When the Saints Come Marching In!

Well, here I sit, reflecting on the gloomy weather upon us. Today, we are thanking St. Patrick for the lovely snowstorm deposited on his day. We also enjoyed the St. Valentine's nor'easter a few weeks ago. I think I've about had enough of the dreary winter weather and was looking forward to spring peeking around the corner. After all, we had just experienced a few days of beautiful, thawing weather and were anticipating more of the same. Instead, Mother Nature is thumbing her nose at our naivete at thinking March is a spring month.

Yes, Virginia, we have several weeks, if not months of cool weather with which to contend before our dreams of balmy days, green grass and colorful flowers are realized.

With that in mind, I share with you some of my favorite photos of last summer:


Delphiniums, Goatsbeard, Catmint, Stella D'Oro Daylillies

William Baffin RoseLate Summer Rudbeckias


So much for dreaming - here's reality today!

So much to do and so little time

For the past week or so we've been busy just trying to keep up with snow, ice, sanding, and myriad other chores so I've not been blogging much.

I did manage to finish two knitting projects - the green cable sweater for my grandson is finally done and a bucket hat for my eldest son, although it looks a bit small so Ashton may inherit that, as well.
The ice in the door yard is finally beginning to melt, the water rushing down the driveway, gurgling as it finds the lowest part and cascades past the garage. The weather promises to be warm for the next couple of days so I'm hopeful we will see most of the snow gone shortly. However, being a realist and realizing that our heaviest snows generally fall in the month of March, I'm not holding my breath. Needless to say, we aren't taking the plow off the truck until the end of the month.

We managed a short hike in Acadia last week. The temperature was warm, but the wind was still cool coming off the ocean and, there was still lots of ice.Thoughts of spring and gardening are beginning to take root in my mind. I am taking a course in ornamental garden design and today, we will be planning our gardens with spring, summer and autumn overlays so we can plant perennials for a fairly constant show of color. Today is the last class and I'm excited to see what everyone comes up with. Most of the ladies in the class have also expressed interest in participating in the upcoming Master Gardener Course. It's a 14 week committment, but I think it will be well worth the time.

Knitting Class

I am so enjoying my weekly knitting class, and learning a lot to boot. I've already finished two hats, a sweater for my granddaughter, two pairs of socks and am currently working on a cable knit sweater for my grandson and a hat for myself.

I find knitting to be very soothing (except when I find an error several rows back and have to rip out my work) and I look forward to sitting down each evening and having something to occupy my hands other than chips or something worse!

Best of all are the new friends I've made at class. They are a fun loving group of ladies and we have a ball knitting and chatting among the yarn.

Today, I'm off to a class in ornamental garden design. Can spring be far behind?

Yesterday's Storm.......

.......was a doozy! We ended up with about a foot of snow and a nice icy crunch on top. The day started off about 3 a.m. when H burst into the bedroom yelling "Aargh! I can't get the computer up and it's the most important weather day of the year"!!!!

Soooo, I reluctantly hop out of bed to tend to the computer and put H at ease. A few minutes and two cups of coffee later, I'm wired and ready to go. The storm is still hours away, but I manage to keep busy learning new things and downloading several software programs which did not come equipped with the new pc.

The snow begins as light flakes lazily drifting down from the sky. This doesn't look too bad, but the weather radar shows an ominous, huge area of snow, ice, sleet and rain slowly descending upon us. As the day progresses, our worst fears begin to take form and the snow and wind whip into a blizzard like white out.

In order to keep up with the huge volume of snow, H and I venture out frequently to shovel snow off the deck and plow the long, uphill driveway. Needless to say, we got plenty of exercise! Our last swing was about 4:30 p.m., and by that time the sleet and ice pellets had begun in earnest. As the light of day ebbed, I think we had a wee bit of rain to boot.Honest, I really do like snow!

