update

The wild ginger is beginning to unfold!

So.
It's been 10 days of internetting on a wing and a prayer...reading blogs and sometimes managing to leave a comment, but not blogging. Using twitter because it's short and fast, but rarely succeeding at posting even low-resolution images - which I don't much enjoy posting, anyway.

Raindrops on new columbine.
Nearly every photograph I've taken lately has been during, or just after. a rainstorm.
It's been...wet.

Short repair recap: after two visits - the second today - from a very nice Tech person, and five new parts, HP says I now must send the laptop in. The good news is, I'm still under warranty. The bad news is, I will now be internetting on my small, non-fancy cellphone, for who knows how long.

In the past week I’ve already begun to feel sort of isolated and with the prospect of sending the laptop to sleep-away camp, I can almost imagine myself drifting right out of the internet and vanishing.

I guess we’ll see!

The maples began flowering on Saturday!
Even in the rain, there is a reddish tinge to the canopy.

MEANWHILE...

I want to tell you about a fundraiser to get an MRI scanner on Shetland. I’ve been following this community effort for a while, and was especially impressed by a woman who went out and gathered seeds from native Shetland wildflowers to sell in little packets for the MRI fund. Unfortunately for me, she couldn’t send them to the US.
But what a great idea!

And now...a lovely woman has handknit a Fair Isle pullover and is selling it on eBay with all the money going to the MRI fund. If you’ve ever wanted a genuine Fair Isle sweater, here’s your chance to bid on a beauty. It’s got soft colors and is made of vintage Patons Moorland pure Shetland wool. Did I mention hand-knitted?

Please pass this info along if you can –  I'm not sure how much "reach" the knitter has, and it’s such a good cause. And it's such a generous gesture on the part of the knitter. I am in awe! Please share my awe!

Here is what I hope is a working link to the eBay page

I wish I could post a picture here. Even if you are not interested in acquiring a wooly sweater, it’s worth a click just to look at the pictures. Check out the view of the inside!

~~~

Well, I just dropped it to say hello, spend a couple of hours trying to upload photographs, and then go back out in the rain to move goats for the night. The photographs loaded slooooowly but they seem to be here - huzzah! Maybe I'll try to load some drawings and schedule them to post while my laptop is away. Like sending postcards. Just so you don't forget me :)

~~~~~

but will i ever play the cello, doctor?

There has been a little knitting going on the past couple of weeks. Usually in the evening, as a way to unwind and transition to sleep. Sometimes the transition is so quick, I fall asleep with my knitting needles in my hands.

They are pointy. I should probably stop doing that.

Anyway, the actual knitting has been interesting and educational. I'm using a beautiful stranded/Fair Isle pattern, free on ravelry: SpillyJane's Sea Mineral Mittens

This is a big step up for my knitting skills.

And the knitting part is going surprisingly well,

but the color selection and combining is not.

These two swatches are the same pattern in different colors.

I'm not happy with either combination, so more experimentation will come. Stay tuned. Or better yet, send advice!

Before tackling a third version of the mittens (each of those samples meant several hours of knitting), I took a break from tiny needles and cast on a very different project: Simmer Dim, by Gudrun Johnston. It's a scarf/shawl-type item, using traditional Shetland "hap" structure. (I know very little about this but lots of people do, so if you are interested and google "Shetland hap" you'll probably find loads of information.)

This project has been going swimmingly! 

Like the stranded mittens, this is also different from anything I've made before, so it's great fun to knit. And I'm using yarn sent from Shetland, which makes every stitch a special pleasure! I'm trying to finish it in time for a "hap-a-long" that ends on the 12th. And last night, when I put my knitting down three seconds before I fell asleep, I thought,

"I might finish this in just a couple more days!"

This morning, chores took longer than usual because I was feeling a little shaky after a 3-day migraine (very rare, thank goodness!). When I was finishing up the feeding, I hurriedly (cue foreboding music here) reached for a nearby bow saw to cut the twine on a bale of hay. I broke my pocketknife a couple of weeks ago, and have been using all sorts of inappropriate tools to cut baling twine ever since...a coping saw, bolt cutters, hoof trimmers...Because They Are There.
As are the Shouty Goats.
"Staaaaaarving! We are Staaaaarving! Hurry up with the haaaay!" 

Well, this morning the baling twine was resisting the big teeth of the bow saw, so I forcefully brought the saw sweeping down like a mad cellist - whack! - across the twine. Unfortunately...my thumb was awfully close to that twine.

WOW did that hurt. But...why was there only a little smear of blood?

Because a blade point had come down hard on the nail. Blood was seeping through a tiny jagged-edged hole punched right through the center of my thumbnail. I performed this act of incredible stupidity about ten hours ago and my left hand still feels like a truck is parked on it.

So...it is possible the hap will not be finished in a couple of days.

But the goats got their hay, and I still have a thumb, so there's that!

Have a wonderful weekend, my bloggy friends.

And be careful out there!

~~~~~