crafts – Page 3 – The Hermits' Rest

Sunday Plarn and Pool

I’m still pretty out of it, so let’s talk about good parts of today. As always, plants, animals, and insects are good, even the differential grasshoppers, who lurk everywhere to surprise me.

Hi. Am I bothering you? No? Let me go crawl in the chain on a gate so you’ll have to move me and my buddies.

Even the birds are feeling the summer heat. I enjoyed watching these Brown-headed Cowbirds today. They were making their weird gurgling noise.

Say what you will about them, but they sing prettily

The chickens and horses are feeling the heat, too. Poor guys.

Bianca won’t come out of her puddle to join us.

I spent much of the day doing chores, cooking, and knitting. I made a couple of plarn discoveries. I need a crochet hook to help me pick up stitches along the edges when I start a new segment. Also, “throwing,” or English knitting is easier than Continental knitting when your yarn is plastic.

I haven’t finished the first ball of plarn yet, but it’s getting bigger. The plarn maker just randomly put in different colored bags, so it’s coming out quite random.

I still don’t know what this is. I may make it sorta big and use it as a camping mat.

My hands are holding up okay (weaving is tempting me nonetheless) but I’m still going to alternate with my Temperature Blanket, which is easier on my fingers. Speaking of which, we made it through June without any 100° days! But they’re coming.

And the air conditioning upstairs needs fixing!

Anyway, the day ended with a nice meal “cooked” by me (frozen lasagna and salad) and lots of time in the swimming pool with our camping buddies Mike and Martha. I’m glad the pool is still working. Long story behind that. and I’m glad for friends you can talk to about pretty much everything. We’re lucky!

Messing with Plarn

Honestly, I’m not up to much writing or deep thinking right now. I’m not interested in discussing what’s going on with myself or in the world. So…let’s talk plarn.

I mentioned last week that my friend Steve’s cousin had made many balls of plarn, which is strips of plastic from those ubiquitous plastic shopping bags. The cousin had been very busy, and made them much more even and consistent than my early attempts. I brought them home and promised to make something to give to a charity. But first I had to experiment.

Actually, first I had to do my Independence Day nails.

I got caught up to today in the Temperature Blanket, so I played with the plarn this afternoon. I looked for patterns but mainly saw bags, baskets, and mats for unhoused people or however you say it.

My first test was crochet with a giant hook

Most patterns I saw were for crocheted projects. I tried to start the circular thing above but it didn’t look so great. I needed a slightly smaller huge hook, but who knows where that might be. So I gave up on crochet for today.

That seemed to be a religious fabric, because it was certainly holey. Ha ha, I mentioned religion. I am afraid my giant purple knitting needles were too big. I always have to go down a couple of sizes.

This sample was with 10.5 US needles. It looks at least somewhat solid. So I keeps going with this one, enjoying the slight color changes as she changed bags. every so often she threw in a colored bag. I’m glad I made a sample, because I can tell I got more smooth at knitting with the plarn as I went along.

I’m sure future projects will have smoother edges.

I found that edge pretty ugly, but I came up with a plan to pick up along the edges. That was fun. I think this project is a MAT. It will be built up log cabin style from here on.

Note how the ugly edge is gone. Heh heh.

Maybe it will be an item for dogs at the pound or something. It would be easy to clean…

It’s hard to come up with fun things to make, because you can’t make classics like hit pads, place mats, etc. it would melt. I’ll be honest. I don’t know how practical plarn items will actually be.

Comments?

Goodness Gracious I’m Good

What are you good at?

One thing I’m good at is having a consistent meditation practice. I’m not good at some of my more spiritual things (not very expert at Buddhist practices or very organized as a nature worshiper). But by gosh I’m gonna meditate every day. It’s good for me. If meditation offends you, then, I’m silently praying.

My meditation view isn’t as good as it was last week, but there are still flowers.

Hmm, that’s not what I intended to write about, so let’s find something else I’m good at…observing nature! Yeah! I’m extra good at that, and sometimes wish I could have worked as a naturalist in some fashion as a profession.

Striking caterpillar of the Wilson’s Wood-nymph moth

But, I’m also good at writing and editing, so I did get to use that throughout my working years. I can even write academically, but since I became a technical writer, I’ve stuck with simpler word choices and sentence structures, so as not to obfuscate my scintillating pontifications.

