Someday
I have been so, so excited for crawling - the gateway to Remi being able to explore the world all on his own! I just didn’t expect him to get SO fast SO quickly.
What began as slow scooting last week has now become a full-on sprint and he can shoot from one end of the house to the other in what feels like no time. I shouldn’t really be surprised (he IS my kid after all and I never stop moving), but I am. I’m surprised. And proud and terrified and a whole lot of other things, too. He’s been waiting to move like this his whole short life, and now he can. So he does. I am going to get very, very good at playing chase.
It’s been such an odd, cool, rainy summer here. We get, on average, between 15 and 16 inches of precipitation in a normal year - but this year our rain gauge already reads 22.75 inches. It’s madness - soggy, muddy, buggy madness.
This last week we had some of the biggest storms I’ve experienced since our move out to the prairie. The first was, according to my mom, the worst storm she’s ever seen. At our house, we got only the lightest sprinkle but my parents (ten miles south) got three inches of rain over the course of a couple hours. Even though we stayed dry, the lighting was constant and the thunder a rumble that never died. I set up my camera for some long exposure shots outdoors and then hid inside, hoping I’d catch…something. Mostly I got a whole lot of “meh,” but there were a couple gems waiting for me when I pulled up the photos.
For us, big weather came later in the week. In complete reversal of the first storm, this second one stayed north and headed straight for us instead of town. I knew it was going to be serious when I looked outside and saw the horses were already hiding out in their shed, but managed to take a couple photos of the oncoming clouds before the deluge began.
Normally, I wouldn’t have risked it (lightning is no joke out here), but the clouds were blooming and billowing in a way that I couldn’t ignore. Also, the color - that blue/green hue is not a product of photo editing. When light bounces off of hail tumbling around in the clouds of a big storm, that hue is the result. Thankfully the hail stayed small and we were left with no damage, but we received yet another inch of rain by the time this beauty had blown itself out.
Emily just celebrated a birthday and I finally finished up a small gift to send her way. I had honestly hoped to have it done and ready by the time she came to visit but…as is the way right now, I ran out of time.
A couple years ago, right after I got my stonecutting tools, she sent me a box of rocks she’d fished from the rivers in Oregon. One of those rocks was a mysterious little agate, yellowy on the outside with grey and white bands showing through here and there. I set it aside for someday.
When “someday” came back in July, I took that agate and cracked it open along a fissure using a hammer and crow bar (very professional, I know). I took the nugget that broke off and formed it into a little acorn - which was then set into a silver cap I fabricated at the bench. I’ve never made anything quite like this piece, but I liked it - I’m hoping Emily will, too.
