collar choler

A couple of weeks ago, we had some amazingly cold weather.  

eerie and frigid sunrise

Below zero at night and barely above during the day.  Claudia was comfortably ensconced in our heated barn, and we were careful to keep the bird feeders filled.  Some lovely visitors...so puffed up against the cold!

dark-eyed junco

song sparrow

European starling

pileated woodpecker

blue jay

northern flicker

Everyone shared, with just a little grumbling!

red-bellied woodpecker pair

Then rain and fog...

...and now it's warmed up enough to do a little hiking!  Any morning that it's above 20 degrees, we're on the trail for a twenty minute walk...but on really nice days, we go a little longer.  Last week, we hiked for an hour.  Borga, however, is not the intrepid hiker that she used to be.  Now she frequently sulks and slips her collar...

...and stubbornly refuses to walk through water at all.

Maybe she'll be more interested as the weather gets warmer.  Right now, only the cats are enjoying the benefits of the chilly sunshine!

Have a great week!  

incautious nauseous

In the past two weeks...COLD.

Down to -10 degrees at the coldest, so cold that ice formed inside our windows where normally we'd have a bit of condensation.

Although we were prepared for up to 8 inches of snow, we only received a couple of inches, and the wind scoured the open fields to a mere dusting.

That meant a nice pile-up elsewhere, though.  Lovely sharp shelves and undulating ridges.

And my favorite...snow tracks!  Curious birds, walking...

...or briefly alighting, leaving behind a spread of wings.

Lots of rabbits with their easily-identifiable double tracks...

...and patterns.

This is something with a tail...most likely a field mouse.

Believe it or not, even our moles were active!  Moles don't hibernate, and they've absolutely decimated our side yard this past month.  Here you can see a fresh pile of soil, evidence that one has burrowed to the surface recently.  Claudia was tucked safely away in our temperature-controlled barn...too cold for cats outside!...but I hope she has some happy hunting soon.

We made sure to keep the feeders full during this cold snap, and the birds responded.  I don't think I've seen our front tree so overloaded with them before!

All puffed up to help stay warm.

Now our weather has warmed to near 60 degrees, and there are reports of spring bulbs starting to prematurely sprout.  I haven't been able to go outside and check, because I've been laid low by an attack of anxiety nausea.  

Anxiety nausea, if you don't know, is where your subconscious mind and your body decide together that there's a threat.  They react by flooding you with nausea-inducing adrenaline, leaving your rational mind behind, yelling like a pesky kid:  "Wait up, guys!!"  I've suffered from it since elementary school, miserable episodes that have lasted months at a time.  You can't reason though them.  You can't "breathe them away," as the unhelpful doctor at Urgent Care suggested.  Medicine?  Haven't found any yet. Nothing helps.  You can't eat.  You can't be move around.  You're in bed, prostrate with nausea, until things beyond your rational control decide that the threat is removed.  

Frances, trying to make me feel better in his own way

This particular attack was triggered by a recent migraine.  I haven't found a prescription that works well against them yet, so I'm anxious about developing one.  I felt a familiar pressure last week...no migraine came, but it didn't matter. The pressure alone was enough to trigger an episode of anxiety nausea.  Last night I moaned to Todd, "Tomorrow, I'll be able to say that seven days with anxiety nausea makes one (weak) week!"  Being able to joke about it means that I'm feeling better, and so does the fact that I was able to actually eat three small meals (after a week of choking down saltines).  Already this morning, I can tell that I'll be able to shower today(!!!).  This particular attack is going to be a short one, but phew!  What a week.  Still, in my weak and distracted way, I've been excited about the new year.  I have so many amazing plans and projects in my notebooks.  I want this to be a life-changing year and I'm going to work hard to make it happen.

Happy New Year!!  

an Alien concept...

 Christmas!

It's been a busy season.  It was a rush, but I did get a couple of Christmas gifts made.  First, this hat/glove set (Beeswax)...a real delight to knit, even if knitting anything with cables automatically doubles the knitting time.

The second was a fun project for Todd.  Our plastic Scrabble tile bag is in shreds, so I decided to make a new one with fun fabric.  This bag was a real challenge for me, since I have a terrible time following written directions and there were several new techniques involved...but...I love the finished product.

The bottom has pleats (!!!) so that it will sit nicely.

It's lined, and has drawstrings at the top to keep the tiles contained.  I love this bag.

A lot of usual Christmas traditions here.  A different-flavored Christmas cookie each night in the week leading up to Christmas, all flavored from a basic sugar cookie dough:

A week of Elf on the Shelf, culminating in one of my favorites...an Alien-themed scene.  Todd and I are huge fans of the (first two) movies, and it didn't take long to stitch the basic Facehugger shape out of felt a couple of days before Christmas Eve.  Our "household Elf" is fairly sinister, so this is a fitting ending for his week!  :)

We watched loads of Christmas movies, spent Christmas day in pajamas, and had some delicious homemade sweet bread.

What we Midwesterners call Mexican Wedding Cakes, but Todd calls Russian Tea Cakes...

A slightly stuffed...but happy!...day!

