Friday, May 25, 2012

Knitting

Vickie and I drove down to Yerington today to visit our friend Diane. We all used to work together and became friends in spite of being coworkers. Vickie and I have wanted to make this trip for a long time so set the date, and it ended up being the date of a freak spring storm. We had a mixture of snow and rain all the way down, at times just plain dicey. Scenery was not available, but we visited the heck out of it anyway.

We all went to lunch and then back to Diane's, where we chatted and laughed for a couple more hours. Girlfriends are so important. I'm reading Anna Quindlen's new book and she devotes a whole chapter to how important we are to each other. We are good medicine.

On the way back Vickie and I drove into Weed Heights, a former Anaconda mine site. It's just eerie. Vickie said she felt like we were driving through a movie set and the former company residential areas, now rentals, we decided was ala Stepford Wives. She had never seen Ft. Churchill either, so we did a drive through there too. The major thrust of the storm had passed through by then. She took a picture of my sweater at the Visitors Center. It's from the Knitting Pure and Simple pattern, Top Down Boatneck Pullover. This was a first outing for my sweater.
I was surprised leaving Reno north. The traffic was fairly heavy this evening so I had a wait to get waved through the agricultural inspection station. I drive through California to get home to Nevada - yeah weird. Thank goodness they know my car because coming home with plants from the nursery could be awkward. I see them look at my license plate - Bookist - and no, I'm not a bookie - I'm a readist. They wave me through.
I love the clouds over the Sierras and caught both shots while rolling forward - there were so many moments that I almost pulled over because sometimes it just takes my breath away, but it was already after 6:00.
I didn't pull over to take storm cloud pictures because I figured I do it when I turned onto our road, but the storm was all to the south of here.


This is our canyon, coming from the north end of Red Rock Road. We had absolutely no storm, no rain, but all the pictures I had expected to take in Mason Valley and couldn't because of the deluge, I guess were pent up and I took them here.
This is my current project. I have obsessed over the white being a three-ply and the gray being two-ply and I've finally decided to knit the project and wear the jacket when I'm done. This is from handspun and I just need to bite the bullet, knit my handspun yarns and stop being so critical. I'll get that attitude in shape tomorrow. Tomorrow - make bread or make soap. I'll think about that tomorrow.

BTW, we had to light a fire in the woodstove today. I don't know what the weather is like where you are on May 25th. Today we got to the mid 40s and will be close to freezing tonight. I live in a very strange corner of the world. Pioneers - how did they survive? I think about that a lot since I live on a pioneer route.

5 comments:

Valerie said...

Love the new sweater! And the one in progress looks good too.

sounds like a fun visit despite the weather. We have had frost on Memorial Day weekends in the past. But tomorrow we are promised temps in the 90's. It's been a very unusual spring in Michigan, following a very unusual winter.

Curious to hear what you think of Anna Quindlen's book once you've finished it.

Nina said...

I love the sweater. Your photos of the scenery you are surrounded by never fail to take my breath away. Your weather is indeed something which makes one wonder about survival. I often wonder that about our winters here, which can have metres of snow and and absurdly cold weather for week after week. I cannot imagine coming into a land which was covered in old growth forest and deep, long winters and what it must have taken to make a life within it all.

Robin said...

What a great basic sweater. Look great on you. It was in the 90's here in southwest Ohio yesterday. Very strange - almost a record breaker. I've already picked about 2 lbs. of strawberries this year and everything is blooming about a month ahead of schedule. We had NO snow this past winter and the bugs are awful!

Cindie said...

Love your sweater and the new jacket on the needles. It's chilly here in SW Oregon too - rain the past 2 days which we can use before the rains stop for months on end.

Wool Enough said...

The jacket-in-progress looks wonderful. Neutral colors and geometric designs are two of my fav's.