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Posts Tagged ‘snowfall derby’

Northern cotton

30 Mar

northern-cotton.jpg A couple inches of thick, heavy, wet snow coated everything Friday morning, and made me glad I live here. So beautiful! By Saturday afternoon, most of the snow coating the trees had blown off. But these bushes (in Meridian Park, down by the canal) look just much like cotton ready to be picked.

We had a great walk yesterday, through woods & fields, on paths we’d never seen before. The sun was shining in a deep blue sky, and it felt much warmer than it actually was. We walked for an hour, then stopped for hot subs on the way home. My favorite kind of day.

Some progress made on CeCe … It’s been frogged twice, once because I cast on too many sts, once because I misread my gauge swatch. I’m knitting in Cascade Sierra, 80% cotton/20% wool, and I machine-washed and -dried my swatch. As I expected, there was significant shrinkage in the length, but not much in width, so my gauge is 5% small length-wise. I could block it to gauge, but then I’d have to block it every time I washed it. Which would never happen, of course. I’ll add a half-inch before shaping for the neckline, and call it done.

Progress on the Kauni, too. The sleeve and neck steeks are crocheted and cut; sleeves are picked up; and I’m knitting both sleeves at the same time, split at the center underarm, and steeked between them. It was tough to manipulate the circular needle for the first 2 inches or so, but now it’s coming along quite well. And the sleeves will match!

I stopped knitting last night, because the sleeve decrease rate seemed way too shallow. But now that I look at some FO sleeves more closely, I can see that it’s a wide sleeve, gathered sharply at the cuff. I like the look.

sam-bird.jpg A rare picture of Samwich, our shrinking violet. Usually she hears the camera turn on, and she’s off like a shot. But yesterday afternoon she spent hours at the window, watching this mourning dove as it sat on the roof. It finally flew away about dusk, and we could all get some rest. Soon spring will be here, the window will be open, and she can watch birds from the roof – instead of watching birds on the roof.

 
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Posted in Blather

 

More of the white stuff

08 Mar

streetscene_withsnow.jpgIt’s pretty here this morning, in the space between storms. The northeasterly wind hasn’t picked up yet, so all the wet, heavy snow from last night is still coating the trees, bushes, twigs, even the railing on our front steps. I had to rush out to take pictures, because the wind is already picking up a little. There’s the cutest mini-drift on the south edge of our neighbor’s roof. Another 6-8 inches is predicted for tonight, thanks to that northeasterly wind and the lake effect snow it brings.

hedge_withsnow.jpg thegate-insnow.jpg railing_withsnow.jpg
Winter, from my front porch (Click for bigger)

March in Rochester is nowhere near spring. We always have snow, sometimes the biggest storms of the year. We had one in 1999 – three feet or more in 24 hours. It takes a lot of snow to stop traffic here, but that storm did. Everything closed – it was coming down that fast, the plows couldn’t clear the roads. What fun, having a snow day!

Since we had no plans for this weekend, I’m not distressed about being housebound. I might sit down at the wheel and try to get my spinning mojo back. Staffan’s here, so he can help with the shoveling. We’ve got plenty of milk, bread, food, beer and wine. No need to run out for cigarettes (yay! Five months for me now). We’re snug as three bugs in a rug.

 
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Posted in Knitting

 

The bottom line

05 Mar

The storm was far less severe than my hysterical imagination predicted. Being the 17th anniversary – to the day! – of the Big Stormâ„¢, and seeing how quickly my windshield iced up driving home from Avon last night, I was fearing the worst.

I had fun at dinner last night, because Staffan wasn’t around in 1991, and apparently he hasn’t heard the stories too many times … “You lived at Grandma’s?”, or “You had a dog?” made me feel like I’ve shortchanged him on the family history. OTOH, he may have heard and discarded it all several times before. He remembers things very well, but selectively.

No knitting so far this week, aside from a row or two on the cabled socks. I’m too tired when I get home. This recovery rate is hard to plot: so much slower than my expectations the first 2 weeks, then so quick last week that I thought I was all better; but now I’m still not 100%. I haven’t been back to the gym, for example. All the rates are in the right direction, though – so I’m not complaining! And by the time I can get out and dig in the garden, I’ll be 100% again.

Speaking of the garden – I can’t wait to see daffodils and primroses. Another six weeks, right? Big plans this year include: snap peas, green peppers and sweet potatoes. No annual flowers out back, at all. We’ll put the peppers in pots on the deck, again. It worked really well for water control there (peppers like it hot and dry, and our yard is too wet) and besides, it looks good. The sweet potatoes will go in where I’m clearing out that tall phlox-y weed-y flower, the one that’s taken over the east end of the center bed. And the peas will go way out back, where the strawberries have petered out. Yeah – like 25 feet from the deck is “way out back”.

