Cardinal Holidays

Day 79: Call this a sneak preview, if you will. I like to have Cardinals on my Christmas cards, and over the last half dozen years or so, appropriate ones have been impossible to find. When this little fellow flew in and lighted among my gifts, he seemed to be applying for the job. A timely snowfall completed the scene for a custom-made holiday greeting: Happy New Year, my friends!

Took The Leap

Day 78: When I turned sixteen, there was only one thing I wanted for my birthday: a telescope. Money was tight in those days, but when a long, skinny box showed up shortly after Christmas, I knew my request had been met. On the morning of my birthday, I tore into the wrappings with great excitement and spent the rest of the day peering through the limited optics of a $29 Tasco. I was thrilled, and spent much of my young adulthood looking at the moon and trying to make out the faint rings of Saturn.

As the years progressed, I moved across the country and the Tasco went into storage, forgotten until more than forty years later when I bought my present home. Like the Bubble Tree whose story was told earlier this month, my precious telescope had spent too much time in an unheated outbuilding, and the mirrors were damaged by moisture and cold, beyond any reasonable hope of repair. I told myself I'd get another one some day, but by then, I had learned enough about the subject to know I didn't want to waste my money on a cheap department-store model.

There were some stellar events which almost pushed me to a purchase. I'd seen the naked-eye spectacle of Comet West in 1976, and when Hale-Bopp came around in 1997, I observed it through binoculars, still reluctant to make the leap into serious astronomy, even at the entry level. But with Lovejoy on the horizon (literally, at this latitude), that old desire for a 'scope resurfaced.

It's easy to Clint-Eastwood yourself out of your price range when you're considering a telescope. "For a few dollars more," you can get clearer optics, a wider field of view, finer adjustments, etc. and so forth until you find yourself talking in four figures instead of three. At that point, you have to step back and ask yourself what you really need. Are you going to be searching for heretofore undiscovered deep-sky objects? Not likely! But do you really want to look for nebulae and galaxies, or would you be content to see a few double stars? Since my primary interests are comets, planets, lunar features and sunspots, I looked for a telescope which would give me the best possible viewing of those objects on a limited budget. After reading dozens of reviews and conferring with my "pet astronomers," I settled on the Orion StarBlast 4.5 reflector, present-to-self for a reprise of the occasion of that first acquisition.

Elegance

Day 77: Oh, my...! An unexpected gift showed up in my mailbox today, one with particular personal significance. These pens were hand-turned by a dear friend from the trunk wood of an unidentified tree which had stood for more than 20 years in my front yard. When the tree was attacked first by disease, then by insects and subsequently by a determined Red-breasted Sapsucker who was trying to be helpful, I was forced to take it down. Di put in a request for a piece of the wood for her lathe, so after a period of curing and drying, I mailed it off and forgot all about it. She tells me the dark band in the center of the Celtic knotwork pen is a pine cone from her own yard. What elegance! Makes me feel like I should be writing four-figure checks!

Finding Lovejoy

Day 76: Comet Lovejoy is coming! I've given a very rough map here, translated from the "Sky & Telescope" version onto a star chart oriented specifically to my latitude, but it will give you an idea of where and when to look for this binocular/naked-eye object. It promises to be a real treat for anyone with a telescope, weather permitting. Get it now, folks! It won't be back for approximately 8,000 years!

Off The Loom

Day 75: The project I began at Christmastime 2013 is off the loom at last! I am now engaged in tying 756 bundles of fringe and then the fabric will be ready for fulling.

Woven in traditional birdseye and tabby using natural 6/2 and colored 8/2 cotton on 27' of warp and 210 ends, these pieces will finish at approximately 14" x 21" (allowing for shrinkage). They make excellent fingertip/kitchen towels, but are also heavy enough to serve as placemats on the table.

And of course hindsight is always clearer than foresight. I wish now that I had used a heavier warp or a lighter weft so the birdseye patterns would have been more obvious. However, weaving threads are not as easily obtainable as they once were, and my favourite supplier closed his shop for health reasons years ago. I do not like to purchase fiberart supplies without being able to finger the goods, limiting me to one shop in Seattle (a major expedition, by my standards). Alternately, I could have warped at 15 dents per inch instead of 12, but that would have resulted in a harder fabric which would have been unsuitable as towels. That said, I am pleased with these, and subtle woven textures have their own appeal.

Christmas 2014

Day 74: Thank you, my readers, for the wishes you asked me to convey to this wonderful man who has been my friend and fishing buddy for many years. Some few of you have met him; others know him only from my descriptions. He knows and remembers your personal stories as well, because I often speak of you to him. Occasionally he surprises me with a question: "How are the girls back east doing? How's that man in New Zealand who lost his leg? Do you still hear from your friend in Chicago, the geocacher?" "Yes," I reply, "he/she asked me about you last week." You are a part of his world, and he loves you for caring about him, even though you may only be known to him as a name or a photo. He is touched by your sentiments, which through me, become bright spots in his day. When I passed your greetings along to him yesterday, he said, "Tell them thank you for me," and so I am, by bringing you this image from our Christmas, a good Christmas because it was spent with my old, dear friend.

Merry Christmas From The Bird House!

Day 73: They're out! And they'd like to wish you all the best for the holiday season. For most of the year, my bird collection resides on shelves and in an enormous tin, safe from the predations of pussycats and protected from dust fallout. For a few days in December, they emerge to occupy furniture and floor space and are generally allowed to remain until Skunk or Tip gets a little too interested and drags somebody off. I hate to admit that only a few of them have names, but each one is loved and petted as they are put in place. So, without further ado, I will speak on their behalf and wish you the merriest of Christmases and a happy New Year!