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A View From the Field |
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February 8 I was doing something - I forget what - after I uploaded this last night, and Buster came and sat on my lap and purred at me, so I guess he forgave me. I managed to get into bed by 11:30, but I was up any number of times. Buster was staring at me around 10:00, but I turned over, and I didn't get up until 11:00. There were some interesting dreams, none of which I remember. i petted him and started the other sock, but I got into a mess by dropping some stitches in the first couple of rows, so that took me some time to repair, and it was noon before I left the north end.
That severely truncated my day, and since it was Monday, the day when there are a good number of things to read, I didn't finish my surfing until nearly 4:00, and that didn't include doing the jigsaw puzzle. I would have, because it was a round one, which I usually do work, but it was all green and there were too many pictures, so I gave up on it.
I started reworking the pattern for the black sweater, and I gave up on that, too. I can see what the problems were, but I don't know how to get the body and the sleeves both the right width without making the neck too big. I will have to think about it. Then I embroidered for a while, and at least that went all right.
The weather was nondescript. There was snow after dark last night, and it covered all the tracks, but I don't think there was an inch of new. It didn't now today, that I saw. The temperature was about 21º all day, although it has risen a couple of degrees lately. The wind was solidly from the east, in the 10-20 mph range. The lake is muttering to itself but not too loudly.
So that was my truncated day, and it's a dark, cold night in the field.
February 7 Well, every night a little earlier, or I hope so. I embroidered for quite a while last night, and I finished the dark green on the green fabric. When I went up to the north end, I read a bit, and I got to bed around 12:30. I was up any number of times, and I finally got up around 10:00.
After my eyes adjusted to the dark, I realized that there were stars - lots of stars. At that time of night, all the winter stars are over in the west. It was clear enough that I could see that the Pleiades were fuzzy without my glasses on, and I could see them clearly, through the screen, with my glasses on. Orion was still quite high in the sky, but I could see most of him without too much trouble. It was really pretty. By about 4:00, though, it had clouded over.
I finished the first sock this morning, and I petted a cat, but not as much as he wanted.
This has been a bad day for Buster. I didn't pet him enough, then he barfed a bit, and then tonight, while bringing my dinner into the studio (in the dark) I stepped on him. I thought he knew he has to keep out of the way of my feet, but he's apparently forgotten. So now he is mad, and i hope he isn't injured, and he won't come to see me. He screeched like I had broken every bone in his body, but he jumped up on the box and ran up to the loft, so I hope it was only his pride that got hurt. Of course, I screeched, too, so I imagine Jasmine is cowering someplace wondering what all the shouting is about.
When I came down the hall this morning, Jasmine was lying in front of the door to the basement, and she let me walk right past her without moving, and when I went toward the studio with my breakfast, she was lying on top of the kitty condo, and she just stayed where she was. Last night, when I looked around, she had been lying on her afghan behind me. I don't know what brought this on, but all of a sudden she is pretty relaxed again. I wonder how long it will last?
The weather was blah again, cloudy and cool, with not much wind. The temperature got down to 9º overnight, but it warmed up to 27º for most of the afternoon. The winds were very light, but they switched around from the west to the east in the course of the day. Along about 5:00, I looked out the window, and it was snowing lightly. It continued for about an hour, and then it quit. So we had our snow for the day, although I'm sure there wasn't any accumulation...well, that may not be true, because between 6:00 and 7:00 the NWS station recorded something in the rain gauge, so I guess it snowed a little more after it got dark. I don't think it's snowing now.
Ron came this afternoon and brought my boxes (chocolate), and that was about all that happened. I was going to embroider a bit, but I'm tired, so I think maybe, just maybe, I will go to bed.
Last night, I read a bit more and looked through the Old Testament a bit, and I decided I am going to switch gears and read the New Testament for a while. I don't recall ever having read the whole four Gospels, so I will start with Matthew and see how it goes. Sometime I would like to read some more of the OT, but from Isaiah on, the history, which is what I want to read, is all intermingled with prophecy, and it can be confusing to try to separate the two. Daniel interests me, because it deals with the time right after the exile, but not only was Daniel a prophet, he spoke in a sort of code language which can be very hard to understand. So I will read Matthew. That isn't hard to understand at all. I still find reading a bit of something relaxes me before I go to bed.
So that was a nearly useless day, and it's another dark, cold night in the field.
