jude-hsiang.bsky.social
Gardener
Dyer/instructor (plants, lichens, fungi)
Knitter
Weaver
Mainer
261 posts
207 followers
122 following
Regular Contributor
Active Commenter
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❤️
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Gogi (Lycium barbarum) leaves--delicious stir fried--were harvested from our Central Maine plants which are descended from plants my mother-in-law found in NJ about 50 years ago. The stems will become woody & thorny, and our growing season is too short to produce the popular nutritious berries.
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Yes Joni, we all die. But what will we leave behind?
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An ancestor--looks odd enough to fit in with the current generation.
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See Poet Donald Hall's String Too Short to be Saved.
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My husband got a bunch of folks in China, Maine, to start a community garden. After 6 months of planning and fundraising, and weeks of rain, we're finally planting. This photo of a CT friend's community garden bed was part of the publicity spamming of the local FB page. It's happening!
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Yay! The library in China Village, Maine, has a seed library, too.
Our librarian is an artist so we have a very beautiful display including an antique 4-raw card catalog for some of the seeds, gardening books, and posters.
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Lovely!
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I can smell it--wonderful1
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Maine Fiber Frolic is 2 weeks away and I'm looking over materials used in past natural dyeing workshops I've led there. These yarns are part of an ongoing project: "Dyeing Maine Fibers with Maine Plants." After almost 50 years of dyeing I'm going to start experimenting with inks and paints.
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That looks great. I rarely bake because it leads to eating, but this might challenge my favorite--lemon buttermilk pound cake.
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I get check Goodwill, etc., for mine. Or cheap stainless steel, which is thin, but I'm not boiling anything. If enamel cracks, the underlying steel will rust and change colors and can also damage wool, silk, etc. A 4-5 gallon size works well enough for me.
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The 3 Baptisia clumps grown from your seeds are doing well. Still small, but that's expected. ❤️
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Logwood tends to fade to gray, so it's a good dye, but not one of the very best. The color can shift with temperature and pH changes.
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Natural dyeing? The rule is never use a dyepot for food, but a canning pot would be OK. A dyepot should be non-reactive, e.g. stainless steel or enamel with no cracks in the enamel. I recommend Wild Color by Jenny Dean. Or Maiwa.com or Botanicalcolors.com for free, trustworthy instructions.
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Hickam's dictum states: "A man can have as many diseases as he damn well pleases."
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If I had the time and money to travel, I would be heading your way from my home in Maine. I hope US folks will visit their beautiful, civilized neighbor to the north (or east.)
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Nice! Looks like our windows which we hope to see through--and wash--soon
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Preparing for the crafty season. I teach natural dyeing--mostly with plants. This one of the photos I use for publicity
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Yet this administration that wants (white) people to have more kids.
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Spring has come to central Maine. These plants have overwintered in the house and will return to the garden and window boxes in a few weeks.
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It's a rainy weekend here in Central Maine but I've counted the ramps I planted last year--18 of the 20 survived. Our little property had none despite having the perfect location. We'll watch them for a few years before we think about picking one.
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Happy Independant Bookstore Day from a retired independent bookstore buyer.
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Coming to a North American country soon.
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Up here in Maine, all the windows are full of trays of seedings. A few have already been moved to our little, unheated greenhouse, but there it will be about 6 weeks until we can safely transplant most out to the gardens.
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Is anyone surprised?
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Many years ago--when the US was a law-abiding country, some relatives came to the US on a business visa. While here, their home country went through a revolution. The US didn't recognize the "new" country and therefore couldn't depot them. Limbo! It took years, but they became US citizens.
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A Japanese style work apron resting mid sewing. Wood for a kayak cockpit is steaming before being bent to shape. We're busy here today.
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I got some pleas for $ from his campaign. Told them I'm a Social Democrat (if not further left) and if he was even a wishy-washy moderate Democrat I might consider supporting him.
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Which Camden?
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Starting seeds, knitting, doing no harm.
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I love semicolons, semi-colons?...semicolons.
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Wordplay is delightful, but these people aren't playing.
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I think about numbers. Trump & Co. have done 100s of terrible and downright things illegal in 70-and-counting days. However, there are millions of Americans in opposition. Instead of despairing, if we each focus on only one outrage to focus on in our own small way, we will overcome.
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Wow! I doubt the April 1967 Peace Parade (my personal standard of measurement) was as large as this .Even a FL golfer might hear about these gatherings.
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Maine won't yield.
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2 Maine seniors here. Having lived in NYC we knew well how loathsome Trump was and is. Horrified by this 2nd term! We are grateful, and rather surprised, to have received some $ to help heat our little house through 2025. Not counting on this, or Social Security (95% of our income), for the future.