Too Many Sad Days Recently

And one more to add.... this one came so unexpectedly.... we will miss our little guy... our Most Awesome Little Wonder Chicken herder...

Tootsie 2005 - 2011

Brilliant

Sometimes Brilliance astounds me.... but then sometimes Brilliance departs for other regions and I'm sure that I have been abandoned for good, but then Brilliance comes sailing into my life (usually I'm on the toilet at the time, which I'm told is the creative person best spot for Brilliant ideas) and once again I am amazed by myself...

A while back my guild had decided to start an Afghan project. The idea was that each individual member of the guild would look through their mighty stashes and use fibre that would be rejected for larger projects to knit 15 inch squares, which then would be pooled in order to find common themes among the squares. then one brave person would put a number together to make a lap afghan. After a number of these were made we would have a supply to give to members of the guild who might find themselves in distress due to a loss of a  loved one or for deteriorating health... sort of like a prayer shawl ministry only not so religious but with heart and feeling.

The project went forward and at first there was great enthusiasm, with many 15" blocks being supplied. But over time it died a natural death... We were starting out the project with acrylic yarn and then moving forward and using wool or other natural fibres. I, myself, am not an acrylic person because for some strange reason I can't bring myself to purchase the stuff. But I went home with good intentions of spinning fibre or at least making some interesting striped concoction that could be used for the project. Months went by and this did not happen so when the decision to put them together came, I volunteered out of guilt about not having contributed one square.... well in my eyes, putting them together was just as good a contribution because without sewing/crocheting them together we just had a bunch of squares and no afghan at all... besides, nobody wanted to sew them.

I put one together and after that, I didn't have enough in a similar colour scheme to put another one together so I put out the call for more squares.

Meanwhile while all this was happening I was attending knit night regularly and all the knitters were ooohing and ahhhing over a scarf that my mother had given me for Christmas. The scarf was fuchsia which is not a favorite colour but it was cannily made up. So we all decided that we would go home and try making one up even though we did not have the pattern... how hard could it be?! Now the reason why this scarf was so interesting was because it was knit and woven at the same time.  I can't show you all a picture of it because I loaned it to one of the Daughters and it was never returned. However, I and one of the other knitters did knock one together developing a pattern of sorts.

Now to bring both subjects together...

It was while I was sitting on the couch trying to put together the last of the squares that I had for the afghan project that I suddenly got a visit from Brilliance. (And I wasn't even on the toilet.) I would be able to make a 15" square quite easily using the method of knitting and weaving that was in the scarf...
I started in right away.

First I went digging through my stash... I would need a fibre that was somewhat hairy and had a lovely halo.... mmmm.... mohair would be perfect. I had several cones of mohair from a weaving project that I had completed a few years ago... I had bought a lovely dark forest green, and a lovely navy blue with flecks of other colour throughout.... I had also bought pink.... (we all know my feelings on pink so I won't bore you on that front). Perfect! I could use up the pink and have it out of my life once and for all! (I love killing two birds with one stone.) In combination with the Navy Blue it would be awesome.

Da da da da... da da da da da..... drum roll please....

It is absolutely inspirational.... at least I think so....

To hell with making a few for the guild.... I'm off to knit some more so that I can make a whole afghan and donate it to the guild.

Who knows what attracts Brilliance to your life.... I'm just glad she comes to mine....!

Up And At Em

Teapot and Daughter #1 are home. Yeah.... they are both exhausted and so I am up this morning by myself, full of vim and vigor. Yesterday I managed to finish my first Level 3 sample again. I spun ginned cotton and it looks very nice actually. Now I'm going to work on the second cotton sample. I might just work on cotton because it is relaxing. Level 4 is put aside for the moment while March break is here. I'm into too many things that require timing, thought, and not mindlessness. Cotton can be spun fairly mindlessly. So I will work on that for the moment.

It's an overcast day and once again I'm craving sunshine. This has been the longest and most dragged out spring on the face of the earth... I DO NOT want wind. Wind will take the snow away too fast and I want it to just rot and melt down into the ground and replace the ground water which has been so badly decimated over the last few years. It might mean a greener summer and hay supplies that are more reliable, which would be a bonus after this last year... always, am I thinking of hay. Still a little sunshine would perk me up in no time... I'm sure.

