Wee Ball Yarns

Here in the Bay of Islands, there are a lot of islands in the bay (duh!). One of the most prominent of these islands is officially called Guernsey Island, but it is known locally as Wee Ball. To me, it looks like a piece of something from another world that has been plopped down in the middle of the mouth of the bay. Tree-less and almost perfectly rounded, it sits, half submerged, alerting all sailors and shoreline hikers that this is not a typical place.

I love Wee Ball. I love its strange look, I love both its names, and I love how it changes in appearance day by day, hour by hour as it gets covered fog or stands out, clear as a bell, against the sky.

And since I love yarn too, I love that I can call my yarn, Wee Ball Yarn.

My goal for Wee Ball Yarn is that it be made from local wool and alpaca and dyed naturally, some with plants I harvest locally and some with other natural dyes, but all reflective of the colours of this place. So when you knit with it and wear it, you will have, quite literally, a piece of Newfoundland with you at all times.

At the moment, the yarn I made up for Doors Open is made from some local alpaca and wool from BC, which isn't local at all. Most of the dyeing was local in as much as I went to the local grocery store and bought the kool aid there, but it isn't exactly what I want for it. I am working on it.

We did have dyeing success with this:







Lombardy poplar leaves, soaked overnight with 1.5 cups vinegar, boiled 45 minutes. Mordant: alum. The colour of the photograph doesn't quite do justice to the lovely, sunny yellow that resulted. It's a keeper!

PS. There are still some skeins left from the Doors Open event. If you are interested, I can email pictures to you - mostly pinks/roses, some yellows. Skeins are $20 for 50g, $10 for smaller (approx. 30g). All proceeds support The House Museum.

The Doors Opened...

and the crowds rushed in!

The day was a stunning success. We were busy pretty straight from 11am to 6pm with people who might never had otherwise made the trek down the North Shore HIghway. It was a wonderful day, despite the fact that it was pouring buckets in the morning. The rain stopped and the people came and really looked and engaged.

Some pictures:


Marlene Simms of the Humberview Bakery came and sold some her baked goods. She bravely set up despite the grey clouds and was rewarded with a dry day and lots of eager customers. Her mother, father and niece Holly spent much of the day here as well and they were all delightful. Marlene said next year she will bring her Newfoundland pony and we will have pony rides! Here is Marlene with two people who can barely take their eyes off the goods.



Jim Butt (in the yellow shirt) came for the afternoon with his collection of insects--all of which can be found right here in Gilams. It was fascinating, if not a little disturbing too. Jim knows just about everything about insects, plants, trees, and more. Jim kept us all eeewww-ing and yuck-ing all afternoon. He also has become my source for information about local plant for my dyeing experiments.


Olive agreed to sell some her jellies, which were voted #1 at Gillams Day. People with great wisdom snatched them up. She donated the remaining, unsold jars to THM. We graciously accepted the donation--it was a tough decision but we managed.


Talk about win/win!

Here are some of the goods:

Wee Ball Yarns, handspun in the Bay of Islands.

Hilly Billies

Patti made an interesting comment on the Tourism, Museum, etc. post. She wrote about the tourists who take the #7 train from Manhattan to Flushing (Queens) for the big tennis event - whatsit called? - you know the one..it's up there will Wimbleton but happens in Flushing (Queens). Anyway, these people, tennis fans, dress as if they are playing tennis not watching it. They wear bright white clothes with a flash of pastel or pink here and there. I suppose I could say something about their bright, white skin too, but that may be uncalled for. The reason they stand out like sore thumbs is that the #7 train is rightly called "the international express" because it carries the richly diverse population of Queens to and from their work every day, every hour. It is a train that is always crowded no matter what time you get on it because there is always someone headed in or out of town to work or play. This is our train, when we are in NYC, and I have strong affection for the train and the people who ride on it. But these tennis people, as we call them, are less complimentary. They get on the train in Manhattan (of course!) and look with horror at the unwashed masses, talk loudly as if no one can understand English, and pretty much show no respect for the people for whom this train is a lifeline. As Patti said, no one would mind them if they would just keep their judgements to their starched and fragrant selfs.

It reminded me of an interview that was on the radio some weeks ago. The owner of a new "luxury condo" development that is trying to get off the ground in neighboring Meadows was being interviewed about whether construction would happen this summer. The owner, who is no doubt a lovely person, kind to children and animals, etc., spoke very enthusiastically but bit by bit revealed that they realized that they had unexpected expenses totalling $800,000 to get the basic infrastructure put in and that one of their largest investors pulled out of the deal. When asked why, the owner (who is German) said the investor thought the area was "too hilly-billy like."

