In Pursuit of a Paleontology Enthusiast Antiquarian Vampirologist, Part II

September 18, 2023September 17, 2023 J.Leave a comment

In case you missed the first part of our adventure, you can find it here!

We showed up promptly at 11:10 AM, still unsure of what we were getting into. Once we stepped out of the car, we were almost spoiled for choice — there was a small sculpture garden immediately in front of us, with some very lovely statuary.

A replica of Michelangelo's David, with a small image of a bird hanging in front of his junk. — Including a very modest David.

Signs directed us to the Dinosaur Park, which we eagerly followed. They led us past more statuary, into an area populated by large, brightly colored dinosaur statues. They were kept in their own pens made up of neatly trimmed hedges and garden fences, interspersed with large, bright mushrooms, a vintage carousel horse, and a spiraling labyrinth that ended in a gazebo at the center of it all.

Along the edges, the border between “Dinosaur Park” and “Sculpture Garden” got a bit blurry.

Outside of the Dinosaur Park, the grounds were immaculately kept and full of flowers. There were ponds covered in bright pink and white water lilies, and bushes spangled with flowers and butterflies.

A pair of small snail statues on a stone sphinx throne surrounded by bright purple flowers. — Also snail royalty.

A close-up of a similar throne. It features ornate arms supported by a pair of small sphinxes. — A closer look at a similar sphinx throne in a different material. I’ll be honest, I kind of want one to put under the maple tree in the back.

A bamboo forest with a pair of Imperial lion statues in front.

Everywhere we walked seem to have something new to look at, to an almost disorienting degree. I know the outdoor area wasn’t that big, but we did manage to get turned around here and there.

There was even a large stand of bamboo guarded by a pair of stone Imperial lions.

What was most interesting, however, was the mix of materials. Some of the more whimsical statuary was made of cast concrete or gaily-painted fiberglass, but many of the larger pieces were carved stone. Take a close look at the pair of busts in the image below — all of the armor, clothing, et cetera is made of carefully fitted-together stone. None of it is painted. There were pieces in alabaster, marble, quartz, and granite, all of them uniquely beautiful.

A dolphin fountain flanked by a pair of bronze horses and elaborate busts.

Once we were done getting lost in labyrinths and jumpscared by the occasional clown statue, we headed inside. The bulk of the antique shop was in a large barn, about half of which was taken up by a workshop.

The first floor was a dinner party set for invisible guests. The walls were hung with heavy curtains in silk and velvet, punctuated with carved stone statues. These, like the busts above, wore outfits of carefully selected and fitted-together stone, cut and carved so their graceful limbs could show through.

A pair of bronze eagles battle in front of a panel of frosted glass painted with ornate flowers and botanical motifs.

Of to the side, there was a selection of brass candelabras, smaller sculptures, and stained glass.

In the center, there was a large, broad staircase. The top was dark — dark enough that I wondered if it was actually off-limits. There didn’t really seem to be anyone there other than us and a handful of employees… did anyone even know we were there?

Eventually, our curiosity got the better of us. We quietly crept up the stairs, though there were no lights and the temperature seemed to grow more oppressive with every step.

I was very glad we had.

The top floor of the barn was absolutely full of treasures. Carved four-poster beds hung with silk brocade. Velvet chaises. Oil paintings the size of my bedroom, framed in gold leafed baroque style. Panels upon panels of stained glass.

A large oil painting, marble bust, velvet sofa pinned with a white lace antimaccasar, and heavily adorned cabinet. — Everything in this picture is about two hundred years old and worth more money than I will ever see.

The only light came from a large window at the front. The sunlight streamed down through it onto a grand piano, illuminating dust motes that sparkled like glitter. There was also a pair of life-sized sculptures holding massive, branching lamps of brass and crystal.

A photo of the description above -- ornate furniture in silhouette against a large window, flanked by sculptures supporting large light fixtures. Some of the chandeliers on the ceiling are adorned with faux butterflies. — This is probably my favorite picture I’ve ever taken of anything.

At one point, I think I saw the owner. He passed through the room swiftly, so I didn’t get a good look — just a glimpse of his back and a faint whiff of oakmoss and vetiver.

