Month: May 2019
Mont Royal and Saint Joseph’s Oratory – Montreal, QC
Also known as the day we accidentally walked eight miles.
Fire Dance – Ilana C. Myer
I grabbed this book as a Kindle deal because despite the fact it’s the second in a series, it said it was a stand-alone story. And to a degree, it is – it actually does a good job about giving you just enough detail when past events are mentioned that you know what you need to know about them. However, I feel like I was missing a lot of world building, and not in a good way.
The author’s use of language reminds me of Patricia A. McKillip, who is also prone to throwing you into the middle of a story, and world building as she goes along. But I think McKillip does it better. I feel like I never really got the point of this book – it actually took me a couple months to get through it because of that. I liked the language just enough to keep going, but even with it over, I still don’t know what the point was.
Knitting Notes
Pattern: Lepidoptora Mitts by Allison Van Zandt
Yarn: Malabrigo Sock in the Playa colorway
Needles: Size 2 DPNs
I’m finding it funny how much darker these mitts look than the other ones I made with the same yarn – funny how a particular pattern can change a variegated skein like that.
I also did a little sweater ornament, and I’m still not done with this skein! It’s amazing how little yarn mitts take.
Cadillac Mountain – Acadia National Park, Bar Harbor, ME
Headed down to the Island from my father’s place for the first time in a long while. Sadly, it was raining most of the day, but we made the most of the time between the raindrops.
The Amelanchier is from further down the mountain…
Garden Notes
I feel like a garden update is long overdue, but I usually do those when I have new pictures, and I have nothing new pictorially to report.
April was really cool, and really wet. May so far has been a bit better, but still on the cool side. So my seedlings are still hanging out inside, because I’m not comfortable yet putting them outside, even under cover. I will probably not be hardening them off until the week of Memorial Day. That’s ok – Memorial Day is often iffy for being truly warm enough, but I’ve never waited that long before to even put them outside.
We had our kick off for the community garden last Thursday, so that’s officially rolling. Again, I don’t dare put anything out yet, so it’s pretty much just the garlic show over there for the moment. I do need to get over there and put on the bagged compost I’ve been saving up.
I took Friday off to have a long weekend, and since that day was rainy, I did some garage clean up that morning. I managed to get things neatened up in there, and I did refresh some of the larger pots for the side garden with reserved compost. Once I get figure out how much I have leftover from the community garden plot, I’ll get the rest of the pots prepped for that.
So pretty much just a holding pattern for now, waiting for slightly warmer weather.
The Bear and the Nightingale – Katherine Arden
Marina had her fifth child during a terrible winter, and did not survive after the birth. But she was clear to her husband that this daughter was her choice – a daughter to be like her grandmother, a mysterious woman who appeared from nowhere and married a prince.
From the beginning, Vasya is a bit of a wild child, able to see the spirits that inhabit the house and woods of her father’s lands in Russia – if you’ve ever dipped into Russian fairy stories, there are familiar names here. It’s as Vasya is approaching adulthood that things change – her father takes a new wife, who can also see the spirits, but fears them, and ancient powers are stirring in the forest.
This is a great first book in a series – there’s just enough revealed so that you know that much more is coming later, but there are still definitely secrets to be discovered. I’m very excited to see what happens next.
The North Wind and the Sea 