Another Interesting Holiday Week.

The evenings are starting to cool down a bit and first thing in the morning is starting to feel a little bit autumnal.   With the tree falling on my garden early in the summer, this is the current state of my tomato plants.  They're recovering, just a bit behind.  The one large mortgage lifter tomato was eaten by something in the evening, just as it was starting to ripen.   Since then I've harvested a half dozen cherry tomatoes, just as they're starting to show signs of changing colour in hopes of getting to eat a few ourselves.  These are black cherry tomatoes, which are starting to be quite plentiful in their unripened bunches.  Not so many of the mortgage lifter tomatoes which I was hoping to have for canning as well as eating.  There are only a few of those.   Since tomatoes have  just started showing up in the grocery stores, and they were either not ripe or over ripe, I decided to pop out to the Farmer's Market and pick up a few to start canning.   Several vendors had some tomatoes, mainly beefsteak types, but one vendor had Roma type tomatoes, but only by the half bushel.  Thinking of the timing of the next couple of weeks, I brought home the half bushel, in order to make sure I got at least some tomatoes canned.  We use a bit less than a bushel of canned tomatoes over the winter.

I did two canners full yesterday and one this morning.  I ended up with 19 500 ml (pint) jars. I'm pretty happy about that.  If there are more tomatoes available at the end of the month, or my garden tomatoes ripen, then I can do another canner load full and be done.  Still, I'm pretty satisfied with this weekends results.  The Roma tomatoes were nicely ripe, but not over ripe, nor green.  They peeled quickly after scalding and I simply rough chopped them as I don't care if they are pretty when they're going into soups, stews and sauces.   They are handy to have available and it the right size as commercial tins of tomatoes tend to be larger.  

DH had a week off for holidays.  We did pop out for lunch with our daughter for her birthday.  Otherwise we mainly puttered about home doing things.  I washed fleece, wove off a scarf, re-dressed the loom, made some buttons and socks, and picked, carded and spun some of that washed fleece.  (I also read 3 novels, but I won't mention that)

DH on the other hand spent the week stacking wood.   Our regular wood guy says more people are keeping their wood rather than asking him to get rid of it.  As a result, not only are our wood deliveries smaller, but much less often.  So this year, DH broke down and ordered two larger trailer loads full.  It costs a bit more than getting the logs delivered, but he doesn't have to split it so there is a decent trade off.   Regardless, we have enough wood for this winter, and a good start on next winter's wood, which needs to dry for a year to really burn properly.

Ankle socks made on the Légaré 400 using sock yarn I got from the SOC 2026 crank in this spring.   It's from a fairly local indie dyer, Grand Valley Fibre Company.  The colours are really nice and the yarn is absolutely lovely to work with.  It made very comfortable socks.  It should have since it's super wash merino and nylon.   However, I've purchased other brands labelled merino and it wasn't nearly as nice so I highly recommend the Avid sock yarn from Grand Valley Fibres  .    

These are two new buttons using the Zwirnknopf technique. So apparently one of the button experts says that Dorset button rings are covered with the blanket stitch before you wrap and weave the button while with the Zwirnknöpf buttons you do it last.  Some of the skills overlap and it''s nice to change things up sometimes.   I'm doing a button demo later in September at a local fair, so I'm working diligently to get a few more of the Zwirnknopf style buttons done to increase the display.  They really have quite different end results.    Zwirnknöpf buttons are also sometimes called shirtlace buttons and are another old style of button.  They weren't made in England or the UK, but are from (depending on where you look) from continental Europe, mainly Central, Eastern and Northern areas.  They seem to have been first made in the early 1800's and started being exported after WWI .   They are pretty and are also fun to make.

Zwirnknopf - singular.  Zwirnknöpf - plural.   

Translates to Thread button in English

A little rant and some updates

New scarf on the loom.   There was a yarn sale a few weeks back and they had some yarns by Caron, which while acrylic, is super soft.  There were some odd colour ways, but several really nice ones.   I liked the purple painted colour way in the ball, but it made for a rather dark and heavy looking scarf.  A couple of the colour ways were white with short lengths of colour which have made really nice scarves.   This is a blue which is weaving up with lovely patches of green and purple.   I'd gotten a teal to use as the weft, but it was too dark. I unwove it, restarted weaving with the same yarn as the warp and really like the colours and the way it's weaving up.   It sort of feels like a night sky with the northern lights, which is making it fun to weave up.

