Day 25: Corona

Corona.  Progress

halts.  First gear not low enough.

Where good road trips die.

Day 24: Baby trees

I don't know if it's all of the rain (actual precipitation!) that we had this year, or if I've just noticed for the first time, but there are baby trees everywhere.

Before going to Bluesapalooza, I mentioned that I managed to get a hike in.  I finally was able to go to the Minarets viewpoint by the trail, rather than the road - the last two times I was here, the trail was completely covered with snow.  As was the road, come to think of it:

Tilly didn't mind.

But yesterday, there were only small patches of snow, and I was able to be on the trail, hiking under trees.  For me, the high Sierra come with a scent memory that is so powerful that whenever we come to the mountains and I stop and close my eyes and inhale, a goofy grin comes over me - it's the scent of sun-warmed pine needles and decomposing granite.  There's really nothing else like it in the world. 

Back to the baby trees.  I first noticed baby oaks on my favorite walk (more on that another time).  And then, when we were here in June, we stepped out into a clearing surrounded by Jeffrey pines, and all over the ground, everywhere, there were baby pines, still with their little pine nut seed caps.  I don't know if you can see those little brown caps on top of the needles, but that's what they are.

It's amazing to me - they are so tenacious, so small.  I can't quite imagine how they get from this state to their huge, long-lived adult selves.  I found myself treading very carefully anytime I stepped off the trail.  And coming right behind them is the next year's crop:

Are there baby trees where you are?

A snowy long weekend

As you may know, California's drought appears decidedly to be on hiatus.  Read: we've been getting some serious precipitation. 

Here's a funny thing about that.  I love rain.  I love cold, wet winters.  (Among other things, cold wet winters means snow in the mountains - we'll get to that soon.)  But since getting a horse, I have become decidedly less enamored of rain.  Rain means no turn-outs and no lunging.  And no turn-outs and no lunging means a fresh and frisky horse.  Which means I don't ride.  It's interesting how adding a new activity to my life has completely changed my outlook on weather.

(I got a new camera, about which I am tremendously excited.  Among other things, it is much smaller and lighter than our old good digital camera, with better resolution.  And I can take close-ups again!  Say hi, Disco.)

Our local flora and fauna, however, feel no such ambivalence towards the rain.  Everything around here is bursting out with whatever growth it can muster. 

 Even some of my favorite old trees are looking happier with their feet wet.

Of course, all this rain also means snow!  Rick has been watching the snow reports at Mammoth like a hawk.  When the base got to 15 feet, he started giggling like a child on Christmas eve.  So, for the long weekend, it was pretty obvious where we were going to go.  We got out of town on Thursday afternoon and beat the storm to Mammoth.  Which was a good thing, because by the time we got down the mountain after skiing on Friday, it was hard to find the car.

Glad we didn't drive through all that snow to get there!  The skiing did get a bit hairy here and there, when the mountain was enveloped in clouds and whiteout conditions...

(That's Rick and Younger Daughter, just upslope of me.)  And the top of the mountain didn't open all weekend long - I think it's the first time ever that we've been there and not been able to ski the whole mountain.  When the sun peeked through the clouds, though, the view down into the valley was stunning.

And there was always some Mammoth Brew Co goodness at the end of the day to take away the aches and pains.

The knitting got some run time, too.

(If you look closely, you'll see that's a Bohus reproduction Wild Apple on my head - toasty warm and good-looking to boot!  Those Swedes know a thing or two about keeping warm in the winter.  And what you can't see is that my handspun, handknit cowl is tucked into my coat, keeping my chin and neck toasty warm even in the worst of the wind on the chairlift.)

On the way home, we were treated to stunning views of the eastern Sierra

And the western White Mountains peeking through the clearing storm.

I didn't neglect my knitting, either, although pictures will have to wait for next time.  I finished a hat for Younger Daughter (Ysolda Teague's Snapdragon Tam), and on the drive home, I cast on for my Oa, which I am very excited about.

And I think that's enough for now!  What did you all do for the long weekend?

Coming off hiatus

Wow.  It's been almost exactly four months since I posted.  On the one hand, it feels like it's been forever, so four months makes sense; on the other hand, it just doesn't feel that long, somehow, probably because the time has been very full. 

To give you a brief idea.  We travelled.