Pink and Purple Sunset

As February 2007 slowly melted into March, I took this beautiful sunset photo last night:March is typically a very snowy month up here in the north and it looks as though March will be coming in like the proverbial Lion! Tomorrow, we are expecting 8 - 12 inches of snow and they are predicting the usual "mixing" here on the coast. Rats! Looks like another icy storm coming our way. We can only hope that the low pressure area will ooze out to sea and leave us with just snow. Only time will tell, but we are prepared to jump out of bed in the morning and begin our daily calisthenics by shoveling and plowing the white stuff. I'm sure we'll have had quite enough exercise by the time the sun sets tomorrow!

I'm almost ashamed........

....to blog about this and then actually show you some of the photos I took while doing this.

H had an errand to do with his friends this morning that I figured would take about 4-5 hours. Just enough time for me to get a few things done around the house. After a few leisurely minutes surfing the web, I thought it time to get going on my project. But, where to begin? As I looked around the living room, my eyes wandered up to the ceiling fan and YIKES! I couldn't believe the webs hanging from it! "Fine," I says to meself, "that's my project for today", and off I go to fetch the ladder and cleaning supplies. As I'm bringing the ladder in from the deck, I notice that the drapes are really, really, dusty. OK, I'll take them down and throw them in the dryer to knock the dust off. Of course, as I'm up on the ladder, taking down the drapes, I notice that the shade on the half moon window above the sliding glass doors is absolutely FILTHY! Right, let's take down the shade - don't know how I'm going to clean it, but down it must come. Ooops! The window is full of dead flies, dust, etc, and grimy to boot. Down the ladder I go to get the window cleaner and paper towels. Out of the corner of my eye, I notice that the plants in front of the sliders really, really, need to be trimmed and the dead leaves, which had fallen onto the floor need to be picked up - oh, and the floor is pretty dusty there.

You can see where this whole thing was headed, right? You guessed it. The little project has now turned into a full scale spring cleaning!

I started at 7:45 a.m. and am just now sitting down to blog about this. It's 12:30 and the living room has never been cleaner. Not only did I clean, dust and sweep everything, but I changed a few of H's paintings on the wall. Boy, is he going to be surprised when he walks through the door!Ah, but all's well that ends well and the living room and kitchen are both spotless. I'm dead, but life is good! "-)

Not Enough Time

We purchased a new pc two days ago and I've been up to my eyeballs trying to get everything transferred over from the old pc and learning all the new bells and whistles of the new Vista operating system.

I am not known for my patience and the experience has been frustrating, to say the least. However, that being said, I must say, I love the new pc! Now, if I can just get blogger to work today, I will be a happy woman.

In order to relieve myself of the tension that comes along with trying to learn something new and technical, I find serenity in my knitting. I just finished my granddaughter's sweater and have begun one for my grandson.
I've come a long way from potholders!

H's Masterpieces

I have to thank Kerri for reminding me that I would show some of the art H has been working on. We last left him standing at the kitchen island painting on some canvas cards he purchased while waiting for one of my knitting classes to end. While wandering around the store, he found a package of 6, 6x8 blank greeting cards with envelopes for $6.95 and thought they would make nice gifts for the kids, parents, friends, etc. He's been working diligently and last week purchased another set.

Here is a sampling of what he's doing:


These are all sea scapes in acrylic, but he has done many fine oils as well. This is one he painted from a picture he saw in a Louisville symphony program:

A Brief Respite

Yesterday brought a bit of relief from the howling winter winds and bitter cold. We took advantage of the "balmy" temperature of almost 30 degrees and headed out to the Schoodic section of Acadia National Park to get a bit of fresh air and exercise.

A slightly misty atmosphere and light snow gave an ethereal look to the landscape. Walking carefully to avoid slick spots in the road, we managed to renew our winter weary souls with the stark beauty of our rocky Maine coast - it is exhilarating and breathtaking in any season!
We were the only ones out there and felt we had the whole park to ourselves. We are so blessed to be surrounded by this bit of serenity. The howling winds return tomorrow, but today is food for the soul!

