Forlorn Indigo & Cotton

The sun sits lower and lower on the horizon each day. Last week it lowered into the bamboo grove on the mountain near the south face of the house. The sunlight twinkles throughout the leaves now. The monkeys are tripping back and forth across that face fighting and looking for a few forgotten persimmons in the leafless trees. No direct sunlight on this old farmhouse until the third week of January. It then hits my bed in the morning of my birthday.

 Hibernation time for now. There is a week left before the sun starts to slowly ascend day by day.

Leila and Frank have come from the UK to help me with carpentry projects around the house and bring in some festive cheer into this grumpy no-Christmas house.

Leila has mince pies baking in the oven right now. Frank is making some hot chocolate. Joni Mitchell is singing, "River"

It's coming on Christmas,
They're cutting down trees.
They're putting up reindeer
And singing songs of joy and peace,
Oh, I wish I had a river I could skate away on.

But it don't snow here,
Stays pretty green.
I'm gonna make a lot of money
And and then I'm gonna quit this crazy scene.
Oh, I wish I had a river I could skate away on.

I wish I had a river so long,
I would teach my feet to fly.
Oh, I wish I had a river I could skate away on.
I made my baby cry.

he tried hard to help me,
he put me at ease.
lord,he loved me so naughty,
made me weak in the knees.
Oh I wish I had a river I could skate away on.

I'm so hard to handle,
I'm selfish and I'm sad.
Now I've gone and lost the best baby
That I've ever had.
Oh, I wish I had a river I could skate away on.

I wish I had a river so long,
I would teach my feet to fly.
Oh, I wish I had a river I could skate away on.
I made my baby say goodbye.

It's coming on Christmas,
They're cutting down trees.
They're putting up reindeer
And singing songs of joy and peace,
I wish I had a river I could skate away on.

Hiro made a Christmas flower arrangement yesterday. Ogata san is showing off her latest minimalist shibori...."I should have added a second circle."

The week before she made some gift handkerchiefs. It is cold outside by the vats and she is using her 97 years to get the young ones out there to help with nine of the ten dips. (While she supervises on the heated side of the glass doors.) 

If I go to Switzerland for Christmas I manage to hum a few Christmas tunes while decorating the tree and setting up the nativity scene under Barbara and Martin's tree for the kids but there hasn't been a tree in this place for 26 years. What a miserable scrooge.

There are other traditions though.

The trip to the indigo field when the seeds are hardened and the sparrows are not hungry enough that they will eat them.  The timing has to be just right.

Gathering indigo seeds to send to friends all over the world over the holidays and for the field and garden next spring.

The indigo stems were not a festive red but the scrappy blue leaves were the best instead.

The fallen indigo seeds have sprouted before winter sets in. Tomorrow's frost will do them in. 

I've never quite seen the mulberry in this state. A unseasonably warm day or a bitter cold wind will decide their fate. 

The earlier frost burnt  leaves off the cotton plants.  Some white cotton fluff still clings marvellously.  Revealing there were more bolls I'd missed while harvesting