Monday, May 08, 2006

Monday Morning Ramblings

It's a chilly, damp day in the Okanagan today. John even turned the heat up this morning to get the chill out. Hopefully, for his sake, it will warm up a bit; he's working in landscape maintenance. Wet, chilly days are not good for his joints. Arthritis, yanno?

Anyway, in the meantime, I'm here at home today and it's the perfect day to curl up on the sofa with a cup of tea, a comforter and my knitting. I started a new project.



And a closeup...



So, what is it, you ask? It's going to be a t-shirt style top for myself. It's worked in Regia Tip+Top Cotton and done in k3, p1 rib. The whole top will be ribbed, but I'm toying with the thought of doing the sleeves in stocking stitch with a k1, p1 rib armband.

I've already changed needles three times; not needle size, but needles. I started out on an Addi Turbo (3 mm) and for the first time ever, I did nothing but fight with the Addis (it wouldn't straighten up for some reason). So I put the top on a Pony circ. I fought with the join; my work just would not slide easily over the join. Now, it's all on an Aero circ. If this one fights me, I'll be going to the "other" yarn store and getting a shorter Addi, in the hopes that it will be better. We'll see. So far, the Aero needle seems to be ok, but I've only worked one round on it. I'll be taking this project on the road with me this coming weekend. We have to drive up to Red Deer, Alberta for a business meeting on Saturday. (For those of you unfamiliar with this area, Red Deer is about a 10 hour drive from us; it will be a loooooooong day!)

The lake... it's definitely on the rise.



That's the same angle as last week's picture. Here's the same retaining wall, but looking at it from the opposite side of the beach.



That's our firepit. The barbecue belongs to J & K, our housemates. It won't be long before the firepit is below water. Next week's picture won't be until Thursday; I'm working Monday-Wednesday.

Now, what SHALL I do for the rest of today? Hmmm.... Oh, yes, I have something else to share with you. Today's post is getting to be a long one, but I have to tell you about our early morning visitor.

Early Friday morning (3:30 a.m.), John and I were awakened to the sound of someone dragging something down the street outside our bedroom windows. It wasn't a particularly loud noise, but it was persistant. When we heard kind of a snuffle (I don't know how else to describe it), John got up to see what we could see. There's not a lot of light at that time of the morning, but across the street, on the rise, he could see a light coloured "blob" with a dark shadow... a black bear. The light coloured "blob" was a bag of garbage he had pulled out of one of our garbage cans and dragged up the rise.



That top bit of white is where the bear was sitting, rummaging through the bag. John told me to watch out the window; he was going to turn some lights on downstairs. I watched as one light came on; the bear didn't even twitch, just kept on "exploring" our trash. A second light came on; still no reaction from the bear. It was only when John opened the back door that the bear galloped away (it's amazing how fast they run!). Later that morning, this is the scene that greeted us...



We've not seen or heard the bear since, but we've let the neighbours know about him. Incidentally, from what we could see, this bear was about 3' tall, sitting. Not a small bear. Hopefully, he didn't find enough to make him come back.

Now, where's that cup of tea?

2 comments:

  1. A bear in such a close distance is a pretty scary thought. Does this happen often? We speculate there are coyotes hang out behind our house, but have never seen any.

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  2. There's a bush across the street from us and I've seen evidence of a bear there before, but this is the first time in the year that we've lived here that we actually saw one. Other have seen deer and raccoons, but I've not seen any of either.

    Even though we live just minutes from the city center, where we are is still out in the country, really. (I love it!)

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