I Predict That 2010

Will be a good year.
Some of us will travel. Some of us, with happiness, will nest. Some of us will do both.
The worldwide economy will make modest gains.
We will not die from swine flu.
There will be trials and tribulations but we will survive.
We will hurt one another without intent, talk at cross purposes, and things will be lost in translation.
We will have rare moments of sheer bliss.
There will be weather events. And dogs and cats. Though not necessarily the same ones.
There will be two little girls in a family where most of us are still head over heels in love and in awe of the first one.
We will welcome either new friends or friends of friends.
We will all be a little bit older and and a little bit wiser by next New Year's Eve.
Happy New Year to all.

New Year's Treat

Ta Da! as Lucy Darling would say. My first pair of stranded mittens successfully completed. It's all in the way you hold your mouth. I am motivated now to knit a different pattern for every day of the week that I go power walking.


Today was a day of New Year's treats.
A trip to the mailbox was rewarded with Charlene Schurch's Mostly Mittens: Ethnic Knitting Designs from Russia. I had pre-ordered it eons ago from Amazon and was not expecting its release until later in January. I've had an older edition home from the library and it is great to now have it on my own bookshelf.

This afternoon, we loaded Lucy 1.0 in the car and headed to the Tangled Skeins in Dartmouth. It is a lovely yarn store. I wanted to get a couple more colors of Brown Sheep Nature Spun Sport so I could cast on another pair of mittens. When I got there, the owner told me that their annual sale was ending at early closing time today - 3 p.m. Twenty minutes, she pointed out, remained on the clock!! The entire inventory of the store was discounted by 40%! Well! I was in knitter's heaven. I have never been in a yarn store where the entire stock was discounted by such a large amount. Being fit and spry and used to moving quickly, I lost no time in the business of gathering yarn. I took an armful of yarn to the counter with visions of Russian, Shetland, and Seluvotter mittens and gloves dancing in my head. The cash register total seemed like a song. There are balls of black, teal green, marine blue, white, heather brown, pale gold, brilliant gold, vivid orange, and brick red. Oh, the possible combinations and permutations are endless.

Holiday Knitting

I am reluctant to do much in the way of holiday knitting. It is tricky to not only get the size right for someone else but it can be difficult to predict what will really appeal to another person.


I couldn't resist knitting a scarf for Sophie though. The French wear scarves with such style. The pattern is very simple but the yarn is luxurious - a blend of merino wool, alpaca, and silk. We found it one day on a day trip to Gaspereau Valley Fibers - a small sheep farm with a wood-heated, toasty, spacious barn/shop. They sell a wide array of lovely yarns from all over but this particular one was spun at the farm and using it was like knitting with butter. I made it as long as Sophie is tall so she can loop it around her neck when visiting Lille, where winters can somehow seem damper and colder than Nova Scotia!


Three pair of Merion mittens all went to folks in Lunenburg County and a fourth grey pair (not pictured) was sent to France.

New Year's Traditions

Last year, Isabelle explained to us how, in France, little tokens or treats are put at each place setting on the New Year's table. The French, I think, give far more consideration to the concept of the new year than we do in North America, where it seems to be associated more with a party the night before and a big meal on the actual day. The French take more care to wish each other well and look ahead with hope. In today's mail, we received a New Year's card from Sophie and Jean Paul in Ronce. Sophie describes it as a "very French" card and I think it is utterly charming. While having a grandchild on another continent is brutally hard to deal with, our lives have been enriched by this French connection.

Santa Collection

Over the years, we have collected a number of Santas, some whimsical in nature, others vintage, some wooden, some cloth, some crafted in beeswax. There is a wonderful BBC podcast, Too Many Santas, that starts in Iceland, tracing the origin and evolution of Santa into the form most of us recognize today.
We were pleased to be able to add another to our collection this year.

Christmas Knitting

I've always loved color or stranded knitting. My technique is still clumsy but hopefully will improve in the coming year. Because I can only see myself carrying two colors across a row for the foreseeable future, I was happy to receive Terri Shea's book Selbuvotter - Biography of a Knitting Tradition for Christmas. Last week, before getting the book, I started one of Charlene Schurch's patterns with the help and encouragement of members of the Stranded knitting group on Ravelry.
Pattern: Pattern No. 1
Designer: Charlene Schurch
Yarn: Brown Sheep Nature Spun Sport
Needles: Circular; 2.25 mm for cuff and 2.50 mm for the body of the mitten

Thoughtfulness

Beautiful white flowers appeared at the door yesterday - a thoughtful and lovely gift from Aunt Amy. We did not have a table centerpiece this year. Now the two of us can have our meals with these white flowers and remember all the years that Aunt Amy sat beside us at Christmas time.

