Category Archives: travel

October 28, 2015 · 1:18 AM

Not a Roman holiday

Autumn gets me itchy for the opposing forces of nesting and travel.

Autumn is my favorite time in Italy because it is the most familiar – I spent the most time there over the years during these months – and the tourist season calms down a bit. When the leaves begin to crunch, I automatically sniff for roasting chestnuts, but alas, for most of the United States, I’ve got to settle for woodsmoke and cider, which I love too. But we decided not to go again this year for a number of reasons, and headed back north to the White Mountains, then the sea, instead.

Only we headed straight into the belly of American tourism, or more specifically, an army of leaf peepers. We thought we’d be ahead of them, but instead we hit at the peak – don’t get me wrong, it was a glorious multi-hued autumn bomb – but the more accessible trails were like Fiumicino airport. But luckily, we were tucked away again in our now very familiar rough and tumble-down rental cabin on the lake in near solitude, and I’m finally getting back to slightly more moderate trails.

The cabin owners left some knitted and crocheted afghans for us that we haven’t seen in the summer.

But I brought our big guns – vintage wool bed blankets that kept us perfectly warm sitting outside watching birds, otters, beavers, and this time, a mink, although several mornings had frost.

I did just a little knitting – started a gift hat that is identical in color, but hopefully sized down, to the selbu modern I made last year – and the second sock of the pair I’ve occasionally worked on since June, some sewing, and this time I also had work work, which wasn’t really unpleasant to do while away – in fact, I felt more focused.

(And was well-fueled by my favorite licorice allsorts and chocolate nonpareils snagged on the way up.)

After a week in entirely non-internet ignorant bliss (though marred by a knife through N’s finger (I didn’t do it), a septic issue that further confirmed my certainty of never wanting to live with one, and a bizarre key issue on our way out that took half the day to not resolve and led to the elderly cabin owners having to shimmy through a window several days later) we headed further north and east to a comfortable seaside cottage near Acadia National Park.

We knew we’d hit crowds there, and with gorgeous weather and colors, everyone should be out, but we happily managed to have several choice trail lunch spots to ourselves and a few excursions without road noises or children screaming for ice cream in the middle of a lovely quiet forest.

We hiked, we biked, we ate a shit-ton of fried clams, chowder, and lobster rolls. The season officially ended at Columbus day, so many of the lobster pounds were closed after that much to our dismay, but the island noticeably got a bit less tourist-peopled.

I saw more sunrises in two weeks than I have for at least two years – it either comes too early or I’m not paying attention – and I shot most of them…

I’d been wanting to go to Acadia for a bit – I love moss and the juxtapositions of forest and sea and got just that – more kinds of moss than I’d ever seen before, squirrels on the beach, seaweed smells in the trees, the sounds of the surf in the pines, and chickadees and forest birds at the water’s edge.

I figured we’d be annoyed with the over populated trails and cruise ships and it would be a once and done trip, but I’d come back – and definitely in the autumn…

And Rhinebeck just happened to be on the way home… maybe more on that later…

We left the frosty north just in time, but unfortunately, it hit at home too… more on that next time, or later…

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Tagged as acadia, autumn, bird watching, chocolate nonpareils, fall, forest, hiking, leaf peepers, licorice allsorts, maine, moss, national parks, new hampshire, ocean, ponds, Rhinebeck, sea, seaside, sheep, sheep and wool festival, sunrises, teaberry, travel, white mountains

August 19, 2015 · 6:00 AM

Other people’s houses

When we go on vacation we nearly always stay in other people’s apartments and cabins. Hotels serve their purpose for a night or two on weekends or in in-between places (and we’ve managed to rack up some points to stay in some neat ones). But for longer stays, it’s cheaper, sometimes more comfortable, and easier on the gut to stay in other’s living quarters. I can’t take eating out for more than one meal a day, or too many days in a row, even in places with my favorite cuisines – I need home cooking on a regular basis and I like exploring new markets (or we bring our own groceries if it’s remote and/or slim pickings for good stuff).

