I wish I could take credit for the top picture. Yesterday morning (pre-storm) the two guys building the addition to the shop knocked on the door and asked if they could borrow my camera to drive back down the road and get a picture of an owl they saw. They came back with this outrageous picture. By the time we all got our car warmed up and got dressed and drove down there it was no longer around. We drove around for a bit anyways, searching the treetops for it and looking for other birds. We did see a few ravens and then on the way to town, we saw a bald eagle, some wild turkeys, a couple of hawks, and a few ducks.
When we returned from town as the storm was picking up, we found out that the same owl had been hanging around in the trees near the shop while we were away but had just flown off. We trompsed through the fields and across the creek looking for it despite the wind. We found it in a tree. It flew down to the ground in the field but when our dog raced towards it, it flew back up into the tree. With a freezing-cold-not-so-very-content-squirmy-and-frightened-almost-3-year-old in my arms who wouldn't let me set him down, I tried to take a picture and got a rather blurry one, before heading in to warm up, as the wind blew harder and harder. That was before I went back out and took yesterday's post's pictures.
Some presents arrived early for E's birthday in packing foam. Inspired by the storm, we spent the evening making blizzards on paper. The snowflakes are made from folded flat-bottom coffee filters. They're super easy for kids to fold, and also cut since they're thin. You really can't go wrong.
I've been hoping to make a pair of short-fingered or fingerless gloves so I followed the Hooray For Me glove pattern. I didn't check gauge or do any figuring at all. I could probably cast on 8, or even 12 stitches less than the pattern specifies to get a better fit. I should have known better: my very first FO was a pair of gloves made from Dale Heilo that I made to fit perfectly, after reading Elizabeth Zimmerman's Knitter's Almanac and being inspired by her to just measure, calculate, and wing it. Why I feel the need to follow patterns so closely these days, I'm not quite sure. C tried these on and they're going to fit him perfectly. I might make fold-back mitten flaps for them, too. The yarn is Regia Jacquard Color #5297. (Hey! No checking out my sad manicure!)
The sky cleared late last night and we woke up to negative 3 degrees fahrenheit (about negative 20 degrees celsius). Brrrr!
