Thirty-four years, and counting

How the years have flown. Can we really be this old?

Was it indeed that long ago that we were dreaming of marriage. Truth is, we didn’t take very long with the dreaming part.

Ed and I met while working at a local summer camp. He’d just finished four years as a Navy Seabee (Construction Battalion) when his mentor and fishing buddy, who happened to be the camp director, asked him to work as the summer maintenance crew leader. I was working my second summer there as assistant wrangler. First awareness came when he helped Lowell and I build a small blacksmith shop for Lowell, the head wrangler and certified blacksmith. We took to hanging out together and riding horses Sunday afternoons. Star Wars came out that summer. He went to watch it in the theaters three times. Each time taking a different camp worker. I was the last. (We’re still friends with the girl of his second date.)

By summer’s end we didn’t want to say goodbye. By the end of October we were talking marriage. November and plans were made to drive to my folk’s place in Flagstaff, AZ for Christmas. A good friend decided she should go too  since her parents also lived in Flag. We would drive her car which was far more reliable than Ed’s old pickup truck held together with baling wire. Car-less, I depended on public transportation.

I was a bride’s maid in a friend’s 7pm wedding, Dec 23rd, which took place in a town about an hour west of Portland. Driving straight from the wedding back across to East Portland to pick up Lydia we arrived at the hospital just as she got off her swing shift. She’d stashed her suitcase in the car earlier that day and without delay we drove the night away. South, down the length of Oregon, up and over the snowy Siskiyou Mountains straddling the Oregon/California border. Swinging east heading for Nevada, we encountered the heaviest, thickest fog I hope to ever drive through. Scary! Fortunately at that early time of the morning on that straight back country road there was almost no traffic. Driving, my head hung out the window as I desperately peered for the dotted line to keep us centered on the road. Ed kept a sharp look out for car lights ahead while Lydia watched for cars through the back window. We crept along about 10 miles an hour for what felt like hours. Then finally we broke through into sunshine. On through Reno, Las Vegas, over Boulder Dam and into Arizona, stopping only to gas up and grab a bit to eat as Saturday crept to a close. (Car food the rest of the time.) Speeding along I-40, finally winding up into higher elevations leading to Flagstaff we arrived stiff, exhausted ,yet exhilarated at 5:30 Christmas morning. 30 hours of almost non-stop driving, an early Christmas surprise. (Normally it took us 36 hours for the journey.)

21st Birthday December 26 Looking at my parent’s wedding album

Ed managed to get my dad alone. My dad knew what was coming and teased him by asking Ed all sorts of evasive questions just to make Ed squirm. That night he slipped the engagement ring on my finger and we celebrated with my folks and talked about wedding plans. Mom was a teacher at a small college at the time so we weighed the merits of a Spring break vs a summer wedding.

Jokingly I turned to mom and said, “we should get married on your anniversary.” Without a beat of hesitation she replied, “Yes, you could!” Ed and I looked at each other in utter astonishment and mounting excitement. We turned to dad who nodded and said, “Why not?”

Why not? Their anniversary was January 1st, in six days. Could we pull it off? Why not? Ed’s dad was a preacher and we knew that it’d be difficult for him to call in a back-up for that Sunday, which like this January 1st also landed on a Sunday. But, they should be able to fly to Flagstaff right after church. We moved the date back one day to January 2nd. (We were amused by idea of marriage on a Monday, and a date that wasn’t so wildly popular for weddings.)

Engagement picture January 1, 1978

Phone calls were made and plans quickly fell into place. I borrowed a dress, my dear friend since 8th grade flew from Texas, together we stalked up the flank of the Mt Elden gathering wild grasses, greenery and some freeze-dried red berries still clinging to their bushes – anything that looked like a possibility for decorations. A small cake was ordered as well as a head-piece and bouquets of daisies. (There were very few options at that time in Flagstaff!) A dear friend, also from High School days, willingly agreed to play the piano for the wedding. A back-up minister in case Ed’s dad didn’t make it, which looking more likely with each passing day.

