Rhinebeck!

It was a fiber fiend's dream come true! Oh my goodness. Yesterday was a wonderful and very full day.

Brett and I left the house around 8:00 and took a beautiful scenic route to the fair. Brett took care of mapping our route and I'm so glad he did because a huge part of the fun of the day was the drive out. We drove through the hometown of Rip Van Winkle, and along a very steep mountain road with a pretty intense drop off to the right.
the drop to the right here was scary! snow on the mountaintops

The colors were awesome and Brett saw a black bear in the road! At exactly the same moment he saw the bear we were driving past a barn that had a big weathervane in the shape of a black bear, so while Brett was shouting, "Look at that big black bear!" and I was saying, "yeah, that's really neat" we weren't at all on the same page and I missed the real wild bear because I was impressed with a weathervane!

Once we got to the fair, we hit the bathrooms and stopped to check out the arena. We were just in time to catch the leaping lamas competition.

we identified an early favorite leaping lama



but had to cheer hardest for the hometown heroine, Lynn, our neighbor from down the street and her little guy. He was the last alpaca standing in the competition. Way to go Lynn!



We saw the community college students launch pumpkins with homemade trebuchet. It took them a long time to reset everything between launches.
but when they launched it was impressive.



I was most entertained by the dorky non-knitting husbands who spent a lot of time talking amongst themselves about the engineering behind the rigs and episodes of Mythbusters that may or may not have proved one thing or another about the trebuchet's effectiveness as a weapon of war.

We also watched a sheepdog at work and frisbee dog demonstration. These two pups were fast dogs.



There was a ton of fun stuff besides the fiber,


but if it hadn't been for the yarn, we'd have been hanging out at home yesterday not eating awesome gyros and cheese fries. Oh my goodness there was a ton of the fluffy stuff. Brett got a ton of pictures of me walking around with my mouth hanging open and my eyes slightly glazed. And a few were I look like the kind of person who might knock you down and steal your wool if you don't tell me where I can buy it.



(note the one mitten approach to maximize warmth, manual dexterity, and yarn fondling capacities.)




I had a really really nice day.



Also, I came home with sweet loot.






In that mix, I've got some Socks that Rock sock yarn that reminded me of the colors we saw on the trip out, a copy of "The New Stranded Colorwork" signed by the compleately charming Mary Scott Huff (there is a pattern in it called "Norwegian Blue" inspired by the Monty Python dead parrott sketch), some steel grey merino lace for my sweater, a skein of creme colored sportweight that Brett grabbed of his own accord and said, "if you knit me a hat out of this, I would wear it," a skein of solar seawater dyed pearly grey also intended for a Brett knit, and a bump of lovely merino top to spin.

To top it off, on the way home a box magically appeared out of Brett's jacket pocket containing a glorious set of glass knitting needles.

I feel like the Cinderella of knitting! So I need to stop blogging for goodness sake and get to work.

Baaaa

Tomorrow is Rhinebeck!

Budget is set. Brett's handling all the details. All I have to do is go and take as many pictures as possible.

Say it with me now...

RHINEBECK!

Pressure

Last night I had a terrible migraine. I don't often get them, so I've noticed some patterns. Usually they have one of three causes: dehydration, caffeine, or air pressure.

Knowing that if it was caffeine related, there wasn't anything to do, I drank a bunch of water, took a couple Excedrin and went to bed. When I woke up this morning and there was a blanket of snow on the ground I wasn't exactly surprised.


First snow of winter '09-'10: Friday October 16th!

Last winter just about this time, there was a horrible early snow storm that trapped Brett alone in the just moved into house on Donlon without heat, phone, cable, internet, or snowshoes. Can't wait!

Bummer

So, I didn't get the job. I am, as is to be expected, devastated.

I got the call around 1:00 which made for a hard afternoon at the bakery, but Brett came by and gave me a hug and stocked up on tasty goodies. So now instead of asking people how I can help them, all I have to do is sit on the couch and eat the Ben and Jerry's my future husband wisely invested in.

I was told that I was one of the final two candidates. That should make me feel good, and in another week, it probably will. And they liked my presentation so much, they offered me a different position working part time as a museum teacher. If I saw that position posted I would have been just as excited about it as I was about the one I actually interviewed for. Right now, though, it feels like a big time silver medal when I was sure I had earned gold. I will (future tense) be happy about it, I'm sure, but I guess I need some time to grieve.

RHINEBECK!!! couldn't be more longed for or necessary at the moment. As every knitter knows, wool heals all wounds. Ben and Jerry's and love doesn't hurt either.

patience is a virtue

It's Monday. Logically, I know I won't hear about the job at the Hall for "about a week and a half" so, conservatively, Wednesday.

It's killing me. I've been checking my e-mail constantly, hoping that maybe, just maybe, they made a decision early and (joy of joys!) it's me and I can have the job and an office and teach again. It would be very good.

Last Monday I thought that the wait wouldn't be so bad, because I'd be at work and the time would just fly. But it's been impossible not to think about it every minute. I imagine Brett is very tired of me saying, "I really want that job" over and over again. While I know I gave a great interview and I clicked with the staff and my resume is strong, I've been thinking about all the other people who could have interviewed who could be so much more qualified. Grumble grumble.

In the mean time, I'm knitting but I can't show you because it's Christmas Knits. Bwahahahahaha!

POV

I went for a nearly pain free run today and I'm pretty psyched about it. I bought a new pair of running shoes last night at the Sneaker Store in New Hartford and it was a good idea. The knowledgeable staff looked at my feet and my ankles, listened to my price range and found me a lovely pair of stability shoes that let me run 50% longer than I usually do with minimal shin pain. It's going to take a while for them to work their magic, but they feel good today.

Next weekend is the uber awesome New York Sheep and Wool Festival in Rhinebeck, NY. Since I've wanted to go since first hearing about it, I will be dragging Brett and making the pilgrimage down to see the sheep and commune with the People of the Wool. There will be lamb tacos and pumpkin chunking and frisbee dogs and lots and lots and lots of wool. I've decided I need to have a project or two in mind to buy for or I'll probably buy too much.

Project A:
The Featherweight Cardigan needs about 1200 yards of laceweight yarn. It calls for Malabrigo Lace, which would be fantastic, but I bet I can find something as awesome and much more unusual at Rhinebeck. I need something with close to a 470 yd/50 g weight. I want this to be a celebration purchase for when the Hall of Fame offers me the job (cough cough) so I want a nice flexible color I can wear to the office. Pearl grey, or oatmeal, or go bold with a cherry red or maybe even the chartuese in the pictures I first was attracted to.

Project B:
A great pair of socks. It's easy to buy sock yarn, and I knit more socks than anything else.

I'm also giving myself budget room to buy skeins that I fall in love with, provided I buy enough to make a matching hat and mitten set.

I've been super good about not buying yarn for the stash this year and last and Rhinebeck is a once a year event so I'm ok with indulging this year.

I've decided to make Saturdays a new weekly ritual where I take a picture of my view. I love reading blogs with lots of pictures. So every Saturday I'm going to point the camera out the window and show you a shot of the weather, the scenery, the whatever. Today it's the fall colors across the street and the pumpkin on the front step. Enjoy!

Leaf Peepers

I have absolutely no good reason for not posting before now, other than I don't have much of interest to report.

We're still unpacking boxes, more slowly now than in the beginning, but now we're down to knick knacks and whatnots instead of clothes and cooking utensils. That's nice.