The Icy Siege Continues

Today is day three of the bitter, arctic outbreak. The wind continues to howl, the door yard is a veritable skating rink and even the poor birds hang on to the feeders for dear life. We venture out in brief bursts only to do the necessary sanding of the driveway or run to the post office to check mail, which of course, only consists of a deluge of "offers" from CitiBank!

This is looking down at the house from about 1/4 of the way up the driveway. The picture below shows the top of the drive. This time of year, we refer to the driveway as "The Luge"

The cove is frozen solid and the ice cap is beginning to extend into the bay - thoughts of kayaking are far from our minds right now as we huddle around the wood stove, keeping warm.

Those Crazy Scandinavians!

We have a jetted tub. When we do a lot of physical work like yesterday and today, shoveling and plowing, we really like to give our aching, elderly muscles a treat and soak in a hot whirlpool for a few minutes. Of course, when we get out, we need to cool off. I slip outside and let the cold air do it's job. Unfortunately, unlike the Finns, we don't have any Birch branches with which to beat ourselves. I also don't roll in snowbanks! "-)Temperature was around 5 degrees here!

Gratefully, when I cooled off, I had a nice, warm turkey minestrone soup which had been simmering on the wood stove all day.


Life is really, really good!

Happy Valentine's Day

This morning dawned with the forecast of snow - lot's of snow. We're excited! Up until now, we've hardly had any significant snow and we are itching to get the old snowshoes out. Looks as though we are getting our wish as we just came in from shoveling and plowing the first 5 or so inches of what promises to be 6 - 12 inches before it's all over. However, as I look out the office windows, it seems to be changing to a wintery mix of ice pellets and snow. Rats!

On the positive side, I have a beautiful bloom on one of my Amaryllis! Several years ago, my son, who lives in Florida sent me a few bulbs. I had one bloom last year, but this year, it looks as though I'll have a dozen or more! Being a goofy gardener, I name many of my plants. Below is a picture of Anna Banana and Amy Amaryllis! It's beginning to look downright tropical in my living room!

Busy Beavers

This morning the temperature at 9 am was 9 degrees. However, since it was sunny and not breezy, we figured a walk was in order, so we threw some water into the back pack and headed over to Acadia National Park.

Did I mention it was 9 degrees? It was really cold at the beginning of the hike, but as the terrain took us mostly uphill, we warmed up quite rapidly. We decided to take the Witch Hole Pond carriage road loop - about 4.5 miles. The road was packed with snow and it was like trying to run in sand on the beach. The 4.5 miles felt more like 8 miles by the time we had made the loop around the pond and both of us were sweating up a storm.

It was a great hike. We spotted several beaver dens and marveled at how big a tree a beaver can bring down.
Looks like the little fella has created a canal outside his den

This was NOT a sapling! It easily measured about 8 inches in diameter

By this time (about 2 hours later), the outside temps had risen to about 18 degrees and it didn't take long to cool off so we headed into Bar Harbor to treat ourselves to lunch in our favorite spot, Geddy's.

OH, I almost forgot a great pic! A few days ago, we were walking in our favorite spot and came across this great bit of ice sculpture done by Mother Nature, herself.

Every winter, the town lets this water line spray so it doesn't freeze. This year's ice mound is spectacular. H is in the picture to show scale.

'Tis a Cold and Breezy Day

A good day to stay home, near the wood stove, curl up with a good book and read or knit, or both! Temps are in the single digits and may not budge for quite some time.

The view to Mt. Desert Island is icy and crisp in the dry, arctic air today. We only get a good view of Cadillac Mountain in the winter, when the leaves are gone from the maple trees. This morning was a good view.
I put a turkey in the oven this morning for our early afternoon dinner. They were on sale at Thanksgiving, so I purchased two and put one in the freezer. Being the frugal person that I am, I bought the $.59 per pound one instead of the $.99 per pound. I was wondering what the difference was and when I thawed this baby out, I noticed she had one wing tip missing. I guess since it was not "perfect", it got relegated to the less expensive pile. Well, honestly, who is going to miss a wing tip? We don't even eat them, as they get thrown into the stock pot. On the positive side, she had two necks in the cavity and Leroy and the Boys (the crows) are feasting today, as well!
H has decided to take over the kitchen island as his painting studio today. I wonder what masterpiece he's working on? Stay tuned!