I meant to wash fleece over the weekend but had a very quiet read a novel, knit a bunch and warp the loom weekend.   I still have 3 1/2 sheep fleeces left to process.  I'll have enough Orvus to wash them, but will likely need more degreaser and Dawn.  Also I have some absolutely lovely, although full of VM cria (baby alpaca) fleece to play with.  Yay me!

My baby got married to an absolutely lovely and wonderful young lady who my whole family adores.  She is friendly, warm, funny and caring.  She makes friends everywhere, remembers people that she met at conferences and places in previous years and just made everyone she was with feel welcomed and befriended.   It was the most amazing thing to be a part of.   While we already considered her family, it's now official.   The only downside is that she's very allergic to cats, and my cats leave enough cat hair and dander around to make another 2 of themselves, so we go to visit them, rather than have them visit us.   It's not worth risking her health for that.  She is however extremely worthy of getting hand made items.   It's so easy to love her and the way she fits into the family.

The Alliums just keep on giving.  Even after their flowers are spent and they've gone to seed, they are an interesting architectural element in the garden.

Busy, Busy May

A Crank-In is a gathering of people with Circular Sock Machines (CSM), both new and antique, who meet up for a day or sometimes a couple of days, for fellowship, instruction, help and fun.  There is a local one, SOC2026, in a nearby town.  For one low price, you get a light morning snack, lunch, several demos, classes, a swag bag of sock making related tools and accessories, and  meeting old, and new friends.  The downside, or maybe upside, is several vendors with yarn, tools and other supplies.   I purchased 3 skeins of yarn, and then won a door prize of another 2 skeins, which happened to be in the same colour ways as two that I'd purchased.  I could have traded them in, but since I liked them, I kept them. So pretty.  I also bought a 400g cone of sock yarn in greens, while not my favourite colour, is one that I almost never purchase unless it's mixed with lots of other colours or very much on the teal side.   I also got a gift certificate for donating the most comfort dolls, some of which were made by friends because they thought it was a great idea to support!

Woad is flowering

The May long weekend SCA Arts and Science event went well.   It was fun, despite a couple of rainy hours in the middle of Saturday.   We had 70 classes, many of them for 2 or more hours, and 202 people came out to play!  My garb is all washed, dried and ready to put away.   I have some lovely new oatmeal linen for a new tunic and some rust for an apron dress.  I taught a class about using fleece processing tools, and still need to finish unpacking things.   I couldn't give away enough fleece though, and had to bring some home.   I'm washing up the second of the gifted fleeces today.

Allium beginning to bloom

The farm next door has been putting drainage tile in the fields this week.  It's a bit of a noisy endeavour so I was happy to go out for tea with my friend E today.  We tend to be able to chat for literally hours.  We go to a local Tim Horton's coffee shop, which kindly lets us sit in a corner with our tea and coffee for 3 hours while we catch up.  You know, because we haven't seen each other in a week or two, lol.

Yesterday I had to get the brakes done on my cute little car.  The front brakes cost next to nothing, but of course the back brakes were brand specific parts so cost almost $2000 to fix.  This came with an estimate for a new tie rod and bushing, at another $1200.  Sigh... they did fix the rattling heat shield while they were at it though, included in the price because they've tried to fix it every time it's up on the hoist but the cute little car has too much stuff in the way to just tighten it up easily.   It's just over 10 years old and has up until now, been a car needing very little work.  It's still fun to drive and most importantly I can see everything out of it.  The repair shop loaned me a Chevy Impala, a huge boat of a vehicle in comparison and ugh, it's definitely not made for short people, and definitely not on my radar should I need to replace my cute little car.

unknown shrub

The weather has gone from cool, to hot, and now back to cool with a slew of tornado and severe storm warnings in between.   This meant that the lilacs, on which I hadn't even seen any flower buds, were in full bloom by the time I got home on Monday and the dandelions, that I've been trying to find time to pick and freeze for an upcoming dye day were just past their prime blooming time.  There are still some out there, just more work to gather.

I don't know what this shrub is.  It's planted by the barn door and must be ancient since it was there when we moved in 17 years ago.   It blooms faithfully every year.  Whatever the weather, it grows reliably and when I ask my son to trim it, he usually hacks it right off near the bottom and in a couple of years it's large enough to trim back again.   Every year though, no matter what the size, it gives a plethora or these small but plentiful, vibrant pink blooms.

