Lament For A Forest

I walk each day in my beloved forest which sits on crown land joining ours. There are hectares of land in there where birds frolic, and mice and squirrels gather, where bears rummage, and foxes are furtive, where coyotes howl, and owls peer, but most of all it is a place where things grow. Always, the forest is full of shadows and green moisture, where rot and decay are good things, where moss is thick and spongy and a falling leaf or a buzzing insect is significant. It's a quiet place, a place where all things are gentle. In another life maybe I was a biologist. I love to get on my hands and knees and look under things in the forest. I love to lift a leaf and look at its back side. I like to pull up the moss and see the insects living beneath it. Sometime I will even sit on a stump and take off my shoes and feel the rich loam between my toes. The forest to me is life.
Yesterday, I went for a walk in the evening with Teapot and Jiggs and Tootsie the wonder chicken herder. It was a nice walk and I had remembered to take my camera along for the ride. I have been through there quite a bit in the last few days since Jiggs demands daily (and preferably hourly!!) walks. The forest floor is teaming with Prairie Crocuses right now and I have been meaning for several days to go and take some pictures of them. Last night I finally did that. They are beautiful with their soft coating of down. A little further along the trail there were tiny wee Violets beginning to bloom. I stopped for pictures again. Then I saw some Pussy Paws and took pictures of them too before moving on to a yellow flower that looks like some kind of grass.
It was while I was on my knees looking at the new blooms that I realized there was a problem. I looked all around me and realized the forest wasn't breathing or if it was, it was breathing very shallowly. No luscious foliage, no rich loam, and at a time of the year when everything should be bursting with life, somethings are not growing at all.

All around me had a dry brown look. I looked at Pine tree after Pine tree, at the decimation of all those majestic trees by the Pine Bark Beetle. Sometimes it is easy to look at the chartreuse green of the new leaves and feel that everything is ok. But it is not. Under all the dead leaves of last fall are dead Pine pins and where the sun would normally have a hard time filtering through, are streams of sunlight that are whisking away moisture at an unforeseen rate. It is fast becoming a waste land. soon the soft green light of the forest will become the harsh bright light of a pasture. I will miss the cool darkness and the soft light and quiet of the world beneath the canopy.

along with the obvious signs of forest death come the other more subtle deaths that we do not necessarily think about. For a few year I have been fascinated with the flowers that grow in our forest. The Prairie Crocuses are in their hay day right now. The Violets are coming. June is the time for the Wild Roses and the beautiful Orchids of all kinds that grow so quietly in rich loamy soil. There are flowers that I have not yet even identified... what about them? It is not just the Pine trees in the forest that the Pine Beetle is killing it is the lifeblood of so many species. And it is hard to watch.

In August they will come. The machines and the buzzing the axes and saws. The men with their heavy boots and the machines with their tracks will come and kill my friend the forest. I can do nothing to stop it, and probably I shouldn't try. The devastation of the Pine Beetle must, like a cancer be cut out. It is the only way to salvage anything but how can delicate flower petals survive the onslaught of boots and tracks?

There have been men in the forest. they are tying ribbons to trees and marking them with paint. I have been watching to see what they are doing and where they are marking because as luck should have it the people who are doing the tree cutting are trying their best to salvage what they can. There are areas where spruce live, there are areas where poplar live that will not be forested at all, and while this is a good thing I still wonder if the forest will ever come back. Will I still be able to find the pleasure of a cool morning walk with my dog on the trails. Will the breath of the forest be sucked dry. I take pictures of the things that give me joy, the flowers of the forest floor the trees which have become my friends. And I wonder.....

My Bonny Teapot

As most of you know Frankie is my nickname. (I'm not so free as to give out my real one online). Hubby gave me my nickname back when I first met him 20 years ago. I told him about my back surgery that I had had at the ripe age of 14. I told him all about the traction that I was in for eight weeks on a frame bed that was turned every 6 hours or so. The traction involved four nasty screws that went through the skin of my head and into the bone of my skull from which were rigged several pullies and a set of weights. Through my knees were pins about the size of a pencil and when Hubby saw the pictures of me lying in the hospital bed, which was the metal frame much like an ironing board, he said I looked like Frankenstein..... well from that Frankie stuck and I've been called Frankie so long now that I'm sure I don't know my real name. When Hubby happens to call me by my real name now it seems so odd that I can barely stand it.... yet my Mom and Dad still call me by my given name and I answer without blinking an eye. Some people, when they find out why I am called Frankie, won't call me it any more... but I like the name and I have a good story to tell.

For 20 years though I've wanted to come up with a nickname for Hubby. I think I have finally come up with one.

Hubby is renowned for his tea. He makes the best tea ever. Two years ago Hubby took his class on a class trip. While away, he bought for the daughters and me some very nice gifts, among which is a great teapot. I never knew how poignant that would become.

