A January thaw and last night’s rain melted layers of snow, revealing
artifacts left like fossils in rocks through the past month or so. On the driveway above the barn, I found fox
scat, still partly frozen, but inches above the dirt level. When did he visit,
I wonder, last month, two weeks ago. What timeline is say, maybe 10 inches down? Melted snow is hard to determine. I would like to be able to read the layers as
rings in a tree, dating the passerby. Further down, near to the frozen ground, I see the colorless body of an
earthworm, almost white. Surely that was
left from the last rain before the ground froze solid for the season. Boot prints, paw prints; evidence of my
comings and goings crisscrossed layers, back and forth to the barn. Those, I know are mine, the cats coming with
me to the freezer, gathering again the summer harvest.  I
started to think about all of the summer fruits; the berries we have with our morning
oatmeal, all collected last summer in the heat, in the sun. That’s when I remembered, it was time to strain
the elderberry liqueur. A sip of this by
the fire will bring some light into the grey days.

And grey days we have. While friends tell me of the spring like
weather to the south, sun and mid-fifties, we experience early spring, wet grey
30’s here, beautiful in its own way. (I tell myself the saturated air is good
for the complexion, a good change from the dryness of the heated house. Believe
me, you can tell yourself anything.)

sometimes.. it works.

No matter how beautiful the monochromatic days of winter appear, I just need a little more color in my life.  The Celtic Harbor hat was charcoal, the Ribbed V neck is charcoal, and the landscape is.. well see for yourself. 

So, I raided my stash.  Several years ago I bought a bag of Adrienne Vittadini Maria, in a color I’ll call Egyptian Red rather than ‘002’.  (I didn’t join the stash busters ‘along’. It’s a great idea, but  ‘Alongs’ usually do me in.) Stashbusting… I love it.  One of my great pleasures is going through my collection and pulling out something wonderful.  There’s just no downside.  I figured that since I’d be a passenger this trip, I could get a new project started.  Here’s the glitch in my thinking. If you travel with cats, you know that passenger = lap.  How many cats to a lap?  Who knows.. there aren’t any set rules on this.  This trip, I got lucky.  Sammy picked me, Zak picked C, and Bu slept up on the coats in the back.  Sam was sleepy enough that he let me get started.  I’ve admired Margene’s Funnel Neck Pullover from Sally Melville’s Color book.  Simple stockinette, very little thinking and a perfect project for a textured yarn like Maria.  This yarn, knits to gauge on #9s.  The pattern suggests #4s.. whatever.  It knits up into a beautifully textured fabric, hardly a knitted stitch visible.  If it weren’t for the stretchiness of the yarn and it’s willingness to split, it would knit up quickly.

C has his popcorn popper back and I have my newly blocked Celtic Harbor hat.  Yes Paula, the other popcorn popper worked just fine.. too well, in fact. C burned a hole right through it’s magical paper insert.  That never happened before, and no widows!  All’s well that ends well, we’re both pretty happy with the results.  I tried the hat on this afternoon for the not-so-glam shots and took it off to wear another day.  I walked today I with a single layer hat, the temps have risen.. Ahhhh.. New England!

The Backyard Leaves scarf is back.  I sat last night looking at it in absolute panic.. I’d put it away over the holidays without the notes telliing me what row I’d left off on,  half a row was completely off the needles and I’d already had a bad computer day.  I was already a technically stressed out shadow of myself.  But you know, it too worked out.  Perfectly.  I ot it back on the needles, the row was recognizable and the pattern began to make some sense.

There you have it.  C just called me, pizza is out of the oven.. yummmmm!