Busy Times

On Tuesday our parking lot was getting cleaned...yes, the parking lot is now cleaner than my house! I had to keep my truck out of the lot for several hours so I saved up a bunch of errands to do to keep me busy and away from home.

First I played slo-pitch and managed without my toque and mittens...just barely. That took me to about 11am. Since my birthday is this month I decided to renew Dougie the Dodge's license sticker. But first Dougie needed an emission's test. We have to do that every couple of years. Off we went to Jiffy Lube where I told the attendant that the generous provincial gov't had promised me a "free" test this year. Indeed it ended up being free as Dougie has no emission problem. BUT, you just knew there was a but didn't you?...when I went to the Service Ontario office to get my license plate sticker the cost had gone up from $90 for one year to $120! An increase of $30 - so much for freebies!

Oh well, glad to get that checked off my list.

Kazi had bought a new rain jacket recently on sale at a new store called Atmosphere so I thought I would see if there was a rain jacket there for MOI! And there was, lots of them. I found one in blue that in addition to having lots of bells and whistles also had ARMPIT ventilation!! As Annie can attest I tend to sweat big time when wearing my "monsoon" rain coat. I might as well NOT be wearing rain protection at all. Last year I bought rain pants with zippers down the sides of the legs and with that ventilation I got along just fine. No sweat. So really hoping the added jacket ventilation will keep my upper body dryer.

Perhaps you can see in the photo below, that although I am all smiles my torso is soaked though my sleeves are fairly dry. I guess my arms don't sweat.  But that is why I am in need of ventilation!! That photo is from when Annie and I hiked Hadrian's Wall in 2015. It had rained  for several hours by the time of the photo and we were in need of tea and cake!

All of that explanation to justify spending over $100 on a rain jacket! I really really need it! I'll keep you updated, Annie, on my sweat condition hee hee... I'm taking it to Vancouver Island for a test run!

Since I wasn't too far from Kilally Meadows I went for a jaunt through the forest. There was nobody on the osprey nest!! Either the mister AND missus were fishing in the river or the ballgame in progress upset their routine. As I walked the path near the river I saw them both fly over me several times circling around and around - did I look like a tasty fish? A giant one that's for sure. If they could haul me up to their big nest in centre field they wouldn't have to fish again for weeks!! Ohhhhh...that's why they BOTH were flying - I'm a two osprey carry!

My estimate was for the babies to be born around May 10th, so perhaps they have arrived - but would both osprey parents be hunting at the same time? Enquiring minds need to know...

Before I could head for home to the newly swept parking lot I headed for the grocery store. I took my time, worked from my list and after making it through the checkout went to see if I could safely park dear old Dougie in his spot once again. Yes, it was all done and so was I. It was way way way past my lunch time so you know what I did next!

Glorious Fall

I have to remember to start heading out of the forest a lot earlier these days! 

The weather has been mild until the sun starts to set around 5pm...

Lily, keeping my lap warm.....much appreciated now that the 

temperature has dropped down to around 0c.

...while Luna prefers to wrap herself around my neck, keeping one paw

on my shoulder...

 

...is it any wonder my crochet projects have a cat hair or two in them?

Yes Luna, I know you're there! Are my ears clean?

Luna, being exasperating!

You know you're not supposed to be on top of the cupboards!

I had to get the stepladder to reach her.

Lily keeping me warm...

Photos from my last visit to the forest...

You'd think it was summer!

It was around 12 or 13c, warm enough for short sleeves

while hiking.

The sun sets quickly though as we head towards the shortest day of the year.

The colours have faded but the beauty remains...

Time to get to the truck!

I found a plant still blooming in the forest at the end of November. It took me 

awhile to identify but finally learned that it is dead nettle.

It's called "dead" nettle because it doesn't cause a rash 

like it's UK cousin - stinging nettle. 

The first 3 photos are of the dead variety, which is a very good thing

as I was handling it with my bare hands.

The next 3 are photos I took last year when Annie and I hiked Hadrian's Wall. 

Three UK trips - 3 encounters with stinging nettle. 

Will I ever learn?

Don't touch!!!

