The Eerie Walk Of November

Down through the bush, one step after the other, I went. The wind was blowing quite rudely. Overhead trees were swaying and the grey clouds passed swiftly by. Squeaking branches sounded, off in the distance. The dogs gallumped along through the bush.

I quickly discovered that when the wind is that high, perhaps a tramp in the bush is not the best idea. There was a loud crack and quite close by, down came one of the towering pines, no longer majestic, with branches brittle from Pine Beetle kill.

November is usually cold and grey with fog around here. Usually the fog covers everything in a fine coating of frost that eventually turns into dripping stalactites of ice. Not this year though. This year, the wind has been blowing pretty much constantly. Dreamer, our horse, raises her tail in disgust, and gallops around her paddock as if she can run with the wind.

I thought yesterday morning when I woke up and looked out the window and couldn't see anything for the grey cloying fog, that the typical November weather had come at last. But by lunch time, once again, the wind had come up and was blowing.....blowing... blowing....

November is not one of my favorite months, I do have to be honest. Somehow, I feel adrift, with nothing but Christmas boring down on me. Even Ideas on CBC last night, which normally I really enjoy, was boring. I had spent the day clearing out boxes full of wool and UFOs (unfinished projects) which is a boring job indeed, and then when I started to develop a headache I thought a walk in the forest.... my beloved forest.... would be good. With trees threatening to fall on my head, I decided that the walk would be better shortened rather than lengthened. So far this week I have managed to wash a fleece, wash a second small amount of fleece, clear out two rather large boxes of junk, unravel a scarf, start another scarf and ravel it out three times, finish two necklaces and one bracelet, dye some sock yarn, organize the level 4 fibres that I will need, find a baggy full of bison (which I just spent a fortune on ordering from the States), ply a ball of silk, cable a skein of novelty yarn, and worked on two paintings. Still, I feel like I have done nothing.

It's November. I know it is. November always leaves me at loose ends.

Rather like my walk of yesterday through a forest of wind, where trees were falling on all sides, November descends upon on me....

Perhaps I should raise my tail, and run with the wind...

Time Of My Days

Like a giant rib cage in the sky, are the clouds this morning. As the sun rises over the horizon, the sky turns from a molten grey to a vivid purple and orange. Sun rise always is phenomenal!

I thought I would post some pictures of what I have been working on in the last few days.

Jewelry....

 Washing fleece for Logwood baby blanket.....

Paintings.... watercolours to be exact....

Muskox... started about five years ago and is now being finished.

The Daughters.... painted from a photograph.... background is only penciled in yet... lots of work left to be done.

Friends..... a painting I did years ago when my children were young.

The last painting requires a little explanation. This painting was done from a photograph when Daughter #2 was little. It was a photograph I had of my sister and I and and our friends when we were little. The photo was taken not far from my Grandparents house. I had worked many long hours on this painting as it was to be a gift for my sister. She's the second from the left and I'm the little tot partially covered by the grass. When I finished it I laid it on our dining room table to be taken to the framers and when I came back Daughter #2 was standing on the dining room chair with a pencil lead in one hand and a crayon in the other. You will notice the scribbles in the top left hand corner. I was horrified and of course took the crayons away from her. she was too young to understand the amount of work she had just spoiled in two seconds. I wanted to cry. In a fit of rage I tore the painting up later that evening thinking that I could never repair the painting. But afterwards, I  kept all the pieces and stored them away in a portfolio where they have been sitting ever since.  Little did I know at the time that had I not torn it, (yes, sometimes my temper gets the better of me.... these moments are sporadic... but every so often... well, I do have to say that I can be quite impulsive sometimes!!!) there was a product on the market that could have removed the pencil and crayon marks..... sigh!  Anyway, it has been sitting in my portfolio, a constant reminder of my stupidity in leaving it on the table in the first place. This week I glued it back together. I am using a soft eraser to remove the crayon marks and am touching up the glued areas with my paint brush. I'll let you know how this restoring project turns out.  (For those of you who say why didn't you just paint it again.... let's not even go there.... I am not a perfectionist and while this painting could be duplicated it would never be the same.)  I am using acrylic on watercolour to cover the rip marks. I'm not sure if it will work but I sure hope so.  If it does work then I will frame it and hang it in my new and improved bedroom.

