Stupid weather, and meh stuff in life.

We had great seats for a mediocre concert!

 We went to a concert the other night.   I was looking forward to seeing the 2 artists because they don't travel very often anymore.  While they aren't pumping out the hits any longer, George Canyon and Aaron Prichett have a long history in Canadian Country Music.  It was a charity benefit concert, which is the first thing which should have tipped me off that maybe it wasn't like a regular concert.  Then too it was to be a mix of holiday and their hit songs.   Meh, is the best review I can give.   There were few actual songs of any kind in comparison to the anecdotes, stories, humour, call outs , so many call outs to family, friends, the stage hands, the charity guy, the guy who just joined them.   All this took time from actual music which is really what I wanted to see.    The show consisted of two 45 minute sets.  The second set sadly had fewer songs than the first set, by a noticeable amount. The charity sales pitch rambled and was all over the place and too long.   I think if they'd had someone help edit and fine tune the stories and the charity sales pitch, it wouldn't have dragged nearly so much and they could have gotten both a more effective use of them, and more music in. I will say that the few songs that George Canyon sang, showed that his voice is a smooth and strong as ever. I'd have loved to hear more of him singing.

The weather had been stupid on Friday.  It actually started snowing on Thursday and just never stopped.  We were lucky with our timing for leaving for the concert, which was a bit over an hour drive away.  We caught a break in the weather and had taken the major  highway, so it was well plowed and salted.  There was only one snow squall which affected us, and not for long.  That made it a much nicer trip despite the squall warnings and lake effect snow.  We decided not to drive home in snow squalls in the dark.  The hotel we chose turned out to be a suite with a full kitchen and separate bedroom.  The only odd thing was that it was a converted 1881 building, and our inside room had no windows, although 2 skylights.  It was reasonably priced too, 

Another meh project is the newest scarves on the loom.  I put two on because I had just enough yarn, if I dressed the loom correctly.  It's a DK yarn weight and I put it on the rigid heddle loom, so it's in between heddle sizes.   I'm a bit worried that the sett is a little too loose, but we'll see once it's off the loom.  The main issue I have is that it's pastel and the pale blue and ecru on the white just seem to look grungy to me.  I much prefer weaving and working with brighter colours.   Hopefully it will look better once it's finished.   The yellow reed hook was a gift from my friend E.   She cut them out of plastic and shared them.  It's a nice size, comfortable to hold and works beautifully on my loom.

The weather has been stupid the past few days, with snowfall warnings, lots of snow and horrid roads.   A few days before though, I looked out the window and saw this pretty sunset.  The sky had a lot more purple in it, over the orange and pink, but this is close.   I snapped a photo from the window because I worried that the sunset would be gone by the time I got outside.  I was right on that and happy I'd taken a quick snapshot before I tried to race outside.   It had faded quickly.

I'm working on making a sweater on a knitting machine.  I've made a bunch of hats which are great projects to learn the basics.  A sweater has a lot more steps and techniques, so we'll see how it turns out.  I picked up some less expensive yarn to learn with so I wouldn't waste or wear out the handspun yarn I've been spinning since the summer.     I've over 1800 yards spun so far, more or less, so that should hopefully be enough for a sweater.  Spinning yarn for a project can take a while, so I'd rather learn on commercial yarn.  Hopefully I'll have a wearable project out of this experiment, even if it is just some sort of man-made fibre.   I also finished a pair of cabled wool mittens which I'm pretty happy with, just no photo yet.  I just sewed in the last ends of the second mitten a few minutes ago, so a good end to the day.

Happy May!

 We've had day after day of wet, grey, dreary weather.   I'm looking forward to later in the week when we're supposed to get some sunshine.   I've been trying to move some plants from the old raised beds in preparation for the new ones being built.  I'm half done, but it's been too wet to finish up for almost a week now.

Twice now I've seen a bald eagle flying over us.   They are huge and fly very fast.  At least they fly quickly when the crows appear out of nowhere to chase them away.     We also heard an odd bird call the other day.  We were in the garage and this odd trilling was very loud. It was a sound I'd never heard before.  I popped out to see what it was, as it was definitely close, and there in the tree was a Raven.  Then several crows appeared and chased it off.   I checked the Raven call on-line and it was exactly what we'd heard.   I've seen it a couple of times since then as well.   Large predator birds overhead  does make me a little more careful about letting my chooks out though.   The hens don't like the wet weather though, so I don't feel quite so badly about keeping them locked in for the day when it's cold and rainy.

The plaid shawl is finally off the loom.   Really, I got busy and chose to do something other than weave.  It's pretty and I love the look of the plaid, but it is really a pain to weave.   It's a very subtle combination of colours.  More subtle than I'd have normally chosen.   I'm not sure what type of lights were in the shop where I purchased the main colour.   It looked grey in the shop.   I realized that it would be very dull unless I had an accent colour.   I found the same yarn  brand at a local store, and thought the grey they had was similar to the one I had at home.  It wasn't. While there was lots of contrast at the local store with their grey, mine is a different shade.  Maybe that's why it was on super sale!   So back to the store to pick up the yellow, to give the whole look some definition.   Regardless, I do like it.   It's 23 inches wide and 72 inches long, so a good size for a shawl.

I'm thinking it's time to warp up the floor loom and give it a go.  My hip is healed up enough and as long as I don't over do it, it should keep any swelling and inflammation down according to the surgeon.  

  We went to a concert on Saturday and I got to play with the camera on my phone.  We got our tickets late and had crazy nose bleed high seats.  We had a good line of site, so we got to see the show quite nicely.  Plus there was no-one beside us as we were tucked away in our own little alcove, so there were benefits.   We were about 200 metres away from the stage though, so I'm pretty happy that my little phone was able to take half-decent photos from that far away.   This is Joss Ross who was the opening act.   He had a good raport with the crowd and put on a great show.

The main performer was Lee Brice who also put on a great show.  I really liked the fact that the bass didn't over shadow the music.

There were a lot more people checking their phones during the concert than I normally see.   That was because it was game 5 for the Maple Leafs playoff hockey.  When that winning goal was won, right after that song ended, the crowd spontaneously erupted in "Go Leafs Go", which was particularly funny.  It lasted until he acknowledged the play off game win and thanked people for coming to the concert instead of watching the game.

 

Gratuitous cat photo of Phil, who sometimes gets cold and dives under blankets until he gets warm.  At night he either sneaks totally under the covers, or he just sleeps at your side, with his body under the covers and his head either on, or near the pillow.  He'll sleep that way for hours, but only until he's warm if he's completely under the blankets.