A son of goodly parents
Saturday March 31st 2018, 11:10 pm
Filed under: Garden,Knitting a Gift,Life,Wildlife

Not a single squirrel so much as ran down that fence line, as far as I saw today. Several times they came down the side fence, stopped, sniffed in the direction of the cherry tree–nuh UH, and turned the other way and disappeared into the yard behind instead. Two new cherry flowers today and they were left alone. Unsweetened grape Kool-aid solution for the win!

The blueberries might need some of that soon.

And over at the needles, beaded silk. It’s Conference weekend, and two two-hour online sessions of watching the leaders of the Mormon Church helped get a lot of knitting done, with an occasional glance over at squirrel antics.

The stunner/not-surprised-in-hindsight was the announcement that someone who grew up in our ward, whose family we know well, was called to be one of the twelve apostles. I cannot think of a better man in every way that they could have asked to represent and offer Christ’s love and compassion to the world. I’m so glad his 91-year-old mom got to live to see the day.

There are two more sessions tomorrow, starting at 9 am and 1 pm Pacific time.  Wishing a joyful Easter to all who celebrate it and every good thing to all.



Well at least it reminded me to prepare
Friday March 30th 2018, 10:40 pm
Filed under: Garden,Lupus,Wildlife

I was looking forward to seeing the fully-open flowers in the morning.

When I got up there was no sign they’d ever been there.

I checked around the ground for snails and cut back some of the ground cover too close to the tree that they could have climbed over from.

As the day went on some new flowers showed white at the top of the tree and I was looking forward to the sun getting lower so that I could go out there and get a closer look.

What I got to see instead was a squirrel this afternoon hanging upside down from the very top of that branch, the very top of the tree, snarfing my flowers. My flowers! There would be no cherries up there, either.

This is how I learned that yes, you can run halfway across the yard with the handset in hand snarling at squirrels in the middle of a conversation with your parents, who are suddenly quite confused as to how the conversation took *that* turn, and not have the line drop out on you.

One very surprised squirrel scrambled out of there at top speed.

I explained what all that had been about.

Meantime, yonder squirrel (or its double) after awhile came slowly back along the top of the fence to within leaping range but stepped no farther. It looked at me from across the yard and through the window. I gave it The Look. It hung its head. It looked at me. I was still giving it The Look.

It gave up and slunk away.

After the phone call was done I went out there with my forgotten-till-now spray bottle of *grape Kool-aid, still good from last year. I was going to make those buds not tasty and not wanted. ZAP. Away with you!

Those were the very first Stella cherry blossoms of the year and thankfully there are a lot more coming.

—–

*Wikipedia: “Methyl anthranilate acts as a bird repellent. It is food-grade and can be used to protect corn, sunflowers, rice, fruit, and golf courses. Dimethyl anthranilate (DMA) has a similar effect. It is also used for the flavor of grape KoolAid.” Let me add, and squirrels think it’s nasty stuff, too. They might actually have a point, but hey.



Celestial lights
Thursday March 29th 2018, 10:25 pm
Filed under: Friends,Knitting a Gift


Knitting-wise, it’s been a fairly slow week, but I finally finished the beaded silk.

I thought it was nice enough. Even if the dye left my fingertips slightly smudgy–I was definitely going to have to wash this. (I just did.)

I broke the 4 gram remnant off at the last and put the cowl on and went to go take a look.

And in that moment I knew why I’d put up with that snaggy little strand the glass beads were strung along on, the loose dye, the beads, the taking more time than I’d intended. It looks like the constellations. It is exactly her sort of thing. It was so worth every minute.

I can’t wait.



The apartment house
Wednesday March 28th 2018, 10:29 pm
Filed under: Family,Wildlife

We got into the car and shut the doors and just then the mockingbird landed on the edge of the roof right in front of us with a little twig in its beak, its toes curling over the edge, checking for predators that might be watching, eager, ready.

