March

Today is the last day of February.   I can't say that I will be sorry to see it go.  It has been a tough, cold month.
On the other hand, it is best to look forward, not behind you.  So March is near.  What will it bring??
I perused some of my older blog posts.
Looking for a sign that maybe March wouldn't be so bad.

So here's what I found:

2009  Looking somewhat gray, but not bad.

2010

Nice enough to start building my back porch.

It was one of those March days when the sun shines hot and the wind blows cold: when it is summer in the light, and winter in the shade.

Charles Dickens

 

2011

Try not to get too excited.

2012

Heart be still.....overlooking Lake George with my grands.

2013

Beautiful skies, but still so much snow.  Sigh.


 No winter lasts forever; no spring skips its turn. ~Hal Borland

2014

Words fail me.

O, wind, if winter comes, can spring be far behind? ~Percy Bysshe Shelley

I think it can go either way.

Weaving my way out of February.

Is it March yet???
Well, there's a LOT of snow out there, but when the SUN shines, it is easier, somehow.

I have a LOT of warp on the AVL, which is a good thing.     It means that when the sun is shining, I have something to weave on while I soak it UP.

I apologize for posting and reposting pictures of my "new to me weaving space", that used to be totally wasted on retail.
But I can't help it.   I love it.
It is the coolest place to work.

To think I used to work in a PRISON.  Yikes.
Dark, smelly, depressing.
OK, let's not go there.

I've been trying to decide how to put some plants on the new window between the rooms, without 
the four cats in residence, knocking them off.
I am stumped.
Hanging plants, maybe?

I found some cotton flake I liked, so I decided to give it a try on towels.

 I wasn't sure about it though, at least not confident enough to keep weaving a bunch of towels, but Lois had a small warp on her Wolf Pup at home, so I gave her some of it to weave a sample for me.

Which she did, she made TWO and she washed them  too!!!!

 I think she is starting something......dollhouse rugs???

Then I found some variegated cotton flake,  and kept on weaving.

 I suppose I should be sick of this pattern by now, but I'm not.
I'm still having fun, and that's what it's all about.
Gonna weave my way right through March.

Yeah.

Ay yi yi

My fave carpenter/handyman said to me one time, " You come up with the craziest ideas, and then I make them happen."
This has so far been true.
But THIS TIME, my friend and fellow weaver, Sue, suggested a reno project to me the other day while we were weaving.
She said, 'You know, if that "window" between these two rooms was BIGGER, it would let lots of light in.  I think it would be awesome."

When I bought the house, this was two separate rooms.  But I found out that the wall was not original.  This was ONE ROOM, once apon a time.
I debated making it one room again, but someone had put in narrow oak flooring in the back room, which made a much more complicated project.
So I just opened it with a window.

But Sue got me thinking, and there is nothing I love better than tearing down walls, and opening up spaces.
I blame it on my parents, who did this kind of thing almost every year of my childhood.  Our little house grew about 6 ft or so as soon as it was warm enough to cut off the back of the house.  Inside, the walls changed whenever the mood struck.......and believe me, it struck quite often.
So I come by this naturally.
Hey, it could have been worse.  They didn't drink, or carouse, or fight.  So I guess I had it pretty good.

Anyway, time for the saw.
It was mostly a studded wall, as we expected.  But there was some lathe and plaster, and old wallpaper.
O.M.G.  what a freaking MESS.

But I love the results.
Wow.

LOVE.

On the chicken front, C put a "treat door" in my chicken run, for those who do not want to actually go in and mingle with the girls.
Not mentioning any names, or anything.
Not even going to talk about the hole cut in the chicken wire.
Nope.

I don't think the girls miss Bart one bit.
His new owner thought he had that rooster subdued, but apparently Bart forgot who was BOSS the other day, and he sunk his spurs into some shins.
Amazingly, he is going to get one more chance, this time de-spurred.  We'll see how that goes.

The chickie girls are quite content, although they will not like the 2x4 that C put across the coop below their nesting boxes.  NO MORE laying eggs UNDER the boxes, girls.
The times, they are a changin'.

🎶🎶🎵🎵🎶🎵

Yup, today is my birthday.  I am celebrating, mostly celebrating having survived the last few years.
As I've said before, you have to be grateful for what you have, because it can always be worse.

And when my ongoing headache gets me down, I start counting my blessings.  There are plenty of them, I am very lucky in so many ways.

Last night, we had a pot luck dinner at the studio, for my weaving friends.
We had so much fantastic food, we drank a little wine, we talked and laughed, and for just a little while, we forgot about Old Man Winter.