I like staying in places that feel homey but don’t seem too much like someone else’s home – strong smells, dog hair on the sofa, stained linens, funky (stinky) plastic dishware, too many personal effects, and condiments of dubious quality still in the fridge are turn-offs. But on the other hand, places decked out in all new things that all match, bought brand new in either “wal-fart for cabin” or “swedish store Euro-chic” seem too sterile. But I suppose I do prefer the sterile, even with resin bears and thin wobbly dressers, to cabinets with tubes of butt cream, half-smoked joints in the bowl on the living room table, and 73 photos of very sticky germ-ridden grand kids on too many unlaundered sticky doilies… And no matter what, I always spend way too much time thinking how I’d tweak any place a bit – from cleaning out the moldy caulk and rubber tub daisies, to painting a cheap wooden chair so it doesn’t blend in so much with the wooden walls…

And I’m a bit conflicted with the act of owning a second property – granted, it’s fine if it’s well-used by extended family and renters I suppose, but it leads to over-building, destroying habitats, and the production and disposal of more cheap crap (not to mention my contempt for the rich, but that’s another category since they usually don’t share or rent their homes to others)…

But we’ve yet to hit the jackpot for meeting all of my hopes – clean, not moldy, not very cluttered, but stocked full of (not sticky) puzzles and games and take one/leave one paperback, decent mattresses, a nice place to read or knit with adequate lighting, and a kitchen with a pot large enough to boil pasta and a corkscrew. So we pack along as much as these things as possible when trying out someplace new.

The cabin we’ve stayed at a few times now in the White Mountains doesn’t really meet many of those things either, but it’s got something a bit more rare – history and honest frugality. Now, that isn’t surprising for New England, but for rentals, they are elusive qualities. The place dates only to the 1960s or 70s, but is full of a generation’s or two earlier cast-off furniture and books.

I love this particular dresser – the quarter-sawn oak veneer is still in excellent condition, but the handles are a lively mismatch of whatever was on hand. Too many of us (myself included at times) would just go down to the big-box and buy six matching replacements when it is totally unnecessary.

The bathroom wallpaper initially made me a bit twitchy, but I’ve grown fond of it and it’s in really great condition – the room could be brightened up a little with some accent paint in that cheery orange…

And the curtains were perhaps bought new via an advertisement in Yankee magazine from the early 70s – I love that both still live in the cabin, though I’d certainly wash the curtains because they probably never have been… And both the magazine and one of the popular style trends was in the “ye olde” variety for that time period, it also dates to the beginnings of me and makes me feel ye olde and crumbling and yellowed and low-tech too…

And there is a small settee awkwardly shoved in a corner that was probably semi-banished when a bigger new sofa went in a couple of years ago, but they still kept it – it’s in fine shape with a delightful bird pattern – I’d be tempted to get rid of the big new sofa and use it instead… (but the new sofa is damn comfy).

I wish there existed many more old but perfectly good (not smelly or sticky) things in our lives and weren’t so quick to toss them… though I don’t have that much of a love for bobbles…

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Filed under collecting, home, home decor, recycling, travel

Tagged as 1970s, bobbles, cabins, dandelion wallpaper, home decor, old stuff, reuse, rustic, vacation rentals, vintage fabric, yankee frugality

August 5, 2015 · 6:00 AM

Vacationing body and absent mind…

I was away for another trip to the White Mountains last week, staying in the same shabby, smelly cabin that has a lovely view of lake fog and mists, birds, otters, beavers, and this year, a black bear (but no moose).

It was a long-needed break for my recently increasingly absent brain (I didn’t even schedule that post correctly) but I think I needed another week or two to truly get it back, or at least more of the crucial bits.

But I got back to knitting which has been great – a long lost friend coming back and all that. I took two projects and managed to knock out most of a Trilobite hat – I’m not convinced it won’t be ripped as yet, the body is short and ended too abruptly, so I might undo the top and add a few rows, but we’ll see what a good block can achieve first (I did a provisional cast on and knit the body up, then picked and knit brim down so I can hopefully double it over)…

…and turned the heel on my latest sock.

I put on a pair of boots for the first time in over a year and did a few little hikes since messing up my knee…

(I’m not used to being so broken.)

As well as revisited one of my favorite bike trails.

The weather was unreasonably hot and humid, so I wasn’t as active as I’d hoped, but we found a good solution for a too-humid-to-hike day at a lake beach with beautifully cold water (our temporary residence lake tends toward bathtub temperatures and lily pads at our end).

