Beadlizard

Claudia, Ravelry, and Squirrels

My friend Claudia is doing her annual fund raiser for MS, despite not being able to ride this year due to her DH's broken ankle.  I'm contributing a prize and cash.  It is very important to me that we do everything we can to sustain medical research, to educate ourselves and our physicians, and to support people with chronic syndromes and/or fatal diseases.  I have not always been a fan of conventional Western medicine since I have had some truly horrifying experiences, including multiple [fatal] misdiagnoses.  However, I am also, courtesy of Western medicine and some splendid doctors and physicists, alive today. 

If you can't donate this year, please read a medical website or journal a bit each month to learn about nutrition or another health-related topic, then see if you can add twenty minutes to your weekly exercise routine.  Your best defense against illness is health.

I have also been actively working on Claudia's BAT/KAT project, logging some serious miles on foot and public transit and accepting rides only when the load to be carried exceeds my limit of 25 pounds.  And yes, the bike panniers can carry more than that, but I can't handle the bike when it's loaded heavily, yet.

I am learning my way around Ravelry and have joined Helen's Seasons of Lace group.  I think my first season's project is going to be Jatta's Zetor Scarf in light burgundy Alpaca with a Twist Fino.  This particular shade of red doesn't irritate my eyes, and I never was able to finish that red/orange project in January, so this will be a substitute.

Fina is coming along.  I passed the 33k mark and 150 rows yesterday and will soon finish the calculations to figure out at which points I can elect to start the border pattern.  I still have quite a bit of yarn left, but I don't think I have enough to do 48 repeats/180 rows/48k stitches before starting the border.  Maybe 42...  It's a nice piece of fabric now, not just a blob, but even with a hard blocking it's still too small for DD's shoulders. 

I am still enjoying knitting with the Yarn Place Gentle yarn.  It's soft, it has great cush in this stitch pattern, and I'm having very little splitting even with a very sharply pointed KnitPicks 2.25 mm needle and walking or riding bumpy buses and trains while I knit.  A tiny but of the cashmere has worked its way out with all the abrasion as I have crammed this project in my backpack or grocery bag for many weeks, but slippery fine fibers will do that and the quantity of fuzzing has been minimal and it hasn't pilled, just simply shed a bit.  It has been such a pleasant experience that this is one long project I will actually miss when finished.

I was wondering if anyone could make suggestions of ways to deal with a thriving squirrel population.  My particular nemesis is black with red highlights and very agile when sprinting along the top of the fence.  He likes to harvest tender leaves and shoots, to dig wherever I water, and to dig where I've been digging [and planting].  All input most welcome, especially in the realm of starting a vegetable garden.  Thanks in advance!

Meet Joe

This is Joe Mower, my new buddy, courtesy of a fortunate Craigslist moment today that also included three errands and 7.5 miles of BAT/KAT via foot and public transit, and was prompted by an email from Beth where she mentioned reel mowers.  I did have DH pick up Joe and me at Joe's old place because carrying a lawnmower on the bus is beyond even me (I considered bringing tools and breaking Joe down into smaller parts to carry in canvas bags, but Joe lived only a mile-ish from DH's office and that whole car thing was too tempting to resist).

This is the yarn I bought today at Nathania's store, Purlescence, which happened to be half a block from the end of my first bus ride and half a block from the beginning of the next bus ride to Joe's.  I met baby El and she is even more charming and beautiful than I knew was possible.  It is going to be a delight watching her grow up.  The sock yarn is for DD's big feet and the Fino is for something I'll knit as part of Helen's new KAL group on Ravelry, Seasons of Lace.  The yarn cost the difference between what I'd budgeted for the mower and what I actually had to pay (it was a wonderful deal).  Life is good.

Claudia's BAT/KAT Challenge

Claudia is, once again, challenging us to become better citizens by walking or biking to the market.  I don't drive, so most of the time I do walk, take public transit, or ride my daughter's bicycle.  We buy organic whenevery possible, bring our own cloth bags, re-use plastic and paper bags until they're tattered, and we are devout recyclers.  Another week I'll blog the great panniers I bought for DD's bike, and perhaps a bit about knapsacks...

