dare i say it ...

i awoke this morning, albeit a bit late, to blue skies and i'd be lying if i didn't say my heart gave a little jump for joy ...

but of course in light of what is happening in japan, i shan't complain about our weather ...

as an aside and just to have a "proud mommie moment" to share, my youngest cherub asked his teacher yesterday if he could organize a coin drive at his elementary school for some of the victims of the earthquake in japan ... he has a generous and kind soul he truly does ...

however ...

i think it might be time for ms heart to fill in some of the gaps in the blog ...

looking back, i realized i went from planning for the happy valley arts & crafts fair to NOTHING for weeks ...

and then i leaped right into the brook ...

so if any of you are still listening, let me catch you up on what has been happening in my little corner of the world ... 

in december, shortly after the 2nd annual happy valley arts and crafts fair ended -- on a successful note i might add -- my "partner in yarn" and i got to work on a huge knit art installation for our fair city ...

but let me go back even further ...

once upon a time, on a busy corner in our town, there stood 6 beautiful old evergreen trees that reigned over the main street of town ...

however, with progress came a widening of the roads in our fair town and irreparable damage was done to roots of the evergreen trees ...

and so it came to pass that the trees were destined for removal ...

rather than cut the trees to the ground, though, they were left as 20 foot stumps ... not nearly as regal without their evergreen crowns ...

oh there were several suggestions made on what to do with the stumps:  remove the stumps, carve the stumps, cut the stumps up for fire wood, etc ...

but my "partner in yarn" came up with a grand idea ...

we'd been mucking about with the idea of covering the trees in knitting as any fiber artist worth their weight in yarn would ...

so she designed a multi-season project, presented it to the city representatives, sought out grant money and, many months later, the trees have been crowned again ...

here are my cherubs helping with the installation of our knit sox ...

now one of the goals of art is to get people talking about art ... and having six, 20-foot stumps in the heart of one's city, covered in knit sox and snowflakes certainly got people talking ...

mostly people loved the sox and their rather dr seussical whimsy ... but there have been dissenting voices as well ... and that's ok too ...

but now with spring time, comes a new season ... and so my partner and i are busy with knitting machines and yarn winders ...

so i've babbled on like my brook for long enough ... and i haven't even gotten out of the month of december yet in catching you all up ...

christmas has come and gone, two family birthdays have been celebrated, i've traveled to the east coast of canada to watch a niece play ringette in the canada games ... and joined a new small group at my church ...

i spent a last birthday with a favorite uncle ...

and moved from my suburban neighborhood to a more pastural property ...

unpacked mountains of boxes ...

painted ...

prayed ... a lot ...

and today i am looking out my kitchen window ...

across the pasture ...

the skies are blue ...

and it's a good life ...

so happy knitting ... is there any other kind? ...

of course if you were privy to some of the knitting machine sessions wherein we knit thousands of rows of knitting at a time, you'd know that sometimes knitting is not always a happy time ... knitting machines jam ... yarn snarls and tangles ... and the air can turn quite blue at times ...

until next time, enjoy your day and do something nice for someone else ...