Now this owner sold the idea of this project to the town of Meadows by telling everyone that it would have all sorts of wonderful facilities for the community: a shopping area, a pool, rec center, etc. Apparently he got a standing ovation at the meeting. Now those who were cheering him are hillbillies. I couldn't help but wonder how long it would take before residents of these luxury condos started complaining about the hillbillies in the pool, the rec center, etc., and the gates go up.

No one minds if others see the beauty of this place and want to share in it, but please, keep your judgements to yourself.

The Doors will be Open!

Tomorrow, The House Museum will be participating in the 2007 Doors Open event, along with three other sites along the North Shore and several in Corner Brook. Doors Open is an annual event that happens around the world when places of cultural, historic and/or architectural significance open their doors at no charge to the public. I was thrilled this year when the curator at the Corner Brook Museum and Archives called me and invited THM to participate. I really felt like I had arrived!

Since THM is always free to the public, I needed to do something special to mark the day, so there are some activities planned to make it a fun time for all. You can check out the website for the details but here is a quick synopsis:

Gillams resident and amateur entomologist, Jim Butt, will be on hand with his collection of local and exotic insects.

The Humberview Bakery of Irishtown will be selling their delicious baked goods.

Olive Murphy's prize-winning famed jams and jellies will be on sale - a rare event!.

Get a sneak preview of Wee Ball Yarns! For a fixed donation in support of The House Museum, visitors will receive their choice of this hand-dyed, hand-spun yarn. All visitors will be entered in a contest to win a handknit hat made with Wee Ball Yarn.

Complimentary coffee, tea and juice will be available to all visitors.


PS. Did you notice something about handspun yarn there? More later on that...

Tourism, Museums, etc.

As my pal Yoli likes to say, I have this thing about tourism. Wondering what increased tourism would do to Newfoundland - for better or worse - has been a large part of this project. The act of displaying one's culture for the consumption of outsiders changes the culture, but how, exactly? And who gets to make the decisions about what to display and what not to display?

Strangely enough, last year, when those questions were burning fiercely in my head, I was not so successful in getting many people visiting the museum to really engaged in talk about them. For whatever reason, people shifted their gaze, seemed vaguely embarrassed for me and turned the conversation elsewhere. Perhaps my approach was a little off: "You! Tourist! Explain yourself! Here! I've created a museum for you to do just that right over here..."

This year, I decided to take a more subtle approach. There are bigger issues related to the changes Newfoundland is undergoing and tourism is but one of them. Weirdly enough however, people want to talk about tourism! I haven't had oodles of random, drop-in visitors this year, but those who have appeared on the door step really seem to be interested in what this tourism thing is and how small communities, like Gillams, can benefit and how they might suffer.

Gillams is actually a bit off-the-beaten track for tourists. Most people don't really stay and fully explore the greater Corner Brook/Bay of Islands area. It is more of a stop-off on the way to Gros Morne or elsewhere. It is too bad in a sense because I honestly believe it is as beautiful here as anywhere in Gros Morne, less crowded and you can get a heck of a turkey club at Lynne's in Cox's Cove at the end of your journey. On the other hand, it is as beautiful here as Gros Morne, it is less crowded and you can get that turkey club if you want it.

And that is the tourism conundrum. It takes as much as it gives, perhaps even more. Is there a magic formula in which local communities can gain some economic benefit from visitors without falling into the dreaded tourist trap?

Left, right and center

Tourism? Newfoundland? Later on that. For the time being we are awash in kool aid and fleece and can hardly think of anything else. And the elderberries? Eh. Not quite the deeply satisfying experience that we have been having with kool aid. It looked so very promising;

Here are the berries after being soaked overnight and boiled for 1/2 hour. They made a delighttful lavender colour that was exactly like what my manual said would happen.


See? Doesn't that look promising?

But two hours and a big felted piece of merino roving later (grrr!), I had a skein of yarn (and a giant piece of felt) that was...ummm...let us say, tan. Ho-hum. I didn't even take a picture because, really, who needs to see some tan yarn?

Ok. So scratch the elderberries off the list. For the above reason and because I ended up with ants in my pants collecting them--the tree is situated right next to an ant hill, which I stood upon to pick the berries until I was covered, inside and out, with black ants. Neither of us was terribly pleased. Like I said, scratch elderberries.

Back to the kool aid.


Here is the lovely Lucy surrounded by our new obsession.


