times two

yesterday was a perfect dyeing day. hurricane earl pushed out the humid air leaving a dry, fresh breeze. brenda was home for the weekend and left me her bottles of dye and an extra couple of large pots so i'm able dye twice as much fleece at a time. after dyeing,to avoid felting, you have to let the fleece cool to air temperature before removing it from the pot and hanging it up, so i was never able to dye more than 2 lots in the morning, 2 in the afternoon. by the end of yesterday i had 8 wonderful new colours. so today i spin...

a very soft breeze

yesterday corner brook cleaned up. from early morning, through-out the town, chain saws noisily filled the usual silence of a sunday morning. hauling and raking and sweeping and setting straight. one side of our street had power - the other didn't and when i walked up to barb's in the afternoon i noticed extension cords running across the street from one house to another. sharing power. the town really did a wonderful job. power was restored by late afternoon and city trucks picked up all the branches that people were leaving on the sidewalk.
in the evening i spun up "a very soft breeze". thankful for normal weather.

punched a rough night. but there are a lot of sticks to play with...

we didn't get the rain, but earl brought strong winds. keith and i (and the animals) piled on the bed in the little spare room - away from the largest trees outside the window and tried to sleep. as a child i watched the large seeimingly invincible tree in our front yard break in half during hurricane hazel so it's hard to reassure me that nothing will come down on the house, i finally took an ativan (which i use for flying) to calm me down enough to fall asleep. abigail is gleeful this morning. so many sticks to choose from...

apricot fingered sky

this time round our little book club is reading sally vickers "miss garnet's angel". a rich book. set in venice and full of light and dark, good and evil and the shifting grey inbetween. her descriptions of this watery city are wonderful and inspiring...

hurricane season

everyone living on the east coast of north america is watching the weather forcasts for this weekend and holding their breath. the west coast of newfoundland now looks like it won't get a direct hit from hurricane earl, but it's sure to hit nova scotia and labrador. it's hurricane season.

the children's book

one of my goals for last weekend's little whirlwind trip was to hole up in my hotel room and finally finish a.s byatt's "the children's book". i started it in early summer and although i loved it, it kept being put aside for other reading.
i've always felt that in a past life i lived in edwardian england. i felt completely at home in this book. years ago i devoured byatt's "possession". i've never read a fiction authour who sees and writes so much like a visual artist. her descriptions make me swoon. so when i finally finished this 700 page book, i was sad that it was over.

a happy/sad day

today my good friend brenda moves to grand falls. this is a very happy event. she's beginning a wonderful job as government craft consultant for the island portion of newfoundland (outside of st. john's). she will travel around the province meeting with craft producers and give them aesthetic/business advice. she is so perfectly suited for this job. brenda has always been the person i turn to for this - "how should i package this?", "what's the best way of displaying this in my booth?", "can you help me make a felted sign?". now she will get paid for her answers and everyone will have access to her wisdom.
but i'm going to miss her terribly. she's my walking buddy. almost every day, in all seasons, in all weather, we walk our dogs together. and talk. so this is also a sad day for me.