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Farmers are obliged to be patient. After all, can one hurry the sunlight? Or rush the rain? Grow-lights and sprinklers aside, our ability to bend Mother Nature to our will is pretty puny. I know this.  But the Would-Be Farm follows this particular lesson plan over and over and over. So here's me, learning. Since 2014, I have purchased and planted more than 25 fancy apple trees. At present, a dozen summers later, 7 trees still stand. I think there were five separate elderberry plantings before the current crop of survived deer incursion. Four different plum varieties passed quietly into the past, leaving Black Ice and native wild plums (but ones I paid good money for, and planted, and nursed gently) still putting out leaves in the spring.
These apple trees still standing have survived being lifted after I planted them too deep. They have recovered from deer and porcupine predation. They've resisted killing cold, drought, and flooding rains. They've kept going after tent caterpillar attacks and Japanese beetle bombardment, and countless forms of ick—all without the kinds of chemical aid most commercial growers use. And <happy sigh> this year, I have my first Honeycrisps, and Katherine's Favorites from those tough little trees.  She's no monster, but it's a Honeycrisp apple at long last. I'm grateful, sincerely, to see the result of patience. It's been such a pleasure to watch these plants (mere twigs when I planted them) finally attain "taller-than-deer-graze" height. It's a miracle to have a year like this one: no late frost, very little bug pressure, plenty of pollinators, enough rain and plenty of sun to produce—VOI-freakin-LA!–an actual crop of intentional fruits. It's an extraordinary year for the Would-Be Farm for fruit. The countless feral apples (planted fifty and more years ago and neglected for decades) across the two old homesteads are bent to the ground with heavy fruit. Some are delicious, some are even girthy. The smell of cider and overripe apples is intoxicating along the driveway.  These apples are plentiful, though frankly they are not pretty individuals, since we avoid the chemical helpers that would keep spots and dents from forming, but a couple of trees produce nice big fruit that makes solid apple-pies and toothsome pie-adjacent morsels.  In other fruit news, I've been plucking juicy blackberries along the pathways since July. The buckthorns (not edible for me, but still) are COVERED with dark berries. The bird cherries, looking like a dollhouse-sized fruit on a full-sized tree, made enough of an appearance that I had a handful. My planted plums, even fighting off some weirdo fungal disease, have hundreds of fruits. And for once, neither bear nor grey fox, not birds or rabbits, not deer and not even woodchucks have done damage to the orchard. I harvested Aronia berry this year –– Aronia or chokeberry is an astringent kind of fruit with tiny seeds, like a bitter blueberry. I've learned that when a fruit is "best used in jellies, jams, or syrups," it means that sugar is required to make that fruit acceptable to the human tongue. Having been a sucker for a good plant catalogue description, my collection of astringent fruits include, but are not limited to
By the way, alert readers will note that all these are ALSO known as super fruits, full of health-boosting compounds and very dark-staining pigments. After working with the berries, my hands could stand in for Lady MacBeth's. All the water in Neptune's ocean will not wash them clean.  But Aronia. It's a hearty brushy shrub that's been steadily producing clusters of dark berries without fail for a decade. After the first couple of years ("Oh, maybe these will get sweeter after a frost." and "Ooh, how about a little heat and sugar to make them a little less tooth-enamel-shrivelingly bitter."), I left the Aronia for the locals. The flowers are attractive to pollinators and I've heard that birds find the berries life-sustaining at the end of winter when everything tastier has been eaten. But in August, even the Aronia was bowed down under the weight of a heavy year. And if Amazon can get $35 a pint for Aronia juice, isn't it worth the experiment—virtually for free—to extract some of this superfood juice?
I harvested a mixing bowl of fruit, cleaned them of stems and unripe individuals, froze them, and then popped the berries into a blender. No sugar, no water, a whirr of the blades, and the result was a slurry of vivid fruit bits in a big Mason jar.
