All the same as usual around here, really

So, the state of emergency continues around here, and I know it probably sounds unusual, but things around here are more or less the same as usual.  I've been working from home for 8 years now, and I'm continuing to work from home.  I haven't lost any clients and I'm lucky to be busy...even though sometimes I'm too busy.  I work 50+ hours a week, and that's more than enough.  I typically shop for groceries once every couple of weeks, and I'm still doing that.  My stores have had most of the things I want, although there was a short supply of toilet paper for a while, but I had plenty on hand already.

My province is in an official state of emergency, with no public gatherings, no non-essential businesses being open, schools closed, and all the other usual things that everyone is dealing with now in 'lockdown' situations.  We also have closed provincial borders.  I can't visit my parents in Nova Scotia, nor can they visit me.  The provinces are like states in the United States.  I'm not sure how many states have their borders with other states closed.  Not enough, I'm sure!

All our provincial efforts are paying off.  We've had a total of 117 cases of COVID-19.  That's across the whole province!  77 of those cases are recovered.  So, we only have 40 active cases now.  A total of 12 people have been hospitalized, but we now only have 5 people in hospital, 3 in ICU.  We have had zero deaths in my province.  Not a single one.  We had an early, rapid shutdown response with fairly consistent abiding by the rules by most people.  We are very lucky, but if everywhere had taken such strict, early measures, things would probably be a lot better all around the globe.

I really haven't been particularly worried or stressed, and I'm still not, especially given how well our province is doing.  We're not out of the woods yet, but they say that the economy may soon start to open up again if we continue to have such low numbers.  For the past couple of weeks, our daily new case number has been 0, 1 or 2.  It goes to show that obeying the rules and acting responsibly really does flatten the curve.  We also have a relatively low density in our urban areas, and a lot of people live fairly rurally, which helps keep distancing easy.

I have been going for walks in the local park (where the trails have been made one-way only to support distancing).  I saw a muskrat on the weekend!

I'm also keeping busy with my usual things around the house, including some crocheting on my Sophie's Universe blanket.


The snow is still in the yard but it's melting and a couple of the raised beds now have no more snow on them.  I have some crocuses that are blooming in the flower bed that gets the most sun.  Some of the other flower beds are still completely snow covered.

I turned 51 last weekend.  It was a bit sad not to be able to visit my parents for my birthday, but it's for the best until things are safer for them and for me.  Marc baked me a cake, which was really sweet of him, and it was extremely yummy.

In other news, I set up the incubator to replenish some flock members, and the first chicks hatched today.  They are darling, as one might expect.  Let's hope for lots of hens!

Also this week, the moths have finally started coming back.  I'm using moth bait this year, which is a mix of brown sugar, molasses, yeast, red wine, and fermented apple pieces.  It's working really well.  So far, I've had a lovely mix of spring species.  I'm really happy to be mothing again.

Wanton pinion moth (Lithophane petulca)


Straight-toothed sallow (Eupsilia vinulenta):  one specimen with orange spots and another with white spots.  I find this kind of diversity within species to be quite fascinating.

Hoary pinion (Lithophane fagina)

Dot-and-dash Swordgrass (Xylena curvimacula)...doesn't it look like it's wearing an evening gown?!

Plush-naped pinion (Lithophane pexata)

So all in all, things are just about normal around here, and I'm really glad I am a bit of a quirky introvert with hobbies that allow me to stay home and amuse myself, and I'm really glad to have a home-based career.  Hope everyone in my blogosphere is staying healthy and calm.  Carry on!

Long Time!

It's been a long time since my last post.  I feel as if things have been busy lately, which they have, but I also feel that I've been spending a bit more time on some craft projects, so that has been a focus and and blogging sort of took a break.  I'll try to do a little round-up today of the view from here.

First of all, we're in the grip of a really early winter.  Usually we have a couple of minor snowfalls in December but the real snow and bitter cold starts in January.  This year, things are all mixed up.  We have already had 2 significant snowfalls and have over a foot of snow on the ground.  It has been absurdly cold for this time of year - well below normal.  Temperature records have been set, as well as snowfall.  Many people in our area lost power in the two storms but we were lucky and retained power here.  Here's how the garden looks now.  It makes me pretty miserable.

Our menagerie of critters is well.  The chickens do not like the snow and typically stay inside the coop except to go out to the heated waterer.  They also like to eat snow.  Silly birds!  Not many eggs at this time of year, and I don't provide supplemental lighting to boost egg production because I think the hens deserve a break.  Here's a picture of some of them pecking at the snow. 

This year is expected to be an irruption year for finches on the east coast, and so far, that's proving to be true.  If you're not a bird person, you may not know what an irruption year is.  No, it's not a misspelling of eruption (those are for volcanoes).  An irruption is a significant migration of large numbers of birds outside their typical range.  Typically this happens as a result of food scarcity in the normal range.  Finches are particularly subject to irruptions when certain seeds are less available.  This year, seeds from conifer trees and birches are poor, so finches are poised for irruption moves.  If you're interested, here's some information on expected 2018/19 winter irruptions:  http://jeaniron.ca/2018/wff18.htm

I'm very excited to have a regular flock of evening grosbeaks visiting my feeders, which is certainly not normal for this area.  I'm hoping to see some siskins and redpolls if I'm lucky!  Here's a male evening grosbeak.

I have noticed very heavy feeding on all my feeders (currently 6 active feeders) for birds in the past couple of weeks.  We have a lot of black-capped chickadees (more than usual), red-breasted nuthatches, goldfinches, blue jays, dark-eyed juncos and both hairy and downy woodpeckers.  Keep your feeders stocked - it's a tough winter for many bird species.  Here's the flock of grosbeaks at my tray feeder.

