Long Lake Yarns

Whenever I knit multiples it’s a good pattern.  Vancouver, Washington’s Rebekah Sturtevant (a/k/a Bekah.knits) has come up with a winner.  Her Moc-a-socs, in both adult and baby sizes, combine a comfy slipper with the top of a sock.  For little ones, this is footwear with staying power.  They won’t kick off easily.  For grown-ups, they are cozy as can be.  Coat the soles with some non-skid product if home has non-carpeted floors because taking a flying header is probably not what the doctor ordered.

Hoover, the cat.  He is one, so it always seemed best to leave him home.  Around his stuff.  Where he knows where his everything is.  And isn’t.  For more than three years now, we’ve always left him home.  He likes, and we like, his reliable cat sitter.  But we decided Hoover might like the lake house.  We will be here for five or six days.  It’s winter and we wouldn’t need to leave him for hours while we do fun stuff on the lake.  We have bird feeders.  We have birds and squirrels at the feeders.  Birds and squirrels.  Birds, Hoover.  You will like the birds.  And squirrels.

Hoover only stayed under the bed in the back room for about half an hour.  He only stayed hiding under his blanket for another half an hour.  Then he got interested in the place.  Really interested.  In everything.  In everything several times in a row.  He paced the perimeters of the main rooms.  He looked at himself in the mirror.  Over and over.  When morning came, he watched birds and squirrels from various vantage points.  Three days and a few hours later, he seems to be  acclimated.  We think he likes the place.  We know he likes the birds and squirrels.  He’s already found favorite spots.  In his “Kitty Pod.”  Sitting on an end table that looks out onto the deck.  Sleeping on the flannel sheets with colorful fish on them.   His ears twitch while he sleeps and dreams.  Betcha he’s stalking birds and squirrels.

The woods stuffed full of snow.  The heavy wet snow that sticks to everything.  The sides of trees.  Your boots.  If you laid down to make a snow angel you would sink about ten inches.  If you made a snowball, leftover snowball would tangle in the wool of your mittens and dangle in clumps. Animal tracks get all elongated, like the animals are dragging their feet.  The two-track almost disappears.  This is December.

This is a section of the north branch of Thunder Bay River, just northwest of Long Lake, north of County Road 628.  But I didn’t tell you that.  It’s way too pretty a place for many people to know about.  A rickety wood plank bridge is the only way to get over the river at that point.  Probably no one should drive a car over it.  Probably it’s best no one even walks on it.  In fact, you shouldn’t even come near it.  This was December 12th, after a ten inch snowfall.  The river is just beginning to ice.  Tree branches heavy with snow bend into the river.  Then the river grabs them and holds them fast.  It is tempting to free a few.

Sometimes I knit something just to say I’ve done it.  I once knit a Frilled-Neck Dragon for that reason.  I mean, how many people can say they’ve knitted that?  I’ve knit hippos in tutus and entire herds of ponies.  Anyway, this hat sort of captivated me.  It was designed by  Hannah Ingalls.  It is a free pattern available at the on line magazine Knitty. There is an entire Ravelry group devoted to sharing the experience of knitting trilobites.  So long as you know how to read charts, it is an easy and satisfying knit.  Now I can say I’ve knitted Trilobites.

Walking on a two-track, on state land near Sorenson Road, we came upon these Wild Turkey  tracks in the sand.  Wild Turkeys were nearly eliminated from their habitat by the early 1900’s.  Paradoxically, hunters helped save them. In 1973, the National Wild Turkey Federation was formed.  It is both a hunting organization and a conservation group .  Estimates then were that about 1.3 million turkeys remained in the wild in the United States.  Today, the population has grown to about seven million.  Hunting seasons have been established in 49 states, including Michigan.  Montmorency County is not exactly teeming with the birds.  But we have seen quite a few hens in fields.  We’ve seen hens and their poults scratching alongside roads.  The toms, with their long beards, are very infrequently seen.  Steve has hunted tom turkeys for three seasons now.  So far, the turkeys are winning.  But it must have been a monster turkey that moved along this trail.  Here is their gobble, which Steve practices using all sort of odd shaped wood and plastic small contraptions.  If Benjamin Franklin had his way, the Wild Turkey would have been our national symbol.  Would that mean we’d be eating eagle for Thanksgiving?

Oh yes, this fine turkey parts drawing (my name for the piece) by Michigan’s own, Glenn Wolff, was published originally in the New York Times. I was able to purchase the original “Mature Male.”  It hangs  at the lake house, where hopefully no dead tom’s beard will ever hang. Wolff’s prints, illustrations, and original oils capture our state and its creatures.  He’s reproducing some of his pieces on T-shirts, tiles, mugs and notecards these days.  Click here to learn more.

