had I only known...

A fiber festival is coming to town! I learned this just a few days after purchasing some yarn, (some yarn = more than I need and I have a closetful of evidence to prove it), for a few Christmas gifts I have to start working on. I had read Sandi Wiseheart's post about all the good reasons to attend fiber shows and inspired by good reason #1, which amounted to having fun while spending time with like-minded people, a thing I seldom do, I thought I'd search out a calendar of next years' shows and was thrilled to find one taking place next weekend and only a few miles away! I don't regret the yarns I bought, especially the Araucania Itata which I've turned into such a memorable and patience testing tangle, but how can I resist increasing the inventory with some hand-spun Angora bunny puffs?

yes, please...

Just spotted this on Ebay. A Harry Gordon 75% rayon, 25% nylon poster dress from 1968.

our little princess is a star...

... no matter what happens. After a fair amount of goading from my mother, I submitted a photo of Foof to the local paper's Pet of the Month contest in which twelve animals are chosen to appear in an ad during each month of 2010. Three hundred entries were received, Foof was number 99. Aha! Palindromic alphabetically as well as numerically! I was convinced this would increase her chances of being chosen for the next round. I lobbied quietly in her support, but frankly, it didn't really matter what happened. She got her picture in the paper, it was all a bit of fun. Then, Tuesday morning, my mother called with a typically oblique intro, "I have some information for you. Foof made it into the top 50". I confess, I was proud of my girl. The next round is the decisive one.

wee beasties...

I'm going all crafty now that autumn is approaching. These were cross stitch designs I made in response, in the first example, to a fervent bout of mouse huntin' and trappin' that was going on at my parents' house, and, in the second example, as a sort of put-the-boot-in daily reminder. The mouse is accompanied by French text that translates to "Long live the little mice!". The rabbit is as yet unattended by its inspirational catchphrase, which will read, "Salta prima di inacidire", which translates from the Italian as "Leap before you sour".

time spent wisely in a plane...

For some reason, these pictures have been on my mind lately. They were taken last year on our way home from Seattle. The landscape is fascinating, as are the clouds, so I took lots of photos of farmland and developing weather.

Summer holiday...

We traveled to Westport Island, Maine this year and paid another visit to The Squire Tarbox Inn, undoubtedly one of the most pleasant, home-away-from-home kind of places to be. An organic farm, run by the son of the owners, occupies a large part of the property and many of the vegetables are available daily in an adjacent farm stand as well as the Bath farmer's market on Saturdays. The busy Tarbox hens lay the eggs for our breakfast, hummingbirds dart from flower to flower, goldfinches, chickadees, and warblers race to the feeders, just out of reach of Molly, a family cat whose fondness for birdwatching rivals my own. A gregarious Bernese mountain dog rambles about, visiting guests in the dining room. It is the sort of place that induces pangs of homesickness whenever I contemplate having to leave it.




I bought these now tired looking black radishes from the farm. I'd never tried them before and in their raw state, their spiciness was incendiary! Beautiful to look at though, from a distance.


Part of the 1200 miles we drove were located in Ellsworth, where we had a ravingly good dinner at Cleonice. We had the marinated olives, organic beet, walnut, and gorgonzola salad, and the scungilli salad to start, with bluefish and steak frites to follow. The service was friendly and professional and the food just delicious! I was hoping to find the locally grown heirloom bumblebee beans, so named because of the maroon beelike shapes that mark their exterior, but found local calypso and big yellow eye beans instead at John Edwards Market.



I usually prepare them by soaking the beans overnight, then cooking them until meltingly tender, drain them and pummel them slightly into just a hint of a mash, add generous amounts of olive oil, lots of freshly crushed garlic, chopped parsley or any other herb lying about, large crystals of crunchy sea salt, and fresh Tellicherry pepper pounded in a mortar. Eaten while the beans are still warm, with the steam wafting gracefully upwards, and the sea salt, herbs, and pepper pungent and bracing, this is, for me, an ultimate comfort food.





A trip to the beach inspired me to start collecting seaweed. Foof was impressed and claimed it for her own. We also went to the Maine Coast Botanical Gardens in Boothbay. There was an exhibit of work by the sculptor Wendy Klemperer who creates these beautiful, feral metal sculptures of wild animals.

old birds...

I have been throwing money away on pre 1850 ornithological and other engravings. I love them all, but would like to point out the 350 year old owls in particular.