Wild Wood Wanderer

I love this poem.

The Peace of Wild Things

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

— Wendell Berry

I downloaded the trial version of Photoshop Elements today.  I wanted to see how it compared with the CS3 version we have at work.  So far, I’m pretty impressed.  Since I won’t be doing any crazy editing and really just like playing with the artistic tools, I think it will suit my purposes.  Check out this liquefied leaf I did earlier today -

And…

Here are a few things that are OKAY with me:

1.  Letting my dog jump on my bed, even if her paws are dirty.

 2. Using frozen pie crust (for instant gratification).

 3.  Waking up early on my day off.

Name:  Dragon Donkey (Latin:  Donkus Dragonia)

Habitat:  A fascinating creature, the dragon donkey prefers to hide in the cavernous hollows under sofas or on high shelves far off the floor.

Predators:  The dragon donkey’s only known predator is the ever-happy house dog, who upon capturing the beast, tortures it to death, seeming to delight in watching its innards rain around them in torrents of cotton.

Note:  This picture of the dragon donkey out in the wild captures him in a rare moment of bravery and spontaneity.  Unfortunately, his boldness was rewarded only by the keen-eyed house dog, who captured him and immediately began the horrific torture rituals.  We have not, at this time, been able to recover the dragon donkey and fear that he may be resting on that final shelf up in the sky.

Fun weekend.  Friday night we went to Hunter’s Head Tavern in Upperville, which I think is my new favorite place.  We ate upstairs in a room with wooden floors and a fireplace, at an old farm table.  I had the vegetarian shephard’s pie, and it was a perfect meat-substitute for the hearty stews of winter I miss already.  I also had two pints of cider, so the entire meal sent me back to the streets of Scotland.

Annie and I went thrift store shopping on Saturday morning, starting in Upperville.  Our greatest find was a Diane von Furstenberg wrap dress, bought for a mere $5.   We also left with a shimmery white dress and orange scarf (see pics above).  Feeling fortune was with us, we went on to Middleburg to the White Elephant and the Humane Society’s shops, but our luck left us right about the same time it started pouring.  Though we didn’t find any other great deals that morning, we tramped up and down the wet streets, bought a couple of snicker doodles at Upper Crust Bakery and a few other treats at Wylie Wagg for the pups waiting back home.  We warmed up later that night with tomato basil soup, bread, cheese, and wine.  Delicious!

This morning, Dad cooked cream of wheat while I fed Maggie’s heifer (soon to be cow), Ginny.  Maggie has a radio that plays music 24/7 so Ginny will get used to excess noise when she goes to shows.  Evidently, Ginny prefers rap.  So I danced my way over to her trough and fed her.  I think she was impressed.

 I bought a new camera and used Elsie as my model.

This is how she felt about it.

Saw this video from the ‘Best of Youtube’ podcast.  Thought I’d share…

From www.allrecipes.com.  Click here to see the original entry.

INGREDIENTS

• 1 recipe pastry for a 9 inch double crust pie
• 1/2 cup unsalted butter
• 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup water
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
• 8 Granny Smith apples - peeled, cored and sliced

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees F (220 degrees C). Melt the butter in a saucepan. Stir in flour to form a paste. Add water, white sugar and brown sugar, and bring to a boil. Reduce temperature and let simmer.
2. Place the bottom crust in your pan. Fill with apples, mounded slightly. Cover with a lattice work of crust. Gently pour the sugar and butter liquid over the crust. Pour slowly so that it does not run off.
3. Bake 15 minutes in the preheated oven. Reduce the temperature to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Continue baking for 35 to 45 minutes, until apples are soft.

Wish I was there.

(Photo courtesay of Barry)

We went apple picking at Stribling’s Orchard on Sunday.  I was on the hunt for Golden Delicious, while my mom grabbed a half-bushel of Stayman.  We also picked a few large Granny Smith that will be perfect for baking apple pies.  There were a lot of people there, but somehow even in the chaos of kids throwing apples and fathers yelling for their wives to wait up, it was comforting to be around bountiful nature.  While city crowds seem to only consume and deplete, the people at Stribling on Sunday were there for the adventure and the elusive connection to nature that NoVa suburbs are without.

My favorite picture from Hawaii.