Someone asked off list, so I thought I’d post here that Joshua, who had the horrific accident this summer when he got hit by a car… well, more like he hit the car while on his bike (the brakes failed and he couldn’t crank around the 90 degree turn at the bottom of the hill at that speed without crossing just over the line, and slammed into the front quarter panel of a Jeep going 35 mph). Here’s the boy on Sept. 23, with freshly washed hair:

Anyway, after five surgeries, two transfusions, two fasciotomies (slices up the side of his leg to alleviate swelling and save the leg), about 10 days on morphine, two skin grafts to close up the fasciotomies, and 21 days (!!!!) in the regional trauma center up in Bangor (90 minutes away…. we took turns spending the night up there, then coming home and walking dogs, cleaning litter box, etc), he came home with a rod the length of his thigh hammered into the center of the bone and an erector set screwed into his shinbones with six long screws/rods. After 3 days he decided the walker was a pain in the tush, so switched to crutches. Here’s a photo of his lower leg, with most of the hardware still in place and one of two scars. He was getting annoyed with me (so must be feeling like himself, a 13 year old boy!) so I didn’t get a pic of the other scar on the inside, which is a bit larger and “z” shaped).

By the time school began after labor day, he was able to attend an away-camp for 8th graders (he couldn’t do the cool stuff like climbing up a tree or going in the harness on the squirrel walk…a line 50 feet up in the trees …. he tried the latter, but the harness rubbed on a bolt at the top of his thigh that holds the rod in place and it hurt too much). While there, he decided the crutches were too much of a nuisance during the cafeteria line, so he just walked! A week later, the x-rays / c heck-up showed bone growth and enough improvement that the doctor took off one of the 3 vertical rods on the erector set, and said he things Joshua will be able to have the hardware removed in mid-to-late October (a sixth surgery). At that point they’ll take the pin at the top of his hip out, too, since it hurts him when he has to walk a lot.

About 10 days ago, he quit using the crutches entirely! And, most amazing of all (I think), the orthopaedic surgeon thinks Joshua will be ready to wrestle when the season starts in February! We’re planning on keeping the hardware (I am thinking wind chimes… perhaps hung from part of the mangled bike LOL!). And, he’s now a smidge taller than I am (he actually grew while he was in the hospital I think!), and I expect by Christmas may be taller than his dad!

And oh yeah: thank heavens for insurance! Through some angel’s hand, we switched from our previous 80/20 policy in January to the slightly more expensive Blue Cross federal (Paul as a federal retiree gets health insurance). Durned good thing. All the bills aren’t in yet, and there is one more surgery, but so far–since it was an accident–of the $150,000+ in bills (EEEEEK!) we have had a total of $200 in co-payments. If we hadn’t switched, we’d be taking out a second mortgage…..

The inspirational sculpture continued as we walked farther away from the visitor’s center, and then looped back around. Near the Zen / Meditating Garden, was this reflecting rockery. From a distance you’d think it might be a stone found there, with smaller stones around the perimeter, but you’d be wrong, as you can see when you get close and see the finely carved opening. I loved the reflection of the trees, and hope to go back and take pictures again on a sunny day, and yet again when just enough of a chill is in the air to start freezing the water into frostlines on the edges:

The path we took followed along the edge of the river where we saw the sun and moon, a carved wood piece with gold on one side and silver on the other. Here are Kathy and Kate walking ahead of me near the piece:

The light was low, so alas a couple other cool pieces I photographed didn’t turn out since I blurred them. But, tucked into the back woods was the Circle and Line “bowl” with the trough of moss:

On the Birch allee, which will be glorious when the array of different varieties of birch trees matures, are a number of pieces including the raven-woman in my previous post on the sculptures. This piece doesn’t photograph as well as it looks… I think it was called legs:

And saving the best for last, I loved loved LOVED this standing stone:

With my family’s roots in Ireland, I have a “thing” for old standing stones, along with a just-me “thing” for circles, and for sinuous lines (is it because my name begins with an “S”? What if I had been named Brigid, would I still love swoopy lines?). I can definitely see some of this imagery working its way into my pieces based on the gardens.

