an ent knits

eye candy friday

The first picture was taken from the plane on Monday morning, the second is from my parents' front yard, and the last two are from Chapin Orchard.

This week has been busy, and my computer's broken, and I've spent my spare time on reading (Freddy and Fredericka is an excellent book) rather than much knitting, but I did finally spin on my wheel again last night.  That was a good thing.

i don't know what to call this post

As I said, I spent last week (Tuesday through early this morning) visiting my parents at their home in Burlington, VT.  Most of the week went more or less as planned--lounging around, running errands with my mom, picking raspberries and grapes and such, jamming (and chutneying) with my dad, generally hanging out with my parents and grandmother...  And then, on Saturday morning, we wound up taking my grandmother to the hospital because she was having trouble breathing.  As I understand it, she's doing okay, considering, and should be out of the hospital soon (probably with some sort of home hospice arrangement), but that's not exactly going to stop me from worrying.

I did still go to the Vermont Sheep & Wool for an hour or so--my mom chased my dad and me out of the hospital for a while--and I was very glad to run into a bunch of friends, even if I wasn't exactly in the best of moods for socializing.  (I know I was trying to act more chipper than I felt, but if I seemed upset or unfriendly, or just spacey, well, now you know why.)

This is the fiber I bought while I was there:

One ounce (more or less) each of Icelandic lamb/angora bunny, Icelandic lamb, and Icelandic lamb/tussah, all from Frelsi Farm.  I'm finding the greys to be soothing (not to mention the soothing properties of all that softness), and I think these'll go nicely with the grey shetland that I bought last spring.  (I also picked up a couple of colors of dye, but the other yarns & fibers that really caught my eye were either way out of my price range or small enough lots that I wasn't sure they'd be useful.)

*Sigh*.  Well, I'm home again now, which means I'm back with a snuggly cat (my parents' cat is not unfriendly, but she doesn't like contact beyond head-scritching), but also means I don't have live-in help assembling dinner.  (Mel will only eat dry cat food, which I'm not interested in sharing.)  Time to go work on some real food.

eye candy friday: dahlia

These are all pictures from my dad's front garden.

eye candy friday

cosmos, in my dad's garden

some pictures

I think it's about time to share a few of my vacation pictures...so here they are. (This batch, anyway.) There are more...plants, scenery, more plants, different scenery...but I think I'll save some of them for Eye Candy Friday (look for a button here soon).

the Winooski River, a few miles away from my parents' house

a stinging nettle, in the woods by the river

a tiger lily, in the [my dad's] front garden

obedient plant and a ladybug, on the other side of the driveway

trees in the backyard: grey birch, striped maple, copper beech

purple meadowrue, sort of under the trees

jewelweed in the backyard, between the vegetable garden and the compost. Note that this picture was taken at my eye level, a bit more than 5 feet up.

Also note that I changed the color scheme again. I was getting awfully tired of the "hey, look! it's spring!" one...that mood doesn't hold up very well in the sweltering heat that is a Philadelphia summer. At least it was gorgeous out today. And I had lunch outside, even if I did spend much of my afternoon in a dark, windowless room. Oh, and the photo from which I derived the new title bar is from the path by the Winooski River.

and she's off!

I am fleeing the weather. I'm going north for a week, to Vermont with a side trip to Boston*, to enjoy the somewhat-cooler temperatures...and the complete lack of traffic noise outside my bedroom. (I'll trade it for lawnmower noise, but at least that's only in the morning.)

I will have internet access and expect to post a couple of times, but spinning, at least, will probably be slow. (No, I'm not taking my wheel on the train.) It is going to be a very, very nice vacation.

*If you are going to be in or near Burlington or Somerville and would like to say hi in person, e-mail me.

because it's been feeling like spring

outside

I present two photos, both taken today. One is from my walk to work and the other was taken by my mom, in my parents' backyard. I bet you can guess which is which.

it's late

And I'm staying up a little longer so I can drink enough water to counterbalance the rum in my cider earlier this evening.

I have knitting progress, but I don't think I'm awake enough to do justice to the stories. So, instead, here's a (film) picture from July:

vetch

maine in july

from my newly-developed film