My Handsome Assistant attempted to track someone down, and did manage to talk to one of the employees for a bit. According to her, the Vampire and Paranormal Museum is in the process of reopening in one of the houses on the premises. The owner was very secretive about it, however — he was remodeling the whole interior, and hadn’t allowed even his closest friends to see it. It wouldn’t be open until later this year, most likely in October or November.

Even though we didn’t get to speak to the man himself, or see the actual museum, we were satisfied. To be honest, just browsing the antiques felt like looking at a clandestine immortal’s collection of stuff, so I left feeling like I’d been to a vampire museum anyhow.

When we went to leave, a peacock prevented me from getting in the car. It was both completely unexpected, yet entirely appropriate. I guess if you’re going to have a Dinosaur Park, you need one or two alive ones.

A large male peacock stands between the viewer (me) and a silver car.

All told, 10/10 experience. Would sidequest again.

Sometimes I have trouble following the plot of my own life. (Or: In Pursuit of a Paleontology Enthusiast Antiquarian Vampirologist.)

September 14, 2023September 8, 2023 J.3 Comments

I’m not really big on the whole Manifestation thing, I’ll be honest.
That aside, I have noticed that, when I’m starting to feel like life is a little same-y, the universe is extremely willing to help. And by “help,” I mean send me on some very strange field trips.

I wasn’t the only one who’d been feeling like life was getting routine. My Handsome Assistant works very hard, and very long hours. It’s not a physically laborious job, but it’s the kind of work that’s both mentally demanding and continues to be a whole Thing around the clock. He even has trouble taking time off, so he finally said that enough was enough, blocked off some PTO, and we scheduled a small vacation.

I suggested New Hope, PA, because it’s the kind of thing that we both find fun and relaxing: No itinerary, lots of art and history, lovely architecture, ghosts, nature, and tasty food. It’s immediately adjacent to Lambertville, NJ, too, which is ludicrously packed with antique shops and art galleries. We could wake up whenever, go wherever, and no matter where we decided to walk, there was pretty much guaranteed to be something neat to do, see, or eat.

The vacation part is a lovely and relaxing story for another time.

While Handsome Assistant was in the shower, I was sitting on the floor of the hotel, charging my phone and idly tapping through a map of the area to see what looked like a fun destination for the following day.

That’s when I saw it.

A screenshot of Google Maps, prominently showing VAMPA Vampire & Paranormal Museum.

“VAMPA Vampire and Paranormal Museum.”

“Permanently Closed.”

"My disappointment is immeasurable and my day is ruined."

I took a screenshot and sent it to him for shits and giggles. There’s always something darkly funny in simultaneously discovering something cool, and that it has ceased to exist.

He texted back. We laughed it off. I pointed out a neat antique shop we could look at, and my tiny disappointment was forgotten.

Little did I know that VAMPA had continued to live in his mind.

A corked glass bottle full of bones. A tag tied to the neck says, "Peacock Bones $45."

Unbeknownst to me, the antique shop that I’d wanted to go see was located in a very large building — large and filled enough to make Google Maps get a little complicated. Locations were hazy estimates, at best. I didn’t mind, though. Everything was in walking distance, and what was an extra block or two?

Inside was a veritable treasure house of weird. The air was filled with the vaguely vanilla scent of old books, naphthalene, leather, and straw. I looked through strings of antique snake vertebrae, preserved hornets’ nests, bottles of peacock bones, old containers of patent medicine (some still half-full of highly questionable powders and jellies), and hand-colored German anatomical prints. Handsome Assistant and I got separated at some point, but I wasn’t too worried.

A display of colorful parasols suspended upside-down from a ceiling.

The “shop” was less of a shop than it was a marketplace. Each floor had its own set of vendors, including one guy who’d collected a very varied and impressive selection of crystal specimens. There were lovely slices of amethyst geodes, palm stones of every description, fossil specimens, spheres of every color, and even a large piece of alabaster marked, “Great for sculptors!”

I came away with a polished freeform moss agate and a sunstone palm stone, while Handsome Assistant chose a small sphere of tiger’s and hawk’s eye. (The gold of the tiger’s eye and blue of the hawk’s eye swirl together like the atmosphere of some strange and distant planet, shifting in the light in a way that’s honestly kind of mesmerizing.)

