This One’s for You, Kris

Way back in November 2005, Kris left a comment about how she liked seeing pictures with snow. Kris, these are for you.

Yesterday we were told to expect a storm, so in the morning I went out grocery shopping, and prepared to settle in for the evening. Do some laundry, listen to some CDs, and knit. (No TV: I don’t own a TV.) About 7:30pm: I’d cued up a new-to-me recording of J.S. Bach’s Die Kunst der Fuge (Jordi Savall and Hesperion XX's recording of “The Art of Fugue”: Bach’s treatise on writing fugues of all kinds; fabulous music, superb recording) and was settling in the chair with the edging for the Princess shawl. Tea was brewing. Laundry was deferred 24 hours. It was snowing and blowing outside.

From my knitting chair I have a nice west view out a set of sliding doors leading to my balcony. I was actually looking at the knitting, but over the tops of my glasses I saw a flash of pale green in the sky, and then nothing. The power was out. I was in complete darkness.

I expect that the green flash was caused by transformers blowing out. I saw about 10 more flashes like that during the evening: some were green, some blue, some red. (Yes it did remind me of scenes from the 1953 movie of “War of the Worlds”. Wow: it's older than I am...)

I lit some candles, and started working on an afghan square. (There’s a group I belong to and when a member is seriously ill or in really bad times, we make a blanket for them. Members contribute a square or two, and some brave soul sews them together.) The worst things was counting the stitches in the sample square to check gauge.  It’s really amazing what our ancestors did by candlelight, when you think about it.

So this morning there was still no power and I went for a bit of a walk. I figure we got about 2 feet of snow, all told. Most city streets had not been plowed, and the parking lot of my apartment building was full. Here are some pictures of trees covered in snow.

This tree has split from the weight of the snow. You can see the break in the centre of the picture.

The Orange Project

I’ve made some progress on the Orange Project. I have 35 grms of unspun fiber, so these 5 copps are 15 grams. Out of 100 grams, total. I started doing one of those  “wraps per inch” things with some of the singles, but after some wraps I gave up. (Haven't learned to do colour correction with GIMP yet.)

Comments

[MarQ1]

That is truly horrifying snow. Those poor trees.

[Erika]

WOW you crocheted by candlelight? Now that's dedication! I am impressed!

P.S. I find that Tools -> Color Tools -> Levels... -> "Auto" is insanely fantastic. I don't actually know any of the technical details about what this DOES (I'm sure you'll learn that in your class), it's just an all-purpose "make the picture look a thousand times better" button. Give it a try, it's pretty amazing!

[Mar]

We have been having springlike weather here in the Northeast U.S. Knitting by candlelight sounds lovely but the reality must be a total pain.

I usually don't bother with the WPI until I've plyed. You got quite a bit done on the orange, I must say. Looks great so far.

[k]

So I won't complain about the snow we got -- tho' I knew you were going to get blasted. We've had severe winds as well, and I've got flashlights planted at various strategic points.

I like the Orange Project -- just what's needed right now with all the dull skies and snow.

[Danny Ouellette]

Glad you power is back on.

Toronto came through pretty much unscathed. Maybe 1 cm of snow, if that. Only bad thing was all the wind - which started on Friday and hadn't given up.

The orange is looking pretty good! Is that the regular comet spindle, or the light weight one?

Keep warm and safe.
Danny

[Kris]

Hey... thanks for the snow pictures. I'm a native Floridian so snow is a thrill to me. Five days ago I moved to the Pacific Northwest. I'm a bit freaked out by this since I've never left the place of my birth. But... one cool thing is I can drive up into the moutains to get a glimpse of snow.

You seem to have gotten a lot of snow. I know that probably isn't your idea of a good time but to me it looks just lovely!

Thanks, again.

[Cathy]

Hi! I had to come out of lurkdom to comment. I absolutely loved the snow pictures. I so miss snow and especially a good storm. I got to live vicariously through your pics, thanks!

[Ted]

The problem with the snow is that while it looks pretty, it's damn dangerous. The trees are brittle this time of year, and with the weight of the snow, it's really easy for a branch to come crashing down. One of my coworkers was away for the weekend, and came home to find a tree fallen across the driveway and another on top of her house.

Branches -- or trees -- going down take out power and phone wires. None of which is good in cold weather.