This beautiful Mothers Day sunset seems a fitting photo to cap off a lovely, restful holiday weekend.
I was fortunate to have a three-day weekend, possibly the last one in a long while, since I will be working Saturdays at my LYS, Fibers, in Grass Valley starting next week. This will be a big change for me, but also help me through DH's next long work stretch; his days off will likely be Mondays and Tuesdays, while I am working.
We spent a large part of the weekend at our high country house, and took a hike yesterday afternoon to our favorite secret spot.
This waterfall is at its best right now, and will slow down to a mere trickle by late summer, however the largest pool, at the top, stays full and bone-chillingly cold all summer and is a perfect place to take a cooling dip on a summer hike.
This is a view from the top down...
Each year, our first hike in to see the falls involves cleaning up the trail; DH did the manly parts. He swings a mean axe... and I do a great job picking up branches and knocking debris off the trail.
The dogs contributed entertainment and cuteness. This was their first "off-road" hike, and they are well on their way to becoming mountain dogs, though Elwood (the bigger one) had a bit more trouble with rock climbing than his brother, Jake.
This morning, I got up early in order to meet DD and DYS (that's dear youngest son) at the 39th Annual Scotch Broom Breakfast, hosted by the North San Juan VFD, in the community where I work. I saw a few of my school kids and their families, and always enjoy how multi-generational and cross-cultural this pancake breakfast is. Every mother is given a small pansy plant at the door, and there are door prizes for things like "the mother with a child graduating from college", "the oldest mother present", "the mother from the furthest away" and whatever else the announcer thinks up.
DD and I whiled away the afternoon on the back porch, she reading and I making another crocheted square from my handspun...
I realized that, while the squares don't take all that long to make, spinning the yarn needs to keep apace... I am only 1/4 of the way with the squares, have quite a bit of coral pink yarn, some mauvy thrums to ply together to use, and some lots more spinning to do. The bright spot of turquoise yarn in the center of the square at bottom right is a sentimental bit, spun on Margene's Emmylou. I love having bits of friends entwined into my projects, making using patterns designed by people I know and yarns from critters that belong to friends, or in this case, spun on a friend's wheel, especially nice treasures to be making and using in my daily life. I read an article in Fiber Femmes yesterday, encouraging new spinners to make something they will treasure out of their first yarns. I still have tucked away both a backstrap-woven scarf and a sample piece done on a Navajo loom I built over thirty years ago; both have my very first handspuns included, but the yarns I am producing right now are so much nicer that I will greatly enjoy carrying around my knitting in this crocheted bag when it is completed.
I also continued knitting up my Spring Things shawl, and am about a third of the way on the increases. The pattern is very easy to keep track of, and the yarn a pleasure to knit, though I didn't get any photos today.
This is a photographic attempt to capture the roving I have been working on in fits and starts for the past week; the lovely hand-dyed roving from Wooly Daisy. At least this gives you a good idea of the range of colors. Stephanie couldn't recall exactly what kind of wool this was, but it is medium staple and spinning up easily, once I separated the roving into narrower chunks. I think some of the yarn will end up in the Larger Than Life bag, as it is a good collaboration with what I am presently using, and I am going to run out of the blue Romney soon...
The yarn I am making is a bit thicker than I would like it to be, but the colors are vibrant and fun.
The afternoon concluded with a BBQ with DH and two of our five children. Then, I put some plants in the ground, but have much more to do on the gardening front (luckily, DH has gotten the mainstays in the ground this year, and our potato patch is a wonder to behold... I promise there will be pictures soon).
The holiday weekend is coming to a close and I hope that all mothers and their children had as lovely a time as I did. Blessings are where you find them.
