Not quite the Northern Lights

My 'bucket list' has one thing on it: see the Northern Lights. 

not the Northern Lights, but a blur of harvest moon

In theory this should be achievable, but somehow it hasn't been. Even this past summer, when all our neighbours were blown away by what they saw from their cottages and other getaway locations, we were swamped and couldn't get out of the city for dark skies. 

So last night, when it seemed like there might be another chance, four of us piled into Pete's car and drove to the farm.

Spoiler alert: there were no Northern Lights.

What there was: 

A ninety-minute drive together, with much hilarity and life catchup.

A chance to see our tiny shed with the soft lights on.

A crunchy, then grassy and damp, walk to the pond, lit by four flashlights held in cluster mode.

A look at an incredibly beautiful frog, maybe half the size of my palm, which crossed our path and stopped when we shone a light on him. 

An awareness of many more leaping things, some of them bugs, some of them (a lot) more frogs, all living their lives as busy night creatures. 

A mysterious pocket of warm air halfway up the hill that lasted as long as five or six strides, then dissipated, but was still present when we came back down.

I also discovered that my phone camera can do a long exposure and capture a better look at the stars than we could with our own eyes, at least until we turned off the flashlights and got used to the dark. I know that last picture could just as easily be breadcrumbs on our soapstone counter, but it's stars, I promise.

Today I feel like a rag rung mostly dry, because we had to do the ninety minute drive home after a long time waiting and hoping, but it was such an unexpected delight to spend a Friday night together doing something spontaneous, if totally unrealistic. 

Speaking of unrealistic: I am not gonna get to anything crafty between now and the day I finish polishing my current manuscript, and said polishing is taking a lot of time and care. So I will be taking the rest of September to do that, and I'll be back to hang out again here at Hugs the first Saturday in October. 

Have a wonderful weekend, and two weeks after that equally so, and I'll see you October 5th! And thanks, as always, for spending time with me today.

For the love of wool

The temps are way down today and though the sun is pouring through our big south-facing window, the screen is letting in a breeze that's cool. I almost need a sweater. Yes, that's a happy sigh you're hearing from me.

I've left this photo at high resolution so you can click it and see the curly halo on that two-stripe heart. Isn't wool wonderful? I am so ready to wear it this autumn.

But first I gotta finish proofreading my current manuscript! 

When I have that job out of the way, I've lined up some books to read.

Maybe not this many... some of what's in those unopened packages are vintage Agatha Christie paperbacks. I'm kind of obsessed with the range of cover art on them, and might have bought a few, ahem, in a weak moment in July. 

I wrote about my August reading over on Instagram - no account required - and North and South was the standout. You may know this one from the BBC miniseries, which is so visually arresting you might not be able to knit through it all, even if you are knitting a stocking-stitch sock and don't need to pay a lot of attention to your needles. A large component of the story turns on cotton mills and the the scenes showing the conditions for workers as they weave cotton cloth are not to be missed by textile lovers and/or amateur historians. I must have watched the miniseries a dozen times but I think I loved the book even more.

There has been a lot more walking in the ravine lately, despite some days last week being unpleasantly humid. 

 

I find it so calming to be near water like this, though I do miss being near a lake! I spent the first 20 years or so of my life less than a block from Lake Ontario, which you can see to the other side of on a clear day. And since not every day is clear, you can feel like you're looking to infinity a lot of the time. A creek is not so much about infinity, but when the water eddies around rocks and moves on, you do get continuity.

Proofreading feels like this kind of continuity, a lot of the time. As in, it never seems to be finished, ARg.

But when I'm done, it'll be autumn, and I'll be wearing some wool. Hope you're getting the weather you like best this weekend, wherever you are... and thanks as always for spending a little time with me today. See you next Saturday!