It's Towhee Time

Day 89: Spotted Towhees (aka Rufous-sided Towhees) always look like they've either had too much caffeine or that they're just on the verge of a psychotic episode. It's those red eyes. Other birds can fix you with glassy or inquiring pinpoint focus , but nothing says "wild creature" as emphatically as the mad-as-a-March-hare stare of a Towhee. It is Towhee season at my house. One or two hang around in the summer, but as soon as cold weather sets in, the mob shows up to do their backward jump/scratch move as they bring loose seed and bugs up from the tangled grass. They are primarily ground feeders, although they'll occasionally take seed from a tray. I see them scurrying around in the leaf litter at the base of the contorted filbert, scratching for insects in the decaying leaves with their peculiar dance. To go with the mad eyes, their frenetic activity appears to be rooted in nervousness, although it's only normal species behaviour which has served them well in the evolutionary scheme. But the red eyes? Where's the evolutionary advantage in that? Maybe the "I'm just crazy enough to tackle a rhinoceros" look deters predators. I'll just say that I wouldn't want to meet a Towhee in a tantrum, and let it go at that.

The "Awwww" Factor

Day 88: The "awwww" factor is strong in my yard. This little sweetheart saw me come out the back door with the seed can in my hands, and although Dark-eyed Juncos are too timid (with rare exceptions) to land on a human, he seemed to be thinking seriously about it. I hadn't put out food before leaving for town this morning, and an inch of snow on the ground made foraging harder than usual. I filled both feeders with sunflower seeds and "little" seed (a millet mix), which also brought the Towhees out from hiding in the filbert. No matter how depressing world events are, my birdies never fail to put a smile on my face.

Daisy's Primroses

Day 87: I recently discovered an under-appreciated and somewhat obscure collection of miniature overshot patterns in a book called "Weaving Designs" by Bertha Gray Hayes. It is absolutely marvelous! And while the designs may be miniature, they are surprisingly complex. This one is called "Primroses," and the pattern repeats over 34 threads. Likewise, the treadling is a repeat of 34, 68 if you count the green tabby throws between each thread of the purple design. I selected the colours in keeping with the idea of primroses, and if you look very carefully, you will see yellow warp threads interspersed at strategic locations, i.e., at the centers of the design elements. That said, this is the back side of the overshot as it is shown in the book. I don't always read the instructions as carefully as I should, and consequently, I'm treadling it upside-down, having read the tie-up "inside out" (black squares vs. white squares). Nevertheless, it's pretty any way you look at it.

Daisy's First Project

Day 86: Daisy's first project is off the loom! All three towels were made on the same Finnish Twill threading. The two-tone blue towel repeats the pattern throughout. The second has tabby weft stripes separated by white pattern repeats. For the third, I thought I'd experiment with weaving the twill as an overshot, doubling each pattern throw. It's my favourite! And because she performed so nicely on her trial run, Daisy received a reward: brand-new inserted-eye heddles, 174 on each of four shafts. Next up is another overshot, and if you've been following along for any length of time, you may recall that overshot and summer-and-winter are my preferred weave structures. Managing two boat shuttles turned out to be easier than I'd thought.

Solving the Tension Issue

Day 85: A Leksand loom is not the easiest thing to warp with even tension due to the fact that the threads go from the roller, wrap around the posts, pass through a rigid heddle, go over a separator or through string heddles before being attached to the cloth roller. I've tried several different methods, but even using the best of them, I still wind up with major tension issues. We're talking random threads sagging by inches, not just a few which aren't tight enough. Well, I finally hit on a solution. Every time I advance the warp, I loosen the warp roller and work the slack back toward it until I have even tension all the way across, then snap on a couple of bag clips...yep, the kind you use to close the potato chip sack...before winding the warp back on with a few twists in it to hold the threads securely against the roller. I use two clips for added security, and it's working perfectly.

Little Gold Crabapples

Day 84: Not far from one of the places I park when hiking in the Cowlitz Wildlife area near Mossyrock Dam, I noticed branches overhanging the road, heavily laden with some kind of yellow fruit. Curiosity got the better of me, so I pulled over and got out to take pictures, thinking I'd try to identify the tree when I got home. As soon as I zoomed in, I said, "Crabapples! Little gold crabapples!" and then confirmed it by picking up a mushy one from where it had fallen to the ground. The ones out of reach may still have been firm. I had no way to find out, but I'm thinking that next fall when they're in their prime, I might come back with a long-armed grabber to harvest enough of them to make pickled crabapples. These are just bite-sized!

Nature Reclaims

Day 83: Ma Nature does her best to clean up the mess we humans are making, but we are giving her too much to handle in a short span of time. For whatever reason, this car was abandoned in what was once a farm field, and is now a "natural area" protected by Cowlitz Wildlife. A forest has grown up around it: tangled salmonberry vines and big-leaf maples, scrubby alders, patchwork blankets of moss and fern and piggyback plant. It's always damp here, and some day, even the rusted framework of this old car will be reclaimed by the process of decay. But how much can we ask Nature to absorb before she rebels and becomes outright unfriendly toward our presence? For now, she is merely annoyed with us, and reprimands us with storms and temperature extremes, warnings that if we keep this up, she may get really, really angry.