Busy. Cold. Soaking wet. And messy.

Welcome to our home! This is the front closet.

Below is the ficus, which has become habitat for a little tiny spider. Tiny, but prolific. In four days the guy spun a mass of webbing from the ficus ONE METER up to a paper lampshade, then another ONE POINT TWO METERS over to the mantle. And this isn't just one web - it's a six-inch wide mass of strands. You can't see from this picture, but it's quite splendid. Mr HSBoots glanced up at it and said "When was the last time you dusted?"

I don't know, but I can tell you it was after the last time YOU dusted.

I haven't had much knitting time lately. Between the kids, the dog, the garden and the housework (ha ha!) the yarn has had to take a backseat. However, in my waiting-around time I've done one of two socks:

in Lion Brand Magic Stripes yarn. (Thanks for the yarn, Ames!)I'm knitting these at about 7 sts per inch on 2.5 mm Addi Turbos.

Can I just say that the best part of magic looping is the money you save on needles? I used to knit socks with two circulars, which is great except that you have to buy two of the same size needle. A 30 cm needle costs the same as a 100 cm needle...might as well buy just one.

Lastly, it is May the 13th. Please observe my thermostat:

I HAVE THE HEAT ON. It's 8 degrees and pouring outside. Not even the DOG wants to go out today. He went over to his potty corner when he first got up and, shivering, squatted down to answer the call of nature. He looked up at me with a resentful eye - which got a direct hit a second later by a huge, icy drop of rainwater from the pine tree.

It was hilarious, but he didn't much appreciate my laughter. Can't take a joke, I guess.

And last night I drove past the house of pain. Would-be Ike Turner's vehicle was sitting comfortably in the driveway. I guess this means they patched things up, after all.

Ain't love grand.

Dyed in the Wool

Erudite Mondays at HalfSoled Boots
Volume 3, Number 3

The Yarn Lover's Guide to Hand Dyeing
by Linda La Belle

Well, it's been a while since I reviewed a knitting book, hasn't it? I got lost in the heady world of fiction and forgot my other passion.

As an introduction to hand dyeing, this is a pretty good book. I picked it up in the hopes that it would tell me more about plant dyes, but natural colour is not the focus of this book. La Belle takes a wider approach to the craft in this volume, starting with the basics of colour theory, materials needed, and safety.



I was interested in the pages about materials, in particular the encouragement to seek out second-hand enamel pots...the author urges me to ensure there are no chips in the enamel, which could expose the cast iron beneath, affecting the finished colour. Unless, she muses, you LIKE the way the iron changes the colour. Then, you could just keep a chipped pot for that specific colour, like the one with a quarter-sized chip that she keeps to dye a certain green, "saddened" by the iron.



Through the eight chapters of the book, she discusses seven different types of dye, including Kool-Aid and food colouring, as well as commercial acid dyes. She does include instructions for dyeing one project with eucalyptus, available from florists. I was disappointed, though, that there wasn't more discussion of natural dyes - I would have loved to see such things as cochineal, madder, or woad introduced.



I particularly loved the interviews she conducts with seven hand-dyers, including Koigu's Maie Landra. The author has actually visited the studios of all seven dyers, taking beautiful photographs of their works in progress. She includes little details, which are so endearing, about the dyers, their products, and their process.



Also included are twenty patterns for using hand-dyed yarn. The patterns are all quite simple, and range from hats and scarves, to poncho and wrist warmers. There is a very cute pair of ruffle-topped baby socks, the project dyed with eucalyptus.



The photos in this book are really beautiful - they make me want to go to the dyers' studios - or at least buy some of the featured yarn. It's a lovely book for flipping through, looking at the colours.



I would like to give dyeing a try, though I think I would need more space than my current living situation allows. There is enough guidance given in this book to get me off to a good start. I will be seeking out other sources of information on plant dyes, though, which I'd like to try first.

Happy Mothers' Day

Women know
The way to rear up children (to be just)
They know a simple, merry, tender knack
Of tying sashes, fitting baby shoes,
And stringing pretty words that make no sense,
And kissing full sense into empty words.

~Elizabeth Barrett Browning

And this concludes the Longest Meme Ever.

