Twig is also the name of a genre of decoration. Twig tables. Twig chairs. Twig frames.

Those enormous Adirondack camps, white birchbark stuff, bent willow rustic chairs? All twig.​

I picked up a reference book on the subject at the library book sale over the winter and took the instructions at face value.

And then re-measured and cut most of them again, using my trusty loppers and a measuring jig Daddo would have been proud to see.

​Precision is not my middle name, but I was quite careful.  

Even knowing that the instructions were crap, I couldn't help but bemoan the injustice of it.

​Instructions that don't.

Measuring guides that don't.

Reference that isn't.

Jeesh.  

Eventually I wandered over to the square yard or so of good cell coverage at the Would-Be Farm –– in the middle of the field –– and Googled some help. Huh. Common theme of the Amazon reviews of the book:  

Life is not the only thing out there imitating art.

​Evidently Nature's in on it too. 

According to Edgar Degas, "Art is not what you see, but what you make others see."  And for that I might as well go ahead and apologize.  

I was thinking about the Alexander Pope quote, which was –– I thought –– Art is but Nature to advantage dressed.  Or, in this case, not dressed. I meant to rift extensively on part about being undressed. Low humor, sure, and possibly dragging in the topic of saggy pants.

But when I checked the quotation (From his Essay on Criticism, which is in strictest truth a poem), Pope actually wrote:
"True wit is Nature to Advantage drest,/What oft was Thought, but ne'er so well Exprest,/Something, whose Truth convince'd at Sight we find,/That gives us back the Image of our Mind."

Oh Alexander Pope, you navel-gazing noodler. 

I'm kind of proud of the asparagus.

The roots went into the ground in 2015. Of course I wrote about it. 

​Lo and behold, up they came. And up. And up.

So lush that the well-drilling guy stopped and marveled.

So enormous that my gardening neighbors ask –– with palpable envy –– how do we make them thrive?

So thick that I no longer have a view of the cool half-plough that Mr. Linton found for me. 

Uncontested success is rare on the farm. So when it arrives, we like to recognize and celebrate it.

All hail kale? 
Nu-uh: Rush lush Asparagus! 
​

​Not that any of us should wait for a special day to recognize the good fortune and lucky stars that has got us this far so far.  

But tis actually the season for this sort of thing. Plus feasting.  

Ah, feasting.  We have missed a few years of Thanksgiving in the States. So the groaning board seems novel this year, despite its familiar elements. 

Perhaps as time marches along, I'll see the evolution of the meal go farther yet afield.  Tofurky maybe, or into the funky Cajun science of the turducken.  Both of which appall my Yankee sensibility even as the latter –– wet bread filling notwithstanding ––does pique my curiosity.  

​Well, I promise to be thankful if I have the chance to see that.
 

​

Each year, Mr. Linton dreams up some Gucci modifications to the adventure boat: water ballast tanks, a foiling board, cassette rudders, a big old bowsprit.

​And he's back at it again.

Since the metal handicap-rail style hiking racks began to wrack, and it takes the better half of a small village to get the things pressed and warped into place, Mr. Linton has been cooking up a better idea.

Last year's water tanks (made of polycarbonate sheets)  point-loaded on the straps holing them in place, and after getting water-boarded by the mighty Gulf of Mexico the first night of the challenge, turned out to be less sturdy and consequently less water-tight than one might hope. 

Combine the these two elements, add in a salvaged carbon fiber A-Cat mast from the most excellent Robert Cummings of Cummings Marine, and design courtesy of OH "Ninjee" Rodgers, and the Spawn is taking new shape. ​

Folding carbon-fiber hiking racks.

Testing should begin within a few weeks.  

Trachinotis carolinas. Characterized by small silvery scales, forked tail, related to Jack-fish but highly valued for eating. ​

A Fishing Story –– Version 1
Caught me a biggun.  Though he had me whupped, but I turned the tables on his bipedal ass. Bootless meet toothless. How do you like them airless apples? Huh?  Swim like a fish much?

All he had to do was let go, but it's greed what catches em, every time.  Sparkle sparkle! Just let go and get back to your spot, but no. Gotta cling. Dunno why it's called landing when you reel one in. Land's the one thing they ain't much of in that situation, if you know what I mean. I figure he'll eat pretty good, give him a few days.


A Fishing Story –– Version 2
A short list of ways I've avoided writing today:  rearranged the fiction bookshelf, cleaned my stainless water bottle with bleach, followed by cleaning the bottle-brush. With bleach. Made a few calls. Perused Writer's Digest. Bootlessly researched a specific twitter from a specific Twit. Cleaned the keyboard with rubbing alcohol and q-tips. Listened to samples of Billie Martin's songs on iTunes.  Decided listing my excuses was nearly as good as writing anything. Words are words when you are trying for a daily word-count.

A Fishing Story – Version 3 
Swimming, swimming, swimming, biting at a shrimp.
Shrimp has sharp –– ow!
And damn! What the hell?
Swimming swimming, vaulting into air.
Tractor beam or something yanking.
Don't beam me up.
Swimming, running from the grasp.
Caught.

The shape of the land shows like the ribs of a hungry animal this early in the spring.
​
Waiting for the arrival of spring, Mr. Linton and I blazed a couple of new trails. It's easier to make a way without having to part that modesty-drape of leaves and grass.  

Naming the trails is surprisingly difficult, for what we end up calling them.

So, Broken Wagon Trail it is.

Okay, yes, it's not technically a wagon. Neither is it precisely broken. But Abandoned Hay Rake Trail doesn't have the same ring, does it? Plus Mr. Linton named it, and what he says, goes. Sometimes. This time. 

Back to the narrative.

​Late spring this year: even the old oaks seemed to be having a hard time waking up.

"Years ago," wheezed the oldster, arthritic knuckles whitening on the handle of the deluxe walker. "Years ago, artists had to use rubylith to separate each color for a color print."

Honking into a worn handkerchief, the dusty wheezer raised watery eyes and continued. "Hours I spent over a drafting table, X-Acto blade in hand, separating colors. The eye-hand coordination alone --!"

After a long pause, the lecture continued. "It took years to learn the tricks of the trade. Nowadays, all it takes is a ninety-nine cent app. Putting artists out of business. I don't know how they make a living any more."

Yeah, artists mostly don't make a living.

In honor of all of us antiquities who remember cutting ruby to separate colors, here's a timelapse video of the Rubylith process...

But those 99-cent apps are really fun:

In this highly digitized age, it's nigh on impossible to grasp the amount of work that went into, for instance, the 1939 movie The Wizard of Oz. This link describes the Technicolor process.

Such an effort to give the viewing public ruby slippers!