As you know my days have been taken up caring for Shiloh and helping him recuperate. Friday the 13th was the first day he slept through the night. It’s been a long time since I had babies waking me up, so I’m pretty devoted to the good night’s sleep. For him, though, I’m willing to get up multiple times as he shifts around to get comfortable. The day ahead seems promising with so auspicious a beginning. Boy, was I wrong . . . Continue reading
I’ve been a bit quiet on the blog lately. We have been focused on the impending surgery and recovery of our dog. Then there are the leaves which keep falling. The oak trees are almost done, but the pear trees (non-fruit bearing) that line our drive have not. I threw in the towel over the weekend and asked our dog walker, a nice young man who lives near us, to help out. It’s not so much that I haven’t had time, but that I have been distracted. Somehow when I’m thinking about something else or worried, I don’t seem to get much done, but when I am busy I seem to be able to get a lot done. I’m sure someone has done a scientific study on this phenomenon. If you know of one, please send it my way. I’m going to write about Autumn soon, but first we have to attend to our ball of fluff.
On Monday Shiloh, my black lab, had surgery for a torn ACL. All went well and we brought him home yesterday. You wouldn’t think a dog that has severe arthritis in one front leg, and some arthritis in the other front leg would be able to do the kind of moves required to tear an ACL, but this one did. I put the blame on our young guy, Barkley for literally running circles around him in the back yard. Never one to be outdone, even with his disabilities, he managed to twist and turn and tear it.
We have a full page of instructions for his rehabilitation. We start with massage, icing, and gentle stretching. This changes in week two to warm compresses and longer walks. Eventually he gets to do things like walk in a figure eight, go up hills and ramps, and in week twelve, back — we hope — to full mobility. In the meantime he cannot jump, run, twist or turn. Barkley seemed to know intuitively that he had to behave, because he has been interacting with Shiloh gently and calmly. I am going to sleep downstairs with him for a few days until he gets more confident moving around.
While unplanned, this should be a good trial run for us if he later gets elbow surgery. Certainly after a successful rehab with this the doctor will see that we are serious? Our lives will be different for a time as we focus on him and his rehabilitation. He is taking it all in good spirits, happy to be home. He is also quickly learning, like I did after my own knee surgery, that ice is his friend.
About two years ago I started doing research on my family. This used to be harder than it is now. Thanks to websites like Ancestry.com that keep getting more and more robust, you barely have to leave your chair to add branches to your family tree. As my own parents age and have trouble remembering things I realized that I needed to get moving. Continue reading
It’s that time again when the leaves change color and fall to earth. Once on the ground they lay there, making little piles. Sometimes a wind arrives and blows them around the yard. I love this time of year. I’ll be honest, I don’t like the heat and humidity of Summer, but I love Autumn.
When you have over an acre of yard you have a lot of leaves to rake. While we don’t cut our own grass, we do rake leaves. I love raking leaves. It’s similar to pulling up weeds in that it’s a repetitive process that rids the yard of something you don’t need. Unlike pulling weeds, once the leaves are gone they don’t come back. Continue reading
A few days ago I hit day sixty of my post-retirement life. A lot has happened in two months. I moved, left my career and friends in the DC area, got to know a new community and neighbors, and started working with a volunteer organization. I’ve kept busy and engaged with all kinds of tasks, but every once in a while I think about that prior life when my value came from my job title and the size of my office and the number of people I managed. What is my value now? Am I a success or a failure? Continue reading
Sunday at Rhinebeck is a calmer affair. For one thing they don’t open the gates until 10 AM so visitors are forced to sleep in and relax before hitting the fairgrounds. We arrived just after 10 and cruised right in. The crowds were smaller, but still formidable. I had a list of some places I wanted to return to that I missed the day before. In addition we wanted to have a hot lunch before heading home, I wanted to get back to the book signing booth, and walk through one barn that I couldn’t even get close to the day before. Continue reading
The front door of Jill Draper’s studio
On the Saturday of Rhinebeck Jill Draper had an”open studio”. Jill Draper is the owner of Jill Draper Makes Stuff. She is a knitter, dyer and spinner who sells yarn sourced from American sheep and spun in the U.S. and dyed lovingly by her. For the past several years she has shared a booth at Rhinebeck with Jennie the Potter. As they both attract a crowd of loyal followers, sharing a booth was no longer a viable option. Jill recently got dedicated studio space to dye and dry her yarn, so it was the perfect time for an open house. Did I mention that Jill lives in Kingston, New York, just a hop and a skip from the fairgrounds, and close to our hotel? Continue reading
Saturday at Rhinebeck means lines and crowds and waiting for almost everything including the ladies room. Being a man at Rhinebeck has its advantages. Getting in and out of the restroom is the first, and getting a lot of attention from yarn-crazed women is another. My husband is a real trooper. He comes along with me to these fiber gatherings and doesn’t complain. He doesn’t always tag along with me, but that’s ok. There are some more manly things to do, like wine-tasting and watching the dog herding demonstrations. He comes home with some bottles of chile sauce and can eat whatever he wants. Continue reading
The New York State Sheep and Wool Festival, or Rhinebeck for short, attracts thousands of people. While the sheep and the wool and the dogs and the fair food can make for a full day — or two, there is a lot more to Rhinebeck. There are many attractions in the area and a number of local stores have additional activities. You can also sign up for one or more of the classes that are offered at the fairgrounds starting during the festival.
