L.   It's a mystery.

Anyway, when the sun was shining, L took these pictures, of the bevy of Jerusalem artichokes out by the driveway.

They don't really have anything to do with Jerusalem, or artichokes.  They are a species of sunflowers native to North America.   Apparently, when Samuel de Champlain sent some back to France, it was noted that the tuber which was eaten as a root vegetable by native Americans, tasted similar to an artichoke.
Who knew?
Anyway,  it seems that the human digestive system has a problem with it, as noted  in Wikipedia.

The tubers are sometimes used as a substitute for potatoes:^[5] they have a similar consistency, and in their raw form have a similar texture, but a sweeter, nuttier flavor; raw and sliced thinly, they are fit for a salad. The carbohydrates give the tubers a tendency to become soft and mushy if boiled, but they retain their texture better when steamed. The inulin cannot be broken down by the human digestive system^[6], which can cause flatulence and, in some cases, gastric pain. Gerard's Herbal, printed in 1621, quotes the English planter John Goodyer on Jerusalem artichokes:

"which way soever they be dressed and eaten, they stir and cause a filthy loathsome stinking wind within the body, thereby causing the belly to be pained and tormented, and are a meat more fit for swine than men."^[7]

So L, if you decide to dig one of these up to try it, could you stay away from the studio for a couple of days, until you find out if this is true or not??????

They are pretty, though, aren't they????


I did some weaving on the Cranbrook yesterday, and I had a supervisor.
She seems to be busy sniffing the air.

 I keep thinking that there are going to be a few 'quiet' weeks, where weaving whatever is the norm.
I keep waiting.  Hoping.

Weaving helps me stay sane, folks.  It is the truth.  I wouldn't lie to you.
When everything seems to bear down hard, the simple motions of throwing the shuttle, beating in the weft, is like balm to my soul.
How cool is that, right??

I was the attendant or page of Queequeg, while busy at the mat. As I kept passing and repassing the filling or woof of marline between the long yarns of the warp, using my own hand for the shuttle, and as Queequeg, standing sideways, ever and anon slid his heavy oaken sword between the threads, and idly looking off upon the water, carelessly and unthinkingly drove home every yarn: I say so strange a dreaminess did there then reign all over the ship and all over the sea, only broken by the intermitting dull sound of the sword, that it seemed as if this were the Loom of Time, and I myself were a shuttle mechanically weaving and weaving away at the Fates. There lay the fixed threads of the warp subject to but one single, ever returning, unchanging vibration, and that vibration merely enough to admit of the crosswise interblending of other threads with its own. This warp seemed necessity; and here, thought I, with my own hand I ply my own shuttle and weave my own destiny into these unalterable threads. Meantime, Queequeg’s impulsive, indifferent sword, sometimes hitting the woof slantingly, or crookedly, or strongly, or weakly, as the case might be; and by this difference in the concluding blow producing a corresponding contrast in the final aspect of the completed fabric; this savage’s sword, thought I, which thus finally shapes and fashions both warp and woof; this easy, indifferent sword must be chance – aye, chance, free will, and necessity – nowise incompatible – all interweavingly working together. The straight warp of necessity, not to be swerved from its ultimate course – its every alternating vibration, indeed, only tending to that; free will still free to ply her shuttle between given threads; and chance, though restrained in its play within the right lines of necessity, and sideways in its motions directed by free will, though thus prescribed to by both, chance by turns rules either, and has the last featuring blow at events. (47.2)

(from Moby Dick)


I couldn't have said it better myself.