Sunny with cold breeze

My father usually asks me how I am and I usually tell him what the weather is like. I have known women whom you would ask the same thing and they would tell you how the kids were. Both of these seem to me to make perfect sense. I think I am fighting a cold but basically I am fine. It's fifty F and blue of sky with a few puffy white clouds. Yesterday it rained a lot.

Doug (who has another job interview coming up, although at the moment he doesn't seem terribly desirous of a different job and is treating the interviews as interesting sources of things to ask people _he_ has to interview) is away for the weekend. I am glad it's cleared up today.

Autumn is back in the Loom(less) Room. Only one more person lately has been sure she was her cat, and then realized Autumn was not the right brown tabby. I do wonder what's happening to brown tabbies in Canterbury. Sarah wondered yesterday if Autumn had been dumped for being pregnant, but since other than eating really a LOT she has no sign of such an alarming condition, I doubt this (and people are more accepting of unplanned kittens nowadays, aren't they?). Next week we will go and get tested for kitty diseases and establish whether or not she has been spayed. It would be a welcome savings, and being a cat if she hasn't been spayed she probably is pregnant. God forbid.

Friday we had a big workshop at work,for 'prophetic preachers.' My life and Div. school experiences suggest the best preachers are always trying to get better and the woman from Yale sounded excellent. I was doing hospitality and trying to keep the potato chips flowing, which was quite satisfying. Throughout this, it was Jessica's-down-the-hall's last day on the job. We had a trip to the Elegant Ewe and beer and dinner to look forward to. At 10 a.m. she had wondered if it was a bad sign that she wanted the beer THEN, and her day, of course, became more irritating. She said she was going to march down to the yarn store and give them her checkbook.

We both survived until then. Our friendship survived the even more perilous moment when Kelly and I Confronted her and said she should not be wearing ice blue and periwinkle when wearing nice reds and russets made her look _wonderful._ And the yarn she bought to make the Kimono Sweater was lovely enough to eat or roll in, and at least the rolling will be much easier when she has knit it up.

I committed a skein of Red Willow Mountain Goat because it is finally cold enough to think realistically of warm socks. I am poised to make a pair of Monkey out of what I am pretty sure is Wild Raspberry Twizzle, but that will require attention and my brain is not at home these days (or many others, actually).

On Saturday, Sarah came over to knit and hold a gun to my head. As a result of her efforts, I tidied (and she tidied) my bedroom down to floor in several places, and I started some needle-felted stars for the workshop she has, ah, persuaded, Doug and me to do for Shaker Village. Needle felting is one of the best crafts I know, in that to be vaguely competent you don't need much tuition, a fortunate thing for any students of mine (only you need not to bleed on your creation, which is less of an issue in knitting). The equipment is cheap and you get to play with colors. She left to go make scary noises for Haunted Village Tours and I watched a curiously sweet movie called "Fido," which is well worth a viewing. It's about love and fidelity and the Meaning of Life as movies usually are. Religion and ethics make brief, dignified, and appropriate appearances. And it has Billy Connelly making Lurch noises.

Why trusting the universe gives me such a headache

'When the student is ready, the teacher will arrive' and all those trusting remarks about synchronicity. I want to be that kind of person. So I say, look, universe, I have a place in my life for a cat. Nothing happens. In true American style, I haul myself to animal shelters, undertake Marten and Toby, lovely cats both with some quirks and incredibly effective bloodlust (house full of Mafia-style warnings like chipmunk head in the living room, leg in the far kitchen....). Excellent cats. I still want a nice sane kitten, preferably a queen.

The universe, doing rather badly by some of my friends --last summer's woman with lumpectomy has just finished radiation, doing fine, now her husband is having bypass surgery on Halloween; you wonder if the fun ever stops and then you hope not, to say nothing of all of Southern California) does not have time to cough up a kitten.

A sweet cat shows up in Canterbury Shaker Village, whom Sarah feeds and cultivates. After some days and some discussion, the cat strolled into the cat carrier (! ?? !!!!) herself on Monday and began to spend a quiet few days in quarantine here, provisionally named Autumn. Sarah put up a poster.

We had the slightly weird, mostly okay last archaeology lab before said cardiac patient's surgery last night. Sarah appeared and said the cat's distraught owner had turned up, clutching the poster and saying "Miss Tucker ran away just after I moved here, I'm so glad you found her, her brother misses her so much!" Sarah drove to my house and picked up the cat and I reflected how tired I am of loving beings that are not mine to love. (You can insert the appropriate Christian, Buddhist, fatalist remarks about how _everyone/everything_ is on loan, etc, but some beings are on even less of a loan than others.)

Turns out the cat I have been calling Autumn is not Miss Tucker at all. So Autumn is going to spend the next few days in Sarah's bedroom in Canterbury, not amusing her two queen kitties one little bit. Doug and I are trying to remain open to either bonding with Autumn or being delighted her people have her back (this cat has been deeply loved, unless she is a Bodhisattva cat). We have two brown female tabbies lost in the Canterbury area in the last couple of weeks, God knows where Miss Tucker is, and her brother still misses her.

I wish I weren't thinking about this. All the time.

It's Blog Action Day (it will be on Monday, anyhow) and the theme is the environment. At the very least, both the goldfinches (and the other passeriforms and aves in general, and in fact life on Earth) and the fiber bearers (sheeps and camelids mostly, most of whom are domesticated) need fairly specific ones. I had not realized that the two in my title were so opposed, one being wild and one being mostly domesticated. One being part of the ecology and largely dependent, one being a part of the ecology that gets really a lot of technological help and, given enough, will degrade the environment in which it lives well beyond the area's capacity to carry it.

I love a good polarization.

People are part of nature. We are a reflective part of nature, which allows us to do things to our environment ("I could farm here if there weren't so many trees"), and eventually to consider what it is we are doing ("I can't farm here now that it doesn't rain... I wonder if it has something to do with the lack of trees?"). The latter has only become widespread as people have spread into all the habitable ground and the effects of intense exploitation have become unavoidable. It is only a recent part of human life to HAVE TO consider ourselves part of our environment; most of the human experience has been about most becoming part of the humic layer real soon.

I like people, many in particular and quite a lot of things about us in general. We are learning so very much about how it all works as we realize how easily it can all stop 'working,' in the sense of 'working the way we like it, with food, air, water, charismatic fauna and flora,not too much dengue, a good place for Moore's Law to operate.'

There probably need to be fewer of us and we really really must take Stuart Brand's words to heart: We are gods, and we may as well get good at it. There is nothing we can do that does not matter. (This is frankly a drag.)

I have been weirdly cheered by Al Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's winning the Nobel Peace Prize. Maybe something will go better. The whole world situation suggests that none of the Marvel superheroes (or the DC ones), the Mission:Impossible team, UNCLE, or the Avengers are answering their calls (go Google them yourself if you're so young you don't know).

If I have a talent other than ineffective kindness and grammar-fascism (I rather like this link but the site may be crap)it is biblography. Not much idea how you should live, but lots on what you might read:

Historical and relevant (and not terribly encouraging):

The Long Summer, By Brian Fagan. You settle, you get used to the climate, you grow, the climate changes. Most of you die or migrate. Repeat.

Collapse
by Jared Diamond. Do trees prefer totalitarians?

A Forest Journeyby John Perlin -- really brought home to me that you have to burn something.

1491 by Charles Mann. What was my face before my great-grandparents immigrated? The only book on American history I have really been excited by.

Pretty good fiction:

Forty Signs of Rain
Fifty Degrees Below
Sixty Days and Counting, all by Kim Stanley Robinson.


Link to a list of links for Blog Action Day.

Well, it's still raining

And I suppose I can't protest much, but I will if it rains all week and all weekend, too. The leaves up north were lovely, and they aren't bad down here, but it's the kind of gloomy weather that makes you not care, even if you can see the leaves. I did, however, get the Octoberfest blog entry up, once the State remembered to bring the chip into work. I hope to get a better link but the generic site one will have to do.

Sarah and I met and knit for an hour after work since I am having social withdrawal after all the people last weekend. I know, if I were sensible I would go to Rhinebeck, but the house might fall down and I would be really, really broke, and even more overstashed than I already am.

My cat thinks it's time for me to go to bed and he is probably right.

In the works

I am back from a really lovely long weekend in the White Mountains digging holes and taking pictures of dirt and rocks (soil profiles and artifacts). I have most of an entry written and I hope to get it up at the NH Underground blog this evening (no link until there's something to see), after I have retrieved the pictures I want from the State, Whose camera I was using (the rocks and dirt belong to all of NH, after all).

I have finished my mother's socks.

My milk stout, upon mature consideration, is undrinkable.

Corned beef hash is unknown in France and not widely known in Quebec. It's very tasty.

