Ducksies and Suitcases and Storms, Oh My!

I haven't knitted for two days. Something to do with visiting libraries, being passed a steady stream of Discworld books by my son, not having a knitting project, and an amazing amount of tree branches which were disconnected from their trees yesterday morning, no doubt. I hope to remedy the situation today. I did finish the Duck hats. They came out just as I had planned, not too small, nor too large, and Just Right as far as yarn usage went. I had a few yards of green left over. They're a present, but I am fairly sure the recipients don't read this blog, so I present to you ....

Vir was away to Atlanta the week before last, for a reunion of his college housemates.  It's always interesting when one receives a phone call saying that one is owed a new suitcase, due to a small fire, but just about everything else is okay.  (The 'everything else' did not include the cell phone charger, table charger, a pair of shorts, a shirt, the back cover of an appointment book, and a few toiletries, however.)  I image it was quite a surprise to load up the luggage carrier, settle down in the car for a nice long drive, and arrive at the destination with a hole in the luggage carrier and smoking luggage inside it.  Farewell, blue bag.  You served me through trips to college, Iceland and Scotland, Tbilisi, Omaha, Baltimore, California, camp ... but not more.  And I didn't even get to say good bye. 

Yesterday morning, we made national news!  Some storms passed through the area.  Before they passed through, our main concern was not getting caught in a nasty downpour during the morning paper route.  Thunderstorms can make one exceedingly wet in a very short period of time.  It was dry when the papers got delivered, but there was a band of clouds the size of Pennsylvania lurking a few minutes west of us, so they were delivered by motor vehicle instead of bicycle.  Good thing, too.  Before we'd been inside a minute, God opened the fire hose on us and visibility dropped to 'not across the street.'  After a while, the rains dropped off and the winds picked up. 

Lots of winds. 

Turns out, we should have been concerned about getting walloped by a tree or trampoline or roof during the paper route, not getting wet.  One article in the papers says there are more trees down in town than there are people.  That *is* an exaggeration, but not much. 

Across the street. 

Happily, our willow tree did not lose any major branches, nor did any other tree in our yard.  It was the work of a half-hour to gather up the debris from our trees and from other trees that landed into our yard.  I was a bit curious how we would GET all the debris (two solid pick-up loads, perhaps) out to the compost facility when it opened up on Saturday, but thanks to some neighbors and a flat-bed tow truck, it is gone already. 

The back yard ... our property goes just a wee bit beyond the garden beds

Our neighbors don't usually have a whole tree laying down in their yard.  And they usually have a power line connecting their house to the grid, too.  Once the power company got the line properly dealt with (it's under the tree in this photo), a chainsaw or two and a skid loader made short work of the tree.  As the day progressed, I learned that we might have been the only ones in town who had power (except for a minute or two in the afternoon, probably when the rest of town got reconnected.)  Us, the empty house next to us, and the church next to that, are the only places I know had power.  An amazing blessing - and we didn't even know it wasn't a common blessing!

Canis was MOST unhappy when the power flicked off in the afternoon and the carbon monoxide detector beeped. 

I got two packages of yarn yesterday.  One for a test knit, and the other for playing with.  Alpaca laceweight .... mmmmm!