February 6 Last night, I just stared at the computer until I couldn't see very much at all, and I dropped into bed about 1:30. I was up about 4:00, and I was surprised to see Capella setting out the bathroom window, but it kept going in and out, so my guess is that it was mostly cloudy, since I couldn't see any other stars. I was up again around 7:15, and I was most surprised to see that it wasn't completely dark anymore. So our days are getting longer. I finally rolled out around 9:45, I guess, and petted a cat and knitted on the toe of the sock for a while.
As usual, I didn't do very much. I went to the post office and the store, where they had given my packages to Ron, but they had finally gotten some soup that benefits CHIA, so I got a lot of that. I like the chicken soups, although they are entirely too salty. They are tasty and warming, so when it gets cold and snowy again, I can have my soup and hibernate.
I finally filled the bird feeders, and that was fun. The chickadees and goldfinches were all in the tree peeping, and as soon as I hung out the white feeder (which you can't see in the camera), there were chickadees grabbing seeds, even though I was standing about two feet away. Those little guys have no fear at all. I also replenished the seed on the deck, since the squirrels had done a pretty good job of cleaning it up, along with an occasional white-crowned sparrow and junco (I know, I know, neither of them is supposed to be here now, but I know what I see). When the feeders were empty, the chickadees were pecking on the deck, too, but they prefer sunflower seed.
It was rather nice out when I was outside. Mostly that was because there wasn't any wind, and what little breeze there might have been was from the east. The birds appreciated that, too. When I was going to the post office and filling the feeders, the temperature was around 26º, so it really was quite warm (everything is relative). The temperature has now plummeted to 14º, though. That's because the afternoon was almost completely clear, and the atmosphere loses heat rapidly when there are no clouds. It was so nice to see sunshine again!
Our days are 9h50m long now, and I think morning and evening twilight are getting longer, too, so the worst of the darkness is over for this season. Even though my vitamin D has kept me from the worst of the SAD, it is still better to have enough natural light. I can't imagine what people who live in northern Europe do, where there's hardly any daylight at all from November through February. I like the north, but this is far enough.
After I filled the feeders, my plan was to sit in the ugly chair and begin to read some of my magazines and knit on the old worsted-weight afghan. I was able to read for a while - with difficulty - but when the sun started shining right on me, I had to stop. That was all right, because I got to look out at my view and watch the sunset. So of course, even though it went down behind some clouds, there wasn't any color in it at all. Of course. Anyway, I knitted until it was too dark to see, and I got the afghan back onto the 47" needle. I took it off a year or so ago when I made the gray chenille sweater, and I haven't picked it up since. I discovered that when I moved it to the shorter needle, my tension had tightened up so that it was hard to get the stitches onto the points, so now I know when I started pulling. I think it's OK now, though, and I started a new color of yarn.
Unfortunately, knitting with the #8 needles made my left hand very sore, I think from holding up the whole afghan with it, so when it got too dark, I quit. I thought i might do a few stitches on the biscornu before I go up to the north end.
I did read Ezra last night, but that wasn't much to read, since nearly half of it (and it is a small book) is a census of the people who returned to Jerusalem after the exile. It seems rather confused, too, and seems to be written by several people, but I did get the story of the return and the rebuilding of the temple (only who was king in Persia wasn't exactly clear). I see why these books aren't used in church services, although they do have some interesting prayers in them.
So that was a rather quiet day, and I think I will be off to the north end rather early, or I hope so. It's apparently a clear, cold night in the field, and If I'm lucky, I might see a star or two.
February 5 I was a little better last night - it was only 1:30 when I got to bed. This time it was all the kings between Solomon and the exile. Kings and Chronicles cover a lot of the same ground, but they were clearly written by different people with different points of view. A lot of it is confusing, and one would have to make a far more detailed study than I am to figure out what was really going on. They fought almost continuously with somebody or other, and a lot of them were pretty stupid. Tonight there is Ezra, whom I have never read nor heard excerpts from, so that will be interesting.
I was up at 9:00, because I got a call from the doctor's office saying my potassium was fine, up a little but not a lot. I decided that was too early to get up, although I was up three times to visit the bathroom. I woke up, sort of, around 10:30, when Buster tried to get me up. I thought I was just dozing, but the next thing I knew it was 11:30, and I decided I'd better get up.
I petted a cat and knitted to the point where I am ready to start the toe. In the meantime, Jasmine started rushing up and down the hallway, and when we finally got to the kitchen, she came dancing in from the great room with her tail high and all bushed out. She has an even skinnier tail than Buster does, but when she bushes it all out, it looks really huge. She felt good.