That’s not funny, Apache (couldn’t resist posting another yawning photo)

Of course, I’m good at knitting and crochet. I’m crafty, but not necessarily artistic.

I also hope I’m good at supporting my friends and family. That one waxes and wanes, and as long-time readers may know (I do have a beloved child and petulant sister who I did not support to their standards). But hey, I went to see the niece Kathleen in the hospital for her latest spider bite and brought her flowers and a card (along with son and partner). I’d have visited sooner, but I kept thinking she’d come home quickly. Her body just does not deal with spider venom.

Snakes are looking for her. (Non-venomous)

I like all those positive things I’m good at. I used to be very good at putting myself down, blaming myself for everything that went wrong, and contorting myself to try to get people I cared about but who didn’t care about me to change their minds. I’m glad I stopped being so great at those unhealthy traits! I could not make that guy in grad school, my previous spouse, nor my next-door neighbor like me. Now I think it’s their loss.

Also good at overheating and doing that lip thing. Me doing both of those yesterday.

Let’s all try to get very good at cutting our losses and moving on from relationships and situations that aren’t good for our self esteem. I’m quite good at these proclamations. Hear ye, hear ye!

Rainy Rain That Is Wet

I had a fun day of hiking and birding activities planned for today. However, it rained starting around 1:30.

We brought everything in on time. Well, Lee did.

Luckily I’d gone out earlier, when the skies were blue and the temperatures perfect. I enjoyed the short nature trail nearby, which had signs by all the different types of trees. They’d be more interesting with leaves, but the spring season seems about two weeks behind Milam County.

Trees. Some exemplars are no longer there due to bad weather up here.

I found a few fun things, such as my favorite spring beauties and some excellent fungi. One thing I found I’m still not certain what type of organism it is.

I headed over to the equestrian camping area, where there were zero equestrians, to meet up with the quite fun park interpreter and a volunteer. There was supposed to be a guided hike. However, there was advance notice of the thunderstorms coming, so it got cancelled.

I did enjoy talking to the two women about working at the park and met another camper. But, I briskly walked back (making my exercise goal). Rain didn’t start until I had Seneca the motorhome in sight, so I got every minute of outdoor time I could!

It turned out that the rain and lightning slowed down around 3, so I donned my rain boots and got out the golf umbrella for a walk around the camping loop. I am not used to sitting around for long periods!

I did, however, enjoy a nice long nap! How decadent. Otherwise Lee worked on a photo album and I wrote up all my Master Naturalist notes and knitted. Of course, I ran out of a color. Sigh. The next skein of lime green is sitting on my desk at home.

Never fear, I came as prepared for crafts as I did for rain, so there’s more yarn here. While watching a movie, I started a boring yet practical little bag to hold my phone when we’re on the road. The truck chassis has no helpful pockets or holders other than a cup holder, in which I tend to put cups, of all things.

It doesn’t look like much, but it’s bright.

I’m glad it should be drier tomorrow, because we only get three TV channels here and the cell signal probably isn’t good enough to stream. I’ll go on that hike tomorrow in the mud!

Plus, I Met a Horseman

Today didn’t go quite as planned, but it ended up okay. After an enjoyable rainy morning chat with Kathleen about what’s going on and her plans for the immediate future, I got some work done.

Isn’t this moth beautiful? It’s apparently a blackberry looper moth.

The sun came out soon enough, so I went out and found some more newly emerging wildflowers and a very cool fungus in the woods. I love my nature breaks.

The afternoon was supposed to be spent looking at potential four-wheel drive vehicles to tow behind Seneca the Motorhome, then some grocery shopping. Indeed, much car and truck looking ensued.

Truck that is $120K new. It has a built-in cooler.

I guess we lucked out, because exactly what we wanted was at the dealership, which was a used two-door Jeep Wrangler. Best of all, it was a 2023 with, get this, 1700 miles on it. The previous owner probably didn’t want such a low-frills vehicle. But for bopping around campgrounds and exploring nearby sights while Seneca stays parked, it’s ideal.

