Back again

I haven't been very attentive to my poor blog lately.

One reason is because I suspect it's hardly worth reading.

Another reason is because we've had such miserable weather  this spring that my desire to think at all creatively has been nearly drained.

But the weather has taken a turn for the better, so I've decided my attitude had better do the same.

I saved another life recently. I was just coming down to earth from the thrill of saving a little hummingbird when I came across this little creature early one morning as Sage and I took our daily walk.

This little guy was in the middle of the road, so it was only a matter of time before he became a squashed little guy.

I scooped him up into my hands, where he lay motionless for a few seconds; then as my hands warmed him, he perked up.

I carried him home, took a couple of photos, and placed him in my rock garden. I haven't seen him since, but I suspect he's finding life comfortable among the plants.

He's a red eft newt, common to the Northeast, or so I read when I googled his photo. He can live as many as 15 years, and he can grow to as much as five inches long. He's got some growing to do. Years ago I used to see red eft newts just about every day on my summer morning walks. I seldom see them any more, so I was especially determined to save this one's life.

In the knitting department, I made this Multnomah shawl with a skein of Malbrigio Mechita fingering-weight yarn which I bought at The Quarter Stitch in New Orleans in April. (Great yarn shop, but with a husband waiting outside for me, I had to hurry. I gave everything a quick glance, grabbed the yarn, paid for it, and fled.)

This is my fifth or sixth Multnomah, and with every single one of them the stitch numbers in the feather and fan section have come out wrong. Suddenly, in the middle of the night about a week ago, it dawned on me why I've made this mistake on every single Multnomah shawl. Now I'm eager to knit another one just to see if my theory is correct.

My vegetable garden is planted, but what will survive and what won't survive is still unknown. With so much rain and cold in April and May, I had no choice, if I was going to plant anything at all, but to plant the seedlings in soggy soil. Some tomato plants look fine, some don't. The green peppers appear happy, as do the lettuces and the kale. The cucumber, zucchini, and butternut squash seedlings are just beginning to develop nicely. I think they might do okay. Ken finally planted his potato patch last week. He was getting a bit discouraged about the late planting, too. I hope his crop does well.

Heavy thundershowers are predicted for this afternoon, so I'd better shut down my computer and find something else that needs attention.

A hummingbird in distress

On Saturday morning I decided to (finally) take the potted, dead ficus tree from the garage to the woods and dump it out so I could use its planter.
It had been sitting in the garage all winter, after I decided it was just never going to be the tree it once was. It was about 18 years old, so it owed us nothing.

As I lifted the tree by its trunk, I heard a peeping sound.

I was sure I'd imagined it, but as I moved the tree toward the garage door, I heard the peeping again.

I set the tree down and looked into its branches. There, perched precariously, sat a female ruby-throated hummer.

I was surprised it didn't fly away, but then I realized it couldn't. It's feet and beak were covered in a sticky substance.

I carefully removed the bird's tiny feet from the branch, then I carefully removed the sticky substance from its beak.

The hummer was exhausted. I don't know how long it had gone without food because it couldn't get to food or even open its beak.

I took the hummer out onto our back deck, to the hummingbird feeder, and carefully stuck its beak into the feeder opening. I couldn't tell if the bird drank any nectar or not.

I repeated this every few minutes, and eventually I could see, by the movement of the muscles in the back of her neck, that she was was, indeed, drinking some nectar.

I placed her in a plant pot beside the feeder and let her rest awhile.

After 30 minutes or so I found her perched on a leaf branch of the geranium.

A little later she flew down onto the deck floor, and eventually she flew off the deck and toward the woods.

I hope she survived. I don't know what the sticky substance was that she'd gotten into. I'm thinking maybe it was pine pitch.

I've seen hummers at the feeder regularly since Saturday, and I like to think one of them is "my" hummer.

Ken drives, I knit

I know. I know. I can hardly believe it myself: I'm back!

Let's see. Since I last posted a blog update, we've driven to New Orleans and back, I've started some vegetable seedlings, we've both complained about our cold, wet spring, and I've had cataract surgery.

But my knitting-on-the-road gets first dibs.

As we ventured down to New Orleans and back to Maine, I managed to finish the second sock of the rainbow pair above.

I knit several hats to donate to various organizations this coming fall, as winter approaches.

I knit a hat to go with the green cabled child's cardigan that I finished before we left for New Orleans.

 I knit a second hat in this pattern, because it works up very attractively with this particular yarn.

 I started a new pair of socks.

I knit an apple green hat in the same pattern.

Then I knit another apple green hat, and we arrived home!

I'm always so happy to get back home from any trip. New Orleans was great. I'll share some photos of it in my next post.

Linnea's laces

This morning I've been ironing Linnea's freshly-washed laces.

Linnea was my good friend Lynn's aunt. 'Nea (pronounced "Naya"), as she was called,  lived on a farm in New Sweden, Maine, which is in the far northern area of this large state.

She and her husband Evold farmed and lived quite simply in the Anderson family's home. Their home was one of the first homes built in New Sweden when their ancestors immigrated to Maine from Sweden in the late 1800's.

I'm sure Linnea's daily life was full with the chores of farm living. Somehow, though, she found the time to create beautiful laces.