Keum Boo is not all that much fun if you are not an abstract person and keep trying to make _things_ with scraps of non-adhering gold leaf.

Hold a good thought for Doug the housemate, who has an interview possibility.

Deep breath

I made spaghetti sauce before work. I stayed calm at work (so did my boss, even though he had forgotten I was leaving for an early weekend) and I am told the #10 envelopes will work fine. DEEP BREATH.

Jessica at the end of the hall has a new job, so she will be LEAVING ME ALL ALONE THERE in early November. But I'll be fine, sitting there in the dark.

I punted lab and went to the supermarket to get healthy snacks and the cocoa Dick forgot. And cat food and Kitty Litter (not the TM kind)and Asterix's drugs and a bottle of propane for the Tripod of Orodruin, which boils one's tea water real quick of a frosty morning. And some of it all is in the car and soon, honestly, I will get the rest.

Probably not much updating will take place in the next four or five days. Some knitting, with luck.

Better

I am still employed and my boss is uninjured. The poor man wasted a ream of 11x17 paper (one side had one orientation, the other had another; America is not ready for this)and said he felt sick, and I thanked him for making me feel better. We also had a tacit truce because he has not figured out Microsoft Publisher and I have (to some extent).

I am not ready for Octoberfest and not really happy with the gold on the ring I am Keum-booing (a Keum Boo-boo?) but life is okay.

Here is a really spectacular hummingbird picture. I didn't take it but it lifts my heart.
And Here. The photographer is a firespotter and there's a story about him in the newly-free New York Times.

Perhaps it will get better

Okay. The weekend was great. I also acquired gingko leaves to play with in the silver clay. I returned home and went to work to find that the 200 envelopes I ran through the magic mail function had the wrong return address on them. My boss, already unhappy because it took me so damn long to generate the list he said I ought to have been able to make in a few minutes, got to stick 200 return address labels over them on Friday night.

He also found we had roughly 10% of the envelopes you put in when you send an appeal out. This resulted directly in my printing and stickering 2000 self-addressed envelopes yesterday. Even 500 is a lot. I called to find out what size envelopes the mailer wanted. She said bigger was better, 9's would do. Staples does not have 9's, so I got 10's. 4/5 of the way through the boss suggested the 10's would stick out of the mailer. I said she said bigger was better, and Staples had no 9's. He said I ought to have gone somewhere else and not assumed (he barely managed not to make his usual remark about how assuming "makes an 'ass' of 'u' and 'me,' " which I didn't find endearing the first time). I don't think there is anywhere else in Concord.

If the 10's don't work I am going to offer to resign. I can't stand much more. We communicate badly; he can't believe I don't think and remember everything the same way he does. Much of the time, he knows a lot more about running a non-profit (not surprisingly). I am also doing things like forgetting how to do weird things in Word in less than six months. Some of this may relate to a certain amount of stress, since we are running on the boredom-punctuated-by-panic business model.

He is right, we ought to have had more envelopes on hand. If there were anything to say on my side, it would be that he has been saying we would be sending out a mailing since the beginning of August, and as of yesterday at 5 pm, he had not yet written the copy. The inelasticity of my brain has not allowed me to make it automatic that the word "Mass mailing" should lead to a nice complete list of useful stationery, since I tend to think "Oh God, ACCESS," even though Access is behaving a bit better for me (after nearly 2 years, we are beginning to get along better).

He also wants me to be responsible for tidying the supply room, which is unfortunate because he has a much lower threshold of messy and if he didn't go in and tidy it I would know what we had on hand. The disposition of the boxes changes daily and not always in a useful way. I think it is nice for him to have something concrete to do and if he wants to disarrange the supply room it's fine with me, although I wish he would not hide things.

I had planned to leave work at two, go to the grocery store, the bank, and pick up some more fresh silver clay,get the cat's prescription, then go home, make spaghetti sauce to freeze for the archaeological weekend, use the gingko leaves in the clay before they dry out, and do a major kiln firing, as well as cut an intricate piece of gold foil for the class tomorrow (today).

I left work at about 5:00, reached the bead store at quarter past five (it closes at five, I thought it was six, but not always true...), but the nice woman had already let a family in and we all promised to leave quickly and we were all cheery and happy. I drove to the bank, endorsed my checks, and found I still hadn't got my ATM card back in my wallet. I drove to the vet, who closed at six, arriving at five past. I went to the small local grocery store which has a poster of the local buffalo it sells, perfect for dig spaghetti sauce, only it is usually out of buffalo, it turns out, which makes the times I have bought it there before relatively unusual. I bought cholesterol-laden, ecologically unsound ground cow and went home. It was 6:30 and I didn't actually do anything productive except help Doug throw back the tide of dangerously full wine bottles in central New Hampshire.

Mittension of Rovaniemi

Actually, it was a fairly laid-back class; we were quiet because we were _busy_, thank you.



Susanna Hansson is a good teacher and a fun and pleasant person, as well as one of the most astoundingly fluent non-native English-speakers I've ever encountered. I was happy that she has encountered and used correctly the fine word schlep, which my years at Brandeis taught me was best translated (when used as a noun) as 'A steamer trunk full of rocks.' She did have a good deal of stuff with her.

And though the room (rather harshly lit) was full of knitting teachers there was a familiar face who picked out a familiar colorway:



I don't seem to knit as loose as I once did, as 000 needles turned out to be unnecessary and 1's were fine. I think either I am growing up or my drugs are perfectly balanced because I restarted once because I screwed up the first row and ruined the cast-on, at least once; then I learned I hope for the last time that if you're knitting in the _round_ you read the chart normally (like a typewriter, for you antiquaries) instead of boustrophedon;then I just plain read the chart wrong and skipped a color repeat: and yet I was not crazed or suicidal, or even the least complete in the class by the time we gave up and shopped, being at WEBS after all. I'd have a picture of my partial cuff but I pulled it out again this afternoon because I would really like to do it right. But I may try it again in sport instead of fingering and with a whole line of different colors because I managed to get the first and second and third pale greens mixed up.

One particular thing struck me: Susanna was discussing Saami weaving and one thing led to another and there I was talking about Women's Work, the First 20,00 Years,which some of you may recall my mentioning other times. Anyway, one of the WEBS employee-students went and fetched the four copies in the store and people bought three of them. My kind of fanatics.

Susanna and Lene will have a article in PieceWork this coming winter sometime and The Secret of the ColorChange Will Be Out. It will still be a lot easier to learn with kindly human tuition. I can't show you over lunch. It is really absorbing and those folk (you know, folk tradition) were awfully clever.



Everyone picked colors that went with what she was wearing.

I behaved fairly well at WEBS except for the five skeins of sportweight alpaca... And I have almost finished my mom's second sock!

I am about to go to WEBS (slightly more than halfway down) and be out of my depth, but I am sure I will have a good time anyway.

Here is how I've been: As the week went on, I became more and more impatient with Being at Work. Usually it's just a dull throb but this week it became acute, until by Friday I wanted to snap "Oh, get a HOBBY! and stop talking about things I already know and just LET me ALONE so I can DO my JOB!" The boss is in one of his slightly manic moods where the forest is thick and he is concentrating on teeny little leaves, while complaing that we must make it through to the other side in the next ten minutes. It makes me anxious.

Down the hall, Saisquoi did her job in seraphic calm. It is a comfort when you know someone understands why you're making Igor "The-Marsther-ith-MAD! MAD, I tell you!" faces and full-body gestures all the way to the bathroom.

The weather decided to be strange. Along with peri-menopause and heat sensitivity from SSRIs and being fat, I hate high humidity. I hate all of these things and all of them are active in my life. So it was 65 degrees F (usually a well-enough behaved temperature, if not clammy)with about 90% humidity and my knees were sweating. This was toward the end of the week; it had been 90 F+ and broken records on Wednesday, not your dry heat either. It's better now; I am wearing wool socks for the first time since about March.

On Tuesday I had a pleasant but not very productive silver class. On Wednesday I had a fine time at lab, where we gave Dick an atlatl for his birthday because I was tired of listening to him try to explain how they work. The atlatl is the way most of the projectile points were are occasionally lucky enough to find were used to kill food
or in other parts of the ancient world, food. His wife won't let him hang it up over the mantelpiece with the little brackets made of dead deer-hooves. I can't really blame her.

Thursday they had promised the weather would break, but it did not. I went to tea at the home of friend's mother, and it could not have been nicer. The most English home I have seen in the New World, with (honestly) horse brasses and blue-and-white ware on the walls. And zucchini bread, which was a nice touch of inculturation (I suppose they might have zucchini bread in England, but I rather doubt it).

