magic seeds

At the beginning of this year I was gifted a few rare seeds.

They were planted and watered and fussed over.
They grew
and bloomed
and fruited.
I've waited
and waited
and waited.

thread harvest

April planting of five Upland Cotton seeds.
September harvest of fourty-five bolls.
A boll is made up of four to five sections holding four to eight seeds.
Attached to each seed surface are many many fibers each of which is an outgrowth of a single cell that develops in the surface layer of the seed.
In the beginning the fiber cell elongates to its full length as a thin–walled tube. As it matures, the fiber wall is thickened by deposits of cellulose inside the tube, leaving a hollow area in the center. When the growth period ends the living material dies, and the fiber collapses and twists about its own axis.
Each boll may hold up to 500,000 fibers.

Some prepare all those fibers before spinning by removing the seeds one by one and combing the fibers to roll them into little pencil sized punnis.
With my handspindle I spun directly from the soft seeded mass. The fibers tearing from the seed bit by bit.
What will one boll make?

One spool of course.
The cotton still blooms and a second harvest has nearly arrived.

Oranges are Florida's state flower

painting by Mary E. Eaton via wikipedia

In case you missed it, this Sunday's NYtimes magazine includes an article written by Micheal Pollan addressed to the next President. The article proposes solutions to our need to dramatically reduce our dependance on oil through altering our food supply system to be predominantly regionally based and argues that it would make our country safer, healthier, more efficient, and less polluted. As a Floridian who regularly sees California and South African oranges sold in Publix grocery stores, often without a Florida orange in sight, this strikes a chord. Why are we sold fruits from over a quarter world away when orange groves blanket the state?

We cannot depend on oil to feed us anymore. We can only prosper if we can feed ourselves locally and with ecological farming systems. This is true whether we live in a 'third world' nation or a 'first world' one. Please take the time to read Pollan's article, he's a smart one.

*update* Fresh Air had an interview with Pollan about his open letter today 10/21. You can listen here.

Growing Fiber Update

cotton

flax

Transplanted these recently to better soil and they seem to be happier.

sown April 7th

remnants

of a missed emergence

looked in cracks and corners for brown or grey
wings at rest
peered in the lamp's inner sanctum for a caged thing
to no avail
they were but smoke

spin(dle)

Everything is spinning these days. Living in a college town means feeling its pulse quicken at the end-of-semester, exam stress and excitement of summer plans reach through all of us and quicken our own, regardless of our associations with the school.

Taking a tiny break this week from watching the wheel spin to notice the caterpillars on my snapdragon flower arrangement consuming only the blossoms, decided to raise them up to see what kind of butterfly they'd be, feeding their voracious jaws more snapdragons from my garden hoping they'd spin too. Instead most of them disappeared, save one, who mysteriously declined to make a cocoon and burrowed into some cheesecloth near the flower vase, laid there for a few days bloating until I looked again and it had cast off it's soft green skin in exchange for a hard brown one. When touched, its tail wiggles an ineffectual protest. Looked up this mysterious behavior of digging and it seems it may becoming a moth. Apparently butterflies tend to make cocoons while few moths like to burrow.
Hopefully handling it this way won't kill it. Strange isn't it? The deep black eye stares, and while that delicate strand of antennae and wing veins emboss the shell. Fully self-contained and carefully packed, its wings grow, pleating and folding, perfectly aligned parcels. When it exchanges this skin for the next, it will pump nearly all of the body's blood into the wing's hollow capillaries stretching them out until dry, when it will pull its blood back into the body and swim in the air. Until then it lays buried, sleeping, changing; meditating on what it will become as it's cells respond.

Thoughts dwelling on my little moth drawing I made after my mom died- moth(er).

Finally started spinning the wool washed and carded in November. The staple of the wool is short, maybe 2 inches and my tendency is to spin it thin, not yarn but thread really, its thickness wavers a bit like some of the powerlines I watch so carefully, both undulating heartbeats whispering stories about the creation of civilization as we know it. This beginnning from the most raw material building toward the destination, even when unknown, suits me, I love knowing and controlling every step. My tiny garden now includes cotton and flax seedlings to explore this more. The cotton seeds are from cotton bolls I picked in Georgia in November, the flax are from my local grocery store. They were planted on a whim, so a bit late on the cotton and maybe the wrong season for flax.
cotton seedlings 3 1/2 weeks old
flax 3 1/2 weeks old
white acre peas 4 days old (not destined to be fiber, just food)