Avalanche

Day 138: Last night, I dreamt I was caught in an avalanche. Is it any wonder? There is one in my front flower bed, emerging from the recent showers of snow and hail as a drift of nodding bells. If not as colourful as the crocuses, they are left alone by the deer and raccoons whose ravages taught me not to replant their snack bar, although it took several years for the lesson to sink in. Suffice to say that I was happy when I found "volunteer" snowdrops in a corner of the forest where they had been discarded by some land owner, and relocated a trowel's-worth to my garden. I have since divided them, placing another grouping in the shady niche where Skunk, my old kitty, is laid to rest. She has violets, grape hyacinth and a smattering of daffodils as well. In the spring, I travel with a shovel/trowel, bucket or box or plastic bags as asked by the specific journey. You never know what cast-off treasure you might find, begging to be lifted from ignominy and given a nurturing home.

Snow Cats

Day 137: Spring in the Pacific Northwest means weather. What kind of weather? You name it. In our history, we have had 80-degree days in February and we have had temperatures below zero (that's 26 and -18 to you Celsius types). We have had three feet of snow on the ground. We have had flood-producing rain. I've never suntanned in February, but then, this is the Pacific Northwest. "We don't tan; we rust," or so the saying goes. And conversely, we have had snow and killing frosts in June. Was I surprised to see snow on my pussywillows a few days ago? Not particularly. Was I surprised yesterday by the pea-sized hail which chattered so loudly on the metal awning over my back porch that it sounded like Animal playing the drums? Nope. I just shrugged and said, "Eh, February." Now that said, February weather is a little more consistent as you move up in altitude, and sometimes the snow accumulation on the Mountain is pretty impressive. Record snowfall at Paradise was 1,122 inches in the year 1971-72. Go on, divide that by 12. That's ninety-three and a half feet of snow (no typo there...93.5 feet)! Of course, that fell over a 12-month period. Currently, Paradise has 212 inches on the ground according to the Snotel weather station. Seventeen feet may not be as impressive as ninety-three, but you can't really dismiss its significance.

In Memoriam

Day 136: "Planned obsolescence." That's what we used to call it when companies deliberately manufactured items to a lower standard so that they would wear out and need to be replaced. Consumerism was only beginning the meteoric phase of its rise when I purchased this mixer in the late 70s, and most people expected products to last them a lifetime (or at least close). In fact, many of us were using tools and equipment which had been handed down to us from our parents or in some cases, grandparents. However, the philosophy of consumerism was viewed as being "good for the economy," and products became less dependable.

Little Presto LN01-A lived a long and active life. His 50-year service was not diminished by his quirky, funky handle and, although his rich avocado hue had faded somewhat with the years, he could beat an eggwhite with the best of them up until two weeks ago. Perhaps affected by a yet-unidentified strain of mixer virus, he began to cough. His memory for speed settings faltered, but he struggled on valiantly when asked to assist with tapioca-making. It struck me that he was probably in the terminal phase, so I set about finding a replacement, and the decision was timely. Today, he spoke his last words while bringing eggwhites to stiff peaks, and died without meeting his successor.

Boxing The Compass

Day 135: Quite a few of my friends admit to being (as they put it themselves) "directionally challenged," a concept which both baffles me and causes me great consternation. Should I ask for instructions to get to their library, for example, they'll tell me to "turn left" off the main drag without asking which way I'll be heading. "Left" depends on the direction of travel in order to be interpreted correctly. If I'm travelling eastbound, "left" will take me north; if westbound, a left turn would route me south. Kinda makes it hard to find the destination, y'know?

Now I don't expect miracles here, but if you know the cardinal points of a compass (North, South, East and West), you should be able to figure out where NE, SE, SW and NW are. Being able to recite them in order clockwise/anticlockwise is called "boxing the compass," and mariners were once required to be able to recite not just the eight points I've listed, but the full 32 (in some cases, 128!) "winds": cardinal, intercardinal/ordinal, half-winds and quarter winds. Examples: NNE is a half-wind, halfway between N and NE, NbE ("North by East") is a quarter-wind E of N. I've 'shopped a 32-point windrose into the compass mirror for illustrative purposes. While you won't need to commit them all to memory for basic land navigation, your well-oriented friends will appreciate directions which cannot be misinterpreted to mean the opposite of what you intended.

