Summertime is Visitor Time

Our friend Petey came for a visit last Sunday.  He originally had planned to come during the week but when his plans changed, he drove the eight hours from Davis California where he was visiting his cousin and arrived Sunday afternoon.  This was a fortunate change of events as our kids are very busy during the week but were free for a barbecue.  Matt brought the corn hole game and we enjoyed the afternoon sun in our backyard.  That's the only sun Petey has enjoyed here as the weather turned the very next day.

Petey and I have taken morning walks in the field behind our house and since he's a retired botany professor, I've had the extra treat of information to go with the pretty wildflowers.  It's helped me to better use my Wildflowers of the Pacific Northwest book.

We had warned him to watch for deer on his drive into our neighborhood and he had just said how disappointed he was not to see any when suddenly we came across these two young bucks with antlers in velvet.

The weather left us with limited options so we ended up eating our lunch out every day, probably not the most wholesome activity.

The road to Tumalo Falls just reopened after being closed for a year so we drove up to see it on Thursday.  Even with the drizzly rain it was very crowded.  This is not a place to go on the weekend, that's for sure.  We pulled up our hoods and took the short walk to the observation area at the top of the falls.  What a beautiful piece of real estate!

Rain came in earnest yesterday nixing the places that we had planned to go but then we realized that Petey had never been to the High Desert Museum.  Even though we had been there just a month ago, there's so much to see that we piled into the car and drove through the deluge to the perfect indoor destination.  I love how bronze sculptures appear throughout the landscape like this fish "swimming" upstream.

They have assembled the perfect mix for all interest levels though the main thrust is childrens education, like this weather station.  I want to take my granddaughter Alexia here when she visits this summer.  I know she'll enjoy every bit of it, but I think she'll really have fun creating a simulated weather forecast.  This display gets the attention of all ages.

And then there's today.  It has rained since last night and is projected to rain into the early afternoon.  Our plans are on hold for now but as soon as the rain turns to drizzle, we plan to head downtown for the Saturday Market which is craft vendors, and a special event called Bite-of-Bend.  We don't know what that is but it's well advertised and probably means eating yet another meal out at noon.  Most of our lunches have been so late that we've snacked our way through dinner but today I'm putting chili in the crockpot.  It will smell great when we walk in the door.

Time Flies!

The second scarf from hand-painted bamboo that I bought from Yarntopia Treasures is on Maudie Mae and almost done. Again it's quite striped.  I'm going to take a break from hand-painted warps.  I know I said it before but this time I mean it.  Laura was here last week and disagreed with me.  She likes it.

And I have another block weave sample on Arthur so I can take advantage of his 8 shafts.  I just found a threading error so can't sell these but Ian's happy about it.  He thinks they belong in our kitchen where all our various plates have cobalt blue in common.

I gave Laura three of the "towels" from my last sample warp as they were too narrow to be of use for me and I know she can use them in her cheese making.  She called the other day and challenged me to weave these in turned taquete since it's a two-block weave.  I'm mulling over the possibilities.

I finally ran out of the marijuana/coconut oil that I made last summer and was forced to finally buy weed.  I didn't know what to expect and was more nervous driving to the dispensary than I was driving to radiation the first time.  And by the way, after today I will have seven sessions under my belt.  I go every day at 3:15 Monday through Friday until I've achieved my total of 33 sessions which should be July 18th.

I went to Cannacopia first, mostly because I've driven by it and knew it's location.  You enter a front waiting area and get checked in by the receptionist.  The room was packed with people who looked for the most part like everyday people, not scary at all.  At some point the door opens and out comes the customer and a "bud tender" calls the name of the next on the checked-in list.  The actual transactions take place in an inner sanctum.

I need high CBD/low THC buds and after the tender realized that I was going to make my own medicine, he told me wasn't going to sell me weed but was referring me to another dispensary that is less costly.  Wow! The second dispensary was The Herb Center and they grow their own, thus passing on the savings to their customers.  My two bags weighed a total of 14 grams (1/2 ounce) and cost me $130.  Clearly I needed to be careful with my preparation.

After phishing around on the Internet I chose this recipe and set about to decarb my buds.  Everything I read about making canna oil insisted that you not skip this step.  I don't understand the chemistry but I did understand that this step makes the buds more potent and I reason that means I can use a smaller dose and make it last longer.  Currently my dose is 1/2 teaspoon and I have two cups of oil.  The next step is to learn how to grow my own so I can skip the dispensaries.

St Charles Medical Center has a nicely landscaped campus and every day I walk by the bed in front of the Cancer Center I'd see that the beautiful lupine had dozens of volunteers.  I asked around for the name of the groundskeeper but no one had any idea.  So Wednesday I took a baggie with wet paper towels and helped myself to these three.

By yesterday morning they looked like they'd been in yard for weeks.  Free plants!  I called it purloined lupine.  One of my friends had a lot of fun with it calling it "lupine larceny" and "felonious flower filching."

I haven't mentioned Maddie lately but she's doing fine.  She has blossomed since we moved, probably because she has all the windows she could possibly enjoy.  Her fear level has abated greatly.  She still won't let anyone else near her but she gives into curiosity and checks people out when they come over.

These are the only visitors that she doesn't see.  They're on the outside of our fenced yard and her windows are on the inside.  They like the wild grasses in our front area and we like it that they like them.

Almost Garden of Eden

One more plum bush needed to come out before I would have room to plant this area on the side of the lawn. I did it when Ian wasn't home to make it less painful for him.  I think he's finally starting to see the value to cutting back and trimming but he's struggled.  The bush didn't go without a fight though and left three large bruises on my left forearm.

We both agree that this poor bush was dead.  It and the Mugo pine in the right foreground were smothered by the plum that I removed last week.  The pine is making a comeback.

It is looking more robust every day.  I've added day lilies on both sides and you can see that the stubs of the plum bushes are already growing shoots.  I think they'll shape up nicely as they grow - not over 4' tall this time.  The bush on the right is a hydrangea with the growth potential of 12 and it's white so I'll be able to influence the color by the soil amendments that I provide.  I'm leaning toward blue right now.

Josh called me Sunday to say that Coastal, a store in Redmond, was having a half-off sale on all their plants through Memorial Day.  Ian and I drove up after tai chi and came home with ten new plants including these raspberries.  I'm hearing from several sources that they grow very well here and we should have oodles of berries next year.  I also put in two blueberry plants and am looking forward to picking my own instead of picking them up at Costco.

This is the snake in the garden of eden, the creepy creeper that we cut to the ground that is steadily coming back.  It grows like an alien from a science fiction movie.

We figure it is occupying at least twelve square feet of our flower beds.  We sprayed it with Round-Up a couple of days ago and aren't seeing much response though the instructions say that perennials with invasive roots can take up to a month.  I'd just love to stop it from advancing for a moment.  Earlier this week I was tearing it out of a forsythia that it had started to climb.

I would have blogged earlier but ran into yet another stumbling block in transferring my photos from my iPhone to my Microsoft hard drive.  It took me an hour to discover that the "share photos" option in the iCloud had gotten turned off.  I got it back up and running to discover that Adobe was demanding that I buy Photoshop Elements 12 which I bought just a year ago for $99.  I had no idea they meant $99 for one year and as I dug though their information I learned that it's actually a subscription service now for $9.99 a month.

The problem is that the photo "viewer" that comes with Windows 10 is a viewer only.  It wasn't until today when I started mucking through it all again that I was seriously tempted to throw in the blogging towel.  But then I discovered that Microsoft Pictures is a very fine photo editor and it's already installed and paid for.  I realize that most of you don't find this interesting but I thought I'd mention it in the event that one day you do need a photo editor and don't want to get muscled by Adobe.  Okay, I'm done with that - dusting off hands.

Time Marches On

My friend Chris Smith from El Cajon, way back in the day, stopped by on her way driving from Portland to South Dakota.  She is our first guest of 2016 and the first one to use our RV space.  I gave her a cooks tour as she hadn't been in Bend in years.  She had never seen the Old Mill District which is on both sides of the river and is the area of two former lumber mills.  (Everyplace in the city is a district - our house is in the Old Farm District.)  I took this selfie in the REI store which is a building from the sawmill and lumber days. I didn't think about how short she is when I took it!

We did a quick tour of the downtown area. This little statue is sporting one of the yarn bombs from the fiber arts symposium a couple weeks ago.

 Chris drives a 24' foot RV which has also been her home for the past ten years, so it was a quick visit as she wanted to get on the road early.  She left me with this Amish-inspired wall hanging.  She's had to downsize her love of quilting and this is a perfect addition to my studio.

I'm sampling again on the two-block profile draft but with a black warp this time.  I was so full of myself, thinking that I had come up with something ingenious, a faux counterpane.  We watched Madelyn's DVDs at the weave/study group this past Wednesday.  It was there I learned that this had been a weave-along in a Handwoven issue a couple years ago but since I only starting taking the magazine last summer, I was oblivious.  I guess I'm not the only one who thought it was a good idea :)

An exciting and energetic discussion followed afterwards.  I asked a by-the-way question - how do you get fringe knots to be the same length all the way across?  Stephani said to tie a loose overhand knot and then afterwards adjust the knots up or down.  It cut down the twisting time by half and the knots did line up.  I realized after it had been washed and dried that I hadn't snugged up the knots evenly and they no longer line up.  I will try this again on my next scarf.

The scarf is finished but the matching teal Tencel M & W pattern is lost in the stripes.  I thought this yarn would be a little more variegated.

The light has to hit it just right for the pattern to show.  I think the 6/2 bamboo is a little heavy for a scarf and is probably more appropriate for a knitted lace shawl.

This is the other skein of 6/2 bamboo.  There's a little more contrast here so I'm hoping for better pattern definition this time.

Just a year ago we were here in Bend, enjoying a visit with the kids, and a year later it's where we live.  I had my first appointment at radiation oncology this past Tuesday.  The preliminary stuff is over and I start treatment next Thursday afternoon.  Fortunately we're meeting friends from tai chi for lunch that day, a little dose of laughter with friends to sweeten up the day.

Enjoying Nature

One of our neighbors told me that she and her husband like to walk along the irrigation canal to downtown, have breakfast, look around and then walk back home.  I don't want to walk that far but thought it would be fun to see how far I got using the Map My Walk app on my phone.

I got this far, right behind Nottingham Village, a housing area without fences and with big lawns where the geese have made themselves at home.  They were doing the "polite" nodding and ducking but I never got to the hissing part because this is where I turned around.  Geese are real bullies, especially when they have goslings and there were many.  I'll wait a while before trying this again - after the goslings become geese.

We came home from Logan's baseball game Wednesday and were greeted by this buck in velvet, nonchalantly munching grass in our front yard, the unfenced part. I took this from the car figuring he'd bolt any second.

We pulled the car into the garage, he moved across the driveway and went back to eating.

I finished the birthday scarf and was pleasantly surprised by the iridescence.  The color is actually more maroon but the camera likes purple best I guess.  A steady and loose easy beat is still not second nature for me and I need to work on that next time.

And next time will be this.  I ordered these two 630-yard skeins of 6/2 hand-dyed bamboo from Yarntopia Treasures on Etsy.  I've heard a lot of positive comments from other weavers on Facebook and certainly the price was right - $12 per skein and $4.50 in shipping from New Mexico.

I'll use 8/2 Tencel as weft - still thinking about colors.

Weaving time is in serious competition with the beautiful outdoors.

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

I have been wanting to knit a simple sweater for several months now but have been put off by the price of yarn.  Then I remembered how much Diane Soucy liked Bartlett coned yarns and in fact even went to Maine to visit their mill.  The very first sweater I knitted from the EZ percentage system was over 20 years ago using this same yarn and color.  The first step is to skein and wash it before it can be swatched, but the price is right.  I got 1,750 yards for $45 including shipping.

