Time For A few Quick Pics

Ok it's busy around here... I'm working on the PCSW Newsletter and trying to get that done before the weekend and also trying to get the last of those mittens done before tomorrow.. Just about finished. I have spent an exorbitant amount of time on line today trying to finish the newsletter and while I'm not quite finished I'm taking a quick break because I'm starting to see double.

Here's a few more old pics....

I'm in the red.... dressed for Halloween.

Another Halloween costume... nobody knew me including Teapot.

Gotta love that cheesy grin.

I'm not sure what this was about but Oh my God!

Maybe I thought it was weed!

And 4 months pregnant.

Pops and I celebrating the new year.... hmmm!

What a total goof I used to be.

A Little More Serious Than Usual

Big fat flakes of snow are drifting lazily to the ground... in all this peaceful beauty, it is hard to believe that a dear friend can have lost her husband when only a few weeks ago he was hale and hearty. It's hard to believe that one of my readers too has lost her husband suddenly. And though the peace of new fallen snow is all around me it is hard to believe that the horrors of Japan's recent disaster continues to unfold moment by moment. I, like most of you, have watched and listened to the news coming out of Japan and wonder how in the world they will recover.  It seems too much some times, to turn on my computer and hear any more bad news. We rail against God or whatever might be your choice of belief systems. But in the end there is nothing we can do to change what has already come to pass. All we can do is go forward... focus on making what's left of our lives better than it was and appreciate what you have had, what you have now,  and what you will have.   

Japan will recover but right now they need time to look around them and find that which is lost... they need time to find their heart. They need time to find the lost photo albums of families washed out to sea.  They need to think about the very real people who are lost... the wives, the husbands, the baby children that will not be there anymore. And we need to respect that and support them in whatever way we can... and mostly we need to listen to their stories so that the people who have been lost can be remembered and respected. It is no small thing to carry the memories of loved ones forward because it is the way that those we love live on. By talking about them and holding them in our hearts we carry them forward into the future.

There is a reason for blogging. We express our opinions and sometimes they are misguided and if mine have been then I apologize, but in the end, if a forest fire swept through and wiped me and my family out there will still be this. A little bit of me... a little bit of us, for someone to carry into the future. There but for the grace of God, go I. There are those of us who will get mad and we will rail and some of us will say stupid things in the face of a disaster, but in such turmoil and loss it is hard to keep our heads. Eventually though, sense will return and that is the point at which we need to look around and be the best that we can be. And then and only then will we reach out to those around us, and find the heart of humanity... the good that I believe is in all of us.

I am going to go now and knit.  I am going to knit a counterpane from Piecework magazine that Grace Coolidge probably never thought that a woman many miles away and many years into the future would be reading about and knitting. I am going to do that because it is a good morning to remember those from the past... and to be thankful I am alive.  With all that peaceful snow falling, I think it is a good time to reflect on life, and memories. And I will listen to the stories from Japan on CBC radio, and I will think of my friends and their lost husbands. I will make peace with the world around me by remembering those who are gone... and I will pray for them... and I will pray for us...

They've got it over, and we've got it to come.

Will Ya Still Love Me When I'm 69

When I was 18 yrs old.

When I was 22 yrs old.

When I was 27yrs old.

It's fun looking back at old pictures. More tomorrow...

A Little Green With All That White

As I look out my window today, I can see snow all around.

I was peaking through my most recent pictures and saw that the cotton that I spun a few weeks ago looked so soft just like the snow outside. There are tracks in the snow from where Jiggs drops her nose into the snow and scoops up some into her mouth. It leaves funny imprints in an otherwise pristine surface.

Teapot is burning trees that are dead from the rampant Pine Beetle kill and while most of the trees are red there are some that are green still, and so I decided to change my blog to reflect the view from my window and in so doing ridding myself of that dreaded pink. Besides... St. Paddy's Day is coming and what is St. Paddy's day without a little green?

While I've been watching the horrible events of the last few days in Japan, Saturday has come and gone. My spindling class of last Saturday gathered once again yesterday, full of vim and vigor for the next installment on our spindling class. This time I had Teapot with me to drive and I enjoyed his company making the drive fly by. He went car hunting again while I taught the class the intrigues of spindling. I was pleased to see that most had finished their homework and had vastly improved. I even had two new student join the fray.  They've invited me to come again for another day to check homework again next week and to trouble shoot any questions that might arise, so once again I will be traveling back for another day of spindling next Saturday.

Daughter #1 enjoyed a sleepover with her friend at her friend's house. Daughter #2 enjoyed having her friend here last night. It is easy to see that this is the last week before mid term break. Neither one is feeling overly energetic as is the usual case the week before any break. We all find ourselves winding down to a well earned time from obligations, homework, and getting up early in the morning. I think even Teapot looks forward to a week and a half of pleasure. We are all disappointed that the JCR trip which Daughter #1 and Teapot were to be on has been canceled. They will not be going skiing in Smithers though the powers that be are trying to work it out so that the JCRs can go skiing at Powder King. I hope it will all work out for there are some very long faces on those thwarted in their skiing expectations.

Today I am working on a pair of mittens which are a request from a family member who needs nice warm woollen mittens because he lives even further North than moi. I hope to have them knitted by Tuesday at the latest so that they can go in the mail and I can go back to my homework. With all the cold of the last few weeks, I am sure that Fanny, my best breeding ewe, has been keeping her eyes crossed and her legs crossed in an effort to wait till the warmer temperatures of spring arrive before dropping her lambs. She looks rather pathetic as her pregnancy takes its tole on her energy and she spend much time lying down or standing very still.

