Hi folks. Now nearly two o’clock in the sun-drenched afternoon, and from where I am overlooks a very uneventful and washed-out, but beautiful blue sky, and heat-soaked deck plants, but most importantly a preview of ….(oh the ecstasy of finishing)… a pullover !!! This very basic pullover represents about three week’s worth of near constant pattern writing & testing with actual yarn, and now she dries in the sun after being washed . . . A landscape with knitting indeed, so excuse me now, but I must head on up with Emma for that ridge you see upwardly rising in the photo, we’ve been spending far too much time hung up with finish work today of reknitting necklines, and weaving in ends and grafting underarm stitches. Gotta get ourselves hoofin’ .
(( Forthcoming~~ a dazzling finish photo and new pattern! ))
It has been a lovely morning up here on the mountain. Fog at sunrise, cool, crisp, breathing freshness into an otherwise stagnant stillness of our drying Northern California landscape. I feel as if my life has evolved into a new level of wild, as the days are punctuated mostly by the wildlife, or occasional trips into town, and the coming and going of ‘the man’. Summer brings chickadees and hornets and straggling tough kinds of wildflowers, but mostly a platinum landscape of dry grasses, and oppressive stickery burrs along the trails which are a true pain to have to endure picking off of one’s self, and one’s dog’s fur. No wonder we have been lazy lately.
The dog and I decided to adventure up & out this morning, and so after weeks upon weeks of very little walking, we made it to the top. Once near the top on the sharp and narrow knife-edge, the actual geological ridge cresting at a width of barely six feet wide in sections, and covered in young knobcone pines, makes a lovely path to follow….
A cliff drop to the east is Napa Valley, and a rolling descent to the west is Sonoma Valley, and from up here one can nearly feel the mountain’s spirit, as if the rock is slowly cutting through centimeter by centimeter, not stagnant but alive, with an energy about it which is luring, beckoning one to get the reward of being at the top. It is a special place the peak, at 2600 feet, and it really is almost less than a half-hour walk from our house if we hoof it, so we vowed to each other to get our lazy selves up there a lot more than we have, Emma and me.
Back at home, deliciously overcast clouds, and a breeze kicking up. While Emma continues her napping, I’m at the drawing board again on a new design, its endless calculations, and with delicious cup of coffee.
I’ll leave you with a little slideshow of nice shots from our walk, and wish you all well until next time…
Emma and I were out for our morning walk but it was different today, it was deliciously foggy. To end a seven-week-long warm dry spell of this winter so far, we are due to get hammered with a big storm tonight. A storm which is absolutely longed for … so I figured we’d go out and take some photos in the drizzling fog and cooling air. On the way up the ridge there was a pleasant surprise ~~ all the manzanita is peaking in blossom !
One of the attractions of this time of year in Northern California mountains is the precious heart-shaped and very fragrant blossoming Arctostaphylos, or as we know it, manzanita. There are mainly two indigenous species which thrive side-by-side up on this mountain, and the most distinct difference is seen this time of year, when they blossom. One has pink blossoms, and the other white …
Otherwise their form is very similar, but their leaves are also quite distinctive also. I just love to bury my face into a cluster of these sweet blossoms and inhale their fragrance. . .
At the top of the ridge, Emma sniffed and I knitted as we meandered along the knife-edge where to the north-east is Napa Valley, and to the south-west is Sonoma Valley. Just sniffing and knitting our way along.
And then finally we reach the summit, and breathe in the cloud .
We’re out a lot these days hiking & knitting, so we won’t mind staying indoors while enjoying the lashing rain forecast for the next few days. I’ll be posting more as the tail end of winter bursts into action in the next weeks, on the mountain and on my needles!
A give-away of another sort. It is now the end of a knitting project and I a ritual of mine is to go around the house and pick up yarn littered about the floor, as there always is quite a lot, and it seems to just float about and mix in with dog hair . . .
It is entirely too wasteful to throw away the little piles of wool.
So I lately I’ve been thinking of ways to make use of these snippings of yarns, and can’t think of anything better than to entice the woodland birds of the forest to making use, perhaps to line their nests.
Times before I would scatter yarn trimmings on the ground, or leave in a basket hung from a handle off the brand of a tree, both cases there was very little taken of the scraps. Determined, this time I have chosen a more open basket (one that I made a while back actually) and just placed it snugly in the crotch of a dead tree.
There’s something just so magical living in the woods and in and amongst the wildlife, I am hopeful this time my offerings will be snatched up and line the nests of the woodland birds ~ of robins, woodpeckers, ravens, jays, junkos, chickadees. If I ever spot evidence of the yarn scraps being used by the wildlife I’ll be sure to tell you about it !
I’ve been knitting an insane amount lately. This is a big part of my life, who I am slowly becoming, and I love how I’m involved in it. Just now I was feverishly working a swatch for a new idea, and I looked out the window to my beloved mist pouring over the ridge from the Pacific, and remembered that I promised myself to disengage after my last pattern (Penny Candy Winter)… to calm down and enjoy what is left of Autumn, and walk in it every single day. Well, today was one of those rare days I didn’t . Up here in the California Highlands we’re getting rain, oh yes…
… and now two months into Autumn in the mountains and we’re saturated in the mist and rain and the moss is vibrant and I am happy. So happy! One month left of delicious Autumn to wander and watch the turning of the trees.
My Autumn project is to overhaul a few of my earlier patterns and so I feel at a restless in-between place presently. I’m finished with the last pattern overhaul & update of Dicey Highland Hats, and now have a pause before starting the next big thing. I’m trying to be a good person and cook a nice quiche for dinner, while doing chores, and at the same time I just want to knit ! Knit!! Knit!!! But I must force myself to stop knitting, to quiet my mind and my racing ideas, and to look around me, because I find that the creative source does need to be rested and nurtured equally as much as it needs to be exercised and developed. Answers come in the void spaces most often, let the mist into the mind to obscure the sharpness, and to let my thoughts have a good rest.
Hi folks. Now nearly two o’clock in the sun-drenched afternoon, and from where I am overlooks a very uneventful and washed-out, but beautiful blue sky, and heat-soaked deck plants, but most importantly a preview of ….(oh the ecstasy of finishing)… a pullover !!! This very basic pullover represents about three week’s worth of near constant pattern writing & testing with actual yarn, and now she dries in the sun after being washed . . .
A landscape with knitting indeed, so excuse me now, but I must head on up with Emma for that ridge you see upwardly rising in the photo, we’ve been spending far too much time hung up with finish work today of reknitting necklines, and weaving in ends and grafting underarm stitches. Gotta get ourselves hoofin’ .