Though small, Lee can get in it easily. That’s good, because it will have to be his daily driver until we get a farm truck or something to pull the horse trailer. The trade-in on Lee’s previous vehicle was more than the purchase price of the Jeep (and that was way off its original price), so we aren’t out anything, either.

A Suna-sized car. No weird graphics or exterior bling. Good.

And, we enjoyed talking to Mark, our salesman, who is our age and has more horses and dogs than we do! That commonality helped pass the endless car-buying hours. His paint horses were so beautiful. I got his business card. Also there was knitting. Thankfully.

We still have to get the towing hitch put on the Jeep and finish some things up, so Lee will get to talk to ole Mark more tomorrow. I tell you, I was pleasantly surprised at how quiet and comfortable the car is on the inside, compared to ones I’d ridden in before. And it’s pretty peppy. I never was a huge fan of these cars, but this one will be just great. It’s a bit rough in the suspension department, but it’s an off-road vehicle. It’s supposed to be rough.

Another thing I’ll tell you is that I do NOT plan to take the thing apart. Maybe the front roof panels, but that’s it. I’m not mechanical enough to put pieces back together correctly!

By the way, we never made it to the grocery store.

A Day of Stuff I Like

It’s still all rainy, but I managed to do nothing but stuff I enjoy. There was no horse fun, just slogging through mud and arguing with Apache over his medicine. I had bird and plant fun, though. Whoopee, the bluebonnets are coming in strong.

I indulged my boring American self and watched football coverage most of the day. I especially enjoyed the segment on the history of football on CBS. It was interesting to see the women and people of color highlighted. Jayne Kennedy also is a role model of grace and cool hair.

While I watched all the coverage and the very close game, I finished the third row of this year’s temperature blanket. I like seeing a more normal winter range.

Today isn’t shown, but will get 4 rain chains, since it rained another inch. Luckily we just got lots of standing water, and the creek stayed within its banks.

It’s getting greener, but we can still get another freeze.

I needed to get some movement in today, so I wound some pretty yarn into cakes. It’s a soft merino 4-ply in a DK or sport weight. I’m glad it’s not sock yarn or I’d have had to double it. My friend Ray at Knitivity dyed it, and I just love the colors. Here’s what I made:

It’s mitered granny squares. They will look cool when there are more of them. Since the yarn is thin, the fabric will be light, yet warm. I think this will be a rectangular wrap, unless I have enough yarn for a lap blanket. Well wait and see.

I’ll still keep working on the two temperature blankets, but the 2023 one for my friend will finish sooner rather than later, and I can then crochet this.

As for the Big Game, I enjoyed it. I’m glad it was close so both teams can be proud of themselves. The commercials were good. As long as a couple make me laugh, I consider it a win, and I certainly laughed enough. The music was all good, and a nice variety. I like that Reba didn’t overdo the National anthem.

And Usher was such an athletic guy, all while singing. The roller skating, too! The guest performance singers were also enjoyable. I’m sure there were famous people I didn’t recognize, but I’m bad with pop music.

I knew eventually I’d stop being able to keep up! I feel like my dad saying all my music sounded alike to him. On the other hand, I’ve never really liked pop music, dance music, or the hip hop as much as folk and rock (and classical), so I’ll cut myself some slack. Maybe one day I’ll immerse myself into the last 20 years and learn what Beyoncé, Taylor, and all those folks sang.

Or not. They have plenty of fans.

It’s a Carousel, Life

Are there any activities or hobbies you’ve outgrown or lost interest in over time?

Probably many of us have waxed and waned in interests throughout life. My hobbies have remained pretty darned consistent, though. I did stop sewing (mostly quilts) for some reason, around the time when my other upheavals were heaving (divorce and nonprofit organization going up in flames). I still like reading, knitting, horses, nature, and hiking. Oh, and fingernail polish. That’s a weird one.

The amount of doing of any one thing goes up and down, of course. It’s part of the carousel of time. Oh wait, that’s some old song.

Speaking of carousels, my horses have made me feel like I’m on one lately. Up and down. But hey, today the horsies are on the up side (by the way I read that PETA wants to ban representing horses on carousels because that encourages people to think of them as conveyances — oy).

I vote for snapping turtles on carousels. (I ran into this one while bird watching in the woods.)

