Though there is still some nectar in the feeder, I believe the hummers are gone for the season.

The monarchs have departed, after eating well this year. As far as I’ve seen, the milkweed grew well, too, and I look forward to gathering it with my papemaking class. I have seven intrepid papermakers, a good number for the autumn.

I’ve spotted these two out the big window several times, here enjoying the new growth after a week-ago-or-so mowing. Can you just see their oddball antlers? Up and a tiny spread at the top. One is dark already, preparing for winter.

Haystack stitchers pick up crayons, paper, instead of cloth, thread.

My week as Christine Mauersberger’s TA was busy and beautiful, and the 14 students really got into all the learning experiences Christine presented. This one was one of those spontaneous, serendipitous things. The women are making a 4 x 8 foot rubbing from the FabLab’s discard, reusing something before it gets it’s next reuse. This rubbing is, in fact, a map of Haystack FabLab projects. We made two rubbings from the router-etched plywood tabletop, one became a large meander book. I love that Christine visited the Lab with an idea of what could be made there, and returned with this idea. The staff hauled the board to the fibers studio, so we made a second rubbing. All. Those. Marks. so like stitches. Christine leaves room in her teaching for magic like this to happen, and guides her students, teaching the experience of leap-taking, risk-taking, straying from the path for the experience of making something new and beautiful, opening minds. I loved how this supported her class. I also loved my “slide show” (the oldest TA by maybe 30 years!), in which I handled paper, sent it around the audience, and spun kami-ito with a tiny Jenkins spindle…spinning paper for the ‘masses’!

I spent quiet time in Haystack’s library, finding a wonderful book that had, among other amazing and incredibly racist writing, this wonderful drawing. Mud shoes. Very like bear paw showshoes, only, er, not. Needs must, ordinary excellence, and appropriate technology.

Visiting Maine in August was very good, spending time with Hannah and Tyler, eating LOTS of fresh fish (the lobster/corn on the cob supper on the rocks at Haystack with Christine and Kate remains a highlight), and that LONG drive shook me out of my summer post-move chaos and doldrums. Now I’m back, it’s September, I have a lovely papermaking class of seven (my favorite number) and my first student absence is because that student is showing a Jersey cow at a huge regional fair; how cool is that?! We have had Peace Papermakers here starting the year and will move into making paper from wild and garden plants foraged at the Sustainability Program Farm and haul the pulp back to the studio to make paper using, ta da!, the new drying system!

Oh, and that book above? The library card in the back was signed out to Hisako Sekijima. A rock star.