Mainlining milkweed

I am still terrible at using my camera (haven't spent enough time with it or its manual) but tried to capture the wonderful first day of my Milkweed Residency (MR). Pati directed it and here she is in her studio showing us some of her incredible artwork (these are books, we had already looked at a suite of prints she did over the course of a decade, and new work that is very exciting). Due to scheduling changes, Tim and Pati were hosting Brien and Jim right before I arrived and I was able to overlap with them for several hours! What fantastic convergence. I had driven over early on Monday and almost as soon as I arrived, Pati and I braved the hot humid afternoon to harvest milkweed nearby.

It was a small haul (or so I thought) and we could have gotten more if we were willing to hang out with a couple of horses but by then I was so sweaty that we took what the scale says was ten pounds and walked back home. I left it outside and trimmed some to get ready to steam the next day, and then we had to rinse off. Pati also showed me what poison ivy looks like because I'm too suburban to know the difference. It was too good a chance to have a long late lunch with the whole group and hang out before Jim and Brien hit the road.

Tim's woodpile is the most beautiful and I always always love to revisit it. Here he is with Jim, wearing the same shirts! Jim had apparently given this to Tim years ago.

Here's all of us. What a perfect first afternoon! I'll catch Jim soon as he will be coming through Cleveland for teaching and his birthday.

The next day I thought we should head out early to harvest before the scorching weather got us again. But it was too easy and pleasant to linger at breakfast and catch up. By the time we drove to Tim's brother's property that has tons of milkweed that is easily accessible, it was good and hot, though there was a bit of a breeze that we didn't have the previous day.

The first day I wanted green stuff, and the second day I gravitated towards black. Pati was a real trooper as well went our separate ways on the paths, leaving piles of stalks as we traveled.

This was the haul that the scale said was about 25.5 pounds. We could have come back for more, but I wanted to get back in time to steam the first batch and get dinner ready for our special guest.

Tim emptied a washbasin for a little outdoor station, and the batch steamed up well.

I'm sure I could have engineered a more comfortable setup for stripping bast, but I didn't. It goes faster with help! That evening we had a giant meal of Korean food. The next day was all rain, so no more harvesting, just more steaming and stripping, and then scraping. In the afternoon we went into Albion to see Anne's beautiful show and visit the art department and library. Almost everyone I knew from my residency two years ago happened to come by. It was great to see them all and it made me miss living and working there A LOT.

Since Tim had screened in the porch, it was a great place to work on the rainy days. The scraping takes forever but once I get started, I don't want to NOT scrape it all...but I really don't have time. I drove home today using back roads and didn't quite do it right so my trip was longer than expected, but somehow I thought after arriving past 7pm that I would unpack, do laundry, get ready for class tomorrow, and then SCRAPE MORE MILKWEED. Crazy, right? I should just set the stripped stuff out to dry, refrigerate more, and maybe pack some with my knife to take to school tomorrow to do during my breaks. It's always good to return home after a trip but it was hard to this place and people that I love so much. If I'm lucky, I'll get an MR every October!