smatterings

walk with me wednesday

It's a good thing that I think a rainy day is beautiful.  A very good thing.  It started to rain on the second day of our drive to the Outer Banks and didn't clear until the morning we left to drive north.  According to Weather Bug, the day time temperatures were the same in North Carolina as northern Vermont.  It was cold, foggy, windy, damp, rainy and beautiful!  The waves were enormous trashing monsters.  LOUD!  There is nothing like a storm at the beach.  Each day, I bundled up in fleece and rain gear and headed up the beach to the preserve.   A sweet neighbor loaned us his jeep one afternoon.  The rain had cleared and the fog settled heavily at the water's edge.  In the dunes, the was a bit of sun.  And, wild horses! 

Can you see him?   

No road trip is complete without some great bridges.  There is something about them... this one is in Delaware.  I go out of my way to cross a good bridge.

I wish I had a picture of the bald eagle... magnificent, and a rare sight for a New Englander.

walk with me wednesday.. small worlds

Even as a child, I was fascinated by what I saw as small worlds, miniature gardens.  Last month my niece came to visit.  As we walked down to the barn one morning during her stay, I noticed that the snow fleas * were out, in force.  It is a bit hard to pretend that they aren't there when the snow is literally peppered with them, jumping around.  If you aren't familiar with snow fleas, you might know them as "springtails".  As she reached down to grab a fistful of snow, probably to eat, I said, (not wanting to alarm her or gross her out too much) ooohhh... look, the springtails are here!  At this point I'm thinking that she'll never want to play in the snow after seeing all of those bugs.  But, a wonderful thing happened.  She said, 'It's like Horton Hears a Who.  There's a whole world in my hand.'  And that was the start of a wonderful conversation. 

On my last good snow shoe hike, I found these little gardens, worlds unto themselves.

When I see something like this, my imagination kicks in..

Someone should write a book.

* Achorutes nivicolus 

walk with me wednesday

It is still winter.  Here in the Kingdom we want to eek out every minute of winter we can before spring magically arrives tomorrow.  And so we shall....it should snow most of tonight, giving us an additional 5 inches before it calls it quits.  Lately there have been lots of days above freezing.  At night, the temps plummet.  The snow crusts on the top, a bit more falls and the result is fantastic snow shoe conditions!  Yesterday, I spent about four hours on top of the snow, not exactly relaxing but beautiful.  The boundaries had to be marked, clearly and with red tape.  Remember the logging issue?  The logger needs some reminders, a bit of gentle direction, a whack if he gets any closer.  There isn't a better time to do this kind of work.  No bugs, no tangled undergrowth (it is buried  under all the snow) and no leaves to hide previous markers.  As long as you don't have to dig for pins, it is easy going.  I wasn't the only one out.  Everybody in the woods is waking up.  They've got the calendar marked.  It is weird and it is wonderful, how everything knows.  Tracks are everywhere, beginning at my front door.

There were a lot of visitors checking to see if the otters were in town.  I think they ate themselves out of house and home last year. I've only seen one, and he was passing through.

The fisher was here, I saw his prints in a few locations, mostly near the hemlocks.

There are always coyotes.  They were after something I didn't find. 

The streams are barely visible. 

Spring is still... Undercover...

walk with me wednesday

March already and it feels like sugaring season. The days are longer, nights are cold, days are in the 20s, 30s and 40s. The back of winter has broken... yeah, right.  My family rolled in last Saturday to what they say is the most snow they have ever seen.  Probably is. 

That picture of the barn was taken two days ago, before the last weather trifecta (snow, sleet, and freezing rain) hit.   We've taken to plowing around the backside of the barn as there isn't anymore room for the roof to shed.  While those who ski, ski, those of use who remain behind go walking. 

Breaking through into the hip deep snow presents challenges.  It is hard to get back up onto your shoes, a helping hand makes a big difference.