I really like going up north, but I often dread that it is a few weeks ahead or behind the seasons from where we live. I’m always glad to shuck off winter and going up there in the spring is downright depressing when the leaves haven’t started to come out, or the end of summer feels like autumn, which I like, but I don’t want to come in August. But this was the first trip that it synced up with home and felt exactly the same – only some day lilies were still hanging around a few weeks after ours stopped…

I banged out a few more hexes, but sewing those most aggravates whatever is going on with my wrist, so I’m happy I’ve narrowed it down and I can still keep my hands working on other things rather than lying limp as they’ve been for weeks.

I also brought a couple of sweaters to deconstruct in preparation for unraveling – a super soft beige merino that I’ll likely dye or double up with a darker color and a completely unlikely metallic thing, but the base fiber is cotton and rayon, so it feels okay and will definitely be doubled or tripled with something soft and woolly (or alpaca-y). I’m surprised how often I wear my one scarf with a little bling, so this is just the right amount to mix into something else similar.

So for once I didn’t pack too many projects, and each got a little attention.

(I didn’t finish any puzzles though which is something I enjoy but rarely do unless in cabins…)

We came home to a thirsty, weedy, tomato-dropping garden, and a partially unfinished basement project in a deafening screaming match for days of attention…

I’m ready for another week away…

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Filed under gardening, hiking, knitting, recycling, sewing, travel

Tagged as bird watching, cabins, handknits, hiking, knitting, lakes, mountains, new hampshire, ponds, recycling old sweaters, socks, summer, tendinitis, torn meniscus, travel, trilobite, vacation, white mountains, yarn

November 4, 2014 · 6:42 AM

Get off yer asses and go vote!

This country has been f*cked up for some time (and perhaps always) but it’s not the fault of one man (maybe a bit because of the man before the current man) but it is largely the fault of men.

Mostly white men.

Dividend yields, offshore accounts, hedge funds, trust funds, mutual funds, stock options, investment portfolios, tax loopholes, year end bonuses, wealth management, and even pension plans are meaningless to most of us – we’re not gaily frolicking under a shower of golden nuggets pissing down from above. And yes, a few votes don’t have more strength than a fat wallet, but we can at least try to elect people who look and act more like us to represent us at the lower levels to push our sh*t up from the bottom, right?

I had a doctor appointment in a busy hospital on the outskirts of a poor urban area last week. The the door to my exam room was left open and I could see and hear what was going on in the room across the hall. In it was a young man who had been shot in the head while driving 6 months before. Now, I’m going to make a whole bucket of assumptions here (and he could have been an investment banker for all I know) and say what options do men like him (before the shooting) have – join the military so he can legally pop others in the head? Our education systems fails too many, our healthcare system is inhumane, our environment is getting scary, and our culture and humanity is disgustingly and alarmingly low or gone.

Last week we were also in DC to do some research.

We had a fine view of the Washington Monument from the crapper in the hotel room.

And I saw evidence that for hundreds of years people like some of my ancestors who couldn’t read and write or even make a decent X for “his mark” lived and mildly prospered in this country. They were able to slowly transition from hard manual work to have educated and more comfortable offspring after a few generations.

But somewhat more comfortable should not mean complacent, especially now the momentum on those generations is slipping backwards.

But the lower class individual can only do so much…

But you can do a lot of knitting while on trains to and from DC.

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Tagged as democracy, knitting, knitting on trains, rant, socks, the country in the crapper, vote, voting, washington monument

October 15, 2014 · 6:00 AM

The UFO has landed!

So yeah, I think this is the second-longest project I’ve had going, and it’s not amazing, and it wasn’t difficult, and I guess this is a great example of me going off on a tangent, getting sidetracked, distracted, moving-on-to-other-things-before-finishing-something-else-first, etc., etc., etc. In my defense, cotton is painful to knit and I got the confidence (or my sometimes slow brain started firing up) to move past plain old garter stitch when I was halfway through it. (I still do love garter though, especially since it rhymes with farter).

I first mentioned the blanket here, as one of my publicly declared UFOs I sort of intended to finish that year, and it was also somewhat responsible for the start of my blogging.