Our new rental is extremely awkwardly set up for furniture placement. It's a beautiful house architecturally, but it's an old house, so there's quite a few big windows that conflict with putting things against walls. The second story is a well finished attic, so the ceilings pitch down very abruptly. Again, a ton of non-functional space. We are left with rather a lot of furniture that doesn't fit well in the house making things feel odd and uncomfortable. We're set up for optimal usage of the space, in that things make sense where they are, but they don't feel or look like they're in the right spot. Hard to explain.

Cooperstown is drop dead beautiful right now. Rather a lot of golden fall sunshine on dramatic hills. Lots of pretty colors in the trees. We live right next to a cider mill now so when I get home from the bakery I'm greeted by the smell of apple cider and pie and woodsmoke. Not bad, all around.

Other good news:
Brett and I got a joint membership at the local gym. It was more expensive than it would have been anywhere else, but it's still affordable and a really good idea for us both. The heated indoor flat track is a lot more enjoyable to run on than the cold, rainy, unlit hilly roads. We can also cross train in the pool or on the climbing wall, or use the bowling alley, or whatever, so that's great.

I interviewed for a position at the Baseball Hall of Fame on Monday. I really really really really really want the job, so I hope they think I'm as perfect for the position as I think the position is for me. I'll update with either shouts of jubilation or gnashing of teeth and rending of garments sometime next week.

In crappy news I have a horrible head cold that won't go away and I feel like ugh.

Wedding Bells

So it's been weeks since I got back from Minnesota and I never got a chance to tell you about the actual WEDDING.

There were two whole days of primping beforehand. We got our nails done on Saturday.

On Sunday the wedding party did hair. I got a little emotional when Chelsea put on her veil.



The ceremony was in Chel's folks' backyard. Everything was lovely and I think Chelsea and family and friends put in a ton of work to get it all so perfect. Chelsea and Jeff were married with a view of a calm lake behind them. The sun was high in the sky and quite warm, really and I used the wedding program to alternately shade my eyes and give myself a little breeze.

Directly after the ceremony, the wedding folk ran off to take a million photographs

and the rest of us found our way to our seats for dinner.

All the flowers were from the local farmer's market and assembled by one of Chelsea's friends. I think our centerpiece was the prettiest.

Brett and I had a wonderful time.


And it was great to see all my girls again.


We left the dinner in the garden and headed to the Five Event Center in Minneapolis for drinks and dancing.



I hope Chelsea and Jeff enjoyed their party as much as we all did. It was a great way to celebrate an amazing love.

I will tell you one thing. That Doctor Who show gets it absolutely right. For real, yo.

Traveling Sock

On our journey to the Land of a Thousand Lakes, I started a pair of socks for mindless downtime knitting, in the grand tradition of the Yarn Harlot's traveling sock.

Brett and I left New York Wednesday afternoon bright eyed and bushy tailed with two (matching) suitcases, snacks, and two skeins of Koigu KPPPM and a set of US2 DPNs.



About a hundred miles down the road I was still working on the finishing repeats in Chels's garter, so I didn't get to work on the socks until we were almost to Pennsylvania. I cast on 8 stitches with a Magic Cast On and finished the toe increases in a hotel room in Mentor just outside Cleveland.


The next day we visited the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Though the sock went, I couldn't get any pictures inside the hall as cameras are forbidden. Boo to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
I did pick up a souvenier button though, which I think becomes the sock very well.


Cleveland is a very pretty city, really, right on the water with all those fancy pants sky scrapers.

The heel turn came conveniently when we stopped for the night in Clarendon Hills at Mom and Dad's.


We stopped at a rest stop in Wisconsin that seredipitously turned out to be in Aldo Leopold Territory, which was very appropriate considering I was meeting up with college friends who all read the Sand County Almanac with me in Freshman Studies.


When we stopped at the Minnesota border, the first of the pair was nearly done.


In Minnesota Kate put some stitches into the sock and Chels put some stitches into it too. I bound off the first of the pair at the bachelorette while playing Bridal 20 Questions.


On Saturday, the sock went to visit TCF Bank Stadium where the jumbo screen was showing Minnesota playing Syracuse and we got to watch the Gophers win (while we were) at their beautiful new stadium.

I intended to have pictures of the second sock at the reception and forgot to put it in my purse when we left. Major bummer.


I knit it back through Wisconsin and stopped at the Illinois welcome center for a photo op of the sock on my native soil.

Again, turned the heel at Mom and Dad's where Grandma and Aunt Karen put some stitches into the sock too and then I knit knit knit all the way home. Cast off a day or two after we got back to NY.

So very productive, though now I'm being politely reminded that there are still a pair of KC socks languishing on my needles...

Pros and Cons

Hard Things:

A) The pets have been pretty badly behaved since we got back from the trip and I don't know what the trouble is, other than they don't have as much room to screw around in now that we're in the smaller house. Honus has been especially rowdy, picking on Abby just for fun, and confronting Chester at inappropriate hours of the morning. We need to do more running.

B) I got used to staying in a beautiful house, sleeping in a beautiful bed, having my beautiful friends close at hand and feeling ok spending a little more money than usual over the vacation and it is hard to return to reality.

C) Pretty much everything is still boxed and a total mess. I can't walk around without tripping on something and I can't find anything I need when I need it.


Good Things:

A) I have tons of knitwear ideas bouncing around my skull. In MN, I went to a real yarn store and I felt the Knitting Spirit move me. On vacation I finished a pair of socks and now I want to do a whole bunch more. I'm imagining a big wooly sweater with long sleeves, a zipper, cables, and a hood. How about a few pairs of solid socks in subtle stitch patterns? A matching hat and colorwork mitten set. A pair of argyle socks. A colorwork sweater solid enough to wear as a fall coat...

B) Mom and Karen and I found a beautiful wedding dress and we bought it. So I can cross that off the wedding list.

C) I'm about to have about 20 extra hours a week to work out and cook and plan wedding stuff and volunteer at a local museum and get Penelope Fiberworks off the ground. This is a Very Good Thing.

lace diamonds

I am back in NY. It is good to be with the pets and good to have access to all of my things and nice to not be running around or sitting in a car.

But the trip was great and it's hard to go back to day to day life after such a fantastic vacation. Blog coverage of the event shall be in two parts.

To whet you appetite a bit let's start with that heirloom lace.

I suggested a while back that I might knit a garter for Chelsea's wedding. That perhaps it would be purple and silk.

Well, living in the backwoods of NY cut down my yarn options, and I went with white merino wool instead of purple silk, but I did knit a garter for Chelsea. Even better, it fit. And best of all she wore it proudly.

Chelsea's Diamonds

Project Specs~

Yarn: Laceweight Merino Wool

Needles: My superslick Addi Turbo US 0s circular needle. The needles were probably a little too slick for the work I was doing. There were at least half a dozen instances where either Abby or Brett, or (yes) I myself jerked a needle a little too hard and pulled out all my stitches.

Pattern: My own design, just for Chels, based on a lace design published in a free download by Interweave, first published in the January/February 1997 issue of PieceWork. The lace edging I used was romantically titled Rule 58 Lace Edging, originally from Florence Home Needle-work published in 1887 by Nonotuck Silk Company. I used this pattern for the bottom half of the lace, ran a pair of (YO, K2tog) down the middle so I could lace a ribbon through the garter, and I did a very simple eyelet on the upper ruffle for a little bit of garter stitch calm in the storm of all those lace diamonds.

Size: About 30 inches of lace, gathered to fit the bride.

Reflections: Writing my own chart for this pattern absolutely saved my life. No way would I have ever finished if I needed to read the instructions for every row. Probably would have slipped the first stitch on the eyelet side for a more perfect edging. Would have chosen a more easily memorized pattern so that I could work on it without toting the pattern with me, but for heirloom lace, putting in the extra effort made perfect sense.

