Dancing Orchard
It’s not too many photos of orchards that make me feel that the trees are all having a good time – spinnin’ a few tunes, let’s all twist and shout. Celebrate a new decade.
Happy 2010! Happy New Year!
Taking a Time Out
November 26, 2008 by 6 Comments
A Place to Rest © 2008 Bo Mackison
I am prepared for the craziness that will soon descend on my typically quiet home. Usually there are only two of us to make a mess, take a shower, fix a meal, get a little out of sorts. Today and tomorrow there will be 16 people, adults and teenagers, filling every nook and sleeping in every corner. I’m hoping there is no last minute clothing emergency because the washing machine was pronounced dead by the Maytag man on Monday, and a new one can’t be delivered until next week.
This photo is my solution if there are any situations that may require a time-out. I took this photo earlier this summer in northern Wisconsin, and it always brings back memories of nearly colllapsing in one of those blessed chairs after hiking for many hours. I was hot and tired and maybe – just maybe – a little cranky. But I leaned back in the chair, solid and comfortable, closed my eyes, and just rested for a while. Just relaxed in my own little space.
Gradually, I noticed a graceful breeze, brushing over me ever so gently, cooling away the hot stickiness. The sun tucked itself behind a few wandering clouds and provided a brief respite. I heard a few birds chattering in the branches above me, and grasshoppers were doing their thing in the tall grasses. It was only a short stop, maybe fifteen minutes, but it re-vitalized me in those few moments.
So if I need a time-out over the next few days, I know exactly where I’m heading. These chairs will be waiting for me, tucked in a cranny in my mind. And if I really get desperate and I need a visual reminder, I’ll pop open the computer, and just tell everyone I’m going to check my blog stats.
What’s that you say? I cannot check my stats in the middle of Thanksgiving dinner?
Hmmmmm.
Then maybe it would be better if I take a peek while everyone else is doing the dishes…
Mysterious Scandinavian Carvings
November 20, 2008 by 7 Comments
Scandinavian Wood Carving © 2008 Bo Mackison
I have admired these wood carvings since I first visited Sister Bay, a town in Door County in the northeastern part of Wisconsin, more than three decades ago. There are at least six statues I have examined, each maybe 3 or 4 feet in height, each carved and painted and polished. When I first saw them, they looked old. Every time I return, the cracks are a little deeper, but the figures’ eyes still peer with a glimmer of character.
Sister Bay was founded by Scandinavians in the 1850s and has a strong cultural heritage. I have asked many people, the people who live in the towns up and down the Door Peninsula, for information about these traditional carvings. No one seems to have any clue. Obviously, I’m asking the wrong people. Some one must know their history.
Finally, I decided to do a Google search, confident information would turn up. After all, isn’t everything on the Internet. Seems the answer to that is no. I can find nothing. Not a thing. They remain a big mystery.
So I’m hoping that by throwing this out into the Internet universe, someone may stumble on it, and shed some light to these mysterious carvings. They are just way too cool to remain so anonymous.
De-clutter? Not Even the Question!
October 8, 2008 by 6 Comments
Someone Else’s Junk ©2008 Bo Mackison
Why do we save the things we save?
When I moved to Chicago 33 years ago to attend school, I arrived with a suitcase of clothes and an army trunk full of bedding, towels, and everything else I owned. I bought a hot plate and rented a tiny refrigerator. After I got settled and met a few people, I somehow managed to collect other peoples’ cast-offs – and was mighty happy to get them. A folding bed, unfolded, doubled as a couch by day and a bed at night. I found a perfectly acceptable chair on the curbside waiting for the garbage pickup. Some hot water and soap revealed a wood chair made out of oak that gave me the option of offering a guest a seat on a chair or on the floor. Their choice.
Eventually I graduated, married, and started working…and accumulating. Accumulating stuff. Important stuff. Good stuff. But after 32 years of marriage and three kids, I have way too much stuff. Not all of it mine, mind you, but all of it is, well, stuffed into my house.
I recently read about a person who had survived both a flood that destroyed one home and a catastrophic fire that destroyed a second. She bemoaned the loss of work in her studio and her writing samples, her photographs and personal letters, but never once did I read any mention of any stuff. Makes me think I could do more de-cluttering than I already have.
A move into smaller quarters is on the horizon, though a rather far horizon – considering how not-so-quickly I accomplish huge projects. But now that our family of five has dwindled to two, we do not need to inhabit a 9 room house. The two of us have been examining architecture and dwelling spaces, and we are thinking it would be interesting and challenging to try to create a home that is truly designed for the way we live. Smallish, but full of interesting details and open spaces, both inside and out. I’ve been looking at a lot of Frank Lloyd Wright designs and adaptations, and I’m beginning to amass a notebook full of scrawls and sketches and resources and photographs.
But first – I have to get rid of some of this stuff. Think my kids want any of their stuff I’m storing? I’m sure Good Will will be happy to accept some of the extra, too. Maybe I should just pretend I’m moving cross-country and go on a stuff-reduction diet. Gulp!
Finding Red in the Woods
September 20, 2008 by 5 Comments
Red Nail © 2008
Not the kind of red I was anticipating on my hike in the woods. Red sumac? Looking. Red maple leaves? Still looking.
No. I found red nails from the decomposing wood frame of an old farm wagon.
Red Barrel © 2008
And a red barrel sitting where it ought not be sitting,
Red Screws © 2008
and red screws, more of the wagon frame.
It’s cool outside, my furnace has switched on the last two nights and I’m wearing sweaters in the house, but outside the leaves are still showing mostly green and my grass is in desperate need of a last cut for the year.