I've been busy with yarn-related projects too.  I'm quite pleased with how this plain-weave wrap turned out.  I used a lot of different warp yarns with a rayon weft. 

It's so important to focus on colour when everything outside is bleak, cold and white or grey.

I also finished the first block of a crochet project I'm working on called the Stained Glass Lantern Afghan from Lilla Bjorn.  I'm quite pleased with how that's turned out as well.

So, that's a little bit of an update.  I'll see if I can write a few more posts in the coming weeks to try to get caught up with all the things I've thought about writing.

Friday's Hunt v 3.08

I completely forgot until about 6:30 pm today, that it's Friday, and thus the day for Friday's Hunt, hosted by Eden Hills.  I am so woefully unprepared.  This week has truly been one work project after another, every day and every evening.  

Starts with H
I decided to join a crochet-along for a specific project and I purchased the kit for participating.  This was before I was beset with some of the contract work that has come my way, so I haven't started it yet.  I'm not sure when I will start it, given my workload, but at least I have the kit.  The project is called the Hygge wrap.  So my H word is Hygge. What the heck is that, you're probably asking.  Well, there is a postcard included in the kit with the definition of this interesting Danish word (pronounced Hoo-ga).  It doesn't really have a direct English translation, but "cozy" comes close.  So, here's to all of us having a little more Hygge in our lives - I think we all need it.

Here's the colours in my kit - those who know me well will recognize these are "my colours" without a doubt!

Here's how the finished shawl will look (although this one is in different colours)

Week's Favourite
We had a lot of icicles this week with all the snow we had, and then some subsequent melting.  I took this picture of an unusual formation in the line-up of icicles.  You can see how at one point, the two icicles might have been connected by the larger flows at the top.  I'm not quite sure how this formation happened, but it was unusual, so it's my favourite for this week.

Chiaroscuro or Shadow
Teresa's prompt was for chiaroscuro or shadow. I confess, I had to Google chiaroscuro. The definitions I found were mostly along the same line - an effect of contrasted light and shadow created by light falling unevenly or from a particular direction on something. As I said, I totally forgot about this blog until today, so I had to think about pictures I'd taken that might qualify. Then I realized that today I took some pictures of Pippin in the living room, where he has taken to finding a sunny spot to relax in, somewhat like a dog or a cat will do. I converted one of my favourites to black and white, to emphasize the shadow aspect. The window outline is transferring onto the carpet, which is reflecting light up onto the underside of Pippin's fur. It's definitely "light falling unevenly or from a particular direction" so I hope this one fits the prompt!

Spinning Retreat Project Pantheon

I have been trying to catch up on blog topics and this is one that I missed, so I am covering it today!  I went to the Maritime Spinners' Retreat in October and enjoyed a wonderful weekend of spinning and friendship with spinners from Canada and the US.  One of the options when signing up for the retreat was buying 4 oz of a specially dyed retreat fibre that we would all work with to create a project.  We were required to spin the fibre (using whatever method we liked) and could combine it with up to 4 oz of another fibre (whether in the spinning process or the project-making process).  Everybody was supposed to make a final project with their spun fibre.  60 lots of fibre were sent out and 39 projects were submitted, including mine.

It was absolutely amazing to see the breadth of project ideas and spinning styles across the 39 participants.  I think the fibre enthusiasts who read my blog will enjoy viewing some of the different projects that were presented.  I don't have a picture of the fibre we all started with, but the felted scarf below was made form the fibre and was one of the prizes, along with the book.  From looking at the scarf, you can see the colours of the original fibre we all had to work with.  The locks on the fringe of the scarf were not part of the original fibre, nor the white spots on the scarf.

This picture shows some of the range of projects.  My woven coil-spun scarf is in the lower right of the picture.  The hat is a colourwork project that added white yarn as part of the additional fibre.

This is a cleverly constructed hat that made a wonderful use of the colours in the fibre and great use of i-cord as well.

The basket-work pillow cover is beautiful, as is the woven scarf next to it.

There were many weaving projects - more than might be expected.  This beautiful scarf was one of the winning projects.

Most of us did a little "write-up" about our project to accompany it.

 I absolutely adored this scarf - it was one of my favourite projects.

Two more beautiful woven scarves showing the amazing diversity of projects despite the same starting material.

This project is the one I voted for.  We all had to vote for our favourite.  I love houndstooth weaving, and this project really stood out to me in the way it showcased the fibre colours in a simple, but very effective way.

There were some whimsical projects.

This purse was another winner!  Such creative thinking!

There were some beautiful shawls.  This one won a prize, and deservedly so!

A beautiful woven shawl next to a lovely knitted stole.

A knitted shawl with a beaded edge.

More beautiful shawl knitting!

This shawl was from someone new to spinning!  Wow!

There were hats and mittens as well!

The entries were rounded out by an assortment of scarves and cowls.

This one has an interesting shape.

One of the few crocheted entries.

This cowl was made by someone who carefully separated the colours and made a cowl with a graduated colour scheme.

This gorgeous cowl was made by a friend of mine who took the bold step of combining her fibre with a rainbow fibre to create a luxurious woolen-spun yarn.

This entry combines the fibre with sparkle, and then into a project with a sparkly purple fibre.  Wow!

Beautifully coordinated sets featuring lovely buttons!

It was really wonderful to look at each project, the spinning styles, the project ideas, the fibres that were used in combination with our provided fibre, and the tremendous show of diversity and skill from all the participants.