They have put the new windows into the kitchen, making things noticeably brighter all the way into the living room (think Warehouse of the Lost Ark, with some places to sit). They have destroyed the tiny ill-designed bathroom with the unusable shower, and made a passage from the former closet of Doug into the Engine Room, still the home of the washer and dryer (disconnected) and the old fridge (connected)(but part of the point of all this is, pardon my insane desires, to have the fridge in the actual kitchen).

The passage is so whoever lives in those two rooms will be able to go into the new bathroom without passing through the dining area. The bathroom will be carved out of the old bathroom and the engine room, and not have a shower in the first place. The dining area will lose the direct access into the bathroom, depriving the dinner guests of the sounds their hostess makes while... you understand? There is something basically NOT Gracious Living in going direct from the table to the toilet without even an illusion that one is going anywhere else.

The kitchenette in the reformed garage (the one the previous owner built for his aging father, iwhere/in which my mother claims the aging father died to avoid being made to live)is giving me something like a rock-shelter for meal preparation. I am here to tell you it is not suitable for anyone but a barely-cooking warmer-up of things. They say one should sleep once or twice a year in one's guest room to make sure the room is still pleasant; cooking in this place is making me aware that it is barely above hotel mini-bar status. It has burners and a real oven, but there is not enough counter to sustain life or chop onions and eggplant at the same time.

Though the fridge is at least in the same room as the sink and the stove. Very handy.

Doug is not anywhere near moved out, but he is not around much. It is just as well as the house is only somewhat habitable. I hide in the Loom Room and my Bedroom. The number of places I don't usually sit where I can hide from the siege suggests that this place is way too big for me. It is handy at the moment. One of my friends remarked I could probably have a couple of small families living here with me and only see them occasionally.

The cats: Toby is staying with his other mother, who is having trouble adapting to a cat who is adapted to living outside and only slinking inside when Willow* is not around (Probably in Atlantic City). We are hoping he will adapt to a diurnal lifestyle (actually, more 'crepuscular' would be when Ellie will be home). I am hoping not to have an Ellen Moment, but Toby was getting daylights beat out of him and Willow, I am afraid, enjoyed it. I had him locked up with me in the Loom Room for a couple of days, terrified he would get out and I would miss the window of opportunity to have him transported to NJ, and he was darling. Now, of course, I miss him.

Marten got sick of being attacked without provocation and now gives as good as he gets. I yell "Can't we all just get along at them?" which is not terribly effectual of anything. Sometimes they both sleep on my bed at the same time. I don't know what they make of the reconstruction.

I am not getting the most favorable idea of queen kitties. But she is very nice to me.

The Chickens: In April of '06, I think, Doug had seven. This summer neither I nor Doug was around much to close the scoop door at night on the remaining five strikeout four strikeout three, and something traumatic happened to Miss Callendar in there leaving lots of feathers, and Faith refused to go in ever again. Now he and Buffy live in the bush, apparently fairly happy (although Faith, being a rooster and a complete Baftard, is still plucking her feathers from time to time),and we wonder what will happen when the snow comes. No eggs are noted, and none were ever brooded, which makes Faith's satyriasis kind of futile.

There are still a few frogs in the backyard puddle, bless them. And bats in the sky of an evening. And something that sounds like a cuckoo in the background with the goldfinches.

I am working on the strawberry Green Mtn Spinnery sweater in the Manos pattern with Seed Stitch and cables that I was trying to finish during the Winter Olympics, and I have real hopes of finishing it. It seems to make me look long-waisted. I am about 3/4 done with both Philosopher's House Socks that I only started a couple of weeks ago, and I would like to finish them and the sweater before starting to make socks for my parents for Christmas. I did finish spinning the lovely Macintosh by Heather roving I got at the first Fiber Revival, only I bought some lovely Pomegranate by Heather roving at the second Fiber Revival so it was not a net loss of stash.

I am trying to consider seriously embroidering the tea cosy Alice asked me to make that started off a frenzy of embroidery earlier this year. Alice's birthday is September early sometime, maybe 3rd. It could happen.

The Gault shirt is still mired in mud around the water screen illustration. Documentation of which you will look for in vain.

I have a secret project that I can't talk about about but it is using almost as much energy as it is producing in cheeriness and I will let you know when it bears fruit. It is not about a guy, but on the other hand that is usually just as well and you know I won't get any diseases.

The weather is absolutely lovely. I think this makes five days this summer.

I will try to do better.




* Willow might get along well with Dolores, but I don't think she quite has Dolores's sense of style. Willow really should have been named Mehitabel.