My encounter the first year trip I took walking through the Cotswolds

was the worst experience as I fell in a clump of stinging nettle

while backing up to take a photo! 

The stinging lasted several days.

  They are so pretty!! You just want to reach out and caress them!

Or at least this bumbling naturalist does.

How is the weather where you are? Any snow yet?

Soapstone From A to Z

Here's a quick look at my soapstone carving from start to finish. I would estimate about 8 hours of work on this piece over 3 days. I could probably "whittle" that down a bit if I stopped jumping up and dancing with the kittles when a favourite song comes on my iPod! In the top photo is the rough piece of stone. At this point I don't really know what I'm going to do with it yet - first I file away all the rough stuff around the edges. I work on a rubber mat that helps to cushion the soapstone so it doesn't break, having learned from experience. It also helps keep my work area clean as the soapstone dust falls between the grooves.

Then with my rifflers, rasps and files of all different sizes I start to cut away material to find the shape I want. I like this shape below but I know there's more I need to do.

After cutting away a bit more and giving it a more defined shape, I'm happy. Kazi came in and saw a heart and said she really liked it so it has found its recipient!

What an amazing colour (photo below) - this is after a couple of hours sanding with wet/dry sandpaper starting at 180 grit and going up to 12,000 grit. Then I switch to fabric/mesh "sand paper" which is really flexible and can get down into the grooves starting at 1800 grit and going up to 15,000 grit. With soapstone I do all of the work by hand as it is so easy to chip or break. (I put a couple of old hand towels on top of the rubber mat for extra cushioning and have a tub of water to help with the sanding)With wood and harder stones I can use a dremel to do some of the work.

I have tried a lot of polishing compounds but what I like best in common floor wax. I rub a little on with a piece of felt and take a piece of cheesecloth or shammy and give it a good buffing....very carefully as now it's pretty slippery.

In the photo below my brother saw a stylized ram's head and a friend called it celtic/feminist/modern. I told him he was bang on! In this lighting it looks dark green/grey...(using an overhead light)...

...while in this photo (window light) it looks a light grey with bits of blue. I'm really happy with how it turned out.

Tools:
I use rifflers, rasps and files of all different sizes:

 and these are the rubber thingamajigs to get to those "hard to sand" places. OK, I see by the photo they are called "sanding pads" but I prefer thingamajigs!

The wet/dry sandpaper is available in some hardware stores and the mesh sanding stuff I send away for online. There used to be a hobby shop not far from me that carried very fine grit sanding paper, not really paper, it looked more like plastic, but they have closed.

I just heard from Annie, with whom I hiked Hadrian's Wall that the piece I sent to her arrived safely so now I can post photos of it:

Once again, I had no idea what the final piece would look like - I just knew I wanted to create a spiral shape. While we hiked we kept finding examples of spirals in nature - especially snails. Annie took some amazing photos of a few of the many snails whose lives she saved :)

Looked at in a certain way (pointed end to the left as in photo below) the snail-like shape is more noticeable. Right? You can see it right? :)

I am thankful to the postal service for flying my little carving across the big pond safely so that it arrived in one piece.

No workshop post is complete without a photo of my faithful helpers: zzzzzzzzzzz!

Thursday - Once Brewed to Gilsland ONLY 9 MILES!

Oh how Annie and I looked forward to this day - only 9 miles! And there was so much to see! Roman ruins, castle ruins, amazing views! Unfortunately we got off to a late start as we had to wait for everyone to be ready to be transported back to where we left off on the trail. BUT we explored to our heart's content and still had time for lovely tea and cake at Meg's tearoom in Gilsland.

Also of note - we reached the highest point of the walk climbing over Winshields rugged crags!
Oh, and by the way, I've been getting my photos mixed up due to taking photos with both my phone and my camera so bear with me.

According to my map we walked over the Windshields Crags which contained the highest elevation of the hike,  past a turret, a milecastle, past Great Chesters Fort, another milecastle and a couple more turrets, across to Thirlwall Castle, past the village of Longbyre and into Gilsland.

This is the only photo of Saughy Rigg Farm B&B that I took as when we arrived the evening before it was getting dark. It's morning and we are waiting for our ride back to the trail so we can pick up where we left off yesterday.