Stay tuned for next installment!

 

Christmas Tidings!

Thanks to all who have left comments on previous posts. Your names have been added to the bowl(s) of your desire, drawing will be tomorrow evening about 7pm Pacific Time! If you want a chance to win:

1 Crochet Hook
1 Pair of Knitting Needles
1 Hairpin Lace Loom
1 Aegean Spindle
1 Turkish Delight

Today (until midnight) is the last day to leave a comment on the previous posts. (Please see previous posts, going back to Dec 18th, for rules and items.)

This year saw a major change to our Christmas tradition, we had our main Christmas Dinner yesterday. Aurora and Haymaker came for Dinner and an evening of gift giving and quiet fellowship. Having the Dinner and gift exchange yesterday gives us a day quiet rest and enjoyment instead of all the usual hustle and bustle.  We are headed out the door soon to help a young friend with a Christmas Service at a nursing home in the next town over.

One tradition was kept! Enough dough was made yesterday morning for dinner rolls and the Christmas morning cinnamon rolls.
Scrumptious!A blessed Christmas day filled with peace and joy to all my friends around the world!

 

More Solstice Stuff

Looking into sunrise/sunset times has me chasing down a rabbit trails when the clock is quickly clicking to Christmas. Lene’s Dances with Wool Dec 22 post took me on an even longer jaunt trying to wrap my mind around the vast variances in sunlight/darkness around the Northern Hemisphere. (basing it only on the NH since this is where I live.)

My simple explanation of the sun rising later each morning until January 7th while it is setting a tad earlier each day has generated plenty of interest. Really, it’s fascinating stuff, as a young friend will say. The earth tips 23.5 on its axis in relationship to the sun. As it orbits around the sun, this tilt makes all the difference in the world (heehee) between what time the sun rises and sets in your latitude and longitude  and how long it may take for the days to lengthen, how quickly the time reverses in both directions. (I’m at  the latitude and longitude of 45°2′31″N   122°40′2″W)
(Taken at 10:17 am on Dec 21 , when the fog was finally lifting.)

Where Lene lives near the Arctic Circle in Finland there are the sun rises and set at the same time for 3 days: Dec 21, 22, and 23rd – which they call the Nesting Days. After which the days lengthen at both ends.  Finland is on the sunward side of the tilted planet.

Point Barrows, the northernmost town in Alaska is on the dark side of the tilt during the winter months, thus they have an even longer period of Nesting.

On Nov 21, 2011, the sun rose at 12:54pm and set at 1:38pm and there it will continue to rise and set at the same time until Jan 21, 2011! Two dark months with scarcely one and a half hours daily of the sun skimming the horizon. Once that date is hit the change is very rapid there in Point Barrow, within three days the sun will rise at 12:08 pm and set at 2:59.

Fascinating stuff!View down our road at 10:45 am yesterday morning. We had a number of errands to run and so loaded the pickup and drove from our mostly sunny small valley (due to a ridge on the east the sun actually rose yesterday at 9:14, and sank behind the southwest ridge shortly before 3:30pm)

Looking towards the Abiqua Basin, picture taken about 5 miles from our place at 11:04am.As we headed further west into the Willamette Valley the fog became denser, skimming the ground. Later we drove north to Portland and passed through areas of frozen fog (not snizzle) where the temperature never got above 33F, finally reaching sunny and warmer Portland. How varied the weather in a relatively small area!

Even in the darkest days of December there is color in our area; the varied greens of winter and red tipped blueberry plants.

Tomorrow daughter and s-i-l, Aurora and Haymaker will be coming over for an early Christmas Eve dinner followed by attending the evening service at our Friends’ church in this village. Tonight we’re heading over to Haymaker’s parent’s to celebrate our granddaughter, Gail’s birthday. I need to stop here, run to town to pick up eggs I forget to get while out and about yesterday, bake brownies to take tonight and a pecan pie for tomorrow. I’ll wait until tomorrow morning to make rolls and all the other items for the dinner.  There are still presents to be wrapped and some laundry to tend. Good times!