That's her in the middle watching me take her picture.

I am finding it hard to believe that spring is near.... it is still too cold to think of spring adventures when winter still seems to knock daily at my window. Knitting mittens still seems like a timely project though with mid March looming I wish that I could be thinking of more spring like activities.  Is anyone out there planting their seeds yet for transplanting in the not too distant future?  My cotton seeds await their soil, and I begin to think of that lovely mound of soil in the yard that will be my new garden area in a month or so. I look forward to beets and carrots and potatoes and peas.  Each morning I hear the chickadees singing their love songs. It is the only time of the year that you hear them trilling in such a way.  I await the first call of the returning geese but I think this year they might be late since the snow is still deep and they can't even feed on the fallen oats in farmer's fields. Still the yellow canoe shows it head through the snow

 and I know that a trip down river will bring the pleasures of watching returning water birds in the not too distant future. The kingfishers may already be here since the river never freezes with the dam changing the river's flow.  It is hard not to get ahead of myself with the grey of the sky turning to the brilliancy of sunshine outside. But then the snow is so very bright.  I am sure that it is for that reason that the sun looks so charming.  For now though, there is bread to be kneaded and mittens to be knitted, and still the smoke of Teapot's fire drifts slowly past my window.... I wonder if he is ready for a cup of hot chocolate....

I hope your Saturday is calling to you with spring like qualities.

Here comes Teapot through the kitchen door.... I think I'll put that kettle on.

Fecking Shite Again

Fecking Shite = Earthquakes followed by tsunamis!

And I say a prayer for all those who have lost someone today.

Fecking Shite

Fecking Shite = Flax

I've finished the flax and it looks like an ape spun it.... actually that's an insult to the ape. It looks more like an elephant had at it with it's trunk!  But I don't care at this point. I'm finished and the tips of my fingers are raw to prove it. 6 skeins of line flax and the worst time I've ever had spinning anything. After watching YouTube videos on how to spin flax and reading and trying, and reading and trying again, I'm putting the flax away and never looking at it from this day forward, that is, if I can get away with it. It was horrible... it is horrible. It looks like rope and rough rope at that. I'm likely to get very little in the way of marks but that's fine by me.

These are my line flax samples and if you click on the photo you will get an enlarged version and you will also see how coarse and ropey it looks.

By comparison my tow flax sample look positively soft!!

I have never in my life had such a swearing fest as I have had in the last few days doing these sample... I don't know if the rest of the Bast fibres are like this and I'm not readily wanting to find out either!

So now I have to boil up these babies and finish processing them and one of them has to be bleached.... and while I'm doing that I'll be washing wool for Lopi and working on worsted and woollen samples.... and relishing spinning something I love.

I also decided that I just couldn't live with that godawful pink background anymore so while I'm trying to be satisfied with some pink, I think the black is a good background.

Oh yeah... I'm still waiting for lambs... and spring... neither is on the horizon yet... just one blasted moose still yomping away at the hay.

25 Years Comes To An End

The last mission of the Discovery Space Shuttle has come to an end. A sad day indeed. And it is all the sadder because our friends to the south are hard pressed to be the innovators and forward thinkers that they have always been. President Obama saw fit last year to end the Constellation Program which was to take the place of the Space Shuttle program. Obviously this economic recession that most of the world finds itself in, is detrimental to the people of the United States in more ways than one. We tend to think of people out of jobs and declaring bankruptcy, but the loss of innovative ideas like the whole Space Shuttle Program has come to be its most serious collateral damage for those of us who looked to the US for leadership in space research. The Endeavor will make a trip to the International Space Station in April and then the Atlantis will make a trip in June. There are no other scheduled trips.

Space Shuttles are amazing transportation devices. I have watched over the years the many missions of each and every one. I have to say that I looked on the Discovery's last mission with sadness in my heart. Here are a few pictures....

The most important legacy of the Space Shuttle Program is that for the first time in history we have been able to see the planet that we call home as something onto itself. It is finite and it is ours. It's blue beauty is fragile and that is what the Space Shuttle Program has been able to drive home to us over and over through the awesome pictures the astronauts have been able to take of our planet.  I love this last photo since we see the horizon of the earth in the background of the ISS. Very cool.

It is with sadness that I watch the Space Shuttle Program winding down. Manned returnable space vehicles are the legacy of the US and NASA combined efforts to lead the way in space engineering. There is likely to never again, in my time, be as rigorous a program as this. I am proud to know that it has been during my lifetime that space research has been so forward thinking.  That is not to say that NASA will not persevere with space travel programs. Currently they still have a space probe on Mars and one on the way to the outer reaches of our galaxy. But manned missions for the US are at a stand still. Let us hope, that if nothing else, the wars that torment the world and suck dry the funds of the US will come to an end so that the money that is wasted on killing each other returns to higher minded things like research into space craft.

For now we must look to the leadership of countries like Russia and India to watch the space programs that they have if our knowledge of this great universe and our place in it is to continue.

I would love to be able to get to the Smithsonian to see the Discovery at some time in my life, which is where it will be retired for those of us to view.... those of us who dream of seeing this planet in all its roundness and blueness, unhindered.