Thoughts from Ash Meadows

Things can be repaired if enough people care. Damage can be undone. Lessons can be learned. Evolution continues, but extinction is forever.

The volunteer efforts here at Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge are formidable. The visitor center is outstandingly beautiful and functional, the displays top-notch, the small gift-shop stocked with educational books, toys, games and souvenirs for all ages. We really enjoyed the strong presence of the Southern Paiute and TImbisha Shoshone people's art and worldviews in the interpretive displays. This place was here and enjoyed harmoniously for centuries by humans long before invaders and colonizers of different values disrupted the balance. 

But now the descendants of all those humans are working together to rehabilitate and restore what was broken. All colors and kinds of people removing invasive species (crawfish, bullfrogs, salt cedar), stewarding endemic natives (pupfish, flowers, insects), educating the public, interpreting the significance so we can understand why it matters.....

.....and yet, there are still people who want to do whatever it takes to make more money for them and theirs, fish and bugs be damned, and rivers dammed and righteously use the land! Conquer! Dominion! The Bible says the Earth is ours and believers will be Raptured up to a new Earth anyway so it's ok if we use this one up, because if you're not saved, you're a damn heathen and going to burn up too, so why cares about endangered fish? 

(Creator: You won't take care of each other or this planet, why should I let you have another? Feed the poor, Jeff. Feed the poor, Elon. Feed the poor, Richard. Then we'll talk about Mars.) 

That same Bible also says in many places it's gonna be damn near impossible for materially wealthy people to get in to that New World. So there's that. How to decide? People hear most clearly the ideas that they already agree with. Short term gains usually win. Comfort and joy, over restraint and wisdom. 

(Disclaimer: Not all Christians. I know this. But that popular, distinctively USA-flavored mega/MAGA-Christianity; by their fruits, you shall know them. Yes. Some people still follow the actual meaning and message of Jesus. Simplicity, healing, love, humility, charity, goodwill. But, not all Christians.)

The Dakota/Lakota People of the Plains call white people "wasichu"; fat-eaters, ones who take the best for themselves, greedy ones. The word didn't start that way, apparently, but developed from a word for a foreigner with special powers to ....something less flattering.

I am white, but I can strive to not be so wasichu. Learn from the land and the People who were there first, the Humans and the Rocks and Fish and Birds.  Because we ARE still wasichu - taking too much. Looking outside i see our big-ass Chevy Silverado truck.  I could wallow in guilt. I could buy an electric car, a bicycle, quit driving altogether. I could refuse to step foot into any powered vehicle. I could draw any sort of line in the internal sand and defend it mightily, including my right as a 'Murican to drive a big truck dammit, midcentury moderns KNOW that cars and the Interstate are from the Age of Greatness! We want to go there, and we want to go fast. In comfort.

Right now - i am wasichu; an American living on $10K a year, STILL in the global top 10%. No way around it. Rich human. Fat. 

The Timbisha Shoshone and Southern Paiute were very materially poor Nations, living in a harsh environment, moving with the seasons and the water. But they lived here thousands of years in balance with all the other life forms. It did not occur to them to think they owned it. They were part of it. Different cultural view. Richness is belonging.

Infant Nation USA is hurtling towards economic and climate disaster because of the enduring national wasichu mindset. But again; things can be repaired if enough people care. Damage can be undone. Lessons can be learned. And vividly, with tiny fish and so much more, Ash Meadows NWR is about that. 

 Sit with that for awhile.

Handmade shirt - a 3D textbook.

Once in awhile a really unusual and beautiful piece shows up at St. Vinnies. This shirt LEAPT out at me from the "vintage" rack. It is completely handmade, not a machine stitch on it anywhere. Does anyone recognize a culture, tribe or spiritual significance, etc., for this shirt? I will tell you what i know about it's construction, based on being a textile geek who has practically memorized "Cut my Cote" , the most important 36 pages ever written about how our clothing shapes evolved as we began to manufacture cloth.

underarm gusset - the mark of a folkloric shirt made with no pattern. No curved seams. No darts.