In the beginning, I wanted a cotton blanket for summertime sofa use. I wanted it to be reversible, and portable, so I made stripes/strips to sew together – only I didn’t pay attention to how long I made them and ended up with several (stupidly bound-off) in different lengths. The above image shows the way it looked c. 2008, and I don’t even know when I started it, but it was around 2001, and most of it was done c. 2001-2002.

(I’m tempted to go though my actual physical photographs to see if I can find one with it visible – crumpled in on the side table in my old apartment, but that would be yet another massive distraction).

I finally started back to work on it and came up with the plans for its final design in the Adirondacks last year – we traveled a lot when we lived in our last shitty apartment – if not for these fun weekends away, I probably would’ve have been eaten alive by the ner-do-well teens that spent too much time in the parking lot.

And I made a little more progress in the White Mountains last year when the power went out.

Then I put it down for a year while I worked on other things, but I left it in a handy place when we moved this last time so I wouldn’t have “loosing it in the move” as an excuse not to finish it.

I worked on it in the White Mountains again this summer – this time I had a nice chunk of time since I could’t hike.

I forgot to bring the yarn for one too-short multicolored stripe (I actually wondered why I had the stuff, and forgot what it was for!) and just finished it in white instead, which ended up to make for a better design in the end anyway.

And then I f*cked it up – I forgot that I had planned to do the two white stripes in the center (I even had photo evidence of the plan!) and I thought about keeping it as-is, but I ripped and re-sewed instead.

I got back on track, though sometimes I think I prefer the mistake version…

And went I home with most of the ends sewn in and only the border to do. I don’t love that knitting on the border made it no longer reversible, and I considered sewing on the border too, but I wanted the satisfaction of running the last few laps round and round, though they were very long and painful ones.

So it got a simple mitered corner.

And it actually matches our living room again – at least the yellow walls, and the [temporary] beige linen curtains.

Though we already need wool – the cotton doesn’t cut it for more than a few degrees of chill…

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Tagged as blanket, cabins, cotton, distractions, finishing things, garter stitch, knitting, lily sugar n cream, pooling, self-striping, throw, UFOs, white mountains

October 8, 2014 · 6:03 AM

Deer john and the changing seasons…

Random things of late…

Our garden is done, but the CSA is finally paying off – we completed a massive tomato and tomatillo salsa canning session last weekend.

The deer called Doe [rhymes with Zoe] might have had some babies, joined up with a larger family group, and has been bringing along another five or six to nibble at our backyard smorgasbord and leave an astounding number of shits – making me re-consider putting in a perimeter fence.

I found another alarming pile of poop of another kind when N moved one of our new window-unit air conditioners. I identified it possibly as:

1. bat guano

2. squirrel turds

3. roof rat droppings…

Amazingly, all of these beasts leave remarkably similar scat. I’m leaning toward bat though, because of the height of the window and I don’t want rats in our roof. Perhaps a bat took up residence in or under the air-conditioner while we were on vacation? But it didn’t stick around (at least I don’t think it’s in there still).

And I forgot to shoot the shit.

And speaking of bats, I do love them, and we’ve got plenty around here – I love watching them swoop in in the evenings and take out a sizable chunk of the even more sizable population of ‘skeeters. Eventually we’ll get around to building some bat houses.

I found out by accident that the giant spotty crickets that I found living near our well (that I was so startled by and didn’t bother to photograph in case I was the only one who saw them and they didn’t really exist) turned out to be another Asian invasion and quite common in the area. And now I’m wondering if they’re edible…

And we’ve finally experienced the yard in every season, and have identified all of the flora. The last hold-out was a large Burning Bush – I suspected that it could be one, and hoped it was so because otherwise it was a somewhat boring green thing.

Some of the weeds I never got around to pulling ended up being lovely flowers. I see the stuff around the roadsides here, so perhaps it’s native, or perhaps it’s an invasive beast? I wished I’d paid more attention to what it looked like when it was coming up, so I don’t pull it out next year, unless of course it is something to be rid of… I think it’s a Sunchoke. Anyone know if this variety is native to the Eastern states, or a nasty invader? I haven’t gone digging for the tubers yet.

And I have another pair of socks on the needles – these might end up being a gift.