Sometime later, Buster started howling somewhere in the great room - I guess he was up in the loft, and he may even have gotten up on the railings. I didn't look for quite a while, and when I did, he came running down the stairs and toward me at full speed. He felt good, too. I don't know why they felt so good, but the barometer was quite high.
I was so late that I didn't do anything except my surfing and finish the green frames around the five squares on the green fabric. I had other thoughts, but I had an accident, and by the time I cleaned up from that, it was too late to do what I had in mind.
The weather was nondescript. It was cloudy all day, but not dark-cloudy, and the temperature was steady at 25º, which is our average high for this time of year, until about 4:00 when it started to drop slightly. There was a very light east wind. Blah.
The one trouble with reading so late and not getting enough sleep is that I'm having a little trouble seeing. As I get older, my eyes get tired when I don't get enough sleep, and I can't even see very well with my glasses off, up close. I will have to try to take myself in hand, but it's hard. I have always had the tendency to get lost in what I'm reading and keep on no matter what the hour. I read The Count of Monte Cristo in one setting while I was in college...and that is about 1000 pages, I think. I think I have a copy of it someplace around here, and someday, I'd like to read it again, only a little slower.
So now it is time to toddle up to the north end again and read some more. It's a cloudy, cold, and quiet night in the field.
February 4 Well, I didn't. I read through first and second Samuel - all about David - and it was 2:30 before I got to bed. I must try to do better tonight. Oh, well. I didn't get up until around 11:00, but I'd never know it from the way I feel now.
I was so late, and Thursday is a day when I get a lot of email I have to read, that it was after I went to the post office before I finished my daily surfing. I am happy to say that my new, smaller compression hose came, and I am looking forward to wearing them. The old ones, which are about 2 years old, have stretched out to the extent that they aren't very comfortable and I don't think they are doing a very good job. There were also a couple of other packages of pills. I only take about 5 prescriptions meds, but I am taking handfuls of supplements, and I was running out of a lot of them.
On the way home, I stopped and picked up a nice check from Peggy, and now we are straight with each other. She was cooking, so I didn't get to show her my stuff. I will try for that next week sometime, although I don't know if I'll leave anything with her. She assures me she doesn't like to do consignment, and neither do I, so if she takes anything else, she will probably pay me for it. I don't know if she'll want anything, though. We'll see.
I counted rows on the sock, and I can apparently gauge 50 rows, no matter what the size needles. So I have about 16 rows left to do before the toe of the first Tofutsies sock. That didn't take as long as I thought it would.
The weather was blah, in spite of what Environment Canada thought. They had it as clear for most of the day. Well, it wasn't. It was dull and gray, but the temperature was 28º all day, and there was very little wind at all. Blah. When the NWS station reports exactly the same temperature for 8 or 12 hours, I begin to get suspicious, but I guess it was probably right.
So that was a truncated day, and I'm off to the north end. I would like to read a little, but I'm almost afraid to start, because I really need to get to bed at a reasonable hour tonight.
It's a cloudy, cool night in the field.
February 3 I actually went up to the north end rather early last night, but it was nearly 3:00 am before I turned out the light. I started reading a good book - or I should say, The Good Book - and I kept right on reading. I wanted to read Genesis to answer a couple of questions, and I should have stopped there, but I made the mistake of leafing ahead, and I realized I'd never read Judges, so I started in on that and finished it. Things certainly were primitive and bloody in Palestine in those days. It's a wonder anybody survived at all. I finally had to stop at Ruth, because it was after 2:00 and I had to take a bath.
I certainly did sleep well, though. I finally got up around 10:30, by which time Buster was beginning to settle down. I petted him and knitted a bit before I got dressed, and I had time to do my morning surfing, minus the crosswords, before it was time to go off to the ladies' meeting. We had a good group today, including a new person, who seems very nice. Sandi brought a quiz with questions about "have you ever..." a whole bunch of things we've all done, like locked ourselves out of the car or the house and a bunch of other things. We tallied up our scores (I was neutral), and then people with a particularly good story about one of the questions told it. It generated a lot of good laughs. I won't tell any stories, because, as they say, what goes on at Carolyn's stays at Carolyn's. So it was a fun afternoon, and I think I got most of the foot of the Tofutsies sock done.
The weather was lovely, unless you wanted more snow. It was cloudy overnight, and I guess there was some snow then, but by the time I got up, the sky was clear and blue and there were copious quantities of sunshine, which lasted until just about the time I got home at 4:00. Then it clouded up again, and I think it is still. The temperature got up to 21º for a while, but for most of the day it was about 19º, so except for what the sun did, we didn't lose any snow. There was a light wind from the north for most of the day, although that has now switched around to the west.