Dex is definitely doing better. He's definitely sturdier on his feet. My lambs from last year are beginning to look healthy again. After a long winter, I need to get out in the barn for a day and give it a good clean out. While all year long we try to keep against the fecal matter that accumulates in there it does freeze in the cold temperatures and so by spring there is a dreadful build up... so I need to have a  few good warm days where I can get in there and rake it all out. Nasty job, that! But there's nothing for it unless you want to tear down the old barn and build a new one every few years. Uhhh No! Sometimes I wish I had a little tractor. Then I could clean up poop no problem.... but then I'm sure you don't want to hear about poop this morning.

Well, it's Saturday morning and the coffee pot is brewing.... mmMMMmm... the smell of coffee is permeating the whole house... there's a pastrami on rye sandwich in the fridge with my name on it... for brunch, and North By Northwest is on CBC radio.... oh and cotton waiting to be spun... I just love Saturdays. And Sundays are good too.

Hope your weekend is great!

Weird And Wild

Once again it is overcast.... and Fanny has her eyes crossed.... I mean that is one tenacious ewe. She was bred on the 23rd of September..... dumb ass. It is now almost 6 months since then (gestation is 5 and 1/2) and she's as wide and she is long.... if she's not pregnant then she's got some weird and awful growth going on there. Meanwhile Dex is getting stronger every day. I think it is the oats that I'm hand feeding him, (so that the others don't push him off his food). Meanwhile, I let the dog out this morning as I do every morning, and she took off after some deer that were hanging out munching on my HAY! (Erg) One deer took off straight away and the other was limping... of course my dog did what comes naturally to her and circled... the deer was not happy. So I thought maybe he'd go off down through the trees if I went out with my pitch fork... (best laid plans of mice and men!)... the stupid thing jumped over the fence to run through the thickest snow there is... Erg. Of course with it having a limp it jumped the fence with not much success.... and there it hung with its hind leg in the fence.... stuck....! "Great!" was all that I could think... now what do I do? So carefully, and then more carefully, I approached the deer. It was down on it's side... not moving. So I grabbed a hold of its leg and shoved the wire this way and that way and managed to free its leg but not without scraping some of the hair off its leg first..... then taking Jiggs with me (who really was behaving admirably considering that there was meat on the ground not defending itself) I moved away and came in the house. We watched to see what would happen but the deer wasn't getting up... I was worried that it had broken its leg... and the alpacas kept wanting to go over and check it out. That worried me because I really didn't want it hurting them.... After 20 minutes of watching it, I decided to call the police.... so I did... (That's because the conservation guys are at least an hour away!) Usually the police respond. Anyway I talked to a very nice person... a receptionist I guess... who switched me to the Conservation office, (figures) and I told my story again. They would respond. I figured I had better get dressed so I went and had a quick shower and got dressed.... While I was in the shower the phone rang and they wanted me to go see if the deer was there still... and so I did. The stupid thing had finally gotten up and disappeared.... I was very grateful that it didn't have to be dispatched here. But I know that with it's bum leg and now the big scrape where I tried to get its leg out of the fence.... it is coyote fodder for sure.... The coyotes have been very active recently as I hear them every night since the full moon last week. This time in the year when the deer are emaciated the coyotes are always active.

So, that was my excitement for the morning.... now if the damn moose would just die... yes he's still around and yes, he will die.... but not by my hand. The poor old guy is covered in ticks... we've been able to get close enough now that we can see where it is riddled with them and there are bare patches of flesh all over him. Also I saw where he peed in the snow and he is passing blood. There is no doubt in my mind that he will die... no wonder he is eating the hay. He is probably too weak to do anything else.

God, living on the frontier is weird! and wild!

The Iceberg From Hell

So as promised the story of how I almost was killed by an iceberg...

Once upon a time I dated a fellow that was not Teapot.  His parents had a yacht of sorts and we spent many weekends out cruising around the shores of Newfoundland. Behind the yacht, we always towed a small Boston Whaler that would act as a life boat if ever we needed it. It would take us hither and yon when we were exploring small inlets and bays too, but mostly we used it for picking up scuba gear after the guys had done their dives from the back of the yacht. The yacht that we cruised on would often meet up with other yachters and champagne breakfasts were often exchanged in the course of the weekend... other cocktails were often part of the weekend too. We had a hired hand to drive the yacht when drinking was part of the day... he never drank when driving so all was safe. Of course drinking in such circumstances required the very novel ice from icebergs.

