Valentine's, and Other Days

February seems to be getting away from me.  Actually, the spring term in general has turned into a major game of catch-up.  I had my schedule fairly well planned, with my three part-time jobs:  On Mondays and Fridays I would work in the collection, Tuesdays and Thursdays would be in the costume shop, and Wednesdays at the museum.  The best laid schemes of mice and men . . . . .  

The problem is that the department also needed me to teach a textile lab (saying "no" wasn't really an option as the collection job probably would have gone away with it).  It's not difficult, but it does take 4-5 hours a week (2 to teach, the rest to prep, grade, and help train the other lab instructors).  It's just hard to wedge it all in.  Today, for example, I put in a couple of hours in the collection in the morning, worked at the museum in the middle of the day (including giving the opossum a manicure) and then back for the lab instructor meeting and training.  No wonder I'm tired when I get home!

Valentine's day was . . . different.  I worked, and Bob helped me.  The Museum had it's annual "Frolics of Florida" where I give a talk on weird animal mating habits and variations of body part designs (while keeping a straight face).  This is followed by a night walk of the zoo trail and more body part discussion.  It's actually a lot of fun, and a good fundraiser (30 people attended).  If you want an idea of the tone of the evening, watch "True Facts about the Angler Fish" on YouTube.

"Spamalot" has now opened (I'll be seeing it next week) so I'm through sewing/weaving for that.  Here's a sneak preview of the sample costume for the Knights of Ni with the shoulder panels that I wove.  (the real costume is gray felt with vines and leaves on it).

And Matt (the costume designer) made me a thank-you gift!  I was touched, especially considering how busy he was with this play.  He framed a drawing of his concept art for the Knights of Ni and added some collage and a thank-you note.  Such a personal gift--it promptly went into the Hall of Fame (our art gallery) (I tried taking a picture of it but the sketch doesn't show--rats).

Meanwhile, back at the theatre, we're sewing for Dangerous Liaisons.  My job so far has been to construct the humongous stiff petticoats that will hold out the skirts.  Each one is seven gradated layers of heavily gathered net--about 20 yards of net for each one.  Sewing this has been a real struggle--it takes a lot of effort to get it wedged under the sewing machine.  Sometimes I feel a little lost in there.

 

Yes, I'm in there somewhere.

 

Trying to get it all under the needle.  The elbows and shoulders get very sore.

If we turn it upside down, it makes a great cape

Does this petticoat make my butt look big?

 

 

and now--good night to all.



 

 



Ice!

Several years ago I was talking about gardening with visitor from Vermont.  I was giving my latest hint--if you have a problem with armadillos digging up your garden, just lay down some stock fencing on the ground before planting and the wire will discourage them.  "Armadillos?"  he said.  "That's very exotic."

I hadn't thought about them being exotic.  They're pretty common around here.

Ice, on the other hand, is exotic.  Not the tame stuff that comes from the freezer, but real wild outdoor ice.  It's just not something we see very often.  But last Wednesday we had an Ice Day (it was supposed to be a snow day but we were disappointed in that).  Schools were closed, and we got a free day off work.

The rest of the country probably thinks we're wimps.  Someone (from Colorado) sent a friend a cartoon of a glass cubes of ice tipped over on a sidewalk and a caption of "Oh Not!!  Close the Schools!"  They're probably right--after all, it was 30 degrees above zero.  But it was raining ice.  Yes, technically I know that it's called "sleet."  But in my mind, sleet also has snow involved, and I feel it should have wind.  This was just solid rain.  Raindrops on the bushes that didn't fall off, even if you shook them.  Rain that landed and didn't run off or soak in--just whitely lay there. If you walked outside, the raindrops bounced off of you instead of getting you wet.   Fascinating.

It was the sound effect that enchanted me.  A sort of crinkly sound, like being in a huge bowl of Rice Crispies.

 
 
 

So yeah--we were wimps.  Stayed home and lit the fire.  It was fun to look at the ice, but I was glad I didn't have to drive on it.  And it was gone before the novelty wore off (like by the next day).  Today we were back to normal--working in the garden in our T-shirts.

For a day, we liked the ice.  It was exotic.

