Natchaug River Flood

I apologize for the nasal quality of my voice in this video. I have the understandable seasonal cold. This is the Natchaug River, a really awesome sight when it floods after days of rain. Natchaug means "the land between the rivers" and this river certainly defines some aspects of life around here. From the roadside secret fishing and swimming spots, to the large foundation of an old silk mill the used to sit on it's banks back in the 1800's, to the indigenous people that lived here long ago, this is the place where I was born, and where I will always be from, and that land that I am indigenous to myself. Here's a little video that I took this afternoon, from the vantage point of a large standing rock on the side of the river where lots of people come to sun bath on in the summertime.

Some New ART

Here are some artists that I have come across in the past couple of weeks that I really enjoyed. Their shops were great to peruse through, all pretty different mediums, but they are all very talented at what they do. Enjoy!

Roadside

betsywalton

flatlandkitchen

kleinfamily

BluLima

New Name! Welcome to the new Brown Boot Salvage.

Hey folks, as you may notice, if you haven't checked back in a few days I've got a brand new URL and and a new name! As part of my Indie business class, I am taking one of the first steps toward creating more of the life I want to have, which also includes having an independently run craft business, as one of my many disciplines! I feel that "yawantapeanut" must go as I enjoy eating peanuts, but it doesn't stand for who I am, or really anything to do with what I'm interested in. A humbling admission. So, I really hope that I'll still have the same readership, so bookmark my new URL http://brownbootsalvage.blogspot.com and tell your friends!
The word Salvage to me means a lot of things. It first recalls memories of going to the salvage yard with my father as a young girl and holding wrenches and tools while he took off car parts to help repair our old vehicles. We would go hunting for treasures at the dump, and I was the kid who would rescue baseball hats, shirts, and pennies from muddy parking lots, and wear them proudly as my free finds. I was the kid who got feathers from roadside red tailed hawks that had been killed, books from the swap shop at the dump, and made friends with a hammer and a nail and scrap pieces of wood that I would play with for hours.
He has taught me to be a recycler, a dumpster diver, and a roadside searcher. And not in the popular sense of the word. It was just something that we did. It wasn't a movement or a cause, but a way of looking at and just living life. My grandparents are this way, my mother is this way. This mentality has taught me to be a re-user, a maker of things, and a curious human.
But to me it is not just "reduce reuse recycle" it is about recreating the social structure of what we consume and what we deem as useful and un useful in our everyday throwaway society. Salvaging the old fashioned systems of "using what you have" or "work with what you've got" the way of being that has been for so so long until the past couple of centuries. We need to salvage our wounded soil and bring back a thriving food system, (thats where "Brown Boot" comes into play here) and we need innovators who aren't afraid to get their hands dirty, be creative, be curious, and to thrive!
So I guess my new goals with this blog are along the lines of sharing more of my interests in agriculture, in thrifting, in re using, in making things, on how to be self reliant, and my craft projects. I believe that there is craft in the everyday, in baking bread, in playing music, in fixing a tractor, in building a house, in knitting a sweater. I would love to have some guest writers, to share my music with you, and to share the everyday craft of life, and those around me. And I hope to give images and words of inspiration. Thanks for reading.-
Emma

Baloji

I wanted to share with you one of my favorite new musical sharing's that made it's way to me in the past couple weeks. A Congolese born, and Belgian bred rapper with a lot of style. Even if you don't understand the words, you can tell the amount of soul and effort hat he puts into the music. I think this video is great, I hope you enjoy

Baloji.com

These are a Few of my Favorite things

This dress by Shihar. I love all the clothing that Shira makes, I've put pictures of her on my blog here before, I just love the lines in her clothing.

Porcelain ring by NiuTaller

This brown leather messenger bag by The Leather Store

Mermaid necklace by dizzydame

Poster in the Greenhorns shop. I mentioned the Greenhorns in my last post, a non profit organization for young farmers. I've always loved tiny drawings.

Farm Film Feast, and a great big sign.