A slow and interesting start to Spring

 

The farm next door to us was sold recently.  It had an old bank barn which looked to be in really good condition, all the barn board siding was there and everything. .  I think this was true because they started pulling it down and you could see that it was structurally in good shape.  They then hacked away at fencing, pulling it down.  They had a little bob cat thing with a pincer end which pulled down any branches over hanging the fields.   They put all this debris right behind the old barn.  

Today someone put a controlled burn sign on our property.  They almost knocked our mailbox down in the process :(.  For most of the morning, it was fine.  The wind was blowing away from us and there wasn't a huge amount of smoke.  Then, just after lunch the sirens started.  In the end, the "controlled" burn had 6 fire trucks respond.   I'm thinking all the old hay in the barn and that dry barn wood and fencing probably just went up in a flash.   We have a couple of factory farms in the area.  They rent and buy up fields to feed their cattle.   Sometimes I think change in agriculture is not necessarily a good thing.  A small family farm is gone to a large corporation or a developer looking ahead to sell it off as housing lots in the future.

New on the loom. I took a gradient yarn and divided it up into its various colours.  They were dyed in uneven amounts, so I  warped the loom accordingly.   I think perhaps I should have threaded  the left and right sides oppositely, but once it was on the loom, I wasn't changing it.   I'm using the leftover greys and dark blues as the weft.   

The yarn is an acrylic blend from an English company.   A nearby yarn and craft shop has a huge tent sale in the summer and they have some really good deals on yarns we don't normally find stocked in shops here.    It's a lovely yarn and was something like $5 a 550 yd cake, so you can't go wrong with that.

This afternoon, while I was outside gawking at the fire, I started picking dandelion flowers.   The Weavers guild is having a dye day and we're going to do some nature dyes as well as acid dyes in between, so there is no waiting around.  Because we're planning it early enough, I've set people to collecting dandelions.  Dandelions make a lovely yellow, which is quite bright and cheery.  It does fade, but it takes a while and it's stays a decent yellow, although not quite as bright. 

I only got 167 g of them because most of they had lady bugs feeding?  on them.  Some of the flower heads had multiple bugs.  I'll go out tomorrow at a different time to see if I can get more.   While people seem to think dandelions grow all year, they generally have a fairly short time period when they are available in quantity.  Because there is no shortage of them, or risk of them being at risk of extinction, you can pick lots of them with no issues.  Nobody seems to care if you take them from in front of their farms either! 

The guild is participating in a small sale.  We've done this one before and only sell small items.  Generally though, we don't do this to sell things, we do it for community exposure.  Having small items  brings people into our booth for interesting conversations.   I made a bunch of these little yarn horse ornaments to sell.  I used some thrums and leftover yarn, and possibly an old warp I cut off from so long ago I don't remember it.   I almost forgot to put ears on the horses, and wondered why they looked a little off.   Tiny felt ears though, made them look perfect.   

The weather has been quite cool.  The other day we had to have both wood stoves going and that is very odd in May.   My son did put up the sunshade roof though, which he usually does for Mother's Day, if the weather is nice.  Despite it being a bit cool and wildly windy the other day, I took my lunch outside to enjoy the gazebo and some fresh air.  It was lovely.

Summer is winding up!

 The summer is slipping by far too quickly.  The ridiculous heat and humidity we've had so much of this year, is something I'm not sure I'll adapt to easily.   However, there are already signs showing how short our summers are.  I drove down a nearby road the other day and there was a tree with a lone branch already turning colours.   I know this could also be due to lack of moisture, but I'm still not sure I'm ready for the leaves to turn colour.   Hubby also brought in a load of kindling yesterday.  I asked if it wasn't too early for that, but he pointed out that we'll likely have to have our first fire in 4 to 6 weeks.  Plus there are the crickets.  They are an end of summer bug; a noisy, loud, end of summer bug.

Speaking of bugs.   I noticed 3 big caterpillars on my parsley plant.  I looked them up and they were parsley worms, or the caterpillars that turn into Swallowtail Butterflies.   The next day there were only 2 of them, and today there aren't any.  They were very slow and hardly moving and large enough that a friend who has watched some all summer, said they were ready to spin their cocoons.   I looked around a bit but didn't see any cocoons, so I'm hoping they found a safe place and weren't dinner for the chooks, who have been hanging around begging for leftovers and treats!   I also hope if they did spin cocoons that they have time to complete their metamorphosis  before it turns too cold here.