As we left, he turned to me in excitement.

“So,” he began, both handsomely and assistantly, “The vampire museum used to be on the top floor of this place.”

“Really? Huh,” I replied, neither attractively nor helpfully.

“Apparently the guy who owned it closed the museum, sold some of his collection, and moved up the road. He has an antique shop with dinosaurs in the front. You know what that means.”

I did not know what that meant.

“It means,” he continued as we walked, “That there’s more of his collection that he didn’t sell yet.“

After that, there was lunch and ice cream sandwiches. We got patio seating immediately next to a graveyard. I had a long and interesting conversation about veganism with our server. We were attacked by wasps. The whole afternoon got kind of hazy after a certain point.

Anyway, this is how we found ourselves in the car in the late afternoon, on the hunt for a large estate full of Dinosauria.
There was only one problem: We had literally nothing else to go on. No names, no street address, nothing.

“Just drive up the road. You’ll see the dinosaurs.”
That was basically it.

I think we drove on for about forty-five minutes with no luck. There was a museum, but it was neither vampiric, paranormal, nor paleontological, and thus of little interest to us at that moment. (There was also a really neat mossy green house with black trim. That was mostly interesting because we have to replace our siding soon and house exteriors are the kind of thing we’ve found ourselves starting to care about, largely against our collective will.)

I don’t know what compelled us to take a different route. It was probably just a desire to find a more scenic road back to the hotel. But that was when we saw it.

A very weathered wood sign near the road, simply marked “ANTIQUES.”

And an allosaurus.

A large statue of an allosaurus, in the midst of a garden.

We pulled into the gravel driveway cautiously. (I’m not sure why, it just seemed correct.)
The door was locked, its hours prominently posted.

“Wednesday, 11 AM.”

Handsome Assistant and I looked at each other. We knew now what we had to do.

life · Neodruidry

“Going within” and “seeking inner wisdom” are mostly code for boredom, tbh.

September 12, 2023September 6, 2023 J.Leave a comment

I’ve spoken in the past about some of the issues that I’ve had with various types of meditation. I don’t really get on with a lot of mindfulness meditation, because anxiety and panic disorder make it so that I’m already detrimentally hyper-aware of my breathing and heartbeat. Being instructed to focus on my breathing is a bit like telling a drowning person to take a relaxing bath.

I was introduced to a different type of meditation through a course of Druid study that I’m working on. It’s discursive meditation, and it involves many of the same key ideas as mindfulness, with one big difference. You’re still training your mind to focus, let irrelevant thoughts pass by, and gently return from wandering. The difference is that you choose a subject for your meditation to focus on. Thoughts and ideas related to this subject are desirable, and you just return to the subject at hand if you find yourself going off on a tangent.

It’s a great way to really let yourself play in a space and do a deep dive into a specific subject. It’s included as part of these studies because so much of ancient Druidry is coded in oral traditions, which means that what the tiny bit that was actually recorded was often through a poetic, mnemonic lens designed to help Druid scholars remember all of the information they were expected to know. The idea is that so many of these ancient ideas require pondering to get their meanings, and discursive meditation is a way to achieve this.

It’s a bit like if the US ceased to exist, and the only historical record of it was that Animaniacs song about state capitals. It’s not a lot of information on the surface, but some deep dives could still give you something to work with.

Consider Bríatharogaim. These are two-word kennings designed to explain the meanings of the names of the letters of the ogham. Like saille, willow, is “pallor of a lifeless one.”

Saliax alba, white willow. — I could see it.

The thing is, brains are characteristically not good at staying on one subject. That’s why, like uncooperative puppies, they need to be led back now and then. Brains are not good at boredom., because boredom feels uncomfortable.

The trick is understanding that boredom isn’t bad.

“Profound boredom” is actually an important component of creativity. Forcing oneself to sit with a single subject and exhaust all possible tangents related to it is how breakthroughs happen.

If you’re meditating for the purpose of going within and seeking inner wisdom, this state of profound boredom is the nug. It’s the fertile ground where the good stuff comes from. If you think of it in terms of seasons, profound boredom is the fallow period. It’s the late autumn to early spring when the leaves all fall, break down, and enrich the soil. Without profound boredom, your brain dirt gets all bad.