I felt rushed to get this done, mostly due to bad project timing thanks to un-lace related life stuff, and next wedding I'll need to make sure I have it done about a week ahead of time so I can give some thought to the blocking, finishing, and presentation. The last stitches in this went into it on the road to the Minnesota and the last blocking pin came out about an hour before I gave it to the bride. She seemed please though, and a gift knitter couldn't ask for anything more.

On my way to sleep

Long days, my friends. Long ass days.

99.9% of our stuff is in the new place. 80% of it is still boxed. Due to the helter skelter grab and go technique we'd adopted as we neared the end of the moving, 100% of those boxes are poorly organized, unmarked messes that will take weeks to properly sort out.

My mission tomorrow is to clean the old place, and fix up the new stove so we can do some actual cooking. I brought home hot dogs and mac and cheese to have a meal on the cheap, but realized that I wasn't going to be able to even boil water on a stove with rusted out dishes under the electric coils.

On top of it all, I'm rushing to finish some serious heirloom lace on a deadline.

I'm in a new house!

Brett's been busting his hind end getting boxes and furniture moved over the last two days while
I've been working 7:30 to 11:00 and then 7:30 to 9:30 making money. I have felt terribly useless knowing that I'm not doing much moving. We borrowed a truck for the day tomorrow and we both have the day off so we're going to try to empty the old house and get it all into the new house.

The internet here is so fast I'm a little dizzy just typing this. The kitchen is repainted and completely awesome. The cell phone works almost all the time. And from where I'm sitting on a couch Brett moved ALL ALONE, watching our DTV and posting a blog, life is pretty good.

Catch you tomorrow!

VanGough cut his own ear off, you know...

Hi.

I'm still alive.

I'm moving into a new place. It's closer to town and a little smaller. Hopefully it will be less costly to heat and the landlords will be easier to deal with. The internet will be faster and cheaper and won't shut off if I use it too much. It'll be good.

But first we have to repaint the kitchen and dining room. So I'm working about 70 hours this week, painting a new house, packing things to move and I haven't had time for much else, sadly. Have faith that this too shall pass and September will be a month of blissful daily blog updates.

I hope.

Summer of love

Hi everyone.

Catch-up:
I've been working lot and lots of hours, though it looks like I'll be able to quit my P&C hours soon. I feel bad about quitting now that they're in full summer swing and I'm office trained, but I do want to have a little time to do other things. Like work on the fiber business, which has majorly been on the back burner. Juggling three jobs, planning a destination wedding with no budget, trying to lose serious poundage, and still have a life is not exactly conducive to also trying to build a business. Ugh.

Still, the days are long and sunny. And though the deer (or something) has taken most of the more exciting plants, there is enough lettuce for salads and the peas are covered in elegant white blossoms. I want to cut armfuls of them and bring them inside, but I know I'd rather eat the peas.

Cooperstown in the summer is a beautiful place to be and I'm happy to be here. The trick is taking time to appreciate it.
Before we got crazy busy, Brett and Honus and I went for a walk around the Glimmerglass State Park. It was a good relaxing day and I'd like to do it again.


I'm also looking forward to my next dyeing day. My favorite results from the last experiment were encouraging. I used simple food coloring dye to color the wool and set it with vinegar. Beacuse eggshells and wool are made from the same material (protein) the same techniques work for both. Unfortunately, you need a lot more dye for grams of fiber than for eggshells, so the color isn't nearly as saturated as I hoped, but it did varegate beautifully.

smooch

Among the things I love about Brett...


When he really cares about you he's not afraid to show it.

Lakefront

Brett's parents, aunt and uncle were in town for a couple days this last week and it was lovely to have the company. We were scheduled to look at a couple houses with a realtor (which was a huge, huge bust) so the family tagged along. Afterwards, we all went to the Lakefront Restaurant for a nice dinner (the duck and the scallops were particularly awesome).

The engagement ring had just come back from the jeweler after being resized, so I got to show off the bling to the very appreciative ladies and tell them the story of how Brett proposed. It was a beautiful day and we were finishing dinner at sunset, so I asked if they would mind taking a picture or two at the spot where Brett actually got down on one knee. We were harassed for aparently "looking funny" in the pictures, but I think we got some good ones. Here's my favorite:



I'm gonna marry that man!

Sunday in the Park with Brett

To start off with: I'm writing this post Monday night, June 2nd, but I am setting it to auto-post in two days because this is An Important Post that I do not want to miss for any reason and because it will give me a deadline of two days to tell as many people as possible about the Important Stuff before this automatically goes live.

When I moved to New York, I moved in the company of a guy. Named Brett. Brett and I met when we were both assistants at the 1900 farm at Living History Farms in IA. We started hanging out pretty much right after I started working there and we got close really fast. It wasn't long before he was my best friend in Des Moines and the one with whom I spent most of my free time. I liked him, but we always made it clear that it was a friendship and that neither was looking for the complications and strings of a "relationship."

When he finally got the job at the Hall of Fame, I was thrilled for him, and I was even more thrilled when he asked if I was going to come with. The way he said it made it seem so obvious that that was what should happen that I said, "of course." We packed up a U-Haul, and drove across the country to our little rental in Fly Creek and he, the animals and I have been a happy little family ever since.

Gradually, the feel of the relationship had changed in little ways. We articulated the fact that we loved each other. We missed each other terribly when he or I had to go away. We bought a vaccuum cleaner together. He put a picture of me on the background of his phone. Nothing ever felt weird, or obligatory, or bad. If anything, when I noticed these changes, it was to be amused at how happy they made me.

Last night, we took a drive down to Oneonta, as we occasionally do, mostly to get rations at the Big Box Store and for an excuse to be out of the house. The day had been really pleasant and the drive to Oneonta was equally nice so I was feeling pretty darn content with life by the time we headed back towards Cooperstown.

As we listened to the Plain White Tees's, "Delihla" on the way home, Brett said he wanted to take a detour into town and look at the lake for a little while. It was chilly, but the idea of a quiet dark lake sounded pretty soothing, so I was up for it. We headed to a our favorite local park with the bronze statue of a hunting Indian and his fathful pooch and benches that all face the lake. We sat and cuddled up for warmth and Brett started talking about how he had been thinking and he had something important to ask me.

(I got a little butterfly in my stomach.)

He told me he tried hard all day, but he couldn't find a ring to give me. Then he got down one knee and said he loved me, wanted to spend the rest of his life with me and asked, "so are you going to marry me?"

I was completely and honestly floored, but I said "of course," because, it seems like the aboslute undeniable right thing to do. Of course I want to marry him, because I love him more than he can guess. Because he helps me happy and helps me be who I am. Because I can't think of another man I have ever felt this way about before. Because I want to be there for him and know he'll be there for me for as long as we both shall live.

Hey guys,

Last night, I got engaged!!

Re-Branding

I think shmooze is a terribly dirty word and I'm not fond of Networking either.

To help get my fiber company off the ground on the right foot (without mixing too many metaphors) I've been doing a lot of reading and research. The library in Cooperstown is a little underwhelming when it comes to books on business even remotely related to starting a company where your main product is your creativity. What I need is literature targeted to artists and mostly I've found that online.

In particular Havi, of "The Fluent Self," has plenty of interesting and encouraging things to say about having your own business. She talks about addressing your personal issues so you can move on and do Good Things. Her writing reminds me of "Eat, Pray, Love" and often advocates a sort of spiritual approach to business, wrapping up meditation and lessons on loving yourself so that you can be unhindered in bringing Your Thing to the world.