With only 1 tomato plant, which was supposed to be a cherry tomato but has turned out to give large,
yellow albeit delicious fruit, I purchased a couple of baskets of tomatoes.  I quickly peeled them, chopped them up and tossed them into the canner.   I've done 2 batches this way.  It means 2 hours at most at one time for canning, unlike having a bushel and it taking 2 full days to do them up.   I remembered how easy it was that year that my tomatoes ripened slowly and I had a canner load every 3 days or so.   That was really the best way to do it.

I'm passing on my big counter balance loom.   I have a smaller jack loom which has been unused for well over a decade.  I've decided to clean it up and switch them out since the counter balance is just a bit too big to be comfortable these days.   A friend wants it so hopefully two of us will be happy about this.

I put this on the rigid heddle loom last night.   Mary Maxim is having their tent sale and while they tend to have a lot of middle of the road yarns for quality, nice but not exceptional, their prices, especially at the sale are decent.   They didn't have much sock yarn, but this stuff was nice.   The  only thing is that it is DK weight, and sort of in-between reed sizes.   It's interesting because of the way the colour changes are painted.  I thought it might be more serendipitous plaid like but it's not at all.  It's lovely in this part, with the section which is mainly white, but a little different in the next colour change with the darker blue and the little black bits.    This photo was taken at night, so despite the flash, it is dull.   The white is nice and creamy and the blue parts area. really nice shade.  The vertical black spots are great, but the part I'm not sure about is when the black and blue are in the weft, and go horizontally.  I don't have enough of this yarn to cut out the blue and black sections, and have enough yarn for the weft left and it wasn't cheap enough to grab another ball to play with, so I'm going with it.  I won't really know what it's like until it's off the loom and washed.  It could end up being lovely.

Rant and summer colour update

We saved up all our pennies for 5 years because we needed a new car.  The old truck was on the road for 2 or 3 years longer than we would have liked.   We shared my car last year because winter safety and then general safety, was more important than me getting out of the house, which was a bit difficult sometimes, but it's what was needed.   We did without a lot, stopped purchasing unnecessary stuff, used our leftovers, stopped eating out at restaurants, carefully weighed costs vs expectations  for classes etc, and I mended a lot of clothes.   It's not that we did totally without, as we took small vacations etc but were actively saving for the car first, now a new roof and to get 2 mature trees professionally removed because the previous owner planted them in a stupid spot: both of them in different stupid spots!  

 So why do some people find this an issue?   Like I'm supposed to just go and spend whatever I want whenever, when I have a budgeted amount of mad money for the year and refuse to go over my budgeted amount?    I have to pick and choose what I do, and I'm okay with it.   Somehow I don't think anyone else should be ticked off that we chose to find a way to make our budget work well for us!

Rant over and it was due to comments and actions of some acquaintances and friends.  And nope, just because we have our car now, I still can't afford to get that or do that.  By the way the car is nice.  It's not horribly special or exotic but all cars are stupidly expensive right now, so what can you do? 

This little guy, or his relatives have lived in our woodpile since we moved here.   He's not overly tamed or friendly but he's getting better about not racing off as soon as I try to take a picture of him.   I'm not a huge fan of small rodent creatures living this close to the house, but he's better than some it could be.  I do mean that I'd freak a bit if there was a honking huge rat sitting there, like we used to see sometimes on the farm!  We lived on a road with almost all dairy farms, so there were tons of them when someone tried to eradicate them from a barn.  ICK!

The black eyed Susans were out in full force on our last walk.   The field that had all the poppies in the spring is now filled with these and some clumps of bergamot.   I really wonder if someone tossed a bunch of seed out into that field, or if they are natural.  There are just so many of them.   My only experience with wild flowers in unused field areas, is from a different area, with less farming and more bush, and a colder climate, so maybe all these flowers are normal for this climate zone?

One of our favourite trails has several different trail routes you can take.  It's a mix and match thing, giving lots of choices on how long, what sort of terrain and what you'd like to see on the trail.  One part of the trail runs through this spot, with a single bit of railway track persevered.   It's fun and an odd spot for something like this, but it fits.  Despite there being 2 different working railway tracks on two sides of the conserved area, there is a little bit you can safely walk on and have fun with.