So cool.

But then it saw us seeing it right there and it knew it must not give away where the nest was coming to be, just as Richard was wondering if it could squeeze into the holly bush and I was answering yes of course–and there’s clearly a wren nest in there, too.

This is our 31st spring in this house and the first one where I was sure they really could squeeze in there. Or, with those stabby leaves, that they’d even want to.

The mockingbird eyed me and did a little hop into the air with Olympic ice skater grace that landed it facing the opposite direction as if to lead our gaze far away to the left. See? Not over there. Nope nope nope not even thinking about it.

We pulled out of the driveway, and as the car was being shifted into drive I glanced back as the mockingbird dove into that small side gap on the upper right side of those dense, prickly leaves and completely vanished from the world.

No squirrels or crows would be attacking its babies. They were going to be safe and snug inside here.



It was a dark and swarmy, nigh
Tuesday March 27th 2018, 10:21 pm
Filed under: Life,Wildlife

Great picture, I know, but the sun was behind those trees and I didn’t want to go too far out there.

My first thought was a confused, termites swarm after the first rain of the season and this sure ain’t it.

My second was, is that the hive? There was this frantically kinetic cloud of yes it was bees, zipping in ovals over our yard and the neighbors’.

I had a sudden thought a few minutes in and checked the inside reader re the mango tree: 88F. It was warm outside but not that warm–I needed to turn those Christmas lights off, and the auto version that takes care of that has been nonfunctional for a month or two. Which hasn’t been an issue; it’s been cold enough for them to just stay on, pretty much, but not today.

A wild hive (or someone’s escaped domestic one) has been living just immediately on the other side of the fence from that tree. It simply moved into the compost pile there one day and stayed, taking care of the neighbors’ garden and mine.

I walked out there slowly, hopefully non-threateningly, and pulled that plug.

A few ran circles around my face but other than that they left me alone.

After awhile some of them seemed to need to rest (while
a few zipped off towards my peach flowers) and little by little, as I watched from safely inside again, wishing I could dare go out there with a camera again, wishing I were taller so it would be of any use, quite a few landed on the top of the fence. So many that it started to glow gold in the afternoon sun. One would occasionally pop up and zip around some more like a toddler on its second wind.

I had errands to run and when I came back there was no sign of them, and whether they were swarming to follow their queen to someplace new or settling back down now after a major upset I have no idea.

But I have now seen bees swarm, and it was quite the sight.



It sparkles!
Monday March 26th 2018, 10:51 pm
Filed under: Friends,Garden,Knitting a Gift

Figs!

The woman at Stitches who’d beaded her yarns herself, when I told her I loved that her glass beads were so small, told me that they kind of had to be or they’d run together in the strand.

Knowing she wasn’t going to be selling me any more (not online anyway) till her show season was over, I went looking for what I could find. I bought some beaded silk yarn from this lady and in talking to her, found out she had some in black, too, and in a bit of a leap of faith ordered a skein of that as well.

I’m so glad I did.

The beads on these are a bit bigger (but not big) and heavier and do tend to come in the occasional clump. Alright then. I just take them as they come and keep on going–part of the pattern of the thing, I figure, and it’s coming out soft and sparkly and absolutely gorgeous. Altogether the most perfect thing I could have found for the person I’m knitting it for.



So he got to look forward to making her happy, too
Sunday March 25th 2018, 10:25 pm
Filed under: Friends,History,Knitting a Gift,Lupus

My thanks to all those who participated in the March for our Lives yesterday–I would have given anything to join in. But lupus. And sun.

But wow those kids! They are the courage and the conscience of the nation.

Knitting stuff: my friend Karen’s son told me his wife was home with a cold. You should have seen his face light up when I gave him the butter-yellow cowl to take to her–and then the matching hat for their baby on the way. The joy and the love for both of them and the anticipation… I came away feeling how fortunate they were to have each other. That baby is going to grow up in a happy home.