When I got home I found Effectively Blogless Sarah had, as she promised, come to visit. And tidied the whole downstairs. I kiss her feet. I said I would make us something to eat and she pulled the quiche out of the oven. Sarah is welcome to raid my stash anytime (which she has only done with encouragement, I hasten to add. As far as I know. The stash is such that quite a number of things might be disappeared before I notice. But don't get any ideas, I am going to do the Ravelry penance/inventory soon, I mean next week, I mean in mid-October...).

I have finished one of my mother's socks. Taking a class is hardly the same as starting another project, is it? I mean, I have no choice about the timing. Or buying supplies...

The Kool-Aid is tasty

In particular, I finally Did Something with my Ravelry invitation (Jess told me I must have signed up for a beta tester several years ago. I have only the vaguest of memeories of doing so). Just ankle-deep, of course. I joined Facebook last week; it has been great for being in touch with my friends of the later generations. Like, I hear 40% of Facebook are over 35, but I haven't run into anyone my age. My father is 80 and possibly the oldest person on it; one of his friends invited him.

Both of these are addictive timesinks. At least Ravelry has the prospect of doing me some good; my stash is bigger than I am and some kind of fearless exploration would be a good thing. I wish there were some kind of book thing (any suggestions?) I could add to this blog; Facebook has an 'I'm Reading' app that ties into Amazon, which I would feel guiltier about if I were not one of their frequent flyers.

I forgot to mention I bought just a very small Icelandic fleece at Wool Day. Moorit. I would enjoy it just for the pulling-into tog and thel goodness.

Honestly, I will take some pictures soon.

Pictures? Why would I have taken pictures?

A delightful note on boredom as an anthropological item.

I figure I am reasonably contented these days but the fact is I am reading way too much and the house has descended from barbarism through savagery and is dipping into chaos. One reason to find solace in Robin McKinley is that the space inside a book is tidy, and also not my problem.

Except that we are in a drought, the weather lately has had some perfect days. It managed to be pleasant for the Canterbury Shaker Village Wool Day, where Doug and I go and spin. This is a very small atypical wool festival, in that the demonstrators far outnumber the vendors, and the visitors often know _nothing_ ("Is that a spinning wheel? Do all spinning wheels look like that?").

I am finally beginning to recognize some of the people I don't know from blogging, like the woman whom I taught to spin four Wool Days ago. She would pop up and say "Hi! Remember me?" and I would gulp and say, "Um, no...." She managed to imprint on my adamantium skull at Spa and even though I couldn't recall her name I knew who she was. Hi, Pam! Maybe we'll get solid on your name next.

My parents came up from Boston and enjoyed the sheep. I dragged them the extra hundred yards to see Gina Gerhardt (whom I just Googled and ended up with my own blog entry (down a ways) as the top pick. Gina, your profile is TOO LOW)'s flax braking setup. I take spinning and even weaving pretty much for granted (unlike most of the visitors, which is why they are at Wool Day), but flax processing is rare. My parents were gracious enough to be actually interested, and Gina was gracious enough to let me play with her stuff and demo it for them. She was a hoot, actually, and yelled at me for not remembering _everything_ she had taught me a year ago. Since I failed to remember _her_ when I saw her at Fiber Revival (you would have thought the hank of flax on her wheel would have been a hint) this was particularly funny. (I do usually recognize my parents.)

I have roughly enough silver equipment to furnish a small craft fair, and no apparent time, no apparent space, and a tendency to freeze. I am taking a Keum-Boo on Argentium class and messing around in Keum-Boo with silver clay and it's _magic_.

I will post this and go to work and hope to update more soon. But this weekend, because I need another project, I am going to Northampton to visit the daughter and take the Rovaniemi Mittens workshop at Webs. Why, given that I have maybe 12 projects ongoing and am not that great a knitter in the first place? I blame the Harlot. Show me a lost art and I am anybody's. (Raider of the Lost Art...)

Art and fear and housework and !@#$% global warming

Finally, something to which I can find washing catfood cans preferable. I blame Sara Lamb for starting me down the silver clay road to ruin. Sending me back to hang with the vicious, friendly, vegetarian bead store owner, who happened to have classes... chainlink jewelry with beads. Doug, my so-called friend, dragging me with him to a wirework class (at the Fiber Studio! Even in a warm fuzzy place full of fiber, the sultry gleam of brass and copper and silver. Carol is giving another class there Nov. 11). There are books on enamelling out there and I already have a small kiln.

Sadly, as the equipment and materials and books piles rise, so does my apprehension. I know, this is neurotic. But I really needed to clean the kitchen up last night, and I am really happy I did, and I still managed to go play a bit. I am making a cross for my ex (I know, the ex has me, who needs another cross?), whose birthday is Monday. I want it to be nice. The design options are vague: no stones. "Make it look maybe like a tree." What, it's a cross, and it's teeny, and it's silver. And I am not rich in technique or experience. I am trying a couple of things involving carving a Sculpey mold. As always the work was not nearly so intimidating as the anticipation. It may not be what the ex wants, but it will be small enough to put in a drawer if necessary. And I _will_ finish the tea cosy by Christmas.

Imagine how hard it would be to start if I were an industrial-size metal sculptor.

Meanwhile, we are having a drought. Two months and counting since there was any significant rain. I top up the frog ponds from the well, wondering how the aquifer is holding out. NPR woke me up with a cheery tale from the BBC about rising sea-levels in Bangla Desh leading to refugees in Assam. Assam is where the tea I like best comes from. AND the human suffering, yes. As good as the wakeup last week about the Huichol being done out of their peyote by drug tourists (one of whom didn't sound completely evil, either).

On the plus side: the mozzerella recipe from the Kingsolver website works, if you have a source for rennet (Sarah, in my case). With tomatoes from the farmers' market and olive oil from the daughter's sojourn in Italy on the homemade bread. Yum. I nearly want to eat more healthy.

The hummingbirds left after Labor Day. They were insane, and like Etherknitter, I miss them. I would not have believed how noisy they are.

Reading: Janet Evanovich (Stephanie Plum, not the stuff with cars, and not for the first time; brain candy), The First Fossil Hunters(brain whole-wheat bread).

Two things I learned this summer

One is important and should be generally known: Original Ban Roll-On Deodorant, applied liberally over poison ivy, eases itching A LOT.

The other I learned this morning: Sometimes when your trousers are harder to button than they should be, they have haven't shrunk, and you haven't gained. They're inside out.

Revival was EXCELLENT

I have been on a go-slow with the knitting this summer (it was too hot, I have too much stash, I want to make stuff out of silver...leading to self-castigation for having too many hobbies, a messy house, a depleted bank account, and no finished objects, it feels like, ever, in any medium) and did not connect this with an increasing tendency to gnash my teeth and mutter. I knew I missed the lively social life of digging (is it lively, if you are grateful for one another's company, happy to eat together, and stagger off to bed at 8:30, totalled on two glasses of wine?). So I began to think what impractical thing might help and there was Julia.
For some reason the plea for chairs brought it to life for me and I decided to go to the Revival. After a summer of relative chastity, I spent too much money at the Elegant Ewe (the Woven-Stitch Kimono-style sweater in Noro)on Friday, and I feared this was the beginning of a binge. I was mostly okay though -- fortunately, there were not too many vendors at the revival and 4 oz of roving and a pair of needles is hardly anything, right? And I blame Cate for the roving; I was looking for help when I complained that there was a completely unlike-me colorway (neon green +) of roving at Heather's booth, and damn if three minutes later Cate didn't decide she needed to see it. And then she suggested we could make matching socks (although I think she may make four little ones instead of two big ones). It does spin like a dream.

It was wonderful to see people from faraway Northampton and people I know and like whose last names and homes I have no idea of. And Kelly's baby, to say nothing of Kelly. I have almost met the Island Pond Spinners enough to recognize them now.

I noticed that similar makes of spinning wheel seemed to clump together. No Majas were in evidence, but more Schacts than I would have expected (they don't seem very portable, but I must be mistaken). Three darling Victorias, some Lendrums, our small ode to Joys (three in a row).

Sarah felt bad because all around her people were spinning wild colors and she was doing white. She is intending to make a handspun, naturally-dyed Bohus sweater and spinning white for a LONG TIME is part of the deal. I can't wait to see it. It will be my own fault that that will take longer because she decided she also needed to knit the Kimono thing (which the Ewe really needs to put up on its website). I spent Sunday muttering until I finally just gave in and knit instead of doing anything useful, and Doug is knitting a new floor for the chicken coop, I think the wood is 4-ply...

Real life. Bah.

She blogs, but not very often -- trying to catch up

Okay, it's been busy. Only not really. I came back from the last week of digging on August 4. We never did find anything but the foundations of a good-sized wall. Tidiest early Americans EVER.

