Happy New Year

May you enjoy your weather as much as I enjoyed mine.

Vermont Morning

The view in the early morning from my aunt's house in Vermont. Back in MA we don't get fog very often. The fog stuck around for maybe 15 minutes after I went out to take photos.

Fence Fixing

So one of my mother's dogs made a break for it again. This time by breaking open a weakish section of wire fencing. Since it was wrapped over a very large rock I'm not moving I had to improvise a solution. I couldn't replace the wire without it being less secure then it was. It's right next to the shed so I attached rails from the next fencepost that was solidly in the ground and the shed wall. Then I cut pickets out of 1" x 3" strapping. I kept them level to each other, and contoured their height to keep them from resting on the ground. I'm quite happy with the result, and the dog will have to find a new place to plan her escape. Of course there are 4 dogs using the yard and only one is planning escapes. At least her boomerang tag gets usage.

Crunch

It wasn't even particularly windy, just very rainy. It also wasn't a tree I ever suspected of dropping. Of course it went right into the pond. It took out a length of fence, but the shed seems to have survived fine.

Monadnock Bonus

I believe the trail is somewhere over to the left in this picture. I use trail very loosely, it wasn't sheer rock, but it was mighty challenging. I'm also bringing the light camera next time.

Mt Monadnock

My cousin convinced me that climbing Mt. Monadnock in 90 degree weather was a good idea. This is a view from one of the false peaks you get to well before the summit.

Heart Rock

Found by my cousin and dutifully photographed before being tossed in the ocean. The only thing that slightly bugs me the the darkness of the shadow. On looking it over again, it makes it look a bit strange, as if I plunked the stone there with Photoshop. It was very early afternoon and the sun was still quite high when I took this.

Spectacle Island Beach

One of several uses for spectacle island was a garbage dump. This is quite clear as you wander the beach. In sections there is actually more sea glass then rock. in addition to bricks, ceramic dish pieces and other flotsam worn smooth by the ocean.

Reflecting Bridge

George Washington Bridge NY.

Pond

Well it isn't a flower, and it isn't particularly pretty but my partially finished pond will have to do. I kept attempting to level it, but it never completely worked. It has about 3 inches of water in it and I'm mainly doing that to make sure I didn't make any holes with all the dragging the liner around I did this week. The liner will be trimmed as soon as it's full of water, then I'm picking up some patio blocks to put along the top edge to hold the liner up, hide the edge of it and hide the holes in the blocks. And yes, those plants less then one foot away will be moving yet again. The raspberries I'm declaring a lost cause and the blackberry will be moved.

Ahhhhh - Err 99

So my Canon Xsi with who knows how many shutter clicks now displays this error, and won't let me do anything. It makes a squeak noise when you turn it on, or attach a lens, and won't let you do anything. I've swapped batteries, swapped cards and cleaned contacts, but I expect the squeak noise means something is wrong with the lens attachment, or shutter area. Of course it did this at the New York Orchid Show and I hadn't brought my backup camera (which also is sick as the battery contacts are not always connecting.) Grrr.

More Iris

The sun did peek out for a few minutes yesterday. This photo shows the color a tiny bit better.

Seams

Here's a picture that will mean just about nothing to anyone but me. I wear t-shirts maybe 90% of the time. I have one long sleeved shirt, I like the design, but it had awful cuffs on he ends of the sleeves, and I don't like sleeves anyway so I never wore it. I caved last week and bought a double needle for the sewing machine. The entire reason was to fix that shirt. I did it. I chopped the sleeves off and ran the double needle along the new sleeves. It worked great. Admittedly, the seam allowance on the sleeves doesn't quite match, and definitely doesn't match the hem, but they are the same length and I'm mighty happy about being able to wear the shirt again. Even better since the dryer works now I ran my painted shirts through the wash, and the paint set perfectly. Now I have to make a few more.

Dryer

I should be nowhere near as excited about this as I am, but we have a new dryer. For the past few months we've been without a dryer at all, well technically it's my mother's dryer, but i was using it. Nothing makes you appreciate having a dryer so much as having your clothes washed then hauled off to dry and having to plan which days you can wash them. I also just started sewing again, and have fabric that needs to go through a dryer to be preshrunk before I can do anything with it. I didn't want to haul stuff to a dryer (let's not lie, have my dad haul stuff) that wasn't clothing.

Handsome Valuable Pins

So I spent this morning picking pins out of dress shirts and getting them on hangers. The funny bit was on one brand of dress shirt. The shirt pins had tiny embossed words, HANDSOME and VALUABLE on each one. I found it funny enough to bring some home. A less pleasant annoyance was one brand using a plastic shirt collar support with the words please recycle written on it, but they didn't bother including a recycling number.

Freezer Paper Stencils

So, I have an unhealthy obsession with Pinterest recently. Mostly I browse the craft pages looking for ideas. The best one so far has been freezer paper stencils. For the measly price of $2.79 I can now put whatever I want to on my many blank shirts. My shirts are blank of course because they're so much cheaper without anything printed on them. Since I own almost exclusively t-shirts I'm going to have some fun with decorating them as i figure out what I want. There is a very faint square of film around the stencil that I'm hoping comes out in the wash. Otherwise I'm quite happy with the usability. I did do one other shirt, but I didn't iron the freezer paper down enough, and it bled a little, kind of ruining the effect. Now I just need to decide what to put on them.

Clouds

Clouds from some parking lot somewhere in 2009. It's fun digging through all my old photos.

More Snow Wishes

According to the weather we'd had 5 feet more snow this time last year. No wonder I'm pining for snow. The bulbs are starting to creep from the ground and it's only February 3rd.

Snow How I Miss You...

it was creepily warm today. You could wander outside with no jacket and just basrely feel a chill. Where's my snow? Where's my ice? While I'm enjoying not having to pay an arm and a leg to heat my house, I'd like some nice fluffy snow for payment of putting up with these short dim days.

Angry Birds

It was my cousin's birthday this past weekend and I made her some stuffed angry birds as a present. I forgot to take a picture of all three but I made a little blue one too. I've been spending quite a bit of time messing with the sewing machine recently. Since it refuses to snow I haven't had much outside to photograph I find interesting.