 

Autumn’s End

Here’s a scanned copy of the promised picture that accompanied the article in the local paper which I mentioned in the previous post.Yes, Ed is smiling, his mustache gets in the way.

*******
The storm from Alaska brought a windy, drenching end to the long pleasant autumn.

Knowing the fine days were ending, and fearing an eminent fall of leaves from the catalpa tree in front of the shop, Ed moved swiftly to get the finish on a project for friends. His shop is too small and cramped for finishing anything other than small hand items.

While he spread a large tarp from the porch roof to his shop and across to branches in the tree, Cuddles jumped up to her recent favorite morning spot to warm in the sun.

Several years ago the catalpa tree shed all of its leaves in one day. There had been a hard, deep freeze during a mid-October night when the tree was still in full leaf. The following morning a few leaves began to drop then suddenly they poured down so fast we both rushed outside at the sound of the stems and leaves hitting the porch roof and ground. The air was filled with leaves. By nightfall not one leaf was left on a branch. It was the oddest thing that has not yet been repeated. After a  frost on Tuesday and Wednesday nights with the thermometer dipping slightly below 30 the tree was bound to loosen its leaves. The friends do not want leaf imprinted finish on their furniture.

Meanwhile, I was in the kitchen making and baking a pie for a birthday supper that evening before heading into the office.

Tarp set up, work space set up, generator running and the sun warming the air, Ed commenced brandishing the spray gun then setting each drawer in turn on the ladder to dry.
When we were decades younger Ed was a professional furniture refinisher. He took great pride in carefully, yet quickly applied layers of finish without drips or puddling. I enjoyed watching him deftly spray a thin even coat. There’s something about watching a master plying his craft: economy of motion and materials, a sure hand and eye and the conveyance of the joy of doing.

Quilted maple for the drawer fronts was harvested and milled by a local farmer.

By mid-afternoon the second coat had been applied.

The pie was cooling.

Today, the pie is only pleasant memory.

I drove home through the wind and rain from music practice this evening, tires crushing shiny leaves obscuring the road.

 

An Old New Project

There are over 600 pictures still needing to be sorted through, deciding which to share, which to archive for family and which to delete. The task is so overwhelming that I’ve practically ignored them since loading them to the laptop a week ago once back home from vacation.

Two years, almost to the date, found us driving east along I-84 to Idaho to visit our son and family. Sleep played hide and seek with me the night before we left and I woke dreading the 8 hour drive, but two things happened that made it a pleasure: 1) after leaving the predawn fogs of the Willamette Valley behind the weather was lovely the rest of the drive 2) Ed offered to drive for the first 2 hours! I was thrilled at the unexpected gift of being able to enjoy the scenery to my heart’s content, and knit! Long-time readers will know that Ed hates driving, especially for long distances. We ended up trading off every two hours which made for an enjoyable trip and little exhaustion or stiffness (for me anyway). Rather than write one long post I plan to break the knitting and the trip into a series of posts over the next week or so.

The project in my traveling bag has been over two years in the making. Not due to an intricate, dazzling pattern, or any superfine spinning. No, this is a project that given the right frame of mind should have been completed in a short time frame.  Over two years ago I glibly agreed  to a spinning exchange at the monthly spinning group: each participant brings 4 ounces of fiber from her stash in an anomynous paper bag and blindly picks another bag to take home, spin then make something for the person who’d provided the fiber, (labelled inside the stapled bag). Not sure if I heard the instructions wrong or if some people were extra generous. There was a whooping 8 ounces plus stuffed tightly inside the bag I choose. Well over four ounces of handcarded creamy yellow unknown wool that felt slightly sticky and harsh, and four ounces of handcarded grey wool with gold sparkly filaments carded throughout.