The sky has turned to a dull grey... no wind.... I'm off for another day of nursing Daughter #1 and working on wool.But first I have a beading project that won't take long to finish....

Stay tuned for that.....

Last Night

The night was dark, the night was velvet. I lay warm and safe in my bed. Outside the wind blew, the roof rattled, the house shuttered, but all was safe under his watchful eyes.

Orion came to visit me last night. There... outside my window was my favorite constellation, peeking through my window, reminding me that far greater things abound in this universe than merely me.

How vast and rich this universe is.... how lucky I am to be a part of it....

A Long Day In November

The wind is blowing once again. The clouds have been amassing for another onslaught, and while the temperatures are unseasonably warm (+8 degrees) those swirling clouds in the mountains remind me that only last week we had the ground covered in snow. Once again the onslaught of winter is encroaching. Now that Halloween is over, Christmas is making itself known in ways that squeeze my heart with fear.  I have done a little online shopping, but for all intents and purposes the bulk of Christmas shopping lays ahead in the dim and hazy future.

Daughter #1 has been home for the last two days as she tries to get over some illness that is making the rounds in our community. She has been sleeping a lot and so I have been trying to stay quiet in an effort to not disturb her. I have been beading, (working on Christmas gifts) I have been washing fleece and I have been purchasing cashmere. Plans are going ahead for my 150 hour project for the level 4 homework. My plan is to make this....

 I am using a combination of cashmere, silk and merino wool, and my plan is to use percentage dyeing to get the effect of fading from yellow in the centre of the back to peach at the outer ends. I must be nuts to try this. Meanwhile I have to finish the level 4 homework. Even though it is a summer pattern and is shown in a lovely cotton yarn I felt that it would be awesome as a wrap for a black pants and top combo.... thus the cashmere/silk/wool blend. I think that the effect will be lovely. Stand by on that project.

Also, I have been washing fibre for the Logwood baby blanket that has been in the planning stages since back in the summer. I thought I would have a little trial with Logwood since I have never dyed with Logwood before. So the first thing I did was go to the Maiwa site and see what they had to say about Logwood and dying. Then I went to my trusty scarf drawer and found a plain white cotton scarf. First it needed to be washed and scalded, according to the Maiwa instructions. Then it needed to be subjected to a mordant. Then last but not least it needed to be dyed in a Logwood dye bath. I am at the scalding stage. Meanwhile I have a sink full of wool from Fanny (one of my sheep who happens to be a Shetland/Merino x). I will spin the water out of it on the spin cycle in my washing machine as soon as I have all the grease and suent out of it and then I will pick and card it. Once I get it to that stage then I will spin yarn from it, fairly finely, I think, but not lace weight as that is too fine for my pin looms. Then I will skein it, wash it, and prep it for the dye pot and then I will follow the directions for the 25 shades of Logwood. I'm truly looking forward to that. But meanwhile life is all about level 4 right now. I'm still waiting for the Bison to come from the states and if it doesn't come soon I will begin spinning my samples that I need for the cashmere section.

With all the work I have done today with beading... washing wool.... scalding scarves.... and planning projects, and knowing that I woke in the night last night feeling queezy, and knowing that I might end up with what seems to be affecting Daughter #1, has left me feeling not overly energetic. It has been a long day.... and all this wind seems to be zapping me of my energy too.

A long day in November?!....
But it feels good to get things accomplished....

A Trilogy Of Celebrations

I'm feelin' it. All Hallows Eve is over, and what a celebration!

We don't usually do much on Halloween. Teapot and I always took the girls out on Halloween and walked all over town with them as they trick and treated with hundreds of other kids. In the last few years we would pass Halloween at my parents house as our older children walked the streets themselves. Since we live outside of town nobody ever comes to our house on the evening of Halloween so we have not decorated our home for a long time. But this year Daughter #1 felt that she had outgrown this trick or treating and even though her friends were heading out she had decided to stay home and watch movies. We were going to watch Bram Stoker's Dracula... the 1992 (4?) version with Winona Ryder, but in the end I couldn't get it in time for us to watch it so we hit the local movie rental place in an effort to find something that would similarly scare the poop out of us. We hit on Van Helsing.... which was not as scary as we thought, and Constantine which was a little scarier. We had dinner on the couch as Daughter #2 and Teapot headed off to town for the annual foray into trick or treat land. Teapot decided in the end to come home and join us on the couch for dinner and a movie. At 7:45 p.m. we headed off to pick up Daughter #2 who was to meat us at the school with her friend. we picked her up and headed off to the airstrip north of HH where each year the volunteer firefighters put off a really cool fireworks display in an effort to raise funds for Cystic Fibrosis. We got there just in time to watch the fireworks display and let me say that for a small town of approximate 1100 population, it was awesome.

