Weekending

Here. There. Where’s the smoked paprika?

The past two weeks have been a blur.  The studios and our lives were packed up and moved a bit further south for the next few months.  Within days of unpacking, we began to remember the forgotten things.  I should have made a list.  

A few weeks ago, I read a blog post about a book of six word memoirs. It really struck a chord.  Six words, how hard could that be?  The answer surprised me.  My thoughts, it turns out are more often five words, or seven.  They rarely fit into six. I thought it would be a fun way to keep an abbreviated journal. Like blog posts, my best are written in my imagination  while taking a shower, or in the twilight of my dreams.  By the time I remember to write them down, only the essence remains. 

Here are a few that managed to be caught.  

We left our hill. Into traffic.

———

Welcome back. Dead mice in toilet.

———

I sense them quietly watching me.

———

To admit broken, would mean defeated.

———

Here, there.  Where’s the smoked paprika?

———

trip to the beach, adjusting expectations 

 

 

Friday’s Photo

Who would think that turning the page on the calendar would make such a difference. 

Have a great weekend. Don’t forget to turn back your clock an hour Saturday night.  I do hate to have to adjust to the time change. I don’t mind getting up in the dark, but I sure hate coming home in it.

We won’t be vending at FFNE this weekend.  With covid cases setting record highs, we weren’t comfortable with the masking mandate for the festival being lifted for an indoor event. I’ve been  updating our inventory.   We’ll be offering free domestic shipping on most yarn orders on our website this weekend. Use code MASKUPNEWENGLAND during checkout. 

Walk With Me Wednesday

November arrived. It’s wet, cold and raw. There have been snow showers for two days.  The geese have passed through. Only a dozen stragglers spent last night on the pond.  A week ago we had a couple hundred each day.

Between snow showers, blue sky peeked through the clouds and the western sun lit the treetops on the edge of the pond; a gorgeous contrast to the gray days.

(I’m still trying to understand why the photos within the post aren’t sharp. If you tap on them, they enlarge and are in focus.  Very frustrating.)

Friday

I came downstairs this morning while the moon was still bright and the stars were twinkling. While I waited for the coffee pot to finish, I stood at the window looking out at the northern sky, identifying constellations and thinking how lucky I was to be able to see a sky uncluttered by artificial light.  The sky brightened to a pink glow and the chickadees began to arrive at the feeder as I finished my first cup of coffee. It’s going to be a beautiful day. 

There’s an awful lot of fire wood waiting to be cut and split at the end of that path.  The power company dropped two of our huge maples yesterday.   

Weekending

I just know that there is a sign somewhere on their flight path south, pointing to our pond. There has to be. Every fall Canada geese visit the pond. They arrive in the later part of the afternoon and spend the night, sometimes days.  Most years, there are 50 or so.  This year, it has been closer to two hundred at a time.  They arrive in several skeins, flying wedges that begin honking loudly just before we can see them over the treetops.  The do a quick flyover before circling around, setting their wings into a glide and lowering their legs, landing gear.  With great ruckus and a spray of water, they enter the pond. If another gaggle is already in the pond, they land to great fanfare. There is much boisterous honking.  Often, part of the skein can’t land and flies back up to circle the pond another time while room is made in the landing  area.  This happens several times a day.

Friday afternoon, while I was in the yard putting the garden to bed, the geese started to honk in a way I’d not heard before.  It was urgent and loud, and full of warning.  They were gathered together in one huge mass of geese, all facing in one direction.  Coming across the pond toward them was a bald eagle!  
Saturday afternoon it happened again, three times.  I ran to get my binoculars.  It was a different bird, not quite as large.  I don’t know what kind it was.  Not a hawk, at least not one I could identify. Possibly another eagle, a juvenile.  

The weekend was cold. We kept the wood stove going.  I did what knitters do and cast on.  Another soft and light sweater is on the needles!

 

 

 

 

Friday’s photo

What a crazy week. I don’t think I ever really got a hold of it.  The days melted together, raced by and here we are. Friday. 
 
My last project came off the needles a week ago. I can’t seem to choose the next one.  This afternoon I started to wind a couple skeins into balls, realized that one of the skeins wasn’t in the studio at all, but still hanging to dry in the barn.  Worse, I wasn’t sure if I had a copy of the pattern.  Tomorrow. My hands don’t sit well quietly.  

I have been working on a newish series of photos.  Here”s one from the series ‘fields’.

Weekending

It’s sweater weather!

This was the weekend that it finally and truly became fall.  Friday night, the weather service issued a severe weather warning. The sky darkened, the wind picked up, and it poured, carrying in with it the colder air.  Sweater weather has arrived!

I spent a good bit of the weekend in the barn at my dyepots filling orders. Dyeing, wearing a jacket is far preferable to sweating exposed arms in front of the steaming pots. This in between season is short.  There aren’t many weeks left until the barn’s water tanks will need to be emptied for the winter and I will have to pack up the outdoor studio and move indoors. 

 

While waiting for colors to set,  I trekked back  and forth to the studio, Checking my inventory, pulling out yarns and playing with colors for another sweater in a pattern that I haven’t chosen yet.  While I thought about my choices, the  hostas at the barn and house were cut down for the winter.

This time of year food preparation gets factored into warming up the house. Saturday, I made soup with butternut squash, kale and black beans., comfort food to warm us up inside. Sunday was cooler, Chris made pizza and afterwards, while the oven was hot; I threw in a small apple pie from the freezer.  We debated the advantages of lighting the wood stove.  The oven had kept it warm all evening. Would the house be warm in the morning . All of this is crazy fall talk, a settling in to the season. We compromised. Chris set the stove up to light when we got up in the morning.

Today, it’s a raw rainy 41 degrees.  The predicted high for the day, a balmy 42. We hit that at 5:30am. I’m sitting outside on the porch, writing and watching the cats watch whatever it is that moves.  Even with my wool coat over a wool sweater, I feel the chill.  The smell of wood smoke curls down to where I sit and reminds me there is a warm house waiting on the other side of the door next to me.

Sweater weather, indeed.