rain

It has been raining 17 days out of the last 25 and no real end is in sight. My contractor has given up working on the driveway because it's too muddy. We are glad we got Ellie's garden in before it became too muddy. The grass is going to need something really special if it ever dries out enough to be cut. All this real life nature is wet, and also cold: forties and fifties Fahrenheit (between 4 and 10 Centigrade). We are concerned the birds are going to have trouble getting enough insects to feed their babies, assuming any of them succeed in not drowning as they sit on the nest. The feeder-tree blew over the other night, resulting in a broken feeder and a lot of peeved birds who were clear that this was not the service they expected. But the list of species is insanely colorful, topped, perhaps, by my newest visitor: an Indigo Bunting. He really is this blue. I haven't noticed any females, nor any female Yellow Bellied Sapsucker; but I have more than one pair each of Evening Grosbeaks, Rosebreasted Grosbeaks, and Bluejays. At least a pair of Cardinals and Chipping Sparrows, and a bunch of Red- and White-Breasted Nuthatches, and Downy and Hairy Woodpeckers, and MANY pairs of Goldfinches and Pine Siskins. And Chickadees.

In the fiber line, I continue to work on the sweater, the Beatrice socks (car), a pair of Classic Elite Pima-Tencel socks intended for the daughter's birthday (computer and moves to bedroom), and on spinning the English Rosegarden Copper Moth wool. It will surprise none of you to read that I did not get the quilt done in time for the wedding, but it really is coming along.



I am also essaying the Shawl that Dares Not Speak Its Name Because I have Torn That Sucker Out So Many Times, this time with a "lifeline." When there is a chunk you are sure is right (you can't tell in English, but this is in the Subjunctive of Unreal or Ideal Condition), you run another thread through your stitches and then go on knitting. That way when you, I mean if you, have to pull out the 26 rows of mistakes, you still have the unblemished, innocent part intact if, I mean when, you ever want to try again. Possibly because I had so much practice, the first part of it went swimmingly. One can only hope.