2015 ~ The Year Of The Sheep

And as a knitter, I couldn’t let the start of the the Chinese New Year go unmarked, especially when 2015 is the Year of the Sheep.

This coincided with a beautiful article last week on the BBC Website about a new exhibition that opened last weekend at the Rheged Centre in Penrith in the English Lake District.   Titled Herdwick: A Portrait of Lakeland by renowned photographer Ian Lawson who spent five years documenting the sheep, the shepherds and the landscape, and the results are captured in his stunning photographs and book upon which the exhibition is based. You can see more of his photos from this project here, there is a “Look Inside” link which you really must click to see more of the intense beauty of this part of England, Andrew and I’s most favourite, and most missed, part of the world.

The Herdwick breed is native to the Fells of The Lakes and while it’s lambing capacity is low and the wool is much rougher than commercial breeds (like Merino), the Herdwick is prized for it’s robust health, the ability to survive by just foraging and it’s tendency not to stray.   The wool is of a thicker, courser quality and is really good for heavyweight outer garments and for things like rugs, it’s not something to be worn next to the skin, unless you’re a sheep of course, as they’ve been known to survive up to three days in a blizzard completely buried in snow, by eating their own wool.

It’s thought that as much as 99% of the world’s Herdwick’s live in the rugged West and North of The Lakes, and they have now achieved protected status.  They’re not exactly rare, as anyone who has ever walked the hills of this beautiful area of England will tell you, but because their population is all but concentrated in one area they could be decimated by an outbreak of a disease, like the foot and mouth epidemic of a few years ago, which led to the farmers loosing 25% of the 100,000 breed.

This shepherd is walking his flock towards Wast Water in front of him.  Behind him is the imposing bulk of Great Gable, part of the Scafell range which is the highest mountain in England.  We didn’t do too much fell walking in The Western Lakes but Andrew and I have climbed both Great and Green Gable before, Andrew more than once.

Arguably, the most famous of the Herdwick farmers was Beatrix Potter.  Better known for her beautifully illustrated children’s books, she spent a great deal of her life in this area of England, the latter part as a farmer with fifteen farms, and a breeder and protector of Herdwick sheep.  She won numerous prizes at country shows between 1930 and 1938, and upon her death in 1943 left all fifteen of her farms to The National Trust, and per her instructions, all of them continue to graze Herdwick’s today.

So in this, the Year of the Sheep, I encourage you to get your needles out and knit something, or if you’ve never knit before perhaps now is the time to consider taking up the hobby?  But if that’s too much for you to take on right now, you can always show your support of this terrific breed by supporting The Herdy online and physical shops.  I’m particularly fond of the Peep Mug and will be making room in my suitcase for at least one later in the year!  Click on the logo to be taken to their website.

N.B. – Photos copyright Ian Lawson ~ Herdy Logo TM The Herdy Company

What’s On Your Workdesk Wednesday ~ 253

I’m having a flash back this week.  A couple of weeks ago I mentioned thinking about using punchinella (sequin waste) to make a colourful, ergonomic, flowing kind of sweep across a card… turns out that’s bloody difficult!  So I revisited the whole thing at the weekend and decided to make a sort of graduated background instead.  You can see the results of the flowing rainbow thing on the right, it’s not exactly very natural looking is it!

I’ll cut a portion of this out and team it with a computer generated sentiment along the lines of “have a bright, sunshiney day” kind of thing.  It’s for a male birthday card, for a soon to be 19 year old.  I don’t know what else to do, lol!  But I like those lovely bright colours.

We’re also having more bright, sunshiney type days in Michigan too, finally, I know I’m jinxing myself but I really think Winter is done with us, for a few months at least!

The Curious Cranes (Sandhill Cranes) also think we’re done, they turned up at a local park recently pretty much en masse.  And they’re still very curious, they walk right up to you to see what you’re doing and if you have any food for them.  We went to that park for a walk on Sunday with friends, expecting to see a few of them as is usual at this time of year, but instead we saw loads and loads.  Some singly, most in small group of about seven or so with huge flocks out on the open water.  We’ve never seen so many, at times they lined the path as we walked by, just looking at us.

They’re pretty big too, standing about 4ft, or more, tall with 5ft to 7ft wingspans, so walking past three or four of them when they’re lined up like that staring at you down their sharp 8″-10″ bills can be a bit unnerving, but they always seem to be really docile.  The one above was pecking at the ground while making a beeline straight for me (thought I had food) and was incredibly interested in my feet, that’s why his bill is a bit cut off, I couldn’t move any further back and he was practically at my feet.

So, a Nature Walk for you this week.  To see proper desks, head on over to Julia’s for all the details and I’ll be seeing you anon!