It was very hot. It was very humid. It was harder to cope with than the greater, though dryer, heat of last year, even though we had patches of shade sometimes this year.

While I was digging (except for the first week when I thought I would die, that I was too old, that I had fibromyalgia, and then remembered to take aspirin/ibuprofen/ something like that BEFORE going out to dig) my knees and back became perfectly good and did not hurt particularly. Both places are getting cranky again now I am home. I don't really know what to make of this, as I do not really want to go be a contract digger.

Two days before the end of the dig I got a couple of very small patches of poison ivy, much less than most people. I did not get horrible dripping pustules, but the patches did propagate random very itchy dots all over my body. These finally stopped itching a week later, when I heard Deb was not going to need chemotherapy after her lumpectomy. I like good news.

I believe that was also the night we had guests.

Dark they were and golden-eyed.

On Wednesday, my daughter got back from her trip digging in Italy (she landed in MA late Tuesday night and stayed at her boyfriend's parents' home). She was not impressed by the administration of the dig but she learned to use a pick and found some pottery and tiles and was in Italy. She liked to cook before she went there (and has not been exceptionally lucky as far as the food she got from the places she studied) and within about half an hour of my arriving home after work, she and her boyfriend and I went to the Henniker farmers' market, where she made crooning noises over the tomatoes. I am very fortunate.

On Thursday, we got her a new driver's license and a cell phone and she was able to take a deep breath because she existed again.

On Friday we visited Sarah in Canterbury to get some rennet (enzymes are sensitive to heat. It is excellent ricotta, though) and we went for a walk through the Shaker Village gardens. This was closely followed by a trip to the Shaker Village vegetable stand, since the little yellow cherry tomatoes were addictive. I began tidying and OBD began cooking for my birthday party (scheduled for Saturday; birthday on Sunday). Friday and Saturday were both gorgeous, with lower humidity than we have had lately, which was good because it had been too miserable to do anything as lively as decluttering

My parents, my ex, and Dick and Deb arrived in the late afternoon and found they had lots to talk about. The daughter and the boyfriend worked through the first course (fresh and delicious bruschetta, bean salad, and mozzarella-and-tomato with basil) working on the pasta, but were able to sit with the rest of us (Doug the guests and me)outside for the second course. She is prone to stress over cakes, but loves making them. Her gluten-free chocolate cake is better than most people's conventional. Her father has always made beautiful cakes (the year of the giant cardboard apatosaurus you could hide several kids in, matched with the cake with the blue Jello pool with a plastic plesiosaur, is unforgettable) and they made me an archaeology cake.



We had the cake inside as the waether was actually cool, though the mosquitoes remained active. All afternoon the hummingbirds parted people's hair. Excellent party.

Butterflies all over

I went to get my camera so I could show off the bracelet I made this week, but I was hijacked by some unusually amenable butterflies (names are links). They really do like bergamot and buddleia, and oregano. It's glorious here, more bumblebees than you can count. Still too hot, though.

Eastern Tailed-Blue


American Copper


Atlantis Fritillary


Two-Spotted Skipper


This one I haven't figured out yet. There are also Monarchs and cabbage whites and pale yellows


And daylilies and frogs.


I can't begin to do justice to the hummingbirds, them with their special-effect flying and dysfunctional family life. There is chittery cursing everywhere and deeply-involved dive-bombing high-velocity chittering UFO's. Flying knots. I worry they will be so intense they'll forget to miss my eyes.

Update update

I finally wrote something about the archaeological field school, to which I return tomorrow night for the last week. I have been having a decent time despite spending this week at work instead of in the field. It has been sickeningly hot (which I am handling worse and worse) and I am glad Doug and everyone survived. All cats are well and the archaeologist's lady has been getting better after her lumpectomy. Every time I move my right arm I think of how glad I am to be healthy right now. Aches and pains, yes, many, though MUCH better once I remembered to take Ibu or aspirin first thing in the morning as well as after the damage of the day occurred. Opinion now suggests the muscle spasms in back were stress-related, since they got better on the the dig and went away altogether in Quebec. I have not had them back this week, though it was very definitely low-key semi-productive at work.

More soon, perhaps tomorrow.

On vacation

For the next two week sI am on vacation. The weekdays will be spent digging, and I will likely be blogging them from New Hampshire Underground. Any crafty things will probably get put here. I do wish I would sleep later henceforth, lovely and quiet though it is. And the cable internet was a wonderful surprise.

A nice damp 4th

Well, I caught up on blogs (be sure to catch the sensitive artistic rendering on New Hampshire Underground). Then I finished weeding the small flower garden in the front and mulching it with well rotted horse-manure. The soil was dry enough to pull some excellent long grass rhizomes out, though bindweed needs something like a Mohole-borer to actually reach roots. I need to plant some more mid-season daylilies or something.The cosmos has self-seeded from last year very nicely.

Then Doug and I dug a small adjunct pond near the main puddle. This is in pure clay (this year I really will make pots out of it) and since it has been so dry it didn't quite fill while we were digging. It was noticeably wet and heavy with very clean worms. We called quits after four little cartloads of dirt apiece to a dip in the location sort of near the compost heap. Which cartloads were small but pulled up a short hill were quite heavy enough. It will be a nice size.

I wanted to work on "deep" and tidy up the loose at the bottom. Doug kept saying it wasn't going to rain, so he gets to try to tidy the bottom now that it's wet. I haven't said I told him so but he knows.

I should mention, because I forgot, that last Sunday we killed and ate Spike. My friend the ThD/DVM was here. She knows how to kill and gut things. I know how to cook. On the one hand, both of my parents and 99.99999% of the human species throughout history have eaten things they knew before the things became groceries. On the other hand, even though he was tasty and I know eating him is reasonable payback for a LONG life for a chicken (16 free-range months, with rapine and pillage), and good except for one minute of angst, I just was not entirely happy about consuming him. It was good chicken, not "the best I have ever eaten," though (it tasted, well, like chicken). Now it is much quieter here; Faith only crows a reasonable amount and doesn't attack anyone. It remains to be seen whether the hens grow back their feathers.

Anyway, after several nice rests and cans of seltzer, we bottled wine. I got to
use the new corker which really is nice. The wine, however... I made a batch that stayed in the carboy for two years after I moved here. It tastes strange to me, oddly grapey and as though someone had used Welch's grape juice. By the time I bottled it I had forgotten what kind it was (I know. Keep better records. I mean to use sunscreen and eat a more balanced diet too) and I thought perhaps the taste was a result of its cavalier handling. I have about a dozen bottles left; it's better it you leave it open for about three days; aerating helps some and is slightly faster. So for the first wine kit after this semi-debacle (I wonder if it would be tastier mixed with orange juice? Or grenadine? [Or run through a still?]) I took care. Unfortunately I didn't go with one of the Cabernet kits I have used before; I tried a Zinfandel . It tastes remarkably like the batch I made three years ago and mistreated. I think I really don't like kit zinfandel. Live and learn. I wonder how much I can unload at the dig?

It began to rain. We needed rain. I am sorry for all the holiday makers and campers-out at fireworks displays, but we needed rain. About 2/3 of the tadpoles have apparently transformed and gone, but we need the puddle to stay wet for the adult green frogs and the newts. To say nothing of my neglected perennials.

Then I washed up and we went to see a friend's new apartment, which is in a
house not an apt. complex, in Nashua. Nashua is Far. It is lovely (hardwood floors, interesting walls) and much more tranquil than her old place, where she could hear when anyone flushed the toilets somewhere down the hall. Curiously, I was not much company and kept zoning out. I must really be in crappy shape, as Doug was lively and
cooked the steaks. Our friend apologized for the cancellation of the fireworks, but I was okay with it, pointing out I had come to see her new apt., not fireworks.
She was pleased. It was pleasant. She killed us at Skip-Bo. I tried to stay awake all the way home.

Doug says the new pond has a frog in it already. Who says there's no need for
affordable housing?

And continues well

The operation went well and nothing untoward was found outside a well-encapsulated slow-growing malignancy. Summer can continue.



The weather seems to vary between God-awful hot and rather on the cool side. I like the cool side, although it is sometimes unnerving to have to wear a long-sleeved shirt in July.

As a way to deal with my anxiety over Deb (I think the archaeology boss's wife can have her own name) I thought about talismans. I made her one, realizing that the best ones always give people only what they already have, though one hopes it will enhance the quality and make it easier to draw upon. Since Deb does InformationTechnology in a public school she can always use more:



and the lily pads are the ones in the back yard.

I had another crown prepped and my tooth keeps hurting.

My boss is often on vacation and I am working (ineffectively) on inventorying the Bibles. Next week I will be on vacation. This is a good thing, because my office work ethic is flickering out. Inventory by yourself is really slow.

