Travel to Spring and back

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This is the second year I have visited my daughter in DC in late winter, early spring and it really provides a boost for the spirit. I saw crocuses just in bloom and heard a wider variety of birds than my brave little chickadees and bluejays. One day the temperature rose to the 60’s and the next it dropped to the 20’s with gale force winds, which howled all night. Air travel has become less fun, it gets more expensive and they take away more. I got bumped, waited standby and happily made my flight home before the airport closed due to 4-6 inches of snow in DC. Really?

We traveled to Berkeley Springs, WV State Park (possibly the smallest state park in the country, one acre or so) and took to the waters, a scalding Roman bath, and had relaxing massages. We barely made it out of there with the shirts on our backs. I’m no prude, but nude dining doesn’t appeal to me, and not only because I am a messy eater.

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Zoo animals on holiday

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I am in DC visiting my darling daughter. While she toils sway at her job I’ve been sightseeing and tackling minor plumbing repairs.

We had a gale Wednesday night (while there were near blizzard conditions at home) with the wind gusting to 50 mph, whistling clear through the house. The next day was sunny and cold and I headed to the National Zoo, which is only a short walk.

I was skeptical at first. I walked through several exhibits and the only thing I had to show for it was a lonely goldfish in a salamander pool.

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Many of the Asian animals were on holiday, like wild kingdom snowbirds. The elephants were nowhere to be seen. The gibbons were gone. The lemur island was vacant.

The red pandas were off doing hanky panky (the official term ) to breed. My main quest was the Giant Pandas and luckily they stuck around. I didn’t see the newest addition to the family but can observe her anytime via webcam. Well not anytime. I don ‘t see her in the picture tonight.

I saw one Panda outside and the other chowing down on bamboo inside.

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My day was complete.

Mutant gloves

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We spent a night in Montreal to hear the Symphony perform Petrushka. I failed to take my camera with me but our seats were awesome. We sat where the choir would normally sit in a “U” above and around the orchestra, facing Kent Nagano, the conductor. I could swear he cued ME on a couple of occasions.

It was the perfect vantage point to watch the percussionists. During one piece, one musician’s role was to break wine glasses and ceramic baking dishes in two metal garbage cans. I knew something was up when I saw him wearing protective eye ware. He even had music!

Before the show, we stopped in a military surplus store where I found these odd, two-thumbed mittens.
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I thought it was an odd way to make “one size fits all”. Until Tim pointed out the second thumb was for a trigger finger.

And here I thought they were meant for this guy.

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Better to be bit by a bug than a coyote

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Last week didn’t exist for me – or I didn’t really exist last week. Imagine, no knitting for a day due to either a virus or parasite that knocked me for a loop and caused me to sleep 18 hours a day for four days. But, I’m back, feeling mended and ready to charge back into the work week.

Better a bug than the coyotes. They howled across the road the other night. This is what they sounded like from our porch.

I managed to get some work done on a few projects. I spun and plied some luscious blue faced Leicester on its own and with some local alpaca. Since Tim lost his f***ing deer hat, Some of this may be used in the replacement.

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I was ready to dabble in some pretty fiber colors in preparation for this Fair Isle Vest I want to knit for myself by Eunny Jang. I plan to use the organic merino I spun on my drop spindle on Deal Island and then dyed with all the onion skins we used during our three month stay. I may use some navy and this rose yarn as well.

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I’ll be visiting my darling daughter and need some handmade items for her. I’m working on a knit market bag and may need a few for myself. Maybe I’ll actually remember to bring my own bag into the store if I made it myself!

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This rug may be finished by next winter but chicken little is running around saying, ” the cabin is falling, the cabin is falling!” I hope not.

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In case my coyote sound track doesn’t work above, here’s another way to hear it.
Coyote songs

Perspectives

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When I think of a movie or TV show, I often think of its one quotable line, even if it’s wrong. An old time favorite movie is The Red Balloon, which was shown at least each grade while I was in elementary school. The other was Nanook of the North, another classic. Anyway, for years I thought the Red Balloon’s quote was, “It is balloon!”. However, the movie was French and there was no dialogue. I later learned it came from the not so classic TV show, F Troop! Oh well.

Today someone posted a photo from the Honeymooners with Ralph and Norton in chef’s hats. Immediately I thought, “But can it core a apple”? Which brings me to today’s post. I have and will be visiting family and, like Goldie Hawn in Saving Private RyanPrivate Benjamin, “I never go to someone’s house empty handed.” However, when I looked up Saving Private Ryan, the more memorable quote was reportedly, “I did join the Army, but I joined a different Army. I joined the one with the condos and the private rooms.” Ah well, so much for my perspective.

So here’s what I’ve been working on.
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Placemats to grace a new home.

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Mohair merino ballet slippers from a pattern from Bev Galeska, queen of felted knits. These slippers await felting to shrink to fit one pair of feet in the new home. Felted clogs are still in progress for the second pair of feet. And,

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This cute little berry hat to warm the head of a new little one.