I am in foreign

I know I am in foreign because the air is cool and dry and there aer exotic insects singing. Why does Piscataway have New Hampshire's climate while NH has, perhaps, one of the sweatier bits of Japan?
Also, why is my daughter's apartment bigger than most people's houses?

not bad as these things go really

Kitchen creeps along, ingesting hge rolls of cash and producing plaster dust and mysteriously tarp-wrapped things in the driveway. I still have hopes for Labor Day. It is not entirely Paul-the-contractor's fault; the electrician kept standing him up, his client's mania for windows keeps intruding.

I am not coming off as very heroic, since I am doing a terrible job trying to get things put away before the room they are in is destroyed. I tend to creep away upstairs and murmur "This is not happening."

The switch on the washing machine needs fixing, as it now needs to be turned on freshly for each chunk of the cycle. I am trying to impress on Paul that we have a subsidiary fridge in Doug's kitchen and getting the washer hooked back up (he plans to detach it soon) is much more urgent. I may not eat but I do get clothes dirty. The subsidiary kitchen and bathroom have been helpful in not making me entirely bedroom-dwelling (like some species of lemur?).

It is raining every day. Often with serious consequences somewhere not all that far from here. A seven-year old drowned last night when her family's car was caught in a flash flood last night. This is not The Old West, here. I have never heard so many people complaining because they cannot get a spare, dry moment to cut their lawns.

The cats are not being very nice to one another. There are also two raccoons walking through the background, one of whom follows the other making heartrending grunting, squealing noises. Since they want to come inside and eat the cat food, I have to be careful to shut the cat door. The cats are not happy about this because it makes it harder to go hang out at the bar or the mall or wherever they go (I bet they smoke).

Today I am driving to New Jersey, to get my daughter (and drop off some possessions, or we would all be doing this by train) and take her to her boyfriend's house so his family can include her in their trip to Disney World. I don't want to be snarky about New Jersey, but I don't recall it as the Garden State from my life there in the 60's. My daughter is now working at the university where my father used to. She says it is often humid. I am trying not to say, constantly, "Well, that's New Jersey." She is loving the ethnic food in the markets.

Maybe it isn't having a monsoon there.

I'm turning amphibian

Or maybe amphibious. Or just growing webs between my toes. It rains often. I rarely see the length of my driveway when I wake up in the morning.

I have been home from digging for just over a week, and only taken one mental health day since. My boss is in Palestine and environs, but business has actually picked up a smidge and there was enough work to actually work most of the time.

Quebec was great. It didn't rain very much, most of us found a few flakes or more (I am being brave; I found a few flakes, Dick and Heather and Matt found about 200, and George and Linda found flakes that had been used as tools. Will found part of a biface and Nathaniel got skunked. Ronan found most of a fluted point, but he is from Brittany and deserves something for coming so far. But the point was made out of either Mt. Jasper rhyolite or Jefferson rhyolite, New Hampshire either way, so we were able to share in the happiness. It is very fine to think of the PaleoIndians making the same journey we did) and the team from U.Montreal continue to make us feel very welcome and put up with people mangling their beautiful language.

I thought digging was like Boot Camp and so I would be able magically to do 30 minutes on the elliptical trainer. Indeed, I can, without any immediate ill effects, except that by 3 pm I start wondering how soon they will let me go to sleep. And my leg muscles say this was not the boot camp they attended, and my feet have decided that trendy people have heel-spur type issues. This has not been helped by the disappearance, upon my return, of one of the most comfortable shoes in the world (or they may be the Venice. They look similar. Mine are black and make my feet look like ninjas.). I have tidied the room in which the widowed mate was found repeatedly and I am baffled. The Chacos, former holders of Most Comfortable title, are apparently not being supportive and cushiony enough anymore.
It was sticky hot (high 80's F) most of the week so I tended to find myself reading The Curse of the Spellmans (this and the work to which it is sequel are very funny books) in the air-conditioned bookstore. My kitchen is making very slow progress (this is not a surprise), perhaps because my contractor is being played by his electricians. We hope for serious work this week. I am betting it will be mostly done by Labor Day.

We will not speak of the garden, which is FINE, but so are the rampant Queen Anne's Lace and Evening Primrose. Willow continues to try to add Toby to her dinner, and she and Marten had words at about four this morning. I tell myself they will be happier when we have a kitchen again (and family dinner, and do our homework and watch Laugh-In together).

I haven't been knitting or embroidering, perhaps because I lack the brain cells, or perhaps because I had to reread all of Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City so I can borrow the new one from Sarah.