The Case of the Curious Cranes

Where: Kent Lake, Kensington Metro Park, Milford, Michigan

When: Saturday, 12 October 2013, a little after noon. Temperature 26C/75F

The Cast of Characters: Two rather curious Sandhill Cranes; two rather curious humans in petit bateau’s enjoying a few hours on the lake in glorious sunshine.

 

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‘Ere, Edna.  What do you reckon those things  are then?  What things Fred?  Those floaty things in the water coming towards us with those odd looking things sitting inside them Edna.  I think they might be what’s called humans Fred, the things sitting inside the floaty things, not the floaty things.  Don’t know what the floaty things are called.

 

 

Don’t like the look of this Edna I can tell you, I’m outta here!  Fred, FRED!  Get back here, where’re you going?  Don’t just leave me here, what are you  man or mouse?  Well actually Edna, I’m neither, I’m a bird!  And while we’re on the subject, I told you we should have left last week when Bill and Pearl went to Florida.

 

Well if you think I’m going to spend yet another Winter with your Mother Fred, you’re badly mistaken.  Pfft, men!  (Fred, off in the wings) I heard that!  

 

Look, just keep your head down OK?  Pretend like we’re not even interested and they’ll take those floaty things somewhere else.

 

See, they’re more interested in those big white birds than they are in us, so you can get back in the water you big wuss!

Look Fred, they’re back on dry land again.  Silly humans don’t like getting their feet wet do they?  Why are they so interested in that tree Edna, it’s just a tree.  Haven’t a clue Fred, but I saw them looking at other trees too, I think there might be other humans that they want to show these trees to.  Well as long as the other humans don’t get in the water and come and stare at us too Edna, otherwise I’m leaving for Florida.

To be continued….

Weekend Snippets

And not of the paper variety either.  Here’s a few photos of how my weekend shaped up, so much for all the tidying and housework that needs to be done eh ladies!!  But I did manage to have a good old clear out in my craft room, and while it’s not yet finished, it is a heck of a lot better than it was last week.

Saturday morning we headed off to the  peace and quiet of the lake.  We were on the water by 9am but despite that fairly early hour it was still very warm and also very sticky as there wasn’t a breeze until we were on our way back down the lake.  We paddled all the way to the top of the lake and under the bridge where the swallows are raising their second broods of the year.  Lots of tiny little faces peering down at us out of mud nests and parents darting here and there trying to gather up enough food for the almost fully developed chicks.

The other side of the bridge is an area of water not well frequented by the fishermen or pleasure boats, we saw another couple in kayaks up here, but apart from them we had it all to ourselves.

We spotted this little family of Sandhill Cranes walking cautiously through the shallows on their long, stilt-like legs, they didn’t look very comfortable to be honest and I’ve never seen Cranes in the water before either.

But if I thought that was an odd enough sight I was more than a bit surprised when they headed out into open water and swam all the way across to the other side of the lake!  I paddled along beside them, but at a distance, but they weren’t too perturbed by my presence.  I Googled them when I got home and came up with another couple of photos of them swimming, all captioned with things like “very rare to see Cranes swimming” and “not a natural swimmer”, “very rare sight” etc, so I think Andrew and I were very privileged to see this.  I can’t think they’re very happy in the water, they don’t have webbed feet for a start, and the way they were bobbing up and down I’d say they were treading water more than outright swimming.

Back on the home front we had some coffee on the deck when we got home.  It’s looking really pretty and very flowery right now, all that hard work in May to prepare and plant all of our tubs, pots and hanging baskets has paid off, and it’s lovely to sit here and enjoy the view and the birdsong.

 

 

I worked in the garden for most of the rest of the day.  On Sunday morning we went out for a local bike ride, another hot day, too hot to be riding bikes to be honest but I need to get back into a regular exercise routine again!  I worked in the veggie patch until lunchtime, weeding, trimming unnecessary foliage off the many tomato plants we have, feeding everything and planting some more bush beans.  I came indoors after lunch and had a little nap after a nice cool shower, something I don’t normally do… the nap that is, not the shower!  It was after this that I had a blitz in the crafty room and also made a card too.

Later we decided to try making quesadilla’s on the barbecue as it was too hot to contemplate cooking indoors, so we sauteed a mixed bag of sweet peppers along with a red onion and a chilli, added a few herbs and spices and some left over pre cooked chicken (also barbecued).  We’d bought a pack of large tortilla’s btw, just in case you think we slaved over a hot stove and made them too!  To assemble, we put a bit of the mixture on a tortilla, added some feta and cheddar cheeses, wet the edges, folded them over and put them on a lightly greased tray.  You also have to brush the tops lightly with a little more oil so they crisp up too.  You then cook them by the indirect method on the barbecue by lighting the two outside burners and putting the tray over the centre burner which is not lit, so you don’t have direct heat under the tray as they’d burn.