Last night I woke at 4:34 a.m. to a twitching, heaving, Hubby laying in the bed next to me (get your mind out of the gutter).... I knew right away that he was in the throws of a very bad dream.... so very gently I reached across and woke him with a little shake, then I stroked his back as he came through the fog of dreamland to the reality of our bedroom. When he rolled over to look at me, I asked him what he had been dreaming.

He put his head down on the pillow again and gave a great sigh of relief before saying.....

Hubby: I was fighting the devil to save you.

Me: Oh!? What happened?

Hubby: I told you to get under the blanket in our front yard and then we huddled there while the devil loomed closer and closer..... he was a big black cloud and it got really, really cold. I told you we had to think really good thoughts and the only thing I could think of was to sing......

Me: Well what did we sing?

Hubby: I'm A Little Teapot!

Me: : )

Hubby: The devil started to shrink and then Jiggs and I chased him away......


My hero..... I think I will call him My Bonny Teapot.

A Little Catch Up

Holy Cow! What a week. I haven't had time to breath. I'm up and out the door every morning at 8:30 sharp to walk the dog.... which lasts at least 45 minutes since we walk about 2-3 km each morning. She's a real handful as she has more energy than any of us in the house. We cannot let her off the leash at all since she won't come when you call her yet. She sleeps in our room by the side of our bed so we can keep an eye on her, and she is really good about that but at 7 a.m. she is ready to get up and go, go, go, and if you aren't.... well, too bad. She hardly eats any food but I gave her a big dish of deer meat the other day all nicely cooked and so yesterday was not good since she had the runs.... euuuck! She slept on the deck last night!

I've been playing catch up lately.... I've been working on the big j.c...... a lot, and I'm just about finished. I can't wait. I'll be so glad to see the end of that thing... I can't even tell you. The interesting thing is that I think I can make a fair bit of money making jackets of this type.... not exactly like this but similar indeed. Your first one is always a learning curve. You figure out all the things that are good to do and you figure out what not to do.... I had a lot more what-not-to-dos than good things. I am going to do more of these jackets but I need to first perfect a loom that will give me easier weaving. A rectangular pin loom similar to my tri loom would be awesome. You see, I would like to build a large pin loom and weave the body, but intead of woven sleeves, I would knit the sleeves for added interest. The sleeves have taken far too long on this jacket. I would also like to incorporate more colour and knitting the sleeves would allow me to do that in a way that would use stranded knitting elements. I love stranded knitting! I have to spin a little more alpaca today since I don't have quite enough to finish the weaving of the sleeves and then the sleeves go into the washer for fulling... and you better believe that I'm not leaving that washer for one little second.

Daughter # 2 will be turning 13 this weekend. I can't believe that I'm surviving and I have two teenagers practically. Yesterday we took the girls to town and went shopping for Daughter #2 's birthday gift. She wanted a new ipod and a stereo thingy (my description) for parking the ipod in so that she doesn't always have to use ear buds to listen to her ipod. Look out! We'll all be deaf after this.

This weekend I have all the spinners and weavers from FSJ coming for their annual foray into the wilderness. They always come to HH once a year and this is the once a year. I wish I had my animals sheared so that I could sell a few fleeces maybe. Oh well I don't think that will happen.

While in town yesterday we discovered that one of our tires was not wearing well and the rubber was about to separate so $600.00 later we had a new set of tires. We also need a wheel alignment but they didn't have the time to do that for us so we will have to get that done at another time. For a while now our car has been having power steering issues and so we have discovered that the power steering line has a leak and so that needs to be fixed as well. We also need an oil change which is long overdue. But the big surprise is that we don't have to do the brakes, which we really thought we would need to do. The brakes are still at 80% and that is good considering that we have over 180,000 km on our truck. She's a gem.... oh sh-t I think I may have just jinxed the brakes.

So there you have it. That's what my week has been about...... a little bit of catch up.... oh yeah and Queen had her two babies and we named them Zig and Zag and they are both butcher lambs. So I have 9 lambs for the butcher block in the fall. Anyone for lamb?....

Favorite lamb recipe.
Roast lamb (best with a leg roast) in oven in roasting pan with water (about an inch and a half deep) and use lots of onion.... roast in a 350 degree oven. In a pot on the stove bring to a boil, a little water (not too much), chopped rhubarb, sliced oranges, with some sugar. When it has boiled for about 20 minutes remove from heat and let stand. About half an hour before your lamb roast is done smother the rhubarb mixture over the lamb roast and continue roasting for about 30 minutes more. Remove roast and thicken gravy with a little flour water and stir into rhubarb mixture. Serve lamb sliced, with rhubarb gravy drizzled over it with rice pilaf or mashed spuds and vegetables on the side..... mmmmmm!

New Friend

Meet Jiggs....