"H" Has a Sock!

Having discovered the joy of knitting socks, I thought long and hard about what to make out of Tante Paula's inherited wool yarn. She knew H way back when we were just dating and thought the world of him. She used to tell me that H was my "einz und alles" (my one and everything), and she was right. It only seemed a fitting tribute to her to knit a pair of socks for H with her yarn. After much "tinking" (that's knitting spelled backwords, denoting how much I had to rip out), I finally finished the first sock this afternoon.

H models the first of the pair below.

Danke Schoen (Thank you), Tante Paula, you have been much in my thoughts of late!

I'm On a Roll

Knitting class was fun again, as usual. One of the ladies was celebrating a birthday so she brought in brownies and I brought healthy (relatively anyway) Apricot Coconut Oat cookies. We "oohed and aahed" over everyone's projects, giggled and ate our way through the 2 hour class and before we knew it, it was time to go home.

I finished the socks with the help of our instructor, who demonstrated the last, critical Kitchener Stitch, closing up the toe. I put them on when I got home and boy, are they ever comfy!I now needed a new project, so I picked up the yarn and pattern for a cute little hat for my granddaughter. I was finished with this one before dinner! Good thing I've got another pair of socks in the works.

Daddy Taught Me Well!

Whenever confronted with a problem to solve, my Father would always look around to see what he could use. His soloutions to problems sometimes makes Rube Goldberg look like a rank amateur! I learned a lot from Daddy about looking outside the box - to wit....

My favorite aunt (the one who taught me to knit) sadly passed away a few years ago and I received several hanks of sheep's wool yarn from her belongings. I've never known what to knit from them as they are of a sport yarn weight, but now that I have just about mastered the fine art of sock knitting, I decided to knit a pair of socks with it.

Unfortunately, the hanks didn't come neatly packaged as a "ball" of yarn and needed to be balled before I could begin. Harking back to my childhood, sitting at the knees of my grandmother, holding the hank of yarn between my palms while she adroitly rolled it into a more manageable ball, I attempted to do the same with the help of H's hands. I don't know who ran out of patience first, him or me, but suffice it to say, I was skunked and put the hank of yarn in to the spare bedroom while I hummed on the problem.

I took it out again today and proceeded to try to unravel the yarn by myself and ended up in frustration. Until....... I looked at the kitchen stools and visualized them upside down. Voila!!! I had "hands" to hold the yarn while I adeptly rolled it into a nice, round ball.

Thank you, Daddy. You taught me well!
The new kitchen multitasker!

The End is Near!

This week's knitting class was a blast! Six of us ladies had such a good time giggling and enjoying the ambiance of surrounding hanks of colorful wool and great company, all the while just knitting away. One is making a sweater, another a kid's hat, two are knitting scarves and I'm almost finished with my very first attempt at socks.
This is not a very good pic - can't get close enough with my camera, but H saw three pileated woodpeckers sitting in the maple tree next to our house. What thrill to see these beautiful birds. Up close, they are huge with bright red heads and black and white bodies.

Giddy's Murder!