 

We served ours with half an avocado each, some plain yogurt mixed with garlic salt, chilli pepper and cilantro in place of sour cream, and a little extra cilantro for garnish.  Very, very tasty but crikey were they hot!  Hot as in temperature rather than spice.  But they were very simple and quick to do and you could make the filling whatever you want, great for vegetarians too, hardly any washing up either which is a distinct bonus!  Perfect summer food eaten outside with a cool beverage on the side!

This week is an oddball one as we have Wednesday off for American Independence Day.  It’ll feel strange having a day off mid week like that, right now we’re planning on hitting the lake again to go kayaking, plus hopefully a bit of crafty time too, now that my room has been tidied up!

Michigan Wildflowers

The last couple of Sunday mornings Andrew and I have biked down Hines Drive for a few miles, something we haven’t made time for since the beginning of the summer.  Hines Drive is what they call a “linear parkway” and runs for about 25 miles from Northville to Dearborn.  The road is speed limited to 40 and either side of the roadway is a wide shoulder, the width of another lane, which is for bikes, roller blades, runners etc.  Outside of this are paths for walkers and then open space made up of small lakes, streams, picnic areas, baseball diamonds, fishing docks, soccer pitches and just about anything else you can think of for a bit of outdoor fun and relaxation in the warmer months of the year.  It’s a very popular place to be and is well patrolled by the local police to keep it safe for everyone.  Early on a Sunday morning it’s nice and quiet and we usually set off about 8:30 and try to get back by 10:00… am that is!!

Two weeks ago I pointed out to Andrew a plethora of wild flowers edging one of the small lakes, on closer inspection they mainly turned out to be tropical looking Hibiscus, which are surprisingly hardy in this area, as long as you get the right variety!  Last Sunday we were down there again and this time we took the camera with us:

Incredibly beautiful, and very well colour coordinated too!  Makes me wonder if the parks department have planted them, maybe they’re not wild.  There are also lots of butterflies flitting about too, mainly Viceroy’s which are Red Admiral relatives, and Yellow Swallowtails, either the Eastern or the Tiger Swallowtails.  Not sure which they are as they don’t stay still for very long at all!  But after a couple of attempts we got a really good shot of the Viceroy:

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No more blogging from me for a week or so as we head up North tomorrow for a week of camping, kayaking, hiking and biking.  Oh it will be soooo relaxing!!  I’ll leave you with a couple of links to the same trip we made last year at about the same time, hope the weather is as good as it was then.  Catch you all on the upside!

Michigan Mornings 2009

Michigan Days 2010

Michigan Sunsets 2010

Water Lilies

During the months of July and August the water lilies flower at our local lake.  To me they’re endlessly fascinating and I spend ages paddling around them trying to find the best angle for a photo whilst fighting the windage on the kayak, the wake I’m creating trying to stay still and the flowers own propensity to be dragged under the water for a few seconds by the slightest movement of the otherwise calm lake!  It can be a tad frustrating at times!  These pictures were taken last Sunday morning.

But patience is a virtue that I am occasionally blessed with, especially when it comes to all things natural, like the water lilies.  I eventually got this  shot:

And here’s me before it was taken, struggling to get into position!

Paddling around a bit more we came across a little cove that was absolutely bulging with water lilies, and these weren’t no ordinary ones either, these were triffids of the aquatic plant world!  I do not jest, we were completely stunned by the size of these beauties, think dinner plate size flowers and you’ll be somewhere close!  They were growing in about 2ft of water (I measured by sticking my paddle in vertically and taking a note of the water line) but most were stretching their flowers at least another 2ft out of the water, unusual for water lilies as I’ve always considered them to be surface flowers.  What do you think of these amazing beauties?  And I’m making no excuses for the quantity of photos I’m including with this post!

And they stretched all the way to the bank, it was like a forest of water lilies.  Almost all the flowers were full of little bees and other pollen gathers and they were having a crazy feeding frenzy, they were absolutely frantic in their search for the pollen!  If I didn’t know any better I would say they were completely intoxicated by these lilies.  The scent for us was heavenly, very sweet, almost gardenia like with a hint of vanilla.

The flower buds were a bit on the large side too!  Now, all these photos so far don’t really show you the true size of these plants, but here’s a flower that Andrew was holding for me and his hand is visible.  He has big hands by the way, really big hands!