I do love that sunshine! I had to wear my sunglasses to drive, and I enjoy that. Carolyn's great room has windows facing south, and the sun was so warm a lot of the ladies had to move into the shade. I got warm, but I enjoyed it.
When I got home, I was a good girl and I embroidered while the talking was on, and I have finished the white part of the biscornu and I started the green part. I am doing the boring stuff now - the frame around each square. There are only five green squares, and I think they will go pretty fast if I keep at them. I don't like that shade of green very well, but it does seem to be just about DMC 268, which looks better than what the designer apparently used. These squares have one big flower in the middle of them, and there isn't quite so much jumping around and doing one stitch here and one stitch there, which will help.
I could keep on, but I do want to try, at least, to get to bed a bit earlier tonight. I didn't get enough sleep last night. Now it's another cloudy, cold night in the field and I'm off to the north end.
February 2 I tried three times to upload the website last night and finally gave in and did it manually, so it was late when I went up to the north end, and I threw myself into bed around midnight. I had trouble getting to sleep again. I think I will have to arrange to do some pleasant reading, just to get my mind wound down. Anyway, I was up a couple of times in the night, and the moon wasn't very bright. Around 5:00 or so, it was shining in my bedroom windows, and I could tell there were high clouds in front of it. It was sort of sunny this morning, when I got up around 10:30, but the clouds soon rolled in and it was cloudy for the afternoon.
I petted a very purry cat and knitted a while this morning, so I was late starting, then I had a sort-of accident which meant I had to change everything from the waist down, so that slowed me down.
I decided to try the upload again. Well, after four tries, I gave up on that idea. Then I realized that after the number of times I'd aborted a copy before it timed out (it takes 5 minutes to time out, and I know long before then that it's dead), I left several trashed files on the website, so I decided to copy those using Explorer. Well. I rebooted at least six times, I had nasty security messages, blue screens, hang-ups, and the whole thing. What a mess! I finally got a clean boot and copied the last two files, but by that time it was nearly 3:00. Geez! So I didn't do much else today.
I wanted to try to get FrontPage to do the upload, because I have another picture tonight, and copying everything manually is a pain. Well, no such luck.
The picture was one I took yesterday morning and forgot about last night. I turned around to go toward the bathroom when I saw both cats together in Buster's little house, so I grabbed the camera. Unfortunately, in an attempt to get as close as possible, I took one step too many and Jasmine moved, but not too far, so this is what I got. Buster was OK with the camera, but you can see that Jasmine was eyeing me with great suspicion. I mean, you never know what I might do next, especially if I got too close!
That box is Buster's chosen spot. He tipped the box over a couple of years ago, and he sleeps in it almost every morning in the winter. I suppose the box concentrates the heat of the floor and makes it cozy in there. Jasmine has been known to use it when he isn't. I had meant to use that box to pack away some of the stuff in the box next to it, but obviously, it will be a permanent fixture of the great room. I think part of it is that Buster can wake up, look into the studio and see me.
I've noticed lately that Jasmine has gotten really pudgy. That is a problem with having two cats, one of whom is extremely thin and is used to having food down all the time. I'm sure Jasmine doesn't have nearly enough to do to keep her busy, but being the way she is, I can't play with her, and I'm not about to stock the house with mice so she has something to chase!
Anyway, I did get those pictures out of the camera, and I did quite a bit of embroidery. I am now doing the backstitch around the last four squares on white, and all I have left after that is the beads, and the white part is done. Then there are five squares on green, and I can sew the thing together and stuff it. While I'm not crazy about bright pink and bright green, there are roses in some of the squares, and they are pretty. It will be an interesting conversation piece.
The weather was sort of blah. As I mentioned, there was some sunshine this morning, but it went away by noon, and it was cloudy all afternoon. The temperature got up to 24º around noon, then it dropped back, and a bit after 2:00 it started snowing lightly. Well - not real lightly. since it registered in the rain gauge at the NWS station. I think that is partly because there was no wind at all at that time. I think when the wind is blowing, the snow doesn't get into the rain gauge, so it can be snowing quite heavily and it won't register. Anyway, it's been snowing off and on ever since, very fine flakes coming straight down. There is a little wind from the north now, but not a lot. Any snow is welcome.
So that was another quiet and nearly lost day, and I'm off to the north end to try to find something nice to read. It's a dark, snowy night in the field.
February 1 Last night, I embroidered, and I got all the flower colors done on the last four squares (on white - there are five more to do on green) except yellow. So it was late when I went up to the north end, and then I stared at the floor for too long. It was nearly 1:00 when I turned out the light, and then I had a hard time getting to sleep. I think it was that I was trying to start out on the wrong side again. I do that periodically. Finally I gave in and turned over, and along about 1:30, I think, I finally got to sleep. I can't quite remember when I got up, but I think it was around 9:30 or so. I could have kept on sleeping, but this was a day when I had something to do.
I did my morning surfing and began to get myself together, and I misplaced my cellphone. Not that I use it much, but I like to have it when I am in cellphone range. After tearing up a lot of things, I finally found it under a bunch of stuff on the desk - oh. I remember now. I took it to the hospital in my knitting bag, and I took it out of the bag before I took the bag up to the north end. In the meantime, I remembered that this is the first of February, and my mortgage payment was due today, so I had to do that. I also wanted to fill the bird feeders, although I didn't have enough seed in the pail to completely fill them. And...well, all things considered, it was 1:15 before I left the house.
The drive down to Laurium was an easy one. The road is hard-packed snow down to Phoenix, where M-26 turns off, and from there south they had salted it and it was nearly dry and clear. It was probably a good thing I was later, because the blood drawer came back from lunch as I was getting signed in. There wasn't anybody else there, so it was a quick in and out. I debated in what order I should do my chores, but then I forgot to throw a cooler in the truck, so I went to Erickson Feed first and got my birdseed. They had a real buy on suet cakes, so I got a dozen more, even though I bought some (at $1 more each) at Wal-Mart. My woodpeckers will eat well, at least.
Then it was back to Pat's Foods. I made a mistake, though. There is an independent gas station on the way to the feed store that had gas for $2.58 a gallon, and I went by it. Bad me. I ended up buying the high-priced stuff. Oh, well. After I started gathering things at Pats, I decided that this would be my monthly shopping trip. I did forget a few things - I wanted a few more varieties of cat food, for one - but I laid in enough stuff so that, with my overstuffed freezers, I won't need to shop for quite a while. Only I will run out of salad greens, and I'm not quite sure what to do about that. I didn't buy any boos, and I only bought one piece of meat - they had spare ribs at a good price. And they still had pickled herring. I didn't have my pickled herring for New Year's Eve, but I've eaten enough since. They apparently make their own, and it is really good.
I was late starting back, and i got home about 5:30. Since nothing was in a cooler, I had to unload almost at once, and I had to take most of the frozen stuff downstairs. There's not that much in the fridge, but the freezers are packed. Then I sat down and ate herring and a pasta salad until I was too full to have roast beef, so I had a TV dinner that wasn't at all bad, despite being of the low-everything variety.
Ron came with a big box with all the dry cat food I ordered. Once a year I get three 8 lb bags of the three kinds of dry food the guys eat most frequently. There is one I have to lay in more often, but sometimes Wal-Mart has that. So we had a nice chat, standing in the rather frigid garage.
The weather was nice. Really nice. When I was wandering around in the dark last night, I saw the moon rising behind some clouds, and from the look of the snow after I turned out the light, the clouds mostly went away. I saw her setting early this morning, and there were high hazy clouds in front of her, but they didn't cut down on her light much. It was clear and sunny this morning, and while the hazy clouds came by, they didn't cut off the sunshine until late in the afternoon. The temperature got up to 19º here, and I don't think it got that warm down the peninsula. Early on there was a strong north wind, but it died down after about 4:00 pm. It was a nice day out. I had to wear my sun glasses, and any day I have to do that is a nice one.
I was just looking at the camera pictures to see how the sky was when I wasn't here, and I discovered that we shot the moon this morning! In the first picture, it looks so big, I have to believe it was the clouds in front of it, since in the second picture it looks normal. I think that first picture is kind of cool. It's amazing what my modest little webcam can sometimes do. I sure am glad I looked at the pictures, since nobody mentioned it to me. I know sometimes we catch the moon in March and April, but I guess this must be the first time it's been clear enough in January or February to see it. In almost nine years!
Anyway, with not enough sleep and a tour around a large store, I am tired, and I think I won't be up that late tonight. Or I hope not. Since i have pictures to post, and the month to turn over, I have to try to use FrontPage to upload the website. It occurs to me now that at the beginning of January, I didn't have any problem at all with that, it was only later that I started not being able to make it complete. I hope it will go tonight, but we'll see.
So that was my day, I did my duty and I stocked the freezer, and now I can return to my hibernation. It's a cloudy, quiet night in the field tonight, and I don't think there will be any moon to see.
Last updated 02/08/10 10:12 PM
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