A Child's Christmas in North End Halifax

The Tree 2009

I am sure my sister, Heather, as well, remembers how much our father loved Christmas. A working man of very limited means in north end Halifax, he somehow managed to provide adequate gifts for seven (!) children and full stockings on Chrismas morning. We had bowls of traditional Nova Scotia Christmas candy around the house - Robertson's ribbon candy and clear toys (the latter somewhat akin to barley sugar candy), pink chicken bones, and Moirs chocolates. We always had a beautiful tree, both turkey and ham (one for Christmas, the other for New Years - with the occasional duck or goose thrown in), and rich fruit cake and pound cake for dessert.

He worked a half day on Christmas Eve at the old Nelson Seed Store on the corner of Duke and Granville streets in downtown Halifax. Upon leaving work, he made a number of stops before heading home. He would drop in with small gifts for his sister (who was struggling to raise two children on her own), and pay brief visits to a few friends, handing out the mistletoe and holly that he was able to purchase from work at a discount price, and boxes of Pot of Gold chocolates (which, in those days, we considered a treat of gourmet proportions), and taking a sip or two of Christmas cheer along the way.

Close friends, the Wilsons, always had rabbit pie for the holidays. Mrs. Wilson was from Chezzetcook and her rabbit pies were made in roasting pans, with whole vegetables and large sections of rabbit and either salt pork or bacon inside. The top was a thick biscuit crust. My father was a dear, sweet man and Mrs. Wilson always had a roaster pan of rabbit pie ready for him to take home for his Christmas Eve supper. He considered it a meal fit for a king.

He could not contain his excitement on Christmas morning and if we did not wake up at some obscenely early hour (5 a.m., 5:30, 6 a.m), he was not above creeping into the bedroom where four of us slept (including the younger and more excitable ones) and whispering "Don't you know that Santy Claus has been here?"

In later years, when his own children were grown, he delighted in giving each little grandchild (to the dismay of the parents) an ENTIRE box of Moirs chocolates, nicely wrapped and beribboned, to be enjoyed at the child's leisure!

Winter

Stonewalling

Or, finally, the right materials in the right place!

I love my stone wall (albeit makeshift and amateur) in winter.

Fairy Light Rationalization

We spent yesterday redoing the LED Christmas lights on the shrubs across the front of the house. Now, very best parts of Christmas are:

a. Lucy Darling
b. White fairy lights outside
c. A tree with white fairy lights inside

And the worst aspect of Christmas is spending a cold day laying out extension cords to figure how to connect as many trees as possible to two different outlets on the property, with each set of lights on each tree meeting, and ending up with the right end of each extension cord reaching its final destination. This is complicated by the fact that some of our extension cords have three outlets and some have only one. Ah, the possible combinations and permutations! And having raw pain in gloveless hands - as circumstances never lead to the job being done on a balmy day. (This year, for example, I had to wait for the landscape company to finish work on the walkway.) So the decision to do the job twice in one week was reached after sober consideration.

We switched to LED a couple of years ago when I realized with horror while browsing the Internet that I ran the risk of burning the house down if I kept adding regular incandescent lights to our display each year. Just how does Chevy Chase manage to do it in that Christmas movie?? LED's use so little electricity, generate so little heat, and are so much better for the environment. But in terms of magic, they suck. Switching over was done with great reluctance - a personal sacrifice to help save the planet and a manoeuvre to make sure our safety wasn't compromised.

I lucked into an exceptionally warm day on Thursday and the chore was made so much easier this year because I had bundled the lights and extension cords last time with notes as to what cord connected to what set of lights so much of the planning and layout was already done.

But a trip to Canadian Tire on Friday to get just two extra small sets of lights led to the discovery of SUPER BRIGHT LED white fairy lights! Advanced technology was saving Christmas! Hallelujah! Now, LED lights are fearsomely expensive. To buy a significant quantity requires a sophisticated degree of rationalization and, here, we are champs! This is a dilemna we could sort out faster than that ol' exension cord business.

1. LED lights are much paler than the old style. It takes so many more to have the same impact.

2. The lights are so much softer that one lady commented in an article on the Internet that she feared this next generation of children would grow up associating Christmas with the fluorescent style lights hanging over the chair in a dentist's office. Therefore, adding brighter LED lights to the display is really a way of preserving the magic of Christmas for our children's children.