Elecampane.   I planted this because I'd read some natural dyeing information which suggested that you could get black with the roots.   Someone warned me you might never get rid of it once it was planted, but I thought that I was safe.   It has giant leaves on the base, with a few small leaves up the very long stalk and a rather spindly flower.  It's not full, it gets scraggly easily.  I think it will dye a yellow, but I dug up the whole patch to try the roots once to see if it gave black and got nothing but a lovely clear dye bath.   And now, after having dug up my whole plot of the flower, it's growing in other parts of my garden?  Like how does it do that?  Like madder, it's not a horribly lovely plant, but I guess at least it's not prickly like madder is!

Wild Flower Bounty

 On a short hike today, there were lots of wild flowers.   This particular trail looks different in every season, and different with whatever trail or paths you follow. The terrain goes from field, to woodland, to wetlands to lake side, with softwoods, cedar, pines and some deciduous areas as well.   The fields on both sides of the trail were full of wild poppies.  They were so pretty and the little dots of red, with the white clover and purple alfalfa.   There were pops of bright green spurge as well.

Canada Anemone was blooming all along one of the riverside trails.  It was so very pretty.

The Fleabane has started flowering there, well before anywhere else that I've seen this year.  I don't think that fleabane actually deters fleas.  It sometimes takes over a bit in places in my garden, but it's pretty, so I don't mind too much.

I think this is some sort of Coreopsis, but I don't think it's a wild flower.  However there used to be a pollinator garden plant display, so I wonder if some of these flowers have been seeded from that garden.  There are a couple that seem more like garden plants that wild flowers.

Like this Dianthus, or Sweet William, which I think must have been seeded from the old pollinator garden, or someone sprinkled some wild flower seeds, or other flower seeds in some areas last fall.   

Ox eye daisies were blooming on some of the sides of the trails in sunny areas.   I remember making daisy chains as a kid and braiding them into my horses mane and forelock.  He was a very patient pony! The walk today was so much fun with all the flowers.  I'm sure hubby was a bit frustrated at times because I stopped an awful lot to take photos.  It was so lovely to see the pops of colour along the trails.

This is one tiny part of one of the fields of wild poppies.  The spurge is a bright green, in behind the poppies.   It seems like something I should try to paint, with all the greens and pops of reds.   

A Crazy few weeks, but still things get done.

 What odd and icky weather we've had.   Sunday we had frost warnings and apparently there was a frost delay on the local golf courses.   It's been cool, so cool that we've had to run the wood stove until the very end of May, which has never happened before.   Today though, was lovely and I got to hang laundry, dry fleece and spend a lot of time outside, without a toque, mitts and sweater.

The garden is half planted.  The beds aren't warm enough yet to plant the beans and I'll need to get a few more onion sets as a raccoon got a few the first night I planted them.  I've now got towers of tomato cages protecting freshly planted seeds and seedlings.   I've a couple of pots left to clean out and have a few more bags of composted manure to spread.  The cool weather though, means that everything else I'd like to plant is delayed anyway, so I'm not really behind.

Today I saw this pretty butterfly that I identified as an Eastern Swallowtail. It was gathering nectar from a late flowering lilac bush, a Persian Lilac.   Its scent is different from a true lilac, but it always flowers.  Since it flowers after the true lilacs, it nicely extends the season, which is good for extra colour in the garden.

I've started washing Dorset/Friesian cross fleece that A gave me.  The first batch was done my usual way, which was 3 washes and 3 rinses.  It works well and the dirt and lanolin was all gone.  Today, I soaked the fleece in water for a couple of hours before washing it.  I was going to  soak it 24 hours, but then A called up asking if I was available for a spinning day tomorrow.  To make sure I had enough fleece to spin, I drained it, washed it twice and rinsed twice.   Instead of using my salad spinner to spin out the water, I whizzed the laundry bag of fleece around outside.  I was amazed at how quick and effective this was.   I laid the fleece out on the deck,  between sheets of screening on a laundry rack.  It dried in just a few hours.  I've now run a few bats through a drum carder to use tomorrow!

It's really dark black, not grey.

I made a hat for a Christmas present for my daughter.   It's black.  I was going to make black mittens to go with it, but have decided that I really don't like knitting with black yarn that much.  It was commercial dyed black and the stitches were so difficult to see.  I think I started it 8 times before I bought a new, very short needle to make it work.  I'm very happy with how it turned out though.  I over exposed the photo so that the pattern could be seen, because it looked solid black otherwise.