And then I got my copy of the fifth Temeraire novel back from Doug (who persists in moving out, but slowly; I've told the cats but they don't believe me)and had to reread that.

And today, in between downpours, I stalked the League of NH Craftsmen Fair where strangers forced me to buy another mug...actually two, and a milk jug. Then I sat and spindled while Sarah spun on behalf of Canterbury Shaker Village. Now I am home hoping to stay awake till 9pm, which, considering how much sleep I had last night, is silly. I should feel fine till at least 9:15.

Maximum entropy

After four weeks of field school, I am home till Tuesday, when eight of us will drive up and dig in Quebec. It is possible that some of us are a little tired, although we also have pretty much our chops as much we will get them: forearms like steel, livers like shoeleather, and a sense that six a.m. is kind of late to sleep in. And ten pm.m is definitely late to stay up.

I loved it.

The bugs were much much better the second two weeks. The weather was at times hot and often humid but we were only actually rained out on the last day. We found stuff.

Right now at home I am in contractor hell: he is waiting for things to arrive and we are hoping the tarp will stay on the pile of Future Kitchen of America on the front porch. Sarah brought me four fleeces to wash, which was fun given that I was already hot and sweaty and the fleeces smell agreeably like a fiber festival. Sarah has unloosed her Inner Tidy Person and is giving the anteroom What For, after sorting out a number of things in the loom room and making the living room much less awful (the living room is full of the Present Kitchen of America).

Sarah is a saint.

Soon we will have dinner.

Sticky

I was home for the weekend, and now I am back in Randolph. At home, I awoke to solid fog beyond the deck off my bedroom on both days, and I am not sure it really cleared much. It rained most of yesterday evening and into the night. This morning it has been managing not to rain, but Coös County is under a flash flood warning, and back at home, my driveway is starting to wash out. I am sitting outside the cabin not being bitten by bugs, wondering at the cabin's ability to be stuffy even with all the windows open. It's said to be 81 F.

I did go to work yesterday,managed to clear up anything that had accumulated in about 3.5 hours, which suggests it is not very busy there this time of year. Even I find it hard to complain about a one-day work week, and they let me sleep late and listen to NHPR. I avoid such intimate contact with the real world (The NYT online is close enough) while digging but I hadn't missed anything there, either. About all that happened at home was the raccoons, maddened by our removal of the birdseed from their access, tore a hole in a large thick plastic bottle of the sort that sometimes contains bleach. In tis case it contained (note tense of verb) fish and seaweed emulsion fertilizer. While not anywhere near up there with dead moose, the smell in the anteroom is pretty awful and some kind of serious response will be called for when I get back, possibly setting fire to the carpet.

The raccoons also fought all last night while raiding the birdfeeders (you would think a daring midnight raid, they's be quiet, but no) ousdie the bedroom. The only wildlife I have seen in the Mt Washington Valley this trip was the bear and the woodchuck crossing the street in a nice residential area of Berlin on Friday morning, so I suppose being kept awake by raccoons at home fits in. The dig is going very well; we have been incredibly lucky with the weather, while a sister dig in Portsmouth has been rained out most of the days last week.


I was supposed to pack up the kitchen for the Great Leap Forward the contractor says will begin this coming week, but there were no boxes available in Concord on Saturday (well, there were, but they were too low down in the Borders dumpster to reach). The liquor stores had had a run on theirs. In the end I stole a bunch of Doug's boxes for packing to move to his GF's, (he has forgiven me) and got most of the kitchen packed up. I am wondering if the proliferation of soy-sauce bottles with about 1 2/2 tablespoons (say 20 ml)of contents left is something like what happens with wire hangers. Or maybe that's what knitting needles and ballpoint pens leave in their place when they disappear.

The dig is going very well. The more I think of it, the more a group of people getting together in a given location for a couple of weeks for a particular purpose and drinking and telling stories (and sharing the cooking, so one only cooks or cleans once a week or less) at night seems like shepherds getting like sheep. We still don't know quite what the paleo people were doing here (woodwork, among other things, and getting fresh tool-stone)but I hope they had good luck with the weather and as pleasant a time as I am having.

Packing, really, honestly

I am an hour and a half away from leaving for field school. I need to put things in the car. I am about 20 minutes from putting things in the car (wind a skein of sock yarn into a ball). It is pitilessly humid though not too hot yet.