It doesn’t even require a lot of boredom. Thus far, in my experience, thirty minutes of discursive meditation is sufficiently boring to yield about two paintings, some prose, and a few lines of poetry. If I have a specific problem, I get solutions. Everyone should be more bored more often, because being bored on purpose rules.

The difference lies in the difference between the kind of boredom you get in, say, a waiting room, and the kind of boredom you experience when you focus on a single topic. A waiting room’s boredom isn’t helpful because it’s anxiety-provoking. There’s no opportunity to relax and give your mind room to be profoundly bored, because your name might get called at any minute. The freed-up brainspace isn’t focused on creativity, it’s focused on vigilance. Being bored in the comfort of your own home, on your own timetable, though? Chef’s kiss.

To go within is to seek out this fallow period that allows new things to spring forth. Inner wisdom lies in boredom.

life · Neodruidry · Witchcraft

Frederick Pagan Pride 2023

September 11, 2023September 10, 2023 J.Leave a comment

It’s just this past Saturday, and my Handsome Assistant and I pull up to the Unitarian Universalist Church in Frederick, MD. The friendly young people attending the lot tell us there aren’t any parking spaces left. We’ll have to go to the lot a mile down the road, they direct us, and take the shuttle.

Personally, I’m shocked. It’s only a quarter past ten, how could the lot be full already?

A rustic pendant made of copper, quartz crystall, and azurite malachite on a copper chain.

They weren’t kidding, though. Even the other lot was filling up, and the shuttle was almost completely full as we rode back. The grounds themselves were ringed with vendors, information booths, and more — there was Tempered Raven, who hand-forges beautiful blades There were so many booths of jewelry (I bought a beautiful quartz, azurite malachite, and copper necklace from Unclaimed Treasures). There were herbs, incenses, soaps, pottery, handmade brooms and whisks, woodcarvings, altar supplies, and amazing desserts. There was even free coffee, tea, and cold brew from the awesome people at Stone Circle Council (check them out — they do some very cool things).

A handmade ceramic watercolor palette with eight wells. — I also picked up a handmade palette. It’s intended for watercolor, but I’d like to see how it does with casein. Casein paint dries out so fast and softens up with a bit of water, so working with it is a bit more like gouache than acrylic. I’m thinking a glazed surface will be perfect!

There were also loads of workshops and live music. It was busy, it was vibrant, it was great. I always regret not taking more pictures of the event itself, but I always feel a bit odd about snapping pics of people unaware. (Sure, there’s no expectation of privacy in public, but something being legal doesn’t preclude it from being a bit of a dick move, you know?)

The busyness was at once a wonderful sign, and an unfortunate one.

On the one hand, it’s great that events like this are attracting a bigger audience. Aside from vendors of beautiful crafts and delicious food, there are lots of tables for different Pagan, metaphysical, and mystical organizations. If you’re looking for a path to call to you, or people to network with, this is the place to find that thing. In an era where social media has allowed — even encouraged — the proliferation of misinformation that’s unhelpful at best and dangerous at worst (and don’t get me started on AI generated books), it’s really nice that there’s still a wonderful variety of actual organizations dedicated to study and practice.

Last year, I got a little emotional about how events like Pagan Pride make me feel about community, aging, and tradition. It’s a feeling I hope everyone gets to experience at least once.

On the other hand, a big part of the reason for this large audience is that two other Pagan Pride events — the one in DC, and one in Manassas, VA — effectively no longer exist. A friend pointed out that they’d even contacted the coordinators of the DC pride event and hadn’t heard anything back at all. As if the email address was going unchecked. I looked up information on Manassas everywhere I could, but it was pretty scarce. The last event seemed to be in 2019, and the 2022 event was cancelled. According to their Facebook, they weren’t able to hold one in 2023.

A lot of Pagan community organizers seem to be either getting burned out (with everything else going on right now, who can blame them? Add the often-thankless work of organizing to the struggles everyone else is dealing with right now, and it’s completely understandable) or just aging out of their roles. All of the organizations I know, even the ones I’m a part of, operate on budgets that would make a shoestring look luxurious by comparison.