Now if you know anything about icebergs then you will know that most icebergs hide the majority of their ice below the surface which means that the constant washing of the sea water makes them very unstable indeed unless they are grounded which means that they are actually so far in shore that they are sitting on the bottom of the ocean.  If they are floating then at any time they will flip over and show a different part of themselves as a new portion becomes subject to the constant battering of the waves.  Icebergs really are something to be steered clear of because when they flip it is like the titanic sinking and creates a undertow and will pull anything close by, under the water and take it down to the bottom. They always made me nervous.  I have seen towering cathedrals of ice flip over in an instant with a crash that reminded me of something out of the"Poseidon Adventure". If a whale can give a boat a pretty good knock... and believe me they can... then one of these towers of ice can wipe you off the face of this earth with an ease and simplicity that is unspeakable.

One summer we had been out yachting every weekend for ages and each time we went out we passed a small bay in which there was an iceberg grounded. Slowly it was rotting away as the tides did their thing and broke it down little by little. Final we passed it one weekend and it was as close to shore as something so colossal could get... it was finally grounded after weeks of sliding in and out of this small bay.

Yachters have a voracious need to try the most crazy stunts in an effort to outdo each other so that they can pat themselves on the back for coolness. (Which resembled stupidity in some instances!) The father of the fellow who I had been dating was relatively sane compared to some of the yachters out there.... but being a heavy social drinker, he felt that some iceberg ice for their drinks would be awesome. And so he importuned my knight in shining armour to take the Boston Whaler in the small cove where the iceberg lay against the shore to see if there were any small growlers that we could pick up and put in the cooler.

Growlers are small chunks of ice that break off when and iceberg is battered enough by the waves that it flips... as the berg flips these great chunks of ice crack off and float away from the main berg... some can be as small as a dinner plate and some can be as large as a Volkswagon.... but generally they are not dangerous. The problem is that a berg that has grounded will have very few... a berg that has not flipped in a while will also have very few. The best time to get ice is when a berg has just flipped and is relative stable for a while.

Our goal was to take the Boston Whaler into the cove in search of growlers that had broken off the main berg. Not a difficult task except there was a bit of a sea on... waves were not bad but the tide was certainly there.  The yacht was too large to enter the cove safely but the Boston Whaler was just fine for the task. The young fella and myself climbed into the Boston Whaler with the hired hand and headed slowly into the cove. The first thing we noticed was that the tidal waves were funneling into the cove and of course if you are aware of wave theory (I love wave theory) regardless of the area a wave takes up it has the same energy and the energy has to displace the same amount of volume. This translates to... the smaller the space for the wave, the larger the wave.  The waves were pretty damn big in the cove. One minute we were facing the sky and the next minute we were facing the depths below us. However, we persevered knowing that once in the cove the waves would abate somewhat as the cove widened out fairly well. Still it was harrowing for a few minutes.

We could see the berg ahead and so we headed around it carefully staying fairly far away from it. By this I mean thirty to thirty-five feet. We could not see any growlers as the berg had been there for weeks and so we headed around for a second try.

Another thing you need to know is that you never circle an iceberg more than once because this will create waves too and will often knock a berg over if it has not been knocked over for a while.... but we felt fairly confident that that this berg was not going anywhere since it was so close to shore and surely was grounded.

After the second go round, we gave up on finding any growlers and so decided to head back out of the cove to the yacht awaiting us. That's when we heard it. There was the great sound of a horn waling from the yacht... a warning signal to let us know that we were not in a safe situation. This we had already worked out.... from previous trips. The lad I was with turned and looked over his shoulder and there high above us was the berg in the process of flipping....

We knew we were safe from the flip because we were far enough away from it.... what we knew we weren't safe from was the undertow that would be left by the vacuum of the flip itself. He gunned the engine and headed for the neck of the cove, which wouldn't have been so bad if the waves of the tide had not energized in the narrow opening, but once again we found ourselves facing the sky one minute and then the dark depths below us, only this time at speeds which were definitely not safe.