In addition to receiving their charming custom halters in the mail today, Apache and Drew both are doing better.

Tarrin came here again today for training and we ended up having a lot of fun. First she worked with the Problem Child, Droodles. He was much less reactive today, and after a bit of work on politeness, was able to get in some good ground work, including cantering (some even good cantering).

I laughed at how disdainful they appeared.

He seemed to look forward to his massage.

I had no trouble working with him, either, though he had a little canter meltdown that I took care of just fine. I’m improving.

Apache seemed glad to get back in the saddle today. Like he did yesterday, he did groundwork with glee. Tarrin said his canters were impressive, and that he did flying lead changes, like a fancy horse. He had so much energy that it was catching.

We did have to calm down when I got to ride him (yay!). Luckily all that rushing around tired him out a bit. We had some nice success working on a relaxed walk and some smooth trot transitions. That was so much fun to work on.

We’re both a bit old to be doing this but we don’t care.

It appears he didn’t lose what we’d been working on before the abscess. That doesn’t surprise me. He’s always been able to pick right up where he left off. I’m so proud of him.

After we finished, Tarrin, her cousin, Lee, and I all went in the tack room and went through some of the stuff that came with the trailer. Some things there were so many of that I donated them to the prize collection for Working Horse Central shows. I should have thought of that sooner.

Tarrin was great at spotting what was trash (mechanical hackamores, stud chains) and treasures (this custom bit I’m trying to clean up).

She also encouraged me to take parts of some of the fancy bridles off and see if they would work on Apache’s bitless bridle. Now he has a fancy brow band. I can’t wait to try it on.

By the time they left, the prizes took up lots of space in Tarrin’s truck, plus I was able to give her cousin a horse blanket and other things. I got some really nice brushes I didn’t realize were in there. Pretty exciting stuff!

Daily Bird

I was saddened to see that my big bird recording got trashed this morning, but I was able to remember most of what it heard. Besides, my walk in the woods was fun, since I got to see plants, fish, and the snapping turtle.

I’ll give you this photo and not one of the hairy fungus growing on cow poop. You’re welcome.

I’ll let those cheerful red-winged blackbirds be bird of the day, since I talked about their pals the cowbirds yesterday.

My dad hated these guys. The males would always go after him at our South Florida house when he was mowing the grass between our property and a Corps of Engineers canal. He also said they never shut up. That’s sort of true, though the house sparrows have them beat.

I didn’t realize the females arrived before the males until this year. They just make a clicking sound as they fly overhead in large flocks. The males show up around Imbolc and perch in trees or on wires loudly singing their distinctive songs. They make me think of wildflower season. Of course, there aren’t many of those yet. Just the tiny ones.

This speedwell blossom is about 1/4” wide.

I hope you’re able to find an up part on your life carousel. But it’s true that getting to a high point is more fun when you start low. I think.

Dang. These blogs would be a LOT better if I wasn’t always writing when I’m sleepy.

Five Fun Things on a Soggy Day

List five things you do for fun.

Sure, I can list five things I do for fun. But let’s make it more interesting and find five fun things to do on a very wet and soggy day.

1. I can listen to birds. Ha, I do that fun thing most days. Today my phone survived listening for birds in light rain, for which I’m grateful. There was a heck of a lot of singing and calling, along with flitting and swooping. Even the owl and kingfisher joined in the chorus in the late afternoon.

2. I can inspect the creek to see if it’s flooding, really flooding, or the floodiest. It was really flooding. The water didn’t go over the bridge, but it sure spread out. All sorts of islands had formed.

I also had fun seeing how the water flowed. I discovered that the big cedar elm I enjoy is so big because it’s in a springy spot.

3. I can hang out with wet horses. Oh my, I have a lot of grooming ahead of me when it dries. But everyone was friendly and didn’t mind that they all got the same food and supplements this one time.

Apache had been refusing his medicine, but I tried burying it in a new cranberry apple pill pocket treat today and it went in. I wish I could talk to him and explain how much he needs the meds. I should have mentioned that yesterday.

We still don’t trust you after that umbrella incident.