 Outside view of underarm gusset attached to  yoke and sleeve. This is a hallmark of many folk garments in cultures the world over that allows for ease of arm movement. Folk garments are made of squares and triangles. There are never any scraps. When you are weaving fabric by hand, every inch is precious. You weave the lengths you need for the garment you are going to make; sleeves, front, back, yokes. But the body being a rounded shape needs little pieces inserted into critical places to make flat squares fit. As the Industrial Revolution cranked up the steam-powered looms to make yards of fabric at speeds never before possible, clothing became more elaborate, with curved cuts allowing more form-fitting and creative styles to emerge. However, even though this is obviously modern machine-made cotton broadcloth, the maker is faithful to the tradition of  how a garment is made - no patterns, just a few measurements from the intended wearer (chest circumference, arm length, neck opening, finished garment length)

Incredible stitch density and control of tension, but obviously NOT machine-done!

handworked buttonholes. Buttons stitched on in an X pattern, not parallel I I, as machines do. Thread knotted on the back for security. Not going to pull these off.

interior view of cartridge pleated lower front attached to yoke. Fabric folded over and pleated and sewn down first, then smocked (decorative stitching over pleats) then attached to the yoke piece with some kind of bridging stitch between the two pieces done in embroidery floss. 

inside view of cartridge-pleated smocked section. These sections occur on the tops of sleeves, at the cuffs and on both front and back yokes.

two snaps on each cuff, also hand-sewn. Notice large decorative floss topstitch on edges. The hand-done Zig-zag suggests the maker has seen a zz stitch on a modern (1950+)  sewing machine

 Reverse side of embroidery, all threads carefully knotted and fastened.

Lower edge hem, turned twice and hand-topstitched.

 Exterior view. Look at that beautiful smocking. Good view of the lace-like connecting stitch that holds the major pieces together. 

So what do the colors mean? Pink and green and white? I love this sceme, but wonder if there is a meaning attached. If i had to guess, i think the shirt is some kind of Middle Eastern origin. But then again, maybe Mexico? In any case, i'm glad it was not ruined by machine washing and drying - which would cause all kinds of puckering and ugliness with the embroidery. Handwash cold, dry flat.

I paid $10 for this lovely garment. It fits in the body, but the neck-hole is too tight if buttoned, as are the cuffs. I bought it not so much to wear as to study the construction, as i will be handsewing several garments in the desert this winter, and this shirt is a textbook. I sewed several shirts entirely by hand when i was in high-school, but they were from a McCall's pattern, not real folkloric stuff. 

 I look forward to recreating this (sans embroidery) this winter!

 

Zillow Rots my Brain

You all know the feeling; it's late at night, you're not ready to go to sleep, you need something mindless for your mind. YouTube air disaster videos are no longer exciting. Plane has malfunction, explodes. Lather, rinse repeat. So sorry.

May i suggest an alternative; a combination of Zillow and Google Earth. Now that i have blazing fast unlimited net access, this keeps me mesmerised for hours on end, looking at land and houses, imagining how i would interact with the place. I am old enough to know better now; i can't fix up shit, and my ability to encourage others to do it for me is limited by lack of capital. I am an easily sidetracked visionary.

So many of the grand old houses available to buy in my time/price range (pre-1900, under 50K) have been happily gutted and had a little rehab started, then abandoned. Photos of lath walls stripped bare, dangling wires, piles of debris,"ready for your vision"..... hehe. The last person who had vision was broken by it. They ripped up and wrecked all the good old stuff and left the mess half-done. Pile of kindling. The final fate of wood houses is to burn. Always. Some places, like western Oregon, rain-fueled dryrot is the slow fire. Wood is not durable. Wood houses are on loan from Time.

There is a certain kind of romantic soul who gets caught up in dreams and broken by the reality of a 100+ year old wooden house. The hard reality; you don't get to paint and sew curtains, and pick out your backyard chickens until you fix the foundation, the roof, the walls, the lead paint, the asbestos ducting, the frayed wiring, the stolen copper pipes, the dry rotted, rat-infested, leaking hulk of a dream that just wants to melt back into the earth already.....