I gave it a day in the fridge, and then used a fine mesh bag to extract the juice from the pulp. Many internet gurus suggested keeping the pulp and seeds for flavoring balsamic vinegar, but my hideously stained hand to heaven, I have been nursing a single bottle of balsamic for three years. I just don't use it enough to make it worth my while. My compost pile is just that much more healthy, right? That mixing bowl yielded half a pint of thick juice. It's still astringent, but I think some of the bitterness lives in the seeds, which were removed in the mesh bag.  So pretty and the color of dark rubies, it just has to be good for a person, right? While wandering around with the mixing bowl of Aronia, I noticed—how did it evade my notice for a decade? How!?—a 25-foot-tall black cherry tree on the edge of the home field. Like every other fruiting tree this summer on the Would-Be, it was co-ovv-covered with fruits. A wild black cherry is tiny, a bit smaller than a small marble, with a large pit (stone), like a domestic cherry but tiny. The flavor is subtle and layered: astringent yes, but most assuredly cherry.
Thank you, O internet, for providing guidance on this one: an easy use of the black cherry is to mash it manually (don't use a blender, as the pit of a cherry contains a kernel which in turn contains a compound call amygdalin.
Amygdalin converts into cyanide when digested. And even in tiny amounts, we like to avoid ingesting cyanide), add some sugar, and let it decoct with alcohol to make Cherry Bounce or, more as we might call it more genteelly, cherry cordial. As I'm sure I need not say, but I will, but Cherry Bounce was favorite of the OG cherry-chopper himself, George Washington. Martha Washington had a recipe.  This nectar is also well known among the moonshining community of North Carolina. It looks and smells delicious so far, but it's going to age for a few weeks before give it some sampling attention.
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When last we left our heroes, they were ankle deep in epoxy and carbon fiber, building a 20-foot-long adventure boat for the 2026 Everglades Challenge event next spring.  My handsome skipper and his talented boat designer pal OH Rodgers had agreed to a plan and constructed the mold for the hull, the deck, and the tanks, as well other bits and bobs like the centerboard trunk. They stocked up on two-part tropical epoxy (it cures slower than regular epoxy), yards and yards of carbon fiber and fiberglass, plus rubber gloves. And they made stuff.  Consider a brief metaphor for boat-building: Imagine being at a supper party, where you've idly dabbed a finger into the puddle of melted wax at the base of a candle flame.  There's a thin line, thermodynamically speaking, between wax that scalds and the stuff that's too cool to adhere to a fingertip. You're pretty good at this, however, and you've managed to make a smooth watch cap of wax for your index finger.  Now your quest becomes how and when to remove it. Wait too long and it's brittle and will crack into messy fragments. Go too soon, and the wax pulls and distorts. In a nutshell, that is what it is to build a boat from a mold.  So when I suggest we take a moment to celebrate the good news was that each of the boat's components successfully parted company with its mold, I mean it.  A breath in silence, if you please, to express our gratitude to the genius loci of the boatyard for this not inconsiderable success. A hearty thank-you also to the gang of friends who helped. What's next on the project? Summer vacation, actually. The hull and deck are stacked atop one another (but not yet attached) and trussed like the cargo box going into a tramp steamer.  But instead of going abroad, the boat has been hoisted like a particularly large piece of stage scenery into the very rafters of OH's barn. Both of our intrepid builders have summer vacation plans, and the shipyard will shutter up for a few months.  And what of the weighty and unwieldy molds, such as the team spent so much time and energy creating? They too hit the road for the summer: friend Tony Pocklington has carted them off so that he might build a sister vessel to Jeff's. Twinsies!  So while the boat hovers in the literal wings, TwoBeers idly plans the mechanical details and specs of the water-ballast pumps he's hoping to install once the boat-building season comes back around.