Neither color nor feel appealed to me. I had no idea how it should be spun, nor what to make with the resulting yarn. I put the bag in my stash and mostly forgot about it, except for haunting guilty moments. When the December meeting rolled around I apologized for not having it done. Everyone was very gracious and understanding. Last year, as spring rolled towards summer and I determined to spin the wool. What at first seemed to be a battle turned into a pleasure once I realized the yellow wool wanted to be spun woolen, lofty and big. Once that was sorted out the spinning fairly flew through my hands and onto the bobbins. Soon the grey wool was also spinning at a much more rapid pace than I’d thought possible. A valuable lesson: just because a color, and or feel doesn’t speak to a person while still in carded form, doesn’t mean that it’s “junk” wool which is what I’d unwittingly labelled the two wools. What I’d seriously dreaded spinning became a satisfying pleasure.  After spinning the grey wool I sampled plying the two colored together deciding in favor of keeping the colors separate. Being too thick to ply easily on the wheel I got out the Navajo spindle and had a blast.

I’d wrapped two singles into a plying ball on my Bristlecone  nostepinne and plyed away a few evenings. After a setting soak and hanging to dry I still didn’t know what to make with it so set it away. Another year passed.

Early September customer wrote asking if Ed could make a special tool. We were immediately intrigued, especially since I’d been wondering about something of similar fashion. Ed made the tool for her and modified my size P hook. Perfect for using with the wool while in the car!

(Action picture taken balancing the camera while in the car.)

One term that was coined is Knook: knit + hook, the process known (among other names) Knooking. Ed’s been busy again making spindles, hairpin lace looms and Tunisian Flex hooks that he hasn’t had time to make any more so we’re not quite in production mode for the knooks yet, but one of these days I hope to put some up on the website. Once I get more adept I’d like to make a short video for YouTube. The bag has been put on the back burner (once again!). Arriving at son’s house I turned my attention to making a sweater for Faith’s birthday which is just under 2 weeks away. (What am I doing updating this blog when I should be knitting!)

A glimpse ahead, Grammie making cookies with the grandchildren.

 

Unproductive Days

It’s been a month and the Jenkins Woodworking website still isn’t near where I want it to be.

Nothing has gone as planned. Nothing concerning getting the website updated has progressed smoothly. Nor has transferring files and setting up email accounts on the computer built for us by a friend Ed hired. All day I chased shadows and hopes. Progress on several fronts has been made but by 7 this evening I ran out of steam. There’s still so much to do. I’m almost at the point of plugging the old beast back in just to update the website a little.

Tomorrow I have to take the car in to be serviced and do a bit of birthday shopping for our son who, along with his wife, will be riding here from the Boise area tomorrow on his motorcycle. One of their longtime friends is getting married Saturday and they decided it was a great excuse for a road trip. Their kids will stay home with friends minding them.  His birthday is Friday. Friday afternoon I’ll deliver Standard Turkish spindles and Delights at Oregon Flock and Fiber Festival for Morgaine of Carolina Homespun and Jim Pritchard of Herndon Creek Farm. (Ed doesn’t wholesale his other types – simply too much skill and/or time involved in them.)

Gotland sheep and spindles are the featured items for this year’s festival and we were asked to put some of our spindles in the display upstairs in the 4-H building. It’s been fun pulling together a sampling of our spindles and working with Kristi Gustafson who has been a delight. I am looking forward to meeting her in person on Friday. If you make it to OFFF (open on Saturday and Sunday) please check out all the displays upstairs – it’s also where the items that have been entered in the competitions are displayed, it’s always interesting to look at the different items.

Our daughter-in-law’s mother is moving out of state the end of this month. It’s sad to see her leave the area but for years she’s dreamed of living where she’s moving and she realized that she could either dream of it the rest of her life or do something about it. Last night four of us women friends got together for pizza and a puzzle. We had a lovely time celebrating our friendship with good conversation, food and a puzzle. We’ve watched our kids graduate from high school then college, witnessed their marriages and held their babies, and marveled that we could be so old already. We’ve cried, prayed and held two of these dear friends close in our hearts as they battle cancer. It wasn’t goodbye yet as we will all be at the wedding on Saturday that all of our grown children will also be attending. A huge family reunion, tied not by family blood but by the love of Jesus Christ.

