Transitions

 Note, I am posting from a different device, format may be wonky!

What’s happening here? We had a longer warm period than usual, but alas, all good things come to an end.  We harvested our last herbs and greens, and the frost came.  All of us got used to life spent indoors, although we are still outside a lot.  Temperatures below freezing do not keep us home bound! Sadie the dog is here, on the steps, asking about her walk.

I continue to spin through deep stash.  This is some Polwarth that came originally from Australia, but I bought it in a fiber arts business retirement sale.  It is well aged!  That said, it is spinning up beautifully on my Quebec wheel.

Every fall, a kid or two gets a sweater.  This year, I made another one out of Icelandic plotulopi (unspun.). It is light and warm, if not the hardest wearing.  We were aiming for colour blocking here, but then my kid asked if I could knit the original early 20th century tile pattern from our bathroom into his sweater.  Of course!  I sent him into the bathroom with his iPad and then I knit it from the photo.  I did imagine doing those rows in the bathroom, just to see the tile in person, but thought better of it!

To keep cheerful clothing around, I also made myself another jumper using the 100 acts of sewing pattern and Rifle Paper Company print.  My biology professor husband (currently on strike at the U of Manitoba, but that is another story) suggests I am now dressing like a herbaceous border. I ignored him. I like it!

Last, but not least, our heroic boiler had finally died and we are in the process of getting a new one installed.  So, for now, no central heat, and a lot of toys to tidy in the basement so the new one can be put in.  I am excited about this, although it is an expensive home repair while my professor is on strike…because, well, in Canada, heat is life!  We are doing ok with running two gas fireplaces, a little radiator space heater, and of course, I am wearing a lot of wool…

lead in the soil

If you've been reading my blog for a long, long time, you may remember this post back in 2006, where I mentioned lead contamination in our yard in Kentucky.  This is a snapshot of our yard, including my Professor husband, setting out the paths in our very 'fancy' lead remediation so we could have a garden.

Around this time, in March 2006, I'd written a long, detailed article explaining how to deal with this lead contamination issue and what it meant for safety.  I could not get anyone to buy it!  However, I tucked it away. For years it bugged me because I really did want people to know about these issues.

Sad to say, heavy metal contamination isn't rare...it's relevant to Winnipeg, too.  My article came out today on the CBC-Manitoba website:
Time to stop kicking the can down the road on lead levels in Winnipeg's soil

I'm hoping someone in power will read it.  There's somebody at the U. of Manitoba in the School of the Environment who has the right equipment to test lead. There's plenty of public interest and people want to fix this problem so school kids can play during recess.  If they must sample more, they could dig samples, cover the costs of running the tests at the U of M, and have the answers very quickly.  If they can't afford a real remediation team with diggers?  I bet if you gave concerned citizens a chance, well, we'd be out there with our shovels to start the digging and we'd wear masks to avoid ingesting it.  This is just an unacceptable thing, to keep children from playing on their school field and to leave for someone else to deal with later.

In other, happier topics:  The sun was shining for a moment and we caught photos of a new design today!  I am excited about beginning to write it up.  No big reveal yet, but it solves the problem of portable knitting for those on the go but who want to make sweaters.  Hint: It is knit in seven (totally portable) pieces. There is sewing up at the end, but I don't mind sewing, so it works out ok!

Last but not least--please don't forget:
the Pembina Fibreshed is sponsoring my Spinners' Tasting class--it's a chance to sample mohair, silk and alpaca (and maybe more...)!  It's on Mother's Day, in the afternoon.
  Please consider signing up if you're a spinner in Winnipeg!

I'll leave you with a photo from Fiber Gathering so you can think about camelids (alpacas and llamas are camelids!) while you rush to sign up!

Here's a cashmere buck (that's a boy goat!), for good measure....

