On the Needles

It's been far too long since I picked up my knitting needles and cast on.  I was actually beginning to wonder if I'd ever get that itch to pick them up again at all!  But then the cool fall weather began to move in, the days started to get shorter and the nights longer.  Tonight I picked up my go-to pattern when I just need something fun, easy, and quick.  Best of all, it only requires scrap yarn!

The finished mobile.  This was probably my favorite knitting project of all time!

I found this pattern last fall when my cousin's baby girl was about to be born. I wanted to make something other than a little sweater she'd grow out of in two months, and this knit bird mobile was the perfect thing.  Now, although that little baby girl has a new baby brother on the way in just a month, I will make the little birds just for the fun of it.  Maybe they will be Christmas ornaments, or maybe I'll make a mobile for our new house, or maybe I'll give them away to my friends.  I don't know what will become of them.  For now, they're the perfect thing to mess around with until I'm inspired to cast on a more ambitious project (maybe something for the new baby?)!

My cousin's wife, Liz, and her beautiful little girl!

A Little Perspective, Please

Living on an unbridged island isn't always easy.  There are many times when I question my choice of living here.  When I go grocery shopping, for instance.  First we load the groceries from the shopping cart into the trunk of the car.  Then we unload the groceries from the trunk to the float on the mainland.  Then we load the groceries onto the boat and zip across the water to the other float waiting at the island.  There we unload the groceries and lug them up the ramp or the stairs to the shed on the dock where we set them down to wait for the truck.  After hauling all of the groceries to their resting spot in the shed, we run up the dock to the truck waiting for us in the parking lot, back the truck down the dock and load the groceries into the truck, once again.  Finally, we drive up the small gradual hill to the school and arrive at the path to the apartment where we unload the groceries for the final time and haul them up the stairs to the apartment to be put away.  This is one example of the additional complexities living on an island presents to the otherwise mundane qualities of life and, yeah--I admit--there are times when I would much rather live on the mainland and just forget those complexities all together.  That is when a little perspective is oh so useful.

I just returned from a field trip to Matinicus Island.  This island is 23 miles away from the mainland.  It is so far from the mainland that the mountains of Mt. Desert Island are just a little blur in the distance.  And do you want to know how they get their groceries there?  They have them flown in by plane!  By plane! 

Matinicus is a beautiful island.  It's much higher than Islesford so that when walking down the road in the middle of the island, you feel like you are above the water, even when the water is hidden behind trees.  The roads there are all dirt and the houses are spaced apart so that the feeling is of being out in the country.  Yes, they have electricity and running water, and yes, the people live normal modern lives.  They're just living their lives on a beautiful island way out in the ocean.

On our second day on Matinicus, I got to go on a hike.  Several adults and a few middle school-age students signed up for the activity.  Led by a friend from Matinicus, We took the Matinicus trail through the woods to the rocky shore.  When we came out of the woods, we were standing up above the water on a small rocky cliff.  The water was crashing on the rocks below.  Out before us there was nothing but open ocean, but to each side you could see the silhouettes of other islands, including Criehaven.  I was especially excited to put my eyes on Criehaven.  Seeing that island took me back to the summer of my wedding when I was reading the Elizabeth Ogilvie Tide Trilogy and falling more and more in love with my island home. 

At the shore we turned left and followed the rocky edge around the island to South Sandy Beach.  This beach is unlike anything we have here.  Over time the water has carved out a cove, and instead of the cove being filled with tumbled rocks, it is covered with fine sand.  Our guide told us that in the winter the ocean sweeps the sand out to sea, but it always returns in the spring time.  I wondered at the power and promise of the ocean, just as I wonder about it when I walk our shoreline. 

It was during our return trip home yesterday when I gained a better appreciation of living year-round on Matinicus island.  After enjoying two nights and three days of warm hospitality, tons of fun, great food and good friends, we boarded a boat and began our return trip home.  This boat was larger than a lobster boat, but not by much.  It had some tripod-like rigging on the top of the boat that made me think it might serve as a scallop dragger during some time of the year, but other than that there was not much sign of it being a working boat.  There was seating both in the large cabin and out back.  I sat out back with my two middle schoolers, the teacher from Monhegan Island and her two students, and the teacher from Matinicus and her two children.  The ride was thrilling.  The sun was shining brightly and I felt my face being slightly burned, but I didn't care!  As we pulled out of the harbor and began to head for open water, the captain increased speed until we were bouncing along with the waves.  After 20 minutes or so Matinicus island was nothing but a dark line on the horizon and I couldn't see land in any direction (at least from where I was sitting).  The boat rocked back and forth in the waves, and sometimes the water seemed to be above us!  The spray was hitting the side of the boat and splashing us on our backs, but that bright sun kept us comfortably warm.

It was then, when we were in that big water, moving as quickly as I remember ever moving in a large boat, with no land in sight that I began to gain some perspective.  If our mail boat moved as quickly as that boat was moving and didn't have to stop at one, sometimes two other islands, we would be to the mainland in less than 15 minutes.  Yesterday, making no stops and moving as quickly as the boat could safely go, it took us an hour and a half to ride from Matinicus to Rockland Harbor.  Sitting on the boat, enjoying the roller coaster feeling of the waves, and watching the smiling faces of the people sitting with me,  the complexities I face living just three miles from shore seemed silly, and I found renewed gratefulness and love for the island that I landed on seven years ago.  A little perspective is so refreshing!

Fall-ing

What better to way to mark the beginning of fall than to harvest?  Finally, after neglecting the garden all summer, I got to get my hands dirty again.  Squash, slug-munched cabbage (that should have been picked long ago, before the slugs had their chance), onions (that also should have been pulled long ago before the rain drenched them over and over again), potatoes, beets, tomatoes, and apples.  Apples!  It's time for cider!

Apples for cider....

Apples for eating....

Cider apples in the grinder.....

Grinding....

Ground apples waiting to be pressed.....

Cider!

And while the cider is pressing, a little tour.  Looks like fall, doesn't it? 

The only two zinnias to survive the weeds that I didn't get to this summer....

My favorite flower of fall.  Isn't that just the most amazing pink and orange combo?

Taters.  Yum!

Half the onions. 

Something pretty.

Cider!

Done...for now.

School began three weeks ago.  That means it is fall.  I can hardly believe it.  The hours we put into the house over the summer all blurred together into a continuous ache of muscles and a ubiquitous coating of clay dust.  It hardly feels like summer happened at all.  But here we are--the end of September.  The summer weather is trying to hang on.  The days are warm, the mosquitoes are torturing us each time we step foot outside.  It's the nights that give the change of seasons away.  They are cool, almost cold.  Last weekend I went as far as putting the extra blanket on the bed again.  And the garden give fall away.  The gardens are overflowing with produce just waiting to be harvested and put up for winter. 

So, somehow the summer slipped by.  And somehow we managed to miss it, but it obviously came and went because there's the house, mostly insulated, looking more like a house than ever. 

The north side of the house insulated.

The south side of the house all insulated.

The north wall of the house from inside and upstairs.

The south wall of the house from inside and upstairs.

Mostly insulated.  There are still a few small walls to do in the spring, but until spring it will wait.  Until then, we'll press cider, make apple sauce, harvest the abundance of food in the garden, continue to work on different aspects of the house (maybe windows!?  maybe siding!?).  Most of all, we will make time for each other, and that I can't wait for.

And now presenting..... The bedroom!

Arms aching from pounding straw and clay into wall cavities?  Check.
Skin and clothes covered in a fine dusting of clay?  Check.
Arms, face and hair greasy from four applications of mosquito repellent?  Check.
Bedroom walls totally finished?  Check!

Take a look for yourself!

Rick, Arthur, me and Mary stuffing the final bedroom wall.

Form moving up....

Even though he is a skeptic about our choice of insulation, Bentley showed up to help stuff.  (We checked his pockets for foam and fiberglass before he began).  :)

Moving up....

We are so close to the top!

Matt stuffing the tippy top.

A view from inside the finished bedroom. 

Inside the finished bedroom looking straight out towards the road.  How sweet is this room?!

A view from the road.

Since Wisconsin

Since returning from Wisconsin we have been working our guts out, and the house is taking shape.  In the two weeks since we have been home we finished the south wall, the east dining room window and two big walls in the kitchen. 

Living room picture window

Living room windows

Dining room and kitchen walls

 

Work Party #2!

To celebrate Jason's 30th birthday on July 27, we had another work party!  Over 20 of our friends came over to help us infill the west side of our house.  Jeremy, Chris, Richard, Amanda, Ryan, Kate, Katrina, Ricky, Kaitlyn, Cory, Jim, Melissa, Xander, Beatrice, Ashley, Emily, Luke and more!  We worked our guts out, but had some fun, too.  By the end of the night, in the dark, we had a huge section of wall done!

The west wall filling up.

Mixing up straw and clay.

Working on the west  living room wall.

Helping to dry out the clay....

And then some food....  We deserved it after working all day!

Finally, in the dark, around 8pm the wall was finished. 

Jason I returned to our apartment around 9:30 that night and the next morning we woke up at 4am and headed to Wisconsin for my mom's surprise birthday party!  We felt so good about getting so much work done on the house before leaving, and we couldn't have done all of that work without our friends' help.  Thank you!