Ok, so it wasn’t quite a blizzard, but we drove home through snow in the higher elevations yesterday evening, and it was snowing mixed with rain when we drove into our driveway; it snowed here overnight but not more than an inch accumulated. This was just a little friendly warning that washing our cars is not approved behavior quite yet. This morning when we got up it was +27F and a very stiff wind is coming straight out of the north, in case we get any other wild ideas about cleaning the car off again.
Mother Nature, "Are you listening when I talk to you?" (typical Mom question)
Even though the weather was, shall we say, interesting, we had fun going to visit friends yesterday. It was our first long day trip away from the house since fall last year. It was our first time leaving Mishkin for this length of time, and he didn’t seem to mind at all. He was happy to see us but didn’t have his little nose out of joint that we had left him alone.
The fiber arts festival in Coeur d’Alene was fun but very noisy. We aren’t used to that level noise at all, and my ears reacted to it by pretending I had just changed altitude drastically. Once we left the building and were back in our quiet car, that sensation went away. It was the oddest thing!
Despite my best intentions to the contrary, I couldn’t resist some yarns produced by my girlfriend Diana that I had gone to the festival to see.
This yarn was calling my name when I walked in the door, adding to noise levels! I HAD to buy it just so it would shut up.
I wish I’d brought a camera so that I could post pictures of all the yarns that she had there for sale, but alas I didn’t think of taking the camera with me. Going To The Sun Fiber Mill is the website for her fiber mill. The yarn on the far left is a lace weight pure alpaca, and it is just heavenly.
The blues and greens in the sport weight alpaca/wool/silk yarn are destined for a vest. I am not sure there is enough yardage for a sweater, but there is most definitely enough for a vest, with a collar and pockets 🙂 I am going to have an incredible amount of fun with this yarn and I’m already thinking about how to make my pattern.
But first I must finish my lace shawl which is at the half-way completed mark. Hurray! Another couple of months and it will be done and blocked.
He really can't resist this shawl, which may become a problem down the road....
Whenever I have this shawl out of the drawer to work on it, Mishkin can’t resist putting at least a paw on it. He also likes to grab hold of the end of the knitting needle in his fangs and attempt to remove it from the stitches. I hang on to my needles tightly when I see his approach!!! I shudder to even consider the disaster this would be. Picking up lace stitches is a major pain, and to be avoided at all costs.
Today, when I laid the shawl on the floor to spread it out for a picture, he lay down in the middle, rolled around on it for a bit to claim it for his own, and then was eyeing one of the lose yarn ends on the side for consideration of eating/pulling/unraveling, any or all of the above. How he manages to consider such things and still look cute is beyond me.
He “met” his first chipmunk a couple of days ago. Last summer and fall when we first brought him home, he managed to miss seeing the hordes of chipmunks running around in the grass and up and down on bushes; there was so much to see inside the house. But that all has changed. First there was a Red Squirrel sitting in the windowsill. That was most extremely exciting stuff. And then there was a chipmunk. They were nose to nose and the chipmunk was completely unimpressed by the show of feline ferocity demonstrated by Mishkin.
Mishkin knows that besides the Bird Channel on Kitty-TV he views through the window, there is now the Rodent Channel. I can’t wait until he sees and notices his first deer and bear. He’s going to appreciate being an indoor kitty at that point.
Now that we know how he’ll react to our being gone all day, we’re planning on a couple of all day birding trips to see the spring migration.
And, we will be doing so in dirty cars.