I don't usually have company on my show shoe walks.  What a pleasure, extra feet pack  tomorrow's trails easily.  When we cross into the field, I spotted an existing trail, someone had come through here recently.  Great news for us, no break through.  We walked on top.  The fence lines have long disappeared.  We found this one  as we stepped onto a wire.

walking up the drive to the house. 

walk with me wednesday.. ahead and behind

The past few weeks have been hard.  Gut wrenching, yet full of love.  I am so very grateful to have friends that are open and sharing.  To have friends that are family.  To have friends that kept me close in their most private moments.    I woke this morning thinking about this photograph.  I took it last month.  Ahead and behind.  Life and memories. 

and on the knitting front...
I am busy.  Yep, I have been knitting and dyeing and keeping my head on straight with the help of some of my favorite things... color and texture.  There are new colors going up in the Tashi and the Arequipa yarn pages at Ball and Skein.  Anne, of Knitspot (all I needed was "Anne", right? ) has been busy with a new "little nothing" she calls "Gust".  I've been busy with colorways.   Here's a teaser. 

 

 

   

..more about that in the next couple days.

01.26.08

a blink
and a lifetime

good bye my friend.. fly high

walk with me wednesday.. reflection

After four days of temps in the mid forties, the more than four feet of snow pack has melted to just a foot in most places, open and muddy ground where the sun and the rain have worked hardest.  It is mud season in January.  Not a bad time for a walk. 

It feels like ages.  All the rushing around, the tension, the hectic past couple months, fade..step by step.  I start to see again.  This is the way it should be, the way of my intent.

This morning, as I sipped my coffee and waited for the sun to rise, I read this passage.

One can not see their reflection in running water.  It is only in still water that we can see.

By the look of the sky, a change is coming.  Here's hoping winter won't take too long to return. 

my grandmother's recipe book, part 2

From my Dad, on my Grandmother's recipe notebook.   May we all see the wisdom in his words and her thoughts, and may we never, ever, consider ourselves bored nor aged.

Your grandmother's recipe book, when I knew it, was  stuffed with bits of paper, recipes she had copied or been given or curt from the paper etc. She went to a number of lectures by notable cooks who came to town so some of them were in her own shorthand. She said she would copy them properly in a book, I'm sure she meant another more proper volume, when she had time. Time is a commodity available to  the bored and aged, and she considered herself neither.  She had learned from her mother that a recipe was only for those who had not really learned to cook or for something you cooked rarely and was especially tricky.
 
Your Great Grandmother seldom used a written recipe. The quantity she cooked depended on  who she was to feed. She lacked refrigeration, as we know it, to keep leftovers. Leftovers were not thrown away but were used promptly. She would start a dish with the quality of ingredient available and added what ever was necessary to produce a meal. She made a bacon gravy that I loved but she was unable to tell my mother how to make it. Mother was a very good cook but her bacon gravy just wasn't right. Both Mother and I had my watched Grandmother make bacon gravy but were unable learn how to make it. One day as I watched I noticed her add a pinch of salt from the salt dish. Several minutes later I realized you wouldn't add salt to bacon gravy and noticed that the salt dish was next to the sugar bowl. Mother's gravy was fine with a pinch of sugar.
 
Love, Dad

the days of autumn

Those overly bright, scorch your cornea days of last week have given way to more seasonal temps and drizzle.  The grey days of fall are pushing their way in.  The wetness accentuates color, in ways I prefer.  Not good for drying yarn but for dyeing.... yes!

Tomatoes have ripened on the window sills in the shop.  They do double duty, warming the house while roasting and scenting it with their sweet aroma.

C is back and at work again in the shop.  I've had it to myself so much lately it's hard to share the space.  He's in production mode.  We want to get enough skein winders boxed and ready to ship so we won't have too much lag time over the coming holiday season.

More space is on the way.  Not shop space, but... lots of storage.  This is the shot from yesterday's early morning check it out with Sammy walk.

Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder, remember?

walk with me wednesday

construction...

Sammy and I have been walking together.  The cats do not like the construction and they don't like change, particularly to hunting grounds.  Before and after work day hours, we  check out the progress.  (the "we" part, that is... I am there a lot more than that.)

hmmmm.... ?