I’ve been traveling for work a bit, and have enjoyed going by train, even though it adds another three hours to the trip. But the leg room is astounding, the cars are nearly empty (come on Americans, use it or loose it!) and the scenery on this particular route is nice.

I never wrote down (or can’t find my notes) my formula for going down a needle size or two for my standard socks, so I have to go through the misery again of figuring it out. In the meantime, I’m just using a heavier yarn and my old numbers…

And because of the new-to-us house and its ongoing expenses and labor (and my continued hobbled state) we decided not to go to Italy this year. The weather turning to autumn reminds me of my boots crunching along the trail in the warm central Apennine sun, so I’m a bit bummed out about it, but hopefully we’ll be back next year.

I also decided not to go to Rhinebeck to save money too – and since we’re often in Italy when it happens, this year was good timing for it – but I got enough of a fix at the New Jersey festival a few weeks ago.

I’ll have my own personal wool festival when I can finally unpack my boxes of the stuff soon…

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Tagged as Abruzzo, amtrak, Apennines, deer, dpns, floral and fauna, hiking, italian pottery, jerusalem artichoke, knitting, mountains, poop, Rhinebeck, saving money, scat, sock yarn, socks, sunchoke, tomatoes, trains, wool, yard

September 10, 2014 · 6:00 AM

Jersey [wool] baby…

Folks are always in a tizzy about Rhinebeck and the Maryland Sheep and Wool festivals, but smack in the middle is the small and very manageable Garden State [aka New Jersey] Sheep Breeders festival.

I went several years ago and bought a large amount of raw alpaca fiber. I think it was before I owned a spinning wheel, and had just learned to spin on a Turkish spindle…? And I also thought I got a really good deal, but I didn’t – though it’s in beautiful natural fawn, grey, and black colors, the fibers were shorn at a very short length, so I’m not able to spin it (at least not without experiencing anger). I need to felt it, blend it into something else, send it out for commercial processing, or just sell/trade/gift the mess.

I thought that this year’s festival would be bigger, and I think there were a few more vendors, but as a whole it’s small and I love it – no crowds, no pushing in booths, and plenty of time and space to enjoy the animals.

And it really is about the animals – I know those other large festivals are too in theory, but the wooly nirvana shopping frenzy is the annoying take away. I like watching the judging, even if it’s for the meat breeds – brings me back to my 4-H youth, and I can still spot the nicest hindquarters most of the time.

There may have been fewer breeds on display this year too, but I’m not sure.

N’s favorites are the angora goats.

And I’m a fan of the Jacob sheep.

This little one – not sure if she’s Shetland or one of the small Cheviots – was bleating her cute little head off louder than anyone in the barn.

It seemed she just wanted attention, or she was nervous about an approaching late summer thunderstorm, or her buddies were in the ring and she was lonely, or she knew she was in the wrong state and the others were going Jersey on her ass…

But she calmed down once she got to pose for snaps.

[And for those who think they have an idea of what NJ might be like, they’re most likely wrong – this part of the state might as well be the Midwest, complete with more reasonable drivers and farm smells rather than malodorous chemical plants. Actually the farms are really well-managed around here and rarely give off odors unlike the factory farms of PA].

On our last vacation, I managed just walk on by two decent-looking LYSs, and we drove right past WEBS since I knew that wool festivals were coming up. I’ve also been good about passing up sales at my favorite indie dyers and deeply discounted full lots of yarns over the last year, so I could spend a little on some fiber directly from the source. I love so much of the beautifully dyed yarns out there at festivals though, and always kick myself for not picking up a skein or two of something gorgeous, but at nearly $30 a pop for most, I can get more [and more unique] fiber instead. This would have been the time and place to pick up a few of those skeins though – some of the same booths at Rhinebeck are virtually impenetrable.

The fiber-bearing-animal-keeper folks around here seem to prefer Romneys and Alpacas, and I’m done with both of those for a bit – I’ve spun plenty of Romney, and though I love a “rustic” yarn, I’ve already got enough, and I don’t love knitting with it. And the Alpaca is lovely, but the good stuff is pricey and I still have some waiting to be spun, so I’m mostly looking for different breeds to try, especially if they have a name and a face.

So a few ounces of Gustav the Gotland came home with me.