We always get to Rhineback a day or two before the festival opens on Saturday. Now that we are living in Pennsylvania and not in the metro DC area, we are three hours closer, so we left on Friday instead of Thursday. The dogs went to their doggie daycare/boarding place on the farm. They were set for a weekend of fun and so were we.
As we had already seen a number of the local attractions, we didn’t have anything particular on our agenda. We decided to go into Saugerties, a small town north of Rhineback, and walk around.
And what better place to start than a local 
yarn store or LYS. The LYS in Saugerties is called The Perfect Blend. I know, I was about to attend what is probably THE largest single place in the U.S. to buy yarn and I was going to a yarn store. I did browse and help a customer choose a color for a sweater she wanted to knit for her sister, but I did not buy anything. I was saving myself for RHINEBECK.
We were walking down the street and stumbled upon an antique lamp store. By pure coincidence we needed a part to replace a broken piece of an antique lamp of ours. What good luck! During any move things get broken and sometimes, horrors of horrors, even lost. We like antiques and had a few antique lamps We went completely on memory and bought a replacement for the piece that was broken. I think we had a 50-50 shot at getting the right size. We took a chance but the prices were reasonable, and for just under $7.00 we were willing to give it a try. Unfortunately the piece did not fit. Next time we go antiquing we are going to bring the lamp with us.
As we were heading back to our car we came upon this bookstore. As avid readers we often bemoan the loss to the independent bookstore. Heck, you are hard pressed to find a Barnes & Noble these days. For a small place like Saugerties this was one big bookstore. We had to go in and browse the shelves. After yarn fumes, book fumes come in a close second. My husband, not being a knitter, would undoubtedly argue that for him, the books win hands down.
Originally the home of the local paper the building now houses Inquiring Minds Bookstore
After checking into our hotel we headed for the Rhinebeck Trunk Show. This is the second year this event has taken place. It was so popular last year that this year they got a venue twice the size. Let me tell you, it wasn’t big enough. The event is organized by a group called Indie Untangled. Indie stands for independent. It “connects buyers and sellers of hand-dyed yarn and fiber, handspun yarn, and knitting-related notions and accessories”.
The Trunk Show allows the smaller vendors who don’t have a booth at Rhinebeck to get some exposure and connect directly to buyers. It give buyers a chance to see something they wouldn’t normally get to see up close. It’s a combination that works for everyone.
This is a small part of the line of eager fiberistas waiting to get in for the 5:00 opening. The first hundred entrants received a goodie bag. I got there at 4:45 and there were way more than a hundred people already in line ahead of me.
The event was a lot of fun. Here are some pictures of a few of the vendors.
Alice the owner and dyer at Backyard Fireworks, proudly displaying some of her handiwork
To top off the evening yours truly won a prize in the raffle. I bought two tickets and put them both in the Bijou Basin bag and I guess that lady luck was with me that night.
Lisa, who launched Indie Untangled and organized this event, calling off the names of the raffle winners
I won two skeins of emerald colored yak-silk lace yarn and a pattern. For more information on Indie Untangled, click on this link http://indieuntangled.com. Thanks to everyone for organizing this event. I’ll see you next year.
I don’t like dandelions. I don’t like crabgrass either or other weeds, but my dislike for dandelions is extreme. For the past two weeks I have been outside every day with my forked tongue garden tool digging up the dandies. They yield willingly to me after a rain or in the early morning when the ground is soft. When the grass turns brown from lack of rain, the dandies thrive in spite of it, sticking out their dandelion tongues at me in defiance. See, they say, I will grow in any weather in any soil and Continue reading
Explorations In Place 