After that we came home and watched the rest of Constantine.

Today is All Saint's day, a day that the Roman Catholic church in the celtic regions of Europe, concocted in an effort to combat the pagan celebration of Samhain. Tomorrow is All Soul's Day and it too was included to get those pagans of old under control. I don't really care what the reason was for these celebrations but it marks the passing of the summer... it marks the passing of the sun. We are now well and truly into the second season..... the season of the dark, and I for one am certainly feelin' it. This is the time of year that I truly dislike. It is the time of the year when I feel the full moon so much more strongly... and I feel the dark afternoons so much more poignantly. And I don't mean this is a mental thing. It is that for sure but my body responds to the lack of light too. I begin to lose my energy, I begin to sleep harder, deeper, and longer, and I begin to gain weight. (I also start to really panic about Christmas but we won't go there). Life, as I enjoy it in the summer, changes now and I really don't start to feel good until the return of the sun in the spring. (Usually around the end of February)!

Today is a day of getting work done. I need to finish a couple of pieces of jewelry.... for Christmas gifts. I need to dye some yarn for socks. I need to take care of Daughter #1 who is home today from school with a stomach flu. (I'm thinking she might have had too much junk and candy yesterday.) Either way, the year moves on and so must I.

Happy All Saints Day.

Halloween Crazies

Teapot left an hour ago while it was still quite dark. He is off for a day of hunting in the back country. This will be his last opportunity to hunt moose since the moose season closes on Monday. I worry about him when he goes hunting alone but he does have the SAT phone and so does call in on a regular basis to let me know he is alright. Still, where he is going there are a number of Grizzlies around and grizzlies are very smart. You can call them in with a gunshot because they know there will be a fresh kill with a gun shot. I am hoping he will be fine. He is very careful so that is a bonus.

I finished my clock yesterday and and am quite pleased with the results.

I am not dyslexic... the number are painted on right it just this computer camera that I'm using.

 Teapot has taken the camera with him so I must rely on the camera that is a part of this computer. It is not nearly as good and must be fiddled with (cropped and stuff) to make it look good, so I apologize for the pictures that are somewhat pathetic. Meanwhile the work in Teapot's and my bedroom continues. It is looking better all the time. There is still quite a bit of work to be done but I'm doing it a little every day. I do not want to hurt my back so I really am careful at how much reaching, lifting, shoving, and the like that I allow myself to do. In between, I headed off to the grocery store yesterday. This doesn't seem all that exciting and not really worth mentioning here except that with Halloween coming up Daughter #1, (who was with me), and I had some good laughs. There were witches costumes and odd hats, there were masks of all sorts and best of all were the jelly candy. So we had to make a couple of purchases... When we got home we had some really good laughs. The jelly candy were body parts.... and a hat was perfect....

I give you fair warning..... Daughter #1 was too shy to try this in the public.... but not me!!!!

First we'd thought we'd try some teeth and a red eye...

Then a new nose.. but I couldn't get the eye to stick...

Then Daughter #1 thought the blue eye would be interesting.....

Then all hell broke loose when I tried to get two eyes with the teeth my eyes kept popping out and we just started to laugh......

Daughter #2 thought we were too undignified for words and just kept reading her book especially when I tried to take a picture of the jelly finger up my n... well, I'm sure you catch my drift.... that's her in the background. But suffice it to say that the hilarity may continue for a while..... mostly because I absolutely refuse dignity at my age. It's always fun till someone loses an eye!

So Halloween  is tomorrow and Daughter #2 is going out as a spider queen trick or treating until it is time to head off for the fire works. Daughter #1 and I are going to stay home and watch Dracula. That should scare the poop out of us!


But for today the Daughters and I are going to have a quiet day at home. I will probably carry on with the bedroom renovation as I have a mirror and a shelf to hang... I also have a few boards to cut and nail in place. Meanwhile we will wait patiently for Teapot to come home and hopefully bring some meat.

Happy Halloween!!!

Lambs And Stuff

Teapot has been working on the front step.