He lives at Cloudberry Sheep and Wool farm in central NJ and is a lovely pale to medium grey. I’m not sure how I’ll spin him yet, or if I’ll combine some of the various breeds I’ve collected into some sort of sampler project, or make small accessories of each…

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Tagged as 4-H, barns, cheviot sheep, garden state sheep breeders, goats, gotland sheep, jacob sheep, lambs, new jersey, new jersey wool festival, romney sheep, roving, shetland sheep, spinning fiber, wool, wool festivals

August 27, 2014 · 6:00 AM

I went on vacation and all I got was this [not lousy] hat…

We finally had our summer vacation – a week in a shack on a pond in the White Mountains.

My knee is still mostly out of commission, so I planned accordingly and packed several knitting and sewing projects along with bathing suits and sun wear to occupy my time while N was on the peaks.

What I hadn’t really planned was it ended up being cold as [insert favorite anaolgy here].

The forecast called for cool nighttime temps, so at the last minute, I luckily (and brilliantly I might say) packed our down duvet and one of our down bags along with that trickster ball of handspun* I just finished in case I wanted to whip something up out of it.

I quickly determined to make a hat since I neglected to pack one, and needed to wear one immediately.

(I wound the skein into a ball on the way up which didn’t induce as much car-sickness as I thought it would).

I also had a few basic patterns with me just in case, and I loosely based it on the Purl Beret, but with a much smaller/tighter brim.

I finished it on the second day after hours of otter watching.

There were also many murderous birds – a greedy heron, harriers that picked off the sweet warblers in the marsh grasses, kingfishers bombing around the dock, and less successful eagles and ospreys.

We even saw a moose – I’ve been patiently waiting to spy one of those for some time now.

I’m a little embarrassed to show the hat in its very wonky unblocked state, but the cool misty weather made the colors pop.

And the yarn was cooperative this time, though it had the last laugh by leaving me with an orange nipple on the top.

The hat could have been a little larger, but I was afraid of running out of yarn and I figured it would stretch since it’s superwash.

And after a month of physical therapy, I can at least ride a bike again (though not really uphill). So we enjoyed a few pretty awesome and underutilized bike/recreational paths, as well as tooled around the pond in a canoe.

I worked on another long-suffering knitting project that is nearly on its home stretch, though I wasted a few days when I messed it up and had to undo and redo, so I will say no more about it until it’s done.

And I never got to the sewing project or casting on for a new pair of socks that I though were must-dos for the week…

We really needed another week…

*There’s still enough left for a few token stripes on a pair of socks, and that little 2ply skein remains untouched.

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Tagged as beret, bike trails, bird watching, cabin, dock, green, handspun, hats, knitting, mountain biking, new hampshire, orange, otters, Pigeonroof Studios, pond, purl beret, rails to trails, swamp, white mountains, wool

May 1, 2014 · 9:34 AM

Knight of the Deep

The Noble Hero balaclava pattern by Annie Watts of Wattsolak has just been released!

Last year I test knit this fun to knit, and to wear pattern.

I finished it while on a bizarre early summer week-long vacation in the White Mountains that started off with a snowstorm and ended with temperatures in the high 90Fs, so it was too icy and cold to hike in the beginning, and too hot and humid by the end.

But it gave me more knitting time.

Though it would compliment and complete your awesome new space suit, I thought it also looked like a knight’s chainmail coif:

Or a deep-sea diver’s helmet:

Either way, I really enjoyed knitting the piece, learned a new technique, and N has taken it and enjoys wearing it, so I’ll have to make another for myself!

The pattern is well-written and was very clear even in the testing stage. I had gauge and made no modifications. The only thing I’ll keep in mind for next time is to loosen up on the applied icord, or go up a needle size for it – I learned how to do it on this project and I started out a little too tight.

This was also my first time knitting with Quince & Co., and I liked it – I chose these muted colors because I’d love to have a larger garment made from one of them at some point, and wanted to see the colors in person.

Now to think of colors for a Noble Hero for myself – perhaps handspun…?

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Tagged as annie watts, balaclava, chainmail coif, deep sea diver, diving helmet, green, grey, knights, knitting, noble hero, osprey, quince & co., river, space man, spaceman, test knit, trees, wattsolak, white mountains, woods, wool, yarn