Garden alert

 The last few days, our weather has been sparkling.  Sunny, dry, gorgeous days with highs around 25C (77F) which I've heard some folks calling "hot!"  (I tried not to snort with laughter, but hey, when I lived in the South, I would have killed some days for a low temperature of 25C/77F!)  Every night the temperature drops, we turn on the fans in the windows, and we need blankets at night.  It's all good.

The front walk way is covered in chalk.  (That is an underwater ocean scene and two dinosaurs, by the way.  What, you can't see it?!)

The flowers we planted a couple weeks ago are going bonkers.  This is because it doesn't get dark now until after 10:30 or so, and it is dawn just a few hours later.  Ahh, the longest days of the year are here...no one is sleeping enough either. :)

Our beans, peas, squash and cucumber plants are growing, as are the nasturtium seeds I put in.

Last year, one hot day, I made the whole family wander down a few blocks to visit our neighbour Audrey, who has an award-winning garden.  She had invited us to dig up some of her lovage, which was growing so much it was taking over the back lane.  She'd already given me an enormous number of stalks for soup one day as I walked by!  So, we dug up some and planted it.  Nothing seemed to happen, in fact, the stuff above ground seemed to die back.  This past week, we were weeding and trying to find Sadie's brown squeaky ball (the weeds were tall...) and WOW!  We found the lovage coming up nice and strong!  Two separate clumps.  I'm thrilled.  I've circled it here for those of you who couldn't, uhh, see it in the picture.  We are not topnotch in the weeding department...

In the corner of the front yard, the professor planted a mock orange plant a while back.  The professor takes the long view.  For several years, I kept asking what this weedy thing was and whether we should pull it out.  This year, it got enormous.  And it smells--well, it smells like somebody's surrounding you with a magic fragrant (but not stinky) perfume.  It is gorgeous.  It's also right near the bus stop, so hopefully others smell it too while they are waiting there.

Each year, the professor also uses some bags of garden soil as temporary gardening space.  He puts them in a part of the garden that gets good sun but has been invaded with a very stinky invasive weed.  The bags (and black plastic) kill the weed, while we continue to use the sunshine to grow tomatoes.  He uses the soil from the year before to fill in holes left in the grassy corner boulevard by the snow plows each winter.

We have some very good looking tomato plants this year, and one of the twins is already looking every day to see if there are tomatoes to eat.  He doesn't care if they are red or not. My mom, who visits in the summer, is convinced that we are bad at gardening because she never sees any of these cherry tomatoes we plant!  (There is a reason for that, and it isn't because we are that bad at gardening.  It's because we are good at raising her grandchildren to eat garden produce!)

All these shots happened when I went outside to take photos of the new yarn I got a few weeks ago, to play ball with Sadie, and to do a couple other projects.  I'll show you those photos in another post.  For now, I thought you might enjoy a little sunny green break.  I sure do!

Advocacy on the road

In the US, as a kid, I volunteered and worked at the Claude Moore Colonial Farm.

This living history park offered me a lot of the skills I use today in teaching and living.  Spinning, mending, gardening, talking to strangers and teaching, cooking (over a fire!) and more.  I wrote an opinion piece about this, because the US National Patk Service has decided to shut down this important park by the end of December, 2018.  (There is no good reason to do so, as far as anyone can tell, aside from perhaps potentially profiting from the sale of the land.)

The opinion piece was edited down to the length of a letter, and printed here:

https://www.insidenova.com/opinion/letters_to_editor/letter-closure-of-claude-moore-farm-would-be-calamitous-for/article_4737250a-585b-11e8-9cd0-c3ad320dfcf0.html

Please forgive this messy link!  I am away from my computer and posting via an iPad...but this is too important to leave alone.  If you want to support living history darn near the US Capitol, please google "Claude Moore Colonial Farm" to find more ways to advocate for this amazing representation of everyday tenant farmer history in 1771 Virginia.

