what surrounds us

Yesterday, I took my lunch on the deck.  It was a beautiful warm sunny day.  Overhead I heard the call of a hawk.  He’d been flying over, circling for most of the morning.  I could make him out as he passed through the opening in the tree canopy.  The warm days last week set the leaves to popping.  Everyday, it is harder to see through the green forest curtain that will soon surround me.   Not more than a week ago, I could watch the birds wing through the branches on their way to the feeder.   Today, I hear the woodpeckers before I see them.  A bird zips down from overhead.  The repeating buzz of this swooping hummer tells me that he has begun his courting dance.  I know that the crows have offended or stolen from another bird by raucous cries.    If the orioles don’t break through the green and cross the yard, I will have missed them this year.   Winter to spring, I know the woods and its creatures in different ways, each season having its own sights and sounds.

There hasn’t been much knitting.  Preparing for the Sheep & Wool festivals has taken all my free and not so free time these past few weeks.  It is a good kind of work, this work / play with fiber and color.  Thanks to all of you that stop by and chat, the days spent at my booth are fun and full.  The fairs invigorate and inspire me.  You too.  I know that there has been a lot of chatter about the disappointing behavior that has taken place at Maryland and now New Hampshire.  You can read about it elsewhere.  Please keep in mind, that for what was bad, there was a mountain more that was good.  Like a small town grown into a city,  it has become harder to know everyone.  It is up to us to keep the heart of the fiber community at the center.  Remember, it is WE who made it.  It is OUR TOWN.