It’s something I’d love to help with, but I’m not really sure where to start. I’ve often said that, if I were handed enough money to live off of for the rest of my life, I’d put it into a small house on a large piece of property. I’d rewild as much as I could and put it under a conservation easement. Some, I’d want to guide into operating as a permaculture food forest (I have tiny fantasies of adopting a rescue donkey or small pony, having them carry a basket, and walking around with them to pick fruits and vegetables). The rest, I’d want to make into an event space for musicians, dancers, and events like Pride. I have no heirs, so, when I died, I’d will it back to whatever Indigenous group formerly held it. In the meantime, I’d want it to be a place for community members to interact — flora, fauna, and human alike.

I mean, I feel like I’m basically describing a two-person commune, but I feel like you get the gist.

I suppose what I’m saying is that it’s a shame that the world has done us up all wretched, and I wish I knew how to take on some of the burden of organizing and setting up events like this with the resources that I already have. (A tiny yard, most of which is steeply uphill, an even tinier bank account, and massive social anxiety).

In the meantime, support your local Pagan organizations and artisans, yeah?

life

Vibe with me!

September 8, 2023September 7, 2023 J.Leave a comment

My house is not very large. Really, it’s the perfect size — with just my Handsome Assistant and I, there’s no need for tons of rooms. We were also fortunate that the previous owners really maximized the crap out of the space here. Everywhere that could be finished and turned into living space, has been.

Our attic is a loft with a skylight. Since the ceiling was low, it made sense to make it the room we’d spend the least amount of awake, moving around time in: the bedroom. Since there’s no paint trick or wallpaper in the world that will turn a loft with knee walls into a spacious, cathedral-ceilinged abode, I leaned into the tiny, cozy vibes hard.

Small lanterns with warm lights cast shadows like candle flames. I took the janky, stuck doors off of the built-in storage and replaced them with a curtain rod and soft, light-colored curtains. The bed area itself is separated from the rest of the room by several deliberately mismatched, vintage lace curtains in shades of cream and off-white. The floor is covered in layers of rugs in a variety of textures, to give it more depth and interest. The bed is dressed in satiny black and ivory sheets and a silk-stuffed comforter. It feels almost like glamping, or like a very luxurious treehouse. Like a small, exceedingly comfy nest tucked away at the top of the house.

(We’re having a replacement window put in. Soon as that’s done, I’m definitely posting some pictures!)

Lately, I’ve been treating it more like a sanctuary than purely a sleeping space. I like to go there around sunset, because the small window beside the bed has a very nice view of the west. I light incense, I take out my tarot cards, Lenormand deck, runes, or ogham staves. I put on some Faun or The Moon & The Nightspirit. I soak up the atmosphere, do some divination. It’s really nice.

There’s a limit to how much divination I can usefully do for myself, friends, and family, though. So, to take advantage of the very late summer and early autumn vibes and give me a bit more to do, I’ve put all of the divination in my Etsy shop on sale at twenty percent off. If you see something that calls to you, I’d be happy to make space for your questions.

Let’s vibe in the sunset. It’s nice here.

life · Plants and Herbs

Maypops!

August 22, 2023August 21, 2023 J.2 Comments

Passiflora incarnata is a weird plant.

I bought three root cuttings last year, but they turned crispy and died shortly afterward.

Disappointed, I decided to try again with two more. Those died back to the ground late that autumn, and that seemed to be it. There was no sign of them this past spring, so I figured that particular experiment was also a failure.

Undaunted, I decided to try again. I purchased two more baby vines and planted them in roughly the same spot.

And then one (and only one) of the previous vines shot up out of the ground like it had something to prove. Like I’d committed some terrible affrontery by daring to try to replace it. Vining with a vengeance.

Not only did it reappear, it’s also about twice as big as the other two, and all three of them seem to be trying to outdo each other by putting out more and more buds.

A passionflower with bright bluish-purple, fringe-like petals and a white center. — My very first passionflower.