I should craft more and play Solitaire less.

All is well for now

My Only Beloved Daughter remembered the ancient technology known as a telephone. Worked remarkably well. She is alive and not doing too badly, despite a journey from hell (wrong stops of trains, five sleepless hours in a country train station, you know) and says Murlo is a sweet mediaeval village. Unfortunately the house the FORTY of the student-diggers are staying in is too small and the dig boss spent today fixing the showers. The fact that he could make headway fixing the showers is encouraging.

My archaeology boss's wife is having a lumpectomy on July 2. Since she is probably the only woman in the world who deserves him (oh, now, she hasn't done anything that bad) and they love each other rather sweetly, for 35 + years of marriage, I ask your help in sending good thoughts. I have very few relatives so I have very little experience in people I care about. (Really, in general. Insert whatever verb you like about what I have little experience in.) I so disapprove of people having any intimations of mortality. I hate it when I can't do anything. I hate it when anyone I love is unhappy. Nothing should happen that can't be cured by a good book or a chocolate cake. We have had approximately TWO sightings of honeybees this year. I know it is all going to hell in a handbasket, I know that's what entropy is all about. I don't know why I cry about it.

It was the most perfect early fall day this morning. The climate is seriously deranged. Doug and I went to a weird gem shop an hour away where we had hoped to find dichroic glass cabochons. There were very few, but there were many other things. I think I behaved pretty well except for the string of peridot beads. Cheap turquoise, inexpensive amber. A bad place for people who like to look at pretty rocks. We had lunch at a little non-chain snack bar overlooking a lake. The fish and chips were not much good but I am not poisoned, and the people were friendly, and the seating was available outdoors. When I complained that a lake that big ought to be able to afford loons, Doug found two distant black dots, who dove and surfaced very satisfactorily.

It's an awfully nice planet, and I am sure that in a million years it won't care much about the warm period in this interglacial. We who are not here for long are obligated to care about the other phenomena that aren't here for very long: rainbows (several lately), hummingbirds, one another.

The post before the previous post

The post before the one about sustainability actually brings us up to date, so you might scroll down. I should note, as it is unusual, that by and large I am not complaining about the weather; it hasn't been too hot and yesterday evening was lovely. The Rose-Breasted Grosbeaks are having a great year around my feeder. The tadpoles have yet to show legs and we have not seen more than two frogs at the puddle this year (as opposed to 20-some, last year).


floribunda rose by the mailbox

we have the right to expect adaptation only from ourselves.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/19/opinion/19tue4.html?th&emc=th

"In our everyday economic behavior, we seem determined to discover whether we can live alone on earth. E.O. Wilson has argued eloquently and persuasively that we cannot, that who we are depends as much on the richness and diversity of the biological life around us as it does on any inherent quality in our genes. Environmentalists of every stripe argue that we must somehow begin to correlate our economic behavior — by which I mean every aspect of it: production, consumption, habitation — with the welfare of other species.

This is the premise of sustainability. But the very foundation of our economic interests is self-interest, and in the survival of other species we see way too little self to care.

The trouble with humans is that even the smallest changes in our behavior require an epiphany. And yet compared to the fixity of other species, the narrowness of their habitats, the strictness of their diets, the precision of the niches they occupy, we are flexibility itself.

We look around us, expecting the rest of the world’s occupants to adapt to the changes that we have caused, when, in fact, we have the right to expect adaptation only from ourselves."

I was going to write about how the male in my life is only using me, but complaining about an 18-year old cat--well, of course he's getting difficult. But I swear, although he likes sitting on me the only time he shows me much attention is when he wants me to give him something. Milk, usually.

Wrote that last week. Nothing has changed.


Here finally are the two brooch-type things I made in the wire class now about a month ago. Last week I finished the first project a ring:

the silver one, remarkably featureless

I have the third silver-smithing class this evening; I think we are going to undertake the Bezel.

(I was just thinking I felt silly calling it a silverSMITHING class when mostly I file and sand instead of hitting things with hammers, when I realized smith was almost certainly connected to the word smite. No wonder.)



This is the coin of the lost tribe of cat people, with terrible production values and an artificial patina. Below is a somewhat better one of a coin of the Lost Tribe of Bunny People:
. The reverse needs work.

I am getting a tremendous kick out of carving slabs of half-baked Sculpey into dies and smooshing silver clay in between. I hope to do a coin of the Sheep People soon.

I am still spinning and actually knitted a bit while driving with Ellie into the Boston area before taking her to the airport Monday night. I had an e-mail from her from the Rome airport on Tuesday, in her late afternoon, as she waited for the luggage to catch up with her from changing planes in Paris. A 45-minute connection is not enough. If I know that, why did they schedule her for one? She was a bit concerned as to whether she would get to Siena that night, where she could take a cab to Murlo. Murlo barely shows up on Google Earth. Nor have I heard from her, and now the rest of you can help me wait. I am not worried, exactly, but I wish she would use that outmoded form of communication, the telephone.

BWI

Neither Baltimore nor the British West Indies. My back has been peculiar since the inital wire work class. It is, in fact, somewhat Out, and I should find a cheiropractor.

So I came home, forgoing the bank (bad Laura) but somehow managing to stop at the Garden Center. My peonies - I got three cheap year before last, and one bloomed last year and one looked like it might die, undermined by chickens. Last year I happened on a peony sale at the garden center in Hadley, MA (Does everyone use visits to her daughter as an excuse for horticulture?) and one of those has not opted to bloom, but the other two look great (yes, I should have taken pictures). I may have mentioned this is not a year when the desire to garden has been noticeable. The peonies haven't changed all that, but together with a couple of Siberian Iris...

So I stopped to look for more Japanesian iris, not that regular bearded are bad, and also got a peony. The one that wanted me to buy it was in full bloom and has no buds. I could not turn it down for the one with three fat buds. The fully-blown one was too much.
And this was before I even got home and opened a bottle.

And a Solomon's seal and a somewhat hybridized Ragged Robin of cheery pink. They're all perennials, which means it's practically not like buying them at all, since they will likely be back next year.
Not only is my spinal column only really happy when I am in my ergonomic driving carseat, but it was stinking hot and even the nursery guys were fading in the humidity. I managed, with rather suspect perfect posture, to unload the four pots and went inside. I found a bottle of mead, which is, of course, a muscle relaxant. I went upstairs just as thunder rolled and Toby dashed under the bed. If any of the peonies survive the battering, there will be pictures.

Also of the coin of the ancient Iron Age British Cat People (Catuvellauni?) I found out what I seem to want to do with PMC is make ancient British coins.

decent Father's Day promotion

This is the first Father's day come-on I have seen that has not made me ill. Check it out. http://www.changingthepresent.org/ And I _like_ my father.

Could be worse

You are The Moon

Hope, expectation, Bright promises.

The Moon is a card of magic and mystery - when prominent you know that nothing is as it seems, particularly when it concerns relationships. All logic is thrown out the window.

The Moon is all about visions and illusions, madness, genius and poetry. This is a card that has to do with sleep, and so with both dreams and nightmares. It is a scary card in that it warns that there might be hidden enemies, tricks and falsehoods. But it should also be remembered that this is a card of great creativity, of powerful magic, primal feelings and intuition. You may be going through a time of emotional and mental trial; if you have any past mental problems, you must be vigilant in taking your medication but avoid drugs or alcohol, as abuse of either will cause them irreparable damage. This time however, can also result in great creativity, psychic powers, visions and insight. You can and should trust your intuition.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.

The real question is whether it will stop raining sometime and yet not be 85F. I have annuals suffering on the front porch. Some of the grass is as high as an elephant's eye.

Yesterday Doug forced me (You'll have fun." "I donwanna. Costs money." "I'll pay.") to go with him to a silver (and brass and copper) wire workshop. The teacher was really nice and had brought flexible-shaft machines (think Supercharged Dremels) and a grinding/buffing wheel. Apart dodging brooch pins--grabbed by the buffer and thrown across the room-- (all right, maybe this only happened to me) everyone had a good time. Much too good a time: Doug and I have signed up for a silversmithing class. I do not expect to become Leslie Wind over night, or even ever, but it seems like a reasonable thing to study, particularly in light of the metal clay, and either Doug or I already have most of the tools, and the (Web siteless as yet) teacher lives and works out of Concord. Because I don't have enough hobbies. As it is I already have to succeed in making a shawl, because I have two nice pins.

Birds and books

This morning I managed to put my glasses on without disturbing the bird at the feeder, and it was indeed an Indigo Bunting. For other blue, I have Blue Jays.