If you liked gods in Alabama or Between, Georgia you’re in for a treat, especially if you are an art quilter. Joshilyn Jackson, author, mom and quilter, has written a new novel about an art quilter, inspired by the irrepressible Pamela Allen. Joshilyn has blogged about the new book, The Girl Who Stopped Swimming, here. And you can read Joshilyn’s blog, Faster than Kudzu, here. And to see Pamelala’s creative mind at work, click here and here.  After reading Joshilyn’s intro to the book in the blogpost, I think I’m gonna be booked for late September… READING time!

In the meantime, I am reading and LOVING Stephen King’s Lisey’s Story.  I am normally not a fan of horror, though I quilt like fantasy and some (non-techy) sci fi.  This book isn’t really a horror story, though it does have its scary  moments… perhaps all the more scary because they are so close to possibly being real.   It is a novel about an intense  love story between Lisey Landon, widow of a famous and successful novelist, and her late husband.  Personally, I thought King’s On Writing:  A Memoir of the Craft was a 200+ page love-letter to his wife; it is about writing, but it is also about a deep and enduring love between him and his wife, author and poet Tabitha King.  Lisey’s Story is dedicated to her, and is an even longer love-letter about a love that extends beyond every day life.  So now I need to get back to doing (and finish!) the paperwork for various teaching gigs next year so I can escape to the back porch while the nice weather lasts and keep reading Lisey’s Story!

The sculpture at the Botanical Gardens is as wonderful as the hardscape and the landscaping, and is exquisitely placed. As you approach the entrance to the visitors center, one of the first sculptures to greet you is this woman and owl (there was a sticker on the tag, so it seems some pieces are for sale, like this one, and others are permanent installations):

There has been a bit of talk over on Rayna Gillman’s blog about working in a series as well as on the SAQA yahoo group. Well, I’m one of the “don’t think I could do a series” types (as in I don’t want to!), but after seeing the woman and owl and this next piece by the same artist, I’m thinking maybe, just maybe, there *might* be a chance of a thematic sort of thing…..

One of the pieces that most captured me was this yellow-orange blown glass flower / reeds / whatever was in a large pond near the entrance and large open grassy areas (where weddings happen, we are told)…. Kate and Kathy weren’t nearly as enchanted as I was… I took gobs of photos of it:

On the way down to the river, you come around a bend and see this glorious glass orb. We don’t know if it is solid or hollow, but it appears to be made out of sheets of glass. Even on an overcast (ok, just finished raining and still drippy) day, it was lit up, and when the sun is out the photos of it make it seem to float. The siting of it on a mound above the path is perfect:

I’ll share more photos of sculptures in a few days.

Last Monday (gosh…a week already? It has been, as usual, a crazy busy blur of a week) I met two of my fellow Frayed Edges at the opened-this-year Maine Botanical Gardens in Boothbay Harbor (north of Portland, south of Camden about an hour plus a bit). The gardens were incredibly inspiring, so I’ll just share a bunch of photos.

As you approach the entrance to the visitors center, this glorious stone wall (and Maine has many!) greets you, with a bit of garden sculpture in the mid-ground on the right. I’ll do another post on the sculptures around the grounds in a few days….

This is the “zen” or meditating area. Frankly, I never slow down enough to even THINK about meditating… my life seems to be on permanent fast-forward. But the steps and stonescape up the hillside are gorgeous:

Part of this Zen area is a path that to us looked like a strand of DNA:

At the bottom of the hill is the river / fingerling of the bay, with a typical Maine vista:

And on the path back was this glorious stump…how can you not love those colors and textures?

Then there is the tracery of tree roots

:

And the beauty of a stump atop cracked rocks: