R n R

It's June and unseasonably cool. It rained last week and again this weekend. The star jasmine which usually blooms in April is just beginning to bud. The lavender which typically scents the air in May is starting to show color in its buds. Spring's arrival is slow and prolonged.

Rhubarb is available. I've never prepared it before, but I knew exactly what I wanted from it, thanks to C.Ferber's "Mes Confitures".
This recipe takes less effort than many others in the book: just macerate overnight, then cook it in the morning. Need to remember to have fewer distractions next time, though.  I knocked a jar over towards me while filling it, and I immediately leaned forward in a lame attempt to salvage the spill, yet much of the hot mass glopped onto the floor. Gah.

Rhubarb and Rosemary Preserves, 5C instead of 6C

I paused to think about priorities. Then I finished filling the jars and I put them in the water bath before I started to clean the drippy mess on me and the floor.

The flavor combination is incredible.

Fire and water

A fire just north of Camp Roberts yesterday.

The effect of water on a stair.

Toecaps and whitecaps

Feynman by the sea

At the west coast.

from Bali to Iberia

I saw a fan - a butterfly, a glimmer - flutter around a poised dancer whose arms slowly moved to define sacred space around her body and whose legs moved within a long train of a dress to maneuver its placement in her path. The butterfly alit on her hand, then slowly fluttered near the head of an approaching dancer who held out her hand, received the butterfly, snapped it shut, then snapped it open again with a different life.  It fluttered with a stronger pulse as the dancer's arms crisply announced their presence and her legs directed and flipped the dark heavy train of her dress so that it swirled and carved her path.

A View

It's raining tonight.  Unusual for this time of year.  The Tour de California bike race starts in the Sierras today or tomorrow and snow is forecast.  Downhill at 50mph on "fat" one-inch racing tires?  Nein danke.

I tended the small garden plot, performed the annual irrigation check (giving rise to tonight's rain, no doubt), made a few repairs, and planted a few tomatoes, alyssums, and marigolds.  A month ago I pulled the offspring of the summer wild ones, and I haven't seen too many since, which was a relief until I wondered if there was another less desireable reason why the ground is more barren than usual.  It was confirmed that the land had been sprayed with herbicide.  My heart sank with dismay.  Time to extract the skeletal carcasses, heal the land with compost, replant, and post "no poison" signs.  Bah.

Been awhile since I've traveled.  So I go vicariously, over oceans through the sky.  14g of merino were spun on the Kundert perpetual motion spindle before and after gardening.  7g of cobalt-blue merino were spun woolen and andean-plied.  Similarly, 7g total of the cobalt-blue and turquoise (equal amounts of each color) were produced.  These are calm oceans and clear skies viewed on a sunny day.

Mapping through Immersion

I read everything, without selection..I borrowed from the public library...I read very fast, uncritically, and without retention, seeking only to escape from my own life through the imaginative plunge into another. Safe in my room...I disappeared into inner space. The real world dissolved and I was free to drift in fantasy, living a thousand lives, each one more powerful, more accessible, and more real than my own.

-- Frank Conroy

Caliz for Spring

A week and two days later I am wearing this, AVFKW's Proverbial number 3, designed by Rosemary Hill. How appropriate that I've finished in time for "Monday's Musing", which I always look forward to reading.






Caliz - modelled by AVFKW

Caliz - modelled by AVFKW

"The smell of moss, the sight of earth" in 70/30 silk/camel is AVFKW's Spring Proverbial yarn. I love this description. The subtly mottled spring-green silk/camel weighs very little and provides instant warmth.

I learned the knitted cast-on, stretchy bind-off, and how to see yarn-overs more clearly (there was a bit of ripping and re-doing while learning all this), and there are spring "bunnies" embedded in this work which make it uniquely mine. [...great euphemism...]


Make

My fingers Emit sparks of fire with Expectation of my future labours.

--William Blake

High Road with Handspun

High Road - Handspun
modelled by AVFKW

Last weekend, two weeks after casting on, I finished my second High Road with handspun yarn. I tweaked the pattern just a little: cast on a few more stitches on the main piece, extended the number of rows in the main piece before creating the center corner, adjusted the corner short rows, adjusted the center infill piece and ruffle cast-ons for the larger main piece, and added a few more rows to the ruffle.

Hoooo I really like this one!
Thanks Kristine and Mary-Heather.

Postscript about spinning the yarn: I tried to spin the fiber color combinations so that they would be somewhat random and appear to be "without purpose", but I found that the amount of thought and effort I was putting into the randomness was very deliberate. Intuitive spinning - I need to work on it more - how ironic. Or maybe not - could be a lesson (so many of those these days) in letting go.