Friday was the Only Beloved Daughter's Birthday. I went to meet her in Boston, with my my parents and her father and her boyfriend, and she made delicious chili and an even better cake. It was good, although the usual birthday discussions of the future were marred by our all having Done To Death "When are you Moving?" Sometime next week. It depends. She is fed up because too much is in flux nad the lease does all ow pets. This is a disappointment. She can't say much about her summer job doing research for the department chairman of her grad school, either. Flux. It is like limbo but with more blanket-tossing.

I spent the night at my parents', which is always pleasant. They have a back-patio container garden with many many pots of flowers. Sometimes they have a peregrine falcon living on the roof, but the chicks have flown and so has the falcon.

I went to see "King-Fu Panda" with a friend I have known for almost thirty-nine years. Since neither of us is over 25, this seems unlikely. "Kung-Fu Panda" (my friend likes pandas, I liked the clips on the NYTimes web site, we wanted to see one another) was enjoyable and I have seen many, many worse films. So the theme was stupid ("Believe in yourself and nothing is impossible."); it wasn't offensive or pernicious or suggesting I should buy anything. This movie did not make me ashamed to be a human being, and the animation and the art were really lovely. We had lunch at a Thai diner in Woburn with Daughter and Boyfriend and the company and food were lovely.

I may be the only person in the world who gets a manicure before setting off on an excavation. Digging tears up the hands. I have fragile nails and shreddy cuticles at best. Now my nails are short enough they won't break and the cuticles are as tidy as can be, and I have a very subtle glittery gloss of acrylic sparkles.

Then I came home and complained about being a 51-year-old mother of two who still has menstrual cramps. It was a great excuse to put off packing. Ithink I have run out of them... maybe I'll brush my teeth.

and so, forth

Getting two people graduated from college (considering they did all the work) and having a fit of pique because No One Understands Me and in Particular No One In New Hampshire (other than Sarah) Has ever Heard of the Blogisphere (I am not kidding. My knit shop doesn't read anything. I think they are seriously foolish but it's a darned good LYS), and also There Is No One in My Office But Me and my work verges on the meaningless

these things can surely not contribute to a lingering feeling of doom and depression, can they?

Maybe a little.

The terribly hot weather last week nearly killed me.
My feet would like me to lose about fifty pounds. Or five. I don't think it's going to happen. The hotter it gets outside the less inclined I am to garden or anything else. And the chickens have torn up my flowerpots and done no real good to the few places I have weeded.

I suppose the fact that Doug is moving out of here and in with his lady-love might not be contributing to a feeling of well-being either. And he won't take the rooster.

On the plus side, I have had three days of the Only Beloved Daughter's cooking and company, before she moves to New Jersey, where her apartment-mate (a Craigslist find) forgot she wanted to have a cat. And some other things. Her father and I have offered to have him killed but she asked us to hold off.

Her father, whose ankle is not really all better from being sprained last fall, has sprained the other one (and will wear heels less. Being a woman is hazardous.) and is the parent-of-transport for moving the daughter to NJ. I think I may end up missing some field school to help her move.

Part of me would like to be starting a new life and graduate school, even in New Jersey and even recognizing that the OBDaughter (by graduating) has lost a huge chunk of her social life and her home, and will be now (or once in NJ) about 3 times farther from her boyfriend, and the cats she graciously loves even though she did not grow up with them (of the four, the third one died the day after she graduated, leaving only Shenzi who lives with the daughter's father. More her brother's cat, really, but awful timing), and me, although since she hates where I live this is not such a trial.

Right, PLUS SIDE: it's now unseasonably cool and lovely, and I am not anywhere near a flooding river. I have regularly visiting indigo bunting, evening and rose-breasted grosbeaks, and a bunch of more monochromatic birds whom I like anyway. The peonies have been spectacular, if kind of sucker-punched by the heat.

Field school should be fun, although it is a historically amazing year for ticks.

I am nearly done with the top of a quilt in rows of pieced triangles -- something like eighteen rows of fourteen units -- for the OBD. It is very pretty and bright-- bright, though not loud, which is interesting. More interesting is a chirality-challenged person trying to make even, straight sides to a saw-toothed object. One who is too parsimonious to just rotary-whack down through the least common sided-ness (besides, since it took awhile for the realization to come upon me that the finished item should NOT be a rhombus but more of a rectangle, the waste would be huge and the result narrow). It may be finished by the end of July but not before field school, alas.

My sewing machine is patient.

My knees are pretty good.

I am mostly somewhat packed.

It is not absolutely certain that McCain will win.