 When last we left my particular hero, Mr. Linton was setting off on a sailing adventure among the alligators and what-not. Happily, he and his buddy Jahn were safe and successful on this latest Everglades Challenge, and have since returned to shore. This never being a foregone conclusion, insert respectful pause here while I explore my gratitude. Because himself, after catching up on sleep, did not pause for longer than a moment. After returning home and washing and packing up the gear and the boat, TwoBeers waded right into the river of work that is boat-building. Having made the hull, he went right at the rest of the boat. In any mold-built operation, having a mold handy just in time is key to getting things done. This has meant Jeff stops by Home Depot for another load of plywood on his way to OH's place every few days. Space is always a challenge. It takes room and ventilation to build a boat; I think the equivalent of boat-building is making and decorating a big batch of fancy sugar-cookies, where every inch of counter space is covered with some potentially messy yet vital part of the process.  Many cooks will not spoil the sloop. To make this boat, you'd need molds for the 20-foot long hull, a cockpit sole (the sort of flooring inside the boat, at around 18 feet long), the deck (which keeps the splashes out of the front of the boat, and is around 10 feet long), and water-ballast tanks. For those keeping track, know that the centerboard and rudders are a project for another season.  The cockpit sole vacuum-bagged and curing. In the interest of conserving real-estate and effort, Jeff and OH built a single mold for both cockpit sole and deck.  These bulkheads, later combined with beams and stringers, will help keep the hull in shape. They slipped that mold right into the project as it lays—a hull mold with fiberglass and carbon already done a few weeks back—and went to work on the cockpit sole. The sole will sit maybe 8 or 10 inches up from the hull, allowing for floatation, strength, and running space on the barky. When finished it will rest on bulkheads and stringers. The team settled bulkheads temporarily in place so everything fits as it ought, and then used the same program of sandwiching a piece of foam between layers of resin-soaked carbon fiber to lay up the cockpit sole.  Here's the deck, which will fit over the bow of the boat. After it cured, they pulled the sole away from the mold (muscles!), stacked it, and commenced making the deck. Oddly, the next day, they discovered a square foot or so of deck where the sticky resin did not "kick." So instead of baking itself into tough, crispy goodness, one random section remained sticky and limp. The cure was to cut the spot out and patch it.  Patched. Why did it happen? Perhaps a bit of the resin didn't get thoroughly mixed with the accelerator—the tiny channel of liquid at the bottom edge of the can, perhaps. Repairs were the work of mere minutes. Imagine a layer-cake made of dreams, black carbon, and plywood: the hull mold is on the bottom, with a hull on it, with the decanted sole on top of that, with the sole-mold now holding the deck icing on the top. The whole cake o dreams has been, as I type, hoisted into the rafters to make room for the next thing.  Look! In the sky! Is it a bird? A plane? Water-ballast tanks were next on the punch-list. For this, Jeff used 1/4 inch masonry board, a slightly more flexible option than plywood, to make the mold. It's fought a noble fight, has the masonry board, but is beginning—after making forms for the stringers and a box-shaped water tank—to return to the dust from which it was made.  A water-ballast tank. One of a pair. When construction is complete, the water tanks will be integral to the hull. On Spawn, the water tanks are part of the praying-mantis aspect of the boat: when on the trailer, the water tanks fold up.  What is the point of water-ballast tanks? Keeping in mind that sailing is a dynamic balance between two fluids: air and water. Air flows over the sails, creating lift. Water flows over the centerboard or keel, also creating lift. To maximize the amount of flow, sailors work to keep the mast pointing up and the keel pointed down. We use our body weight for this, but as a solo sailor, my beloved skipper will not be able to have me scootch out a bit farther. Instead, he'll flip a switch and pump saltwater into a tank and multiply the power through the magic of leverage. Without the companionship, but still.  Vacuum ahoy! A third water tank will appear in the middle of boat, and is designed, I am sure you're glad to know, to permit the skipper to tell the boat to simmer down when things get a little too—let's say—lively. I picture Fred Flintstone putting one big foot down to slow his roll. Important construction note: wherever the boat "sees" sunlight, my favorite boat builder has applied a coat of traditional e-glass fiberglass. Carbon fiber, for all of its charms and beauties, does not like UV. Carbon also hates a sudden impact, such as might occur in conjunction with an oyster bed or—heaven forfend!—should someone drop a bottled beverage onto it. Fiberglass, however, is fine with careless bottle treatment, scoffs at scuffs, and tries to resit the sun a bit better.  Thanks for the helping hands, gang! Next steps: reinforcing the bulkheads and glassing them in, as well as inserting stringers so that the structural grid of the hull is complete.
Without a lot of folderol or fancy-dance, allow me to present an update from the magnificent boatbuilding center of our universe: west central Florida.
