AWWWW....

I mentioned the other day that I missed the 1 pm ferry coming back to Salt Spring from Victoria, so I never made it to knitting at the Rock Salt. What I didn't mention was that as we drove off the later ferry (3:35 pm) at Fulford, there was my friend Esther standing waiting to walk on to that ferry to return to Victoria .... she had come over (on the ferry we missed) hoping to surprise me for my birthday! So we pulled over in the parking lot and had about a 3-minute visit before she had to get on the ferry we'd just gotten off ... I felt so bad that I'd missed her!

Well, today I went to a meeting in Fulford (about a Christmas event here on Dec. 16th -- I'll be attempting to start a first-ever Christmas boat parade, but that's a post for another day) and stopped in to the Rock Salt for a coffee to take with me. A waitress whom I didn't think had ever even laid eyes on me said, "Oh! I have something for you!" and passed me an envelope.

In it was a hand-made birthday card from Esther, that she'd left with the staff there when I hadn't showed up! How sweet is this??
Thanks so much for your thoughtfulness, Esther!

Aren't friends wonderful?

A HAZY LAZY DAY

Woke up this morning to a gray, drizzly day, and decided to do nothing today. Well, nothing but knitting, anyway! Guilt-free, again .... it's my birthday, and since I've already celebrated it I had no other plans, anyway. Stayed in my pj's, had long phone conversations with Esther, Penny and Carol (thanks all for the birthday wishes!), and had Mike's socks almost ready to turn the heel, when the phone rang one more time at 3 pm. Mike was on the ferry coming in to Fulford and invited himself for coffee on his way home to Ganges .... oh, well, it didn't hurt to get dressed after all. :)

Only two more days of NaBloPoMo -- yay, I think I'll succeed!

Here's today's PHOTO OF THE DAY:

Stellar and California sea lions, which are starting to gather here and there on this coast for the herring runs.

HOME AGAIN

I never made it to knitting at the Rock Salt today ... we were having a looooooong breakfast with Jason and Mischa, and missed the 1 pm ferry.

Knitting did happen, though ... I finished a second pair of socks for Gibson for Christmas, a cloche to go with the pale yellow shawl, and I got started on a pair of socks for 'Galiano' Mike (who is now Ganges Mike) for Christmas.
'Something' will go in that 'criss--cross' spot, but I'm not sure what ... a giant button, a knitted flower, or a cluster of beads. Any opinions out there? :)
Plain beige for a plain kind of guy .... a nice, easy knit, too!

The hotel room was lovely (but I'd *never* pay the going rate for it -- probably $170 a nite), and, of course, BC was victorious in the Grey Cup. Here's a screen shot of the Mounties bringing in the cup...
I preferred the view out the window, personally ...
... and I'm glad to be home. :-)

A ROAD TRIP - TO VICTORIA :)

We are off to Victoria this morning... Michael will do his little cleaning job that he does every weekend while I play in our storage room (read: stash!) and then we will check in to a lovely hotel on the harbour in time to watch that football game everyone's talking about. (Not being the least bit interested in football, I will have various knitting projects along to amuse myself with)!

Tomorrow morning we'll have brekkie with the kids (except Hailey, Whistler's too far away to come for brekkie...) and then I have to get my driver's license renewed; if I have time I'll do a bit of a grocery shopping (MUCH cheaper prices than here on Salt Spring!), maybe get a hair cut, and be back on the Salt Spring ferry to knit at the Rock Salt tomorrow afternoon!

I got an email from my Metchosin friend Wendy ... last year, our little Thursday afternoon spinning group (the one in which I was an imposter) created a hand-knit blanket from hand-spun yarns (we each individually knit a 'panel') which will be donated to a charity. Here is Isabel and Wendy showing off the final finished product, ready to go!
And today's "other" PHOTO OF THE DAY:
... just as if they were posing for me... :)