Ice drops on bamboo

 

 

 

 

Grumpy puffed-u[ peacocks were not intrigued by the ice

Still Life With Lemons

Rob and Jeff's meyer lemon tree was quite prolific this year (they got something like 250 lemons).  Aren't they pretty?

They have since gone under the knife and are now a few jars of delicious marmalade.

Fine Spinning and Wild Weaving

I've been able to play with fibery things for the last couple of weeks.   Last weekend I got to take a two-day spinning class.  Now I taught myself to spin almost 30 years ago,  and I'm pretty good at turning fluff into yarn.   But I like to take classes when I can--I like getting together with other spinners, and I usually don't let myself just sit and spin for two days.   This class was on spinning flax (linen) which I have little experience with  (the English major in me thinks that should be "with which I have little experience.).  What I like about spinning is the tactile experience--the soft fibers slipping through my fingers.  Flax feels a little coarse.  And it's tricky to spin because the fibers are so long--a couple of feet, as opposed to the inches of wool or the fractions of an inch of cotton (that's why you have to fasten it to a distaff).

I don't know if I'll really get into linen (it's not a nice soft yarn to knit or weave with) but I rather enjoyed spinning from the distaff.  And I really liked just sitting and spinning--because that's been more than a week ago, and have a spun any at all since then?  Nope.  Good intentions . . .

But I have been waving.  Next month the School of Theatre will be putting on "Spamalot"--the musical based on Monty Pythons "Search for the Holy Grail."  The costume designer is really going overboard (note to self--take camera to costume shop).  I overheard him ordering jock cups--to be covered in rhinestones.  One set of costumes that I'm helping to build are for the Knights Who Say "Ni!".  Matt wanted heavily textured shaggy shoulder mantles and wondered if I could weave them.

Of course, I say.  It's 8 panels only 2 feet long.  Piece of cake.  I've always said that if I ever figured out how long some projects will take before I decide to start, I'd say forget about it.   If I'm weaving a 24" long dishtowel, I'll allow about an hour per towel.  These shoulder pieces--about three hours each.

Matt wanted texture--he's getting texture.  Normally for weaving, the weft is put onto nice tidy little bobbins and you just put them in a shuttle and toss it back and forth.  For this project, I'm using random pieces of yarn, torn strips of fabric, and raffia.  Each piece is put individually into the warp--and a rough estimate is that I have about 500 individual pieces put into each panel.  It takes quite a bit of time just to cut up the pieces of yarn and rip the fabric into strips.  Instead of my tidy bobbins, I'm weaving from this:

 

 

I've got a dozen different types of yarn, and about 8 difference pieces of fabric (plus black and beige raffia).  Here's the end result (and a closeup):

 



Now the *real* trick is that all 8 have to look about the same--matching randomness?  While it seems random, I'm actually measuring and weighing an equal quantity of each element.

Sheesh!  At the moment, four down and four to go.  All for something that will be on stage for 15 minutes.  But Matt is ecstatic--and I'll even get a special mention in the program.

But for now--have been typing this during the last episode of "Sleepy Hollow" (I have to wait until fall for the new season?), and it's time for bed.

Ewwwww!

I posted a few pictures of ice yesterday.  Bob pointed out that I hadn't noticed that he had put one of his Halloween Howl dolls under the faucet of the outdoor sink (set to drip)

 

 

Ewwwww.

Brrrrrr!

I  know I'm not going to impress anybody north of Florida--but it's cold here!  Water rarely spontaneously hardens here.

It was 22 degrees (wind chill 15) when I went out to feed the critters this morning--taking jugs of warm water and having to break that mysteriously hardened stuff out of their bowls.  The peacocks, unfortunately, are on their own--we wouldn't even be able to talk them into the barn.  All of the penned critters have heat lambs, and Timmy the Squirrel has been brought inside.   I got everyone fed, and all the dripping faucets turned off, and was going to hurry to get back inside--when I decided to just take a walk and enjoy the strange sensation of being . . . warm.

