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Not the best pics, I know.
Dirty windows.
Dye plant seedlings.
E, that crazy boy, out on the trampoline in shorts, a t-shirt, sandals, no socks, as soon as the snow showers quit.
Weird. It snowed most of the day and, by the evening, there was less snow on the ground than there had been that morning.
Female black-headed grosbeak, I believe.
Slowly, slowly, lakes and creeks are breaking free.
Slowly, slowly, lakes puddles on the front walk and driveway are receding as the ground thaws just enough beneath to allow snow melt off to soak in.
Four inches of fresh, new snow yesterday morning was almost completely melted off again by dinnertime. A sure sign of spring.
#8 Damevott, from Raumagarn's Selbustrikk (sold with English translations here. Scroll down). Yarn: Raumagarn Gammelserie, one ball of each color, with the tiniest bit of orangey red Rauma Lamullgarn.
We've so enjoyed watching the huge, strikingly colored Pileated Woodpeckers find our feeder this year, and also the similarly colored, smaller Downy or Hairy Woodpeckers (in the last pic) as well, although I'm not quite sure which one this one is, or whether we see only one or both species around here. Does anyone know?
At any rate, watching them outside the window one day, it occured to me that I hadn't yet knit up the mittens from the Rauma yarn and booklet my mom had bought for me during our trip to Norway last fall. This was just the inspiration needed to get started.
Half way through the first mitten, I found myself wishing I'd knitted some red stripes into the cuffs. There already was so much ripping and reknitting of mistakes that I wasn't about to rip that far back again, so instead embroidered a couple of little hearts onto the thumbs.
So many little mistakes! Part way through the second mitten I realized that I'd forgotten to reverse the thumb placement and was knitting a second left hand mitten, having to rip back to the cuff. Then, as you can see I forgot to reverse the inside of the thumb on the right hand mitten. The second mitten turned out a good bit tighter and smaller than the left, and there are at least a few other mistakes I made in the patterning but, oh well, they're done! My tension must have been much tighter on the second one as I grew more comfortable with holding both colors in my left hand and picking them, rather than dropping and picking them up each color change. I also wish I'd finished off the tips more neatly than I did.
I'd thought of gifting them, but the size difference won't let me do that, so I guess they're mine! They're too thin for the midst of winter here, but they'll make great spring and fall mittens either on their own or else as liners under my waterproof ski mitts.
Many, many years ago, my aunts in Norway made several pairs of these style mittens and sent them to my mom, only in opposite colors and different patterns. I wore them, too, during the winter months in high school and college, and I know I lost one of a pair of them. Ouch! That still hurts. I think my mom has since donated all but a pair of two of them to the Nordic Heritage Museum in Seattle.
It isn't even the greens of springtime at all that I've been longing for this year. It's brown. Dirt brown. Even mud season, which is suddenly upon us. Bring It On.
While walking in town yesterday, the first day of spring, under a light drizzle, I caught a brief whiff of something distantly familiar and, after a few seconds, realized exactly what it was.
It was earth. Rich, sweet, thawed-out earth.
That homemade corned beef could be so good?
Especially when the beef comes from a neighbor down the road's cows and the rest of the pot is loaded full with a bunch of root veggies recently gifted to us by a friend, from his last summer's garden. The cabbage, most of the potatoes and some of the herbs and spices were the only parts that were store bought. Hoping that will be different next year.
Here is the recipe I used (none of the nitrites or nitrates of many other recipes out there). There will be no going back to store bought corned beef, not after this year's cozy meal shared together with good friends.
And to think I used to think St. Patrick's Day was only about the wearing o' the green.
For fear of sounding too righteous, please know that, for breakfast
that morning, there was also green food coloring in the soy milk and
pancakes. : )
Such a surprise to wake up to this morning! At least it gave C a break from working on the chicken coop/greenhouse-to-be.
Do not be deceived by bright, warm, cheery yarns, nor snuggling dogs.
IT WAS COLD OUT THERE!
And windy, too!
At least it wasn't snowing or raining at the moment. Snow was blowing off the trees from every direction, however. The sky was relatively bright and the latest snowfall light and dry enough to be swept off the picnic table. I'd been waiting for just this sort of break last week to get some pictures taken.
But it was so bitter cold it was only possible to get one, maybe two skeins photographed before scurrying back inside for a warm up and to take notes with chilblained fingers.
BRRRRR!
The dogs may look cozy but they were bracing themselves against the cold and wind.
And those rain boots were quickly traded back in for snow boots.
Off to stoke the fire, sip a little tea, bake soda bread, and stir the dye pot.
I hope you find something you like over at the shop. : )
Working on a shop update for tomorrow morning!
Saturday up on the ski hill, looking down below to where, two days prior,
in the parking lot of an average, ordinary, American, strip mall (albeit within sight's distance of Glacier National Park's peaks), amongst a megaplex theater, a nationwide retail bulk food warehouse, a megaplex theater, franchise restaurants, and the usual box stores of the book, department, home, pet, coffee, hardware, home, cell phone, dollar, and electronics variety (that I needn't mention by name since you know them and their logos all too well),
the robins returned, in flocks and droves by the hundreds,
and, the boys and I stood out in that parking lot,
in that crisp sunshine,
with temps still in the teens,
in the midst of our very long-list-of-errands-day,
staring in amazement, me grinning,
for what seemed like half an hour but wasn't,
while cars and people came and went,
only a handful of them pausing to notice.
or would that be noticing to pause?
As always, the pics DO NOT do this justice. Maybe a video would have done so.
Did these same flocks come here to this very spot, every spring, when this was still a grassy field, before the concrete was poured about 5 or so years ago, before the crabapple trees they now feed on were planted in tiny little diamonds of earth?
And does this mean it's spring?
(And you thought I lived in the boonies! Oh, wait. I do. These places, both the ski hill and the strip mall, are an hour and half of almost all highway driving to the south.)