3. It was food drive day in the subdivision so we would give the little guy coming up the driveway a donation to the food bank equal to a large set of fairy lights so we felt we were feeding more than just souls that day.

4. We will give an equal amount to Isa's little girl in a far flung corner of the world who needs schooling and encouragement and a chance at a better life.

5. We would mix the old, softer LED white with the new SUPER BRIGHT. We would do even more shrubs, putting SUPER BRIGHT on the taller, back shrubs (the yews and threadleaf cyparus), and the older, soft white lights on the front shrubs (the nesting spruce, mugo pine, and boxwood). It's not as though we would be tossing LED lights into the landfill.

6. We are getting old. How many more Christmas holidays will we have? And, more importantly, who will spend an entire day setting up the lights when we are unable to do it?? No one we know at the present time! Better enjoy them while we can.

7.We spent so much money on the new walkway. It just doesn't make sense not to enhance it in every way possible.

8. The fairy light display increases our property value. Who knows when a potential buyer might stumble upon the place after dark, (hmmm...memo to self: maybe more lights??), fall in love, and offer scads of money for our corner of the woodland!

After dark, we plugged in both outlets (timers not set up yet) and, lo, the magic of Christmas was preserved - at least in our dark little corner of the world next to Crown forest.

New Walkway, New Sock

Pattern: Waffle Rib
Designer: Charlene Schurch - Sensational Knitted Socks
Yarn: Cascade Heritage
Color: 5604

If I had to choose to keep only two books in my sock knitting library, one would be Charlene Schurch's Sensational Knitted Socks and the other would be Nancy Bush's Knitting Vintage Socks. They hold all the information and patterns anyone would ever need to endlessly produce socks.
This is my first time using Cascade Heritage sock yarn so it will be interesting to see how it holds up over time. It feels very much like Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock and it gives excellent stitch definition. I have to confess to ordering it by mistake. I had several screens open while putting together an order at the Loopy Ewe prior to Christmas last year and I somehow managed to get into Cascade sock yarn when I intended to only order Cascade worsted for winter hats and mitts. I didn't realize my mistake until the box arrived in the mail but the sock yarn seemed quite nice and has been waiting in the yarn drawer for the right time and the right pattern.

Phase 3

Done! When they drove away on this blustery November day, the border beds on either side of the walkway looked as though they had never been disturbed. The area was left in immaculate condition. We are ready for winter. I like this business of leaving yard work to the professionals.

Replacing Litigation Lane - Phase 2

If not from the ashes of Litigation Lane, then at least from the dust, there emerges a more gracious, beautiful, and far better constructed walkway. I will leave the naming, upon completion, to Movita's quicksilvered tongue.

We have left, as well, the exact planning and pattern completely in the hands of the professionals. And in that regard, the gods are looking down upon us with great kindness since the head of our landscape crew just happens to be the extremely talented artist, Chris Wallace. While it is a loss to the art world that he finds the need to be a seasonal worker for a number of months each year, it is certainly our gain. And his co-worker is excellent at helping complete the master plan. And, oh, on a more mundane note, it surely feels good to have someone else hauling the wheelbarrow loads, doing the digging, replanting, and dressing with bark mulch. That may be a sign that I am getting old.

Unlocking The Secrets of Blocking - Part 2

Ishbel Blocked

On The Block - Knitting Lace

Knitting projects should be blocked upon completion - that is, they should be pinned on a flat surface to the correct measurements. They can either be pinned wet or pinned dry and steam pressed or sprayed with water and left to dry. Knitters use layers of towels on countertops, spare room beds, sheets on dining room tables, etc. It is infinitely easier to use a blocking board. The best boards are marked with one inch squares, are fairly heavy, and fold for storage. They are expensive ($79.99 American) and shipping costs are high ($41.00 American). A cheap and easy alternative is a set of four step squares from the flooring department of a building supply store. They are used for exercise mats, children's play areas, basement floors. They don't have marked measurements but they are light, fit together snugly, and take pins well. And they are cheap ($14.99 Canadian for a set of four).