The only thing is that, while Passiflora species are generally considered self-fertile (the flowers contain both male and female parts, and they are positioned in a way that makes it very easy for pollen to just kind of end up where it needs to go), I’ve read a lot of sources that claim that P. incarnata is self-incompatible. In other words, the flowers are built in a way that should facilitate self-fertilization, but it’s just not into that.

Since the flowers also only last for a day, that means that there needs to be some very timely coordination between pollinators and the plant itself. Pumpkins are the same way, really — they have separate male and female flowers, but the flowers don’t last long. If a bug or hummingbird doesn’t show up at the right time, the flowers close up and that’s that.

Anyway, all of this is to say that, after my disastrous experiences trying to grow passionflower, I wasn’t expecting much. That’s why I was really surprised to go out on the porch and see these guys:

A close-up of a vine with a pair of small, green, vaguely egg-shaped fruit.

Maypops! (Aka, passionfruit!)

These aren’t anywhere near ripe yet. You have to wait for them to get really soft and wrinkly, or even to just drop off of the vine. (I probably won’t let them get that far, because I doubt I’d find them again once they fell.) In this way, they’re kind of like pawpaws and American persimmons — once they seem like they’re way overripe and on the way to the compost bin, they’re perfect.

I’d like to try harvesting the rest of the plant for medicinal purposes, too. (I talked about some of these in my post about the folklore and magical uses of passionflower.) My handsome assistant and I go through a ton of chamomile, to the point where I’m starting to wonder if it’s possible to build up a tolerance. I’d like to try augmenting some of that with other relaxants. If I can grow them myself, so much the better.

Passionflower fruit are apparently much like pomegranates, in that the edible portion is little bags of juice around seeds. I’m not much for making jams or jellies, so that’s out. I don’t think they’d be conducive to drying, though I may try combining their juice with a more solid, neutral-tasting fruit (like pears) to make fruit leather. We’ve also been using our excess strawberries and pumpkins to flavor mead, so I could see using a batch to experiment with maypop juice.

So many possibilities!

Just for fun · life

Alex Dav’s music is a treasure, tbh.

August 21, 2023August 20, 2023 J.1 Comment

^{Note: Nobody paid me or otherwise compensated me for this. I just really like Alex Dav’s music.}_{Notice me, senpai.}

I need background music.

Music, lighting, and scents are the most effective ways to set a vibe, to me. I can be in a parking garage, but if there’s some chill music playing, the faint scent of incense wafting on the air, and patches of a nice, peachy-colored sunset kind of sliding in between the concrete pillars, it’s nice. Cozy. Meditative.

That’s why I was so happy to come across Alex Dav’s music on YouTube. I was even happier to find it on Spotify, where I can just kind of keep it on without commercial breaks.

All of the songs feature a hang (also called hang drum), guitar, kalimba, piano, variety of drums, and more. Most, if not all, are tuned to a frequency of 432 Hz.

432 Hz is regarded as a “healing frequency.” Meditating to it is said to produce deeper states of relaxation. Doing so before bed may even improve sleep quality. Some also credit it with helping to release energetic blockages within the body.

While this all sounds very unscientific, there is a little bit of research to back it up. A double-blind cross-over study comparing listening sessions involving music at 440 Hz and 432 Hz had some very interesting results: The study participants experienced a slight decrease in blood pressure values (although not significant), a marked decrease in heart rate, and a slight decrease of respiratory rate values when listening to 432 Hz versus 440 Hz. These values do point to a greater state of relaxation. Subjectively, researchers also noted that “[t]he subjects were more focused about listening to music and more generally satisfied after the sessions in which they listened to 432 Hz tuned music.”

I use it for meditation, divination, maintaining a relaxed atmosphere at home, and just as background sound. It’s at once organic and ethereal, earthy and dreamlike. Personally, even as just background music, I feel like it helps me be more relaxed and creative. It’s even what inspired me to pick up a (smaller, less fancy) tongue drum.

If you’d like something that you can just turn on and go about your day, Alex Dav’s YouTube channel also has multiple live streams that are just music, all day long. If you want sleep music, there are some tracks that subtly loop for 12 hours. I highly recommend them!

Blog · life

Maybe it’s like an emotional support hornet’s nest.

