No Bluebirds Today,

Another Attempt to Map the Land

I had started something else this past Thursday in a rough patch of not moving but didn’t share. This morning, after a uncatchable dream, I feel enlivened by possibility (the dream was full of that though entirely murky) and so I have this new ramble to share.

With so many ways of storytelling and so many places to share, in an attempt to bring it all together, I am becoming fragmented, and I don’t know how to undo that.

Instead of The Bluebird Story and This Earthen Door, and so much rain and trees falling, there is this reflecting from the weekend past.

Bluebirds, Another Story To Tell

Our Studio Tour came and went with much anticipation and preparation and exchange of stories. Running a predominantly online business, it is hard to know where gaps are left and which gaps matter. For example, should this be here, on Resounding Little Voices? Or over at Peg and Awl. Why is there even a Peg and Awl Substack. I am tangled.

Spring House Studio, where I most often work

My Springhouse Studio, the View from Temperature Terrace

Springhouse Studio through Snowdrops and across the Pond

Visitors are enamored with the green valley our little world is nestled into, along with the coziness of the barn, studio, house, &c, which, as communicated by friends — we don't share enough of! As we chattered with others — neighbors and artists and the art curious who were hearing our story, often for the first time, I began to realize how different in-person communication can be. How the magic of online is piecing together the snippets we see there with snippets of ourselves. This creates a different magic which is sometimes negated by a real experience, and other times only an entry point into another world. In our case, a world in which we are still building and will always be building as we (I, really) love change, and too, we are working in tandem with the land.

As a daily journaler and obsessive documenter, I know there is never a full story to tell and the moments that feel complete are fleeting. But all weekend long, through the words and reactions of others, I saw how special our little place in this big world is and would like to try to share some of it.

Sometimes the poetry is there because of the incompleteness. I worry in trying to share too much, I zap the magic. But you tell me. I don’t mind a criticism. I certainly have a lot of my own as I move through the world.

ThePeg and Awl Barn Workshop and Storefront

The Barn Workshop and Storefront Now! And my faviourite plant, Jack-in-the-Pulpit

A View from the House Side

The Barn Storefront and Workshop in Autumn

The House and the Inbetweens

We began digging trenches this week, to finally rebuild a porch around our house, and steps, and new garden beds. This, because 19th century stone is in the way of the pond project. It will be used to build a dry stack wall for steps, little gardens, and a porch, finally. We've been hopping in and out of the house for a year and a half now and my body may miss the effort of it two-and-a-half feet down and two-and-a-half feet up in snow, ice, rain, with a glass of something to not spill, things balanced, or something heavy, countless times a day.

Our House and the Porch-to-be. Walter is teaching us to dig trenches and fill them with stone, the the dry stack walls — made from stone from 19th c. Phila Church — will come next

The Pond

We are redoing the pond. Scraping the entire pond and making it, in the end, a healthy eco system that is swimmable and gardenable! We are not doing this ourselves — we’ve hired someone. More on this in July…

This is the pond, though you may not see the pond here

Temperature Terrace, from the Woodland

Temperature Terrace from the Woodland (Sauna, Shower, Cold Plunge)

Creatures

There is an abundance of life here, outside of my family. Here are some recent visitors.

Turtle!

Creatures Abound!

Little Windows

Through Little Windows I shared a Dry Point exploration through the land via plants, creatures, objects, &c. These are coming soon to our website!

Little Windows Dry Point Prints. Observations of the Land in Frames made here!

And here I am, back around to Aphantasia, or mind blindness. Now that I am here, I am not sure why I am sharing all of this. Or why I obsessively map and document. It could be because I have no internal visual container that I feel this endless pull to externally organize everything through journaling, photographs, and art.

The garden is a whole other story to tell…

But I have dirt and rocks to move.