Creamed
Saturday March 24th 2018, 10:49 pm
Filed under: Family,Friends,Knitting a Gift,Life

After the afghan, I did a cowl in Malabrigo’s Solis blue/green colorway Thursday and Friday and wondered what to start and for whom. So I said a little prayer: You know who most needs the next thing the soonest.

And out of all my new Stitches stash and all my older stash, you know what answered that? What demanded to be next?

That same cream cashmere/cotton, (mine was a heavier weight) of which there was just enough (that was already scoured) left from that afghan to make a hat.

Again?!

It’s like I can’t get away from that yarn. (Two afghans in six months and another cone waiting to be a third.) I confess I had to let the thought percolate a bit and left it for the morning, and then left it for the afternoon till I finally decided both that I was being ridiculous and needed to get to it–and till it had come to me what pattern to use. Till I knew, and I did, exactly what pattern it had to be. Maybe not for the recipient’s sake but for mine.

A cream, almost white hat with cotton.

Like the one that was my mother-in-law’s… (Where did I post that story?) Only this time it would not vanish into the wild.

I had gotten my late mother-in-law’s chemo caps sent back to me after her death, and on impulse I had grabbed one to wear out to dinner with friends on a chilly evening. None of us ever saw it again. I retraced my steps, I called the restaurant, but it was gone.

And yet mixed with that great sense of loss–I had made that for MomH!–was this strong feeling that all was not actually lost, that it had gone to someone who needed it. It was cotton. It was non-allergenic. It was pretty. It was warm, because I had knitted it doubled fingering weight on size 3 needles, an aching task (especially with those cables) that I could only put a couple of rows into a day but I did it for her.

And now for someone else, whoever they were. I might not know them but they were known to G_d, and there was a comfort there that I did not expect and it has stayed with me whenever I’ve thought about that hat.

So. Cream, almost white. Half cotton, half cashmere, bigger needles, easier to work with, so soft. Make it just like Mom’s had been. A cable going sideways around the head, stitches picked up lengthwise to knit straight up from there, curving decreases in a pinwheel at the top.

I knew exactly who it was for and I couldn’t wait to give it to her and now it is done and I can.

This time, since the recipient isn’t a tender-headed woman balded by chemo, it has a tag inside saying who made it for her. If somehow it should get lost, it can make its way back.



Peachy
Friday March 23rd 2018, 10:21 pm
Filed under: Garden

Thought I’d share a few new peach blossoms for those of you whose winter seems endless this year. (If you ever want instant gratification followed by a lot of pruning work, buy a fruit tree with standard-height rootstock: that Indian Free just turned two.)

Here, let me walk a little closer.



And the afghan is on its way
Thursday March 22nd 2018, 10:33 pm
Filed under: Life

Post office, laundry, cleaning stuff, organizing stuff, grocery shopping and running into an old friend, picking up the daughter at the airport and taking her straight out to dinner before seeing her off again. It was so good to see her for whatever time her schedule could squeeze in during her trip.

Finally putting my feet up, picking up a cowl project, and putting a half hour into it as the familiar soft green wool wound through my hands.

While thinking, with satisfaction, when the floors are clean? Everything else in the house is halfway already done.



For my daughter by another mother
Wednesday March 21st 2018, 6:39 pm
Filed under: Friends,Knitting a Gift

Two rows of 269 stitches–because I wanted it warm and dense since it’s for a home in snowy Maine–that were then scrunched in by two rows of 181 stitches. Repeated seventy times, fifty minutes per repeat.

I just ran past the finish line on a 3500 minute marathon. Add in the casting on and off, and that was a 59 hour project.

I guess it’s not so bad that it took me so long.



Peachy pink
Tuesday March 20th 2018, 9:54 pm
Filed under: Friends,Garden,Knitting a Gift

Seventy inches. That had been the goal all along.