Oh, and through the graciousness of an immediate ancestor I am having Work Done on my kitchen, which will probably improve my life.It will certainly make the kitchen and dining area less annoying and much brighter. Only I feel unworthy and wonder if I ought to be begging for help paying my taxes instead. Also, I think at this point I am supposed to be supporting my parents, and not being propped up by them.

Sometimes we wonder if my anti-depressant has lost its effectiveness.

Since I am not blogging my dig, as such, if you would like to get regular (somewhat) Tales of Life in The Woods and Test-pits, please email me at channelflakeATTTgmailDOTTcom.

what the world eats

Sixteen shots of sixteen families with the food they eat for a week. It takes too long to load but it's fascinating.

http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1626519_1373664,00.html

Emo kid

I am not feeling that life is full of mystery and wonder. I am feeling that whatever I do the reply is "That's interesting, but not really what we want." This is not tending to make me more optimistic or "passionate" (the human services buzzword of the year).

Specifically, today: Dick says he has received flak because "some of my comments, people think reflects badly on SCRAP as a whole." He then cited some remark I am supposed to have made about someone never emptying their own bucket, which I don't remember saying. I have really tried to be upbeat and cheery and honest.
I already do as much self-censorship and reaching out to people who don't know what archaeology is about as I can and it is boring me. So I am quitting blogging on New Hampshire Underground.

At least it rained, even if not very much, yesterday. The colorful birds continue to show up.

here we are

Late spring, verging on summer, except that it has not been disgustingly hot or too boringly cloudy or sticky-cold-humid lately. We need rain, in fact. But given that it feels too hot at 70 F I think I am acclimatized to winter.

The tadpoles are not in sight. I hope they are hiding under the leaves and not dead. We have a single green frog, but I haven't seen the newt lately.

The shrubs over-pruned by deer are coming back. The metasequoia looks like a furry green pole, poor dear.

The violas I planted the first year here apparently found the winter too much, which is surprising; I thought they were indestructible.

The hummingbird has returned. So far I am pretty sure I have only seen one male, but he may have been seeing someone off; I couldn't tell if I saw another hummingbird of had a hallucination. Some of those hallucinations are pretty quick.

But the goldfinches and the evening grosbeaks and the rose-breasted grosbeaks are back and today we had a visit from the indigo bunting, which is pretty darn cool. This year he was in full sun instead of backlit and there was no doubt.

As to crafts, the quilt for the daughter was not far along, but that is okay because she does not like Laurel Burch and I do. Instead of giving her that quilt, I had the far greater pleasure of seeing the daughter zone out in a quilt store surrounded by fat quarters. She likes colors.

I wish I had a picture of that, but here's one of me taken by Sarah.

Two out of two

ANd none the worse for our adventures, which continue.

Annapolis was excellent

This will be exceedingly short, as I should go to work. The weather was condign, the flying was interminable (at least the part in terminals), the quilt was liked. The BA, the main thing, was obtained by the Only Beloved Son. More photos sometime soon, I hope.


Son and Son's LifePartner

Yarn Harlot, pray for us

Though I had no speaking engagement (in fact the knowledge that it was Friday and this week's graduation is not till Sunday), this flying gig is not for the faint-hearted. I was supposed to leave Manchester at 3:30. I had thought it was 5:30, and planned a quick trip for some sock yarn (could not find my current unfinished project. Maybe it is time to Do Something about the condition of my house). Instead, left work either a half hour early (I usually leave at 2 ish) or half an hour late (I stayed to finish one of Boss's egregious demands that I should do work now and again) and rocketted off following the signs to the airport. This meant, as usual, a turn into unmarked suburbs and a harried U-turn with map, etc. Found airport, eventually found Lot D and walked to terminal. Checked in.

Plane delayed till at least 4:30. Then six. They decided to get rid of us after the plane, stuck in Philly, was scheduled to arrive around nine. Sent us to La Guardia, where I was one of four passengers and a very thoughtful air hostess. We arrived in NY around five. Connection scheduled for five, next connection at six. The six was delayed until at least 8. Decided to check status of alleged 5, now delayed until six. Then seven. Then eight. Around ten of eight, they got us onto a working airplane, and I reached Baltimore at 10:30, where my ex (who drove down from Boston) met me and took us to to the hotel, which had beds. So far, so good.

