Changes

Local birds have are indicating that it's time to migrate.  I haven't seen geese along the canal trail in quite a while but I hear them overheard, going south.  I don't know what ducks do but they won't have the canal much longer as it will be shut off at the end of the irrigation season.  Two of the smaller irrigation companies have had to shut their water off early.  We're feeling the drought especially hard this year.

I could hear our neighbor Lee and his granddaughter Robin pulling up potatoes this morning while I was knitting on the patio.  They were excited to show it to Ian to see if he's ever had one this big.  Nope!  Robin calls it her potato duck; it really does look like a duck without a bill.  Boy was she excited.

I was off by a day - thought it was Saturday which was disappointing.  My two days of free time suddenly shrank by half.  I have been working on this shawl all week, a little at a time, so today I wove long enough to see what it's going to look like.  This is my first time with Shadow Weave.

This is the warp for the Color Confidence workshop taught by Zoom from Sarah Jackson.  She provided all the yarn and even wound all the 3-yard warps herself.   I look forward to seeing the colors and patterns build when I start weaving Our first session is September 14th at 2:00.  

This year is flying by.  I have one more week of PT for my knees and do the 15 minutes of home exercises before I even get out of bed.  I've walked the last three mornings with Ian and am back up to two pain-free miles.  My last bone density test was not good so I'm tackling the exercises and walking as if my life depended on it because it does.  

I'm filling in as our guild's newsletter editor until elections in November.  Our 89-year-old dedicated editor had wanted to give it up for a long time.  I kept hearing that I needed to do something so I did.  I took in on.  Did I mention that I'm president this year?  The year of a pandemic and Zoom.  I took the lead from the Portland guild and chose a virtual platform called Mailchimp to get us moved into the 21st century.  I've never enjoyed learning software and this was no exception but now that I've tamed the confusion, I find it pretty agreeable to work with.  

We watched Delaney three days last week.  Son Matt has always wanted to own his own tile installation company.  His birthday is Wednesday and this week marks the beginning of his dream come true.  Both he and Julia are the company and we are taking on two extra days a month so Julia can focus on office work.  It scares me to see him leave such a successful job as a production manager but he's already got work lined up through October.  

Oregon is holding steady on Covid-19 infections and I do my best to not take risks.  We went out to dinner last evening for Ian's birthday and browsed our favorite indie bookstore afterward where he ordered a book.  One day at a time.

 

Oops - Time Got Away from Me

In three short weeks we've gone to this weather, 

to this weather.  Some of the leaves are bright red and the rest will soon follow.  It's time to exchange the summer clothes in my closet for the winter ones.  My summer closet is quite small since the season is at the most four months.

It's getting dark earlier.  I still haven't gotten used to how long the long days are, and how short the short days are.  The other night we were quietly reading when Ian asked me what the date was.  Is it the 6th?  So I checked my watch and sure enough, it was the 6th.  Happy anniversary, he said!  Oh shoot, I forgot again!  We got married in Reno on Balloon Race weekend when a lot of family was in town.  It was quite spontaneous and it's taken me years to remember the actual date and apparently I have a ways to go on that front.  It's been a very full and rich 22 years.

Taking Delaney to my studio after her 9:00 bottle is still working like a charm.

It's not just weaving that puts her to sleep.  The whirling action of the warping reel seems to be just as effective.

She took a second nap that day and I was able to get the warp on the loom but not beamed.  It's on now and I'm already weaving on it.  So much of my equipment has come from the sales of towels, including my warping reel and electric bobbin winder.  This year I'd like to buy a raddle and lease sticks that aren't made by me.  The nails on the ruler-now-raddle are absolutely annoying.  I think I'll buy a third Schacht end-feed shuttle too and give Crackle Weave another try.

I asked Julia if the pink sweater I knitted for Delaney's baby shower in March fitted her yet and she sent me this picture the next day.  Almost!!

I finished this sweater in Appalachian Cotton after having it on needles for four months.  It's still too large but it will fit her soon.  She'll be six months old on October 3rd

We had friends for an overnight visit last week and John, a photographer, took several shots of Delaney.  This one is my favorite.

And here's where I torture you with baby pictures - those sweet hands!!
.

I managed this shot in my lap.  She slept there for an hour and I didn't want to risk waking her up to move her.  Good thing I can read a Kindle with one hand because that's exactly what I did.  I just finished reading Here We Are by Aarti Shanini, an NPR news corespondent - excellent!!  I highly recommend it, an inside look at deportation.  It's well written and compelling.

Firsts

I'm released to return to my normal activities and am so glad to be able to walk again.  The days are beautiful and summer has remained cool and spring-like.  I am starting with a figure eight pattern around our neighborhood so that I'd never be too far from home in case I needed to cut my walk short.  That takes me by Clover's house twice.  She keeps water out for the deer and they love her.

