If you’re reading Mary Oliver’s Twelve Moons as a lunar calendar with me this year, it’s time to read the poem for today’s first quarter moon, The Lamps.
This is one of my favorite Mary Oliver poems, one that truly speaks to me. It could hardly have come at a better time in this lunar poetry calendar I’ve created for myself around Ms. Oliver’s book.
One of the cabin’s oil lamps (Photo: Michelle Zeiger).
I recently built a garden tool for Michelle’s birthday, an archaeological style sifter. It’s also been called an archaeological sifter, garden sifter, compost sifter, sifting screen, or soil sifter, depending on the use to which an individual puts it. A search of these terms on the Internet revealed that gardeners love them, but no one seems to be able to find plans for them!
The sifter operates by swinging the sifter box up parallel to the ground, balanced on the leg stand while the user holds it up (or braces it with one’s hip to use two hands in the box). The box is agitated briskly back and forth to sift the contents. It’s a lot faster and easier than a regular screen frame.
The brand spankin’ new sifter, before Michelle went and got it all dirty (Photo: Mark Zeiger).
