Auntie Em! Auntie Em!

No, I do not have an Aunt named Em; I am, of course, reciting a line from the infamous Wizard of Oz. And the reason for this is the Wind (winds like these must be capitalized) and Buckets o' Rain. I swear to God I thought my bedroom window was going to blow in last night. It didn't.

The ferry was rumored to have cancelled, but it came. I'm glad I wasn't on it; I'll bet it was a helluva ride.

 Damage reports this morning included one washed out road at the head of the cove and one washed out walkway to the library. There were multiple cave-

ins where the roads meet the harbor, big ugly chunks of missing banks that washed away. It's almost painful to look at, all this mud and downed trees, everything is so dirty and dull and dead. I need Spring.

     And it's coming! We changed the clocks last night, losing precious knitting time. It's not clear how the hour that was lost ends up being off my knitting time, yet somehow...it just is.

     Pretty soon there will be buds, and daffodils, and....deer eating them. You know it's Spring when you see me fly out of my house in pajamas waving a cast iron frying pan at the deer eating my "fill in the blank with any plant variety that deer are not supposed to like to eat, or are poisonous to deer but they eat it anyway". Hardy stock, our deer. I've seen them nibble foxgloves! 'Course they're all inbred and weigh an average of 85 pounds. I'm trying to train this 20 year old, half dead, fat, lazy cat to attack them (at least scare them off), but she uses all her energy to draw breath.

I've recently realized that in every picture I've taken of this cat in the last 5 years she's been asleep. Isn't she cute, she's the best cat ever!

In knitting news:     

I'm plogging away at wicked, getting there...getting there...

But I got bored with all that stockinette....so bored, and so sick of that particular WIP that I decided to knit a dishcloth to take my mind off it. I ended up playing around with-gasp-a crochet hook (haven't done THAT in a while...like 8 years...) and making the cutest and most functional....well, I'll show ya tomorrow. Hope for sun so my pics will come out!

What a wasted day!

It started out bad, and just got worse. Now, remember, compared to the very terrible things that can happen in the world this is not even gonna make the charts. But it's my life, and if I say it stunk, then it stunk.

I totally forgot that there would be a make up ferry trip this morning, the consequence of which is that somebody has to get the mail on and off the ferry. Umm, that would be me. So the post office hours change to 8-11. Now, it's not as if I would have slept any later than 7, but I most assuredly would have gone to bed before 3:30 had I realized I had to be up, dressed, and coherent by 7am!

Not a good start to the day. I know I made a phone call at 7am, and have absolutely no recollection of what was said either by me or to me. Sorry, LJ. 

     But it all got done; mail was sent off, incoming mail was sorted, and all was right with the world. I went home, intending to do the usual Friday routine of cooking and cleaning, and was so tired that I really accomplished nothing. I felt like my clothes dryer, which is not fully functioning right now, and took four hours to dry a load of clothes. How's my electric bill going to be next month?

     I'm watching "Pride and Prejudice" right now. Don't I wish I had the grace and control Elizabeth portrays when she essentially tells creepy cousin Mr. Collins to pack sand. Classic.

     Not a single stitch was knitted today. I'm playing with Excel to chart out the stripes for that @#$^^&% sweater. I can't wait to get that OFF MY NEEDLES! I sketched out a fisherman's guernsey yesterday, and I can't wait to get moving on that!

Holy Crow! The day has just been salvaged! At 11:43, yet! 

     It's official, Frenchboro will now be enjoying an additional round trip ferry trip on Mondays, courtesy of my very favorite Captain, Kim Strauss. This is HUGE news for us!

There will be dancing in the streets! 

Is it Spring?

Yesterday we endured snow, ice, and rain. High winds and higher seas caused the ferry to cancel. No mail. Then the rain came down in buckets and washed it all away, leaving us with this mess.

Mud. 

I grew up just outside of Boston, and what I thought was mud turned out to be plain old dirt. I met real mud when I got married and moved to Maine. Our first house was in the woods, with a 'dirt road' for a driveway. It was so bad one Spring that I threw down some old boards I dug out of the barn and 'walked the plank' to go from car to house. I never wore a white uniform to work, it wouldn't have stood a chance.(and the blue scrubs didn't fare much better.)

When we moved out here to the island, I thought those days were behind me. Why? It's still Maine. There's still dirt. But it wasn't the woods anymore; we had actual neighbors, and that sidetracked me. 

We moved here in November. The ground was frozen,. We had just had a Nor'easter and there was a foot of snow on the ground. I went through the whole of the winter with nary a thought of mud. ...Aaand then one day, I stepped out the front door and into the driveway....and sank ankle deep into mud. It was like quicksand, and for one quick moment I was a little panicked that I was just going to keep on sinking up to my neck (oh, the drama) but I did that high-stepping maneuver you do in that situation and only lost a shoe. Seriously, I had to dig it out with a garden trowel. And that is why, people, when you come to our island, you will see men, women, and children of all ages wearing fishing boots from March until July. That is mud season out here, and the day you don't wear your boots is the day you step into a sinkhole and lose a shoe. Maine is just not a patent leather Mary Jane's kinda place, I guess.

These tire tracks are the moat that has to be traversed to get to the post office. It is all befitting my plan to be Queen. 

On to some knitting! I have ripped out 'wicked' again. 

Yup, you heard me right. I do believe this is the 5th re-knit on this sweater. My latest rip was not a construction issue, but a color issue. I didn't like the stripes, and re-designed the stripe pattern. I almost broke down and took a pic to show you. But I didn't.

Instead, check out what a beautiful Spring day it was!