4. I can cook warm and nutritious foods. Yes, I am trying to cook more. Today I made a thick bean soup with beef and veggies. The beans were some dried kind that started with an “a” (I discarded the bag too soon). They had a creamy texture I liked. But wait, I found them. They’re Peruvian beans or canary beans. Peruano Mayacoba in Spanish. They do not start with “a” after all.

I used some of that new-ish “Better Than Bouillon” stuff for the base. It’s quite tasty and doesn’t appear to be full of harmful ingredients. I’m figuring out recipes that don’t use sugar and carbs that my household will eat. It’s a fun challenge, especially since I’m a big fan of carbs. But I also eat anything, so I can adapt.

5. I can knit. Knitting is always fun, especially the temperature blankets. The soggy day had so little temperature change that I almost ended up with a solid colored square today. But I got two greens! 50-56°.

This isn’t a very imaginative list of fun things. It’s stuff I do most days, if you categorize looking at floods as analyzing the weather. But that tells me something: I have fun every day, rain or shine, summer or winter. Simple pleasures for the win!

Playing Is for Grownups

Do you play in your daily life? What says “playtime” to you?

I’ll answer this: yes, often. We all should play.

I hang out with birds and plants every day, just for fun, and nominally for research. I’m not doing it for seeing the mist or the rarest birds. I just want to understand what lives where I do.

I mess around with horses. It’s because I love them. They are fun to play with even when things don’t quite work out. Like today, when it rained throughout my lesson, and Drew was not feeling good for some reason. But it worked out and we learned that he pays attention to me! I’m not in it to be the best, but to enjoy improving my skills and keeping my horses happy and healthy.

I craft, mostly knitting and crocheting. It used to be serious for me. I wanted to be known for my skill. Now I make things to enjoy or to experiment. I don’t care if anyone copies my patterns, if I’m making the trendy thing in the trendy yarn, or if I churn out 20 sweaters a year. I just have fun playing with yarn.

Next-to-last square on the 2023 temperature blanket. This one is the highest high and lowest low.

I hike! I walk! I hang out with friends! I blog! I play! It’s all for fun.

I hope you’re having fun in this, the only life you’re going to have this time around.

A Mood Blanket? In 2024?

One of my friends sent me a link to a Lion Brand pattern for a “mood blanket,” which they propose as an alternative to making a temperature blanket, like I’ve been making this year (in exciting news, it looks like the most frequent high and low temperature ranges are both shades of yellow – I made a spreadsheet). They have some cute suggestions, like charting your moods through pregnancy or other interesting times in your life.

My mind immediately went the other direction, for a couple of reasons. First, if you’ve ever read this blog you’d know I am moody. It’s one of my defining characteristics. Maybe I’m even proud of it? I don’t think just ten moods would fit me, and certainly not the generic ones they suggest (sick, mad, happy, neutral, loved, etc.). I need so many more. I need excited, calm, at one with nature (or a mood that corresponds to it), satisfied, depressed, confused…many more. It would be fun to think more about what my actual moods are, but they need to include anxious (there may be entire weeks of that one), grumpy, snappy, and irritated.

Maybe I’m as moody as a muddy creek reflecting clouds.

The other thing is that things aren’t exactly going in ways that make me comfortable right now. I’m afraid I might need some deep, dark colors to stand for “victim of a natural disaster” (red for fire, blue for flood/tornado),” “afraid for my life,” “despondent due to stock market/economy crash,” or “mourning because I lost another fundamental right.” If the blanket suddenly ended, well, you’d know it was either random gun violence or an insurrection.

Stop thinking about that! Look at these cute calves and their nanny.

So, I don’t think I’ll make a 2024 mood blanket. I don’t think I’m particularly looking forward to next year.

Let’s talk about birds. That’s a safer subject!

Today I added to my series of bird pairs (before I saw belted kingfishers, herons, and caracaras). Today it was red-tailed hawks. I really enjoyed watching this couple fly around, sit in a tree together, shriek a lot, and finally fly off.

They were my birds of the day, certainly, though the fox sparrow I heard and got to add to my life list on Merlin comes in a close second.

I was going to get some really good vulture photos, because they were helping take care of a dead opossum near our trailers, but as I tried to get there, Lee’s brother was throwing rocks at them and chased them away. Oh well, they were just about done getting rid of the meat on the carcass. I just didn’t want to touch it, so I was letting them help.