August 14, 2023August 13, 2023 J.2 Comments

I try to coexist with stuff. I really do. I don’t like confrontation, and I’ve found that even the most noxious weeds or aggressive creatures are usually helpful for something. The yard is full of edible weeds, bees, and predatory bugs, and life is pretty good. I don’t mind spiders in my house. I very carefully evict the occasional confused grass-carrying wasp or pipe organ mud dauber that wanders in.

And then there are the yellowjackets that built a nest right above the front door. There’re these two little gaps in the porch roof that didn’t really seem deep enough to say “hey, homestead in me,” but I guess I was very wrong about that. The end result? A ceiling crevice jam-packed with wasps.

During their initial building stage, they were preoccupied enough that I barely noticed them. Really, I spotted one or two flying to that spot and didn’t think much of it. When I noticed a dead yellowjacket laying on one of the leaves of the passionflower vine growing on the porch railing, I had… concerns.

When they began to get a bit more territorial, I had more concerns. If they’d built almost literally anywhere else, it would’ve been fine. The shed? No problem, just move the important stuff to the other shed, keep the door closed, and wait to clean up during winter. In the yard somewhere? Also not an issue, they can be territorial against other wasps and are pretty easily avoided by humans.

This wasn’t our first brush with yellowjackets, either. A ground-dwelling species built a massive nest in a hollow under a tree stump in the front yard. This, again, wouldn’t have been an issue were it not for the fact that people had to walk there, and the yellowjackets appeared to have very mixed feelings about the whole thing. The deal appeared to be very much the same with the ones in the porch.

My partner and I could avoid them because we knew they were there, but what about visitors? Delivery people? Mail carriers? I wasn’t trying to be the reason why an Uber Eats driver trying to make ends meet had to pay for an emergency room visit, you know?

I put in special delivery instructions a couple of times — “Wasps have taken over the porch. Please go to the side door. I cannot overstate how many wasps there are, and they are all so angry” — and keep my fingers crossed that the delivery people actually followed them. I would’ve gone out there and put up a physical sign, but that would’ve required them to get close enough to read it, and also actually going outside to tape something to an area actively swarmed by yellowjackets.

A pair of yellowjackets construct a nest in the angle formed by two wooden beams. — Like this, but with more rage.

And so, we called our Wasp Guy.

His name is Mohammed, and he is, unironically, the straight-up rawest dude I know. His company claims to provide environmentally friendly pest control, and I’m like 90% certain it’s because he just suits up and sort of… confiscates unwanted hives and nests and such. He has a huge (vacant) hornet’s nest he keeps in his van. For fun.

The man is also an absolute surgeon. If he’s there to handle a wasp nest, those wasps will be handled (probably literally) and the neighboring pollinators will never find out. None of my carpenter bees were harmed in the removing of these wasps, and still happily follow me around like dumb little hoverpuppies. The anise hyssop and coreopsis are absolutely packed with miner bees, sweat bees, honeybees, you name it. Even the ants that hang out on the passionflower on the porch (they treat the nectaries like some kind of tiny insect TGI Friday’s) seem just sort of fine with everything.

A frozen Charlotte doll in a small wooden box adorned with fragments of vacant wasp nests. — I just thought this looked cool, to be honest.

While I’m not happy we had to remove the yellowjacket nest (they’re an important predatory species for pest bugs, and, since they tolerate the cold a bit better than bees do, they pollinate early spring flowers!), I know there’s a point where insect territoriality and human territoriality collide. I’m just glad that this time was handled quickly, easily, and with minimal disruption to everyone else.

Just maybe try to build in the old maple tree or the shed on the hill next time, okay guys?

life

And about twenty seven gallons of pumpkin bisque.

August 11, 2023August 10, 2023 J.2 Comments

So, I’ve been picking pumpkins.

Well, that’s kind of an understatement — I’ve been attempting to gather and process pumpkins quickly enough to actually make a dent in the sheer number of them. It takes about an hour to cut and bake two of them, then I need to let them cool, then puree and freeze them. Each pumpkin seems to yield a little over 16 ounces of puree. That’s enough for either one pie, one batch of pumpkin cream sauce, or one pot of pumpkin soup.

