March is in like a lion

I took February off and hibernated, something I’ve always said I would do and then never did.  It was a quiet reflective month and very restorative.  I’m back in the game and happy for the time of refreshment.  Last Sunday we attended the Asian New Year event, held in the Bend High School auditorium.  There are so few Chinese in Bend that they can’t fill a program so include Hawaiian dancers and Taiko drummers, hence Asian New Year even though it really is the Chinese New Year.  The program was wonderful and of course the Tai Chi school performances were spectacular.   The meal in the high school cafeteria afterwords prepared was by the culinary arts students was also good, but sitting on those hard lollipop benches wrenched Ian’s damaged back and he’s had a rough week.

I just spent three days at the High Desert Museum getting CIG (certified interpreter guide) training. I couldn’t see why we would need three full days but we needed that and more.  Monday morning our trainer Carolyn sent us into the museum to see who our audience was at that moment.  Attendance was sparse, mostly grandparents and small children.  What I noticed is that the animals come out when the noisy children aren’t present.  Note the dead quail at this feet - lunch.  Jess, the associate curator of wildlife, was cleaning skat from his cage so he was waiting for her to leave so he could eat.

A couple of offices had this sign in the door window.  I can only imagine what’s on the other side.

Even though Jess is staff, she hasn’t yet taken the mandatory CIG training which is only offered once a year. We were learning how to develop ten-minute talks that are both engaging and informative.  I was the only one in the class from Living History.  The rest were from natural sciences.  It’s was a challenge to apply the principles to my application since we would never talk for ten minutes. Our information is delivered though Q&A.  I’m still trying to digest what I learned - a lot!

I got to pet a skunk!  Her name is Daisy and she was raised as a pet but surrendered to the HDM by her owners when they realized just how much work is required to take care of her.  We still have skunks here at our house but I’ve never been this close to one.  Cinda told me this morning that she recently saw a skunk in our front yard.  They will on occasion snack under the bird feeders in the middle of the night.  We don’t want to stop feeding the birds so just don’t let the dog out in the backyard in the middle of the night.

Most of the presentations were done in the classroom but Suzanne is a docent-in-training and so we went to the archaeopteryx exhibit downstairs for her presentation.  That’s a rough one as she has a soft voice, the ceilings are high and it’s a public space, i.e., quite loud.  I round it interesting that 12 people could be passionately drawn to 12 different subjects.

Ian and I have wanted to get down to see this exhibit but haven’t, and now I find that it’s leave in a couple of weeks.

Now I really want to see it!  Ian’s son is flying in today so maybe that’s something we can all do together.

I’ve taken on another new activity.  Our church has several community-based activities, including the wood lot.  These are the volunteers who run it on Saturday mornings, providing firewood to families who heat with wood but can’t afford to buy it.  They serve about 50 families a weekend and will deliver to those who have no way to pick it up.  I’ve joined the Community Garden group and we were just waiting waiting for the volunteers to finish their break before starting our meeting - so we could hear ourselves.  We are just in the beginning stages, evaluating what was successful last year and planning planting for this year.  We’re still a couple of weeks away from any manual labor, dictated by weather.  My walking partner Cinda told me this morning that she’d like to participate so we will have another pair of hands.  I’m looking forward to gardening with leadership from experienced gardeners.

Spring is slow coming

I've posted pictures periodically from the dirt work going on in the subdivision next to us, getting ready for their final stage of construction.  They've gone from a rocky uneven area to flat land with parcels demarcated, ready for homes.  What captures my attention is their ability to dramatically change the landscape.  This is the end of the line of development for the time being.

The field where we enjoy our walks is slated for development but I'm enjoying it for now.  I startled this couple who were scurrying to get away from me.

The road runs along the irrigation ditch and that's where they went to escape me.

And off they went.  I enjoyed having their company and I'm sure the feeling wasn't mutual.

I still have to put my packing paper in a sling at the back of my loom because Maddie is still in love with tearing it to shreds.  I can't remember who suggested this hack for I am grateful for it nevertheless.

I was still pulling this off from the cloth beam and was surprised when I stepped back and realized that she had already fallen asleep on it.  She loves to help me weave.

That warp was for a commissioned table runner but I liked it so much that I made a short one for us - the colors of spring.

Our yard is slowly showing signs of spring but it's not fast enough for me.  I bought this hanging basket at Costco even though it'll be another month before we can start hanging them outside.  We're hanging it outside on days that are warm enough and otherwise it's in the house.  Their happy faces make me happy.

Today was International Tai Chi Day so our school held the Saturday morning classes in the park.  It was pretty blustery and cool when we first started but we started shedding layers after the first hour.  I've always wanted to do Tai Chi in a park.

Changing Seasons

I'm attending an evening session of beginning tai chi and like to go to the school early so I can watch the Washu kids.  Washu is a form of martial arts and these are the beginning students.  They're fun to watch and it's encouraging to me.

Master Chen is teaching more than martial arts.  He talks to them about body, mind and spirit.  Neither Ian nor I ever anticipated that tai chi would become such a large part of our lives when we signed up last January for the five-week introductory class through the community class.  Interest is growing and last week was the beginning of COCC's fall five-week session.  The classes are packed!

 I had never seen vine maple before we moved here and these beauties are everywhere.  Our yard is filled with color and migrating birds. This week marks our first anniversary in this house.

Temperatures are still pretty moderate and since we haven't had a hard frost yet our yard is still in the changing over stage, different trees and shrubs are losing their leaves at different rates.  Our huge aspen tree is just beginning to turn but our red maple has lost all it's leaves. And that shrink-wrapped stuff on palettes is our firewood.  The guy we bought it from brought it in from the road on a forklift.  No cutting and stacking for us this year!

These trees belong to a neighbor down the street.  He's going to have a lot of leaves to rake and I'm so glad it's him and not us!  We have plenty already but Ian is trying to do a little at a time to keep up.

The towels are finished and I'm never repeating this colorway again.  It's the last project and with a few housekeeping items, I'm ready for the holiday sale in two weeks.  It's a first-time event.  I'm sharing booth space with two other weavers and have no idea how we'll even set up.  I'm looking at it as a trial run for next year.

This is Ponderosa Elementary School and it's where I've been assigned as a volunteer with Smart (Start Making a Reader Today).  Thursday was my first day and I'm assigned two kinders to read with for the rest of the school year.  All the volunteers went through orientation the previous week but even so the first day was chaotic.  Once a month all the students receive a free book to keep and the October book happened to be that same day - excitement!  The program is 25-years old and has proven to improve reading skills by the third grade.  It's a combination of reading, talking about the book and developing critical thinking skills.  One of my students was an excellent listener and the other has a ways to go. DIL Missy suggested it to me and I love it already.

This is how we vote in Oregon.  Ian filled his out and took it to the mailbox right after breakfast yesterday morning.  I did mine just before lunch and set it on the counter.  Ian headed off the mailbox with mine and I said, hold on a minute Buster Brown.  I'm going to cast my own ballot, thank you very much.  It's nice not to have to go to a polling place but I still want the experience of casting my *own* vote.

And I'm finally knitting again with enthusiasm.  I bought a cone of Bartlett Yarn last spring but never found the perfect pattern.  I spent some time on Ravelry earlier this week using really tight parameters and finally found exactly the cardigan I'd like to wear.  It's not the knitting that's a problem, it's finding something that I will actually wear and enjoy.  The pattern had a link to Interweave and a magazine called Love of Knitting which I bought for $6.99 and downloaded.  I've never heard of this magazine but it had several patterns that caught my eye that might translate into later projects.  It feels good to knit - I've missed it.

Not According to Plan

I stopped what I was doing and went for a walk in the field yesterday because if the forecast is correct, it's the last day of Indian Summer.  The forecast is for rain tomorrow and snow in the mountains.  I believe it - it's cold and blustery today!

I've made a number of routes through the field but I always try to finish up along the irrigation ditch.  It will go dry very soon when the irrigation district shuts off the supply for the winter.

I'm not the only one who likes to walk along the ditch.  It looks like an entire raccoon family went for a stroll!

I finished weaving the rest of the warp on Dora, my workshop loom.  I zigzagged the edges and threw the sampler into the wash along with the rest of the towels. I think the plain weave tracking is really attractive.

This is the sample on the left from the above photo which was woven as double weave, double width.  My crease shows but I'd still like to try it again using my handspun yarn for a wider lap robe without wrenching my arms out of the shoulder sockets on a wide warp.

I was introduced to pick-up in an Andean Pebble Weave class and didn't like it one bit - too fiddly!  But boy did I like pick-up in double weave and after struggling with it in class, the right sample, I did the same thing again at home and thought it was very cool.  I want to do it again but in wool and a more interesting motif.  It seems like a good cold-weather project for this winter.

Remember my inspiration picture?

The colors are absolutely right but the towels are a disaster.  All my previous colorways have come from nature and the colors appear together in harmony.  The values are off here and I have complementary colors crossing together on every towel with muddy results.  Lesson learned - Mother Nature knows best!

Ian and I have been taking Tai Chi for Health classes at the Oregon Tai Chi school since February and I'm ready to step up to the next level.  We've become friends with Joanie, a lady who drives down from Redmond, and after two years taking our class she also wants to enroll in the school.  We met for QiGong this morning, plunked down our money, got our uniforms and are now official students of the school.  I'm really excited.

This is the beginning class that she and I will be taking and it's held five times a week.  Beginning next Saturday we've decided to make this our class so stayed to observe for a while.  Master Chen asked one of his Washu students to lead the stretches.  He can't be more than ten years old and we were encouraged to see all levels in this class.  I know we will fit right in.  One of the students is a young man who is recovering from a traumatic injury and if he can do these two sessions back to back, so can we.

It's been an interesting week in the Campbell household.  I went with Ian to Urgent Care Saturday night when it became clear that he doesn't have the flu but is passing another kidney stone.  As the time stretched on, I felt like I was going to fall over if I couldn't like down and since we only live five miles away, I came back home and stretched out on the bed, waiting for the call to come back.  Yet another reason why I'm glad we live here.

He had an x-ray and saw his assigned urologist on Thursday.  The short of it is that he has two options.  He can take Flomax, drink more water and wait for it to pass naturally, the doc's preference, or if we decide to take our New York trip anyway and he hasn't passed the stone by Tuesday, he'll do surgery on Wednesday to remove it.  At this point, Ian has decided to let it pass naturally and if that hasn't happened by Tuesday, then he'll cancel our reservations and tickets.  Old age adventures - ugh.  Things are not going according to plan!

So Much Going On

Little Sharon and Noah came up from San Francisco, arriving the same day that Petey left.  We went back to Tumolo Falls - it's too spectacular to miss.  Sharon and Noah rode with Missy and Logan.  Logan came because he wanted to drive so Noah got to ride shotgun and the girls visited in the backseat.  Then the next day they went to Sharc, a water park in Sun River, and I think everyone had a good visit in spite of it being so short.

Chrissie and her family will arrive on Friday to spent a week.  Friday is Kiernan's 17th birthday which we will celebrate with a barbecue.  I am so looking forward to Friday.  I haven't seen my daughter and her family since last September - can't wait!

Sunday Ian and I went to our tai chi school for their annual open house and we are both so glad we did.  It went from noon to 3:00 and cemented our commitment to this discipline.  The school teaches Waishu to the kids because, as our instructor explained, tai chi is too slow and boring for them.  It's an acrobatic form of martial arts and best of all the kids absolutely love it.  Of all days to happen, my phone, i.e., camera, ran out of juice - kicking self.  The most important video for me was the adults 32 form with swords.  Bummer.  We're going to enroll in the form 8 class starting in August and put all the exercises we've been learning into practice.

My weaving has suffered in all of this activity but the space-dyed bamboo yarn scarf is finally finished.

And my sample 8-shaft tea towels are finished and since there's a treading error, I'm not selling them. I just wanted an excuse to keep them.  They really fit our kitchen.  This week I was skimming through past Handwoven issues and found the one with the weave-along for this draft that I thought was my own original idea.  They did it in 2011.  It just goes to show you that there is nothing new under the sun.

I've started winding another warp for dishtowels with these colors to weave on Maudie Mae.

Both looms are empty so I'm going to use this 3/2 cotton and get a baby blanket warp on Arthur.  My plans are vague to me right now, but I have my pondering cap on.  I guess it's pretty apparent what my favorite colors are, not that you'd see me wear any of them.

Meanwhile I'm receiving several "alternative therapy" opportunities, free to me through the Cancer Center, including the Reiki appointment I have in the morning. These are offered to me as a radiation patient but it's my neck that's enjoying the benefit.  I'm also enrolled in private two-hour sessions of Restorative Yoga once a week, also for neck mobility.  I am half way through radiation with a targeted end date of July 20th.  I'm going to celebrate that day by planting a cool plant, yet to be determined.