Sequels Prequels

When last I posted, I included a photo I shot looking up our driveway the first morning into our last big snowfall. It's the first photo in the post. Here's the view up that same driveway the next morning. That's one big tree and several smaller ones across the top of the driveway. No, they did not hit the pickup truck shown in the idyllic photo from last time, which is not necessarily a good thing. The husband has been muttering about wanting a new vehicle, and this would have made that dream a reality. Once the husband and older son got a path shoveled up to the trees, they managed to remove them, a process involving much chain-sawing and chop-saw chopping. By the time they broke through and got to cleaning the snow off the pickup truck, they'd worked up quite the sweat. I tried to help but kept getting told to move because this or that branch might shift, something might fall, and so on. I took this as a good thing and didn't feel guilty about playing with the new 50mm lens I got for my Canon. Since it's been years since I've used anything but a zoom lens on an SLR, it took a while to get used to not being able to change the scene by zooming in or out. Here are some of the shots I ended up with.



Yes, that's a dogsled in the last shot. My mother brought it with her when she moved down here, and it looked sort of forlorn there in the snow with no companion dog team.

And here we are, a week out from when those shots were taken. The driveway still only has a footpath cleared, making unloading after grocery shopping a bit of an endeavor, but the roads we use to get anywhere are fine and were fine most of last week. The same cannot be said for many of the back roads in the county. The schools are supposed to re-open tomorrow; they have only been open one day in the last two weeks, and that was on a two-hour delay. Of course, it's also supposed to snow a bit tonight and tomorrow morning, so the possibility of another closure is real. And yesterday's newspaper called the snow coming tomorrow "a little more" while also mentioning "a lot more snow" coming a week later. That's actually fine with me since the only forecast I'm concerned about for the near term is Friday, when we drive to Richmond, fly from there to New York, and from there to Reykjavik. There have actually been several days lately on which the weather was better in Reykjavik than here. Here are links to the ten-day forecasts for Charlottesville and Reykjavik. As I write this, it will be colder in Reykjavik than here, but the daily highs and lows are much closer together. It is also forecast to be sunny in Reykjavik on Monday, February 22. Sunny means no clouds, and since clouds interfere with aurora viewing, no clouds is a good thing. Speaking of forecasts, there is also one for the aurora. It has not been updated to reflect the time we'll be in Iceland, but if you're wondering what our chances of seeing the Northern Lights are, this might help you.

Still on the "to do" list besides packing is to see, 36 hours before our Icelandair flight is scheduled to leave from New York, if I can check in online and, most importantly, get our seat assignments. It really should have occurred to either the husband or myself, but instead I found the advice on a travel forum to sit on the left side of the plane while flying to Iceland. The windows on the left face north and can offer above-the-clouds views of the aurora. Why didn't we think of that? It doesn't really matter, since we did learn it before, rather than during or after, the flight. And so, with five days to go, it really is all coming together. Here's hoping those aren't famous last words.

Finally, my last post also mentioned my making a bag out of plarn, yarn made by cutting up plastic shopping bags. It turned out that I had enough plarn to finish the bag. The instructions had the handles being reinforced with twine. We have twine somewhere in the house or garage; I know we do. It just wasn't in any of the numerous places in which I looked. I was determined not to buy anything new for a bag made from recycled plastic bags, so I rummaged through my basket of leftover yarn and used something from there. I haven't yet used the bag, but I will. I've also started saving bags for another plarn something. Working with the plarn was too fun not to do it again.

Lots of Little Things and Snow

Snowpocalypse. SnowMG. Snowmageddon. We've heard them all this winter. The latest "significant snow event" wasn't quite as significant as it could have been, but it was still a doozy. The University of Virginia canceled classes yesterday; the last time they did that was in 2003. What was different this time was that they made the announcement the day before, telling all non-essential employees just to stay home the next day. I've been here 31 years, and I can't remember their ever doing that before. It was a good decision. We didn't get the three feet of snow that some of the forecasts said was possible, but we got enough. It started snowing in the 6:00 to 7:00 range yesterday morning, and it's still coming down, though barely, 34 hours later. Here's the view up our driveway this morning. And here's a shot I took of our deck railing through the window on the back door. We've been luckier than some folks in that our power has stayed on despite blinking off and on several times. As you can see here, the trees have a lot of snow on them, and that snow is wet and heavy. We've heard numerous cracks from the woods around the house, and we actually cut back a tree that had fallen across our road while we were walking. We'll be cleaning up quite a few branches from the yard when the snow finally melts, but so far no trees are down in the area around the house.

I've been taking advantage of the snow days (it's not clear if tomorrow will be a third one, since if the gym is open, we'll be there to do kendo and/or karate) to play with something from a great new book I got. I refuse to buy a knitting or other craft book just for one pattern or the instructions to make one item. Skimming through a book called AwareKnits at the local Barnes & Noble, I found eight things I wanted to try, the first of which is crocheting a lunch bag out of plarn. Plarn = Plastic + Yarn, or "yarn" made by cutting up plastic shopping bags. On the left is the strip made by cutting up a plastic grocery bag. After cutting the handles off, I cut the bottom of the bag off then cut the body of the bag into a spiral. On the right is a ball of plarn. In the center, in front of the book, is the bottom of the lunch bag. You can see some of the different color bags in there; you may recognize the green ones as being from Barnes & Noble. I don't think I have enough plarn to finish the bag, but at least won't feel guilty for a while if I stop into a store without one of the canvas bags I carry in the car for my weekly grocery shopping.

From crocheting to knitting, I finished a felted mohair bag to donate to an auction being held to help send a group of high school students to the Galapagos. Felted things are so much fun! For example, here's the bag before it was felted. Here's the bag after I felted it. It's a bit frightening to put something I made out there and up for sale. I once gave two small quilts to a school's silent auction and was downright depressed by how little they went for, well under the cost of the materials in them. I tried not to take the low prices as a comment on the workmanship, but it was kind of hard. This bag actually cost me nothing but the time it took to make it; I used yarn that I accepted in payment for working at a fiber festival. So we'll see how much it goes for; at least I know that whatever amount it generates will go to a good cause.

Continuing with the theme of lots of little things I haven't written about, I bought myself a new little toy back before Christmas, a lomographic fisheye camera. Lomography is not about high-end photographs; it's more about point-and-shoot snapshots. And yes, it's film, which means you can't correct on the spot but have to wait to see the results. The fisheye just adds to the fun, as in this shot of the husband or this one of older son's feet. And sometimes you can even end up with some nice photographs.

Finally, two weeks from today the husband and I will be in Reykjavik, Iceland, and possibly have seen whales and puffins. At least we're scheduled to go on a whale watching cruise our first afternoon there. I've been reading various resources on photographing the Northern Lights as well as a series of mysteries set in Reykjavik. I've been breaking in the hiking boots I bought for the trip, and I tried out a friend's snow pants on today's walk. It's becoming very real that we're actually going. I can't promise to put up long posts daily, but I'll try to get the highlights up while we're still there as opposed to several weeks after we get back. That's the plan at least.