She is a lovely dog.... lots to learn though. She's very gentle and has loads of potential. A little skittish as she started barking at the billowing curtains in my bedroom this morning after Hubby left.... I think she was hoping that Hubby was there behind the curtains. She's very lean and very strong and loves to go for walks and is a total mooch so we will have to curb that habit. We will have to teach her not to pull on her leash. We will have to teach her to come to her name when she is called because she sneaked out the door this morning when I was letting the cats in. She came back but only because I coaxed her with food. Mind you, she slept by our bed all night long and trusted us enough to come up the steps which at first she wouldn't dare attempt because they are open and are daunting for a dog. She has tons of energy so we will have to teach her to be gentle because when you give her a bight to eat she snaps it from your fingers a little too eagerly. She did jump up on the bed last night when I went to bed and snuggled right down with me with her head in my armpit, but she wasn't too happy with Hubby when he came to bed twenty minutes later, and Hubby promptly planted her on her own bed which wasn't in my armpit! But she settled down and slept through the night without giving us any grief. This morning we took her for a long walk down through the trees and all was good.

It looks like she will be happy with us and we will be happy with her too. Awesome! It's a win win situation I think.

Oh What We Learn

I started taking an interest a few years ago in my genealogy when my Dad started doing research into his family history. So far it seems that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. There have been many weavers, embroiderers, knitters etc... it seems in my family history. Dad was able to trace our family tree back as far as the time of William the Conqueror when one of my ancestors came across from Normandy with William the Conqueror as one of thousands of supporters and was finally made a knight under the the new reign. I really can't say a whole lot about it here since I hate using my personal information in such a public domain but I will say that there are some really interesting bits of history that I have come across over the last few years. Like.... I might be related to Spanish royalty way way way back, and that there are a few nasty backguards in my history.

One of the things that I discovered that really has no relation to me but does have a personal interest because of my fabric arts interest is known as The Bayeux Tapestry. When I heard of it the first time I was drawn to it and wanted to find out as much about it as I could. So, of course, I trusted my friend Google to find some information on this awesome piece of history.

The Bayeux Tapestry is a .5 metre by 70 metre embroidered piece of cloth that depicts William the Conqueror's activities leading up to and including The Battle of Hastings. It is breathtaking to see and is housed in Bayeux, France. It has survived almost 1000 yrs and is an amazing example of what was able to be constructed in the fibre arts.

Not much is actually known about the tapestry other than it is not actually a tapestry per se, but is an example of medieval embroidery techniques. It is on a linen background that was put together as panels and some of the panels are missing though we don't know how many. It has had a pretty tenuous past and at times was hardly likely to survive at all since it was almost cut up on several occasions.

We do not know who is the creator of the tapestry although there is great speculation that William's brother the Bishop of Odo was the commissioner. It was possibly made in Canterbury where there was a well known embroidery guild of some renown that may have possibly made it. It is a beautiful example of the pageantry of the time and was a blatant way of celebrating and marking the exploits of the new Norman king.

I am still doing research on this beautiful piece of history and am interested in finding out more about the embroidery techniques and fibres used in the embroidery. I downloaded a picture of a small portion from one of the panels of the embroidery to give you all a chance to see what it looked like, that is what you see above. If you would like to see more of the panels you can go here.

Have a look because it is awesome when you think about the people who actually worked long hours to spin the fibre for the cloth, spin the fibre for the embroidery thread, and actually pierced the cloth with their needles.

It gives new meaning to behind every good man there is an unseen good woman.

Love Those Lambs

Hubby: I just spent half an hour trying to catch that little white lamb of Fanny's.

Me: That's Umeko.

Hubby: Yeah well I don't know what it's name is but it just pooped on me.

Me: Ha ha ha ha ha hahahahaha

Oh The Weather Outside Is Frightful

And the fire is so delightful, and since I have no place to go, let it snow..... well you know the rest of that. Yes it is snowing. After weeks of fine weather, Sister Winter came back for a visit.... you know... it's that sister that always bosses you around and makes you wish you had never been born. Everything is white this morning including my stupid sheep and lambs. There's a nice heat lamp in the barn but nooooo they are all out in the snow getting cold. Dumb idiots! They mill around like they enjoy getting wet and their wee ones cuddle under the trees and generally look like they're miserable.

I've been weaving up a storm (no not a snow storm). I'm finished one sleeve on the big j.c. and am now working on sleeve # 2. The putting together of this thing should go fairly quickly once I get to that point. But it is looking pretty nice. I can't wait to finish it so that you all can see it. This morning I will get out my dye pot and have a go at dying the buttons. I am using antler buttons but am dying them black with painted plum coloured flowers. I want it to be beautiful. So on it goes.

I have had some complaints lately from family members who follow my blog, of not having enough pictures of the family.... that's because it is really hard to pin those gals down and so finally I managed a few pics.... they are weird but they are a great reflection of us in the morning as we get ready for school.....

Daughter #2 wears this hat alllll the time. It is about three sizes too big but she loves it so she wears it.

Tootsie loves to lie on the back of the couch and look out the window..... here's Daughter #1 with her head on him.... getting ready for school sucks for Daughter #1. She is not a lover of mornings... or school. Yeah this picture says it all......


"Could you please stop taking pictures of me......"

Daughter #1 manages finally to have a smile on her face in the morning.


And from here it just went down hill....




Bye bye!