Manchester has free wireless. La Guardia claims it does, but they wouldn't actually work, though the $7.95 for 24 hrs. worked fine. I did not indulge. I ate an allegedly 'Healthy Vegetable' burrito, containing very tasty fried potatoes, iceberg lettuce, sour cream, and one of the hottest peppers I have ever eaten in public. Succeeded in getting my not-an-iPod to play me Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere. It is a sad pity he is married. Embroidered a tiny project that was intended to alleviate boredom from knitting sock or reading book (no book, either). The only good thing was that I did have food and chocolate and not too much to carry. I had to check my bag because of The Quilt, which might have fit the middle-sized bag hoarded by my daughter, but was certainly not going to fit in little bag. Big bag is huge and will be going home with ex.

possibly

Sunlight on new leaves
After three days' rain (with frost)
But now it's Monday.

On the plus side, the enormous quilt is nearly done, largely because of heroic support (including more than a few knots) by Sarah. The only problem with working on a quilt essentially solidly for two days is that it left me exhausted and unable to talk except about what to do next (mostly put seven ties in each of 56 squares). The quilt is about a solid C (with a B+ for ambition). Definitely warm, not at all unattractive (picture next week), one major, visible fudge (I know it seemed like the only thing to do at the time) and after all is said and nearly all done, one upside down square. That I have noticed so far. Nor have I really plumbed the mystery of stitching in the ditch. But it won't fall apart. I hope Favorite Son likes it. It has little kinship with the magnificent actually quilt-stitched objects of Too Much Wool . But I never signed on to the intricacies of hand-quilting; this is a 20th century confection with big pieces of purpose-bought cloth. Something like the difference between this and this
. Both of them are perfectly valid embroidery but you you would never mistake one for the other.

I know the kitty would be faster to make.

So I have a small other quilt literally on the table (all over it, under the black and red scraps. There was some kind of dissonance when Sarah handed me a plate of steaming, bean-enhanced chips 'n'cheese'n'salsa and I hurried away from the dining table, away from handicrafts, to eat it sitting on the couch) that I hope to make before the second graduation on May 18, but I need to keep in mind that next weekend is totalled by the first graduation and I have less time than I think. It is essential not to decide it should be a double-bed size rather than a small charming wall-hanging. ESSENTIAL.

Sarah, as well as making food, tying at least twelve squares, and pointing out that I was Nearly Done when I began to faint by the trail, finished piecing her Rail Fence top, the project that began this terrible episode in our mutually-enabling craft lives. She also took studio-quality portraits of Marten and Willow for Catbook. Marten and Willow, who were bored with the weather, helped as much as I would let them and sometimes more than I wanted. Strips of cloth are a threat and they were determined to protect me. Pieced sheets hanging from ironing boards and pinned above doorways were obviously intended for them and they were very pleased. I am so glad Sam will get a cat that _comes with_ cat hair, which will save him a lot of time.

I have bought a few things at the plant nursery (there's one near the quilt shop), mostly scented geraniums I will have in the sunny windows where I work. I put violas and snapdragons in the sterile institutional planting (don't get me started about whoever put pachysandra into full sun) where I work and they make me happy every single time I park. I also planted two peony roots and a miserable couple of daylily roots from Home Depot there. We shall see if they make it. At home, my asparagus got frostbit (it tasted interesting; I think the tips I ate were fermenting) and the tadpoles are coming along. A newt has been around in the puddle. It's freakin' cold.

We actually have goldfinches again. The raccoons are letting up on the feeder depredation. No deer have been sighted lately.

it isn't an event if you aren't hemming something in the car

But 'it' is apparently a king-size quilt (after I specifically told Son I did not have a king-size in me, but I figured out how many squares of pattern I could get out of five yards of batik), and I can't see me hemming it on an airplane, and in fact I hope I will get to that far, and all in all it is a good thing someone keeps sneaking extra weeks into April. I have apparently found the part of my brain that messes around, because I have been doing mirror-image idiocy and needing to unpick yards of chain piecing. Which slows one down.
It's also spring, and has been warm and lovely, not quite enough to get me to do yardwork, but perfect for not wanting to leave the porch swing and go into the dark and cold dining room. Finally--the first rain in at least three weeks-- it is supposed to rain and give the amphibians a chance to have hot-tub orgies. We have had brushfire warning as soon as the snow lifted, and though we dodged the melting-floods bullet, everything is still wet and the rivers are high, so we are having a floodwatch. It's not really dramatic, thank goodness, but it is confusing.

As of yesterday I had one tiny pile of snow -- about a gallon-size, but I think my driveway finally has ice-out, April 27.