Lynn has been sorting through many of her ancestors' treasures. When she comes across Linnea's needlework, she passes it on to me. Lynn has known me for 45 years, so she knows how much I love and treasure fine needlework.

Linnea was adept, obviously, at tatting (in the top photo), filet crochet, and "regular" crochet.

Many of these pieces of  lace are edgings for pillowcases. Imagine having the time to trim pillow cases with elegant, handmade lace.

This is one of my favorite of 'Nea's laces. A couple of years ago, when I was making a quilt block for a group quilt for one of Lynn's soon-to-arrive grandchildren, I attached a piece of this lace to the block I was designing. That grandchild, now two-year-old Liv, doesn't yet realize her quilt contains lacework from one of her Swedish ancestors. I'll tell her when she's a little older.

I'm not sure what this blue lace was intended for. Maybe for edging several pillow cases, or maybe for curtains.

It's beautiful.

Lynn has also given me a pile of Linnea's needlework booklets. Most have prices of 15¢ on the cover, so that gives you and idea of their age.

I was thrilled to make a special discovery as I thumbed through one of the crochet booklets. It's the pattern for the doily centerpiece currently on my dining room table. I made that doily about 25 years ago, from a photocopy of the pattern given to me by my Aunt Jean in New Brunswick. Aunt Jean and I both loved that pattern. She made over twenty-five of these centerpiece doilies; I made perhaps seven or eight. I've always wished I had an original of that pattern. Now I do.

I'm keeping Linnea's laces stored in a special box so they don't get twisted and neglected. Such lovely laces deserve to be treasured.

April Fool's Day: The Joke's on Us

Before I show you our April Fool's prank, take a look at this tree full of Cedar or Bohemian Waxwings. I tend to think they're Bohemian, but I'm not completely sure.

Ken and Sage stepped outdoors about 5:00 p.m. one day this past week, and Sage immediately looked up into the tall tree near the end of our driveway. It was alive with chattering birds.

The Waxwings had arrived! And we might have missed them if Sage hadn't taken note.

The Waxwings arrive for one day only each spring. At least they arrive as a flock of 50-100 for only one day each spring. They spend the day enjoying the crabapples on our crabapple tree on the front lawn.

Someone in their flock gives the signal, and they swoop in unison to the tree. There they spend only a minute or two enjoying crabapples, then in unison they swoop back into the tall tree nearby. They repeat this well-choreographed performance for hours.

Our crabapple tree is now stripped of last season't crabapples, and the Waxwings are undoubtedly farther north, visiting other berry-laden trees.

And now for our April Fool's prank: more snow.

It started last night and is supposed to continue until this afternoon. Ken said we'd received about 6" of new snow when he went out with the snowblower.

This isn't our first ever April snowstorm, but it's as disappointing as the others in past years. We're ready for spring.

A slight setback

Actually, it was a rather large setback: 18 inches of fresh snow on Tuesday, March 14. We'd been enjoying patches of bare ground up until the blizzard hit. Now we're back to snow covering the ground. Although the snow has melted a little and settled a little, I'm sure there's at least a good 12" of it out there.

In the late afternoon during the storm I braved the elements to take Sage out for a potty break.

It was tough going, and crawling over the snowbank at the end of the driveway, compliments of the town's snowplows, was a real challenge.

I finished the Child's Sophisticate cardigan that I'd been working on for several days, then I added a hat to match.

With still a little yarn left over, I made a couple more hats. These I'll donate to charity.

I'm not entirely depressed by last week's snowstorm. Spring will come to Maine.

It's just that some years it's a long while getting here. Meanwhile, I have three pots of fresh basil growing on my kitchen windowsill.

Quick and painless

I think I can make this quick and painless. I was shocked, though, to realize just now that my last post was February 7, and here it is March 7 today.

Along about February 8 or 9 I came down with a flu or a bad chest cold or something. It completely drained my energy. By "completely drained," I mean I spent days on the sofa. I'd get up to fix a meal or do a little housework, but that would drain my energy, so I'd be back on the sofa again.


A bad cough was part of the deal, so I slept upstairs in a guest room so as not to keep Ken awake all night with my coughing.

Just as I was preparing to return to our "connubial bed," Ken came down with what I had had. That sent me back upstairs so his coughing wouldn't keep me awake all night.

That little circus seemed to take up most of February. Then there were a couple of doozie snowstorms, as you can see from the first photo.

Violet arrived for a visit just after Ken and I both realized we'd be living, after all. She brought with her a kit to knit a hat for a friend's expected baby.

I was a little nervous about introducing her to knitting in the round on a circular needle and, even more challenging, knitting with three or four double-point needles as she neared the crown of the hat.

I needn't have worried. She took to the task like a champ and knit not only the baby hat, but also a hat for herself.

She visited us this past Sunday and I couldn't help but notice she was wearing her hat the entire time she was here! What's more, a friend has asked Violet to knit a hat for her.

One thing I did accomplish during my malady was knitted hats. I've given eleven of these to my friend CarolAnn, who donates them to her church's missionary program. The pattern for all these hats is the Simple Sample Hat, which I mentioned in a post recently. It's a quick and enjoyable hat pattern.

Now that I've tired myself of knitting hats, I've started a "Child Sophisticate" cardigan for a cute little guy named Luke. I have no doubt but what Luke will look dashing in this sweater some day soon.

I think it's official: I've got my groove back.