Yes, that's looking across the Golden Horn to Sultanahmet.  In Istanbul.  Yes, we were in Turkey during the unrest.  No, we didn't run into any trouble.  Yes, we ended up driving down into the southeast of Turkey, into Mesopotamia (!!), to about fifty miles north of Syria (yes, driving in Turkey is quite an adventure).  No, still didn't run into any trouble.  Yes, it was an amazing experience.  Yes, I'll definitely write more about it in a post that isn't of the catch-up sort - it's worth some discussion.

The Blue Mosque. I absolutely fell in love with the muscular grace of mosque architecture.  There is something about the overlapping layers of domes that appeals to me deeply. 

We visited very old underground cities in Cappadocia (clearly people were not as tall as Rick back then; actually, in Turkey, they mostly still aren't).

And even older Neolithic ruins (that's Catal Huyuk, 10,000 years old); you could see the scorch marks from people's cooking fires.  That absolutely floored me.

Ephesus.  Where I had a revelation when it suddenly hit me who those Ephesians were that Paul was always writing to.  Dude.

We saw very old Turkish spindle whorls (these are from early Troy).

And less-old ones (this one's about fifty years old, and still in use, which is why it didn't come home with me).

We also went to Michigan, where we got to spend some wonderful time with family: my sister- and brother-in-law, and our niece.  I really treasure this time each summer that we've done it; I feel very lucky in my siblings-in-law.  This year, it was all about searching for waterfalls.

The cousins got to spend a lot of time together on the trail.

So did the grown-ups.

There was time for Uncle Geoff to try to teach the girls (and, I confess, me) how to skip stones.

And, you know, the family that goes into underground mines together, stays together!

My last trip took me to Seattle, where I got to spend the weekend with a fabulous group of women, including Erica, and Ellen and Jan (the others are, sadly, blogless, but no less wonderful and amazing and inspiring to me in so many ways), under the tutelage of Susanna Hansson, studying Bohus sweaters.  That, too, is fodder for another post (especially as I am now the proud owner of one of the three Bohus sweater kits that I would like to own, and am getting ready to cast on the yoke; you will undoubtedly hear more about that in the coming weeks and months - and, one fears, years - than you might like), but meanwhile, a taste:

(I fell in love with the one in the foreground there; alas that it is not available as a kit.)


I did knit, among all of that, mostly things which involved a lot of stockinette, and about which I will post next time.  I also came to realize that this seems to be a pattern with me - this avoidance of the computer and, largely, the interwebs, during the summer.  My watchword for this summer has been "mindfulness", for many reasons, and one of the things that I was trying to do was to be mindful of what was going on with me, vis-a-vis the computer.  I have come to realize that, as I am sure is true of many people, there are some things that I find it easier to be disciplined about than others.  Being an introvert, most of those things, for me, involve tasks that do not include engagement with other people.  For example, I can almost always, no matter how tired I am, make myself do background reading for articles I'm writing, or reading for prepping my classes.  I am pretty good, in the realm of knitting, at, say, starting second socks/mittens/sleeves.  I'm even not awful at plugging away at projects until they're finished. 

Among the things that require huge discipline for me to get to is the dreaded email.  I really, REALLY have a hard time with email (I'm even worse about answering the phone, though, and making return calls; I don't like the phone at all).  However, I have come to realize that letting my inbox pile up, especially during the school year, is just a recipe for a sick stomach and disaster.  Especially since becoming chair, I have had to be very disciplined about staying on top of email, about not shunting things I don't want to deal with to the bottom of the pile, never to emerge again - it just doesn't work out well if I want to get the job done with any modicum of success.  So I'm really (pretty) good about it during the year.  And then June comes, and the email rush becomes much less, and everyone knows that academics are "off" during the summer (hahahaha - note I did not list all the academic stuff I did in the last few months), so I kind of let it go, and I find that my natural aversion to the computer comes rising to the top again.

I really have a love/hate relationship with the internet.  On the hate side, it involves things like email (see above), and it really can be a huge time-suck.  I hate walking away from an hour in front of the screen, wondering where the heck the time went and what I had to show for it.  On the love side, I have some really good friends on the other side of that screen, whom I never would have met without being online, and I do miss them when I fall off the face of the internet.  This summer, I definitely erred on the side of falling off.  I think I got a lot of really important work done on and for myself as a result of it, but I also hope that people know that it isn't any kind of statement about how much I value the friendships whose interface is largely online.  I know that I need to find some kind of way to balance both the intensity of my screen time during the academic year (not helped right now by teaching my first-ever hybrid - half online, half in-person - class), and the total avoidance of it during my time off.

