25 mph

There's a new speed limit sign on the dirt road. I just noticed it last Friday. I think it's the first speed limit sign on this road at all. It will definitely make things easier if people actually obey it. One of the worst offenders is the man who delivers the mail. He zips along this road trailed by a huge cloud of dust each afternoon. Repeated calls to the county are ineffective.

This little sign might make our trot sets easier, too. A speeding pickup truck can be a powerful distraction to a fresh horse. Years ago, our friend George would yell and make wild hand motions trying to get motorists to slow down on this stretch of road. Usually the drivers would just wave back and smile, misunderstanding, thinking that we were wishing them a pleasant day. But one day a man got the gist of George's not-so-subtle message and gave him the finger, started to speed up. George was so angry he raced that man's car on horseback, whipping his little thoroughbred down the verge as the man sped down the road. Kept up with him, too. But it didn't make any difference, and boy was his wife (the little thoroughbred's other trainer) angry when he trotted back to our little group.

Maybe this sign will make a difference, but probably not. Too bad most of the worst offenders are driving in the opposite direction and won't see the sign. My guess is that the county is just getting tired of re-grading this stretch of road, and they're hoping that slower driving will mean less braking and therefore less washboarding. We'll see.

Hills and Valleys

I definitely do not need another crafty hobby. But this week these ripple stitch crochet blankets have been calling my name, so I've taken up a crochet hook. I'm adding another blanket to the blogosphere, about a year behind the others. This pattern, number 8 'Soft Waves', from Jan Eaton's 200 Ripple Stitch Patterns book, is pretty soothing. And addictive. I sit and crochet and I'm always excited about getting to the next color.

The hills and valleys in the crochet remind me a little of the hills and valleys of Virginia. The last day for the season of foxhunting was Saturday, and despite a little mix-up about the time of the meet, Joshua and I made it there in time. Maybe only you other riders will know what I'm talking about, but it was one of those 'zen' days on horseback. Without thinking about anything, I melted into a kind of meditation of movement and it was just my huntin' horse and me, up and down hills in harmony with the world, for an indeterminate amount of time.

That's not to say it wasn't an eventful day. One woman's horse fell on the blacktopped road and she broke her arm (better at the end of the season than the beginning), and though we asked the ambulance to come without the siren, it wailed and echoed toward us, scaring each of the assembled horses. After the ambulance it began to sleet a little as we moved back into the woods, and I had that winter fort feeling as the sleet fell (c-c-clickclickclick) on millions of leaves and branches overhead. I don't really know where I'm going here. Here's a photo of springtime hills and mountains taken last April. Doesn't it look a little like the crocheted ripples?

Sometimes when I'm riding out, I remember a little passage that I wrote in my journal the first time I went hunting, about 'things I learned'. I was probably about 14. I wrote, "sometimes it's okay to go galloping full-speed down a hill when there's another hill going up to catch you on the other side". It seems like there always is another hill in this part of the world.

PS: I don't know why my posts have seemed a little morose (and perhaps overly philosophical) lately. I'm hoping spring will bring the happy.

Windy

There are few things prettier than the stark beauty of spring. The new colors and clean lines. The white-trunked sycamores really shine now, before they've got their new leaves. This photo was taken in February, but things look pretty much the same in that field, maybe slightly greener.

As we rode today the wind was like another character in our story. It sounded just like a car coming down the road, and it wouldn't let me be alone.
These tiny tiny crocus-type flowers are popping up on the protected side of one of the barnyard trees. It's hard to overstate how small these are. The flowers are less than half an inch in diameter. The even tinier blue flowers in the grass that were open to the sun last week are now closed tightly to the wind. And we wait for the warm still summer. Happy Easter (and Equinox) everyone!

Quilty Saturday

This morning, the puppy jumped in a mud puddle and temporarily rendered himself grey, head-to-toe. I wish I had had a camera. Then he jumped into the lake to 'wash himself off'. It must finally be spring, because the lake water's warming up and beginning to produce algae, which makes certain puppies smell like swamp. If he'd stayed muddy at least he'd have just smelled like dirt. There's been a lot of quilting going on this weekend. Last night I had my first go with the Bernina free-motion quilting foot (#29) for my older-model machine. I quilted this blue and almost-white block that I made back in the winter of 2003 when I was so bored at night after work that I decided to make every star block in my 1000 Great Quilt Blocks book. (Lots of those blocks had to be modified to take out extraneous seams, by the way.)

It occurred to me just as I wrote that sentence that the whole Dear Jane quilt is a little like my quest to make all the stars. One of each, hundreds of tiny little blocks. That said, here are a couple more. These are the ones that were up this week for Anina's Dear Baby Jane quilt-along.
D-13 Field of Dreams: Pretty straightforward.
A-7 Dad's Plaids: I still suck at the applique, but I guess I'm getting better. Also love how this one doesn't even line up. I guess it will be *another* humility block for this quilt.

Seventy-five quilt

Today is my Virginia grandmother's seventy-fifth birthday. I sent her this little spring quilt in celebration. The blocks were all foundation pieced (templates at Piece By Number), and the whole thing is about twelve inches square. The results with paper piecing are so fantastic that I almost don't mind that this thing took me all day Sunday to make. But seventy-five? It had to be something special. More photos on flickr.

Back on the Dear Jane bandwagon

A lovely new addition to my Dear Jane quest, this is block C-9, Jane's tears. I did this one in reverse applique, and it looks at least a little better than my last attempt at teeny-tiny applique. It was actually really enjoyable to do the whole thing by hand.

I've gotten back on the right track with this quilt thanks to Anina's Dear Baby Jane quilt-along. This block and B-13, Four Corner Press, were the blocks for this first week.

Green week: 4

Today has been rainy and dark, but things will be noticeably greener tomorrow, after this day-long drink. We don't have any daffodils in our yard, but my husband sent me these cut ones today, and I can't wait until they open up on my kitchen windowsill.
I've really enjoyed Shining Egg's Green Week; it has helped me to convince myself that Spring will actually be here in full force one day very soon.

The second photo represents another way of being green--recycling. We're big on that around here. This is a detail of one of two bathroom rugs that I crocheted this week from old t-shirts, using Amanda Jean's tutorial. The acid green stripe in the photo was made from a Big Rock Blue Marlin Fishing Tournament shirt that I bought during spring break in high school. In the days before the Internet, we used to make a point of buying "good" t-shirts when we were at the beach in North Carolina. Most of these shirts had paintings of sport fish on them. I've had a pile of these worn-out shirts in my basement for the better part of a year, so it feels good to finally do something with them, since I couldn't make myself throw them away. I could probably still tell you which shirt each stripe was made of-- I wish I weren't so sentimental about things that really don't matter.