The cardinal was here today, and the Rosebreasted Grosbeak and both of them seemed to have young ones (the cardinal might have been a female, but the grosbeak was definitely a growing child). Scarlet Tanagers were around a couple of weeks ago, but I haven't seen them again. I love my allegedly Red-Breasted Nuthatches very much, but the coloring is subtle and more of a rose than a red. Or maybe a rosy ochre. Red-bellied woodpeckers, heard but not seen.

For yellow I have Evening Grosbeaks and Goldfinches.

I haven't seen any Baltimore Orioles, who would do for orange and maybe green, or female Scarlet Tanagers, who are definitely green. I do have Purple Finches but they are a color I would call Pahnk.

And lots of very pleasant less-distinctively colored birds, like Hairy and Downy Woodpeckers, Chipping Sparrows, some kind of flycatchers, the sounds of Great-Horned and Barred Owls and Pileated Woodpeckers, and Ovenbirds and Woodthrushes and a Veery at the lower end of the driveway (which is a nice sound to hear as I leave for work), and the hummingbirds shooting past the deck. It is really really nice.

The bear has not been in evidence lately. The raccoon is still trying to get in and eat the birdseed. The tadpoles are huge, and there are two newts in the puddle with them. The frogs are much thinner on the ground and shyer than last year's. I hope the chickens have not been eating them.

We are looking for someone to take our roosters. To eat them would be just fine. Spike crows _all_ the time and keeps attacking us, which is unwise of him. Faith isn't as obnoxious to us but the feather-picked appearance of the hens is upsetting, though the hens don't seem to mind much.

There was a delightful article on a Harry Potter convention in New Orleans in Salon. I am not alone in having the mixed feelings in my anticipation of the next book, because it will be the last book, at least as far as I know, in that universe. I still don't quite understand why I like them so much; the silly names bother me a bit (I mean, was poor Remus Lupin doomed to be a werewolf from his birth, or did he change his name when he got infected?)but they are a great place to go, even if lately Harry feels lousy most of the time. So I am going to have a small in-advance-of-publication J.K. Rowling festival. In September the fourth Temeraire book is coming out, which will give me something to live for (other than the inauguration of a different occupant of the White House), and I have gone insane and ordered a copy of the first one (les Dragons de sa majeste) in French. I know it's feeble to read only stuff in translation, but it does practice my French and I know it well enough to actually figure out the words I don't know, and I like it enough to put up with the slowness of reading another language. Which all impel me not to try to read anything I don't already know I like a lot. You can never tell when you might have to go back to Quebec and get a chance to speak in foreign.

Sticky

The weather is sticky. It may thunder soon, in which case Doug will have to rescue his freshly washed (NH S&W) fleece and I will have to rescue the alpaca drying on the reflector-ovenlike warmth of the hot tub lid. Meanwhile, God (Bacchus, Ceres) willing, I have one red zinfandel kit and one Breakfast Stout (low in alcohol, but probably not compared to, say, orange juice) kit making billions of yeast cells very happy.

The kitchen floor is sticky, strangely. The part where they say "Remove cap from bag of grape juice concentrate _carefully_ (my emphasis)..." well, I was careful, and it erupted anyhow. And there's the dribble of roasted barley and oatmeal tea. Anyhow.

If things go all right I will make the kit with the expensive varietal grape juice from Italy next month. If they don't, I'll get a new sachet of yeast before I try it.

My feet are also sticky.

Next thing: locate the camera

It is not even 9 a.m. and it's already too hot, which does not augur well for a humid day in post-agricultural New Hampshire.

Last weekend was GREAT. The OBD had come home, which improves my standard of living all over the place. I cleaned the kitchen. She and her boyfriend _cleaned_ the kitchen. She cooks. She is a little rigid about not letting me go to the grocery store alone, but as she is probably right (I had three kinds of Caesar salad dressing in the fridge, at least two coagulated beyond (word for tastiness/attractiveness/low bacterial count), I cope.

On Friday, however, I left her behind to go to Northampton, where I met up with blogless Tiffany, a nice young woman who graduated from Smith in 2006. She knits hats with tentacles. She has been at both of my Smith science fiction convention-spinning classes, and I must admit that has something to do with her becoming a kickass spindler (though she has my weird habits, like not using a leader and leaving space between the cop and the whorl). She and I stayed with Grace and Dahlia, some of my oldest friends, and we went to a very tasty Chinese restaurant in Florence, recommended by another friend of OBD's who graduated in 2007. _Her_ name is Eleanor, like the Only Beloved Daughter. Anyway, the next day Tiffany and Eleanor and I went to the Mass Sheep and Wool Fair. The day started off gross and humid and turned pellucid and warm and delightful. I kept running into people I knew, which is possibly the nicest thing about sheepandwoolfests.

As I may have mentioned I bought a few things at NH Sheep and Wool, so I was trying to restrain myself at Cummington (some roving. Hardly any, really. A little angora, some lovely mixed red Romney, four ounces of regular pleasant greyish Romney shot with silver Firestar...) Also we were bummed that the needle-felting was a demo rather than a workshop, so we acquired pads, needles, and roving and had our own workshop. Eleanor was fighting illness and cheered up considerably when we sat down and began stabbing things.

I really enjoyed shopping with other people; enabling is nearly as much fun as acquiring and the guilt is different. Tiffany's beloved had told her any animal she brought home had better be stuffed or Katy would eat it (Katy is the beloved). Tiffany was considerably tempted by the baby rabbits. She has two rescue Angoras at home and wanted one who had been well socialized, who would be her friend. She decided to postpone this till her fiancee could be involved in the adoption.
She did buy a fleece (this is a spindler with a set of handcards, people. She is insane),which isn't so much a stuffed animal as an empty one. And some bright yellow roving. She had been going to get another spindle or so but she was seduced by my Golding and planned to get one by mail-order.

We dropped Eleanor off at her dorm to finishing packing and took a quick rest and then went to MamaCate's party. Can you say drunken rout (see definitions 3-7)? I have never been to such a rowdy party where everyone was sitting down. Some knit, many spun, very many tippled. Amazing. Delightful. I walked in and announced that Tiffany ,who had never met any of these people until that day and was showing considerable bravery, needed to learn to use a wheel. MedStudentWhoKnits offered the spare she had in the hall (I only travel with spare spindles. She is way cooler). I announced that Tiffany needed roving. Mamacate made Romney appear. I announced that Cheryl, who was sitting on the other side of Tiffany on the couch, should show Tiffany how to use these things. She looked surprised but she did, and now Tiffany thinks she might like a wheel for her birthday... Another life ruined. My work there was done.

I did get to show my tarted-up wheel to David the Merlin Tree.I think he was appalled. So I gave him some home-brewed beer and he oiled my wheel.

Tiffany went back to Brighton on the bus the next day, and I went and loaded my car at Eleanor's dorm room. Then I met Grace and Dahlia at the Paradise City Crafts Fair, which is too high-end for me. I bought five mugs from three vendors. There were many lovely things there I cannot afford. There were many lovely things there I wouldn't have if they gave me free with a pound of tea. There were many lovely, well-made things with no personality at all, that look to me like they belong in a really nice furniture store. It was weird. I didn't see anyone I knew there other than Grace and Dahlia, and our cell phones got a workout as we tried to stay in the same buildings.

Exhausted, I went and moved one load of Eleanor's stuff into her summer apartment and we checked out some dumpsters, scoring a desk and a nice end table. We headed for a place famed for its ice cream and alleged to serve sandwiches, but there were no sandwiches by that time of day. We were forced to have ice cream for dinner. Very good ice cream. The cows responsible for the raw material watched us watch them. Eleanor remarked it would not have been as much fun if we had been eating burgers.

We got back to Henniker about 10pm and I collapsed, having brought two Eleanors together.

Monday of Memorial Day, since I had done nothing for months but tell people how important it was to scour their fleeces ASAP, I washed my NH SheepandWool fleece, Hezekiah of Brimstone Hollow Farm and more of Jazzmine the incredibly dirty alpaca (she washes up very nicely, though). The horse trough works very well.

On Tuesday, OBD and I caught the small elusive orange ex-kitten and forced him into a box so the vet could do awful things to him. Toby came through fine, no angst about Losing His Manhood, and has been spending a lot of time in my room. He is not supposed to go outside for two weeks, which seems excessive since it's the same guidelines for abdominal surgery. He seems much happier confined in one room, though, and lets us pat him and purrs a lot. I think Marten is glad of the break, since Toby ALWAYS wants to wrestle him. Marten is too cool for that.

Now the extra Eleanor has departed and I should plant annuals. Mostly, I spin. I have spun some of the Hezekiah, and it is really lovely. I have spun about 2/3 of one of my three 4 oz scores from Friends' Folly Farm. Spinning is easier than knitting. And I tell myself it _is_ stash reduction.

I want to go dig. I don't want to work. I want to spin. I want to sleep, and make wine and beer.