So that's it, in brief.  I do have knitting to show in my next post (one new sweater, the Northmavine hoody actually on my body, a wrap, and some socks, plus a few things in progress), and some spinning (my first ever gradient-roving yarn).  Horseback riding continues, and the chickens are (mostly) still with us.  Irish dance continues for Younger Daughter, and Older Daughter is getting ready to take the test for her driver's permit (how did that happen?).  Life continues.

Reboot

Thank you for all of the comments and feedback on my sweater conundrum.  My final conclusion was that the whole thing was trouble (very precise and technically-oriented, I know), so I ripped out both halves of the edging and started again.  Slowly.  I picked up for the outside facing, and then ran a lifeline through the stitches (which wasn't easy, as these are small stitches, knitted relatively tightly on small needles), so that I'd be able to find them again easily when I went back.  Then I knitted the front facing, put it evenly onto two needles (to keep from squishing all the stitches and making them unmanageable when I went back for the inside facing), and went back to pick up the purl bumps just above the legs of the original stitches (the legs being easy easier to spot now that they were on a lifeline).  That took eons, but it worked.  I should mention that there was also some very careful (and time-consuming) counting (and re-counting) of the 497 stitches on both sets of needles prior to the knitting of the inside facing.  Then I knitted them all together for the three needle bind-off.  That took the better part of all the knitting time I could devote to it last week (about 15 minutes to rip out everything I'd done, and then hours and hours - literally, though I wish I were exaggerating - to get it all done again).  I had that pretty much done by latelate Saturday night, when Older Daughter got home from this:

(Some of you may recognize the signs of prom.)  In fact, much of Saturday was spent on the getting-ready part of prom (getting nails done, for example).  There was even hair-doing.  I'm not much of a girl, really, and you've all seen how short my hair is these days, so that involved going out to actually purchase a hair-dryer and curling iron (!!).  I think Older Daughter was deeply concerned that the curling iron part of things might end up like this, but I finally let her know that I did, in fact, once upon a time own (and even use!) such a thing on myself, and it all turned out OK in the end.

Sunday morning (after coffee and croissants, my requested mother's day treat), Rick and I headed out (leaving prom-exhausted girls behind) to this:

The start of the Amgen Tour of California.  In downtown Escondido.  Where it topped 100 degrees before the race even started at 11:15.  After a quick lunch at home, we went out to the last King of the Mountain points banner to watch the riders come up their last big hill (they'd already climbed Mt. Palomar in the heat, poor guys); it was still over 100 degrees, under 25% humidity, and they looked pretty beat.  We stood in the shade and cheered (we even showed up on the TV coverage, heh).  I love a good stage race - we'll see how this one turns out.

Then home we went, where I finally (finally!!) picked up stitches around the bottom of the sweater, completed an i-cord cast-off around all of those stitches plus the ones still on the needles around the front and hood (it felt amazingly like a walk in the park after the facing debacle), and then did the same thing for the sleeves.  And wove in the ends.  And then this morning, knowing that we were in for another scorcher, I soaked and blocked the sweater before leaving for work.  The sweater is now, of course, quite dry.  All that remains is to put in the zipper.

(Bad picture, but it was that or nothing.)

That, my friends, is a sweater.  Ends woven in, i-cord edging complete.  Ends woven in (have I mentioned how many ends there were in this sweater?).  And double-sided front/hood edging?

Done.

A theme

I was taking pictures of various things I've been working on, and looking at pictures of some of the non-fiber pursuits I've been engaged in recently, and I think that there's a theme arising.  Let's see if you see it, too.

Maybe?

It's all purple and green around here, apparently.  I've been gazing out of my office window longingly these last few weeks, noting that the ceonothus are in bloom, but unable to get out there to enjoy them.  Last weekend, I took a nice long hike in the hills behind my house, and, as you can see from that top photo, they are blooming away.

And buzzing with bees.  Walking along the path bordered in these bushes is like walking through a giant beehive.  The bees are so focused on the flowers that they almost never actually fly into the path.  I went again this morning, much earlier in the day, and found that bees' alarm clocks must ring later than mine.  It was quiet on the way out, and I got up to the top of the hill to find a lovely view waiting for me.