Lately, she's been talking about relabeling corporate terminology so that you can get rid of the negative feelings you have towards a proccess or a business essential and make it, basically, more friendly and easier to approach. For her "marketing" is the big bad swear word.

I don't mind marketing so much because it reminds me of a market, like an agora or a forum- an exchange of ideas and goods to the benefit of all. But being a naturally shy person, networking scares the the pants off of me. I know part of my terror is the fear of being judged. A social situation where I would also want to be selling my creativity and having all that judged too? I get clammy hands just at the thought of it. But I think to myself, "what would Havi say?"

Well, probably something like fear is my personal biggest block that will keep me from achieving what I want. That I need to figure out what that fear is doing there and why I have it. What is its point? I should try to accept that I am afraid without beating myself up about it.

Accept that I have fear and that it is something I have created to protect myself from the pain of rejection, of not being good enough. Accept that while the fear is trying to keep me safe it's also keeping me from facing the adversity of criticism and coming out of that adversity stronger in my own sense of self. It's keeping me from being successful in bringing My Thing to the people who want My Thing. And it's hurting me. So today I'm going to say to my fear- "Thank you for wanting to keep me safe. But I got it from here."

And I'm going to relabel "networking."

In the Meantime...

Enjoy the happy kitty fluff.

The Listing Habit I get from my Mother.

My first day off in a week and a half! I'm not quite organized enough in my head to sit down and write you all something cohesive, but I miss chatting with you when the internet decides to only work sometimes. I will write you points.

A. The garden has recovered and is enjoying New York spring. Lettuce, sunflowers, and radishes (thanks for the seeds, Aunt Karen) are up and the tomatoes and peppers are in and doing well.

B. The job at the bakery is great, but the owner encourages snacking and I'm going to have to control myself better than I have been.

C. Being tired and hungry when I get home from work at 9pm has lead to some pretty destructive food habits. All I have been craving is fresh, tasty stir fry, skewers of chicken satay, and giant salads topped with juicy grilled chicken, but all I have been eating are bags of chips and pints of Ben and Jerry's. I've never been one to believe that strict diets are healthful, but mine needs serious whipping into shape. I want to modify my diet to fit with my work schedule, or I will not fit into my summer wardrobe.

D. I also need to get more physical activity. With the DVR on the TV, I've got a week's worth of Yoga programs stored and I like them, but I need to do the cardio and weight training too.

E. I have a very persistant internal edit button. I know the edit button is just there to keep me safe from criticism and to keep me from hurting other people, but sometimes I really really hate knowing I'm restricting myself all because I fear external reaction. Nowhere do I feel the Button's hulking presence more than when I'm trying to write for this blog. I started and stopped this post at least a dozen times, worried that anything I said would be boring and unamusing and uninsightful and that I would dissapoint people if it wasn't perfect.

The complete, unfortunate truth is that I'm not perfect. I really need to work on the self-delusion that if I'm not, I don't deserve to be loved and cared for. You who read this blog either care about me and will keep reading regardless of what I do or do not say, or you actually like what I say when I'm being genuinely myself, or you don't read my blog. No one has everleft me a critical comment or writen a dissapointed e-mail but even if they had, I suppose none of what anyone else says or does can change who I am or how I feel about myself anyway- that's all up to me. So all I can do is say what I'm thinking, and work on my Stuff (as Havi says), and not put my own issues on anyone else's shoulders.

F. I knew that if I started with the little stuff and kept writing, that the stuff I actually wanted to articulate would come spilling out. That's how it works. It's my process. All my good papers in college happened that way.

G. August is going to be a big month for me. I have a little start up money now and I'm going to establish my Fiberworks here in Fly Creek Valley. I'll be selling handdyed yarn and authoring patterns. I'm planning to open an online store front through Etsy, that great purveyor of the modern artist and the handcrafter in August, so stay tuned for all the news about little Midwestern Kate building a fiber company.

Locavore

Well, it looks like the late frost did in most of the seedlings I had planted- the cosmos, cucumbers, and cabbage were all done for. Luckily, I think all the broccoli will make it and the parsley (which I covered with pots from the kitchen) wasn't even phased. The moral of the story is listen to the freaking frost warning and cover the freaking plants.

I should have scraped together enough coverings to try to save them, but I honestly thought that cucumbers and cabbage would be hardy enough to survive a little frost. They survived Abigail The Anti-Plant Cat's repeated attempts to kill them by knocking over their planter tray and spilling dirt and baby plants everywhere. What's a little frost compared to a 7 lb ball of fur and teeth? Alas, it was one trauma too many and they are lost.

The seeds are coming up though and in another few weeks we'll have lettuce and radishes for the table. I'm planning a local food party to celebrate Midsummer, and backyard garden salad should definitely be on that menu. The goal is to only serve yummy foods raised or produced within a 100 mile radius, the closer to me the better. I doubt that it will be an inexpensive meal, especially considering I want it to be a small dinner party, but it's something I've wanted to do since moving out here, and I really hope it comes together.

Of course I'd like to serve local meat. I wonder how expensive a good beef roast would be? Should I stick with cheaper chicken? Or go adventurous and get some lamb or rabbit? All these options (and more!) are available at the Cooperstown farmer's market, well within my radius.

My guess is that unless I can find some nearby farmer who grows wheat, I'm going to be severely handicapped by a lack of flour. Given this roadblock I could either use another starch (potato maybe?) or give myself the leeway to follow 1850 rules and let myself use store bought staples. What do you all think? Is that cheating?

dust buster

We bought a new vacuum cleaner.

I had very little to do with the purchase, really. Since Brett brought a vacuum with him when we moved out here, it was pretty much his call. While I was away in the Midwest, it was determined that this minor appliance would no longer make the cut. It was a fairly sad piece of equipment; the brushes didn't really spin and there wasn't much in the way of suction, but it had worked well enough we thought. But that week, Brett called me and said that we would just have to get a new one.

Which, as you might imagine, did not make me terribly happy.

When I got back from my trip, Brett had already done a bunch of research online and pretty much already picked out a model that he liked. We trekked down to the Big Box Store in Oneonta. Feeling a little out of the loop and a little poor, I made some reluctant noises and annoyed faces and I insisted on looking at each of the vacuums they had in stock. The one he liked had a HEPA filter, a pet hair attatchement, a little tornado bucket instead of a bag- it's one serious cleaning tool. Still feeling a little pinched about the price, I eventually agreed with Brett that the one he picked looked best and we stuck it in the cart and headed to check out.

And you know what? He was completely right.

The thing is amazing!

Seriously, I've never been this psyched about an appliance before. We pushed it around the living room and filled the bucket multiple times on the first sweep. We kept pulling the bucket out and looking at it and every time we were shocked at how much dirt we had been living in. It even picked up all the cat fur in the big shaggy carpet upstairs, something the old vacuum never even came close to doing.

The only problem I can see is that being this thrilled and entertained by a freaking vacuum cleaner must mean I'm getting old...

Library

Today, Penelope Knits comes to you from the Village of Cooperstown Library porch where the paint may be peeling from the eight magnificent Corinthian columns, but the air smells of lilacs and a group of ladies sits and knits. No kidding! I showed up after walking around town for a little and having lunch with Brett at the park by the lake and lo and behold there was a group of knitting ladies, chatting about shawl patterns and sharing the local gossip.

I know I should go over and say hi, find out if they're a regular group or what, but I'm shy. What if they think I'm intruding? I'll have to tell you later what I decided to do.