As a children who both grew up in families that moved often: changing schools several times, new sets of friends every few years (more often for Ed), new scenery, new churches, it’s a wonder to Ed and I that we’ve been in one place for over 24 years. Roots settling deep. People in the church become our family and as with family members we take the good and bad in each other and try to have a sense of humor about the “trying” personalities.

Not all has been totally unproductive on the home front! Two more items have recently been finished:
This is the last of the rugs from the summer’s warp, shown draped over the loom. It wanted to live with us and now gives our toes a cozy cushion in the bathroom.

These socks make me happy! The superwash wool/nylon yarn which was a gift from a dear customer and his friend, Christiane who dyed the colourway for him, the color, the way they fit, and the fact that though they accidentally ended up in the washing machine they suffered no ill effect! They’ve been worn twice and feel wonderful.
Toe up, short row heel  – no pattern except for what was in my head.
Needles: double-point #2 / 2.75mm
Yarn: Drachenwolle  420 meters/100 grams – plenty left over to do a pair of socks for a small child

To avoid 2nd sock syndrome both socks were cast on the same day. The toe of first one sock was worked and then the other toe. From then on I alternately knit an inch or two on one or the other sock.  I debated doing 2 socks at once using 2 circular needles but in some ways it’s easier not to have two dangling socks going round and round, sorting out which the pair of needles.

I’m in that limbo between knitting projects! The vest weaving is still on the Julia loom. A hairpin prayer shawl is well underway but neither of those are for traveling. With OFFF coming followed a few days later by another jaunt that should have some good knitting time built in I need to settle down and decide what to cast on next.

 

 

Beach Ride!

Picture soft ocean breezes, brilliant blue skies, horses galloping through azure waves, with bareback riders effortlessly floating along…

In reality, except for the soft breeze — which given the normal biting winds of the Oregon coast seemed a miracle — high clouds coated the sky, the horses weren’t keen about the moving water, and we rode on English saddles.

The entire day was fabulous!

Driving under slightly drizzly grey skies along back roads which brought back memories from seventeen years ago when I daily drove the same wandering farm roads 20 miles to a hazelnut farm where I worked with the owner in sorting, roasting and packing hazelnuts, pulling branches during the pruning season and any other odd-end job he needed me to handle. Three miles past his place and I was at the Willamette Ferry just in time to catch it before it headed to the other side. Over the river and along more farm roads past tiny Hopewell and up a long winding road to Boulderneigh.

It didn’t take long to gather and transfer belongings to her truck, load the two horses, say a prayer for a safe day, and we were off down the long hill, up and over the coastal range and down towards the north end of Lincoln City (that town stretches more than 10 miles along the coast but is less than a mile wide in most places, limited in eastward expansion by Devil’s Lake and the Coast Mountain Range. Michelle remembered a side street with room to park her truck & trailer that had a trail leading down to the beach. All of Oregon’s beaches are public access all year long making the coast a wonderful place to walk and run without worrying about trespassing.

We tacked the horses and lead them down the  rock-strewn path to the beach.
It didn’t take us long to realize two things:
1) The horses weren’t keen about the incoming tide

2) The almost full tide meant that there was no packed sand for the horses to easily traverse.

Breezy, Michelle’s son’s pony was my horse for the day. This was the first time Michelle had brought her to the ocean and while she didn’t seem freaked by the sight and sound she did not want to be at the tide’s edge. We rode them over to a small pool to let them get used to the water without the moving surf factor.

Breezy never fully accepted walking in the water but the deep soft sand made it difficult going so I encouraged her to stay at the tide line.  The hoof prints tell the story of how she scrambled one time as the waves came closer than she wanted.The oddest part of riding at the ocean was the sense of being off balanced and dizzy while walking through the water. I’ve ridden across creeks and even done a bit of swimming with a horse but had never experienced this off balance sensation. The horses also seem to experience it. Michelle said if a horse looks at the moving tide too long it can actually fall over. The other odd thing was as the water came in and receded Breezy would drift with it in the direction the water was moving. There were many times while we were in the surf that we moved at an unnatural angle. I can’t help but suspect that Breezy wasn’t keen about being in the surf because of the way it messed up her senses and instincts.