Our carbon footprint is very, very small, especially now that DH's commute has shrunk from 1.5 hours per day to 0.25 hours per day.  When DD starts driving (soon), that will increase a little bit, but she'll be more inclined to take public transit than risk denting her dad's car, so it won't be much.  I haven't moved my compost bin yet, but will do that soon and get the worms back in business, which radically decreases our waste.  We live in an energy efficient house, use natural light as much as possible, don't even own a TV, and we conserve water.  My DH and I both grew up in Marin County in an era where this was a normal lifestyle.  We also grew a significant portion of our vegetables and all our cut flowers when we were younger.  I bought a few herb plants today to start converting the new house's decorative yard over to an edible one.  [Wish me luck combating the squirrels!]

The only times I use a car for shopping are to buy meat/poultry and to go to the farmer's market, which was many miles north when we lived in Marin.  We combine the meat run with other errands, like a doctor's appointment, a concert in the city, or at least a supper with parents.  One of the very nice things about our new home is I can *walk* the 1.5 miles to the farmer's market, so this foggy morning I put on Sweater, set off with a couple of cloth bags, Fina, and my wallet, and had a lovely knitting walk.

The Mountain View farmer's market is, I think, about the same size as the one in San Rafael, but with much less prepared food and more vegs and fruit, a bit more commercial/conventional than organic, but enough organic to complete my list.  The other customers were infinitely more courteous and pleasant than in Marin -- no shoving (Marin can get nasty), just orderly lines at Acme and a lot of happy chatting.  I was delighted to see that our favorite salmon fishing family was there, as well as the Rodriguez family with their excellent organic ambrosia strawberries.  The high point, though, was one of the herb and veg plant sellers had Stupice tomatoes!  Many years ago, I was part of the trial for Stupice seeds and was absolutely thrilled to see that enough other farmers were pleased with them that they made it into commercial distribution.  Stupice is a potato-leaved tomato, bears heavily, and thrived in my 39-day growing season up in NNNW Montana.  The only tomato that did better was Siberia, a dwarf determinate bush that bore perfect salad toms.

So, out of curiosity I weighed what I bought [and carried home] today.  In my favorite Reisenthal bag and an LLBean canvas bag, I carried home 21.5 pounds of produce, including 5 pounds of broccoli, 14 ounces of strawberries, a pound of herb plants, 4.5 pounds of lettuce, and thyme, peas, green onions, asparagus, carrots, red onions, yellow onions, garlic, shiitakes, baby scallopini squash, and mandarin oranges.  Oh, and 100 grams of knitting.

Spinning is going well.  It is the first time I've bought fiber from Nancy Finn that wasn't an exquisite preparation, which has been frustrating.  The bombyx and merino needed one more run through the carder, and there are neps and noils, mostly in easily removed clumps because of the gilling, but still a surprising amount since I've never seen such things in Nancy's fiber.  I started by spinning with a worsted technique and rapidly decided to go with POC and let the silk clumps make pretty little ribbons of texture here and there; the only other viable option was to hand card the 2 ounces, but then I would lose some of the sheen possible from the more parallel existing sliver. 

There are strong shifts in the long runs of each color and a lot of contrast between the poles of lighter minty emerald and dark gray teal.  DD and I have been puzzling over whether I should N-ply to preserve the intensity of the color or do a conventional 3-ply to afford at least some blending.  We're leaning toward the latter. 

And a happy moment.  On Friday afternoon, this little friend whomped at mach speed into a window and was stunned.  Lady Finch came out of shock rather well, but was still very dazed.  When she started to show a bit of awareness, DH suggested giving her some water, and just the scent was like smelling salts -- she levitated and flew [at mach speed] to the neighbor's yard.  Amazing little dirb, looks like a Harry Potter version of a shuttlecock in flight.  She matches Sibley's female purple finch, especially the deeply notched tail and beak and body shapes.  Nobody mentions, though, the brilliant emerald green feathers just barely visible on her throat.  Aunt C., any ideas?