In excellent employment news, I start working at the local bakery tomorrow! Now I have enough regular jobs that I think I should be able to catch my finances up and feel pretty comfortable by the end of the summer. And I know I've committed to the grocery store at least for a while since they've spent all this time training me to work in the office, but I feel like I could quit there come September when (hopefully) I'll be full time employed at the bakery. How awesome!

To make things even more excellent, I pretty much owe the opportunity to the girlfriend of one of Brett's co-workers. She is very friendly and a sci-fi geek like me. I think we're going to get along great.

I'm so happy about this turn of events I could giggle. From complete homesick misery to joy in one week!

Welcome Back

A few quick points:

1. I had an EXCELLENT trip home to Illinois, in which I traveled a total of 1116.4 miles (according to Google Maps) by car around the Midwest and about 1800 miles by plane to and from the Midwest.

2. We've had frost warnings here the last two nights. I planted broccoli, cabbage, cucumber, parsley, and cosmo seedlings a few days ago, hoping that they would be able to survive cool temperatures, but I was pretty sure they wouldn't need to deal with frost. (A danger which was supposed to be over three weeks ago here in the middle of NY, by the way!)

3. I've got lots of patterns in the works over here and I can't wait to have a spare month of bright warm summer days to just sit on a blanket in the sunny back yard, letting the scent of apple blossoms waft over me and and let my creative self go nuts. A girl can dream, right?

To the KC Socks

Dear Socks,

I think I was seduced by the first blush of your heady color work, your strong deep blue, your fanboy charm. All I know is I had to have you.

Now, we both know, the bloom is off the rose and you sit, languishing in my work basket. Believe me, nothing about you has changed. You're still the wonderful, charming socks you were back when I first cast you on. I know we have some issues to address, like getting your color work and your patterning to be a little easier for me to deal with. But I've been so focused on work I haven't really been paying enough attention to you. I've let us drift apart.

It's not you, it's me.

Tell you what, I'll take you with me tomorrow on the plane (and bring a self addressed envelope to send you home in if they won't let me carry you on). We can spend the whole week together and really reconnect. Won't that be nice?

Love,
Kate

Leaving on a Jet Plane

It got cold here again. Boo.

But Wednesday night (if all goes well) I'll be on a plane headed back to the Midwest for my brother's college graduation. And to help set up my Mom's quilt show. And help LilBrudder move into his new apartment. And Mother's Day is kind of an added bonus. It'll be a big trip.

I'm looking forward to being home, but travel always makes me nervous, and air travel especially so. Not that I'm afraid to fly, but I don't enjoy all the ways the whole thing can go wrong. I'm already rehearsing everything that I could screw up so that I can make sue to leave early enough to have time to spare just in case. I've already decided not to take the computer, cause I don't want to hassle with it through security. I always forget to dump my water bottle, or take my keys out of my pocket or something as I'm trying to rush to get my stuff in the buckets and not hold up everyone else in the line. I worry too much about disappointing or inconveniencing these random strangers in line and let the worry of it screw up nights of sleep before hand. Lame, yeah?

Albany is a small airport, though. The last time I was there, it took up maybe 15 minutes to get from the door to the gate, but that was at 3 in the morning and this time I'll be on the latest flight I could get and it'll probably be busier, and I'm limited as to when we can leave by work. I'll have about 45 minutes to get to the gate, which should be enough (barring me screwing up), but I'd feel better with another half an hour. I'm actually nervous that I'll miss my flight.

Unstuck.

Yesterday I found myself unexpectedly checking out Facebook, that social networking site of great repute, and who did I happen to bump into but Rebecca, my freshman year college roommate. The Ormsby Girls got together in out here on the East Coast this February and I was devistated to not be able to go, but with money the way it is, there was just no posibility of that kind of adventure. So this conversation with Rebecca was the first time in way too long that I'd gotten a chance to talk to one of my girls about how her life is going.

Rebecca has always been one cool chick. All my best college friends are women of lofty goals and go-forth-and-conquer attitudes. They're working for the New Yorker, doing art therapy, teaching English in Korea, translating family planning services into Spanish, curing cancer, getting Katrina victims back into housing, raising goats in Maine and all together making World Peace seem just a little bit more realistic. I don't believe that without knowing these women I would have even half as much faith in the Goodness of Humanity as I presently do.

So back to Rebecca...

She's always been pretty seriously liberal, in the same intense way she was serious about music and school work. So it wasn't terribly surprising to me when she mentioned she had decided to work with Americorp. But I was thrilled and jealous when she told me she (just today I think) has an installation of photography up for sale in two (!) locations in Portland. Check out her work here. I'll wait.


Gorgeous, right? And to be able to say, "This thing I do with my creativity is worth something and I don't need validation from a corporation to try to get money for it..." the girl has got some gumption.

As always happens when I bump into the Ormsby girls, I got unstuck. They have always encouraged me to look at myself and get constructive. Rebecca sort of kick started me into doing something I've been hedging around for a long while now. Sometimes things just fall into place and it feels a little like that's happening now.

I want to do work I'm proud of. I want to be able to tell my friends that I'm doing something worthy with the talents and skills that I have. I've got a lot of ideas, and I'm working on a feasible model that I can use now as I'm starting a new business and still leave room for expansion down the road. All I can tell you for 100% sure right now is that it's going to be fibery.

I know right now that the hardest part of this whole enterprise is going to be maintaining confidence and not letting fear of failure cripple it before I get going. Can't wait to tell you all about it.

Exploded!

The last three days here have been unseasonably warm in a lovely way. Something I've noticed since working at Kline Creek and the Farms and living here in New York is that spring is completely amazing.

Last year was the most obvious for me. All through the winter the farms staff ran programs that involved being outside long enough for the weather to really register. When all you need to do is run from the office to the car, cold, snow, wind and rain are bothersome, but they don't seep into you the way they do when you're standing outside with a group of 2nd graders for 45 minutes. Teachers, I'm sure you know what I mean. For me, the hardest part of our school programs in the winter was always the outside chores, where we took the kids into the barn to meet the horses and pitch hay, shelled corn, fed the pigs or the cows or the sheep and checked the chicken coop for eggs. With no wrist watch or clock, it was hard to time the chores so that you could get all the education in, but not have a ton of extra time at the end. But I found that I could tell about how long we'd been out by 1) how many toes I could feel 2) how runny my nose got 3) how many fingers I could feel. If my toes went numb before we were out of the barn, I was running slow. If I could still feel my fingers when we went to shell corn, I was running fast. It worked for me.

But when spring came, I can't even tell you how grateful I was for the warm air. I can remember one day specifically as I looked around the farm yard I noticed that the oak trees in the wooded area behind the barn had a faint light green hue, as if they were covered in moss. The baby leaves lightened the color of the branches, but they also feathered the outlines, softening everything in view. I could have sworn that the day before there was nothing, so the color was especially surprising after seeing the trees harsh and dramatic all winter.

The same thing happened here yesterday. There were no leaves. And then the trees just exploded! Now when we drive around, there are trees covered in heavy white blossoms and bright spots of neon green out on the hillsides where a tree or two have woken up. The daffodils have been up for a while, but now they are everywhere. People have planted them in lush beds in their yards, ranks of them have popped up all along the roads, and here and there a single flower nods where a squirrel must have horded the bulb last fall.

Things are really growing now, but mentally it feels as though spring has been here for quite a while. I was ready for spring in February when the snow started to melt. Ever since then it's been a battle of inches, trying to outlast the cold. Each and every day it was a few degrees warmer, and if it was sunny, I was outside digging in the garden trying to get the beds ready for planting. If I had a hotbed set up I could already be eating lettuce. I can see now why spring is so charming to so many people.