Star Trek

Day 134: "Captain, I am detecting several objects of indeterminate nature off the port bow. They are keeping pace with our speed of warp five." Data's fingers danced across the console as he spoke, running a sequence of analyses as he attempted to identify the phenomenon. Picard's crisp order for the viewscreen cut across the other background voices on the bridge. "Sensors indicate an electrostatically charged field between the objects and the Enterprise, sir. It is interfering with obtaining a visual lock. They appear to be composed of hydrogen, oxygen and trace elements. One moment...the sensors show...no, that cannot possibly be correct...small amounts of the oil commonly found in Helianthus...Earth sunflowers, sir...and urates consistent with nitrogenous waste. With all due respect, sir, I believe humans would call that substance 'bird poop.'"

We picked up a light dusting of snow last night, with clouds dissipating by morning. The rising sun cast handsful of sparkling diamonds on the ground and, as usual, I tried to capture the glint and glimmer with the camera with no particular success. I retreated to the house to try again through the dirty glass of my east window, but the camera wanted to focus on the dust motes. As I panned in an attempt to find a cleaner gap, these objects hove into view; water droplets hanging from one of the shepherd's-hooks holding my bird feeders. Suddenly, I was transported into the world of Star Trek and a photographic adventure. Microcosm, macroscosm...who is to say in which we live?

Design-A-Crow

Day 133: I'm quite taken with South America pebble weave. Not only is it fun to do on the inkle loom, I like the highly stylized designs. Birds are a common motif, but none of the patterns I've found thus far resemble a crow. The only logical course of action was to make my own, keeping within the strictures of the style. The "stitches" are long and narrow, so as a general rule, the traditional designs also appear somewhat elongated. Creating a shorter, stouter outline for my namesake bird was the primary goal in order to make it recognizable as a corvid. Several experiments with beak position had to be picked back and rejected, and although I was satisfied with the design on the left, I thought the beak looked like it belonged on a parrot rather than a crow or raven. Out of necessity, I reverted to the typical representation shown on the right: upturned, cawing to the sky. I also wanted to keep within the limits of 21 pattern threads, another factor which tends to stretch designs lengthwise. While my final draft might only be recognizable as a crow to someone who could make the association between the motif and my name, at least it doesn't look like a hummingbird. Now comes the second part of the challenge: reading the pattern the opposite direction to make the birds face right and left alternately. When I'm done, I'll have a custom strap for my ukulele/blues box guitar.

Give Me A Fulcrum

Day 132: "Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it and I shall move the world" (or as I learned it as a child, "Give me a fulcrum and I will move the Earth"). Archimedes was speaking in reference to the simplest of mechanical devices, a beam of some sort which pivots on a fixed point. And that is all you need to know about the operation of a loom.

Okay, maybe that's a slight exaggeration. The mechanics of loom construction actually involves compound levers, i.e., those which operate other levers which may in turn operate yet another set of levers. In a rising-shed loom, a treadle (foot pedal) is depressed, pulling down on one end of a jack (B), causing the opposite end (C, raised) to lift. The jack raises a frame (harness) holding a series of heddles (E). The tops of the metal bars on which the heddles are mounted in the harness is shown in (D). This creates a triangular gap between two layers of threads (the shed). The shuttle bearing the weft thread passes through the shed, the treadle is released to lower the jack, and the harness resumes its resting position. More than one harness can be raised at once or, depending on the tie-up (the way the treadles are attached to the jacks), a single treadle may operate a pair of harnesses. Unwoven warp is supplied from the back beam (A), and the finished fabric is wound onto the cloth beam (F), both of which are operated by yet another type of lever, the ratchet. Leverage. Pretty simple when you think about it.