The grey and black sock yarn scarf is off the loom and needs to have the fringes twisted and to be wet finished.   I'm not going to pass judgment on it yet, as I think wet finishing will remove the spinning oils and could end up with a different feeling project.

The SCA A&S event on the May long weekend was a success despite a bit of rain and some very cool weather.   It took me almost a week to unwind from it, which is mainly because I picked up a couple of good novels,  an Ann Cleeves mystery and a hilarious sort of romance by R.J. Blain.   I do enjoy a few days just to read.    

A good start to May

We've had a very slow time easing into spring.  We've had snow storms, ice storms, wind, rain and cool weather.  We're even still loading up the wood stoves because the evenings are cool or uncomfortably damp.  However, that doesn't seem to stop Mother Nature from keeping things from happening.    There is a green haze on most of the trees.  We have baby leaves!   The oak trees and a few other very late  leafing deciduous trees aren't quite there yet, but they never are this early.   Some of the flowering trees are in bloom.   We always have leaves on most of the trees by Mother's Day, and despite people's worries about the trees leafing out late this year, it's happening just like it should.

I got my little tray of watercolour paints out and played around with some new techniques to make non-wintery scenes.   I've played with flowers, winter scenes obviously because I paint my Xmas cards, and have started experimenting with summery scenes.   These 2 worked out well enough that I'm happy with them, but I'll practice some more. While I've seen a few sunsets like this one, with pale colours, many of ours tend to be a bit more dramatic with deep oranges and purples.  Sunrises though, often have pale pinks and lilacs, if you catch the right time.  They are fast and the colours don't last all that long.   I decided to send out a few birthday cards though, so I figured I should practice about bit for summer cards.

I've been spinning up some of the leftover bits and pieces from my "stash" of leftovers from over the years.   This is some green ramie.  I had purchased 1/2 lb of it, and spun up maybe 3/4 of it and left the rest.    I remember it being quite slippery and an effort to spin.   Obviously my skills have developed because instead, it's just effortlessly sliding off my fingers into lovely, fine singles.    I should have divided it into two equalise pieces of roving before I started though, so I could have spun two bobbins for plying.  Instead I'm going to have to much around with either guessing or plying from a centre pull ball.   While that is how I first learned to ply, I've found over the years, that you have to be very careful when plying fine yarns from centre pull balls, so that they don't collapse in on themselves and tangle before you finish plying.  It's been fun to spin though, because I don't seem to have to really think a lot about it while spinning.  It means I can chat or "egads" watch the hockey game at the same time.

This is my friend A's dog Teddy.   While he's getting older and a bit greyer, with thinning fur, he still blends remarkably with the rug.  He's exactly the same colour as the rug and in the right light, and angle, the parts of him that are his original colour really could be the rug.   He's a sweety and a very cuddly dog with his kids.   Today though was funny as he was sleeping when I arrived for spinning day and he didn't notice for about a 1/2 hour.  Then of course, as the good watch dog he is, he made sure to let everyone know that I was visiting.. too funny.

Nature's Promise Revealed

 

Last Crocuses - such a pretty colour

On the eve of the Winter Solstice, I light a candle to help light the way for longer days.   We've had a rather dramatic winter this year, with the winds, lake effect snows, and variable weather.  It was an abnormal winter for us and after several fairly mild winters, this one really seemed to hit us with a vengeance.   Finally though, with a few glitches in between and weather that the prognosticating rodent (ground hog) said would be an early spring, we finally have evidence that spring may truly be on its way.

The crocuses or croci if you prefer have bloomed.  Yesterday these few were in their prime while the rest have faded.  Only one of the Siberian Irises came up this year and that was during an ice storm, so it didn't last for long.  But the leaves and greenery for many other spring plants have started to push forth from the finally thawed ground and are showing the promise of spring.

The daffodils started just when the crocuses first bloomed.  In the beginning, they were just tiny green sprouts.  Now though there are early flower buds which catch attention and the longing for spring flowers.   I usually try to buy a pot or two of forced bulbs in the spring, but there weren't many in the shops this year, catering to those of us who desperately need that early hit of spring.  Now of course, with daffodil flower buds starting to show, it's worth the wait for them to mature.