I hadn’t ridden in a number of years and with the jacket around my waist, crop in gloved hand to encourage Breezy forward as needed, a camera dangling around my neck, managing the reins and trying to keep the horse balanced between seat and legs (failed miserably in that department)  I was feeling a bit overwhelmed at times as to what and how needing attending! Hindsight: I should have slipped on Breezy bareback before leaving Boulderneigh so we could get a feel for each other and learn to communicate before adding in all the other elements.

Both askew!
It took only a few minutes before Michelle’s horse, Russell settled down and took it all in stride.

Russell is Michelle’s dressage horse but he chipped a small bone off his flank several months ago and he’s still not allowed to move faster than an occasional easy jog which made for a long, leisurely ride without any mad dashes across the sand.

We rode until we reached “Land’s End”. Though there was only a slight breeze and the clouds were lifting and thinning the air temperature dropped and I was glad for the jacket I’d tied around my waist before setting out.

A few people wanted to come close and pet the horses

One daddy was even willing to take a picture of us together after we’d snapped pictures on his camera so he could show his wife that their 8 month old daughter had seen a horse.

All in all a wonderful day with great companions!

 

9.10.11

The date and the weather aren’t completely jiving. One would think we’re in the dog days of August. It appears that September is making up for a cold wet spring which lasted through the beginning of summer, staying cool for the better part of July. Lightning strikes triggered several wildfires in various parts of Oregon spreading smokey haze across the skies.

Last Saturday evening on the way home from a wedding in Portland I had to pull over to try to capture the glow and colors of the sky at the Willamette Falls overlook. My Kuchulu was delighted the wedding started half an hour late so was able to see plenty of action. The wedding took place at a very casual venue where guests mingled and drank as we all waited for the bride to appear. After talking with the groom, the handful of his relatives and his parents, whom we’ve known for over 30 years, Ed and I were content to sit on a sofa and enjoy people watching. As the kuchulu happily danced in my hands.
Shortly after seven yesterday evening I caught a glimpse of slanting sunlight on a neighbor’s oak tree and tried to capture the contrast of the fading day and glowing tree.

Twelve hours later I went out to water the garden and was struck at how the rising sun shining on the eastern side of the same tree. The 24 hours are evenly divided between night and day right now, though it won’t be long before the length of darkness surpasses the hours of daylight. Our garden isn’t big but it’s still producing well, tomatoes are just now ripening. I’m still waiting for the Roma tomatoes to turn red so I can begin drying them. With this stretch of 90F days it’s a shame they aren’t ripe enough to take advantage of the solar heat and drying winds that play along this little valley.

A cherry tomato, anyone?The garden is still producing brocolli, sweet (sugar) peas, green beans, beets, carrots and cucumbers.
This is the first year deer decided to cross the neighbor’s fenced yard (seen pictured above) and munch on our produce. For quite a while I was baffled that the sweet peas and carrots weren’t growing, until I spotted the markings of the deer. The next morning I got up early and soft footed it to the kitchen door. Sensing movement a mother and yearling froze before soaring back over the fence and dashing under the oak trees by the creek. (I wonder if deer are bothered by poison oak?)

Today was spent canning green beans with our daughter. Ed worked in the shop all morning cutting rough-cuts for more spindles. As soon as the garden was watered (Why, yes, I water by hand. No sense watering the paths between the rows, plus it’s a wonderful opportunity to savor the quiet of the new day.) I wrote on the spindles he’d made yesterday then readied the work  area on the back porch. Aurora arrive shortly after 8, we enjoyed a cup of coffee and some delicious blueberry donuts before heading out to the porch. Ed joined us in the afternoon to lend us a hand. The three of us make a good canning team! Thirty-some pounds, 14 quarts, 9 pints and 1 quart of dilly beans later the gas was turned off  to the big camp stove, the area cleaned up, the jars cooling on the shelve admired. A productive day! Between this group and the previous batches processed as the beans have ripened I’ve canned 26 pints and 21 quarts of beans plus 3 quarts of dilly beans (those don’t need to be pressure cooked so I do those when there’s only enough beans ready for a quart jar.

