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I have been traveling again…and am just on the way home from my latest week of work on the Reservation. I have held this dream-like image of our farm in my mind….and Brook and all the animals in my heart.

On my way to Tuba City, I always stop in Flagstaff to visit Kathy and Ralph who have made me so welcome over my time in AZ. The Flagstaff climate is almost identical to ours in Pine Valley, and being there always feels like home. Flagstaff has had a deep snow winter so far (unlike us) and the night that I arrived, their farm was graced with another 6″ or 7″. I say “graced” for my benefit; it was beautiful.

But at this point, they likely don’t feel the same!

When I arrived in Tuba City, I brought to my room there the loom that my friend and weaving mentor Betty Nez set up for me a few months ago. I forgot to take a photo this time…but here is what it did look like at the beginning:

While I am there in Tuba City, I weave, knit, spin and read…but after a long day of work, I seem to only have enough energy to weave. I am in a learning curve that is longer than I would choose, but the weavers around me have spent a lifetime doing this, and have generations of tradition behind them. I have much to learn…

In her kindness, Betty has given me some of her handspun and wound a warp for me to take home. Her yarn is spun traditionally on a Navaho spindle, but her choice is to spin a more bulky yarn. I LOVE it; the weaving has such character and will go faster…a great thing for my impatient-to-experience-it-all self.

I borrowed the loom frame from a friend in our valley, saving me lots of work, and I have set up the warp on the frame. But I only had time to weave a little before I left for AZ. I am excited to get back to it…

This evening I will be home and back to my “real” life. But in the meantime, everything about my AZ home is a blessing.