When last we left our team of my favorite skipper and his boat-designing buddy OH Rodgers, they had finished much of the hull of the mold and were departing for diverse sailing venues. Sailing done, they returned to the forge and got right to it. Using the same plywood + strakes technique, they created sides for the boat's mold. OH, with a bit of extra morning at his disposal, whipped up the mold for the centerboard trunk.
The construction project looks like a sled, or a boat, but this is in fact a mold, so it becomes vital to make what looks like the interior of the hull (but which is in fact the outside of the boat-yet-to-be) SUPER smooth.
Nobody wants that cupcake to get stuck in the baking tin.
So a day or two of putty, sanding, and waxing ensued.
As well as yet another shopping spree. (yay local economy!)
This time, it was Fiberglass Coatings in St. Petersburg, Florida. Where 8-ounce e-glass, some sheets of plastic foam divinylcell, and epoxy resin —the tropical, slow-cure kind—followed Mr. Linton home.
There was also a mail order to Miami for...tah dah! 50 yards of carbon fiber.
Not that we need the refresher, but when fabricating something like a boat, a pool, or the body of a Nascar vehicle, fiberglass has been the material of choice since the 1950s. And by "fiberglass" I mean actual glass fibers plus a polymer resin. The glass fibers are woven into a cloth (which was briefly in vogue as a home-decorating option. No wonder we have so many allergies.) The fabric is solidified by the resin, while the polymer is strengthened by the fiber. Fast forward to the early 1980's when carbon "whiskers" or fibers started to substitute for glass fibers. Carbon is lighter and more rigid, making it ideal for things like racing car parts and boat hulls, plus (bonus!), carbon fibers are not natively irritating like glass, which is why it's also great for human prosthetics and sporting goods. And of course it's dead sexy. 
At this point the build really begins.
Jeff first cut out and pieced together the foam core that would be sandwiched between layers of fabric. And numbered those pieces so that they could be reset within the mold. Then he pulled them out and stacked them to the side. 
At long last: the outermost layer! Jeff smoothed 8-ounce fiberglass cloth over the mold, making sure it was quite flat to the waxed wood. The fiberglass (white) is sturdier than the carbon (black) when it comes to abrasion and sharp impacts. You know, as one might encounter on an oyster bed in Florida Bay.
So on top of the fiberglass goes a layer of carbon fiber fabric. Both fabrics went on dry. 
That white stuff under foot is traditional fiberglass, while the black fabric is carbon.
The fabrics are woven loosely enough so that they can turn a bit of a corner without distorting.
Like a good Little Black Dress, the tailoring should be exquisitely simple and fiendishly expensive.
With the two layers of fabric in place (and held there precariously with blue painters' tape), Jeff called in his brother.
Brother John is a skilled carpenter who has been busy rebuilding his house after the hurricanes, but he cheerfully gave up a day of progress to help get the foam core "buttered" and placed. A generous dollop of resin was first squeegeed onto the fabrics, soaking, say, the floppy bottom slice of bread in a syrupy layer of condiment. Then the crunchy structural middle of the sandwich: the foam. To make this part work, OH showed John how to mix the resin into a thicker putty, and John commenced applying it to the foam. The process is a bit like setting tile: you grab the tile, apply tile cement to the underside, and then flip it into place. Only this "tile" is the size of a big unfolded pizza box, the surface is drippy wet cloth, and the adhesive is resin that cures at an alarmingly rapid pace. 
Our heroes constructed a giant open-face sandwich quickly, setting core from bow to stern. Another layer of carbon fiber cloth finished the sandwich, with resin generously squeegeed on top.
This was no panini, however lovingly grilled by fine Italian craftspeople. Instead, our tasty treat finished its day with the 7-Eleven treatment: getting hermetically sealed in plastic. Air pockets are the enemy in most resin situations. And an efficient way to make sure the goopy stuff is driven deep into the layers is to vacuum bag it. Imagine someone sitting on a Wonderbread-and-peanut-butter sandwich inside an unlocked Ziplock bag. 
Only with a vacuum rather than somebody's butt. OH recruited a pair of shop vacs to get the job done, along with a big roll of Visqueen (think industrial cling film). Note that bit of line curled in the stern of the boat: it's deliberately placed as a route for air to escape.
