September 2005

I returned my old wool hat to the sheep, to a ewe who broke her leg. I wrapped the hat around the leg, broken just above the hoof, to keep my home-made wooden splint from rubbing into her skin; then I bound wool and wood tightly to the leg with tape, let her go and she hobbled away. Five weeks later, when she could put weight on her foot, I unwrapped the splint, let her go and she pranced away. I've got to crochet myself a new wool hat, yet I can't decide which color.

A thousand leaves, a thousand colors, tints swirl in the gray windy sky as the trees undo their October leaves, it is their work now. With the falling leaves, I begin to dye, it is my work now. Dyeing yarn with natural colors is a journey to the unexpected. With one hue in mind I begin but I finish with another hue in hand. There are no errors here; disharmony is new harmony, a thousand people, a thousand colors.

This rainy morning the house is cold. I must rekindle the fire in the wood stove to dry the damp, dyed yarn, hanging in the sun room. Two warm grays were gotten by mixing Cutch and Logwood extracts, and I like these unexpected shades, the color of wet birch branches. The wood stove is an alter of absence, it has pairs of shoes in a semi circle before it, the shoes of my apprentices, Kali, Paula and Suzanne. Bowing, I put kindling in the stove, open the draft and wait for the fire to catch; the new colors of yarn, judged by the orange flickering firelight, might be right for a hat.

And this early morning the house is as quiet as the moon above. I feed the dog and cats, brew tea, read a little, then write until the sun comes up or until I've run out of words and my private morning ends. I call to the girls sleeping upstairs; yesterday I woke them with, "Olly, Olly in come free," they must think I'm a jerk, oh well. One by one, they clump down the stairs to fill their shoes and their chores begins with the sound of plates and silver clattering in the kitchen. Over hushed giggles and grouses, eggs sizzle in a pan on the stove and the aroma of warm oatmeal curls through the rooms of the house. I leave them to their breakfast and take tail wagging Shade to the barn to begin my farm chores; I feed the bawling, hungry sheep who rudely knock me about the knees as I carry pails of oats to them. With heads in feeders, except for molars cracking oats, the barn quiet now.

I love that old Shaker motto, "Hands to work and Hearts to God," even though I view organized deism contrarily, work on the farm is prayer, where the answer to prayer is prayer itself, nothing more, nothing less. Back at the house, with another cup of tea, I conjure up a new self from a list of work for today, a list composed mostly of work I didn't do yesterday. But I take heart from my lapses and my lack of completion, prayer today will be imperfect if there is to be prayer tomorrow.

Eugene Wyatt

Natural Dyes by Eugene Wyatt