Meanwhile

So I did another session of PMC and it was still hard, and Doug found the same thing and seemed doleful, so, as it rained, and rained, and rained, I suggested we bottle last May's dandelion wine. And maybe the three gallons of 9-month old Barkshack Gingermead, and the two gallons of pomegranate mead, and a gallon of sweet-fern and yarrow mead... I was busy last September. In the end we ran low on small bottles and racked (siphoned off its sediment and into a fresh gallon jug) a gallon of pomegranate and a gallon of blueberry mead. Perhaps they'll get bottled next week.

This involved hygrometer testing and of course you can't return those tubes-full to a sterile batch, so we drank them. And there are dregs, full of B vitamins. Which you will need, because the mead seems to be a tad alcoholic. All of them were relatively dry, which was a good thing. The blueberry seems the sweetest of the lot; Doug is planning to pour the lees over ice cream, because he is a sicko. The pomegranate, whose recipe I made up and named Persephone's Lament, is complex and very tannic.

Sarah called around 4pm and decided to come visit, which was good because Doug and I were walking into walls and giggling a lot. Around the same time the sun came out for the first time in perhaps a week?

Sarah made tofu yellow curry (we were still able to feed ourselves, despite giggling)and I made labels and Doug applied them. Sarah is a heroine. Doug and I are in surprisingly good shape. The kitchen is a bit sticky. Brewing is one of the hobbies that gave me excellent results right away. It cured the doleful just fine.

Toby spent the time the Daughter was here last week hiding and acting like a kitty who needed Halcion, hiding under things and slinking. Now he is sitting on my foot being as cute as possible (quite, in his little orange way) and it would be nice if he would act similarly calm for her when she returns. I wonder if he would like some mead?

Speaking for the Differently Animated

(the non- and formerly-human), that would be. I support Dulaan and Knitters Sans Frontieres and people like that, but I haven't been prone to appealing for causes myself. Here's a good one, though:
Wouldn't you like to save a major Hopewell site and 325 acres of Appalachian forest? Follow the link to an excellent presentation. Or first follow this one, print and mail (look, it's okay to be antique in more than one way) them some money.

Why CAN'T I be the Kumkwat Haagendasz?

I've had the materials for the Precious Metal Clay for almost a week without touching them. I got quite clear that I was acting crazy: as long as you don't _start_ a new craft, you have infinite potential.

And silver clay is made of _silver_. It costs money to play with, and once it's fired that's it (although apparently you can sell it to Rio Grande as scrap silver). Before it's fired it's recyclable as clay, just smash and mix with water. And you save and reuse your filings, which is amusing.

I finally (after a nice nap) opened the packages. Asterix was fascinated. Dave Barry has some nice remarks in his book on DIY about the Time-Life Series of DIY books about the man kneeling next to a pipe with a wrench in his hand, smiling slightly, and how Dave Barry had knelt there with a wrench _for hours_ and nothing happened. They sent me a lovely DVD with tranquil music about making little silver leaves out of real ones. I went out into the garden and picked tiny leaves. First I rehydrated the bottle of slip. I removed Asterix from the work area. I laid out the non-stick work surface,and I removed Asterix from the work area. I put a thin coating of slip on the leaves, which tried to shed the water-base. I repainted them, and I removed Asterix from the work area. I got a slightly thicker coat of slip onto the leaves, removed Asterix from the work area, fed Asterix, took the afghan off the couch and put it on the far end of the dining table. Asterix lay down on the sheet of parchment paper I was using as an adjunct work area (you can't use tin foil and I didn't want to try Saran Wrap. Parchment paper is not a good substitute for Teflon; it soaks up water and wrinkles. Next time, polypropylene).

I became emotionally involved with the violet leaf and and after about five thin coats it cracked the whole way through. Would it help to press the leaf and coat it on the other side with spray varnish? The tiny Lady's Mantle leaf and the dandelion are still holding up.

I also started a flat pin sort of thing that looks like a really bright 10 year-old made it (apologies to the real 10 year-olds who might well do better). It has a folky charm but I wanted Stark Beauty. I want to be Hadar Jacobson, is that asking so much? She can't have been doing this medium for more than about ten years, tops.

ON the plus side, I am now so old and so drugged, I mean successfully and appropriately medicated, that I stopped before I became discouraged and ate dinner. I find myself thinking, "You know, it took a while to learn to spin. Or knit, and you're pretty competent now."

Nothing is ready to fire, but next time I won't have to put off starting to try it till so late in the day.

Women (and some men) behaving badly

I went to NH Sheep and Wool. It was good. My mother and father drove up from Boston to see the 'rural frolic' and were surprised by how many people were there and how happy and friendly everyone was. Eager to talk about their interests: the llama, the lambs, the spinning or weaving or knitting. My mom took pictures of animals. They did not buy themselves spinning materials.... but Cassie warmly complimented me on my enabling skills, and at least one person said I had taught her to spin on a spindle in the awful weather last year and now she has a wheel... It warms the heart, it really does. Which may make up for the peer pressure that got me to buy a Golding spindle...

I met up with a number of alpacas



Cassie and Juno and Etherknitter and Julia and Kelly and Theresa and MamaCate and Helen and Marcy and Jessica-who-works-one-day-a-week (not often enough) -down-the-hall-from-me and the effectively blogless Sarah...

Doug vended. I believe he also encountered a Golding.

I bought a whitish Romney sheep fleece from Brimstone Hollow Farm and a black alpaca fleece (Jazzmin).
( not a very good picture, sorry)
And roving for three pairs of socks... and a felting mat and Juno and I split a pound of roving of perfect beauty... I should NOT go back today.

Yay! Rain!

Helen writes:
"And speaking of that[New Hampshire Sheep&Wool], there will be a blogger gathering by the Roby Building facing the goat barn at noon on Saturday. I hope we'll see you there!"

What she said.

Doug said he was not vending this year. So I did not intend to vend, even as he has spent the last several days getting things together, so he can not-vend. At the Huntingdon Barn.

I explained to Etherknitter that I do not need a thing, almost do not want a thing (because I haven't seen them, probably). But Doug and I were at the Feed&Grain store, where it smells good, the people are friendly, and I could buy a entire, mostly John Deere-themed, wardrobe,and they had a horse trough. We looked at it and saw a lovely utility sink. Just the right height.



When Doug gets time he will put a proper drain in it.

So either I have to homebrew and wash bottles or buy a fleece, ideally both. This weekend only one thing is possible. The Only Beloved Daughter is returning, briefly, from Italy. (The Only Beloved Son is suffering from a recrudescence of the mono, which is most unfair.)

Meanwhile, we had a couple lovely days of spring and then a couple of hideous Dawg Days. This morning began with a pleasant thunderstorm and some badly-needed rain--not enough, but it will slightly reduce the forest fire potential. Yes, this is the part of the country that just had its third hundred-year flood in 18 months. We needed gentle rain. We still do, but the tadpoles and other amphibia will be grateful for even this much.

Life is good

I still miss Mena, and I hope I will for a long time.

It is spring even if it still goes down below freezing in many parts of my state, and I will not be planting any tomatoes for awhile.

I make made significant sockage (pictures sooner or later)in Austin and Dallas and most particularly airports... where food is overpriced, generally (though not barbecue in the Texas airports, where it was delicious in both Austin (SaltLick)and Dallas (Hickory something)), and Internet access is priceless.

There is a group called Science Scouts whose badges are funny and whose version of truth is worth examining.

I am spending too much time on the Internet.

I am spending too much money on medical expenses (my teeth, the vet).

I don't need another hobby,

I don't have enough daffodils.

My aunt's backyard compares favorably with what I think Club Med must be like. She would point out that the swimming pool is broken, but it hasn't been unbearably hot (I am in Dallas. Texas is still pretty much taking its happy meds, although those experiencing flash floods might not agree). There is a small lake with various ducks and huge turtles (who usually eat the baby ducks, despite not being snappers) and lizards come out and flash throat at you. Pictures would follow but I am piggybacked on some unknown's network and it can't handle too much. Maybe after I get back to NH. I did not really seriously expect even enough connectivity to read my mail on my own laptop, so I am very grateful to this manifestation of linksys.








Because of the Internet I have been able to be in close touch with my daughter and the net friends, and cell phones have been helpful for staying touch with my parents (and I used mine more for keeping in touch with the coterie in Austin for 4 days than in a month in NH. There will be a whole entry about Austin. I was not drunk or grief-stricken all the time). So I know I am the Daughter will probably survive the loss of Mena, and though I don't expect it to be fun to go home and know she is never coming back, it has been tremendously kind of people to write and comment.

My aunt is kind and has been looking after me. They have good Mexican food in Texas. I am not going home any thinner.