ANOTHER WET WINDY DAY

Sitting in the fourth wind storm this week this morning, I'm sure glad we went for a long walk in the sunshine yesterday! Michael walked out onto this little point of land to read a memorial sign for a fellow who fell off his boat and drowned a few years ago...
Lots of birds in the estuary below the old Fulford Inn:
We made it all the way to Drummond Park... (that's our marina you can see in the distance across the bay):
You can see this kind of fencing all over the Island ... some of it is well over 100 years old and still standing:
Nuttin' but knittin' today ... too gloomy and miserable to do much else! Tomorrow we may go in to Victoria for the day and overnight -- we have a gift certificate for a lovely hotel room that needs to be used up soon (one of our prizes from last year's Christmas boat parade), and my birthday is coming up. Besides, then we can bring back all our Christmas lights and decorations from storage ... it's almost that time! :-)

STORM AFTERMATH

More storm pics from yesterday ... this first one is a huge dock (about 12' wide by 30' long) that must have broken away from somewhere and came crashing into the head of Fulford Harbour on some pretty big waves yesterday:
I took these from Drummond Park, across from our marina:

My daughter Hailey posted this video on her Facebook page yesterday (that's a virus-free YouTube link, by the way) .... Michael and I have stayed in this B & B, about two blocks from where Hailey lives!

I finished the test knit shawl .... and it's barely big enough to be a kerchief! Lovely, but useless ... I used the recommended needle size and got gauge, so I don't know what went wrong! I may frog the whole thing and knit it again, with much bigger needles, and several more repeats.
Off for our walk now -- it's calm and the sun is out, but apparently another storm will be moving through here tomorrow!

STORM!

We are sitting in a 35-40 kt southeast gale this morning. I took a video looking out our door into the harbour .... you can see it here.

We actually 'rescued' a sailboat that was anchored out on the other side of the Rock Salt restaurant yesterday. The anchor had dragged so the boat was only about 50' from shore, and today's gale was already predicted. We didn't want this boat to end up on the rocks ... we know the woman who owns it, and know that she's away right now, so Michael went out in our inflatable, and towed it into our dock. Check this out...



I'm off to knit at the Rock Salt - it should be fun today, combining knitting and storm-watching! (Oh, and I'll have another shawl to show you tomorrow....)

TODAY'S TWO-HOUR WALK

Yes, Michael is a non-smoker! Well, he made it for 13 days, smoked 3 cigarettes one afternoon, and now he's on Day Six again..... sigh. But one thing that's really nice about the whole ordeal is that we are WALKING ... not every day, but probably every other day. Today the sun was out, and it was perfect for a walk!

One of the apple trees on our property ... sans leaves:
Here's an even older apple tree we saw on a vacant lot along the way...
And an old-growth cedar...
Other sights... not much commentary needed!
We've had a LOT of rain for the past few days, so we passed several seasonal streams that were all in 'full force...' as if it was spring!
And this last one, which made me think of a Thomas Kincade painting!
At one point, we were on a path into a this little cove, and an elderly fellow and his dog went by us ... we chatted for a few minutes and he mentioned that he was going for a 'dip.' I thought he was joking.

This is Harry (and his dog):
And this is Harry after he stripped down to the buff and dove in:
It's November 23rd, even if this is the Gulf Islands. Can you believe it?? This guy is nuts. And in better shape than I'll ever be! I think I'll stick to walking, though. :)

A NEW RAVELRY GROUP

I have started a new Ravelry group for fibre folks who live in the Canadian Gulf Islands! I've been a member of the Vancouver Island group for a few years, but this is even more specific .... I'm sure I'm not the only one who feels 'isolated' as a fibre person here in the Islands, and yet there are hundreds of us! I went looking for my favorite photo to create the group's 'banner' and badge, and found it...
This photo is taken from the anchorage at Cabbage Island Marine Park (on the edge of the Strait of Georgia), and encompasses all of the southern Gulf Islands pretty much from Nanaimo in the north (right side of the picture) to the US border in the south (left side). I love it!

Oh, and if the group interests you, you can find it (or pass it on) here (if you're a Ravelry member).

It's gloomy and rainy and windy and we're rockin' and rollin' again ... and I'm warm and dry and knitting. :-)

ALMOST FORGOT!

I almost forgot to post today, and since I've made it until now with NaBloPoMo, I'd hate to mess it up now! Spent the day in town shopping, doing laundry and running other errands ... oh wait, that's what Michael did while I went knitting with the Ganges knitting group! :) There were 8 or 10 of us there today, and it was really nice -- I'm even starting to remember people's names now.