Secrets of the Great White North

While Lucy Neatby was teaching us the intricacies of Inner Garter Stitch and the Australian Cousins, she mentioned the Canadian breakfast cereal Shreddies, to universal bewilderment. They look a bit like Chex, but (now it can be told) they are Knitted by Nanas. It makes you wonder about the true purpose of that sock camp Harlot was going on about. Maybe they made her an honorary Nana, for her service as an auntie?

I forgot to mention -- Sarah finished the quilt top, and I have a woodchuck living in what he (not pregnant, probably he) probably thinks is a Bad Neighborhood. There are cats dealing drugs and having gang wars outside his doorstep. His hole is in a retaining wall built by junior and only moderately competent Cyclopes, but I am not worried about undermining.

Spring

No deer has been sighted since before the last post. The tree peony is pushing up three (four) sprouts from the roots, and crocus has given way to daffodil. On Friday it was 83 F. in Concord, which is too hot.

On Friday night, I heard one peeper and one woodfrog. On Saturday morning, there was an egg-mass in the pond-puddle, so I think it likely that there were two woodfrogs. I am pleased as punch. There is a distant hammer of sapsucker on something metal, and I am very grateful it's not the otherwise without-function TV aerial. Redwing blackbirds appear at the ravaged birdfeeder area (raccoons, who have not been spotted around since I quit filling the largest birdfeeder. Which is one story up, or we would be complaining about bears).

Actual birdsong. Sunburn. It's very pleasant. Much of the ground still looks like it has been belt-sanded, but grass is beginning to grow in.

On the minus side, one of our nicer chickens, Joyce, a duckwing, has not been seen for several days. The last time I saw her she was wandering around _alone_, not something she had done often -- I don't know if she and Faith, the rooster, had a falling out or what, although he has been paying a lot of attention to Buffy. And then when I went to let them out of the coop, I found Auk, a rather (what is chicken for 'androgynous'?) gender-unidentified black Cochin rooster, dead on the floor. The Cochin Bantam, Dawn, who was always with him, was sitting next to his body. But she came out and followed the rest of the flock later -- now reduced to Buffy, Ms. Callendar, Dawn, and Faith (the alpha rooster). Doug said Auk had been a bit listless lately, but it would not have been easy to tell.

On Saturday I went to a class on weird knitting things with Lucy Neatby, who has a rep as an interesting teacher. She well deserves it, and she's funny, and I thoroughly enjoyed the day. We did some strange things learning how to make a knitted-on edge, how to do entrelac in garter stitch (or start to learn how,) sweet little equilateral triangles, and some relatively free-form knitting. It was truly appalling to feel my intellect plummet as the day went on; the women who were taking all three days of her have my respect.


Then I came home and did quilting-related activities with Sarah, whose blue and brown quilt will be lovely (in a blue and brown way, but the darkness of the brown actually makes it look less like a cloudy winter day than I was worried about) if the blood she is sweating on it doesn't stain too much. Curves are a bhitch, even when you are as good at measuring. So, to relax, she made me a pincushion out of some Japanese charm squares. It looks pre-war (WWII, all right?). It's lovely.



To my delight, I apparently took the lessons I learned making an attic window quilt in about 1995, because I haven't had to redo any of the blocks I made so far (or scream, stick a seam ripper in my eye, cry, you know). It may be a testament to successful aging or good medication. Either way, it is GREAT. I was not among the least comprehending of the knitting students, either, which made a change). This quilt will be much smaller than that one, thank God, and it's a gift so no pictures until it's done and given, which we shall have to hope happens before the Apocalypse. It might.

They 1/2 E 10 Z rhododendron

And the fringe tree and the holly and the star magnolia and the arbor vitae and the tree peony and some daffodils and substantial amounts of pitch pine and metasequoia. We shall not be greatly troubled by azalea blossom this year. I have to see if they ate the rosebush I have never liked.
"They" being the deer. It was the second snowiest winter in something like 175 years of record-keeping; it was like no other year of the 15 my plough guy has been ploughing this driveway, in that he ran entirely our of places to put the snow. The first three years I was here I saw perhaps one deer a year, mostly eating fallen apples. It's been multiple deer daily for a couple of months, eating atoms and brambles.

I think many of the chomped shrubs will live, though their actually recovering enough to flower may not happen for a few years. I am taking it remarkably calmly, perhaps because not attracting deer has been such a good excuse for not doing more to terraform the garden area.

The recession of the glaciers here (don't mistake these things -- they may not be a mile thick yet but they are Just Waiting, the great icy baftards) has also revealed a touching sprinkle of failed presidential candidate spoor, Romney and Richardson signs coming up like rather bent snowdrops.

