fuegito lindo
one of the best things about winter is sitting in front of the fireplace.
as a kid, our main fireplace was in the basement and i have so many memories of sitting in front of it, watching my dad build the fire and being told repeatedly to be careful and not touch the various hot iron tools he used that were so tempting to my little fingers.. a cute little broom and shovel, tongs to lift the logs, a sharp iron stick to jab and poke at the logs. my dad would explain how a fire should be built, but clearly it went in one ear and out the other because a few weeks ago i made a fire with all the heavy logs on the bottom and the kindling balanced delicately on top, ha.
now, our basement fireplace is largely empty, but the fireplace in the study is used and how! here’s a little fifteen second clip of it from a few nights ago – a more perfect fire i’ve never seen. (not made by me, btw! ;) ) there’s nothing like the snapping, popping, weezing, sighing, and crackling sounds of the fireplace.
all spring and summer long my dad would go out in the woods, cutting fallen tree limbs and perilously leaning trees into neat little piles. i’m glad to say he built such a stockpile that we still have enough to last us through this winter, even enough for my fire needs. & on top of the goodness of the fireplaces in the house, tonight we tried out the wood-burning stove in the studio and wow. it’s amazing how much heat can come out of a little box filled with burning wood, no electricity or anything. nothing fancy, but ay immediately we were daydreaming of cooking some food right on the soapstone top of the stove, making some tea, and having a delicious meal.
happy feb. 1st ~
comment
{ posted 45 days ago, under vacation paradise & busybee }
hi again ;)
about a year ago, i started this shawl – the mystic waters shawl – but it’s been in this same state for about six months now, wow. i’m determined to complete it as soon as possible though because… she’s pregnant! this will be her first (!) and we’re all so excited for the new little one. the baby’s due sometime at the end of march so there’s time to finish this, but considering how big a shawl it is and that i’m knitting it on size 2 needles to boot, there’s no time to waste. plus i would like her to enjoy it in the winter months too, pre-baby and all, of course.
here are some other knitting projects i’ve been eying lately.. though considering how many i have waiting for me to finish, i must not (must not!) start any new ones until i get a few off my plate:
~ rose leaf curtains
~ paletot point de broderie cardigan aka very pretty cardigan
~ still by k. hargreave
~ deep in the forest mittens *
~ rambling rose *
~ little birds *
~ jacket in garter stitch *
~ fresco wrap vest
~ & lastly, either an elephant, bunny or hedgehog for my future niece/nephew – what do you think?
*already have the yarn. just saying, that’s all. some of it even handspun. gulp.
so, those are the premios – prizes – that i can look forward to after completing a few current knitting works-in-progress – but first priority is the shawl. it’s the most complicated lace knitting i’ve done so far just because the pattern changes so often i really have to read every lace line very carefully, and it’s not something i can memorize in chunks or anything. a lot of work. only for a sister, sheesh. ;)
happy november! ~
happy halloween!
i’ve been quiet on this site, but lots and lots going on behind the scenes ;) with even more to come, as it always seems to be. plans as always, i’m a planner, ha, but good plans and exciting ones. also, as you can see, happy times carving pumpkins, yay ~
comment [1]
{ posted 139 days ago, under busybee & the-outdoors }
toh-may-toe
i’m a fixer, a troubleshooter, i can figure things out and find the answers. that’s my job as a librarian, as a code tinkerer on this website and others, as the curious girl i was then and am now. lately though, big and little things have fallen apart. things put off for too long are coming to haunt me and worse. things that as a 20 year old i could excuse on ignorance perhaps are no longer tolerable.
i have to fix them, figure them out. there’s no other choice. why the drama? because it’s easy to think it’s too late, full of should-haves and could-haves that end up feeling like nevers. step by step though, i will fix them. and it’s never too late. not really.
proof? my tomato plants. i sowed them in march but didn’t get them in the ground until after the fourth of july – they were unhappy leggy seedlings by then and i doubted anything would come of them much less fruit. and now? if my computer hadn’t fried to bits this past weekend, i would show you some beautiful pics. it’s amazing. tomatos as big as my fist, tons of little cherry romas all green and sweet-looking, happy stretching plants reaching behind the limits of the fence, trying to touch the sun. looking at them in july anyone would have said, no, too late, this won’t work.
i’m running out the door right now, but those tomatos, that’s the image stuck in my mind.
happy september to you all ~ pictures once i get my computer up and purring again.
happiness = green things growing
nyagous tomatos fruiting, hooray. and blondkopfchen tomato flowers getting ready to burst into bloom – that’s quite a lot of tomatos-to-be! all the tomato plants were grown from seed by me, so i’m very proud of them. ;)
two california wonder pepper plants – the green pepper i’ll wait for, but the purple pepper was picked (say that three times fast!) wow, these pepper plants have really shot up – thank goodness i staked them.
then, two bugs in the garden – one is the hornworm (covered with wasp eggs that will eat it when hatched :Z !) and the other..? any ideas?
happy pepperoncini peppers – see all the red? and then a long view of my pepper and tomato plants – considering i only got them in the ground a little over a month ago, they’re doing reallllly well.
this cabbage is part of a little experimenting with fall gardening, so far so good, though i think the horses might have nibbled a little on one of the other cabbages. possible? and then a little slug is chilling out on some rhubarb leaves – the rhubarb is a originally from my grandmother’s garden on her farm, how cool is that.
some sweet mugwort grown from seeds planted near the stream – they look so small here, but i’m hoping they’ll shoot up in the month or so. lastly, my little harvest from today (plus some tomatos from volunteer tomato plants in the first raised beds from last year!)
happy august! i’m enjoying the summer but looking very forward to september ~ ~
p.s. two technology bits to add: i dropped bloglines and am using firefox’s add-on brief for rss feeds, so far so great. and secondly, i’m really liking google’s picasa – i love addings tags to my photos, plus it’s a lot more powerful than iphoto, for one. one problem is that it really takes up a lot of cpu, but it’s worth it for now.
comment [3]
{ posted 219 days ago, under the-outdoors & techno-babble }