And those huge inner yellow bits where the seeds are stored, wanna see what they look like without the surrounding frilly bits and petals?  They end up about three times the size of when they’re part of the flower…. wonder how many seeds are in here?

We like to play a game with the leaves too.  We dip our paddles in to the water and let the droplets run off onto the leaves, which are incredibly water resistant!  It’s like watching little diamonds run off all sparkly and glinting in the sun.  If you get it just right a few little drops will stay and then you can take photos like this:

This game can keep us amused for quite a long time!  And have you ever pushed down and felt the buoyancy of water lily leaves?  It’s really quite incredible just how much pressure you have to exert to push them below the surface, and it’s really hard to hold them there too!  No wonder the Victorians delighted in taking photos of people standing on giant water lily leaves!  I wouldn’t mind doing it myself, but I’d have to find some with bigger leaves than these ones first!!

A Card For Father’s Day

Ohh look!  A post.  And a card too!

It’s been a bit hard getting back into things since coming back from England, it’s a great shame that visiting lovely gardens and eating afternoon tea in the sunshine isn’t a paid occupation isn’t it?  Both Andrew and I haven’t felt a great deal of enthusiasm for anything in these last couple of weeks, even unpacking the suitcases and doing the washing seemed like a chore.  I did also attempt to make a card last week too, but I even had absolutely zero enthusiasm for thateither!  I abandoned it half way through.  I should have paid heed earlier, I know I wasn’t really paying attention to what I was doing when I managed to place the Nestie die the wrong way round and cut out my coloured image with the nice embossed edge on the blank side of the card!  It went rapidly down hill from there unfortunately!

We’ve also had a freaky spell of weather since getting back.  First we had hot temperatures and high humidity which rapidly gave way to some appalling thunderstorms, they culminated last weekend as 8 tornadoes were reported in Southern Michigan, most in the SW of the state but three close to us. The worst of which was an F2 (135 mph winds) which struck the town of Dundee, about 35 miles South of here, despite the damage there were so serious injuries reported.  A little further South, in North Western Ohio, they were not so lucky with five reported fatalities.  We’ve also had close to three inches of rain in the last week, 1/2″ diameter hail and 70mph winds.  Our neighbour across the street from us lost a 40ft maple tree in his back garden, thankfully it missed his house but it blocked one lane of the main road behind him until he could get a tree service company to come out and take care of it.  About a mile further west there were lots more trees down, including huge (50+ ft tall) conifers, these also brought down an electricity pole, snapping it completely in half, which took out the power for over 15 hours in our area and flooded our basement as the ground water pump is electrically powered.  It definitely could have been worse though and I’m grateful that the worst of the storms was South of us and that this didn’t happen while we were away, a flooded basement would not have been a nice thing to come back to.

Anyway, on to the card, finally!!  It’s a Father’s Day card if you haven’t already guessed!, and I’m quite happy with the way it came out.  I used my new Kanban stamps that I brought from England for the first time and also a Hero Arts Maple Leaf stamp, with Tsukineko Brilliance Inks Pearlescent Olive and Crimson Copper.  Kept the design simple as I’m still not completely on the ball, and I didn’t want to over embellish it anyway, so just a few little gems to highlight the tree, a bit of string and that was it.  The card is kraft for the base, the reddy brown is The Paper Company and the green is a little scrap of Bazzil.  The little white piece was coloured with TH Aged Mahogany, Antique Linen and Frayed Burlap.

And here’s a really cute little photo from last week that Andrew managed to snap.  We have these wonderful little red squirrels who frequent our garden, their bodies are no bigger than about 5″ topped off with an incredibly fluffy little tail.  They’re very territorial and are often to be heard squabbling, chasing each other up and down trees at lightening speed, it’s incredibly comical to watch.  There’s also been occasions where they’ve been very vocal about us being on the deck, like we’re not allowed to be there or something!  Anyway, we also have a bird feeder with a large squirrel baffle underneath it.  It’s one of those things that as soon as something heavier than a really small bird lands on it, the weight of the creature tips it up like a seesaw and they go flying off!  The little reds though have discovered that if you land on the baffle at the center point, right beside the pole, then it doesn’t tip them off.  They have to stretch outwards quite a bit to get to the seeds, but as long as they keep their little feet tucked in close to the centre then they can snatch a few seeds as a reward!  Have a look at this:

What you can’t quite tell from here is the angle the poor thing was stretched up at in order to reach the seeds whilst keeping his lower half tucked in to the centre of the pole!  Obviously very intelligent little creatures.

Not sure what the weekend holds for us apart from more thunder storms starting later on this evening which will put paid to the gardening we were planning to do tomorrow, it’s looking like a jungle out there and I need to get my tomato plants in the ground and my deck boxes, tubs and baskets planted up.  Still, a bad weekend at home beats a good week at work hands down!