In other words, this is basically a replay of when my spouse and I went strawberry picking. This last time, we sprung for the big cardboard flat. I still have a whole loaf of strawberry bread in the freezer, two gallon bags of whole berries, and two trays of frozen strawberry puree.

I’m either going to run out of space in the freezer for pureed pumpkin, or be completely sick of pumpkin and pumpkin-adjacent things by the time October rolls around.

Eight pumpkins, sitting on a granite countertop. There's a bag of flaxseed meal and some glass canisters of rice, beans, and oats in the background. — Some of the pumpkins that still need to ripen a bit.

Fortunately, pumpkin seems to keep well. Once it’s turned to pumpkin mush, I pack it into a one cup Souper Cube tray and freeze it. After it’s frozen, I can pop it out and stick it in a reusable freezer bag. I wish I had a chest freezer (but I also know that I’d just fill it up with nonsense if I did).

In the meantime, I’m amassing pumpkin recipes. So far, I’m looking at egg- and dairy-free pumpkin pie, pumpkin cream sauce, and pumpkin bread with chocolate chunks. I hope everything turns out well, but I’m also slightly concerned that I’ll end up having to sneak around and drop off piles of excess pies and breads on my neighbors’ porches in the middle of the night.

I didn’t even plant these pumpkins. I’ve watered them maybe twice ever. I have the feeling they wouldn’t be nearly this prolific if I’d actually put effort into them.

art · life

Working with a New Medium: Switching from Acrylic to Casein

August 3, 2023July 31, 2023 J.Leave a comment

Oil paint is not my friend.

To be fair, powerful solvents in general are not my friends. I get headaches at the drop of a hat, so working with paint thinner does not rank highly on my list of enjoyable activities.

That’s why I’ve always painted with acrylic. I’ve also taken steps to minimize how much of that acrylic escapes my studio — from using multiple jars of rinsing water, to multiple trays for evaporating that rinsing water, to stripping off the dried acrylic residue and trying to repurpose it.

Still, I don’t want to work with a medium that’s basic liquid plastic if I don’t have to. That’s where milk paint comes in. Rather than using acrylic as a binding agent, it uses a protein found in milk.

There are some key differences between acrylic and casein paint, though:

Casein is inflexible, while acrylic maintains flexibility when it dries. This means that acrylic is good for painting on stretched canvas, while casein is only really suitable for rigid substrates like wood or canvas-covered MDF.
Casein dries to a velvety, matte finish, while acrylic can be pretty shiny unless you add matte medium.
Casein takes a long time to dry fully. This means that you can wet it and re-work it. Once acrylic dries, it’s dry.
Casein works great as an underpainting medium, while acrylic has some drawbacks.
Casein dries to the touch very quickly. Acrylic stays wetter for longer, and the addition of retardants can further extend this drying time.
Casein has a bit of a smell, while acrylic doesn’t really smell like anything. I have to say that casein’s smell isn’t really objectionable, though. It smells kind of like lemon window cleaner, but the scent is very light.

These didn’t really influence my decision to start using casein paint, because I was more focused on reducing my dependency on acrylic media.

Here are two of my paintings. The first is acrylic, the other is casein:

A painting of a raven on a yellow hillside. The sky is blue, and a silver leaf sun hangs in the clouds.

As you can see, there are some differences in vibrancy and transparency. I also had to change a lot of my techniques in order to successfully work with casein. For example, I like to work wet-on-wet. That’s a bit more challenging with casein, because the under layers are pretty much dry to the touch by the time I’ve scooped up the next color I want to work in. I’m also not used to being able to re-wet and re-work paint once I’ve used it.

Casein also tends to have more opacity than acrylic. (This opacity can, of course, be reduced with the addition of a little water.) Some acrylic pigments are very opaque, but others are quite sheer — almost more like a glaze. Casein goes on like it means it.

I’ve noticed that I also have to work more quickly with casein. If I take too long, it’ll start to dry on me. The same dry-brushing techniques that I was taught with acrylic don’t really work here.

All in all, while working with casein has taken some adjustment on my part, I love it. I actually prefer it to acrylic now, especially when it comes to opacity. It’s a beautiful medium that’s been in use for millennia, and one that I hope sees even more use in the future.