It’s time…despite the gorgeous, warm weather today, winter is coming. Clocks have been turned back, days are shortening. The garden, which was overtaken by the late summer burst of weeds two months ago, has begun to succum to the cold. The last remaining beauties unfold, to be overcome by the browns of winter in no time. Here is a short photo essay that will have to carry my mind through the winter.

From September, in my parents garden. A dark chocolatey sunflower that I picked and put a bit of Ampelopsis (porcelainberry vine) with, for the contrast of those wacky blue berries with the unbelievable dark brown velvet of the sunflower:

Late blooming dahlias…a gorgeous pinky mauve color–hubby’s plants:

Real fall-blooming Saffron Crocus from our herb ‘circle’. I picked the stamens once to use in a dish, but it was so much work. Now I understand why saffron is so expensive!

An Anise catterpillar, eating a piece of bronze fennel. They turn into a type of swallowtail butterfly. A few weeks ago they were here, fattening up. A few days later they were gone. Such wonderful colors. I name them Luigi, as I always think of Anise/Fennel as an Italian herb, and Luigi just seems right.

One Freaking Fig–had this plant for 4 long seasons now and I got to eat this one tiny, pathetic, nearly ripe fig from it this fall. It’s finally got a decent fruit set this year, that will never ripen now–too late, too cold. So much for buying ‘hardy’ Russian fig varieties, right? I’ll give you one more season, silly fig, then we’ll decide your fate.

And I leave you with this stunning beauty, the last Chicago Peace Rose in bloom.

Just a quickie post to add a photo of some yarn I’ve been working on. Though I like most of them a lot, it’s not exciting stuff from a really creative standpoint, except the chocolatey brown one that is a scrap yarn. I have to admit that I just love the scrap yarns–anybody’s scrap yarns, not just my own–I love running across them when browsing all my spinning sisters’ sites! Back to the chocolate yarn–I was thinking of calling it “life is like a box of chocolates” because it’s true that when you card up that pile of scraps, “…you never know what you’re gonna get”, when you spin it up! It ended up being chocolate surprise, in my shop…you get the idea.

Anyhow, here is a small benchload of yarn, some for an order to a shop, plus a few that are already for sale on my site. I am working on ’shiny, soft, very usable, long yardage’ yarns, mostly with beads for the yarn store order because that’s what they want, but I’m really aching to do some more outrageous yarn for my own shop and to get the creative juices flowing again before the baby comes in a month and my life is 100% kid-focused for a while.

Hopefully I’ll be back soon and post some garden pics, wip (I’m actually KNITTING a shawl out of silk sari yarn, whoa!), and spinning a whole pound of a gorgeous wool blend to make something for myself–maybe a shrug?–not sure. Also pics from our trip to Rhinebeck as well as our new fibery friend, Andora the Angora (jersey wooly rabbit) who my husband fell in love with and brought home to add to our fuzzy menagerie–we now have 3 matching pets!

OK, it’s a lame excuse for a post, but it’s what I’ve got for now. Too difficult to think and write my own commentary lately because it requires thinking clearly. Since I’m not at the top of my game right now, it’s easier to comment on these questions in the interest of letting friends know I’m still here! So here goes:

1. Grab the nearest book. Open the book to page 123. Find the fifth sentence.Post the text of the next 3 sentences on your blog:

“The maneuver to be performed was of the simplest–point to point in space in a region which sould be treated as free of gravity strain since the two ships were practically the same distance from the Sun and Mars was too far away to matter. There were four simple steps: cancellation of the slight vector difference between the two ships (the relative speed with which the War God was pulling away), accelleration toward the War God, transit of the space between them, deceleration to match orbits and lie dead in space relative to each other on arrival.
Steps one and two would be combined by vector addition; step three was simply waiting time. The operation would be two maneuvers, two blasts on the jet. But step three, the time it would take to reach the War God, could be enormously cut down by lavish use of reactive mass.”

From Robert Heinlein’s “The Rolling Stones”, a 1952 sci-fi book intended for teens (really, I think the publisher felt that Heinlein’s young adult writings were intended for boys, since many girls at that time were not generally thought to be interested in science fiction. Honestly, though, I doubt Heinlein himself could agree with that attitude. His writings about women were very liberal for their time–one of the reasons I love his books. In this book for example, the mother is an M.D. and the Grandmother is an engineer.)

2.stretch your left arm out as far as you can…what do you touch first?
a stirring stick in a ziplock bag, saved for color matching–from our latest painting adventure

3. what was the last thing you watched on tv?
the Yankee game

4. without looking, what time is it?
9:30am

5. what is the actual time?
10:06am

6. with the exception of the computer, what can you hear?
little A stomping around the back room that she’s not supposed to be in, cicadas buzzing outside in the trees, the sound of hammering and a nail gun, putting a new roof on a house a half block away.

7. when did you last step outside?
last night on our way home from the ‘good’ ice cream shop, yum!

8. what are you wearing?
an old white T-shirt from a wholesale nursery in the Chicagoland area, and big ugly stretchy gray knit maternity shorts.

9. when did you last laugh?
this morning when A studied the calendar on the fridge and proclaimed “…we’re going to go boating soon” as if she was planning our family social events for the next week.

10. seen something weird lately?
two stunningly beautiful goth lesbians kissing tenderly at the airport yesterday…you don’t see a sight like that too often around here.

11. what did you dream last night?
i have no idea

12. what’s on the walls of the room you’re in?
salvaged “temporary” (3 years old?) paneling that is in place to cover the bare studs until we remodel the back room someday. It is covered with little A’s art work, crusty old white plaster on one wall, a very large portrait of my parents with some of the packing materials still on the frame until I can find a proper home for the photo. A gold charger (large plate) with oak leaves from a beautiful 150+ year old tree our neighbors removed for no good reason, a watercolor painting of maple leaves that I did a long time ago.

13. what do you think of this survey?
interesting–thanks for posting it Natasha.

14. what was the last film you saw?
in the movies, like the real theatre? I have no idea–yeah it’s been that long.

15. if you became a multi-millionaire overnight what would you buy first?
Pay off our two mortgages, buy some land in upstate NY or PA or both, and hire a property manager, construction crew, and cleaning service to be available at a moment’s notice. Buy a biodiesel or new fuel efficient car. Help family and friends with their finances…who knows really…

16.tell me something about you that i don’t know.
I can’t stand ground beef. Give me a good steak, no problem, but ground beef disgusts me…it’s a texture thing, I guess, blech.

17. what would you change about the world?
I would stop the takeover of the world by huge profit-taking corporations who trample on the rights of everyone. If huge corporate profits didn’t control government, I believe that the world would be a cleaner, safer, more peaceful place where individuals would be able to maintain our privacy and freedom.

18.do you like to dance?
no, not really, though someday I’d love to learn to swing dance

19. imagine your first child is a girl, what do you name her?
already came true…it starts with A

20.boy?
according to our very recent ultrasound, the 2nd child on the way is a boy. My husband thinks he should be named Zeus, and I think not. Still working on this one.

21. would you ever consider living abroad?
probably, though it might depend a lot on #15. Craig lived in Hong Kong as a teen, and that fascinates me, as does the idea of living in a villa in Italy, but honestly, I’d have to try it out. I really do love the Northeast of the USA–NY and PA in particular. I think it would be hard to tear myself away from this area, friends and family too. It would be nice to live somewhere truly safe, where we could walk or bike to everything we need. Somewhere that has a weekend market with fresh farm products and handmade goods would be my preference as well, and it would have to have definite seasons–nothing tropical or frozen solid!

Sorry for the long silence, folks. Just writing now to flash my new stash, and I’ll play catch-up later on the subjects of life and all the stuff that’s kept me from blogging for months.

So yesterday, on a ridiculously hot day, our little family made a trip into NYC and headed to the Central Park Zoo. It’s really my favorite zoo–quite small–with some fun animals and a nice petting zoo, as well as some really nice plantings–which, quite frankly, I enjoy more than the animals, but that’s my horticulturist self speaking  Of course, little girls are generally more enamored with sea lions at feeding time than gorgeous Oak Leaf Hydrangea in blushing bloom, but she’ll learn to love both in time.

So anyhow, after torturing this large 23 weeks preggo woman in the sweltering heat as we watched polar bears sweat and ice cream melt faster than we could eat it, my wonderful Husband ‘enabled’ me to venture onto the 8th floor of a building in Midtown Manhattan, to a non-descript brushed stainless steel door, behind which lurked the tempting showroom of habu textiles, a Japanese specialty yarn shop I’ve been aching to see in person. Dear Craig patiently assisted while little A sorted through some sale yarns neatly stacked in baskets on the floor in the main room, and I oohed and aahed in the tiny room that held the tempting display of sample skeins. After not too long and nearly $200 later, I ended up with a gorgeous stash of yarn and threads to fondle and use for many months ahead:

I admit that the photo doesn’t look huge for the money spent, but as plying thread for my handspun (which was my goal), it should last me quite a while. The yardage here is just massive…probably several thousands of yards in total. The stash includes gorgeous white India Silk, ‘fique’ yarn (pineapple fiber), paper/nlyon moire, assorted cotton and linen tapes and yarns, several cones of tsumugi silk in assorted colors (my favorite textured plying thread so far), a fantastic thin white-ish silk with fiddlehead fern ‘cotton’ stuck in it, rough and rustic Kenaf fiber, a natural dark brown thin silk called Taira, and a bunch of small miscellaneous yarn remnants. I also bought a few oddities that I hope to be able to work with–some hemp bark, a bag of Curicura silk cocoons in a golden honey color, and a very cool vintage wooden spool with Chinese characters on it, that Hubby wanted (how could I refuse after he indulged me like this?). The spool is a nice curiosity and will also make a good niddy noddy for tiny skeins now and then…

After spending nearly $200 , I can honestly breathe a sigh of relief that I’m not much of a knitter or weaver yet, or the possibilities here would have been endless, I’m sure. I tend to lean toward very rustic materials, so I barely scratched the surface of what’s available there, despite the small size of their showroom…aahhhhhh, habu. If you ever get a chance to go there, don’t pass it up! I can’t wait to use some of this stunning fiber. Keep an eye on my web site as it’ll start appearing in my handspun over the next few weeks!