We didn't get charged too much for our dinner of soup and buns and the owner gave us each a banana (after a good breakfast) to have as a snack along the way. We have done remarkably well scrounging for free food to eat for snacks and lunch!!

First we had to climb...

 and climb...

...the weather was once again quite changeable...

...and of course we shared the trail with some friendly sheep!

Sometimes it was sunny...

...and sometimes the sky was very threatening!

 I'm not sure if we knew when we hit the highest point...

...but it wasn't as scary as yesterday's climb...

 It was sunny/cloudy/rainy/cold/mild depending on the elevation though I did make a note that after we reached today's B&B (Brookside Villa) the skies opened up and it rained quite heavily. The weather gods were kinder to us today.

Looking back from whence we came.

a turret...

 My favourite photo of the whole trip! (looking back)

 We started to descend...

 ...and reached a parking lot which had washrooms!!  :)

 This is a photo of a spiral in the parking lot; we encountered many spirals on this journey - Annie rescued many snails, we went through a labyrinth...it seemed like we ecountered spiral shapes every day in some form or another.

**In terms of spirituality, the spiral symbol can represent the path leading from outer consciousness (materialism, external awareness, ego, outward perception) to the inner soul (enlightenment, unseen essence, nirvana, cosmic awareness). Movements between the inner (intuitive, intangible) world and the outer (matter, manifested) world are mapped by the spiraling of archetypal rings; marking the evolution of humankind on both an individual and collective scale.  (To find out more follow the link below)
http://www.whats-your-sign.com/spiral-meaning.html

Both Annie and I were open to what we would encounter on this journey. I have been living a very "external" life until now and am now trying to find ME - I've always been drawn to the spiral shape and think the fact that we encountered so many spirals along the way is very significant.

 ...back on the trail - there were some familiar faces along the way - we didn't always see them every day but perhaps in a pub or in a restaurant or on the trail we would pass someone we had met up with before...the couple with the 2 dogs, the 2 Swedish ladies, the group of 6 Canadians, a group of 4 twenty somethings, Jamie (older than me but much faster!!) and another older fellow who stopped outside every pub :)

 ...ah.... a sunny moment!

...it was a relief to walk on flat ground through the trees...

 ...well, briefly flat that is...

....hah, just kidding!! Lots of hills yet to come, just not quite as high.

...looking back - you can see the larger hills we climbed in the distance.

 

...finding a spot out of the wind to eat our lunch. Watch out for the stinging nettles though! (I had an encounter with stinging nettle yesterday and it took several days for the stinging to go away - I did that last year too!! Sheesh!

An older local couple walked by us as we ate our lunch and I could hear the "tut tutting" I assume because we were sitting on an historic rock!

 ...looking back...

We took a little detour and walked through Hadrian's Wall Peace Labyrinth :)

It was a beautiful spot...

 ...with a bench at its centre.

...back to the trail, a few more miles to go...

I love this sort of pastoral setting... can't get enough of it! ...

 ...which led us to Thirlwall Castle, built in the 12th c. Some of the stones were "borrowed" from Hadrian's wall! It started to fall apart in the 17th c. Lucky for us we got a few sunny breaks while exploring the ruins.

 Stopping for a bridge selfie!

 Oh dear, looks like we'd better get on our way!

A good photo of the "vallum" or earthen rampart built perhaps as a military defense.

Looking back on Thirling Castle.

 ...ready for my closeup!

Finding our way into Gilsland.

We had an excellent tea with cake at the local teashop and then walked another km to the B&B.(which distance seemed like nothing at all!)

It looks like either some people stopped their journey here and left their boots behind or perhaps they purchased another pair; either way the garden at Brookside Villa put them to use in the garden.

If he knows the answer he's not telling!

The room was REALLY nice and we stayed here two nights because our destination tomorrow didn't have accommodations so our Brookside Villa hosts came and picked us up at the end of tomorrow's hike. It was nice to be able to leave out stuff out for a second day.

The food was excellent, there was a well stocked courtesy bar and even slippers were provided!

Only 3 days left!!