A Birchwood Path

Bill Gibb for Baccarat, Renaissance Pinafore Dress With Terracotta Shirt, ca. 1970. 

this really spoke to me, as a trans hippie shut-in.

WHITE PINES In seventeenth- and eighteenth-century New England, the British Royal Navy claimed ownership of all the white pines over a hundred feet tall. English surveyors branded each trunk with three vertical hatchet marks, declaring it a crime for anyone but the king's representatives to cut these trees down. Broad and arrow straight, they became sailing ship masts, flexing in the wind as the Royal Navy sped around the world on its colonizing missions. By 1800, most of these big old trees were gone. Now, two centuries later, I camp among white pines in occupied Abenaki Territory--known for the time being as Vermont--my favorite tent site at Ricker Pond strewn with needles. Neither as broad nor as tall as the mast trees, they still tower above the maple, beech, birch, balsam fir; sing in the wind, a deep-throated hush. Cones thud to the ground. Morning sun on the pond throws rippling shadows onto their bark. Crowns break and curve. Trunks split into three, four, five; grow bent around and through each other. They would never have been the king's trees.

Ursula K. Le Guin, Draft for the labyrinth of the Tombs of Atuan, with note, (ink on paper), ca. 1970 [© Estate of Ursula K. Le Guin / The Ursula K. Le Guin Foundation; Courtesy University of Oregon Libraries and Ursula K Le Guin Foundation], in The Maps of Ursula K. Le Guin Explored in New Exhibition and Book, Fine Books & Collections, October 1, 2025

137-year-old Bones McCoy tells Data (about the Enterprise): "You treat her like a lady. And she'll always bring you home."

It's come to my attention that I never posted the parasol I made for Pride LAST spring! (which also came home with a blue ribbon from a local fair last fall.) I'm much more into bright rainbows with fuchsia pink than the traditional red rainbows, so I fell deeply in love with this yarn immediately.

Pattern is Starflower Parasol by Jenny Amos/bythebeachcrochet, with additional inspiration taken from Marcus Miller/chiaroscurity_designs, who also made the cute rainbow umbrella earrings I'm wearing in this picture of me.

Yarn is Scheepjes Whirl 792 Rainbow Popsicle. It didn't take a whole cake of yarn, so I separated it into mini balls of yarn to be sure I got through all the colors.

Crystals were added using jump rings, and the parasol frame came from Umbrella Joan; it's the 10-spoke Georgia Parasol Frame.