 

Yesterday was the prettiest day so far since we've been here.  We met up with DIL Missy to watch Logan's baseball game at 4:45.  The game was over in the 5th inning because his team was so far ahead.  Ian and I decided to drive downtown and try the new location of Los Jalapenos which has inside seating.  Neither of us was in the mood to pick up tacos from the old location and drive home to eat them.  Best fish tacos ever!

Signs are popping up that tourist season is on the horizon like this horse and cart we passed on our way back to the car. He's perhaps jumping the gun a little as rain is in the forecast for this weekend.  We could hear live music from several places and the night was young - for someone :)

We parked right by this waterfall/fountain at the top of Wisconsin Street and I'm sorry I didn't see it then because the light was poor by the time we got back.  Please note the yarn bombs on the feet of the giant bird sculptures.  There's a Fiber Arts Symposium here this weekend so local knitters went out yesterday to install them around the city.

I got an email last week announcing that we could come to their open market today in the vacant Orvis building in the Old Mill District, a classy place.  I didn't know what to expect but it had started to rain pretty good after lunch and it seemed like a great Saturday noon activity.  The market was a collection of local fiber artists and their work.  A lot of them were from our guild so just it ended up being a fun time to visit.  Kay was showing up how to insert a row of Leno in a scarf, new to me.  She's teaching a class on pile weave techniques at the guild meeting this Wednesday.

My samples are finished, each one is a little different since I was measuring and experimenting.

I'm still partial to this one, partly because it's reversible.  I think a pair of these would look cool hanging together.

These fiddly ones also have a front and back but it's not as dramatic and as long as the proportion is off, I can't tell if this pattern would be a attractive until I weave it right.  I've wound a solid black warp for four more towels - next week.

Yesterday I met with Dr Miriovsky, my medical oncologist, who will be responsible for my ongoing care and future follow-up visits.  I went in loaded for bear, thinking I was going to have to sell my objection to a five-year-course of Tamoxifen and he stunned me by showing me statistical evidence why he thinks it's a bad idea for me.  It was as easy as that so I wasted the sleepless night for nothing.  I'm released to begin radiation but don't have a start date yet.

It's nice to listen to the rain patter on the skylights as I finish this post.  I've spent another couple of frustrating hours today trying to figure out a way to successfully get the pictures from my iPhone into my Microsoft Pictures library.  It worked well for a while and then this week only half a photo would be imported.  I think I've found a workaround without being too complicated.  Keeps me on my toes!

Sampling

I make a mistake on this warp that I've never done before.  I usually warp with stripes so with a solid color I was very careful to use a counting thread and recount the total threads at the end of each bout.  Yet I wound 19" instead of 20".  I lied to myself!  I didn't notice it until I got to the center and realized I didn't have enough to make the check pattern that appears on both corners, so I punted.and treadled one Block A, two Block 2 until I had used up those threads.

Next I tried red and I could see it kinda has a counterpane look so instead of making a long stripe down the center, I wove Block B until I had created a solid red block.  But I miscalculated the size of these two patterns and ended up using an extra 2 inches of my precious warp

If the first two samples are Papa Bear and Mama Bear then this one is Baby Bear, because I got it just right.  I will have to finish these another day though as yard work was calling me outside, and tomorrow our family is getting together to celebrate Mother's Day at McMenamin's.  Reversations are for 11:30.  I'm really anxious to see these finished and hemmed.

 I worked on this until 1:00 when I could no longer stand my hunger.  This is two hours of work.  The water feature is in the back and it's the area in front of that I am working on first.  Because of the underground maze of drip lines I have to be very cautious when I dig and use a hand trowel but I got ten more plants in the ground today.  Fortunately the soil is very easy to dig in but boy does the grass absolutely hate being pulled.  The large plaster duck is guarding my just-planted lavender from careless dogs.  We've talked about just mowing this grass now and deal with it next year when it starts to grow again.

I know I'm probably not supposed to do two hours of yard work yet.  And it was rigorous work - my Fitbit buzzed 10,000 steps while I was still working.  My incision is healed and nearly invisible, the follow-up appointment with my surgeon is Tuesday morning, and it's then that I will be referred to a medical oncologist and find out what comes next.