My iced over kitchen window

The weather  has not been all favourable this spring.   Areas to the north and east of us were hit with a major ice storm.  We were lucky enough to miss out on the first one but a smaller second one hit us a couple of days later: not even enough time to recover between the two of them.   The area police were issuing warnings to people to please slow down on the high ways.  Hubby's co-worker took 30 minutes to cover what was normally a 10 minute drive.   We had lots of power flickers and a short outage, but quickly resolved, unlike areas in the rest of the province.  Everyone I talked to were thankful for that, and dismayed about the havoc that the storm wreaked elsewhere.  With rain, snow, ice pellets, freezing rain, more snow it was a few days to hunker down.   I can't remember seeing the snow plow go down our road multiple times  in April, plowing the snow on the road, the shoulders and laying down salt to try to keep the roads safe.

Lone Siberian Iris

Today though, the sun is shining and the winds have finally eased off.   I was able to go outside to practice the banjo yesterday as I found a sheltered spot which was warm enough and while I could hear the wind around me roaring through the trees, it didn't hit the spot on the deck where I was sitting.  Today, I let the chooks out and might even bundle up a bit and take my tea out to the deck.

Mother Nature sometimes is delayed with her promise of spring, but she's never failed to produce it yet.  That darned groundhog though, I'm sure spent weeks rolling around in his den, laughing at us all with his faulty predictions this year, that we all so desperately wanted to believe.

An early spring hike

 It snowed again.  I woke up to low, lead grey, snow clouds and a wintery sky.   There was a light dusting of snow on the ground.   It doesn't feel like spring today!   Yesterday was another cool day, however we had a short reprieve from the incessant wind.   We took advantage of that and went for a hike.  The trails were in pretty decent shape all things considered, with only a few muddy and slippery spots.   That made it a rather nice day out.  I was worried I was over dressed, with my parka and a hoody on underneath, instead of the liner jacket, my double wool toque and thick wool mittens.   However, it was cool enough outside, just above freezing that I was comfortable the whole trail!   

It wasn't sunny, although the forecast suggested we should get some sun.  It was however, brightish out, which was nice enough.   The dark, foreboding skies we've had most of the winter do get a little bit much sometimes. 

The river was flowing fairly quickly.  With all the snow melting over a few days and some rain in there, and now more snow, I was amazed that it wasn't higher than it actually was.  It's usually this brown, silty looking water.  The difference with the view in the springtime is that you can easily see the water.   Once it warms up a bit, the foliage from the trees and the ground plants will obscure the view because they are so lush and full.

This white birch and a yellow bird house were the real spots of  brightness on the trail today.  Even the new growth of the pine trees didn't show brightly enough on this dull day.   However, the walk was pleasant enough and the terrain wasn't difficult due to icy or slippery, muddy conditions, so that has to be considered a win.   It was great getting outside for a bit too, without being scolded by birds.   Also, I saw a robin!   I haven't seen one at home yet, and they are another sign of spring.  

This is a true sign of spring.   A small patch of crocuses started blooming a couple of days ago.  They made me very happy.

The daffodils and tulips are just starting to grow, with their green leaves pushing up from the ground just a few inches.  The hyacinths are still under a small patch of leaves and snow - snow that I'd missed, along with the snow on the other side of our fence line!   Please go away snow!

Winter walks, garden visitor and shawl update

Hawk, right side, middle of picture.

 Here is a photo of the hawk visiting our garden.  He sticks around for over an hour at a time and has a couple of spots he likes to hang out.   With his dedication and patience, we're now thinking it might be the hawk who got one of our chooks.   DH says he found that hen just inside the door of the chicken coop, so it's possible.   The poor girls have been stuck inside since then.   With the risk of a hawk attack so likely, I'm keeping them in the coop.   They aren't fond of the snow regardless.  They'll make a track to the feeders and sometimes to spots where they can sun themselves, and mainly they hangout in the open part of the barn, making a mess of things.

The photo was taken through a double pane window which I didn't think needed cleaning this fall.  I was wrong.  It does.  The hawk is fairly large, like a crow size or a tad larger.  His back is grey and his underside/tummy is white and brownish.  He has a greyish head, which makes it hard to see, but he scanned the area constantly from that perch and I watched him sit there for over an hour.  He's been back daily, sometimes multiple times a day.