We had our first snow this last week. The snow hung on for a full week without melting but now temperatures are beginning to warm so the snow has been sliding off the roof with loud thumps and great crashes. Tootsie, who is an old hand at hearing these noises, ignores them for the most part, but the new wee kitty and Jiggs stare at the ceiling every time a great pile of snow comes crashing down. In the end, now that the snow is melting it is looking like Teapot will get the steps outside to the front veranda finished before the real snow comes that's the snow that stays all winter.

Poor Teapot.  He is working hard in an effort to get everything done before the snow falls... I don't think he is going to get the tin on the roof of the electrical shed though. The steps are looking awesome but the electrical shed is still sitting with the twenty year old cedar shingles rotting on it. The tin is cut, the tin is sitting on the ground.... but it is not on the roof and that is one job I had hoped to have finished before autumn came, let alone, winter. This weekend will be another weekend of butchering sheep which means that the shed will have to wait once again. We have a lamb for Pops that should have been butchered a while ago. We have another two lambs that another friend wants for a party coming up.  One lamb he wants halfed and the other that he wants whole since he will be cooking it on a spit. So that will be three more of our lambs gone.... which leaves more hay for the horse and sheep.

I still do not have enough hay. I have not been able to find anyone I can hire to bring in hay by truck for me from so far away. This means that if I don't get more hay soon, I will have to supplement the animals diet with feed from the feed store which is an expensive prospect for sure. We will see. I thought for a while that I was going to be alright with the amount of hay that I had verbally secured but it has definitely been a problem. I do not want to go through this again. I will slaughter every sheep I own if I have to, I will find a home for the wandering llama, and I will just keep the alpacas and the horse if necessary. That's the problem with not having enough land of your own to grow your own feed.

Meanwhile hunting season for deer begins on Monday. I will go and get my hunting license for the season. Teapot already has his license as he has been looking for moose and elk this year as well. He hasn't had much opportunity to hunt though with so many other jobs to do. Deer, however, is a pleasure to hunt since they walk around here on a regular basis. It means getting up early early in the morning and tramping through the bush quietly. It means standing for ages in the cold and damp. Also, it also means a lot of processing but the end result is great. Teapot and I are avid lovers of venison meat. We learned from the natives when we lived among them that hanging and aging your meat is totally unnecessary with deer. Teapot butchers the meat right away, saving the best roasts for the freezer, then everything else gets cut up and processed into bottles with a little pork fat. Preserved deer meat is delicious and makes for a great meal and very quick to cook too. Just open the top of the Mason jar, warm in a fry pan with a little teriyaki sauce or Hp sauce or whatever your favorite sauce is and serve over a bed of rice or with oven roast potatoes, some salad on the side and voila: a quick delicious meal. Of course, Teapot likes to set aside a little deer meat for jerky too. And it feels really good to look into the pantry and see rows of deer meat in neat bottles ready for the winter supply, and a freezer with neat packages full of jerky and wrapped roasts.

We only hunt for meat.... we do not hunt trophies. Trophy hunting is not our bag. I don't get that at all. Sorry if anyone reading this is into hunting for the joy of the kill, that's not us. Hunting is completely practical in this house. Recently, I have had to keep a vigilant eye on the hay bales since wandering deer seem to feel that hay bales are great for them too.

There are 6and 1/2 bales left of the 12 I bought, in August.... and there's the electrical shed in the background with the old shingles still on it.

But I do not pay premium price for hay so that my animals will starve and the wild ones will eat! I'm sure our neighbour must think I'm nuts as I spent last Saturday morning out chasing off a deer from the bales. She really didn't want to take no for an answer and so I was going back and forth with a stick in an effort to run her off. I had a few choice swear words for her too and then I started yelling at her (this was my way of being a dreadful apponent... she wasn't getting it though). I kept saying I have a hunting license and I know how to use it..... this didn't seem to phase her at all! Hmmm.... that's when Teapot showed up with the dog. HA HA!  That got the bu--er up and running. She hasn't been back... but it is a full time job keeping the deer away from the bales especially as the cold weather gets more severe. I don't think it will be hard to hunt a deer this year. Of course, we're not allowed to hunt near dwellings so we have to get the deer moving and usually we hunt in the forest that is adjacent to our property.

Well, I'm off, I'm still working on the bedroom from hell. I have a clock to put together and paint this morning...