Ocqueoc Falls is just about the only honest-to-goodness, rootin’ tootin’ waterfall in Michigan’s lower peninsula.  The total descent is about five feet.  Downstream from the main part of the falls, the rock walls are about 20 feet high.  And it is only about 35 miles from Hillman.  We’re not talking Tahquamenon here,  but this mini-waterfall is beautiful in a quiet non-Upper Peninsular way.  In the fall, salmon make their way upstream for spawning.  Haven’t seen that yet.   Children who are good swimmers with about 8 years of height on them love to play in the pool at the base of the falls.  I’m (probably) too  much of a grown-up to enjoy that.  I might slip on the slick rocks and skin my knee.  I might trip on the boulders getting to the base of the falls and end up needing stitches on my noggin.  I might…I might try it some time.  When no kids are around to laugh at my timidity.

Illusion knitting is the trickster technique of the knitting world.  It can’t be new.  Nothing can really be new in knitting, can it?  But my first experience of it was  knitting Elizabeth Fallone’s Shadow Spider Scarf in Shelridge Farm’s worsted weight yarn.   Knitters would say that yarn has a wonderful hand. I knitted most of the Spider Scarf while Steve and I stayed at Insel Haus on Michigan’s Bois Blanc Island during a weekend in January.  We were the only guests at Christa and Shelby Newhouse’s wonderful rambling B & B.  Christa is a master knitter and regularly teaches or hosts knitting retreats at Insel Haus.  We lucked out and were able to take a ferry over from Cheboygan.  The winter was mild.  The Straits of Mackinac hadn’t yet frozen.  Someone on the island needed a piece of heavy equipment so we hitched a ride with it.  Had to charter a small plane to get back though.  That was an interesting flight, flying unpleasantly low over the waves.

So, the way you knit an illusion is you trick the eye with alternating contrasting  colors knitted (and purled) in sets of four rows.  When you look straight at the scarf, you see what looks like somewhat messy garter stitch.  But look at it at with your eyes scanning its length and the motif appears.  In Fallone’s pattern, the illusion motif is big spiders creeping the length of the scarf.  Debbie Stoller’s  edgy first “Stitch ‘n Bitch” handbook contains Shetha Nolke’s cool Alien Illusion Scarf.  You knit, and pretty soon Roswell type alien heads appear, big dark eye sockets and all.  Here, in Donna Druchunas’s Hidden Cat Scarf, it’s cat faces that emerge.  Fun stuff, this knitting.  My version of the cat scarf is knit using Michigan’s own Stonehedge Farm Shepherd’s Wool, soft merino wool spun in East Jordan, Michigan.  That’s on the sunset side of the state, not the sunrise side closest to Long Lake.  Still good Michigan wool.  I’ll imagine some of the sheep grow their wool on the sunrise side.  Could be.  Could be.

I feel uncomfortable about this. Why is that Golden Retriever wearing a shower cap?  Is that Bailey…because Bailey told me they brought her somewhere to wash off that last skunk.  She told me it was a lot worse than the bathtub and the baby shampoo and the hydrogen peroxide.  And I don’t smell nearly as bad as Bailey did.  Even if she HAD to wear that shower cap for some reason, why did they take her picture? Promise me you won’t take my picture.  Promise.  Speaking of promises, if we leave now I promise I’ll behave in the bathtub at home.

Is that supposed to be funny?  I could get off that in a minute if I tried. That Victrola mutt might have been too stupid to untangle himself while they painted his picture, but I am not going to have a problem with that.

Oh yeah.  This place is just a laugh a minute.  Four on the floor.  Very funny. Healthy pets only.  That’s kinda inspirational.  I think I feel a major barf coming on.  I might even be able to manage some diarrhea.

Two bucks is  overpriced for some cheap terrycloth drying towel, don’t ya think?  What is that thing in the middle?  Ear wipes?  Does that say ear wipes?  Are they out of their minds?  If you reach to put anything in that middle slot I will bite the fat pink thing you push around in that stroller.  And if you ever put anything in my ears I will chew the thumbs off both your top paws.

I don’t think so.  I don’t think so.  You can’t make me. Even Cesar Millan could not make me walk up that thing.  Please, please.   I promise.  I know what skunks look like now.  I know what they do.  I won’t chase them anymore.  I promise.  I promise.  I’ll be good.   Take me to our own bathtub. Save your money for buying a toy for the fat pink thing in the stroller.

I knitted this for my son while I was waiting for him to be born.  He’s 24 now and  built this blog for me this past Mother’s Day.  I remember knitting this set.  I had a lot of trouble with the intarsia tumbling blocks.  1-2-3-4-5, with 6 on the back. Intarsia is hard for me, and not much fun. Knitted patterns use the technique quite a bit in children’s clothing. A lot of work, but well worth the effort.  Like kids.  The last two photos are  my son, when he and this knitted set were both brand new.