I have to leave now as it is raining on my keyboard. Texas may be about to have a tantrum.

Mena, my daughter's beautiful cat, has died. I loved her. I can't do this right now; I am in Austin and with a bunch of archaeology friends, who are actually a great support. I couldn't have done anything for her if I had been home (naturally I think of what I_might_ have done while I was home, but she seemd to develop some kind of anemia/kidney thing very fast and I did not respond quickly enough).

I am having a very good, not perfect but realistically damn fine time, buying some really good books, eating fine to excellent food, enjoying the change of scene (except there's some guy here who looks a LOT like my boss). I doubt that Trying Not to Think is a good long-term strategy but it will have to do for now.

More soonish, but please have good thoughts for my cat and my girl, who will miss Mena probably even more intensely than I do. Which is not a happy prospect. Love is a bitch.

Austin is beautiful, the weather is good, the bats are very cool. I went to half of a symposium on La Tene art, and most of one on New England prehistory (and I have to admit our Archaic points are BOOOOOOORing) and tacos for lunch. I must have done something in the afternoon besides buy books, but I can't remember.

I am sharing my room with three other women and Matt from SCRAP. I like all of them very much, and it's fun to have a pack to hang around with. We went out for barbecue, back to the hotel for bat-watching, and then out to Sixth Street (see picture above)for more beer and music. Unfortunately I decided not to be a moral coward and call home to see how Mena is, and she is not going to make it.

So I came back to the hotel to be with my computer. The Internet means you can always have a small chunk of home with you wherever you go.

Two things I mentioned some days back

A precious metal clay pendant



I like it, even though I have doubts that it is original art since I made it with rubber stamps. But I love the weight of it and want to try more. Because I don't have enough hobbies or ways to spend money.




Tea cosy in progress.

Augghhh

Okay, I am healthy. (When you see the Menses Goddess, tell her we are no longer amused by her timing, and ask why she hates archaeologists?)I am as packed as I need to be, if not quite ready, which is pretty good. I wish I would wake up properly. It's after 7 and I am on the third cup of tea and consciousness has not yet dawned. Maybe it's overcast in there.

Toby came and felt asleep on my lap last night, because he was so pleased I got out the afghan he likes. Marten sacked out on Doug's knees. Mena is in the best possible care, and I can afford a few days of it. She is badly anemic but not quite to the kitty blood transfusion point (there is one. I'd hate to see the donors. I bet they're unhappy.) I visited her at the vet's last night and she liked it enough to purr (and flick her tail irritably at Doug when he tried to pat it). The fact that these are what she gives for signs of life suggests how sick she is.

So I have not cleaned out the fridge, finished the paperclay artwork, vacuumed anything, or left the house in any shape for, well, anyone. I have roughly as many knitting projects as there are days I will be away. Since I think a sock in three days is my personal best, I am almost properly overprepared.

I hate leaving home. I like travelling, but not the departure.

More as it develops. If I wake up.

Born to be hanged

The cat came back. I want to ground her. No prom, no driver's license, no trips to the mall. But I will take her to the vet tomorrow and get her checked out. Thank you for your good wishes, they certainly helped ME. And perhaps also Doug, who was doing calling and sending reiki into the woods. The blighted animal showed up saying, "What?" at about 7:20 this evening and not in a penitent tone of voice. I was just back from drowning my sorrows in a paperback at Borders and thinking Doug was sweet but not a sensible person to be still looking for her.

Ooh, Mena, just you wait till your father gets home. Or something.

Love is not for sissies. I have a headache.

In other cat news: after Mena disappeared, I tried to catch Toby. Indeed, I intended to push him into a crate and take him to the vet (whose receptionist has been understanding) and have his nadgers cut off, which is just what he fears. He managed to get loose, and he has decided I am the Antichrist and will not be my friend. Marten is usually busy and distant. Asterix has been quite charming, if wanting to be close, and sits outside with me. Even Doug's entirely neurotic cat Digger is coming out to enjoy the fresh air.

We are thinking of finding Spike a home with people who eat chickens they have met. Doug has problems with the chicken way of life--constant rape and feather pulling, and it isn't that the hens have nowhere to run; they seem not to care, though they look tattered--and I am tired of Spike crowing almost constantly. He and Faith (the other rooster) are visually lovely birds, but there are limits.

I had a very productive weekend. Saturday I made great strides in cleaning my
room. I'd become fond of some of the stains in the bathroom sink... We went to the dump/recycling center -- I swear most of what we throw away is
cardboard, but that's because the plastic wrapping squeezes down smaller, cat food cans come a close second. I liked it better when they ate kibble. I put two bags into the Goodwill bin, because I have many clothes I never wear and don't need. It may be stretching it to say others need some of these clothes more, but at least others will have a choice.

I washed the dishes and tidied the kitchen about half as much as it needed. I repotted plants.

And Doug moved his weather station up to my deck, so now we should get more
accurate wind readings, thank God. He also finished fixing a friend's antique
spinning wheel (he had to make new parts for it). It spins really nicely and
looks good. He took so long putting off working on it he refused to take
payment, and says if I had not bugged him he would still not have worked on it.
I don't think he is as bad as that, but I was happy he got it done so the poor
woman could have it back.

And we went to Daniel's for supper, which is too expensive. But it was tasty.

The potholes on our road are unspeakable. I think the graders are off trying to repair roads that are really washed out. The considerable rain was the third hundred-year flood in 18 months.

Three young greenfrogs have appeared in our pond, and others have been seen crossing the road. No immediate local noise of peepers, but the greenfrogs say, unimaginatively, "Frorg." There are crocus and daffodils and mini-iris and phoebes and the birds are chatty. Doug thinks he saw a blackfly and when I checked out the frog in the pond with binoculars, I had a great view of mosquito wigglers. Think about how much you like flycatchery birds and bats.

Sunday I folded and put _all_ the laundry away, including the laundry I did
Saturday, and changed the sheets, and did a certain amount of preliminary
packing. I am going to Austin and Dallas for a week on Wednesday, first to the SAA conference, and second to visit my very nice aunt. Getting away will be good, but I _knew_ it would be just as it became lovely-weather-why-would-I-want-to-leave-home.


I tried to clean up the living room. This involved going into the loom room to
find a thing I wanted to send someone, and then plying a bunch of yarn into skeins
and plunging them into hot water and letting them dry. Strangely, the living
room looks very much the same. We had sun except in the middle of the day, and
it was lovely around tea time (tea, outside, on the porch). I felted the tea cosy I have been making my ex. It had been ready for the next step (it's needle-felted) since just after Christmas but felting is wet and messy and needed to be outside. It dried really fast so I was able to do a bit of embroidery on it (to define some edges, also it's fun). By the time of year my ex will not even begin to want HOT
tea, let alone that the pot would cool, the cosy should be finished. It's folk art all right (what are those folk ON?).

While tidying the living room I also put Delight paperclay into the Sculpey-brand latex mold I bought to make myself a badge to say NH SCRAP
because I don't want to wear t-shirts all the time I am at the convention in
Austin, not that anyone will notice one way or the other. Then I spun some of
the raspberry sherbet-colored neppy Rambouillet roving that has been around looking like entrails. It is a step in the right direction, but it has still not cleaned up the living room.

I put hummingbird feeders.

Today I need to finish the SCRAP pin I am making, clean the perished-ables
out of the fridge, buy cat food, get a haircut, and finish packing. Oh, and go to work. Part of finishing packing will include selecting an infinite number of potential pairs of socks and that will, of course, help tidy the living room.

I came home on Friday at three to take Mena to the vet at five. She had been living deeper and deeper in the closet for a week and eating nothing, and trying to throw up. On Thursday she had accepted a lot of Petromalt so I was hoping she was, um, digest more freely. I instant-messaged with the Daughter in Italy, and since it was the nicest day in many, many months, I had the slider open. Some time between about three-forty-five and four thirty-five, Mena vanished, probably out onto the deck and probably underneath? I have not seen her since. I was angry at her for disappearing; if she has gone somewhere to die, which I think likely (she was not at all pleased to have me looking in on her cave in the closet), it is What She Wanted, but it is not What I Wanted. I wanted to go and have the vet say 'she has an intestinal blockage, we'll just unzip her and she'll be FINE.' Needless to say I am cursing for not taking her to the vet on Thursday, but I wanted to go to the Precious Metal Clay class and I wanted to give the Petromalt a chance to work.

I am missing her fiercely (Mena loves this beautiful weather and it showed in her fluffy little body when she ran around playing Secret Agent Kitty) and I can't think this news is doing the Daughter's bronchitis (the bug she has has since about two weeks after arriving for second-semester abroad in Italy)any good.

She may yet turn up, but she was so thin and had been hurking the last couple of nights with no apparent result.