Obviously we survived or I would not be writing about this now.... but it was harrowing and scary. The berg flipped creating a huge undertow.... and then a backwash of waves rather a bit like a Tsunami. We did go back in and get the growlers that we wanted but I have never forgotten the sight of that berg towering over us... it so large and awesome.... us so small and fragile.

And there you have it... the story of one of my many life and death experiences.... but it was a beautiful day indeed.

After the bugger flipped.

Three Nights Ago...

... I lay in my bed with no curtain to cover the window. The day had been mild and above me, outside the window, hung grand icicles, some as long and as large around as a man's arm. It was quiet and dark in the night and it hadn't begun to snow yet. In the sky hung the biggest moon I have ever seen. And lucky I was to see it, because for the next few days, it would be cloudy skies prevailing. But on that night, a rare, big, round, quivering moon hung in the sky, perfect in her crystalline beauty.  It pierced my eyes even when they were closed, with a jagged edge so sharp it would give me no peace. And so I lay there, burdened with its beckoning.

And with its crystalline beauty came a night blue in it coldness. A heartless night, sharp and clear for those of us affected by its beauty. It pierced my mind, it pierced my heart and filled me with a longing for things untouched by man. For the sparkle of light in my eye. For magic. For the ethereal. For that which is beyond me. Indeed, for that which is beyond the means of the merely mortal.

All around me was this quaking pleasure of beauty sublime. The white of the snowy jacket enveloping the world, added to the favours of the mistress of the night. And there in the piercing light came the call of the wild... the call for which I was waiting. A howl so infinitely primordial that one could only respond in the recesses of the heart. But it filled me with the knowledge that I was not alone in my worship of the moon... an all encompassing moon, for which no one, no thing, can deny. Not even the tides of the ocean could deny this sparkling moon. Grappling my way to the edge of the sill, I looked out on a scene profound in it universal call. A scene, that not only took me whole through vision but through each and every sense, reached out and touched me. And for a moment, for just a simple moment I was the moon itself completely enveloped in its cold and beautiful grasp. And when it let go of me I lay back down on my soft warm bed and felt a tear well from my eye for I knew that the moon had given me a pleasure that was divine in it breathless blessing.

Way Too Fr---in' Much Snow

I haven't seen this much snow since I left good ole Newfy. We are basically buried. (Actually that's not really true since the snow is not even up to the bottom of the windows and that used to be a regular occurrence when I lived back home.) Still it feels like we are buried since I've lost a toboggan under the drifts of snow that I usually use for hauling hay to the animals. And there is still snow in the forecast. Two years ago when we did our house addition, we started on the first of April and there was no snow left. I don't think that is going to happen this year.  I'm even going to have to call a plow and see if I can get the driveways plowed again after this last dump of snow. And still there's snow in the forecast.

A quick trip out to the horse's pen this morning to bring her some apples and water for her breakfast, then up to the sheep's paddock to see if we had those lambs yet and Fanny is still hanging on, she is now three weeks over due. Still maybe she didn't take on the first go round with the ram. So maybe she will lamb soon. Hopefully not till Teapot gets back because I really don't want to be nursing her lambs or God Forbid I have to pull them... my hands just don't have the strength in them to pull lambs. Then it was up to the alpaca paddock to check on Dex. He's still lying around a lot and having problems with pooping. He's being very difficult about taking water... water would help, I know. BUt at least he's not keeled over on his side and he is eating.

Teapot gave me a nice long coat for Christmas... I do have to say that I love it. I wear it over my nightgown with my nice warm boots and I can do the morning chores without getting dressed... It is lovely to come in and put my feet up with a nice cup of tea and still be in my nighty... it is quite decadent actually. And like the Scotsman, don't ask me what I wear under my kilt... uhhh nighty! : )

Teapot has departed avec the camera once again so I am without a pic to post... so I'll give you another little taste of my life in the ancient past....

At a friend's graduation... about 24 yrs.

Gotta love those Newfy Forests.

Pops and me in the garden.

Hours of entertainment for Teapot.

My grandparents who would be turning in their graves if they knew they were going online and around the world.

My favorite dog and childhood pet.

The iceberg that almost killed me. More about that next time.

I'm off to do some work on my homework. Finally... oh yeah the PCSW newsletter is finally done.