the ending of march

Well, March 2023 was a wild ride. It contained the entire Winter's-worth of snow, including the nor'easter that brought down branches on two of my fences, but harmed no one; thank you, trees. The six-foot fence around the hens' pen took a hit from a red oak branch. Oak is heavy wood, and it fell from about thirty feet.

These snaps were taken shortly after the snowfall ended:

The North side.

The top section of the branch, outside the pen.
An arc I later walked through every day 
 by just slightly ducking my head.

from the South. What looks like solid snow in the center
 is actually snow held suspended in air by the net.

Nothing could be done until the snow melted and the netting which had covered the entire pen could be unwound from the crumpled fence sections and eased out from under the branch. I did not want to see what would happen if my Occasional Helper's chainsaw came in contact with a swath of stretchy net.

So for a couple of weeks, the hens have been allowed out to roam around for part of each day, which they enjoy and which is good for them, but...

I've been keeping an eye out for hawks, and sure enough, in the past two weeks I have seen two different hawks scoping out my place. So a couple of days ago, the hens' pen got repaired, including stretching the hawk-net back over the top. And now I have to remind the hens every day that they still have a pretty good quality of life, plus - and this is key - they are still alive to enjoy it.

In other Life Is Good news, after making three weekly trips to a farm to pick up just eight bales of hay, which is what the farmer/magician can squeeze into my vehicle, I was finally able to make the call and promise that the delivery truck could make it up, and then back down, my driveway again. Huzzah! Sixty bales delivered and stacked. 

I am happy. The herd is happy.

Speaking of the herd, here's a little wildlife tale for you:

Last night it rained - all night - and at one point I checked the barn cams and was surprised to see no goats in either barn. They were all outside. It wasn't raining hard, but it was certainly raining. My goats don't generally choose to stand in falling rain. It's hard to get a clear view from the cameras on a rainy night, between the infrared aspect and what looks like visual static from the rain. But I could tell they were all in one area and were all looking in the same direction. I turned on the microphones, but heard only rain - no goats calling for help. No raccoons shrieking for reasons of their own. I got out of bed, prepared to don my boots and an umbrella, but first I switched on the outdoor floodlights: nothing but rain. Got a flashlight, checked the camera again hoping the goats had lost interest in whatever they were watching: they had not. Went to a window overlooking the spot that I imagined the goats were focused on, held the flashlight over my head to avoid reflection in the glass, and turned it on. There, right in the center of the light, perched on a fencepost not twenty feet from the house, was a beautiful barred owl! I apologized for the light, wished it good luck in it's hunting, then turned off the floodlights and told the goats I was pretty sure they would be alright. Then I went back to bed.

The End.

~~~~~

let the bind-off begin

Yesterday I tried to capture the floppy-bushel-basket-ness of the current hap.

Here it is, slumped in a heap:

And here it is being held up by the chair:

And this is all I can see while I'm knitting:

Well, that's not *all* I can see. I can also see this:

Because if there is a goat nearby when I sit in this chair in the barn paddock, she or he will climb up on the rock I use as a footrest, to see what I'm up to. And when Violet saw this huge sack, she thought it might be full of carrot pennies and peanuts.

I told her, Sorry, but no. 

There will be peanuts after evening chores, as usual.

"I know you're busy, don't interrupt what you're doing with those sticks.
I'll just have a little look, shall I?"

I suppose it never hurts to check.

The hap is ready to bind off, with 624 stitches on the last few rows. Binding off may take a while, but I'm looking forward to blocking this and seeing it all clean and tidy and stretched out evenly. I hope I like it. If not, I'll have to knit another one. This is a really nice project for nor'easter/insomniac/stop-worrying knitting, whether for 20 minutes or for 4 hours at a stretch. Toward the end I was going slowly to make it last. But now: starting the bind-off.

~~~~~

variations on a theme

layers revealed in an eroded shell

layers revealed in a sectioned shell

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.

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a view of Stonehenge

an alternate view of Stonehenge

Daily Markmaking continues.

What daily practices help keep you focused, sane, alive?

~~~~~

 

wordless wednesday windows

 

~~~~~

fiber forecast

 More snow last night and today. This time, very wet and heavy.

The goats are all starting to shed their cashmere undercoats. In every year past, I've started combing Acer by late February. Within a couple of weeks, several others have shed enough for a first combing. I try to keep up, doing a bit every day, because once all the goats have reached what an unkind observer might call "the ragbag stage," it's easy to get overwhelmed.

This year is different. I felt sorry for the goats having to carry their cashmere during that crazy warm December, and by January, I was already seeing bits of cashmere hanging off the ends of horns after a goat had had a little scritch. Starting to drop cashmere in January?!

Now that we've finally been getting lots of snow and consistently cold weather, the goats are using their cashmere for its original purpose and I have postponed taking it from them. There's a time between the cashmere "disconnecting" and falling or being rubbed off by a goat, so there's been some leeway. But the forecast for the next 10 days is considerably warmer, so it's time to wave a comb over a couple of goats who have wisps of cashmere literally hanging off their topcoats. 

In related news (it is, you'll see), a few weeks ago I decided to try to use up the Shetland yarn left after knitting the first and second haps. By making a third hap. 

And because I wanted it to be distinct from the two special gift haps, I added one dyed color to the natural yarn palette, and also created my own stripe sequence. And I'm making it a good bit larger.

The way this pattern works: after knitting the center as a flat diagonal diamond, all the edge stitches are picked up on a circular needle and the rest of the hap is knit in the round and becomes a large and unwieldy knitted sack. Try to imagine knitting up something the size of a very floppy bushel basket, of which one can only clearly see the top edge. So there's not much sense of how the finished item is going to look when it's ultimately off the needle and spread out for blocking.

In other words, my stripe sequence may turn out to be rubbish. But there's no point in worrying about it, because we'll find out soon enough.

I always like to wrap up a knitting project before cashmere harvesting begins (see how we're getting back to the goats?), because when I'm using my hands for slowly combing goats every day for weeks on end, knitting must be backburnered until the combs are scrubbed and tucked away for another year.

This hap could have been done and washed and blocked in February if I hadn't decided to make it so big. But the end is in sight, in part because I don't want to leave this massive project gathering dust while I comb goats. And in part because the stitch count increases by eight on every other row and there is a limit to how many stitches can be functionally crammed onto one needle. 

Speaking of goats, it's time for evening chores - which I can now start after 5 PM without bringing a flashlight. I really enjoy this part of the orbit!

I hope you are having a weekend as magical as a snowfall.

~~~~~