Sunday, April 29, 2012

Wildflower Ride in Paradise

My son in law is up in the area today, well down the hill actually with his parents in Chico. This weekend is the infamous 100 mile bike ride race. It's actually for those who are insane. We live on the top of some buttes, that's why they call it Butte County. Sometimes youngsters delete the 'e' on the state sign posts and for a while we are all butt's, I always smile when I come back from San Francisco and see the changed sign. I live with butts .... too funny. Anyway I digress, so we live 2000' above the valley floor, and the cliffs resemble the Grand Canyon, only on a smaller scale. There is a road called Honey Run, that virtually climbs straight up the cliffs. It's one lane, they say it's two, it isn't. AND there is no honey about it, it's not a sweet ride it's a nightmare and terrifying honestly. Do not drive this road. When you cross the covered bridge, turn back and save your sanity. Anyway this is rather the beginning of the ride from Chico, hence me saying it's insane. Of course later there's the climb up Table Mountain to the plateau. I remember back 2006 and Dan did this right before the wedding, I wasn't very nice when I think I said you will be at the wedding even if we have to prop you up, do not have an accident. He didn't thankfully. So on to other things Etsy is all in a dither they apparently are not as focused on handmade as they used to be, which is rather sad in a way. I know things evolve. However, in this day and age where evolution has taken a turn for the worse especially in the growing of plants and foods, where GMO is ruining the future. And more and more folk are returning to growing and nurturing the land by hand and using heirloom seeds. This move by Etsy almost seems to fly in the face of a new revolution taking place. I'm not sure in the long term that this bodes well for Etsy. It might, but I think the handmade concept being an exclusive thing on Etsy has shrivelled drastically especially for their client base. Quite sad to watch and read about. There is a forum thread about show your hands, and in a way was why I was posting today. I'm older, made my bones so to speak in the corporate world. Now my hands made my life happy. I dig, weed, cook, paint, create, knit, embroider, sew. I owe all to my Mother who did all of this so well, and she wrote, poetry and words that I treasure. She also loved opera. A vastly superior person to me, I just do the basics, and that's fun, I love simple, can't do complicated things. I am outspoken, because I can't dissemble well. I speak from the soul and gut. I do know I'm not malicious so that's good, and I don't do envy. So back to today, I baked bread for the first time since I was in Domestic Science at Sir Thomas Bennett in Crawley. My creation today, is f'ing awesome, smells great, the hubby loves it and it was cheap to do, and not labour intensive. Seriously a lazy bread bake :) And this is the blog where I found the recipe, seriously do not throw this link away, you will need it one day. So with these old hands I baked bread today, I finished sewing up a thing that my daughter saw on Pinterest out of linen and cotton, and managed to redesign and create something that I think she can throw on and be happy wearing.