One of the weirdest things has been the persistence of light after dinner, usually a sign that it is time to put off raking and weeding, concurrently with huge piles of dirty ice. Land Comets. They are diminishing gradually.

It was supposed to rain all day Saturday, and Doug had scheduled a fiber day in a warm living room -- he even used the last of the wood to start the first in the the woodstove in a couple of weeks. At first this looked like an excellent call, but by noon it was in the 60's outside and we moved onto the porch, where we got sunburned. I was okay with that. Then I drove to Northampton, MA, basically to hang out with the nearly graduated daughter. They even have swelling lilac buds and fully open daffodils. Now it's sunny and clear and Monday again, for heaven's sake.

Still not spring

As Aragorn might have said in these circumstances.

I had a very pleasant time last weekend. It stopped snowing around noon and I reached Northampton without incident. The ground cover of snow stopped a few miles north of the town. There were still a few piles hidden in the shrubbery but you had to look. Saturday was brilliantly sunny and colder than the whole previous winter, though the thermometer said it was above freezing. We were not.

And yet not one person in the spinning class tried to hurt me and they all learned to spin. One of them, the Dread Pirate Roberts, had learned to spin in junior high, so she remembered very fast and took off.
(Flickr set of needlefelting pics) She also came to the needlefelting the next day, except then she was Ms. Frizell. I find it very relaxing to be among science fiction fans(although figuring out who people are dressed as can be confusing since I haven't watched TV in a while). Several old graduates whom I liked had come back to campus for the convention and it was a delightful time.

After the spinning, we had impromptu needlefelting in the hall for people who needed to leave early the next day. After a while, I went downtown, _freezing_ in the wind, and got a haircut. A bunch of us met for dinner and then we went and sat in Ellie's room with all the lights turned off (it being the hour people were supposed to show their support for the earth).
Sunday I finished my socks, by refusing to put on any socks until I had cast off the ones I was working on. It only took about ten minutes.



Needlefelting the next day went well too, and it was warmer. I stayed around until dinner time and went home just before dark.

This past week my boss was away. He is taking a sabbatical this May - September and I will have an interesting balance of going mad from loneliness and boredom with the desire to pay my oil bill. Friday it snowed again. The deer are still everywhere, hungry.

Saturday we had enough sun to melt the snow back and reveal snowdrops and crocus

. Sarah came over. Doug went to visit his GF in COncord and Sarah NEEDED to go get 17 more swatches of blue fabric, since she had only come up with a pathetic 35 blues from her personal stash. She has fallen into the teeth of the Quilting Beast (so far I have escaped), so we went shopping. Then
although my house is hideous and guests were coming for dinner, we sat in the sun on the front porch and made like turtles (who knitted and embroidered, but very much into the basking). Afterward Sarah did the Best Friend EVAR thing and tidied the living room while I made food. Food-processor enhanced borscht. Saute onions, potatoes, cabbage, carrots; add shredded beets and water, simmer and then puree it. Serve with yogurt, lemon juice, salt and pepper. Amazingly easy and good. We also constructed pizza.
Doug reappeared for dinner, sadly minus the GF, and Cindy and Susan showed up pictures of their horse. It was a good evening. Then veryone but Sarah left and we put out the blues (Sarah had washed, dried, ironed, and cut them in what seemed like no time) and arranged them.



She brought a lovely book to look at, Last-Minute Patchwork and Quilted Gifts. The owner of Purl in New York wrote it, which goes to explain the affinity between the shop's logo and the clean light design of the book. Too Much Wool took me there a couple years ago (the entry is January 25, 2006). I had warm feelings for Purl and Too Much Wool and admired the Color Wheel Quilt that has bitten Sarah so badly that she put down all her projects and began a blue and brown version. Turned out to have been made for the book by Too Much Wool's secret identity. I went on turning pages to what turned out to be my favorite project picture in the book, a big multi-yellow randomized strip-pieced warm quilt. There was a closeup. "Holy cow," I said. "Some insane person hand-quilted the whole thing. And did a really lovely job." I read the copy. It was Too Much Wool. Way to go. Where does she get the time?

This morning dawned cloudy and bleak again.No sun-bathing. Sarah and I went in search of the perfect dark brown for her blue color-wheel quilt.
It will be a beautiful quilt, particularly if you like blue and brown together, but in some ways it looked too much like the snow/soaked, dormant vegetation/overcast sky we were driving through. Though we went even unto Keepsake (about an hour's drive from here), we have been forced to retire and work on other projects.

Willow is sitting on my feet and it is a good thing; we are both warmed.