I got to take Alaria for 'show and tell' (yes, we do that at our knitting circles here!) ... not blocked yet, but lovely just the same:
... and now I've cast on for a test knit shawl that I think will only take a day or two.

There's a 'Blog Tag' thing circulating for NaBloPoMo participants with a bunch of questions you can answer on your blog if you run out of things to write about. I don't ever want to run the whole post, but a few of the questions are kind of interesting. One of those questions is: "What has been your most beautiful post?"

I can't answer that, but I'd love to hear *your* comments about it.... what do *you* think has been my most beautiful post? Whether it was a photo or a story or a heartfelt comment I've made, I'd love to hear your thoughts about that!

SHAWL EXCHANGE PARCEL :)

I've been participating in a shawl exchange on Ravelry, and yesterday Michael brought my parcel home from our mailbox in Victoria! Wow, this was my "pal's" first-ever knit lace shawl... isn't it stunning?
The yarn is an alpaca/wool/silk and nylon blend, and the colors are all my favorite 'jewel tones:' blues, purples and greens!

The parcel held lots of other goodies, too... some lovely pima cotton, a bookmark, a journal, a bath 'bomb' (I'll have to re-gift that since I don't have a bathtub!), a funky flowery pen, and some stitch markers made by my pal. She even included two little wooden airplanes for River and Gibson ... who are both here for a visit today! :)
What a nice early birthday present!

Our walk day before yesterday took us to the end of a narrow little windy road (almost EVERY road on Salt Spring ends in a narrow, windy road!) which ended in a parking lot at the 'head' of Long Harbour. We had to cross this little wooden footpath to get to the beach...
... which was lined with wild rose bushes:
It was damp and cold so we didn't stay long, but it was fun to find a part of the Island we hadn't seen yet!

Off to hang out with 'my boys!'

Yesterday morning I was hoping to go in to Victoria for Knit'n'Cafe, but instead I woke up with an eye infection in my left eye and had to make an unplanned trip in to the clinic for antibiotic ointment.

You'd think that would have given me extra knitting time, but what happened instead was extra frogging -- I had to undo two rows of Alaria, twice, for various mistakes and mishaps! So I am no further ahead on that project this morning, but I do still see the light at the end of the tunnel -- about 20 more rows to go.

I may not make much progress on it this weekend, though... Michael left for Victoria this morning and when he comes back this afternoon he'll have River and Gibson with him. Yay, a sleepover with grandsons .... we haven't seen them since Hallowe'en, so I'm really looking forward to that! Of course, that also means a trip in to Ganges today for important stuff .... like popcorn, hot chocolate and juice.

PHOTO OF THE DAY:
These rock formations are common throughout the Gulf Islands .... a result of wind and wave action on the sandstone on many of the shores. This one is on Galiano Island!

SPECIAL OLYMPICS PROJECT

The organizers of the St Albert 2012 Winter Games (here in Canada) would like to collect enough hand-made scarves for every Special Olympics athlete, coach and their family members and volunteers - that translates to approximately 2500 scarves.

The dream is to receive donations of uniquely patterned scarves - using the logo as a colour guide. (For more details, check out this news story, which includes a downloadable .pdf regarding size, colors and the mailing address to send completed scarves). The project organizers want the scarves to be as unique as are the athletes! As scarves are collected, they plan to post pictures to the Special Olympics web-site listed above.

If you are a Ravelry member, you can see some patterns here and here. Charts and patterns for the Canadian maple leaf here.

If not, you can use any pattern you want ... but I hope lots of knitters will join this effort to support our athletes this winter!

STORMY

Night before last, the sky looked like this...
... and yesterday, mid-day, the wind came up, and by supper-time it was miserable: pouring rain, and we were rockin' and rollin'.
See the windsock in this photo?That's for the ferry skipper, and it was sticking straight out for most of the day yesterday -- we probably had about 40 knot winds in the bay here.

This morning, it looked like this...
See that white stuff up on the mountain? Yup, it's snow... none down here at sea level, but that's close enough for me!

At least I'm having lots of knitting time... I'm on the edging of Alaria already:

Looks like more of the same today.... so I'll be knitting at home this morning, and then knitting at the Rock Salt this afternoon!