Matt and Kim

Yes it has been a while, but here I sit again, now in the summer heat, prepared to write again. Thanks to my leaving my headlights on all day, and now my waiting to get a jump, and my being in a place with a computer, this opportunity has extended itself to me.

I feel that I am perhaps a bit late in this discovery because this band I was just told about is nothing near infancy, they seem to have quite the following. Check out Matt and Kim. Catchy pop hooks and vocals, simplistic yet slamming drumming, it all adds up to a good car trip in the hot sun. I heard these two on the car ride that led me here.

Click on the picture, it'll take you to their myspace and their music!

The V Dub

I had to smile today when I was invited to a big VW rally next weekend. A fellow v dub driver told me about it. I think when you have an oldy but a goody of a car, and you wave to vintage plate drivers, and give full on salutes to other rabbit drivers you are officially in the club. I'm not in too many camps, but I think I'm in this one. People who drive them understand the care and attention and number of breakdowns that must be endured. That must be what binds us together. The triumph of still rolling down the road.

I'll have to get you a real picture of her, the car otherwise known as "the Agen" "the Beanpod" and the "Leaky SOB"...Though whenever I call her that she stops running, so it's best to not jinx it and keep her going.

Thread Nests and a little Peek

(my heart pincushion gettin some serious use today)

Hello all,

I spent a lot of time sewing today, I'm so excited to finally be persuing my goal of having an etsy shop in the next couple of months. I've wanted to sell some of my handmade wares for a long time but haven't been quite sure how to approach it, but now, thanks in a large part to the Indie Business class, I'm creating goals and moving forward. I'm going to be creating tote bags, some knitted items, big mixed media collages, and hopefully some other surprises. Here is a little sneak peek...

If you live where the weather is fine this week, I hope you get out and enjoy it. The daffodils are blooming here, the tomatoe seedlings are coming up in their little soil blocks, and it seems that spring has really arrived. I'll be outside all day tomorrow, painting a house yellow, have a good one!

Buckets

I recently had the late night pleasure of bailing out a basement filled with water. Not as much pleasure as the owners of the house who have sadly spent several days without sleep, borrowing buying and probably wanting to steal sump pumps, buckets, hoses, and a new basement. Geysers spurting up from the cracks in the concrete floor, and no stopping the water that wanted to come in. In the northeast there was LOTS of flooding this past week, a much more scary situation for some then others, but a general feeling of not being able to do much about it at all is somewhat thrilling. Roads were washed away, dam's flooded, and the fact that peoples travel, and peoples belongings that make up their lives are easily lost when the rain wants to wash it away...
As I spent several hours filling buckets with water (which my back is paying for now) I chuckled to myself, because of buckets. When it boils down to it, when people are in human crisis, and for all the "wonders of technology" that exist, the tool that people turn to is the use of buckets to bail themselves out. When you have to deal with the fire or the flood yourself, what better thing is there to reach for than the old fashioned, age old glory we know as bucket.
I know a girl who wishes for an easter bucket for the holiday instead of a basket, and I heartily wish for the same, Happy Easter!

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