Now we are six

It's been a busy few days here, as our twins have just turned six.  Conveniently, we had a school holiday on their birthday, so we had plenty of time to have fun.  (Aside from the actual holiday observance, we went to the zoo, which was great, as usual.)  We've had hot sunny weather, which is a real surprise at this time of year.  It is usually still a bit unpredictable...yes, frost is still technically possible.

One of the boys' presents was to get this poster framed.  One of their kind aunts picked this up at the 2014 National Book Festival in Washington, D.C.  I think maybe she took a couple of my nephews there.  Then, somehow this extra poster migrated to Winnipeg, and in a fit of tidiness, I cleaned off our breakfront.  (where all mail and other flotsam and jetsam goes to die.)

Along with an old utility bill (gosh, our rates have really gone up!) I discovered the poster.  It matches the boys' bedroom perfectly and they fell in love.  We sang together about "The man in the moon" (He's smiling, cause he's in love with the girl in the world) and they decided it reminded them of the book Goodnight Moon, which they can recite.  So, it had to go on the wall...because it also reminds me of when the Obamas hosted such things, and celebrated books...learning, and knowledge.
  We walked to the local art gallery and framers and got it done.

Tomorrow, assuming the weather holds, we will plant our garden and celebrate two six year olds in style with a small party and a lot of gelati.  I took 10 minutes this past week to sit outside with our plants, admire the weather, and drink some iced tea.  (real brewed iced tea is an oddity in Winnipeg; no one seems to have heard of it, so I just make it at home when it is hot.)

I have been trying to finish this really long biography about Abraham Joshua Heschel in these rare free moments.  It goes slowly, but I am 1/3rd of the way through the second book...it's due back to the library soon!

Harry the dog enjoys the dirt and shade here.  It was a hazy day.
I hope you're also getting some small breaks in the sunshine, wherever you are...

(And yes, everyone has recited A.A. Milne's poem to the boys, and they are definitely "clever as clever, and I think I'll stay six now for ever and ever.")

flashback...

For those of you who have been blog readers a long time, you may remember that I used to write on separation of church/state issues when I lived in Kentucky.  Oddly, that was good training for an article I wrote last week...and it came out on Saturday.  Here's a CBC opinion piece on why I think there is no such thing as a "secular prayer" and why I think it shouldn't happen at city council or at the Manitoba legislature.  Turns out that the Canadian Supreme Court thinks that too!

Like a prayer: Rethinking traditions at city council

In other news...our radishes are coming up, little bitty green things, in our raised garden beds.  Both boys had the sniffles so we spent a lot of the weekend playing close to home.  This playing alternated with small boys throwing cranky tantrums.  We also attempted a trip to Fort Whyte for their Earth Day festivities.  It was gorgeous weather, very crowded, and a bit hard to maneuver with two hungry, cranky and sniffley guys.  We did see pigs, chicken, rabbits, bison, an owl and a snake, lots of geese and other birds and lots of touchable wildlife taxidermy (which I found gross, but the boys loved).

The most interesting part of the visit, for me, was the Pioneer Sod House.  here's a link to some photos.  I had never been inside a sod house--I believe I have seen some collapsed ones out on highways as we drove someplace, but this was a real live example.  We have a great kid's book:
The New Land: A First Year on the Prairie

That helps us explain to the boys what the first European settlers on the prairie experienced when they came here...and it has a sod house in it.  What a rush it was to see light dawn for both three year olds as we went into a real (very small) sod house.  We all wondered what it would be like to spend winter in one.  Very close quarters!

I also recently came across some Manitoba legal codes from the 1870s that said which belongings could not be confiscated in case of bankruptcy.  Luckily, a spinning wheel and weaving loom were stipulated as among the essential items that could not be taken.  Whew.

Of course they were absolutely necessary to keep the family warm and clothed, but also?  for mental health reasons....

OK, that's enough prairie talk for today!  Have a good one. :)

Next year?

I don't want to leave any readers hanging--so a short update is in order. I am fine, I'm still pregnant at 35 weeks, and I'm trying to wait patiently with my feet up. I don't go out much these days and I'm doing a lot of reading and resting. Harry and Sally are the best dogs ever. One or both of them are almost always by my side.. possibly the best companions ever in the circumstances!