"Warm" is an emotional connotation as well as a temperature.  We do plenty of "hot" around here.  We do unbearable hot, really hot, just plain hot, and sometimes "comfortable."   But to have the sensation of warmth, you really need some cold.  Think about it--snuggly sweatshirts, wooly socks, mugs of hot cocoa, sitting in front of a fire.  All of this just doesn't work if there's not some cold around.

So I took a walk (short one--have to get to work sometime).  Cold air on my face--it has a strange brittle quality when you breath it.   Dry air--not used to that either.  All of the humidity turned to frost and sat on the ground.  Somehow, when it's cold, your inner thermostat kicks on.  It's not at all the same as being "chilled."  I get miserably chilled  when it's in the mid to high 40's--maybe it's because the humidity is still in the air instead of on the ground, but it just soaks into your bones (and if you bundle up, you sweat because it's not that cold).

It feels wonderful.  Pity that we just came off Christmas break so I really can't skip work just to enjoy it.   I know that if I lived anywhere north of here the novelty would soon wear off (just as Northerners visiting here are briefly fascinated by the fact that the thermometer needs three digits but quickly learn to head for the air conditioning).

My sympathies for those who have to endure this for weeks on end--but I'm off to find my alpaca socks, and my scarves, and some hot tea . . .warmth!

A Disappointing but Lovely Day

We are on the last weekend of our break--Monday we return to work :-(

So *of course* we set the alarm to a little after 5:00 (a.m.!), get up to face temps in the 20s (well . . . 29), drove into town to pick up  Rob and Jeff and headed to St. Marks.  At the park there we joined a large crowd of about 1500 people and some impressive camera equipment.

Bob and Jeff practiced seeing something exciting.

Why were we all out there in the cold post-dawn morning?  Because we would have a chance of seeing this.

 

 

That's an ultralight leading a small flock of young whooping cranes on an almost 1100 mile flight from Wisconsin to their winter refuge at St. Marks.  As of this morning, they had 28 miles to go, and would be flying over the park.

 

It didn't happen  :-(   The flyover originally was supposed to be on New Year's Day--but it was raining.  The second and third were too windy.  Today almost seemed perfect.  Almost.  Put a capital "A" on that.  The winds aloft were too variable and the birds couldn't line up alongside the plane and kept going back down. 

 

I can't help but feel sorry for their escorts.  The flight has taken 95 days so far--and there's only 28 miles to go.  The next 3 days don't look likely.  Me?  I'd be shoving them in the back of a van, drive them to the refuge and call the job done.

 

So what does one do when you've gotten up before the crack of dawn and The Event doesn't happen?  Well--you enjoy the gift of a beautiful (if chilly) morning with friends.

 

First things first--hit a local Southern restaurant for the breakfast buffet.  Fortified with cheese grits,  eggs, biscuits, gravy and hot coffee, we were ready to go to Wakulla Springs for a morning boat ride.

 

Uh--turns out they don't even sell tickets for the rides unless the temperature is at least 40.  That's usually not a problem here--but it was only 34.  That meant killing an hour or more so we wandered out to the boat dock and eventually over to the two-story diving platform.

 

Where we watched the manatees--at least 20 of them.  I don't know what it is about these big gray blobby creatures that just makes people go weak in the knees.  They certainly don't win any beauty contests.  Any sailor who thought that one was a mermaid must have been looking through the bottom of the rum barrel.  But they're adorable--especially if you have a mother and baby.



We were happy to be watching them from the tower.  But one young couple braved the cold waters of the spring to go swimming with them (this is allowed as long as you don't try to touch them).  Granted, the water was warm relative to the outside air temperature.  But relativity be damned--the springs run 68 degrees year round, and that's *cold* water.  We weren't the only ones wondering what the heck they were doing--at one point they were surrounded by seven manatees, who did not know about the "no touching" rule.  I hope it was worth the hypothermia.

It was finally warm enough to go out on the boat.  The morning light was beautiful.

Despite the chill, we saw a good number of birds and several alligators.

We dropped the guys off at home and went to the Museum so that I could work with the hawk for awhile.  Judith--the woman who cooks on the wood-burning stove in the old farmhouse--had made homemade peach cobbler so we visiting there post-hawk.

All in all, we had a completely beautiful day.  And, with any luck, there will be another flock of whooping cranes next year.