You know you have cabin fever when

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The thermometer says 16 below 0 F when you wake up and you discard any plans of playing outside. What to do? I know. It’s time to clean the grout between the tiles.

It started off with a sort of spousal challenge. In any relationship, one party has a lower tolerance for mess. In our house, that someone is Tim. I pride myself on cleanliness but may have piles of stuff – clothes for future donation, things to sell on ebay, wool for future projects – lying around.

It drives Tim crazy, especially because I request they remain in place. So we made a deal. He vacuums and tidies and I scrub. And scrub I did today.

It began innocently enough in the bathroom; first the shower, then the toilet and then…the grout between the tiles. I was off.

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Once I tackled the bathroom, I headed towards the kitchen. Apparently, I’m not so clean. The grout was black! Yuch!

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I made short work of it with Oxy Clean, a little scrub brush and lots of elbow grease.

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Now even though it’s below zero, I wear my sunglasses at night ! I’m compulsive enough that the little dark spot is history.

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How to get spring fresh laundry in winter

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I found the perfect solution to fresh smelling laundry. Remove any and all dead rodents from the dryer vent! Voila! Spring fresh again. It was a nasty task but I meant to see what was rattling in the vent for a while. And I found it. Along the way, I found the perfect use for duct tape: repair the duct. My dryer vent hose was unraveling at the dryer, hopefully not because a mouse was trying to claw its way out. Oh the horror! Like a flash, the idea of duct tape, which I use for everything else, came to mind. Worked like a dream.

On a lighter note, I’m weaving a set of overshot placemats in linen and cotton. I had some linen on the shelves and boldly moved forward, despite reading the difficulty of working with linen in low humidity. My loom is near the wood stove. I’m learning to love the warping process and do it mindfully. Less snarls and hassles and misthreading. Previously, I tried to rush through so I could get to weaving, which forced me to become adept at repairing errors. Now I take my time, understanding that the loom prep will take several days. Then it’s off to weaving.

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I’m a big fan of hats. My whole body stays warmer when I wear a hat. But some hats are just wrong. This is one of them.

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How to avoid cabin fever in the North Country

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Carnivale!

Many dark, cold, towns and cities in the North hold winter carnival to ward off the cabin fever.  Saranac Lake has one of the best in the country and we went yesterday to see the Ice Palace.  I think last year’s ice was a melt (or wash) but this year we’ve had a month of frigid temperatures.  The theme was Celtic, which seems to be interpreted as Viking, pre-St. Patrick.  There were lots of horned caps and leprechauns with a little Mickey and Minny thrown in. Saranac Lake is often one of the coldest places in the country.  Yesterday was a balmy 10 degrees and yet there were kids in t-shirts without gloves.  I was bundled from head to toe in —wool of course.  And stayed toasty throughout the day.

My favorite events are the Paul Smith’s School of Forestry Woodsmen competitions.  Not for the feint of heart as axes are swung between the legs in a race to split a large log.  Then off to boil a pot of water.  In previous years, fire was started with stick and twine but this year they resorted to matches?  Still, they had to split the kindling, make the stove, get the fire started and boil a can of water.

These highlights and a bit of the parade are in this Youtube video.  It includes the woodsmen competitions, a great drumming corps, the Canoedolers, Paul Smith’s bucket percussion group and the dragon.

 

When the lakes freeze over and are solid ice, what to do? Make an Ice palace of course.  This is the best I have seen, with carved dragons, seats, castle turrets and even a maze.  Fun for all.

Ice palace wide

 

The best part of the parade is the Lawn Chair Ladies who beat out a beat with the clack of lawn chairs.  They are at the end of this video.

We capped off the day with a short cross country ski to Moose pond and then a skate around Mirror Lake.  A fun time was had by all.  Only a few brass players were found stuck to their horns at the end of the day.

Tim on Moose Pond

 

 

Which way did they go?

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Apparently the deer like our cedar and juniper the best. They have a big take out party and invite all their friends while we sleep.

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I started and completed the fastest project today. I’m getting ready to recover the boat cushions and spend a lot of time on the Sailrite website. They carry a wide selection of marine fabric and have great how to videos. I watched one and learned how to spiff up a lampshade. So I did.

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S’no work

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Tim started to make noises about needing new mittens because both his pairs of double knit mittens (essentially two layers of fabric knit at the same time) had shrunk, felted and developed holes from grabbing trees on the way up and down mountains. They were a lot of work to make because it is as if you knit four mittens per pair. I had a better idea.

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I added cuffs and darned the holes. This was much quicker with two finished projects in no time. Now I have more time to play in the snow.

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We finally had a decent snowfall yesterday and I put on my cross country skis and skied the woods next door. Every year, I make a loop track, shaking the snow off low branches and skiing initially through snow almost to me knees. Then once cut, I ski it for about an hour. No thinking about where to go, just keep skiing and the track is laid out in front of me. I think of it as my meditation labyrinth with a little exercise thrown in. I enjoy this much better than the indoor nordic track. And my new mittens held up and started to felt a bit, just the way they should.

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