Pondering; pending

Lately I've been bugged by my lack of blogging mojo but was unable to overcome it. I knew it was tied to bigger issues but was unable to outline them. Ugh; "unable" is not a sustainable position for me. I was raised to "do something;" that's what my immigrant grandparents and great-grandparents did and taught. Ah, immigrants.... I personally know ONE full-blooded Native American; the rest of us just got lucky. Lucky that our ancestors weren't banned from this country for one reason or another (MANY groups have been excluded or vilified over the years), or lucky they found their way here by hook or by crook in spite of laws or prejudice (ever heard of stow-aways?). Interesting that in Bible prophecy all "kingdoms" or world powers are described as rising out of the "sea," which it defines as "peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues" – in other words, nations that arise out of other nations in populated lands. All but one kingdom, that is. That world power rises out of the "earth" or unpopulated place and is described as starting out "lamb-like" but changes to speaking as a dragon and uses deception and force. I know how the story ends (hallelujah!), but it's still a very uncomfortable place to live right now....

I'm getting ahead of myself, though. I've been pondering ways around my writer's block, ways to deal with this unease I'm feeling. I needed to name it, define it, acknowledge it and move past it. "Pending" came to mind while I did chores yesterday morning. Aha, a place to start; a word that might be the key that opens the lock! So to merriam-webster.com I went to look up synonyms and sort my thoughts; I guess it worked, because here I am. Anyway, now that I've acknowledged, at least in part, the elephant in the room, I can move on to the mundane, in no particular order.

The hens are still laying bountifully – more bountifully than I have room or market for! So I purchased a mini-muffin pan and am freezing eggs for next winter, when supply doesn't meet demand.

Summer cycles of watering, weeding, and picking in the garden are in full swing. Last night after pesto pasta made from the first picking of our basil, Rick and I picked strawberries for the fourth time; I have 15 pints in the freezer and we've enjoyed them fresh and in a strawberry/rhubarb cake. Brian picked the first container of raspberries for the freezer and we all sampled the boysenberries, but the red currants had to wait. The tomatoes all have cages now and the snow peas have a trellis line.

There seem to be a lot more songbirds around this year. I wonder if it's because of all the development on our hill (unhappy thought), but I'm glad we can provide some habitat and food. The Western bluebirds and the violet-green swallows are working on round two in our nest boxes; we're thrilled about that!

There's not much blooming right now, except for the Stella D'Oro daylilies in the island and the orange flowers (still can't remember their name) in front of the house – and they just keep going, and going, and going, bless their sunny faces.

I finally got the last of the fleeces skirted, weighed, and posted on Ravelry, including two from last year that I didn't get marketed well because of dealing with my dad. Two were snapped up the first day, Bogie (lighter) and one of Vienna's (darker).

My own creative/crafting engine has been idling if not dead (hence the blogging lapse), but this Friday should be a good jump-start. I've been intending to learn how to ply-on-the-fly with my Jenkins Turkish spindles but haven't ever sat down with tools and YouTube videos to "just DO it." So when Wanda Jenkins mentioned in a blog post that she was going to be teaching a class on PoF at Black Sheep Gathering, I decided to go for it. I'll get to see my friend (and will be driving to BSG and back with another friend), provide a little financial support (Wanda has bigger dental problems than I had 😣), learn something new, and get hooked on creating something again. I'm excited!

Anticipation is so much better than brooding at . . .