This weekend was pretty jam packed. I got to travel to western Massachusetts to the Farm Film Feast hosted in Williamstown MA. A multi day film festival with author signings, talks, and gatherings it turned out to be a pretty good time. My favorite movie was called Dirt. A film about how the origins of humans, our spirituality, our world conflicts, and our very beings are the essence and the stuff of dirt. It is also where the most healing needs to happen, and our largest shift in consciousness needs to take place. A great documentary, I'd highly recommend it, it has great imagery, a lot of interviews with farmers, artists, and people who are advocates for the health of our soil. They used the book Dirt: The Ecstatic Skin of the Earth by William Bryant Logan (which I read a few years ago) for the concept for the movie. Watch the trailer below

After the last movie we walked around for a while, ate grilled cheese and gilato's in the Williams College student center, found the local watering hole and met a few very nice folks there, saw the last bit of the NCAA division 3 basketball game that was taking place next door, and got a tour of the area by a lovely student taking time out of her night to walk through the slush and snow to show us where we needed to go!

To cap off the evening we went to a panel discussion on farming, with two local farmers and also Severine von Tscharner Fleming who is doing a movie called Greenhorn all about young farmers, she is also one herself, and is also the director of the Greenhorns project which is a land based non profit for young farmers. Check out the website, a blog, radio show, resources for young farmers, merchandise, maps, events, an overwhelming a cool site!

We drove home in what we found out would be categorized as a hurricane, up in the mountains it was snowing and lightning at the same time, a regular two and a half hour drive turned into over four, you get the picture. The overall feel of this weekend felt very inspiring and I can't wait to get started on new projects, spring coming, new business ideas, and making some of my dreams a reality.

Blue Color Monday

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I had an especially good time finding these photos this week. I had a leisurely Saturday morning to spend time on it this week. It now being Monday, is of course a different story than Saturday was, whereas on Saturday I had an injured arm that needed rest from picking up ladders the wrong way, to now today where I'm afraid I might have finally gotten the flu. Or an unpleasant illness I should say. I couldn't sleep much last night, so I spent some time under a sleeping bag on the couch watching a movie I loved when I was eleven. I don't dare tell you what it was though. So in short, I guess I must have known that this sickness was coming on Saturday, because I certainly feel pretty blue today...

Slipping into spring

Brad Barr

Andrew Barr

Sarah Page

I am attempting today to organize and create. Tomorrow the Red Velvet Art girls are beginning their second class installment of Indie Business 2.0 I'm not really prepared for it at all, but I'm excited for it to start. I want to work on the workbook (one of our first inspirational projects to help keep ourselves organized and inspired) so I'm trying to gather supplies for that.

I was supposed to go and work today doing my catering job that is intermittent but a lot of fun. I've never done any food service, or restaurant work, but I have a good time in all of the hustle and bustle of events, and my part in it, usually, is to make people comfortable, give them food, or whatever they ask for. I used to think that I wouldn't really make a good waitress, but I'm better at it than I thought it was.

I wanted to share with you all today a new musical collaboration of one of my favorite bands of all time, The Slip. A Jazz trio, hard to categorize because they really play, rock, funk jazz, folk a whole big mix. In recent years I think they've gained some more popularity, but I've been a fan of theirs for about 10 years now, and they are always all doing something creative and interesting. About five years ago the two brothers in the band, Brad and Andrew Barr moved to Montreal, (they used to live in Boston and Providence) so they don't tour the east coast as much anymore, and Marc Friedman moved to NYC. They also play in a group called Surprise me Mr Davis. Check them out too. Brad did a really great acoustic album last year, just solo, which is one of my favorite albums in the past few years. So the latest is their project called

The Barr Brothers, starring Andrew and Brad and harpist Sarah Page. The album isn't out yet but the tracks on the website are beautiful.

They are probably musically one of the most important bands for me, for lots of reasons, some easier to explain than others. I could probably write a small novel about the number of shows of theirs that I've been to, or why Marc is one of the best bass players around, or why Brad made me pick up the guitar and learn to play in the first place, but I'll save that for my future music blog, the inspiration for which I'm having everyday! All that really matters is that they've got poignant lyrics, great musicians, and most importantly, there is soul in whatever they do. Follow the band links when you have some time and Enjoy!