Before I started to get closer to the dirt, spring was those two weeks in May when everything bloomed and the air was warm. Now, I can see that it's not the cloying twitterpated season ala Bambi that I thought. Spring takes it own time and comes slowly, enjoying a long and gradual awakening. I can relate to this. Far from the saccharine beauty I usually think of, spring is often awkward, even ugly, full of mud and old dead plant material. But here and there a bunch of wildflowers pokes through the generations of their dead ancestors (as Garrison Keillor observed) and is all the more welcome and beautiful for its rarety.

I like the honesty of this wild spring better than the manicured spring I've been used to.

Also, the yarn dyeing turned out...well interesting. My kettle dyed green was exactly the effect I wanted, but not quite the right color. Too neon for my taste. I also tried a painted skein with blue and green and brown that I like a lot, but also isn't quite what I was shooting for. Pictures when I get to the library.

Guess what I am doing Right Now.


You'll never guess.


Barbara, et al, I am DYEING! Aunt Karen gave me a whole whack of lovely yarn for Christmas and my birthday and I have been doing nothing with it since then. I think I was waiting for the heavens to open and show me the way. Then along came Barbara.

And what did I hear but that of course I could use Easter egg dye and don't be silly food safe coloring won't hurt your cookware and that was it for me.

I'm still nervous about ratios of fiber to dye stuff. All the instructions I've seen are for dry weights of both and I'm using the liquid food coloring that we always used for dyeing eggs when I was growing up. But how on Earth will I ever learn if I don't go ahead and experiment? Reading about the process isn't going to get me pretty homedyed yarn.

So I've guesstimated. I used a teaspoon of vinegar to each half cup of water I put into the pot for acid to set the dye. There are 10 cups of water in the dye pot, but that's just to keep the yarn wet and aid the absorbtion of the the color. I could have used more or less water depending on how deep I needed it.

The yarn I'm dying is some of my first wool handspun and a skein of superwash Bare sock yarn from Knit Picks that Aunt Karen sent me. I'm shooting for a springy yellow green, with a mottled kettle dyed effect to vary the color slightly. 30 drops of green and to balance the blue undertone I noticed when I was coloring eggs, I added about 10 drops of yellow. I'll leave the yarn as it lays in the pot on the stove top and not turn it or fiddle with it. I hope that will encourage a slight variation in the color that will add depth to a finished knit.

It's fun to think about the blank yarn as what I'd like it to be eventually and choose coloring that will compliment that goal. I've got another skein of sock yarn, two of a fingering weight pure wool, and three skeins of Cascade 220.


Update- The dyebath has exhausted and the color is bright. Gonna let it cool down and the rinse in the sink and see what we got!

sprout

These pictures are a couple weeks old now. Gonna be a summer of tasty things! I'm super excited by the cherry tomato plants

Underground

Want to see where I went the other week?


Howe Caverns!

I was surprised by how much I really liked the tour of the Caverns. The brick walkways meant that we could walk through the cave without walking in the very cold and fairly deep underground steam.








The theatrical lighting gave enough light to see all the neat cave formations while keeping the rather of magical atmosphere caves naturally seem to have. The pictures we took didn't do the mood much justice, unfortunately...





Being an interpreter for an educational/entertainment venue, I felt a certain kinship with our rather young tour guide. He must say the same things tour after tour, day after day, but he gave us plenty of enthusiasm. And I learned that Mr. Howe, who originally discovered the natural entrance to the cave around the turn of the century when he investigated what made his cows all congregate on hot days near a certain bush in their pasture, rather than seeking shade elsewhere. He started explored the cave himself and eventually began giving tours for a nickle a pop. In addition to exploring the entire length of the cave (a few miles, as I remember), the tourists's nickle got them a lunch about half way through the cave and a pair of coveralls so they could handle the water and mud. During our tour, I kept imagining those turn of the century spelunkers. I wonder if there were many (or any?) ladies who took Mr. Howe's underground tour in their long skirts and corsets. And how fantastic would those cave formations have looked in lantern light?
I'd say one of the coolest parts of the tour came at the half way point. The tour guides took us in big boats down a passage of the cave completely underwater and pushed us out to a pretty dramatic waterfall. This was the part of the cave damaged by mining and off limits to the public. The light didn't get very far into the depths of this "unconditioned section" but it didn't look like a place I wanted to go. And then they turned out the lights. Our guide mentioned that with no way for natural light to get in, you literally couldn't see your hand in front of your face. When they flipped the lights back on, I, along with Brett and most everyone else, was caught holding my hand in front of my face. Just to check, you know...



We all had a great time, and thought I think I would have enjoyed being able to walk around unsupervised and really enjoy the otherworldliness, but of course that would be dangerous and the Howe Caverns people would be liable. Brett managed to hang back enough to be sort of alone on the way back to the entrance and said it was totally awesome. The last part of the cave was the best part of the actual cave- the Winding Way. It was sinuous and feminine and intriguing and really really beautiful. Because it was so curvy, there were lots of points in this passage that you could have all to yourself. I've always felt happiest in small places full of charming detail tucked into wider landscapes. I felt better and better with each corner I turned. Yay for Howe Caverns!

Pacific Monkey

Pattern:
Monkey by Cookie A. from Knitty.com
Lacier than I was expecting from the photos, I find I don't mind. It seems like a good spring or fall sock to wear with the cute little Mary Jane shoes Mom got me for Christmas.

Needles:
US 2 DPNs. Despite losing one from my best set, I cannibalized a bamboo needle from another WIP to finish the thing off.

Yarn:
Liza Souza Sock! in colorway Pacific
The colorway is a little more flamboyant knit up than I guessed it would be when it was in the skein. I'm super glad I didn't make socks for Dad with this, as I intended to do. He's not really a knitwear guy anyway, but I know he'd never ever wear something like this. I'm not certain where I'll wear them! The pattern is lovely, but just a touch overwhelmed by the colors- I think I'll knit it again but in a light solid or semi-solid color to emphasis the arching lace.

Modifications:
None! The pattern, as is typical of Cookie, is clear and concise and achieves a lovely effect. I enjoy writing patterns and crafting things just to my taste, but it's a great mental break to sit back and follow a pattern written by someone else. Cookie had a different heel construction that I usually do- more triangular and less square which wants to just inch its way down my foot. I guess I have a big fat heel that needs a bigger pocket. It doesn't bother me enough to change it, and with a little more wear, I'm sure that it'll fit great, so I doubt I'd change it when I knit the pattern again.

Knitting Update

Ok Ok. Quickly, now...

No typo brother. My whole argument in White House Green Thumb was that the Obama's garden is a symbol, a piece of propaganda, but that I like what it stands for. I found out yesterday that the White House had a garden before this, but it was out of sight and out of mind up on the White House roof (which is pretty cool). To move it to the highly visible front lawn and make a big deal out of it means it's absolutely for show, but it's also a genuinely Good Thing.

Like Karen said, gardening is good stuff, whether you're looking for pesticide free produce, a productive hobby, cheap food, an outdoor escape, to lighten your footprint on the environment, a scientific challenge, landscaping, a way to spend time with your kids, to show the neighbors how fabulously green you are, etc, etc... Whyever you're doing it, it's good stuff. It's compatible with a huge variety of people and lifestyles. It's an excuse to be outdoors. It's great mild exercise. It provides you with fresh produce which is something we could use more of in our diets. And it encourages respect for where your food comes from.

If there's something wrong with more people doing it, I don't know what it is.


And now for something completely different!