OK so what if i DID have several million disposable dollars? Would i buy the 1873 Italianate doctor's mansion on the Erie Canal Bikeway in upstate New York and open a wonderful hostel/B&B for cyclists? Organic, acoustic, historic, folkloric - i have so many ideas and no way to make them go. Because even if i DID do the above, i have no ability to maintain and run such a thing without a dedicated staff. I want to see all the places, live in all the houses, hear all the stories, learn all the history. But my restless mind can't settle into a project and have that be the career track for life. I think too fast, too far, too often. Living in an RV with the ability to move is finally an acknowledgement of this reality.

OK then, which brings us back to Zillow and Google Earth!
The West has very few truly old houses west of Omaha, but the West IS full of cheap little plots of desert for a few thousand bucks, and the ads exhort you to bring "The kids, the dogs, the toys - cut loose!", this sort of advert on a quarter-acre property. Probably can't fit all the kids, dogs and toys, etc on the lot to start with. But some take the bait, scrape together a few thousand bucks to go live for "free" on their "own land" and go "off grid".




So many real-estate scams of the 50s and 60s preyed on the dreams of working class people who wanted "out." California City in the Mojave Desert is the classic example. So is Christmas Valley in Oregon, Rio Ranchos in New Mexico, The jackrabbit cabins of the Mojave near Joshua Tree, Rio Rico in Arizona, many many more. Most famous scam, the whole Salton Sea. 

Most of these were "Sagebrush subdivisions" - buy an old ranch, scrape a street grid into it, maybe even a lodge and some landscaping, sell dreams to the city-folk for $50 down, $50 a month, outrageous interest. No infrastructure. No city, no industry, nothing but a bulldozed grid and a dream and fear of missing out on an opportunity. None of that land appreciated in value without a lot of "improvements".

I bought a bare .33 acre lot in Christmas Valley for $3000, which is far less than it sold for (in adjusted dollars) back in 1961. I'm the third owner. Nothing has ever been done on the land. The survey pins were still in, the dirt road had sagebrush in the median but was passable. Slapdash little homesteads are scattered across the prehistoric lakebed. Dead cars, trailers, cabins built of scrap lumber and tin; dogs, kids, toys. Foodbank day is Tuesday, they all line up.

Why did i buy it? I have my dreams too, and in a moment of mania, i wrote a check. We've had a driveway scraped in, we've cleared a lot of dead brush, we've hosted family campouts in RVs on a tiny lot in the middle of a grid for a city that never happened. What dreams sent me to the high desert?

Space. Darkness. Quiet. Sky. Emptiness. No wreck of a house to maintain, no utilities to go wrong. But certainly not going to try and live there year-round in a trailer, like so many think they'll do. Drag in an old singlewide, and then find that there is no way to keep it warm when the temperature goes below 0F regularly in the winter. Not enough firewood, propane is expensive, and no way can you run electric heat off a solar system. Someday, i may actually get a 12x12 stone cabin on that lot. But for now, we can go there and park the RV and watch the stars and birds. It costs $52 a year in taxes.There's a store and an RV dump and propane available in town. For now, it's a stop on our seasonal round. No drain, no pain, no house.

Zillowing about the countryside - set the filters to "pre-1900" and the price to $50,000 or less and look at all the fantastic old wrecks that come up. Mostly just broken farmhouses, but occasionally an old mansion or grange hall or something that could BE SOMETHING, if vision and money collided just so. I'm enamoured of the whole upstate NY area. Can i move to Ithaca and be a caretaker at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology or something?

No. But you CAN travel. And be here now, wherever here is. I can enjoy those old wrecks from afar, stay in the rehabbed ones for a price, a different one every night. I am not a person who can pick a huge project and stick with it. One song at a time is good. One week at a special camping place is good. Small places to live are good. Small amounts of money, i can keep track of. Big dreams, small realities.

And after a few hours of intense Zillowing, i feel like i really HAVE travelled. Last night i spent time mostly intently contemplating tiny places in both New York and Nevada, states about as opposite as can be in this country, politically and ecologically. And i found appealing things about both places. And like my partner, i could live anywhere. And everywhere.

We'll keep RVing and gradually finding our way around the country with no particular place to go, and in that mindset, we will manage to go a lot of cool places. I really want to ride that New York bike trail along the Erie Canal!