A's new jumper.

A's new jumper., originally uploaded by calamitysue.

Just finished this jumper.All handspun(thats why it's lumpy)and my first effort at a Skull and Xbones.Im very pleased.A is more pleased than he looks.

Blizzard photos

As promised. It's only taken me a week! Had to clear some deadlines first... also some driveways. My brand-new Flickr photostream is in reverse order, because I didn't notice till I'd posted them that it shows the most recent photo first. (How counter-intuitive is THAT?) Click here to see the slidehow.

Apparently I can't post photos to this blog because I don't own the blog. I also can't post photos to the new version of Blogger because I need to update my browser AND my operating system before it will display the "Done" button on the photo upload page and frankly, I just can't be arsed.

I'm getting the hell away from this machine for a couple of days. It's making me really crabby. See you later...

graphics amateur hour

Please enjoy this idiot map.

Bushfire smoke held under a cool air blanket tonight

What part of snow don't you understand?

We had a blizzard yesterday. We got about 2.5 feet of snow -- it was apparently one of the 10 most intense storms in Vermont history. Some towns got 3 feet! Anyway, my parents are away, so my dad left his plow truck for us to use. Their driveway is about 1/4 mile long and runs through meadow, so it drifts pretty badly. So my mission was to keep both driveways open. Mr. Sorrow started the plowing yesterday morning and got stuck; the neighbor's plow guy pulled him out. I resumed plowing after Mr. Sorrow went to work. I plowed once an hour and was running out of places to push the snow when the windscreen wipers quit (the truck is about 30 years old). So I rolled down the windows and plowed with my head out the window. Did I mention we had 45-mile-an-hour winds yesterday?

The truck cab was filled with snow and I was just getting seriously panicked because I couldn't keep up with the blizzard, and then my brother showed up with his truck. Yay! So we put Dad's truck in the garage. He fixed the wipers. I started shoveling around the garage; Bruce started plowing. He got stuck. So I trudged out with a shovel to help, without my knee brace (I messed up my knees a couple of weeks ago and they were ju-u-u-st about healed). We dug and spun for awhile; then he decided we'd better try pulling him out with Dad's truck. So he went back to the garage and I kept shoveling. And I shoveled. And shoveled. And shoveled. Finally Bruce showed up: the truck's battery had gone dead, so he'd had to charge it. We attached the chain to the trucks and pulled; he got stuck worse. We shoveled. I stepped in a hole and fucked my knee up again. We attached the chain and pulled. He got stuck worse. We shoveled. Mr. Sorrow showed up. We shoveled. Bruce managed to get my dad's truck around in front of his, and we pulled from the front: success! And none too soon; it was getting dark, and Bruce's lights don't work, so he had to get home, about a 45-minute drive in pelting snow.

So Bruce left, Mr. Sorrow drove his car to my parents' garage so he could drive it out after plowing in the morning, and I drove down to our place and plowed us a bolt-hole in our driveway, just enough to get out. The wipers quit again, I got out to get a screwdriver to fix them and stepped in another hole, and this time I went down. Took me awhile to figure out how to stand up. Got back in the truck. Went back up and plowed my parent's driveway once more, got the truck into the garage, then I put on my knee brace and Mr. Sorrow and I walked home in the dark and pelting snow, me with ski poles for balance.

This morning everything was completely drifted in. The day was a rerun of yesterday, only more pointless. Mr. Sorrow got Dad's truck stuck in the middle of the driveway; now it's out of gas, and the battery's dead. (The gas tank was full yesterday morning.) We shoveled all day. Both driveways are completely full of snow, about 4 feet deep, so we can't get out except on snowshoes. It just blows back in. My dad's beloved truck just has to stay there in the driveway, getting completely drifted in because Mr. Sorrow has to get up at 2 AM for work and will be gone all day and I can't afford to lose any more work time, so I can't take tomorrow to rescue it. As if I could do anything anyway. It's going to take a backhoe. I feel like such a massive failure because I didn't plow through the night. Though how I could have done with no wipers is somewhat unclear...

I took my camera out so I could get some photos, but it froze and the battery died. I'll try again tomorrow. Meantime, here's one from the local paper that kind of gives you the idea... Rest of their slide show is pretty lame because it was shot downtown, where they got only about a foot of snow.

Hey, watch this till I can post some photos.

Knit & Purl 4

Knit & Purl 4, originally uploaded by Kapten Hanna.

Check out Hanna's Tatts-I love her designs.

Texan Roller girls.

6666666-R4-038-17A, originally uploaded by Celesta Danger.

Celesta Dangers fantastic photos again.

Beanies and Scarf for those at musty acres.

DSCF2876, originally uploaded by calamitysue.

Hope I don't miss winter over there.

Knitting frenzy.

DSCF2873, originally uploaded by calamitysue.

Tara is getting a package soon.

Frog in Pandani.

DSCF2823, originally uploaded by calamitysue.

It makes me so happy to find frogs in this garden.To think that 7 years ago it was barren .

chickadee

chickadee2, originally uploaded by calamitysue.

Jethro Barstool and his wives-Dolly,Lucinda and Loretta would like to announce the hatching of-

Heaven

Hell. I don't seem to be able to post videos from UsTube since Google changed things here. But:

Bob recently sent me this.

If heaven's not exactly like that, I'm going to be really really REALLY disappointed.

vinyardview

vinyardview, originally uploaded by calamitysue.

C,would this do as a view from your Tasmanian property?

Photographs

IMGmon_0016, originally uploaded by calamitysue.

I have been spending a lot of time looking at old photos on Flicker.There are so many groups of dags like me who scan photos of people they don't know.This set is from a small album that I bought at a market a few years ago,it seems a really personal set,probably belonging to one of the daughters.Click on the cover and have a look at the slideshow.

Let us sing again, the praises of hops.....