Southern Sensiblity

We just returned from a week in the South, a week spent in warmer weather, under sunnier skies, and around historic architecture. It was a week spent with family, watching my niece mother her charming daughter and seeing my brother and sister-in-law grandparent  We dined on hush puppies, fish tacos, coleslaw, and low country boil.  We walked under dripping Spanish moss. through beautiful town squares, and by intimate wrought-iron enclosed gardens.

There is a different feel to the South--a slower softer cadence to the flow of life.  Its history although deep and majestic is also rife with toil and struggle.  While exceedingly enjoyable to mosey through other worlds and other lives, I realize I am a truly a Northerner.  My blood runs cooler and quicker than my Southern counterparts.  The homes and history surrounding me appear less ornate and more pragmatic. Unlike the evergreen live oaks, our oak trees drop their leaves and stand barren against our cold winter skies.   Our country is so vast and deep, these individual yet united states.  And while the North, the South, the East, and the West all hum different tunes, we still sing one common song of the heritage and story we share as Americans.  It is good to see and experience the different pieces of this giant jigsaw that is our country.

Et cetera

October's autumn rests gloriously upon us now, its shadows and color calling us to attention.

A sensory feast sits before us--the touch of the season, the mixture of hues, 

the inhaled crispness of the air. 

Our eldest child, our first born son turned 40 last weekend.  Goodness.  How did it all go by so quickly?  Time is compressing: it seems only a few years since I myself turned 40. In a twinkling of an eye...

We celebrated big time with some family...

...some friends, lots of food, and a few funny photos.  

It was a happy, happy day.

And still I knit, working my way through a purple shawl, learning how to attach beads to its hem.  How I enjoy ending my days by stitching a few stitches and then reading a few lines

I am not certain why this fall seems so full, but it is.  By October's end we will have traveled out of state twice, spent time with all of our children and grandchildren near and far, visited with Jim's sister and my brother and family.  We will have dined with Chef's on Stage to benefit Strawberry Fields and walked with CROP to help ease poverty and hunger.  We will have continued to cheer for Penn State and will have listened to relentless political rhetoric swirling in this season of a presidential election.  Somehow, I thought retirement life would be slowed, that perhaps the clock would simply tick less. But since time and tide wait for neither man nor this woman,  my quest continues to seek and learn to live every minute of each day, drinking fully from its deliciousness. All in good time...all in good time.

Grandsons

quick and strong

soft and sweet

curious and busy

brave and fleet

Alpacas

This past Saturday was National Alpaca Farm Day and Jim and I celebrated by visiting the Bald Eagle Valley Alpaca Ranch over-the-mountain and through-the-valley from us.  Gosh, these animals are sweet...

and so gentle....

Jim and I are already planning an alpaca farm field trip for our grandchildren.

In addition to mingling with these enchanting creatures, we watched a group of spinners spin the actual fleece shorn from the alpacas living on the farm.  The yarn is incredibly soft and incredibly warm, I am told.   I purchased two skeins of yarn made from the fleece shorn of the dark brown animal standing with the group in the first photo.  His name is Cocoa.  I have never knit with yarn that I actually saw and touched the animal it came from.  I am excited to cast this yarn onto my knitting needles.  Now, I just need to decide what to make.

A Rosemary Day

It was a Rosemary Day yesterday, a precious day spent with my granddaughter as we continue getting to know each other.  Nearly six weeks old, she is beginning to focus  her world.  We spent a quiet day experiencing it together.  As we walked around the block, I looked at the houses and streets comprising her neighborhood.  I smiled good morning to a fellow clearing his yard and nodded hello to another morning traveler.  She slept snuggled safely on my chest, breathing in fall's fresh air.  We sat in her backyard garden, listening to bird song surrounded by the still-green of early autumn.  We lounged in her bedroom, standing by the window to follow the light, gliding in the corner chair, and studying the shape and brightness of her toys.  Her world opens as each day is unwrapped.

I am getting to know this daughter of my son--the shape of her head and her mouth, the slope of her nose and the drape of her neck, the delicacy of her hands and feet.  Her mama tells me her body temperature "runs hot" like her daddy's, and after our walk with her little body next to mine, I change her diaper and see some dots of prickly heat on her chest; her mother was right, but then mothers always know best.  After a little trial and error I discover a good place and posture to feed her a bottle (freshly pumped that morning) and she takes it (wonder of wonders!), drinking it down to the last drop.  I hold her, talk to her, breathe in the perfume of her and dream of all the days ahead...it is a wonderful life, sweet Rosemary.  Welcome to it....

Cross Stitching

For the past week or so, my nightly needle time passed with my hands holding a different kind of needle, an embroidering needle instead of knitting needles.  It has been decades since this hoop held fabric, but lately I have been noticing more and more projects appearing which combine floss, canvas, and various forms of needlework.  I found a project that looked useful and fun and I went at it, making X after X. The feel of the needle and the rhythm of the stitch came back rather quickly.

Just in time for scary season...two Franks, fresh off the hoop!   Happy Fall everyone!

Little hats for little heads

My friend's daughter gave birth to twins the day after our Rosemary was born.  At just about three pounds each, they were really tiny.  Now about a month later, they tip the scale at four pounds, and their mama still covers their heads to seal in body warmth.  So I made Zoey and Michael some hats from leftover Mission Falls 1810 Cotton yarn and this preemie cap pattern.  Tiny hats certainly knit up quickly...