She sent me this picture the other day.  It's the mama deer who has been hanging around our immediate area.  She stashes her twins away and then forages in the mornings while it's still cool.  Clover was watering her hanging plants and mama came right up to her, scared Clover half to death.  The deer bucket was dry and she was asking Clover to fill it.  That was a first!

I ordered this play mat for Delaney and guess who thought it was for her!  Silly kitty.

Delaney likes it too and has already figured out how to grab the rings on one of the hanging toys.  We've learned that as tempting as it is to let her fall asleep on the mat, it's not a good idea.

She was miserable one morning last week.  Her tummy hurt and her exploding diapers used up all her clothes so that I had to run a quick load of laundry.  I think every nursing mother learns the hard way that what they eat is what their baby eats.  Matt assured me that there would be "no more enchiladas."  I told him I had done it to him with corned beef and cabbage.

The cool weather has kept a lot of my flower garden from flowering but not this double peony.  It's my first one and next year I'll have a peony cage to support the heavy heads.  Both of these plants are firsts for me.  The one on the right is Husker Penstamon (red strain).  I love the delicate flowers and I love the red foliage.  Plus it's attracting pollinators.

Sunday morning we drove down to Klammath Falls which is roughly halfway between Reno and Bend to pick up our granddaughter Alexia.  She's been comfortable staying with us since she was four-years-old and is now 14, soon to be 15 in August.  She'll be with us for a month this summer.

Mondays are the days I spend at the High Desert Museum as a living history interpreter and this is Alexia's third year to do it with me.  Miss Emily and she went out to the garden to collect rhubarb.

It was pie day and this one was made by Hazel with Miss Emily assisting.  It was an unusually cool day and the heat from the wood stove was most welcome.  The aroma of baking pie drew in visitors like a magnet.

Alexia pronounced it delicious, and I would have to agree!

The day after tomorrow I'll have both of my granddaughters here, another first.

Yay for me!!

We're starting to settle into a routine with Delaney.  Julia still plans to just work two days a week.  Newborn care runs about $300 a day and she doesn't make that much a day.  She's happy to not be working full time right now and I'm thrilled to have Delaney two days a week.  I was reading to her and tried to catch the moment with this selfie.

As of last Monday I'm back at the High Desert Museum as a living history interpreter, wearing my Birkenstock sandals.  Since they're not period appropriate I'm seated in a rocking chair with my skirt covering my feet, and I'm either knitting on a pair of socks or drop spindling.  On occasions I have to get up to help direct visitors and so far no one seems to have noticed my toes.

Staci is a new seasonal worker so Emily showed her how to bake a rhubarb pie in the wood cookstore using fresh rhubarb from the garden.  It was a great success and Staci was very proud.

This doe has been hanging around our yard, obviously pregnant and only getting bigger.  I took this picture as I was backing out of the garage, on my way to HDM.  She is alone these days and the neighbors are keeping an eye on her.  We seriously have each others phone numbers and text for updates.

Clover who lives two houses away texted Ian and me on Sunday morning to let us know that the twins had been born at Sandy's house, right in between us.

Once born they go to ground and just don't move.  Mom was eating grass and really quite trusting of us, given that the babies were between her and our little cluster of neighbors.  Ian is a morning person and saw her bring them into our yard about 5:00 Monday morning.  The three of them are still here and we are leary of provoking any kind of protective response from her.  We went through that last year and once is enough.

I'm not able to do much yard work other than bend over and pull weeds so it's wonderful to see my hard work from past years.  This is my first attempt at irises.  I was given about a dozen rhizomes which I planted last year.  Six of them are award winning, a gift from Petey, Ian's friend from college and now my friend. His cousin's husband raised them for show and had written the name of the iris on the dried flag.   This one is Wicked Cool, which it is indeed.

 I've been having my morning coffee on the patio, enjoying the plants as they grow and come together.  It's starting to look like I meant it to look like this.  Granddaughter Alexia and I created a little fairy garden and she'll be here next month to see how fabulous it looks now.

It's been two months exactly since my surgery and today was also my first appointment with my surgeon.  I have a lot of healing to go but he's given me exercises and told me to get back to doing the things I like to do.  I've done a lot of knitting and reading but it's summer and I want to enjoy all three months of it.  I celebrated my good report at my favorite nursery with two plants for my shade garden and two for my sedum garden.  I've always wanted to be able to grow an astilbe and am concerned that it might be too big for the area where it will go.  I had planned on another hosta but my good visit made me adventurous and I went for it. I'm excited to get back to yard work, and while it's still cool will take my first walk in the morning in my Teva sandals - I'm still too swollen for a shoe.  Yay for me!!