A quick hat that was begging to be made from one of our earlier experiments. I spun four colors together in several yard intervals, each bobbin slightly different, then plyed them together.


At the suggestion of Patti, here is the latest: some perrendale fleece in three colours, blended during carding. Matches the blanket covering the couch (that's a chesterfield to you). I have the first 2-ply skein soaking now.

Back to tourism, museums and all tomorrow...

As a result of all that dyeing...

All other activities have been sorely neglected. But the results...oh man!




Now that we have explored some of the possibilities of kool aid, we are moving on to more natural dyes...here are some elderberries I collected from a tree in our backyard yesterday soaking for today's episode in dyeing.

Let the dyeing begin!

We spent the day at our friend Linda's house yesterday and dyed everything that wasn't pinned down.





I was having some anxiety about dyeing those skeins after all the labour involved in making them, in the way it is hard to make a drawing on a sheet on very expensive, hand made paper. But once we started plunging the fibres into those colours, it was so exciting and magical that I wanted to dye everything. And we nearly did too.



Linda used to own a yarn store in Saskatoon. She used to spin too but for nearly 30 years her wheel has sat unused. Yesterday, she used it again for the first time in 30 years! Like riding a bike, my friends.



We had ourselves a good old Newfoundland spinning frolic!

Making hay while the sun shines

After the busy time of getting the big celebration off the ground and entertaining visitors, things have settled down here a bit. But that doesn't mean we are getting lazy. Oh no. Here are some pictures from the nearby organic farm/creative center/gallery run by our neighbor, friend and artist, Colette Urban. She calls her place Full Tilt Newfoundland.


It is in McIvers. Her field looks across towards Benoit's Cove. See that little white blotch up on the mountain...it's snow!


Neighbor Ken Noel on his trusty, 30 year-old tractor and hay baler.

I haven't just been standing around in a hay field taking pictures either. I have been on a veritable spinning binge in preparation for a veritable dyeing binge. I have almost spun up a pound of merino sliver. Here are two skeins drying in the sun:



I have to say, this is some of the best spinning I have done to date. Just look at that delicious merino! Now imagine it dyed a beautiful shade of...?

Slow Down, You Tour Too Fast

Last summer I noticed that nearly every visitor to the museum would do the walk through in about 20 minutes. All my efforts to get them to stop a moment, have a cup of tea and a bun, or participate in some way, were met with a glance at their watch and "no, no, we have to get going...". While I tried not to take it personally, I did think I was doing something wrong--things were too subtle, or there were not enough three dimensional things in the livingroom. Or I thought there was the "museum behavior" issue in which people act as though they are in a museum (a regular museum not my house as museum), and so the idea of kicking off your shoes and settling in for tea was just too far to leap for most. So, I was thrilled when this year's project meant that there are engaging elements in every room. There are places for interaction everywhere, plus audio tours for the people who are uncomfortable with me hanging around them, even some wall text for those who feel the need to read about what they are seeing.

I had nipped the 20-minute tour problem in the bud.

And this year? Same darn thing! Twenty minutes in, and "no, no, we have to get going..." What the...? What about the videos? the audio tour? the chance to try rug hooking or spinning? the opportunity to get your family tree on the wall? the damn tea buns??? Why oh why will no one eat my tea buns?

After thinking it over, I have come to the conclusion that it is not all my fault. There is something about being a tourist, even if it is in your own hometown, that makes people breeze through places. People are always on their way to somewhere else and have "just stopped in" which translates to..."20 minutes and we are outta here".

I was discussing this situation with Marlene and she suggested we start a revolution, a slow tourism revolution, based on the ideas promoted by the Slow Food people. Of course, being local is a big part of Slow Food, but perhaps slow tourism, or should I say, Slow Tourism, could mean to go to one place and explore it slowly, on local transport or on foot, or bike. While you may be spewing large amounts of carbon to get to Newfoundland, once you are here, easy does it. Take your time, talk to people, hook a rug, draw a picture, eat a tea bun. Nice and slow.

Let the revolution begin!

Stepping Out

The celebration was held: the weather cooperated; people came and ate and looked and listened; music was played; jelly was judged. All in all, it was a lovely day.

For the full experience in pictures, please click here.

Many, many thanks to Marlene MacCallum for all her hard work. And many thanks to all the wonderful people who participated in Step Out of The Room, and have offered the rest of us a glimpse into their lives:


Finnian and Lucy Allen


Melissa Blanchard


Midge Jones


Lindsey Mullins


Olive Murphy and Leanne Whiffen


Minnie Vallis


Colette Urban


And a fantastic late entry from Carol Mitchell.