Lace garments are not nearly as popular as they have been in centuries past but they are wonderful to knit. They are a challenge, require constant counting, and complete concentration. The finished project looks like a rumpled, crumpled, nondescript mess but knitters will wax poetic on the joy of seeing their lace knitting come to life after blocking. Scarves are practical, more up-to-date lace projects - who doesn't wear a scarf in a Canadian winter! This is a pattern I have been wanting to try for months now.
Pattern: Ishbel
Designer: Ysolda S. Teague
Yarn: Handmaiden Sea Silk
Color: Ocean
Needles: 4.0 mm. Addi Turbo lace circular

The End of Litigation Lane

Eleven years ago, the house was built at the end of a cul de sac cut out of the forest. We were the only ones on the new section of "street" and it was wonderful to be surrounded by trees and ferns. A slate walkway leading to the front door,with creeping thyme growing between the stones, seemed so romantic and appropriate in this natural setting. Alas. The thyme didn't want to grow between the stones - just too wet and shady for an herb that loves dry heat. Moss liked it. And unwanted grass. And in places where neither took hold, rain storms drove the soil down the walkway and the resulting erosion made the lane uneven and, yes, a tad unsightly. Because slate is rather slippery when wet or icy, Movita has always referred to it as Litigation Lane.
Well, no more.




Yesterday, two very nice men arrived to remove the stones, assess the lay of the land, and spray orange paint to mark their vision of how the new pathway should evolve. This morning, eight inches of soil was removed and stockpiled for me off the driveway (good garden soil just waiting for lawn patching and planting in the spring).


The materials for the new walkway were delivered.


And Litigation Lane gets another lease on life.

Wool Windings

Skeins from padded mailing envelopes to the swift and wool winder


to luscious bowls of yarn

November 1st: Time

1. The time changed in the wee hours of the morning, falling back by one hour. It is now not quite as late on the clock as it was at this point yesterday and I still have an extra hour to finish up the things I want to do. It would be wonderful if we could somehow gain an extra hour each and every day of the year. I have four yards of bark mulch being delivered tomorrow and have to get it hauled and in place in case Mother Nature plays a joke with a sudden cold spell, freezing the bark mulch into unmanageable lumps at the top of the driveway! And with an extra hour each day, I would certainly do a better job at getting seven days book loans returned to the library without fines.

2. It is interesting to think about the fact that this time next year, there will be another person in our midst whose name we don't yet know and whose face we have not yet seen. And this little person will quickly become part of the fabric of our lives.

3. Fred pointed out on Saturday that he has been cutting my hair for almost twenty years. He doesn't look much older.

4. The government did an excellent job of creating a heightened, if not exaggerated awareness of swine flu but may not deliver the vaccine in time to spare many people the illness. They now have a somewhat fearful population and after a great deal of bravado at press conferences, they pooped out on their assurance that Canada would be a country that could provide, and distribute efficiently, a vaccine for every citizen in fairly short order. I think we need to tamp down the axiety levels and look at better ways to coordinate services.

5. An RCMP officer, across the county line in Boutlier's Point, swears he saw a cougar recently near the community mailboxes. I may spend less time in the woods collecting evergreens before Christmas this year.

October Garden

Two of the prettiest plantings in the garden at this time of year are the burning bush and the ornamental grass, Sarabande. Sarabande, to me, is the queen of all ornamental grasses.


Miscanthus sinesis Sarabande



Euonymus alata (burning bush)

Space to Spread Out

All Christmas surface mail to France has to be mailed in October so it is time to get out the brown paper, stamps, paints, and stencils. Lucky Rachael, who, like Martha Stewart, has an upstairs room (albeit small) soley dedicated to this type of activity. I am constantly getting supplies from upstairs closets, downstairs basement storage units, main floor trunks, etc. In another life, I would like a clean, bright laundry room and a separate, well lit area with a table and craft supply storage. But then I think of the billions of people world wide, especially in urban areas, who live in very small spaces. UN- Habitat predicts that within two decades, 60% of the world's population will live in urban areas and the percentage rises to 70% by the year 2050. I am therefore grateful to have this not overly large house and an acre of woodland garden. And with the luxury of clean air and the beauty of the changing seasons so evident from every window, I feel a certain responsibililty to preserve and care for the natural surroundings. I hope the next people who live here will feel the same way.