HA! Now that I have your attention, let me explain today's blog title. A flock of crows is commonly known as a "murder". We have a murder of about 5 crows that check in with us every morning to see what morsels we may have left for them on the driveway. Yesterday, we prepped all the chicken leg quarters we purchased on sale at the grocery (cut into pieces and skin removed) and had lots of nasty, slimy chicken skin left over after the prep. Instead of leaving it all to rot in the trash can til trash pick up day, I put some of it out on the drive for the "boys". They immediately swooped down and began a frenzy of feeding - they were in seventh heaven! Since I only have a 3x optical zoom on my camera, I can't get a good, close up photo, but I managed to get this picture of three of them parading up and down the drive in search of more goodies."Leroy (the ring leader) and the boys"

On an update on the knitting - I finished the mittens and am now on my second pair - some for H. Knitting class was fun last week, although I got off track and had to rip out all I had accomplished on my sock that day, soooo, I'm still just at the heel and will have to wait til I get further instruction for the remainder of it. Since I'm a visual type person, once I see it done, I'll be able to do it again. I'm just not much good with written instructions.

So, How Cold Is It?

Pretty darned cold, I'd say. Temperature this morning was -6 degrees. Getting out of a nice warm, flannel lined bed this morning was not an option until H had the wood stove cranking out significant heat!

Upon finally getting up the nerve to remove myself from my nice fuzzy cocoon, (getting out of flannel sheets with a flannel nightgown on is like removing ones self from velcro!), I looked out the window to see the beautiful sea smoke hanging over the bay.

Yep, nothing to do but get a spicy lentil stew simmering on the wood stove! The house is now toasty and the aromas are delicious.
I'm off to my knitting class - what a great way to keep warm - sitting amongst thousands of hanks of wooly yarn, chatting and knitting away.

One Down - One to Go

It's been a cold, snowy Sunday and since I'm at a standstill with my sock knitting until my next class on Wednesday, I decided to try my hand at mittens. I downloaded a very simple mitten pattern from the web and proceeded to give it a try. At first the instructions looked daunting and I didn't think I'd be able to pull it off, but I just took it one step at a time and voila! I have a mitten! I am just tickled pink.

Now, on to the other one. I think I'm getting obsessed with knitting and am already thinking of all the sweaters, socks and mittens I can knit for the grandkids. Spring can't come soon enough!

Speaking of spring, the garden and seed catalogs have begun showing up in the mailbox and each one finds me salivating over the newest plants. Since my rock garden doesn't get much moisture, I'm looking at a lot of sedums and the variety "Angelina has caught my eye. One of my favorite garden catalogs is from White Flower Farm and they describe it as a golden ground cover from Croatia, doing best in dryish soil in zones 3-9. I think I may put this one on my list of "must haves" this year.

Socks -n- Such

I've been knitting ever since I was a kid. My aunt was the one who gave me the needles and taught me very basic stitches. I've always enjoyed knitting simple, flat items, but have always wanted to have the time to learn more.

Today, I attended my first knitting class! What a hoot! Just a bunch of ladies getting together and learning something new while enjoying each other's company. Since I was really interested in learning how to knit "in the round", the instructor started me off on socks and working with four double-pointed needles. After fumbling around for a while, feeling like I was getting my fingers into knots, I finally got the hang of it and away I went.
Today is another one of those odd weather days. Still no snow to speak of but a bit colder and windy. H, who spent 21 years in the Air Force as a meteorologist thinks it's only a matter of time before we get slammed here in the Northeast. Perhaps we can take some of the burden off those poor folks in Colorado! I'm sure they must feel like they're taking the brunt of the bad weather this year. Bet they're not talking about "Global Warming". H has been watching the climatology quite closely and, in his professional opinion, we are just going through another cyclical period. It sets his hair on fire when people with no technical knowledge of climatology pontificate on the weather. (I've got to get him to stop reading the editorials in the newspaper!)

On another note, the winter garden's colors are beautiful in their shades of wheat and rust. The Miscantus Sinensis var. Morning Light is the centerpiece of the garden.

Our House

On my "Blessings" post several days ago, I posted a photo of one of my favorite views in Maine - Sorrento Harbor. I love the red house on the shore, but it's not ours. Here's a view of our house taken from the cove during a kayak paddle. It's not a very good picture, but you can see how wooded the site is. We sit quite high up on the bluff and enjoy a great view of Mount Desert Island and Acadia National Park across the Bay.