You guys are the best!

Spinning: Feel the Burn

There was a funny moment during the Weekend Arts Magazine interview when the host, Angela Antle, thought the spinning demonstration listed on the announcement for our BIG JULY 14th CELEBRATION was going to be an exercise demo. Yes, that old Newfoundland tradition of riding stationary bicycles. No, no, I meant spinning wool and I am hoping to draw in (get it??!) a woman I met recently who has an old wheel and still uses it regularly. I think it will be a whole lot more interesting to watch her spin than it will me, but I can't say for sure she will be able to come.

Her name is Ada and is 83 years old. We met not too long ago. I showed her my wheel and she was a bit mystified, never having seen one with double treadles or bobbins--she didn't even dare try it because it looked so different from her wheel. She did card up some of my icelandic fleece. It was fascinating! She is a virtuoso. As usual, after the fact, I thought I should have video taped her hands. It was so beautiful to watch their movements. But we determined that we must get together again very soon. She has promised to teach me thrumming, which is her big thing. Before she left I offered her two skeins of icelandic I had spun up and she was very pleased, which made me very pleased. A woolen bond!

It was during that visit that I learned that women used to wash wool by hanging it in a burlap bag on the clothes line for a couple of weeks. Either that, or by submerging it in a fast running brook. I decided to try out the first technique since I just happened to have (ahem) some fleece around. I put it in cheese cloth and hung it out. It has been two weeks and I would say it is nearly ready. I don't know why this amazes me so much, but it does!

Of Hedge Clippers and Koans

I've been mowing the front lawn with a pair of hedge clippers. No, I have not become some total OCD uber-Martha. Far from it. Rather, the weather of the past week and a half or so has been like this: dry and sunny for many days and then rain for many days. During those many days of rain the grass, and I use the term very loosely here, decided to use up all that stored up sun energy and it grew to be very, very high. Too high for my push mower, which on a good day seems to mostly mash and crush more than mow. (Nothing against push mowers - I love them and think everyone should use them - but I think I got a cheapy not meant for "grass" of our...errr...quality) In any case, I thought I would just use the clippers on the lawn to jump start the process.

Four days later and I am almost finished. The end is in sight, although I am beginning to think that this is a painting the 59th Street Bridge kind of situation, i.e. by the time I get to the end, it will be time to start over again. But I digress.

Clipping such a vast amount of high grass is a meditative process and one that has its own set of satisfactions as long as you keep your goals simple. And it has offered moments of clarity. For example, just before heading out for today's allotment, I was contacted by the CBC station in St. John's about doing an interview for the Weekend Arts Magazine on Thursday. As I was clipping, I began to imagine all the witty and insightful things I might say and no doubt will forget completely come Thursday. This train of thought led me to think about how to sum up what exactly this project is all about. Something about defining Newfoundland culture - that much I know, but what exactly am I getting at here? That's when I had my moment of clarity: this project is a giant, three-dimensional koan: "What is this place?"

Like a koan, there is no real way of conveying an answer to this question in words. We can talk about it, around it and try to describe it, but ultimately, it can only be known through experience.

This doesn't help me put my thoughts together in a more coherent way for Thursday but I did clip a heck of a lot of grass!

Opening Day...

...was very quiet and kind of grey. But that was ok since Step Out of the Room is still waiting on a couple of the projects and I am waiting for two of the audio guide creators to finish up. Also, it was Canada Day and people tend to have other plans than examining Newfoundland culture. I dunno why - I am always ready to talk about.

We did have a good time AFTER the museum closed:


Fireworks and bonfire on Gillams beach.

It was a day for another celebration too:



Hint: I am the same age as the answer to the meaning of life, the universe and everything. Thank you Olive for the delicious cake!

West Coast Morning Show

Yesterday we had a bit of a party over at The House Museum. Of course it all happened at about 10:30 in the morning but we were undeterred by the relatively early hour for a raucous get-together. The purpose of the party was actually to meet with Dorothy King, the host of the CBC's West Coast Morning Show. She is doing a piece about "Step Out of The Room," and she was interviewing some of the participants.



It wasn't clear when the piece will air--sometime next week perhaps. We gave Dorothy far more than she needed in terms of audio recording, and perhaps in terms of scones, molasses buns and tea too.

A short interruption

from our regularly scheduled, Newfoundland-centric, program to celebrate Sunnyside Gardens being voted a New York City Historic District.

Hooray for livable, family-friendly, walkable, human-scaled neighborhoods, and the preservation thereof!