The gang allowed a day or two for the resin to kick in vacuum conditions.
Supervision and quality control around the boat works provided by Pearl the wonder cat.
OH laid up (layed up?) the centerboard trunk, which looks like a bit more fiddly a job in terms of tailoring. But he's got the practice and probably didn't want to watch the guest-builders struggle. 
Fast forward a few days and the very good news is that the hull was successfully decanted from the mold after nerve-wrackingly careful application of wedges. Oh the sound of that egg-cracking...
We hope the mold also survived the surgery—rumor has it that this boat will not be an only child. Next time: molds for the deck, the sole, and the three ballast tanks.
It was bound to happen.
The 2014 Sailing magazine profile of the first of these experiments: the highly modified Frankenscot.
That sweet skipper of mine left the house early on a wintery Thursday morning, announcing, "I'm going on a shopping spree!" "Ooh, where?" says I. "The lumber store!" Lumber for a new creation. 
After more than a decade of thrills and spills racing the Everglades Challenge, my favorite skipper has decided to up the ante.
What shape, you might ask, would that TAKE? I mean, 300+ miles along Florida's west coast on an unsupported human-powered adventure craft of his own making—what could be yet more exciting than that? Here are a few of the highlights of that trip: sharks, sinking, salt-water crocs, jumping fish, sunburn, various exotic snakes, lightning strikes and squalls, sleep deprivation, boat butt— How about doing the race solo? NO, not this year. On the first Saturday of this March, the same TwoBeers and Jahn Tihansky (WaterTribe name: Moresailesaid) will onboard Spawn headed to Key Largo from St. Pete Beach. But YES, TwoBeers is currently working in concert with OH Rodgers (aka Ninjee) to build a barky suited to single-handed adventure racing, to launch for the 2026 Everglades Challenge. 
Ooooh! architect at work!
TwoBeers and Ninjee have been scheming and dreaming about this for a while.
Among the design criteria: it needs to be quick, but not hazardously overpowered. It needs to be kindly, but not a tub. A shallow draft that's both rowable and sailable, and light enough for one person to launch from the high tide line of Fort DeSoto Beach... And sure enough, a design is drawn, thanks to Ninjee. TwoBeers goes on a lumber shopping spree, and it begins. They make a mold for the hull, ingeniously reproducing the drawn lines from the plans in 3-D with 1x2s. Clever pre-high-tech technique. 
They create a sturdy base from 3/4 inch plywood and 2x6s. It's heavy like gravity is heavy.
Using the 1x2s to replicate the curves of the drawing, they can then make "stations" or ribs.
Now, THAT looks like a mold.
Once the ribs are set, the next step is to layer strakes of 1x2s into the nascent hull mold, and screw them into place.
Now, to make a smooth and finished mold ready for fiberglass or (ooh!) carbon fiber, Jeff applied long narrow strips of very thin plywood (Luan, for those who like details) onto the strakes on the diagonal.
Then a second layer goes in at the opposite diagonal.
This all gets—in the colorful parlance of the boatbuilder—screwed and glued.
The process repeats to translate the drawing of the boat's sides into three dimensions.
How much wood would a woodchuck—wait, never mind.
Again with the plywood strips, this time longitudinally rather than on an angle for the sides, which are referred to here as patterns.
And then...we all wait, as the glue sets.
Just kidding.
