Gone (not) Fishing

Saturday we drove to St. Marks for lunch. The Riverside Cafe still had grouper sandwiches, but that was it. We were having friends for dinner, & fresh fish – snapper or grouper – was on the menu. But we couldn't find any for sale. The fish dock next to the restaurant had none. Lynn's was closed. Lighthouse Seafood offered only mullet & shrimp. The waters around St. Marks are not closed to fishing, but it appears that there's little fishing going on."All the fishing boats are out looking for oil; they're not fishing," the woman inside told us. When we wished her well, she thanked us & said, "Things look bad."

Quilt collage postcard

I made this 4" x 6" postcard for Rodney, who is sick. I don't know if you can see the stitching around the images & edges. I love to send small, vulnerable cards in the mail with just a stamp, not even an envelope. It's kind of a miracle that they arrive. The poem is one of my favorites, It's the Dream by Olav Hauge:

It's the dream we carry

that something wondrous will happen,

that it must happen

time will open

hearts will open

mountains will open

spring will gush forth from the ground

that the dream itself will open

that one morning we'll quietly drift

into a harbor we didn't know was there.

Taste of blue

Patrick & Steph are rich in berries, & yesterday we picked some. Is that why they taste so good? For dessert I made cobbler, using my sweet biscuit recipe, with half & half instead of heavy cream. I just put the biscuits on top of the berries, mixed with sugar, lemon juice, & a little lemon rind. The rest will be beautiful with cantaloupe.

Blue in Apalachicola

I've been feeling low since Saturday, when we drove to Apalachicola on gorgeous Apalachicola Bay to deliver some life jackets from our old boat, Rosie. We sold them to a man who is working for BP, managing boaters who are searching for signs of oil. As of noon Saturday they hadn't spotted any in the waters around the little fishing town. The woman at the Visitors' Bureau told us that there is actually a rise in numbers of tourists, & there were people roaming the streets, shopping in the glaring sun. We saw this urgent sign at a fish house. I felt hard-hearted until we drove out of town, & the grasses & blue-greens & glow took my breath away.

Makes me think ...

The other day Clark was describing how we'll get around in the future: no cars, for one thing, but small, flexible, personal vehicles open like a bicycle, yet with a kind of invisible umbrella to protect the driver from the elements. Right, Clark ...

Today boingboing gives us a long video of another brilliant man who thinks the same. It's an RIP for William J. Mitchell of MIT & Smart Cities. He said automobiles are obsolete, we've got to design a shared-use vehicle that people lust after, & it's going to take cooperation to get a better system. Which is what Clark was saying. Makes me think.

Nutrition Plus

Looks kind of like granola. Tastes like the old days, when Mom would serve us leftover dessert for breakfast. Which is why I made Peach-Blackberry Crumble as soon as I got up today. That's our breakfast table, after the cereal & eggs were cleared away.

On the way home from Ohio, I stopped at a farm stand in South Georgia where the woman called me honey until I'd filled my bag with peaches, blackberries, tomatoes, & Vidalia onions. It was all so flavorful that Clark suggested we take a ride back there this weekend.

Use any fruit. Peel & slice & fill a 9" pan halfway up or more. I put in a little sugar to let the juice come out, but you can also moisten the fruit a bit with water. Then put this crumble on it & bake at 375° until it bubbles in the middle, 40-45 minutes.

Crumble Topping

Either cut in by hand or in the food processor until it looks like tiny pebbles:

3/4 C. flour

1/3 C. light brown sugar

1/2 t. salt

1/2 t. cinnamon

6 T. cold butter

Add by hand 1/4 C. rolled oats & 1/4-1/2 C. chopped toasted pecans or walnuts.

Quilt Surface Design Symposium

Quilt Surface Design Symposium

We call it a symposium because we're serious.

I am loving the energy.

Didn't take photos of others' work because there are lots of signs up asking you not to. With some artists it's OK, & not with others.

Above is the first exercise in Diane Herbort's fast-paced Paper & Fabric Collage. You choose a magazine page & chop it up & make a design. I had lots of my page left over for another paper quilt. I just happened too choose black & white, but color abounds in this workshop.

This is exercise 2 in Diane Herbort's Paper & Fabric Collage. You choose a black & white image from her stack & make a design that has some white or black background showing. I used some 3-D, & I agree with Diane that it might have been more effective without the squigglies. Next time!

Mid-Ohio Excitement

Warren County, Ohio, cornfield, as I approached Columbus from the south. The night I got there, June 2, we heard tornado sirens; no tornado! Big golf tournament at Muirfield, where Mary lives.

To see the lake

They're building an observation deck at Phipps; it's halfway through my run. A worker told me it's "para mirar al lago," to look at the lake. But Lake Jackson has receded. Far to the west you can see a line of blue. Closer, it's a lake of reeds & green, with birds, not fish.