The weather is a'changin'

Last Thursday was our first day to watch Delaney.  It was kind of a shake-down cruise, just one day to work out the bugs and for Julia to get used to being back at work..

She's eight weeks old today and we're officially on duty.  Sammie is absolutely thrilled to have a baby in the house.  She has always adored children.  I think it's a Lab thing.  Delaney will be with us tomorrow.  Julia is working two days a week, at least for now.

I've continued spinning each morning for about a half hour.  Michelle asked me if I noticed a therapeutic effect.  I can't definitively say yes, but I think my foot is doing pretty good just eight weeks postop.

Another benefit is I'm going through my significant stash of roving and skeins require less storage space.

My plan is to weave another lap robe like this one,once I'm able to weave again.  I have various leftover skeins of colored wool so it won't be exactly like this.  The interesting thing about this throw is that it's from one sheep.  When Ollie was a yearling he had bright brown fleece which aged to a gray tan over the years.

I'm saving coffee grounds from the Keurig pods.  They're nearly dry when I scoop them out, much tidier than the grounds from my French press.  I know they're great in compost and good for garden soil amendment but I just learned that they change the ph of the soil and turn the hydrangea flowers blue.  I worked in the first batch yesterday along with some granular fertilizer.  

We've had quite a few of the migrating deer in our yard recently.  Some of the these will migrate on up into the Cascades but two for sure were born in our yard and stay with us.  Our yard is completely fenced so I'm free to enjoy them without trying to protect plants.

Meet Delaney Jane

This is the picture Matt sent to all of us at 11:00 Wednesday night.  He had texted us that morning that Julia's water broke at 3:00 a.m. and they were at the birthing center.  He updated us periodically but we didn't get THE text until 11:00 that she had arrived and by then we were all sleepless, on pins and needles.  It was a long day for Julia, in labor since 9:00 that morning, but Delaney is perfect - 8 lb 3 oz, 20 1/2" long - and mom is fine but tired.  Matt had created a text group to update all of us at once and I've never had my phone notifications be so busy.

We got to meet her Thursday morning. The staff have commented on how alert she is, taking everything in with her eyes.  I think she's going to be a calm baby, like her daddy. Their room in the birthing center is huge and couldn't be nicer, nor could the staff.

The doctor kept them over one more day to work the bugs out of nursing.  Matt sent this picture when they finally got home on Friday.  "We're fed and changed."  She is sweetness :-)

I'm still trying to identify and send photos to Richard, the man who is researching my grandfather, and I'm glad he's going to Washington next week to visit some historical societies.  I had looked at the pictures on many occasions with my mother but they're not labeled.  The only ones labeled are the loose ones that I've written on the backs of.  I sent him another 20 pictures yesterday.  It goes faster now that I've stopped scanning them and just take a shot with my iPhone.  He can identify later if he needs any of them scanned.  This is my grandmother in front Green River Gorge, a lodge that she and my grandfather ran together.  She's funnin' with the photographer. I think I have maybe another dozen to send that he might be interested in.

Since we've started on this he's send me (and my daughter who originally contacted him on Ancestry) a book he wrote and also an issue of American Indian Art that contains an article he wrote. My grandmother had written a book called Squak Valley (Issaquah) which King County Historical Society published in the 1960s and it's still in print.  I have a typewritten version of the book but have never read it.  Now I'm reading every chance I get, trying to get caught up with Richard's research.  I just wish my brother were still alive.  This is a dream come true for him.

Bend Art Center is having a huge sale of their permanent collect which has been in storage.  This to help finance the reorganization, from the 501c3, which is desolving, to the new structure.  We have friends who are art collectors so asked them if they'd like to meet us there yesterday morning and browse the sale before going to lunch.  I didn't expect to buy anything, didn't think we could afford to, but the prices were super low so things would move, and after looking around at everything, we both met up at this Jeb Barton piece - so we bought it.  They didn't buy anything so we went to lunch, talked about the sale and books and our jobs and finally left.  They went back to the sale and later texted us with pictures of the three prints they bought.

That afternoon Ian asked me what I thought about going back to buy the companion piece to the print we bought, so we did.  He had found a gallery in Ashland representing Jeb Barton and our print was listed by them for $1,200.  Since we had paid a tenth of that, it seemed like a smart move, but it was sold.  Instead we bought this Justyn Livingston print.

We love both of the pieces together.

I think they're just what the living room needed.  I know we said we weren't going to acquire any more "things" but I can't quite think of art as things.  I think of our pieces as friends and I love their presence.  I know a lot of people who move their pictures around but I've just not been able to do that. If we never buy another piece, I think our walls are safe.