I put down the wedding afghan project to knit my friend Jerry two hats to wear over his brain tumor surgery scar, and since the afghan is heavy and half cotton it’s hard on the hands and it was easy to let it wait some more while I cast on cowl after cowl.

But it was bugging me, and rightfully so. I was so close. I pulled it out of the overstuffed ziploc today and got to it.

When my hands had had enough for now, I laid it out on the floor.

Seventy. I can’t tell you how good that felt.

I have easily enough on that ball for one more pattern repeat, though, and given that cotton tends to shrink vertically, it would be a good idea. So I will.

Meantime, the Baby Crawford peach (above) still has a few new flowers for the Indian Free that is not yet fully in bloom and can’t set fruit alone. Here’s hoping today’s rain didn’t wash all the pollen away? If anyone knows more on that subject than I do, please let me know. Thanks!

 



Flintstones
Monday March 19th 2018, 10:09 pm
Filed under: Family,Friends,History,Life

I remember the day years ago when we drove Dad to Carmel to see his old Army buddy for the first time since I’d been about three. We held back at the driveway to let Dad walk on ahead of us.

The man saw our car and quickly came out the door to greet us.

I got to see the moment when the two men laid eyes on each other, a mixture of recognition that was delayed just that one slight millisecond–and the unspoken sudden shock at each other’s aging and thus their own in their joy as they threw their arms around each other. It had been so long.

Dad’s buddy’s career was as a producer of the Hanna Barbara cartoons.

So maybe that’s a small part of why I so like this place: it reminds me of Dad’s friend.

Someone has finally bought the Flintstone house. Someone with the money and the will to preserve it and the hillside it’s built into, someone who walked in the door and fell in love at first sight, someone with a keen sense of whimsy.

Someone who’s added fifteen-foot dinosaurs, cartoon mushroom sculptures and Fred himself, with more to come. Because she can, and why not?

I’ve seen it at a distance driving by and had wondered, and those pictures are a treat.

I love that the original architect got to see his masterpiece being loved all over again.



Love your dear ones
Sunday March 18th 2018, 10:54 pm
Filed under: Food,Friends,Knitting a Gift,Life

The friend I knitted the purple for was wearing an outfit today that would look smashing with the butterscotch cowl, and she definitely thought so, too. Got that one right even when I got that one wrong.

Eli loved his new teal-green hat and the vote of thanks and confidence in his mango-tree-caretaking it conveyed.

Which was as far as I got. I was all ready to tell the expectant mom she could shrink the baby hat for a few minutes in the dryer while the baby was small, let it air dry as the baby got bigger and the superwash treatment would shrink or stretch the fit accordingly. But those came home.

Last Tuesday we got a phone call close to dinner time: my friend Karen (this friend), my visiting teacher in Mormon-speak, had a big dinner ready to set out and she was suddenly in need of people to feed it to and would we like to come? There was no way she by herself could plow through all this.

Hey, love to. A few others showed up at her spur of the moment call and a grand time was had by all and we should do this again, definitely. May I just add, and that was the biggest lasagna pan I have ever seen.

Her daughter-in-law is the one I just knitted the butter cowl and baby hat for.

Karen had a heart attack two days ago and her family was not in church. Any protest of mine that she is way too young for this, well… She is recuperating.

Someone definitely needs me to bring them a good dinner. My pans may be smaller but I’ve got two ovens at the ready and all the love in the world.



Good. Stick around, hon, we need you.
Saturday March 17th 2018, 10:45 pm
Filed under: Friends,Life

We were leaving a potluck dinner that had been quite delightful when I turned to Gail, who’s my mom’s age and was moving carefully, slowly with her walker.

I told her that to quote an old children’s book, Today is done. Today was fun. Tomorrow is another one!

She chuckled that sweet laugh of hers and decided, Yes. Yes it is!

(Baby hat: done with a yard to spare. Tomorrow it gets delivered.)