Happy First Day of Spring!

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Yarn Along

Joining with Ginny at Small Thing's for this week's Yarn Along .

The past week has been super busy. I finished up my teaching term yesterday and got my final grades submitted this morning. Which means that I am officially on spring break. Whoo-hoo! Now I just need to finish organizing next term....

We are taking a little road trip next week for spring break and I am hoping to have plenty of time for car knitting. I have 2 knitting projects and a stack of books all lined up. Although I always seem to be overly ambitious with these things. With two kids, I think I will still be pretty busy.

I finished up the baby sophisticate sweater for my husband's assistant last week. I love how it came out except I think I stink at wrapping and turning. You can tell where I did it along the collar as the stitches aren't even. Hmmm.... something to work on I guess.

I am now starting (another) tiny tea leaves for Phoebe. She has a blue one that is getting too small, and too warm for this time of year. This orange one is a lighter wool that should work nicely for the chilly nights of spring and summer.

I am still reading bits of  A Tree Grows in Brooklyn but mainly reading Inferno by Dan Brown. It's the kind of book that leaves you hanging each chapter so that you want more!

What are you reading? What are you knitting?

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A Nature Blog Scavenger Hunt!

 

I am so honored to have been invited to participate in a Pacific Northwest nature blog scavenger hunt! Want to join in? Here's how to play:

First stop by Kelly's blog and read about the details and get the list of questions you will be finding the answers to. Then hop around to all the blogs, find the answers, and be eligible to win one of several prizes including a nature books, a Discover pass, or a bird pendant. 

Hope you can join in. Should be a lot of fun!

I have lived here in the Pacific Northwest for about seven and a half years now, which is plenty of time to fall in love with a place. Actually, I think I fell in love with it here the first time I ever came-- the vibrant greens, the huge trees, the herons and hawks that are quite common but still stop me in my tracks each time.

To some, it may seem like a forest is a forest, like they are all basically the same. But when you start to pay attention, to really notice the area you are walking through, you start to see defining features of the ecosystem. You start to notice the differences, the uniqueness, of each place that you go. And I love to watch how these places change over time.

To me, the seasons are a way to experience and celebrate the changes in our natural areas. The changes follow the rhythm of nature, one after another, and eventually return back to the beginning. Life starts over. Everything is refreshed. Here in the Portland, we are quickly shifting into spring. It has been a mild winter, without much precipitation, and we are all a bit worried about the summer. It almost seems as if climate change has arrived and smacked us all in the face.

Regardless, the arrival of spring is always a welcome sign. Life starts anew. Colorful blossoms abound. Birds are announcing their presence. Spring in Portland means trilliums, those fleeting flowers that are here one moment and gone the next. It means salamanders migrating from the forests into lakes. It means snails and slugs under every overturned log or garden pot. 

These signs ground me into the cycle of nature, the cycle of life. Without this shift from one season to the next, how would we mark the passage of time? I watch my children grow and change in accordance with the shift in the seasons, always flowing, one into the next.

Even though I have loved this place since the moment I laid eyes on it, over time, I have grown to love it deeply, like a child. I have started to claim it as my own, and to rely on its changes to guide me through my own life. This is where I come for solace, for reflection, for calm, and for connection.  I know that I am extremely lucky to live in a land of such abundance and beauty, and I try to never, ever, take it for granted.

Happy Scavenger Hunting!

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Gratitude Sunday

This week I have felt grateful for my children. For the simple moments we share together, and for the lovely people they are becoming. For the way that their imaginations and curiosity inspire me. For their honesty, and their ability to say when they really need nothing more than a good snuggle. For the patience that they are instilling in me and for their joy, which they make apparent to the world.

What have you felt grateful for this week?

Playing along with the other Taryn of Wooly Moss Roots.

P.S.- come and check back in here tomorrow... I will be participating in a Northwest nature blog scavenger hunt... and there will be prizes! 

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More Than Honey: A Review

I just finished up watching More Than Honey. There are quite a few recent movies out there about bees and Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), and this is the newest to top the list. Honestly, I wasn't super excited about watching this film, as I figured it would be more of the same. And while it did cover a lot of the same ideas as previous films, it gave things a nice new twist.
The cinematography is lovely and it includes some amazing close-up footage.  The film discusses the mating rituals and life cycles of bees, and emphasizes the fact that they work together as a super-organism, and not necessarily as individuals.
The film includes interviews with a variety of beekeepers, from pastoral to commercial, and the differences are astounding. Modern beekeeping has changed the process so much, treating these amazing creatures as if they were just another commodity to provide them with an income. We have lost respect for these insects that literally turn pollen into liquid gold.
One of my favorite parts of the film discussed the importance of bees to our entire agricultural system. They showed film from China, where many plants have to be pollinated by hand because there are no bees to pollinate for them. Seeing the workers standing on trees with a paintbrush of pollen, touching it to each blossom, was almost comical, yet also extremely sad. Humans are not efficient pollinators and our way of life is killing out the very backbone of our food base. Bees are literally the canary in the coal mine, announcing that our agricultural system in on the verge of collapse. And we seem to be doing very little to stop it.
The film also discusses CCD, but almost as a side note. The importance of bees to our food, and to our lives, is the forefront idea of the film. It stresses that CCD has been so mysterious because it is not one specific thing-- it's a combination of factors (pesticides, disease, stress) that is affecting the bees, and causing this incredible die-off that we are seeing.

Those of you who have read my blog in years past will know how much I love bees and love photographing them. I am not one to sit and be idle, ever really, yet I sometimes find myself sitting for 30 or 40 minutes at a time in my garden, simply staring at the bees. For me, it is a form of meditation, and I am looking forward to the coming days when bee-watching weather will be back. It's already just begun....

This film was lovely. I am going to show it to my class next term and I would love for you to watch it too. And then go watch some bees. It's a great way to soak it all in.

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This Moment

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo- no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. Inspired by Soulemama.

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Sneaking into Nature

As I have been mentioning, this winter in Portland has been very mild. We have had a lot of sunny days, mild temperatures, and very little rain. Perfect weather for outdoor exploring. Except, for some reason, I can't seem to get our schedule on track to allow us to have enough free time out in nature. Aside from school and work, we have had appointments and classes, play dates with friends, and things that need to get done around the house. So while we have spent a ton of time outside these past couple of months, it has mostly been around our neighborhood.
Last week I was craving some solace and space, and even though we didn't have a big chunk of time, Phoebe and I managed to sneak away to Oaks Bottom Wetlands, a little trail and preserve in an urban part of Portland. Despite the closeness to city life (you can hear cars rumbling along from most places in the park) it is a haven for tadpoles, birds and other critters. We got to see quite a few lovely birds while we were there and even had a deer cross the path about 10 feet in front of us.
It was a good reminder that we need to make the time to escape to the woods, find the wild spaces (even if they are somewhat urban) and take time to discover.

hairy woodpecker

rock wren

Oregon grape

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