Happy T Day!

many mini playscapes, will adorn the booth at this years
Winter Faire December 11th at OCS

Pops flies in each for the said bird each year for alas, old Blighty has no such excuse for early Turkey before Christmas and more than often it's a Goose!

Here in the U.S. of course, it's a great traditional get together of gratitude, fellowship and thanks. One of my favourite holidays actually. We have time off work to travel, share some cozy nesting time with family and friends, get our warm clothes out and on and play some games! Unfortunately it's also becoming an insane consumerism frenzied spend a thon.

I don't think I preach out here very much, but this seemed important enough to share a thought for how we choose to act during the holiday season.


This letter was sent to me today......

Each Thanksgiving, I think of Marie Tellismond. Two years ago on Black Friday, Marie lost her 34 year-old son, Jdimytai Damour. Jimmy-as his friends called him-was trampled to death while trying to protect a pregnant woman from a stampede of bargain shoppers at a New York Walmart.

Now, I've never met Marie Tellismond, but as a fellow mother, I am pretty sure she would give anything to have a day with her son again. Losing, or even coming close to losing someone we love, makes us get our priorities straight really, really fast.

Most of us have a choice this Friday that Marie no longer has. We can chose to leave the warmth of our beds before dawn, to sit in our cars in a parking lot at some mall and to spend the day searching for low prices on products which we don't really need and often don't event want, but getting them is all part of the Black Friday Frenzy. Or we have a choice to stay put with loved ones, to play board games and eat leftovers and maybe even play a game of football together.

If we're going to figure out how to build an economy and society that is healthy for people and the planet, this Friday is a good place to start. Let's opt out of the frenzy this year.

Please help me spread the word this Thanksgiving week.

With Gratitude,
Annie
Story of Stuff.

Suess-ical tree in La Jolla....truly though, he lived here!

Ahh Autumn!

I hope you enjoy this poem, it so perfectly captures the feeling essence of Autumn for me.

To Autumn
John Keats

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,
Drows'd with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,--
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

We went recently on an autumn hike to be inspired for playful free scape building in wool and to try and experience the feel of the new season. Treasures, not unlike the acorn pig nose, were found in the forestry route by the disappearing children along the winding pathways. A perfect walking staff for later carving in the winter was mine to have and hold, as was the breathtaking beauty of the playful wind painting with leaves that day! Though somewhat rocky in places, the children ranging from 2 -11 picked their way to the goal and were rewarded with a cool paddle in a small stream and some dried fruit.

treasure #1

treasure #2 and Little Gandalf monkeying around

hunters of forest treasure gather to plan their next steps..

On a completely different note, I have started writing a book that will hopefully be shared with the wide world upon it's completion...it's largely woolly in essence but will have some great creative and artistic goodies to share with felting fanatics!

in the works, quite large collaborative free-scape