Mist-covered hills and mountains stretching away to the east.  And back down again in time to catch the sun making it over the big hill I'd just climbed.

By the time I got back down, the bees were hard at work again.  I was relieved. 

There's also green and purple in the latest knitting I've been doing.

This is the body of the Northmavine Hoody, a Kate Davies pattern from her new book, Colours of Shetland, which I absolutely adore.  Totally aside from the patterns (there are quite a few in there that I'd knit), her writing is lovely, and she has essays about each of the places that inspired the patterns in the book.  It's truly a pleasure to read and look at.  The patterns are also well-thought-out, with the kinds of little details that I enjoy seeing in my knitwear - you can see the turned hem in the picture up top, and this pattern has several other details like that, the sort of thing that make it look professional when it's done - handmade, rather than homemade.  As you can see, I have finished the body, and tonight I will cast on for the first sleeve.  I'd love to finish this before the May Grey sets in around here - I think it could get some use.  It's knitted out of Jamieson and Smith 2-ply jumper weight, on size two needles, so it's a lovely weight, and a nice crunchy wool, in colors that I wear all the time (I admit to a total lack of originality on this one - I ordered the yarn used in the pattern, in the colours used in the pattern - but they are so me!).

And then some of you may have noticed that other picture I slipped in there.  What's that, you may ask?  That is the Cricket loom that my mom bought for me and the girls about a year and a half ago.  We wove the yarn included in the package, and then it rather languished.  When my LYS advertised a weaving class, using exactly this rigid heddle loom, I jumped at it.  So yesterday morning I went in and spent a lovely four hours at the store, re-learning how to dress the loom, and getting some good tips for using it.  When I got home, I spent a busy hour reclaiming my front and back patios from the chickens (have I mentioned that five chickens not only produce a good plenty of eggs, they also produce a good plenty of poop?), and trying to devise some way of arranging various patio furniture and cushions so that the chickens will not think that roosting on my patio furniture is a good thing.  (I'm also working on convincing them to return to their coop at night to roost.  They used to, until they discovered the couch on the front patio, so now they need retraining.  Any suggestions?)  Once that was done, I settled down on the back patio under the blooming wisteria (more purple and green, but no photos), listening to the bumblebees bumble about in the flowers, and weaving.  This morning, I wrapped the whole thing up, and got this.

I'm pretty happy with the final result, especially given that it's my first time out, really. 

The warp is a merino/cotton blend, in a solid seafoam green.  The weft is a linen/rayon/cotton blend, variegated (as you can see).  I finished it by washing it in my washer on the wool setting, and then chucking it in the dryer for a bit.  I wanted to soften the linen up, and figured that tightening up the wool a bit wouldn't be a bad thing, and I was right.  It is much more drapey now, and will probably continue to soften up with wear.  As I was weaving, I got curious as to how this would have turned out differently had I switched the warp and weft yarns, so as soon as I was done, I redressed the loom, using the linen/rayon/cotton blend for the warp.  I didn't have much yarn left - really, this second time around is more in the nature of an experiment, and good practice for locking down in my memory how to dress a loom - so this won't be a "real" scarf.  I also realized that the girls had "misplaced" several bits and bobs (read: the clamps for fixing the loom to the table, and the dent hook), but I managed just fine.

A heavy box pinned the loom in place and, in case anyone cares, an orifice hook works nicely as a dent hook.

As I said, this will be half the width of the first one, but I'm plugging along, and it's interesting to see how different the two yarns look when woven the other way around.

I know I'd said I wasn't going to get into weaving - too many fiber sports already.  But I figure a little bit couldn't hurt, right?  And it seems like a great way to start using more of my handspun, not to mention the rest of my stash.  In fact, to that end, I appear to have ordered another heddle, a ten-dent one this time (I don't think I'm quite using my vocabulary correctly; I'll get there), which is more appropriate to weaving the fingering weight yarn that makes up so much of my knitting and spinning stash.  I may also have ordered a stand for the loom and a book with some ideas for rigid heddle loom projects.

Oops.

Many steps

I was about to say that I can't believe it's been over a month since I last posted, but that's not true.  I've been aware that I haven't been posting, and I've also been aware that it's an artifact of something that I know to be true about me, which is that I can only be disciplined in a certain number of areas at the same time - anything else just falls off the table.  This last month has involved a tremendous amount of discipline at work (yes, I'm looking at you, Fall schedule build), in my knitting (you'll see what I mean), and in the area of exercise.  The blog just fell right off the table, mostly because in those moments when I wasn't doing one of those things, I did not want to be on the computer - I wanted to be knitting, or reading, or talking to the girls and Rick (or all three at once).