This is the cake that Lois made for me.   I'm so glad to know that I'm not getting any older.
Who knew??

We did a some  sharing of our weaving ventures, always so much fun, and always an inspiration.

We hope to have these get togethers on a monthly basis.

Today two of my daughters and three of my grands, came to have lunch with me.

And now you know what to do with your empty cones left over from weaving.


I missed my third daughter, and her two children, but she couldn't be there.





 Tomorrow I will get back to my weaving. 

Maybe the sun will shine.

It's good to have a birthday.  Age is nothing, really.  I have an amazing family, and so many good friends.   I have this incredible studio where I can weave every day.  I'm still on my feet, and doing OK, in spite of some bad luck and revolting turns of events.
I am still dreaming and planning and life is still good.
Happy Birthday to me.

Getting Through February

Finally got my dishwasher hooked up, and the new countertop installed.   I decided to keep my old stove, even though I had to push it to the edge of the doorway to make it work.  All this was because of the post in the corner.......the dishwasher wouldn't go over any further.
I just don't want to give up my old stove.

 

 I also don't want to give up my four prints over the stove.
I guess I want an old fashioned kitchen.

I've been slogging through the cold weather, pretty much like everyone else I know.

I weave on Möbius shawls, then mohair throws, then Fiesta rag rugs, and occasionally 16 harness dish towels.
Whatever keeps me engaged.

It has been brutally cold, but we have had sunny days.

The southern side of the house is bathed in sun on those days.

On other days, I've been "engaged" with sweet baby Dale.

She warms up any day, that one.

Also spending a little time with my other two girls.    We made  time for a little COLLAGE.

I'm shooting for  April 1st, counting the weeks off.
The way I look at it, only a fool would expect winter to still be around on April 1st.

Winterish.

While I try not to talk about the weather, here in the northeast, as well as a lot of the rest of the country, the weather is right in our faces.
Snow storm after snow storm, bitter cold, shoveling, paying for the plow man, feeding the birds, bundling up like you were headed to the Arctic just to go to the store, doing all the worrying and work that comes with WINTER.  There, I've said it.

We even shovel a path for Roy so he can do his thing without being in 2 ft of snow.

This week, my car is being fixed, from my unpleasant meeting with a tractor trailer.  It will be there all week.  My insurance would have paid a whopping $20 a day for a rental, but what would I get with that?  Something that would get through the snow without breaking into a cold sweat? 
I think not. 
So I am getting delivered to the studio in the morning, and picked up later, by DH.  It's not like I am up for any traveling other than that anyway.
I can do it for a week.

So alone at the studio, I looked around for what I would get into.

Today, I decided to go with "winter whites/gray skies".

 Besides I have a lot of this sock stuff lying around, and I wanted to get it woven and get the rugs put on the shelves.

I love these rugs, so reminiscent of birch bark.  They are heavy, and solid, and earthy.

 

See my old boots by the door.  I've been wearing them every winter for 14 years.   I like to get my money's worth.

 

These first two rugs off the loom, another finished and probably 3 more to go.

 

The rest of the afternoon calls for a hot cuppa tea, and my new book.

Yup, more winter.

All the news that is news, and some that ain't.

The bad news is that winter is sticking around for longer than I want to think about.

Oh, and Bart attacked me every time I tried to collect eggs today.  And filling the waterer was almost impossible.
He definitely has my number.  He is totally making my chicken farmer routine very unpleasant.

Continuing to make the day interesting, I dumped almost a whole bag of pellets on the floor.
Which I had to pick up quick, as someone thought it might be a new kind of CAT LITTER.
Not saying any names.

I spent the afternoon tying on a new warp, for more mobius shawls.   Not a problem really, just tedious.

 The good news is that my friend's husband came and took Bart home with him late this afternoon.   Last year, all his chickens but one, were killed by a marauding group of raccoons.   I gifted him with four of my young hens, to give him five.  
He went into the coop today, grabbed Bart by the legs, and took him home.   Bart promptly jumped up on the roost with the new girls, in his new digs.  He probably crowed.  Fickle b******.

Bart doesn't know it yet, but his new owner is not going to put up with any crap from him.  So maybe it will work out.
I will miss him crowing.  And that's about it.
Anybody know of a rooster recording that you can program???
Maybe I need to invent that one, for all those "roosterless" hen houses.

I am so excited, now I can go into my hen house, without being assaulted.



 Speaking of excited, tomorrow I am going to pay this little lady a visit.
It doesn't get much better than that.