Author: one2travelfar

Thanksgiving

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I turned my kitchen into a disaster zone today in preparation for the holidays. While I chopped, boiled, stuffed, fermented, steamed and tasted I was thankful for family and friends. This is our first Thanksgiving in the United States in two years so tonight we are having Pad Thai. Our bigger celebration will be on Saturday to accommodate travel schedules and a multitude of commitments. Our guests will be turkeyed out but not us, we’re pacing ourselves.

I am thankful I developed a passion for fiber arts: knitting, spinning, weaving, dyeing and quilting and have met interesting women around the world with shared interests.

I am thankful I was able to put my loom together without any leftover pieces. I even understand how it works. Now I just have to DO IT!

I am thankful I finished this runner in time to grace the Thanksgiving table.

Biannual winter

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The weather cooperated with the forecast, about 7 inches of snow overnight and today. Our first snow in almost two years since we went from US fall to Australian Spring and Summer back to US Spring, Fall… The first snow is a novelty. Especially since I didn’t do any shoveling. My elbow still remembers the snow of February 2010 when I got tennis, or snow shoveling, elbow. It’s all better now and I intend to keep it that way.

I was able to put together the floor loom with no extra pieces and finish one weaving from my rigid heddle loom. Photos tomorrow. I finally got outside before the sun set, barely.

The mighty Boquet is quiet today, too frozen to flow under the bridge it knocked out in August.

Fiber frenzy

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Let the games begin. How will I ever accomplish all the projects I have in mind, especially since I just brought home (but haven’t reassembled yet) a floor loom? Is it materialistic when you acquire objects for the sole pupose of making other objects? I count a full set of knitting and crochet needles, 2 sewing machines (including a vintage Singer Featherweight), one spinning wheel, three drop spindles, a rigid heddle loom and now a 4 harness floor loom.

Now I have a backlog of projects people have requested or I have in my mind. I see myself jumping from one project to another in a fiber fantasy frenzy. What fun!

This weekend alone I knit two cowls and three earwarmers. An earflap hat is on the needles and a shawl and leggings are in progress. A table runner is on the loom and a quilt is pinned and I have more fabric for the next one. I need elves.

During my trip south I found a moment to see the Fire Island Lighthouse, my old neighbor.
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Santa Claus flies planes not reindeers

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I spent a few days in Washington, DC visiting my daughter and friends. I enjoyed walking the streets and looking at the buildings and sculptures. I saw this on my first day. It drew me in from across the street by the sheer anguish. I now know it is Andrew Sakharov, a Russian physicist who worked to develop a nuclear bomb and later became a human rights activist exiled in Russia awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

What a day!

I walked the alphabet streets from T-U and saw this along my way.

Lawn art

Loads of people were riding these bikes. They are available for rent at over 100 sites around Washington, DC. They are in metered bike racks and after signing up, you can use them for 30 minutes for free and then there’s a charge after that. What a great system. The bikes even have a cute little basket in front.

Capital bikeshare

After several days in the city, I was ready to get back to my sanctuary in the North Country where my town doesn’t even have a traffic light. As much as I like the energy and all that a city offers, I grow tired of the need to protect my “space”. I’m that bumbling tourist who doesn’t understand the metro system and who stops to look up at the buildings. On my flight home, I had a chance to observe the kindness of strangers. An elderly woman in a wheel chair was brought on board what became a full flight. Late in the boarding, a large, white haired and bearded man came aboard and took the middle seat next to her telling her, “Don’t worry young lady, you don’t have to get up”. I heard him tell her before we took off that although he was a retired fighter pilot, he now enjoyed working as Santa Claus during the holidays. When the flight attendants gave their safety talk about the oxygen masks, he told her not to worry because if anything happened to the plane during the flight, he would take care of her. I shed a tear in the seat behind them.

Exterior decorator

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Travel makes me appreciate home. I am heading out this week and next to visit my kids in DC and Brooklyn. Both trips include mini reunions with friends from elementary school.