# 7

I am notorious for letting my library books become overdue. My largest fine ever was $57.

I am also notoriously good at writing resumes - you know, the spin doctor part. In the last year of university, when I was trying to get a job, I wrote on my CV "Contributing patron to the Greater Victoria Public Library."

Woman Against.

Edit:

All's well that ends well



although he hasn't finished with the rocks yet...there are three still to be passed. I have to watch for them. Goodie.

===============

Two things happened to me today.

I refused to turn a blind eye.
and
I realised I love my dog.

Poor little Piper started having some problems this afternoon. He was acting funny: weak-legged and faint, he staggered around the yard listlessly, drooling copiously and crying actual tears out of his eyes. He wouldn't eat and he kept retching up water. When he started having a bit of diarrhea I phoned the vet and took him down.

I was afraid it was Canine Distemper Virus. I looked at the symptom list online and saw that he had all but one - the fever. The timeline for CDV didn't really match up, but since the breeder had told us that he didn't have his full immunity until his second shots (which were scheduled for next week), I was paranoid.

First of all, I have obviously been spoiled by the beautiful and wondrous thing that is the Canadian Health Care System (although I did get a $57 ambulance bill once when my daughter and I were taken to hospital following a cataclysmic car wreck), because when the vet told me it was going to cost $300 just to DIAGNOSE the problem, I almost fell over sideways.

After some bloodwork (all perfectly normal) and some x-rays (perfectly NOT normal) they phoned to tell us that he had been eating something he shouldn't have.

Our puppy is basically a warm, furry bag full of rocks.

Thankfully, in the course of nature the rocks have already begun to return to the outside world. There is no blockage. HOWEVER, the poor little thing is dehydrated and has a very irritated and inflamed GI tract, so he has been HOSPITALISED FOR THE NIGHT to be administered IV FLUIDS AND ANTIBIOTICS.

So here we are at 10.00 PM, and the house is quiet. We had the sliding doors between the kitchen and the living room open tonight because there was no little furry, foxy muzzle poking around the corner looking for his chance to bolt out of his puppy-proof area. I left my shoes right inside the back door, with no fears that they will be reduced to a few fragments of damp, shredded canvas.

And you know what? I miss him. I miss him a lot. I am worrying about my poor little pupster, separated from his family and stuck in the animal hospital overnight, where he will probably be bullied into doing the bigger dogs' chores and have his, you know, kibble money taken or whatever. Alternatively, he'll cry through the night and be convinced, by tomorrow, that he'll never see his family again. In the morning he'll be practising his hitchhiking technique and tying his few meager possessions into a bandanna on the end of a stick.

Seriously, I'm so anxious...do you think he'll be okay?

And when I go to pick him up tomorrow afternoon I'm going to let him lick my pewter inukshuk necklace as much as he wants to, and I'm going to let him have Lean Cuts for breakfast AND supper.

===============

Okay, now the not-so-nice part.

I was sitting on a sunny bench outside a local elementary school today, reading "A Thread of Grace" and waiting for my daughter's Guide meeting to finish. Suddenly I heard banging and yelling coming from a house a few doors down the street, then a woman screaming. I looked up to see a man forcing his way into the house, shouting something I couldn't hear. Through the front window I could see a woman leaning against the door trying to keep him out. She was crying "No!! No, don't!! Get out!" He pushed her backwards into the house. I could still hear her screaming.

I immediately reached for my cellphone and called 911, just as I heard another male voice shout "Get your hands off her, @sshoIe!! Get your hands off her!!" The speaker was a neighbour, running over from across the street and following the first guy into the house. The dispatcher answered and I told him everything as it played out. He asked me to get the address...I had to walk down most of the length of the field to see the number. He asked whether there was a vehicle - I couldn't see past the hedge.

Just as he was finishing up my address and phone number, the first guy - the violent, abusive oppressor - came out of the house. I heard a truck start, then saw a beat up Range Rover pull out of the driveway and take off down the street. I told this to the 911 dispatcher who seemed, unlike me, completely NOT relieved by this latest development.

His voice became suddenly sharp. "Can you see the female?"
No.
"Can you hear the female?"
No.
"Can you see the other male who entered the house?"
No.
"Can you hear anything at all?"
I can hear a baby screaming. Maybe a toddler. (And now I've just realised what he is thinking.) You should hurry.
"The boys are on their way, I promise you. Please tell me anything that happens."

It seemed like a really long time. I mean.....a really long time. But it was only a few minutes. Two cars came roaring up, with huge men in bulletproof vests who strode into that house like they owned it, to find who-knows-what. They were unafraid, but wary. I tell you this: in my entire life no man has ever laid an abusive hand on me, and even I was relieved and reassured to see them.

I don't know what happened, but judging from the lack of an ambulance, all was (physically) well with the woman. I hope all was well with the child, too.

I could write a lot here about what it must be like for all these people. The girl behind the door. The children in a house where such things happen. The dispatcher who gets calls like this every single shift. The "boys", heroes of our time, who jeopardise their marriages, their sanity, their health and their lives following up on every call. They go right up, knock on the doors, walk through the house room by room, check on everyone. They ask the woman if she's okay, if she knows her attacker, if this has happened before.

If she wants to press charges.

They look at the little tear-stained child keeping well back, or maybe sitting on the couch with a neighbour or a sister, and they ask if she is all right. They assess. They think about Victim Services, wonder if a call is appropriate. They ask about license plate numbers and places he might be found. They take names, and numbers, and talk about restraining orders and safe houses and shelters and do you have someone you can call?

And then the worst part - or what I imagine must be the worst part. They give one last piece of advice, take one last look around the place. They glance over at that little person who has seen what no person should have to see, and they walk back out the door. Drive away. Make their report. Finish their shift.

None of us can really do anything, can we? I mean, nothing changes. This probably won't be The Last Straw that causes a complete break between them. This probably won't be the thing that convinces her that he's a worthless sack of shit who should be kept away from her and her child. The best I can hope for is that they track that abusive bastard down, arrest him, and in the process intimidate the hell out of him. I can hope the coward realises that someone will hear, someone will see, and he will have to answer for it.

But, whether it changes anything or not, by God no man gets away with that kind of crap anywhere near me.

And Something from Ovid Here.

The weekend was packed with energy and action - lots of things happened. Some of them I'll get to another time, but can I draw your attention to my very impressive, brand-new, raised vegetable bed?


The reason it's impressive is, I made it yesterday with all recycled materials. I went into the gloom of the shed and dragged things around, unearthing clay pots and pressure-treated beams that have lain forgotten for years before we even moved in. They provided excellent habitat for enormous spiders and wintering bumblebees, but it was time they were used for a greater purpose.



It's a small beginning. When we moved in here a few years ago, I tried to grow vegetables. I failed spectacularly, harvesting a miserable, terrified collection of anemic spinach and pale, stunted carrots.

I think it was the soil.

So this year, I started from the very bottom. I cut down and removed three inches of sod, laid a black weed barrier, boarded off the (small) area, and am going to fill it with a mixture of compost, some of the soil from the original garden, and Sea Soil. I do have to buy the compost, but it won't take much to fill this 2 meter by 1 meter bed.

I am not much of a vegetable grower, being more interested in perennials and flowers of all description. But veg gardens are the way of the future as well as the past, because as gas prices go, so go food prices.

By the way, we are at $1.26 per liter now ($5.04/gallon). I admit I gloat a little bit, as smugly triumphant as only a busser and a walker and a rider can be, when I hear people grumbling about how much it costs to fill up their Escalade. I am quite keen to see what happens this summer when it reaches the predicted $1.50 per liter and hits these complacent consumers right in the wallet.

Look what else happened this weekend.

Before:


After:



Some small person at the BC Children's Cancer Ward is in serious luck (for a change).

Kaddish

This week was Yom HaShoah - Holocaust Remembrance Day.

I was briefly - and gently - explaining the Shoah (as far as such a thing is possible) to my six-year-old daughter. There was a pause and I could see she was trying to understand. After a moment she said in a sad voice, "I'm so sorry that happened."

And so am I.

Thank you Heatherly, for reminding me of the day.