This morning I went for a walk with Juno, in the hot . . . dry . . . toasted-in-the-sun wild grass of high summer. I so very much want to capture it and knit it into a sweater! These are moments of this afternoon, as my ideas begin stirring, testing all gold tones together, trying to grasp the emotion I feel about the summer landscape that is elemental to my life on the mountain, and translate it into yarn.
See all posts in this series My Summer Fields Project
A winter wonderland like I’ve never seen up here, and we are officially snowbound. Even more snow than I remember seeing when we started building our original house in 2001, and I reckon possibly not as much snow since the 1990’s. Juno’s first real snowy landscape to play in, and she is off with Jeff clearing broken trees off of the road, and I am enjoying the warmth inside, looking out. Last week I nearly broke my foot, trailblazing through a tangle of big fallen trees, and although it is getting better, its still swollen and sore, so I can’t go out walking in it. But it is really nice, having to stay home because of the snow, not something we experience that often in our part of the world, but going to enjoy it, and for now being in this much snow is just magical!
Click image to go to slideshow . . .
Many weeks have passed since my last post on the equinox. I guess I just wanted to let October drift through the days without attention to anything in particular. Now comes November, and the most Autumnal month in the year it seems to me, and rain came yesterday, then this morning the chill was upon us. How could I resist going out with Juno and my camera to walk through the woods and say hello to our overgrown trail? Sniffing all the lovely smells, the spicy moist bay leaves and moldy musky smell of rained-on wild hay, crunching through fallen leaves and over thousands of acorns, kissing the awakened moss and climbing over yet more fallen trees, and admiring the grey clouds hanging by themselves in an otherwise blue sky. Its as though the landscape swells and sighs, as I do, into the moist cool healing after a difficult hot summer. Now home, the grey clouds are gathering, promising perhaps another shower, as a good mood, with cozy knitting with coffee inside . . .
(click the tree to go to the slideshow)
Juno and I are back from our morning walk and ready for the day. Earlier this morning I put away yarn messes, dusted and brought order to the room and covered the dog bed loft bed with freshly laundered bedspreads, then immediately on return from our somewhat dusty burry walk, Juno hops up and expresses a bit of jubilant gratitude for her clean napping place ( aww Juno, she’s so upbeat! ) And as the dog days of summer snail on by we are definitely feeling a reprieve from the usual heat these last couple of days, maxing out in the high 70’s to low 80’s, and no complaints. These last weeks of summer always seem to slow down to a crawl, at least with the knitting, although closing in on the end of the season at last, with only three more weeks left ! Scotty, beam us to Autumn!
♥ ♥ ♥
PS. Edited in later in the day : I was thinking about this Dog Days post and recalled there another similar that I posted many years ago. I searched in my archives and found it! It was the Lazy Hazy Dog Days of Summer from eight years ago, and oh what a journey down memory lane. Strongly familiar, but now so far out of my grasp or influence, a moment in the original house several years before the wildfire, hanging out with our dear dog Emma, and working on one of my earlier knitting designs I was making for younger niece when she was soon to turn twelve. A pause for a tear. Time truly just marches on doesn’t it?
I’ve had my eye on a Turkish spindle lately. Once I discovered that you can create a center-pull ball around the spindle “arms” without having to wind it off — just pull the full ball of yarn with the arms up and off of the shaft, carefully slide the arms out, and you are left with a ball of yarn! All that needs to be done is to merely match two ends and ply the ball back on to the spindle, I realized this was going to be a time saving change to spindling for me. The Turks are brilliant I tell you! I was frothing at the mouth to try one, so I got a hold of one, and these are my very first windings on my brand new spindle, and I have something very special in mind in my spinning future that involves an array of spindle spun little yarn dyed balls, which I won’t probably even attempt for a while, but this spindling is just the perfect thing needed for me to slow down process and get meditative.
Besides, I love the way you can just park them anywhere. When finished with a ball or two, I will post and show the process. This rather large spindle is made from maple, it is extremely beautiful in my opinion, as maple is my favorite hardwood. And then the focus shifts to the background; which appears like Juno is again, chewing on a stick! She is stick obsessed, and may the “stick’ never be my spindle. I don’t think she would though, she’s a very good girl.
I realize I haven’t posted Juno for a while. She’s almost a year and a half, and lately maturing just a little bit out of her puppy behaviors. She’s lingering at the porch waiting for me to finish this photo session so we can go for more spin walking. Its very hot out this morning, as well as a haze from distant fires is present, and so many little flies this time of year that are so annoying, but just going for a spin-stroll walking back and forth in the shaded part of the road next to the house so I can figure out how to use this thing. C’mon Juno, you’re a good girl!