Aurora celebrated another birthday on Sunday. This was my surprise gift for her. (It’s actually a forest green.)A baby sweater! She is expecting her first child in March. We’re all so thrilled.

 

Update concerning Jenkins Woodworking website

It seems best, for now, to keep announcements concerning the Jenkins Woodworking website confined to the actual site and this blog.

Wouldn’t you know it; years ago I threw away the box the Microsoft FrontPage CD (my website building software) came in, and kept only the CD. Without the Product Key, which was on the box, FP can’t be installed on our newer work computer. Called Tech Support this morning and talked with a  helpful person at Microsoft who informed me that they no longer support FP. Spent a couple hours this morning reading website builder reviews. More decisions to be made…

Aegean, Sycamore

For now I’ll muster on with FrontPage on the old computer. Deleted a bunch of old documents and pictures to free up space then uploaded pictures of a good portion of the spindles that are in stock, only Aegeans, Kuchulus and Larks at this time.

All but three Swans (Standards) sold out at Sock summit.

Kuchulu, Redheart
It took most of the afternoon and into the evening to format and edit pictures of the spindles.  All that’s left to do is figure out uploading and embedding the PayPal buttons to facilitate buying the spindles without the need for time-consuming back and forth emails.      Lark, Marblewood

A couple weeks ago Ed and I took a Thursday and went to visit friends who live at the coast. Our children were babies and preschoolers together during our Portland days, Vallie and I shared stay-at-home motherhood and aerobics, the men drank coffee and smoked a cigar most Saturday mornings and fished whenever they could. When we left Thursday morning we planned to spend a few hours with them then head down to the beach.

The sun was shining but a stiff cold wind was blowing down from the northwest. Their living room window had a splendid view of the ocean with an occasional boat passing along the horizon. We had such a lovely time visiting and sharing food together, the hours pleasantly passed and too soon it was time to leave. We walked past a couple houses to the end of their block to gaze at the ocean one last time before heading inland.
It was disappointing not to spend time on the beach, to roll up my pants and do some serious splashing but I have a date with Michelle to look forward to: we’re planning to trailer her horses in September for a long ride on the beach – something I’ve always wanted to do.

Horses… My daughter’s step-daughter, Autumn culminated a week of horse camp at Canyonview with a show for parents to see their child and horse in action. Aurora and I spent a relaxing morning watching each camper individually put “her” horse through its paces. Each child worked on specific goals to achieve the next level in the Christian Camp Horsemanship International rankings. Watching the kids and horses brought a flood of memories from the two summers I spent as a wrangler at a camp teaching kids to ride and taking them on a multitude of trail rides.
One requirement was that Autumn had to halt at the far end of the arena before completing the last course of cones. This was her first year. See how nicely her heels are down and she’s looking ahead anticipating the next move after engaging her horse.

 

A summer weekend and SS wrap-up

Walking through the warmth of a bright summer afternoon taking parcels to the PO I lamented the lack of time to slide into the cool waters of the creek. Last Friday I swam for the first (so far only) time this summer. It was glorious. Honeybees droned over tart/sweet ripening blackberries hanging near the creek, dragonflies swirled on a slight breeze, water skippers skated out of the water, climbing onto the warm rock while tiny trout darted around my arms and legs, and Mopley contently laid in the shade. Not another person in sight or hearing.  To my surprise the water was still cool and higher than usual this far into August, the level more like that of early July. Languishing an hour soaking in peace and solace. Noting the shadow already across the creek by 3pm I decided to try to get in a daily swim sometime between noon and 2pm. Sadly it’s not working out.

