Author Archives: Rachel

Animals in a City

While contemplating what I want to write about the New Hampshire Sheep and Wool Festival, life gave my darling Joe another excuse to travel and I found myself yet again in Southern Vermont (not that I complain).

Immediately I found an excuse to visit my favorite spinnery there – The Green Mountain Spinnery:

Home of the friendliest spinners in Vermont

Greem Mountain Spinnery

My excuse this time: I am not sure I have enough meadow yarn to finish my Dandelions Shawl! (Unfortunately they had only 4 skeins of this wonderful color and not surprisingly they sold all of them in New Hampshire but they ordered one for me from the dyer so I just have to wait.)

But, actually as the header of this post suggest, I wanted to show you today some moose we encountered on our way back:

Moosefest, Bennington, Vermont

Sofia and Shamoose, Moosefest, Bennington, Vermont


Mooses all over Bennington, Vermont

Morpheus, Bennington, Vermont


Another of those Mooses

Vincent: I think he is related to Sofia and Shamoose from the other photo,,,


The Hippy of the Bennington Moose Fest, May 2009

Ziggy the Hippy-Pot-O-Moose of the Bennington MooseFest, May 2009


Covered Bridge Moose in Bennington, VT, May 2009

Covered Bridge Moose in Bennington, VT, May 2009

This one was my favorite, it is made of thousands of tiny photos:

Close up of the Bridge Moose

Close up of the Picture This Moose

I think his name is Picture This but I nicknamed it: The Covered Bridge Moose. It caught the attention of other passers-by:

Girls Checking the Bridge Moose, Bennington, VT, May 2009

Girls Checking the Bridge Moose, Bennington, VT, May 2009


These ladies found the Bridge Moose facinating too

These ladies found the Bridge Moose facinating too

We even found one in the The Village Chocolate Shoppe:

Yummy Moose

Yummy Moose

Apparently they have a Moosefest in Bennington, Vermont these days:

Even the moose get their own crossing in Bennington, VT

The moose get their own crossing in Bennington, VT

When you invite a lot of moose to your town, you better take good care of them, just like they do in Bennington, VT.

This is the third time we encounter animals in a city. The first ones were penguins in Tel Aviv (Scroll down), unfortunately I couldn’t locate any photos of them, I think it was in 2000 or so. The second time was in Sedona when  Margene and Smith came to visit Arizona and we found all those Javelinas in the streets of Sedona. And now the Moosefest, I wonder where and what we will find next!

Dandelions

This is the first real spring I ever experienced and I love it! All the sudden changes of nature around me, the flowers and the different shades of green the trees are so busy creating, make me very happy!

In Israel we say that if you over sleep during the alleged spring or fall you are going to miss them and in Arizona, although we managed to catch the beautiful wildflowers in bloom a few times, it is really always summer – if you ask my humble opinion.

I really like all those Dandelions that seem to grow everywhere and I don’t quite understand why people don’t like them.

Last Saturday we went on a road trip to Vermont and to the New Hampshire Sheep and Wool Festival where I bought the most colorful yarn from the Green Mountain Spinnery; Unfortunately they don’t show on their website the two colors I chose for my Ulmus – The minute I saw this shawl on Kirsten blog, I knew I must knit it.

The Dandelions in the green grass look just like my yarns!

The Dandelions in the green grass look just like my yarns!

While driving in Vermont, I realised the yarns I chose look just like the Dandelions in the medows if you catch them with the sun on them from the right direction, so very lovely:

The start of the shawl with its name origin

The start of the shawl with its name origin

Those colors and the pattern make knitting Dandelions a very happy mission and the shawl grew quite a bit during our long drive from Vermont back to Toronto yesterday:

My Dandelions Shawl has relatives in Toronto too!

My Dandelions Shawl has relatives in Toronto too!


I hope I will manage to finish it in time as it is a present for an upcoming event!

More about our trip and the festival which was actually my first ever real wool festival, in the very near future.

Morning Visitor and Some FOs

A few days ago, Joe rushed me out of bed and down the stairs to see this:

A morning visitor in our back yard

A morning visitor to our back yard

He told me it is a Pileated Woodpecker, I never saw such a big woodpecker before in my life! I thought it is a weird flying chicken but I have to admit I was quite sleepy at the time. Later we heard someone drilling in the background, Joe said it is the woodpecker, I was sure some neighbour is working in his back yard.

And I am still knitting, sometimes.

While in Israel I managed to finish a shawl I knitted for my mother’s 80 birthday:

My mother and her Koigu Shawl

My mother wearing her Koigu Shawl

I had a lot of problems deciding on the pattern and yarn for this present, I started quite a few shawls; one was too lacy, the other too dark and yet another one was too warm.

In the end I settled on a simple shawl knitted in Koigu KPPPM and at long last managed to finish it before we left Israel (the 80th birthday was in January, shame on me!). Lucky for me, my mother liked it a lot and wasn’t mad at all about the lateness of the present.

During our flight back from Israel I managed to finish one of those shawls I started for my mother, I had enough yarn only for a mini shawl but I find it really useful in this time of year in Toronto:

My mini Noro Shawl

My mini Noro Shawl

I really like the color combination of this Noro Silk Garden Sock colorway – 252.

(Note to self: it is really useful to brush hair before modeling for photos,,,)