First, knitting.  I finished the Gathered Blouse sweater (a long time ago, actually - I just haven't been able to get it together enough to be wearing it when it's a) light out, b) the beginning of the day, and c) a camera is nearby).  But it is done, and I am actually wearing it now, so in lieu of no photos, here are some bad photobooth photos (better than not posting, still, right?).

It is definitely a loose fit, and I think I could have gone down a size (and yes, I have washed it on hot and dried it - this is what I've got).  It's very comfortable, though, and the cotton is soft soft soft, which I love.

Not a great shot, but it lets you see the pleats around the neckline.  There were a lot of things I really loved about this pattern - it is very well thought out, and brings some nice details in, like the gathers at the neck and sleeve tops, and the short rows that raise the back neck a little.  And the braid across the small of the back.

So, I do wish I knitted this in a smaller size, but not enough to pull it out.

I also finished the couch blanket (the Mitered Crosses Blanket) that I've been working on for ages and ages (I was rather embarrassed when I looked at the start date on my Rav page).  This is part of my goal to use stash yarn (the sweater was knitted from stash) and to finish projects more often than starting new projects with new yarn.

Knitting the blanket didn't require discipline, really - it's a fun knit, the squares are small and portable, and easy to do without looking at the pattern.  But putting it together (involving picking up stitches and then doing a three-needle bind-off) took a bit more self-discipline.  And weaving the ends in?

That took a glass of wine.  It was a big pile.


But the blanket has gotten a LOT of use - I haven't even blocked it yet, because one of us is always sitting with it.

I did, finally, manage to get a picture of it laid out.

All in all, I am very happy with my first (non-baby) blanket.  It's a good size for covering most of oneself, if one is small.  And in fact, it served as a blanket on the nights I slept on the couch last week to keep my coughing from waking Rick up (I got felled by one of those horrible head colds that are going around - more on that in a moment).  If you don't mind finishing work, this is one I recommend.

The other area of self-discipline lately has to do with a challenge on the walking front that I took on, encouraged by my SIL (who has REALLY been challenging herself in this area lately) - a half-marathon.  I've been working up to longer and longer walks (aiming for my old racewalking speed from back in the day - and, someday I hope, faster), and I finally committed and signed up for the San Diego half-marathon, which took place this past Sunday.  Of course, last week, I ended up getting really sick for the first time in years - I was truly worried I'd have to pull out (it's hard to walk 13.1 miles when you can't breathe).  But thanks to a Z-pac and some sleep, plus the weeks of training I'd done before, I went.  (I just want to note that this was the day the time changed, and that I had to be ready for a 7:18 am start, which meant getting down there by about 6:30, which meant leaving the house at about 5:45, which meant getting up at what felt like really really early, since all of that was - let's be honest with ourselves - an hour earlier than that.)

There's the start (from the back of the second-to-last wave).  And I walked that sucker, I truly did.

(One of only three photos taken of me by Older Daughter.)  And I finished.  As a walker, I'd been hoping to make a 3 hour total time.  By the time I got to the race, though, having been really sick all week, I was worried that I wouldn't make the 3 1/2 hour course closure time.  But I did.  In fact, I finished in 2:54:21.  I'm good with that.

But no pictures of the finish!  No pictures with my medal!  Rick and the girls came down to cheer me on at around mile 10 (after the big hill - that's where Older Daughter took that picture), and again at the finish.  My dear friend Vivienne came down to congratulate me, too.  We had enough time to drink some water, eat a bagel and get the girls something to eat, and then we had to race off to get Younger Daughter to the first of her St. Patrick's Day Irish dance performances (it's that time of year when her school goes to various senior centers, churches, and VFWs to perform for St. Patrick's Day).  To which I went, sweaty and footsore, but pretty proud.

And there it is.  That's what I've been doing.  I'm scaling back the long training walks for a little while, to get ready to walk a 5K with Older Daughter, and the first pass of the fall schedule is in, so with luck I'll have more time and energy on the weekends to post updates on what I'm doing (which includes knitting another sweater and, soon, taking a class on how to weave with my little Cricket loom), and to catch up on what everyone else has been doing in the knitting world.  I've missed it!