I finished the Monkey Socks last night. I had a sock in progress that I remembered I was using US2s on, so I found a stitch holder and canabalized one of those needles. It's bamboo instead of metal, and relatively blunt, so it was a little bit of a speed bump, but much much easier than resorting to the interchangable circs.

Someone on the Yarn Harlot's blog a while back mentioned how quick a knit this pattern is, and boy they are right. There's something about the short, easily memorized pattern repeat that just speeds this little sock right along. I had the cuff already started, but it only took me two days to finish the second sock of the pair. And that's pretty decent speed for me.

But now all my WIPs are FOs! The Apple Mittens are done, the Monkey Socks are done and I need to start on something new.

I'm looking for caramel colored laceweight alpaca from Lynn's farm at the next farmer's market. Brett's mom, who came to visit this last weekend, thought it would be nice to have something made from the alpacas we visited. The weather was so pretty I switched from the gold cashmere scarf I wore most of the winter to the light blue mohair/silk lace I knit way back in the say. When she saw it, Brett's mom seemed to really like it and asked me to make something similar for her.

Since Brett and I became friends, his parents have been ridiculously generous and kind to me. From the kinds of big generosity of helping us move to New York and buying plane tickets so I could take the time to move my own stuff to the little gestures of a gift card for dinner out, they are constantly giving. They even took me in last Easter when I couldn't make it to my own home. I think a shawl is absolutely in order. She picked out the Swallowtail Shawl from the Fall 2006 issue of Interweave Knits, which I think will look fetching tied under a little jacket, or over a pretty summer dress to keep off the chill on evenings out.

So I'm going to try to pick up about 450 yards and get started on that shawl. If all goes well, it could be done sometime in May. I think I'll also rip out the tank top I started last year and see what kind of yardage I wind up with. Then pick a sweater pattern and see if I can knit a nice cardigan sweater for myself. You know. Something to curl up with in the evenings while I enjoy the valley view from the back porch.

well hello

Dear Lil' Brudder,

My only loyal follower! I knew from the minute you arrived that we were going to get along. Eventually...

As to your comments on White House Green Thumb, I thought they were pretty interesting.
There have been a TON of direct comparisons between the White House kitchen garden and the Victory Gardens of our grandparent's era. Very perceptive of you. You seem to be a little wary of the "water bill" and other costs of growing your own food. Certainly the "Haves" are going to be in better shape to maintain a garden for show, the way the White House Garden is meant to be. They could build a beautiful green house, truck in lots of dirt, irrigate, buy specialized seeds, hire gardening help...and fix lots of things that supposedly make growing your own food really difficult. And if their potato crop doesn't come in, it's not like they're not going to need to worry about feeding themselves that winter.

Though the "Haves" could do all this fancy schmansy stuff, will that actually make their tomatos taste better? Could be, but I doubt it. All you really need to do in order to produce your own delicious cabbage is plant a seed, do a little weeding, maybe take a watering can to it every now and then, harvest and prepare it. Harder than driving to the store to pick one out? Probably. Difficult? No. It's something anyone with patience and a sunny spot in the dirt can do. And so the "Have Nots" are just as capable of producing food for themselves as the "Haves."

When I went for a run today I noticed that every single house (and I am not exaggerating) up here has a decent sized garden somewhere in the yard. This is a relatively poor area and plenty of people rely on those gardens for a lot of their nutrition. And my point is? That the kitchen garden is, or could be, a real source of food for an average sized American family. Beautiful, delicious, sustainable produce can be class blind, beautifully democratic. I sincerely wish for this to happen.

So often when I take stock of American society, I see a culture consumed with self-gratification. We are obsessed with ease and speed. We Tivo our way through commercials, hire cleaning services, send the kids to day care while we work overtime to be able to buy everything we can imagine a need for at the BigBox store down the street. We overindulge and oversimplify complex issues.

And I believe that food, and local food, and homegrown, homecooked food could be our cultural salvation. No, dear brother, I don't expect that every American home will have a cow in the yard, or even down the street. As I mentioned, the Jeffersonian ideal of a self-sustaining American oikos is incompatable with the brilliant science, masterful economics, intriguing philosophy, uplifting theology, thoughtful literature, pleasing pastimes that Americans have produced in our proud national history. If John Adams had stayed a farmer, and not had the leisure to pursue law and politics, maybe America wouldn't even be the country it is today.

But taking the time to pause, and eat well with friends and family, instead of eating a drive through burger alone in the car, could help Americans communicate with each other better and reduce health concerns. Purchasing from producers close to our homes can help us revitalize our rural agricultural communities, trickling down wealth and lifting all boats. Growing some of our own produce could help us not to eliminate the processed goodies we get from the grocery store, but realize the difference between real food and indulgent calories and make informed choices. And I know that I could personally reduce my consumption to what I could grow myself or purchase locally, minimize my food waste, and still maintain a healthy weight.

My diet wouldn't be as varied as it is now. I wouldn't get to eat chocolate or Mc Donalds. But i would survive. $7 goes a lot further in veggie seed than it does in frozen pizza.

So, yeah. Did I make any sense, or did I just talk a lot? I don't even know...

catch up

Hi everyone! It's been a really busy weekend. Brett and I had company so we spent a lot of time doing the things one does when one has company, i.e. not blogging.

It has been otherwise a pretty productive week.
The house is very clean.

The tomato seeds have lots of leaves on them now, the broccoli, cosmos, and marigolds have sprouted, the basil is on the verge of getting real leaves.
The north west bed of the garden has been double dug, and most of the rocks are out of it.
The peas are in the garden and will probably sprout some time next week. I'm trying to believe that they really will be ok in the frost, since we got dusted again last night.

I finished the Apple Mittens last night and will probably just suck it up and use the circs so I can finish the Monkey Socks. A commenter a while back suggested I order a new set from Knit Picks, and I probably just should, but for some reason I'm resisting ordering anything online.

We visited Lynn and the alpacas down the street and I got to meet Lira from whose fleece the Fly Creek Cap was knit. We also went to Howe Caverns which was beautiful and very cool. I have pictures to show you all once I get a chance.

White House Green Thumb

So I definitely have gardening on the brain. Never fear, gentle reader, this too shall pass and I'll swing back to my typical crafty ways soon enough. At times like these I wonder if I might not have just a little teensy manic streak. When I get tracking on something, I tend to pursue it to the exclusion of all (or at least most) other things. Right now it seems to be gardening. Forgive me. I have not forgotten the mittens, the socks, the quilt, the lace work, the pattern design. It will all be back soon.

But for now it's a 24-7 local food fest up in here.

Maybe you've heard by now, but in case you haven't, the kitchen garden is back at the White House. My first reaction is to be happy, as I would be happy if it were revealed that the First Lady actually designs lace shawls or the President knits his own socks. (Can you even imagine!? Just typing that gave me goosebumps...) I am pleased that something I find valuable and Good has found support at the highest levels. You all know I'm just a touch fanatical about local food consumption and small scale economies based on self-sufficiency and the Jeffersonian Ideal, so I might not be seeing straight here. I shall atempt distanced analysis...

Cynical Kate knows that the White House Kitchen Garden, maintained solely by the Obama family, is untenable as the main method of food production for the Presidential family, let alone state dinners. In 17th century France, as spices became commonplace and fresh vegetables expensive, tastes shifted so that haute cuisine favored the simple and fresh to display the valuable produce the wealthy could afford. These days, it is a status symbol as much as anything could be that occasionally a state dinner might feature an heirloom tomato picked right from the vine, just a few steps away. Serving that tomato speaks to the values that the President (and First Lady) and by extension America, wish to display to visiting dignitaries- frugality, resourcefullnes, hard work, self sufficiency. But if the President were forced to entertain only with what his household could make themselves on the White House Estate, there wouldn't be much time left for managing a country. The fantasy that we can convert modern American consumerist culture into one based on a subsistance model is romantic, but ultimately empty. The White House Kitchen Garden is absolutely propaganda (which does not necessarily make it bad. Professor Orr you taught me so much...). And the taxpayers are going to be footing the bill for this symbol-ridden garden.