The kittens loved the huge piles of wrapping paper, although we were infringing on their territory a bit.  They've claimed the floor space by the window, both cramming into a small dog bed there.  It's so sweet, though, that we don't mind a bit.  Kitten love!!

There's quite a lot to see, and always nice to have a snuggle buddy!  It's become the popular hangout spot in the house.  Even Borga wants in on the action!

Just one more day of leisure before we get back to the daily grind.  Temperatures have been cold here, although we missed the big snowfall that other places received.  Still, it was harsh enough outside to keep us inside!

Looking forward to a final vacation day today...tidying up the Christmas mess, eating leftovers, and curling up in front of the fire with a good book.

Hope you had a great holiday season!

a tale of three sweaters

Now that we have bona fide cold weather, I thought I would mention some recent discoveries.  I'm always pretty cold, so when we've winter-hiked in the past, I've bundled up in sweats and bulky jackets and still felt chilly.  It took a little research to figure out what I was doing wrong.  Now I start with very close-fitting thermal underwear.  I layer running tights and then felt-lined tights over the top.  Very toasty.  100% wool socks and Columbia hiking boots, both reasonably priced.  Over my close-fitting thermal top, I layer another thermal shirt in a size up.  Finally, I put on a fleece pullover.  Now I'm much warmer than when I was wearing a ton of loose layers before, and I don't feel like that kid on A Christmas Story in his bulky clothes, despite being so layered. 

I wear silk glove liners under fleece flip-top mittens. Silk wicks away moisture, and the flip-top mittens keep my hands warm but still allow me to take pictures when we hike.  I knitted a 100% wool cowl that I can wrap three times around my neck.  I wear a hand-knitted hat, 100% wool, and ear muffs OVER the hat for easy removal if I get warm.  We hiked this weekend in below-freezing temps and I was extremely comfortable.  I just ordered a pair of fleece-lined but slim-fitting snow pants to wear over my 3 pairs of tights when it gets really cold.  Do I pile on more than probably 95% of the people who are out there winter hiking?  Probably.  But I have to work with my comfort level.  This works for me. 

I'm glad we got out this weekend, because it was really nice.  Most of the leaves have fallen, except for a few stubborn trees. 

We had a bare dusting of snow that remained in some places.

I spotted some tracks on a log.  Some squirrel dashed across at some point in the night.

Ice!

With ice comes the customary trapped bubbles.  So what causes this?

Believe it or not, these bubbles are flammable.  Methane gas from decaying plant material at the bottom of the pond rises to the surface and is trapped by the ice.  These bubbles are small, but I found a great video that shows what happens when you release and ignite the gas from much larger bubbles.  So cool! 

There's a marshy area near this particular trail with lots of cattails.  They've reached the seed-spreading part in their reproductive cycle, hence the fluffy tops.

I've seen plenty of cattails in my lifetime, but I never realized that they had so many uses.  Parts of the leaves, stem, and immature flowers are edible.  They've been used as torches in the past when the cattail top was dipped in oil/fat, and are great to start fires with because they tend to stay very dry at their core.  The fluffy bits you see in the photo above are similar in quality to down, and so have been used in clothing and bedding as insulation...even in baby diapers!  The stems have been used to weave mats and baskets.  This is a pretty useful plant!

After a below-freezing hike, there's nothing better than a hot meal and some cozy knitting.  This weekend I pulled out some old sweater projects recently liberated from a storage unit.  These sweaters have been in my to-do stack for YEARS. 

These two sweaters were knitted in the past five years.  For reasons unknown, they were knitted in a size small.  They are still too snug to wear comfortably, and the blue/white one, in particular, is uncomfortable - wonky shoulders and an improperly-knitted neck.

It's painful to do, but I knew that these sweaters had to be frogged.  The purple one was, unfortunately, knitted in 4 pieces and seamed together, making it almost impossible to take apart.  I ended up using scissors to cut out the front and back panels.  I'll use this knitted fabric to make a pillow.  Because of the odd neck on the blue and white one, I had to use scissors to cut the arms off at the arm holes and cut across the chest at the same location.  It took a while, but I was able to salvage quite a bit of yarn.  Not sweater-quantity, but I can do something with it.

I knitted this flower yoke cardigan a few years ago too.

Before I even had a change to wear it, it developed a big hole in one arm.

This is the hole in its infancy.  Two years of being moved from box to box had caused the hole to almost double in size.  I'd watched youtube videos on re-knitting swatches of fabric to cover holes, but it was very confusing and I never had any luck with the results.  This weekend, I impulsively decided to use mattress stitching to close the hole.  Mattress stitching makes a pretty seamless join when you're working with 2 equivalent pieces of knitted fabric, but since I was covering a jagged hole, it left a definite line.

I don't care.  It's on the bottom of the arm so I won't notice it much, and at least this way the sweater will be worn instead of stored in a box.  Victory!

I also finished weaving in the ends on the cowl worn in the first picture and a hat that I made last year.  It felt pretty good to finish up these lingering projects and I'm glad that these clothing items are finally going to get some use.

Have a great week!