Ed went on the annual camping/fishing trip with his buddies and our son-in-law, Hayman leaving me to decide between getting neglected chores done or spend that precious alone time weaving and playing. Compromise is good in these times! I didn’t get nearly as much weaving in as I’d hoped, the annual Summerfest put a kink in Saturday. It’s a small town festival with a small parade that varies slightly year to year, and a few intrepid vendors with handcrafts. A day to get out and mingle with the locals and people I know but seldom see.  The garden needed watering, an apple pie made with the fallen gravensteins, and the living room a through cleaning. Then it was time to pack up to spend the night with daughter Aurora.

We laid out a ground sheet, cushioned it with a fleece blanket then spread our sleeping bags and settled in to watch the full moon and shooting stars sail through the sky. Except, tattered clouds scudded across the sky all night long. We laid awake, dozing off and on listening to farm traffic, dogs and a few distant voices. Aurora lives at the edge of a small farm community surrounded by many grain fields – all ripe for harvest and with a forecast of possible rain Sunday evening many were working the fields late into the night. We were thankful the field directly across the road is a blueberry field with no tractors humming along the rows! The good thing about a cloudy night – no waking up to heavy dew covering everything.

The office computer had been slowing down with odd things popping up, programs that are used daily suddenly not opening necessitating digging into program files to even find them. I arranged to take it to a computer maintenance friend early Friday morning. He found 6 viruses/worms/malware on it. One especially tenacious one that seemed to go back several years but had recently activated and was the main culprit behind messing with .exe files. We’re thankful to have it running much better though there are some new issues, the worst my postage software had to be reinstalled and all the history for the past 2 years was wiped out. I’ve relied a great deal on that history – it’s the quickest way to see when something’s been shipped and delivered, I use it to cross reference when something has been mailed to a specific person then I can go to the correct month to find the order. (I don’t know how to create a database, sad. Someday I hope to figure it out but so far the learning curve has been too steep and time-consuming.) Being without our work computer was sort of freeing for the four days it was gone but yesterday was filled with trying to answer emails and reconfiguring my layouts in the postage software. Our somewhat slower days are history. Work is almost back to full swing and although we’re not yet taking wholesale orders they’ve been coming in.

Ed’s birthday is next Thursday and the vest I’ve been sporadically weaving might not get finished in time. We have two young friends getting married in September, one on the 3rd the other on the 24th and I’d hoped to weave rugs for each of them. (We’ve known the young man getting married on the 3rd since he was born the year between our two kids, the other since he was 11 or 12.)

Sock Summit seems long ago but I promised to show what came home with me.
Gryphon, of Sanguine Gryphon traded the purple and a red skein for a spindle. When Ed showed me what she’d delivered my jaw dropped and I had to get another red in hopes of making a sweater from the red and purple skeins. (No idea what pattern.) I couldn’t resist getting the pink and blue for making sweaters for Wesley and Feather.

Fiber also found it’s way back home with me; the lofty blue from Cheryl’s Newhuehandspun, the sparkly pink pencil roving aka Silver Roving (seriously it has silver in it!) gifted by Jennifer of Holiday Yarns, and the wonderful Pushka spindle straight from the Peruvian Andes – which Jocelyn thoughtfully purchased for me whilst on tour in Peru. It is a true Quechua drop-spindle, as used by the woman for all their spinning. I’m truly amazed and touched by this gift. I’m looking forward to spending more time getting acquainted with it.

Before opening time Thursday afternoon Ed came rushing into the booth and told me I needed to go across the way and snap up the red shoes before they were gone. He and I had eyed some similar 2 years ago but I’d waited too long. I dashed over and found a pair I fell in love with. It’s been fun strutting around in these babies. Saturday Ed returned to the booth after another cruise around visiting vendors. This time he encouraged me to make haste to the Dublin Bay booth and snap up the big red purse that was hanging on the wall. I did. Isn’t it a fun combo? Love reds, and I have just the Swallowtail red shawl to go with them! The spindle bag is a JustJuleeDesign gifted by the creator. (Sadly no website.) More about this another post.
After these some hundred words… a picture of the gifted goods!