We headed out for a walk today.  I needed my sunglasses when we left the house.   The skies were mainly white, with some patches of very pale blue.   The sunlight was reflecting on the snow so it was bright, despite the high clouds.   By the time we were halfway to the chosen trail, I no longer needed my sunglasses.  There was a light flurry as well.   Luckily, the winds and the real snow, didn't pick up until we got back home.   

The trail was white.   Enough people had been on the trails by the time we got there, that the fluffy snow we had over the past 2 days was partially packed and easy to walk on.  No slippery spots and no ice.  Just light fluffy snow and lots of foot prints.

The lake or pond is mainly frozen over.  I don't think the ice is really strong enough to walk on yet, but there were foot prints on it.  They were likely animal prints, but we didn't go close enough to the shore to find out.   We were on top of the hill when we took this photo.   There are some houses and a train track on the other side of the lake.   You can't see them once the trees are leafed out.  This time of year though, they are able to be seen, and I'm betting they have great views as well.

The sun came out briefly (sort of) just as we were near the end of the trail , which runs beside the river.   It's not actually as steep as the photo suggests, but a weird angle to capture that tiny bright spot, the sun and trying to get a bit of the river in as well.  I don't think I was horribly successful.

The winds only picked up after we got home, which was nice and now it's snowing the kind of big flakes which tend to suggest we'll get some accumulation.  

Shawl update:   I'm getting about 4 -6 rows a day done if I put some effort into knitting right now, due to the length of the shawl.  I'm pretty sure I'm going to make this the last repeat.   It's certainly big enough to be a useful shawl, and maybe useful enough to be worn like a sonntag or tied shawl.  It's small enough though that I could also use it as an under-shawl and wear my larger one over top of it for warmth.   I'm also trying to decide whether I'll put the suggested fringe on it or just crochet a simple edging around the sides of it.    I fear the fringe might get in the way of wearing it for warmth while doing things like baking at Westfield, although the fringe in the sample picture was very pretty.

A new weaving project.

I warped up the rigid heddle loom.   I purchased some Sugarbush Drizzle, a mohair/silk yarn which is really thin a couple of years ago.  I bought 2 different colourways and since I had no idea how much I'd need, I bought 4 or 5 skeins of each colour.   It was $3 a skein, so it wasn't a huge outlay to be prepared.   I wove up a purple scarf which was lovely.  It wove up quickly and easily.   I ended up giving it away as a gift.   Two nights ago, I had finished the novel I was reading and didn't have a new one chosen yet.   So I dug up the second colour way of the Drizzle and warped up the loom.  This yarn is perfect for the rigid heddle loom.   I'm using the 7.5 ends per inch reed and the yarn, although very fuzzy, works up well at this sett.   It wasn't quite as easy to start weaving with as I remember the purple being, although time does tend to soften some of the memories.   Once I got into a rhythm, it's working up quite quickly.   The colour way is called Sailor's Sunset, and it really is a lovely combination.

The first photo doesn't show the colour variations very well or at all really.   It's also a photo I should have colour corrected because there is virtually no pink in the yarn at all.   

I did make a stupid mistake, totally my doing.  I forgot to attach a tape measure when I started weaving.  I usually pin one into the centre of the item I'm weaving to try for a fairly accurate idea of the length that I've woven.  I didn't notice this until after I'd advanced the weaving more than a couple of times.   I could unroll the weaving from the front beam, but my experience is that it doesn't always re-roll up with the same nice even tension.   I'm going to guesstimate its length and it might end up being a long scarf!

The corn is being harvested.  It's been dry for ages now, partially because we had such a dry end of the summer.   I found a partial cob in the yard, perhaps missed and thrown by the harvester, or dragged out of their field by a persistent raccoon.   It's a good yellow colour and really hard.  I thought the squirrels would have gotten it, or the chooks, but it's was just sitting there.   Then what interested me, is that the neighbour baled up all the corn stalks.  I'd never seen that done before.   I had to look it up to see why it's done.  Apparently it's used as feed.  It's fairly low in protein though and some of the websites considered it a very low quality fodder, that is usually only fed to cattle in desperation.  However, other websites said that if it's slightly damp, it will start fermenting.  This would make it more like silage, so maybe increase the nutrients a bit.   When I was a 4-H leader, we had a great trip to a dairy farm and good silage smell very much like fermenting beer!  I guess at least the cows would be happy.