I'm a bit sad to be missing festivals this year but my mom went to Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival and gave me a brief report. Wonderful weather, a good time, my friends say hello...but it's not quite the same as going myself! (Honestly though, I couldn't stand up for more than about 10 minutes at a time, so there's no way I'd manage it, never mind all the traveling!) That said, it is hard to smell the sheep barns over the phone. :)

Locally, the professor went to a plant sale and got herbs, flowers and other delights for the summer. He planted them, and the rain is now hopefully going to make them grow big. When I'm up for walking around the yard later on, I'll get to enjoy his efforts. Our forsythia is blooming and everything is beginning to look green around here. I am finding the prospect of spring exciting!

That's the news from here. I kept hoping I'd feel up to snapping photos for the blog, but in any case, haven't seen any sheep at all in downtown Winnipeg! Perhaps you'll just have to refer to past years...look for the beginning of May and you're likely to see sheep in those posts. In any case, I am now much more empathetic when it comes to those ewes who always bear twins, triplets, or quads.

(Oy. I think I know how you feel!)

may-be it's spring

Whenever people talk about where we live (Canada, the prairies, or Winnipeg) they seem to act like we exist in a continual snowy steppe, a blur in blizzard. Here are some photos to say it ain't so.

This is one of our lilacs. Our yard is really overgrown, but when we arrived last July, we decided to wait the better part of the year before doing too much hacking and killing of the weedy bits. After all, we needed to figure out where the actual plants were. What we've found are some gargantuan lilacs, among other things. We've begun to discuss the hacking plans....and I've started dismantling the "crop circles."

Apparently a former owner of the house liked making little circles on the ground with stones or bricks-with no apparent order or design. Some of them surround trees or what used to be plantings. Whatever they are, they make mowing and walking across the yard a scary thing for toes...unless you look down, you're likely to hurt yourself! Each time I move some of these things, I feel as though I'm regaining more of a garden and less of a weird new-age spiritual ritual that I haven't quite grasped.

The professor and I bought some plants last weekend but were in no shape to put them in the ground. It was also a bit too cold to get started. This weekend, I spent several hours in the dirt, planting flowers, herbs, a tomato plant or two and other odds and ends. Mostly I put these in pots and containers, but I did a bit of digging and weeding in the ground, too.

Our ornamental crab apple tree is flowering--wow, it's a thing of beauty. I find it even more exciting because the apple tree grafts are taking. The professor and a friend/colleague decided to splice on some apple grafts in hopes that we'll grow a few apples in 3 years. We're planning ahead.

My third warp of curtains and rugs have finally come off the loom. I washed the curtain length of fabric. All the supplies for this were "reclaimed" so I wasn't entirely sure of the kind of fibers I was using. I discovered that even though the warp is cotton, and there's nylon tape in it, the wool sections were definitely wool and it felted. I still like how it came out but now have to rethink how I will cut it up to make curtains. It is distinctly smaller than it used to be--pre-felting.

When I finally took everything off the loom though, I remembered why it took me 2.5 months to finish it all. 5 rugs and several yards of fabric--it was a lot more work than I'd expected. The fourth warp (already in process) is for 2 or 3 scarves. Much easier to complete!

I'm also beginning to plan ahead for our busy summer. I've got some potential teaching lined up, some editing, and of course, lots of spinning, knitting and weaving in the sunshine. Also, we're expecting a lot of visitors. This week I am trying the "bake ahead" method. I'll make a whole bunch of stuff and put it in the freezer for later in the summer. This is the first loaf of whole wheat-the second loaf I made is going to a party at someone's house this evening. White bread, challah, cookies, cake....freezer, here we come!

(Also, the professor and I are getting better from the killer cold but it's been very slow.)
That's the news from here... What's going on over in your house and May garden?