Written last week but since high speed internet hasn't made it down our dirt road I'm finally posting! It’s greenhouse time on our
farm. Twelve hundred baby lavender plants, roughly as tall as my pinky finger, line the floor of the hoop Quonset style greenhouse. Because of the fluctuating temperature in Oklahoma during the late winter the greenhouse must be monitored for temps and even humidity. A few hours span of time can swing the outside temperature from 65 to 32 degrees – like Sunday night.
Expecting cold winter weather I headed to the farm as Christopher’s father returned to the city Sunday afternoon. I was loaded with groceries and lots of knitting. In my bag were all three socks plus the Huck Lace Shawl, which I planned to frog and begin again. One of the last things I did before leaving Tulsa was to check iTunes for podcast downloads. The little whirling arrow began to download the new offering from Lime and Violet, and Cast On as well. I smiled as Chris looked over my shoulder at my laptop as I slightly delayed my departure. He knows. He teases. Thank the gods he tolerates my insanity about knitting.
Nearly 48 hours of alone time to knit by the fire. I’m a lucky woman. I know.
Shortly after dark the winds began. Then the rain arrived. As I watched the red and yellow band of storms nudge across the radar screen on the television I re-cast on the Huck Lace Shawl. Instead of the indicated 36 rows of garter stitch I opted for 24. Call it impatience or an attempt to make up for past mistakes. The Malabrigo Baby Lace doesn’t like to be frogged. It had already felted or fulled onto itself, so the stitches fought their release from each other. I decided to let them win the tussle and snipped the working yarn and tossed the whole four inches of knitted shawl into the trash - with a small pang of regret.
The wind howled and I stepped out to the porch for firewood to feed the Wood King. It’s an ancient mammoth pot bellied beast of a stove. Not efficient I’m told but I’ll take character over efficiency. It pops and crackles and keeps us warm and happy, inside and out.
Lime and Violet (or Violet and Carin as the case may be) entertained me as I kept the TV on mute and watched for occasional storm updates. After several hours of increasing wind and trips to the porch for wood, stepping over Martha, our not-so-bright farm mut, I gave up the endless bouts of Dish searching for the satellite. The storm would continue its path eastward from Tulsa toward Lost City regardless of what info or security the radar offered.
My eyes were tired so I put the shawl down and crawled into bed with Tolstoy. Over a thousand pages into War and Peace and I’m still happy to pick up the tome. It wasn’t long before I caught my head nodding and thought it best to flip off the bedside light.
Around 4am I woke to feed the beast. Only a few red coals remained so I stoked the fire and flipped on the TV to see if there were any alerts. The storm had passed and satellite access was possible again. Finding nothing new going on the weather world I flipped over to DIY to see if I could actually catch Knitty Gritty. In our area the Dish Network people have the audacity to line most of the daytime programming with home improvement how-to shows and anything regarding sewing on during the wee hours. Unfortunately Knitty Gritty doesn’t air on Mondays at 4:30 am as it does on the other days. Thwarted! Tonight, maybe I’ll set the alarm.
Labels: huck lace shawl, Knitty Gritty, lavender, Lime and Violet, Malabrigo, War and Peace