October Is Hallowe'en Month

Home Made Treat Bags

Cool Autumn = Baking

Making Scones With Nova Scotia Cranberries



Fresh From The Oven

My Constant Cooking Companion

October At Home

October Ornamental Grass: Miscanthus Sinensis Silberfeder

I can't seem to make it out of France without being felled by something or other - cold, flu, food poisoning... This time, I almost made it out of the country. I had only a scratchy throat on the high speed train from Lille to Paris. And I might have made it over the Atlantic and broken my record of illness on French soil if the flight had not been delayed for over an hour because 3 passengers checked their luggage but didn't show up at the gate. Who does that? And why? Had they been drinking in the departure lounge and lost all track of time? Are they just mischief makers? Security conscious activists testing the system? Was it the result of a relationship break up at the interminably long and never-moving line up at the Air Canada baggage check? Alas, the longer we had to sit by the departure gate, the stronger the scent of French perfume as more women who had tested the wares in the duty free shops or who were examining their very recent purchases with renewed enthusiasm joined us. And there is nothing worse if you are asthmatic and coming down with a respiratory based flu! It accelerates the fact and the knowledge that you cannot breathe as well and you are not going to breathe as well for a long, long time. I did make it home after a seemingly endless journey to a clean, orderly house, a tidy garden and two very happy dogs. Hadley and Ryan (our neighbourhood golden boy) had taken such good care of the place, inside and out, that I was able to crawl into bed for a week and wallow in on-again, off-again fevered sleep.
We’re into the third week at home and I am only now just getting off the Ventolin inhaler. I can only hope it was the seasonal flu or the swine flu and I now have immunity against at least one of them. If it was a weird and unrelated, totally French strain, then I am afraid the next round to hit our region is going to carry me off. And, gee, I have only just learned how to say "Cecile" in French!
I knit very little in France. There was so much to do – making play doh dishes with lovely little bits of play doh food, blowing bubbles on the deck, walking to the park to say hello to the sheep, geese, and ducks, playing on the slides and the wooden car, singing and dancing in the park bandstand, reading books, doing puzzles, peeling oranges – oh the days were busy and full. There is nothing sweeter than watching the ongoing development of a clever little mind.
It seems to have taken forever to get out of the haze of medication, wheeze, cough, fever, and a longing for Lucy.
But I am back on the needles with a handsome pair of socks!


Pattern: BFF Socks
Designer: Cookie A.
Yarn: Lisa Souza Sock!
Color: Garnet
Needles: 2.25 mm circular

You Know You've Having A Bad Day When

You turn a little too hard into one of the parking spaces perpedicular to a canal in Amsterdam and your car ends up in water. In the 1960's, the city installed low guard rails along the canals but despite this, on average, one car a week goes over!

On To Amsterdam

We were not as excited about this canal city as other tourists might be as Adam and Isa had already introduced us to the smaller Belgium canal communities of Bruge and Ghent and we had been utterly charmed by them. Still, like all old European cities, it would take weeks to absorb the elaborate and beautiful architectual detail.




Aside from the detail work, the central, old section of Amsterdam can easily be explored by foot in a couple of days though we found the walking a little difficult. Bikes have fairly wide designated lanes while the pedestrian walkways are often narrow. As well, there was so much construction and renovation work that we were often squeezed into rather tight walking spaces. The brick or cobblestone "sidewalks" often had uneven surfaces - charming, but hard on the feet! We often noticed sidewalk heaving. A young chap in a pub told us that sidewalk repair was a never-ending process in the city. Street crossings are a real challenge. At intersections, we had to first cross the bike lane (bicycle bells ringing with sharp impatience if we stepped out too soon!), the tram section with tracks, and finally the car lane.


We stayed at The Bridge Hotel on the Amstel Canal and couldn't recommend it more highly for a stay in the city. The rates were modest compared to other hotels and if the interior was also slightly more modest with older furniture, they made up for that with a pleasant breakfast room and a wide selection of breakfast food included in the price. The staff provided excellent service and the room was spacious, with a balcony overlooking the canal and a swan to grace the vista!



The morning commute certainly does not resemble one in North America! For one thing, there are thousands of bicycles and they are stalled as often here with bridges being lifted over canals to let waterway traffic pass underneath as they are at traffic lights!


We poked through the flower markets along the Singel Canal and found tulip bulbs for Isa and some with Canada clearance certificates to take back to Rachael and Derek but no Dutch bulbs for our own garden. Deer eat tulips but not daffodils and they had none of the latter cleared for export.



We saw an unusual sight one morning on the way to Rijksmuseum (magnificent Rembrandts though, alas, two of their four Vermeer's were on loan) when we came upon a large fountain with about six inches of soapsuds covering the water surface and dogs taking a romp in the foam. Is this a local, extremely elaborate dog bath or the result of a dog owner tired of trying to bathe his pooch at home?





Ooster Park with its resident heron: