landscapes

I took a weekend off last week, heading over to the western side of the state to gather dyestuffs and write. NaNoWriMo is a few months away and I came so close to finishing last year that I want to give it another, more planned out, try. I have a few new ideas about how I want to format the story. Maybe as a zine? I'm also narrowing the physical range of the main character, making it more local.

 On the way up to Grand Mesa I stopped briefly in the desert, up above the canyon where I grew up. I followed a hawk down this draw and found several patches of rabbitbrush, one seeded juniper and horehound. I didn't realize it was horehound until I got it home and was able to look it up. I thought it was a prickly sort of mint. Now I wish I had picked more, but at least I know where it lives. It felt like stumbling across a whole glass bottle from the 1800's.

 When I got home I put all of the plants in the dyepot together. It smelled amazing! The rabbitbrush can be overpoweringly medicinal on it's own but the rest of the plants balanced it out and it was like having a giant potpourri crock going on the stove all day.