The glue set that same day, more or less. But OH and Mr. Linton have been swept away from the boat yard on various sailing adventures, not the least of which is Jeff's upcoming 2025 Everglades Challenge. When next they meet to build, there will be finishing touches to the hull mold, then they'll build additional molds: centerboard trunk mold, ballast tank molds, and a deck mold.  To be fair, it's mostly my favorite skipper who is finding things... because he is looking. I am meanwhile mostly playing with my electronic screen of paper dolls. Or staring moodily into the near distance while thinking about what misery my little paper people are going to endure next. But Jeff? Less moody and more duty. While using a manual post-hole digger last week, himself was contemplatively lifting and thunking the tool when he heard a non-dirt noise. It sounded a bit too musical to be a rock, though we are amply supplied with rocks at the Would-Be Farm. He gingerly applied fingers and Little Jack Hornered a beefy chunk of glass from the clay. When I saw it at first, I thought it might be antique automotive glass, but thank you Google, it turns out to be a honking piece of an orange drink jug from 1927-1937. https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/1927-35-nesbitts-orange-soda-jug-3880547348 I wonder how long it's been rusticating in this former cow pasture? Nearly 100 years? Did it slide down from the midden pile behind the old farmhouse?  the old farmhouse, slowly bowing to gravity The midden pile. Or, if you like, call it a trash heap, but I like the archeological flavor of "midden." And archeologically/anthropologically speaking, nearly every farm from before the middle of the 20th C usually had its very own spot for trash. Just like the Mesopotamians, chucking used plates and broken furniture over the edge of a rise. Out of sight, out of mind. A few years ago, I uncovered a treasure-trove of unbroken glass bottles that had somehow survived first the pitch out of the old farmhouse back door, second the minefield of granite chunks and previously pitched items, and third the 20, 30, 40 winters between then and now.  But Jeff has found a hand plough, wonderful old oil can/watering cans, stout tin chicken feeders—lovely rusty bits of history that we have festooned about the cabin.  A dabba-do car... My sister even found a grindstone. Which looks an awful lot like one of Fred Flintstone's car's wheels.
Here's a older blog about other archeological finds on the Farm http://www.amysmithlinton.com/blog/would-be-farm-rural-archeology I'm keeping my head down this summer on the Would-Be Farm, trying to get that novel of mine out and about. Mr. Linton, on the other hand, has been getting stuff done around here. We just acquired one of the cooler bits of kit in the barn: a flame-thrower. No joke. It's a chemical-free means to a weed-free end.  Need I mention the anti-zombie potential? My favorite skipper built a woodshed (a structure that is both made of wood and designed to contain wood, okay, Lisa?) next to the sauna. We'd had a covered woodpile, but the amount of firewood that got burned since the implementation of the wood-powered sauna led to a step up in the firewood game at the Farm.  Constructing a shed sounds a blithe enough pastime, but with neither plan nor drawing?  Himself claims to be a rough carpenter, but he is adding skills with each project. I say so despite the sage advice of Sippie and Bonnie both... Between construction/destruction activities, plus the occasional sailboat race (go Team New Wave!), there's always lawn work. Meadow and woodlands surround us, but Mr. Linton keeps the trails and the lawn properly neat by the use of no less than two trimmers, two mowers, and a tractor. Not simultaneously. Yet.  Whenever the weather cooperates (growing grass, self-imposed deadlines, and encroaching thorn apples be danged!), we fish.  There's a theory about value called the "IKEA Effect," whereby people over-estimate the value of something they have themselves made.  We got to test it out this spring at the Would-Be Farm. From Estonia by way of New Jersey, thank you BZB Cabins for a pallet's worth of parts, 24 pages of instructions, and a very helpful expert only a phone-call away.  I grant you, we poured quite a bit of effort into this longer-than-any-danged-weekend project. If the value increases as a result of how long it took, and how many new neural pathways it encouraged, and what fresh language it encouraged (is that hangy-downy part of the roofing shingles called a "fang" or a "bump"?), well, all to the good. And the refresher on metric measurement? Nigh on priceless.  But regardless the IKEA effect. Fer reals –– this thing is hella neat-o.  And so toasty!  Why have I made more than one petticoat this autumn? Is it texture? Volume? Swishy-swirly goodness? A latent Miss Kitty* crush? An elaborate plan to avoid writing?  Nothing. To. Wear. *Oh Lawsie, do NOT –– as you value and respect the variety of human experience and preference –– DO NOT google "Miss Kitty" + "crush" or "fetish" or "kink." True story: I was once a 21-year-old editorial assistant in Manhattan. I worked 70 hours a week for a pittance (the word derives from people given money from pity -- which is not actually a stretch for independent book publishers at the time). I was in the office with William Dang Golding, Susan Freakin Sontag, Roald BFG Dahl, Holy Moly Madeleine L'Engle, Czeslaw Eyechart Milsovic, Polly Amazing Horvath, Maurice Himself Sendak, and Rapmaster Seamus Heaney, to drop but a few of the lifetime's worth of literary rockstars I met. I loved that time of my life. My coworkers included people who were famous in literary circles in their own right, as well as actual Guggenheims, a genuine English Lady Somebody–– the kind of folks who habitually went not just to the Hamptons for the weekend, but to Morocco. A country church-mouse, I was just that tiny bit too poor to afford the subway for trips less than 40 blocks (my rule so I'd hoof it between Penn Station and Union Square daily).  Here's me in a Sears purchase. Shoulderpads or throw-cushions –– I can't even. Fancy-schmancy college had exposed me to the other, very wealthy side of the tracks, but still––! Bonus side-benefit of scholarshipping my way through school: the crippling flush of envy had pretty well burned all the way through me. And as for blending in to the trés chic Manhattan publishing scene? Errrm, even a minty-fresh Sears chargecard wasn't gonna godmother me to that ball.  I embraced vintage. There was a gorgeous Pendleton plaid suit, an old Chanel number from a garage sale, a handful of thrifted cashmere sweaters. I wore my riding boots with skirts, sported stacks of fake pearls from my grandmother, and sometimes I put together outfits that swooped past the line of "costume or not?" with joyous abandon. Today, fashion historian Morgan Donner might call my choices "history bounding." Or as the cool kiddies put it: #Historybounding  Okay, too much history, not enough bounding. Still and all, fallible me at 21 or 22 saw a tourist descending the escalator to the tracks in Grand Central Station on sultry August day and was struck DOWN with want. She was wearing exactly the item of clothing I coveted. Of all of the many MANY desirable commodities available in the big city, I wanted what she had. A full, pale, ankle-length skirt with an antique, Edwardian vibe.  Pass-a-Grille Beach around 1915. My gr-grrandparents are the couple on the right. My grandmother is the kid in the white dress. Those are Edwardian walking skirts. That skirt! Lacking that kooky booty seen with late Victorian bustles, this item of mere clothing managed to be curvy but straight, with a sensible, workable air. I thought it made the wearer look interesting and self-confident. It was perfection. I looked high and low for that skirt. For actual decades. Chasing an ideal. And even after I had been sewing stuff for ages ——I'm on my third sewing machine, for the love of Captain Pete Obvious! —— it only came me to this year: "Yo! Self! Why not make that skirt yer own dang self?" And so, dear Reader, I am. After a rush of creative energy, snipping of threads and hacking my way through historical methods of pattern-drafting, I have what I have longed for: a long skirt with pockets deep enough to double for a handbag. A few of my YouTube mentors: Bernadette Banner, Morgan Donner, Rebecca at Pocket Full of Poseys, Ora Lin, and Marika at Enchanted Rose Costumes. I made one walking skirt from denim. I'm making another from a single thrifted yard of pretty plaid wool and the remains of –– as God is my witness –– velvet curtain panels from Ikea. And under the skirts, a wealth of swirly, swishy petticoats in flannel and cotton lawn.  Still pairing outfits with riding boots.
If the internet has taught us nothing, it's that there are more random activities to generate human joy than anybody can shake a keyboard at.
It's just a hop, skip, and a jump from hand sewing a pirate shirt to creating cordage from plants, right? A mere matter of, oh, 400 or so centuries into the past. In prehistory, plain cordage (aka twine, yarn, two-ply thread) was used for snares, nets, for lashing x to y, and, step by step, into fabric. Many plants –– nettles, willow, basswood, berry brambles, burdock, rhubarb, etc., etc. –– grow stringy fibers known as "bast." It's a thing I missed learning as a kid, though I was fascinated by wildcrafting in general.
The Would-Be Farm has enough bast-on-the-hoof to keep a schoolbus full of crafty cordsfolk busy until the next Ice Age. And so during this summer's regatta roadtrips, I have been spinning straw into gold. Rapunzel and that patient sister with the enchanted swan siblings? They got nothin' on me. Wither went I, along came the bundle of dried plant, a glass of water, and piles of chaff. My technique improved with each ell.  A sample tangle: thistle, blackberry brambles, basswood bast, green willow, and soft brome.
 All those black plastic paint buckets...I knew they'd come in handy. |
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