So many plans! I hope by late April I still have this much enthusiasm.

PS – Lisa, click here to see how cute baby knitting can be. (This is not pressure, though! I am totally happy to wait for grandmacity grandmotherishness grandmomitude becoming a grandma.)

 
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Posted in Garden

 

I do NOT want to go out today.

24 Dec

Saturday, I did go out – to the yarn store, for Brianna’s hat yarn v.2. I haven’t completely finished the hat (needs to be lined, and I don’t have any fleece) but I really don’t want to go anywhere today. Maybe later, which would be good as we’re scheduled to go to Paul’s brother’s house for dinner. There’s plenty of things to be done here – vacuuming, wrapping, baking, washing, feeding the birds.xmas-eve-snow.jpg So Paul will pick up the last couple things I need. What a sweetheart.

All our snow melted yesterday, in 50F rain, but last night it froze again – and this morning it’s snowing, so we’ll have a White Christmas after all.

 
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Posted in Family

 

Snow day

14 Feb

Or, what passes for one in Wendy’s world: after a harrowing ride into work (I really need to get some snow tires), Paul offered to pick me up. And, since his office closed early, I had to duck out before 4 pm. Woo hoo!

Why, oh why, are tires so hard to buy? I mean, you can run into any local garage and get a set. But when there’s Performance to consider, and Ice Traction vs Snow Traction, and you find out that there are no less than 5 sizes on your car’s model year… The blizzard outside is nothing compared to the fog that descends on my brain.

I’m not intimidated by many things, but car maintenance is one. Maybe men are mystified by bra sizes, in the same way I glaze over at the sight of sizes like 215/65R17 and 220/75R18.

The snow continues tonight, but seems to be winding down. I could only see the very tops of the telephone poles from my chair at work – the drifts outside my window were that high. My thighs are sore, because I kept jumping up to make sure the trees were still out there.

All the neighbors are out right now, digging out their cars – alternate parking regulations will be enforced tonight, so that the plows can do their bit. (No, they don’t seem to enforce it on most nights, especially when there’s a show at the theater at the end of my street.) I can see them from my desk – doing a better job of clearing the street than the plows do. The joys of city living.

 
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Posted in My Car

 

Covered

23 Jan

Well it was bad, but not worse than predicted. The snow on the porch roof, outside my bedroom window, is about 20″ deep. But with all the blowing and drifting, there’s no word yet on how much we actually got hit with. (This article is a perfect description of Rochester’s attitude toward the snow.)

And cold! -9 Saturday morning, -10 Friday morning. Today it’s 2, but last night the pipes froze under the bathtub. Fortunately, Sean came home early and discovered it before anything burst, and we were able to quickly thaw it just by opening the service panel in the spinning room.

Spinning! Since our trip to Auburn was cancelled yesterday, I spent some time spinning by the fire. Plucked fawn angora is balm for the soul. There’s just one ounce spun, probably 50 yds, and I’m knitting wrist warmers. I didn’t get much knit, though, because I’ve got startitis. Something about -10F makes me want to knit a hat – specifically, a dubbelmossa. I rooted through the stash, found some Baby Ull, and started knitting. I’m just making up motifs as I go along, so it’ll probably look like an incredible mishmash when done … but I’m hoping for magic.

 
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Posted in Uncategorized

 

Let the games begin

09 Nov

I don’t know yet if we’re first to score, but we had measurable snow yesterday. Woo-hoo! I have traction control, and I want to use it! Especially since I won’t have to drive all the way out to Chili Center every day. We won’t be closing on the new building until Feb. 1st, with moving day tentatively scheduled for early May (just in time for softball on our new field).

Driving to work yesterday, the lake effect snow clouds were brilliant. Towering, dark, puffy clouds all along the lakeshore, and down Irondequoit Bay, with bright blue sky overhead. A classic Rochester winter day. By 8:30 am it was snowing out of that clear sky – must have been blowing from the north. It didn’t start in earnest until about 5:30 pm, but by bedtime (7:30 in this house) the ground was covered.

We didn’t build a fire, just ate leftover turkey and went to bed. Paul was snoring before 8, and I watched the pilot of West Wing on Bravo whilst casting on the second Vera sock. Boring? Perhaps. But to me, it’s like winter comfort food.

 
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Posted in Uncategorized