We embellished our house plaque with a skull I found on the property. It probably lost it’s horns but I made replacements from birch bark.

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Something strange is afoot

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The first photo is very shady because I didn’t even take the screen out of the window to shoot it but something strange is going on. We awaken to various crop circles. This was the first and the pattern gets lost behind the screen. it suggests something either skulked around in random circles or it was dragged.

First evidence

Today’s message is a little clearer and I even went outside to shoot this picture. I’m sure it is meant to be the numeral 2. What can it mean?

Crop circles

Transformations

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I’m still standing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s still better than sitting while my back slowly heals. I’ve spent the time causing many transformations from a vertical position. Most of the work is based upon the raw ingredients we pick up from the farm each week with a little wool thrown in.

This kohlrabi is huge, bigger than a grapefruit, smaller than a breadbox. Apparently you just carve a little off as needed. i’ve made a slaw with apples and craisins two nights and have hardly made a dent in it.

Giant winter kohlrabi

I finished knitting the second clog, felted them and gave them to their recipient, who proceeded to wear them while wet to form them to her feet. What a trooper.

Clogs before and after

Felted

For a bread variation, I made rolls to go with pulled pork. Yummmmm. I just made my basic bread recipe, formed half of it into one inch round balls and threw three in each compartment of the muffin tin. Bread flour from the farm.

Hard rolls

Rye flour became rye bread in the bread machine with both yeast and beer as the leavening. It’s a coarse bread, great with lots of butter and probably a beer. So much for the diet. It was fun while it lasted.

Rye bread

My standing knitting project and a trip to the farm

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Not “standing” like it’s the same every week or a standing order. I literally knit the entire clog while standing because I strained my back yesterday and don’t like sitting, putting on pants, putting on socks, picking things up from the floor or bending in any way. So I knit, ate breakfast, read the paper and putzed around on the computer while standing. I love this felted clog pattern. They felt and shrink down to a cozy slipper clog.

Unfelted clog

While standing before the window all day, I got to observe the sky changing over Jay and sometimes clouds obscuring the mountain. Right now it’s almost obscured by the power lines but that’s why I strained my back and am standing in the first place.

Say goodbye to wires

Tim had a rehearsal so I had to make the trip to the farm share on my own today. There were big clouds in them there hills.

Something brewing on the way to the farm

There are a variety of hay storage systems: covered or uncovered, randomly strewn around the field, stacked in a pile or lined up like ducks in a row. Esthetically, I prefer the random, uncovered bales.

Hay

The first cut is the deepest

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Well not exactly but the first cut of the 577 foot ditch needed to bury our power lines in was significant. We rented heavy equipment and used a lot of elbow and back grease. A bulldozer(?) was delivered and Tim’s brother arrived to operate it. We had to watch out for various hazards: an underground spring’s pipe, steep grades and a lost mole.

The first bite

The plan was simple, dig the ditch, glue the almost 600 foot, 6-inch wide conduit pipes together and roll them into the ditch. Not so fast. Although the ground was sandy, without rocks, there was one area with a steep grade and we found another spring, without a stop valve, where water quickly filled the last 150 feet or so. As the youngest and weakest of the crew, I was sent to Plattsburgh to get the pump to empty our new swimming ditch. It worked wonders, the pipe was laid in a dry ditch and the views along the northway were lovely.

I understand why road crews always have a few workers standing around. Earth movers are mesmerizing. I found myself standing and watching when I could. But we only had 48 hours with the heavy equipment so there wasn’t much standing around. Our job was made much easier, or at least mine was, with the help of a friend.

Boys will be boys

Potential pipeline

Moving pictures

Pretty farm

I’m a little broken tonight but hope to be able to stand up straight tomorrow. Now we just have to wait for the power and phone companies to come, take the wires off the poles (I hope the bluebirds don’t miss the wires) and run the wire through the conduit.