A Prickly Subject

For sure Winter takes a lot away from us… our freedom is perhaps the biggest one, especially for folks not used to a lot of Winter who have been on the receiving end of some pretty bad weather for weeks now.  Coupled with the grey, short days, antsy kids, worrying journeys in ice and snow and the pure frustration and futility of it all, well, it can get us all down a bit can’t it?

But sometimes Winter is very generous too, giving us stunning vista’s to appreciate, freezing the ground solid so we can walk in places we wouldn’t otherwise be able to access.  It brings, beautiful but hungry, wild birds into our garden and lives, it gives us a reason to make warming soups and stews, comfort bake and snuggle on the sofa with a hot chocolate without feeling guilty that we should be doing something else.

I like Winter.  If it wasn’t for Winter I wouldn’t have been walking across a usually boggy and swampy meadow last weekend, I would have had to stick to the path on higher ground…. and I would have missed these beautiful Teasel’s with their little snowy hats.  And so would you.

Cute?

Beautiful?

Comical?

Whimsical?

Amazing.

Just plain beautiful.  For all that Winter takes away, it also reveals, you just have to look.

Winter

Snowflakes

by Linda A. Copp

Snowflakes spill from heaven’s hand
Lovely and chaste like smooth white sand.
A veil of wonder laced in light
Falling Gently on a winters night.

Graceful beauty raining down
Giving magic to the lifeless ground.
Each snowflake like a falling star
Smiling beauty that’s spun afar.

Till earth is dressed in a robe of white
Unspoken poem the hush of night.

I took these shots around my home when we arrived back from cross country skiing on Monday, wandering around almost knee deep in white, powdery snow, camera in hand.  There’s such beauty to be found in a winter landscape, so many marvels to observe.  I love to root out the animal tracks, find their little roads through the snow, wonder what made them, how they survive the harshness of the Michigan winter.  Hoping that when the snow finally melts I won’t find that they survived by eating all my grass and plants!  It’s happened in the past, so I know they’ll eat absolutely anything when they’re hungry.

[Icicles on my neighbours house]

[Meandering animal tracks.  Wonder what it was?  Something without a good sense of direction I think!]

[Snow piled on top of the birdfeeder…..]

[…in fact, snow piled everywhere.  It’s a long time since we’ve seen it this deep on top of surfaces, it usually gets knocked off by wind or birds, or just compresses under its own weight]

[The colours of nature…. blue sky, white snow, red dogwood and green pine]

[Snow piled up along our drive]

[Mailbox hats]

[Winter jewelry on a maple outside our living room window]

[Spotted by A during the week, a little bunny sheltering under the pine tree outside our kitchen window]

Springwatch Michigan Style

Well what a sublime weekend. Three days of bliss, sunshine and no rain or thunderstorms, I’m definitely feeling a little crispy round the edges this morning though! Separate posts of the weekends “doings”….

First up… a couple of quick photos of our first kayaking session this year, all 4 hours of it! My shoulders were a bit on the sore side the next day and my poor thighs are a rather fetching shade of lobster pink, must use more sun cream next time out!

We love the wildlife we see out on the lake, this weekend there were little goslings swimming about with parents, swans sitting majestically on nests, swifts peeping out from little mud huts as they sat on their eggs, carp spawning in the shallows, painted turtles were busy basking on logs and the parks resident Osprey pair were busy feeding their chick…. and all of this we get to see from a kayak. I’ve only got a couple of photos though, as I wasn’t the one on charge of the camera this time!!

This is an Eastern Painted Turtle basking on a log, they spend hours “sunbathing”, sometimes in large groups. Usually you can’t get too close to them or they’ll drop back into the water. The undersides are normally “painted” in very striking colours, hence the common name, you can just make out a bit of orange on this one around its underside and neck.

About five years ago the park managed to successfully re-introduced Ospreys. They’re under serious threat in Michigan as there are very few breeding pairs left. We are now fortunate enough to have two pairs living, and breeding, on our lake; A and I have watched them fish many a time and have sat for ages in our kayaks watching them soar in the endless blue sky. This weekend we were very lucky indeed to observe them catching fish and feeding their young chick.

The park has built a few of these platforms in the quieter areas of the lake, the birds themselves build the nests, and they’re absolutely huge! If you look closely you can just see the head of the chick, only one, which is why the numbers of these beautiful birds are declining.

And here it is, zoomed in as much as we could. Even at this tender age I could very clearly see its large, curved beak, a chick it might be, but I won’t be putting my little pinkies anywhere near it!