Now, Idealist Kate knows that there are far far worse symbols that the taxpayers could be footing the bill for. (How about a Mission Accomplished banner and fighter pilot photo-op?) And anyway, costs seem pretty low. According to the Times, seeds and soil amendments are about $200, the labor will be provided by grounds crew, kitchen staff, and other White House staff volunteers, along with local school children. I like what a garden says about America. I like that President Adams planted the first one as a matter of necessity but also to take pleasure in seeing things growing. I like that the First Lady wants to use it as a teaching tool to show city dwelling students where the food they eat actually comes from and the work that it takes to make that food grow. I like that it's promoting healthy eating along with the appreciation of nature. I like that the First Family is setting a positive example and actually doing something productive with the land the White House sits on. I like what The Garden is propagandising.

So I don't care. I'm drinking the KoolAide. The way some people want to know who Michelle's wearing to such and such a dinner, I want to know what she's planting in the garden.

It's an interesting topic to consider, but I find the politics of food really fascinating. In another life I'd be a nutritional anthropologist. If you want to read what more intellectual people than I have to say about this, check out the Times's compiled opinion page. I did find some dissent on the comments page over here, mostly concerned that it's just a "photo-op" and has no actual effect. Generally though, the well reasoned arguments have come down in favor of the garden, but for a variety of reasons. Isn't politics fun?

The First Green of Spring

I have a book of poems selected by Garrison Keillor. It was a Christmas gift that I find myself deeply thankful for with regularity. I read Good Poems last spring, quite a lot of it at a camp site back in Iowa with a warm fire at my feet and the sun slowly setting. The collection appeals to my sensibilities; one section is called "Work" and mostly has poems about the rewards of manual labor- farm life in particular. Keillor has a great intro where he explains what makes a "good poem" and says, "they offer us truer accounts than what we're used to getting. They surprise us with clear pictures of the familiar." The poems are often narrative, and emotional, and always delight in words. There's very little in Good Poems that makes me angry and a lot that makes me very happy. This first page I opened to when I set out to read just happened to have what has become my favorite of the collection. I bookmarked it and everything.

So I thought I'd see if I could find a suitable spring-y poem and share it here.

The First Green of Spring
David Budbill

Out walking in the swamp picking cowslip, marsh marigold,
this sweet first green of spring. Now sauteed in a pan melting
to a deeper green than ever they were alive, this green, this life,

harbinger of things to come. Now we sit at the table munching
on this message from the dawn which says we and the world
are alive again today, and this is the world's birthday. And

even though we know we are growing old, we are dying, we
will never be young again, we also know we're still right here
now, today, and my oh my! don't these greens taste good.


This is from the "Resurrection" section of the book. I particularly like the way that none of the lines end with a complete thought, but lead the reader into the next line, continually renewing and surging forward. Until the last line of the poem which dwells on a singular moment and finds contented enjoyment in the present, rather than thoughts of the future.

What do you all think?


P.S. my basil and tomato plants have sprouted!

warming trend

It's sprinkling a little bit right now, but the past few days have been amazing weather wise, leaving little time for writing or knitting. Monday, Brett and I took a lovely long walk down the road. He was walking into work, I turned around at a little over two miles and took Honus back to the house. It was really nice to be out and about in the fresh air and sunshine with bare extremities, but I paid for it the next morning when my calves were so stiff I could barely walk.

I'm still hurting pretty bad today, but I think that's at least partly due to working in the brand new garden. I've been inspired by a book I took out of the library to set up the garden in four very manageable sections with walking space between. Today I finished turning over the sod in the pea and lettuce quadrant. I'll let it dry out and shake the topsoil back into the bed. Apparently this is supposed to keep weeds down better than just rototilling. Sure is a ton of work though; at least the bed is small. If the weather stays nice, I'm hoping to plant the peas by next week.

Hope Springs Internal

Today I staked out a 12ft x 9 ft section of the really grassy part of the property to plant for a garden this summer. And I am thrilled about it.

When Brett and I moved in, I talked to the land lady about wanting to put in a garden and she seemed to think that was fine. Over the course of our months here, I started to get worried that she might change her mind and not want us digging in the back. So I tuned down the garden dreams and figured I'd just plant a little basil in the kitchen and maybe a pot of tomatoes on the deck. The closer it gets to warm weather though, the more I've been thinking about the pleasure of spending time doing something productive outdoors and the joy of some fresh garden veggies of my own.


Aunt Karen, suggested that I look for a community garden to plant in, and though there's no such thing that I can find here in The Coop, I'm pretty sure that if I asked my neighbors for 100 square feet of dirt to cultivate, someone would be very accomidating. But I really want to be able to walk out and get busy, or I doubt I'll stick with it.

So, I did my research, planned out the size I wanted, then I called up the landlady and asked very nicely if it was still ok to put in a garden. And she said yes! I do plan on sending her an addendum to the lease agreement for us both to sign (just in case), but I'm optimistic enough to believe that I might actually have instant salads this year, and perhaps some homemade pickles, salsa, tomato sauce, etc.

Now, I know that the garden I had at Living History Farms was massive. Way too big for Brett and I to handle alone. The garden I staked out is very modest, easy even. Based off of yields from the Farms garden (knowing how little vegitation this household actually eats) and the recomended spacing for planting, I've figured that we don't really need a ton of space. I would like to do some pumpkins and watermelon though, and my research is saying they need around 10 ft to vine out. We absolutely have that space, so I'll probably hill a few out in the grass, weed a little and hope the native flora doesn't do them in.

In knitting news, I really want to finish my second Pacific Monkey Sock (from Knitty. See?) but I'm still short a needle. When we were in Oneonta, I even looked at the Big Box Retailer for another US2 DPN set, but the best I could do was US3! Next time I'm somewhere I can grab US2 double points, I'm geting a few sets. It's my favorite size for fingering weight and aside from the joy of having a spare, I can see using more than one set if I want to work on more than one pair of socks at a time. I'm about to put away the snowshoes for the season, but here's a shot of the lone Monkey sock in action.

To Do

Yay!

The sun is shining and by tomorrow the weather is supposed to be in the 50s. Snow is drip dripping and with the heat back on in the house, I'm feeling downright cozy.

Brett will be here tomorrow and I've done next to nothing with my big bad cleaning plans for the last week or so. Today I'm amped up to do some serious work though.

I'd like to:
get some laundry done
sweep the hardwood
vaccuum the carpets
shovel the back porch (and pray that I need not do it ever again!)
clean out the fridge
and clean off the kitchen counter tops
soft scrub the stove top
dust the woodwork
windex the windows
clean my bathroom and wash the towels
straighten up the living room
change some lightbulbs

generally make the house someplace I might not cringe to admit to living in if our lovely neighbors stopped by for tea (the ones with the beautiful house who put a white lit Christmas tree out on their front porch. Fit for Better Homes & Gardens, these people are...)
The goal is to leave nothing laying around that Abby will consider a toy, besides, of course, her actual toys.

take recyclables back to the grocery store

bake raisin scones
plant some tomato and basil seeds
get going on that second mitten
find clamps around the house so that I can do this to my as yet unused loom

And I think I will light some candles and play some music and be generally happy with life.