Biting off more than I can spin

Ummm....so it all started when my friend Barb mentioned that the craft artisans in Corner Brook were starting to get better organized and wanted to work together to get more exposure and get their work out to the public. I don't really consider myself a craft artist so I usually hang about the fringe (so to speak) of that group but this conversation put a little bug in my head.

A month later and....this:



I'm sorry. I have an illness. And in my illness, I find myself purchasing and accepting gifts of fleece, even when I already I have piles of fleece. To my credit (HA!), only the sliver and box of white fleece were purchased. The other stuff comes from my dear, generous friend, Janine, who now owns a small flock of sheep (hint: cultivate friends in the sheep industry) and gave me some of her 2006 left overs and a couple of 2007s too. I think it is better not to speak of the contact Barb gave me of a woman in Newfoundland with friends in the sheep industry who is hooking me up so I can work with local fleece. The less said about that, the better. Remember: I try not to let facts, experience, or ability get in the way of my ambitions. Apparently, floor space is irrelevant too.

But look:



Merino sliver....looks pretty nice, eh?

P.S. look what I found at the used furniture store:


Singer Model 179, hand-cranked sewing machine, possibly over 100 years old but in perfect, buttery smooth working condition. Runs like a charm!

What Next?

Here is a link to one of my favorite artworks ever:

A Short History of America by R. Crumb.

Three posts in a day? That's enough, right?

"O" is for 'ospitality

We have a very good friend who lives nearby named Olive. Olive has become my inspiration for the hospitality offered here at THM. When we visit Olive, and we visit often, we walk right in - no calling first, no planning, no knocking on the door. Olive trained us to do that. And she does likewise at our house. Nearly everytime we stop by she has something delicious baked. Her cheese scones are to die for and her jellies and jams have been labelled "the best in the world" by F&L. It seems we never leave her house without being given a little something to take home: the above-mentioned scones, jellies and jams, or a book or magazine, or a dozen eggs from her hens. Olive doesn't make a big deal about all this. It is quite natural and expected as far as she is concerned.

Olive also keeps an eye on things at THM during the winter months, she has taught me to make jelly (only learn from the best!), how to garden properly in Newfoundland soil, she has encouraged me in this project although I am sure some of what I am up to is somewhat mystifying to her, and she treats F&L like the grandmother everyone wishes they had. Really, I can't sing the praises of Olive high enough. I am so grateful to be her friend and to be the recipient of all her wonderful hospitality. But as I say, if I start singing her praises in front of her, she waves them away with "oh no, that's just what you do"

This kind of hospitality is an important part of Newfoundland culture (a big generalization but a pretty accurate one). In some ways, Olive is right: it is what you do here. Many people don't knock first and tea and a bun is expected at a visit. You never send people away empty-handed. And so it is here with THM. But this is where it gets a little funky. Last summer, I always tried to have some tea buns available for visitors, yet 9 out of 10 refused them along with the cup of tea offered. I often felt that would have been different if I had sold them. Somehow, the relationship between me and the visitors made purchasing the food more acceptable. I never did sell it--I just kept offering and sometimes people enjoyed my hospitality, but mostly not.

I also have a gift shop - really a drawer of a dresser in the livingroom - filled with gifts that I give visitors at the end of their visit as a thank you gift for stopping by. The gifts are not fancy. I have a selection of doilies that I have collected from yard sales, some painted rocks that say "Why are you here?" and some coasters made from left overs from the foyer wallpaper. This year, Lucy has made some little yarn dolls for visiting children. These offerings have been better received, although people sometimes seem a little embarassed. Giving things away to near strangers is an odd dynamic these days, I guess.

But this dynamic is what it is all about. Olive sets the standard very high, but I try!


(Olive, as photographed by L on New Year's Eve, 2004)

Glorious

The Tipping Point

Yesterday evening, Ivan Emke, a professor of Sociology at Sir Wilfred Grenfell College in Corner Brook, came out to meet with a group of North Shore residents to discuss economic/cultural sustainability in rural Newfoundland. The House Museum was host to the meeting. I was somewhat disappointed in the turnout--all the men invited did not show up. I will try not to make unflattering generalizations about the other sex, but one is tempted. But that is neither here nor there. Ivan listened to our many comments and asked some very good questions about what exactly allows a community to survive. One question was, "What is the tipping point? Is it when the school closes? The fire house? what happens to make it impossible for a community to stay together?"

As we thought about that and gave out some ideas, it became clear that the key to it all was in the young people in the community. While it is inevitable that some young people will want to leave the community and see the world, it makes a big difference if they know they can come back, that there is a viable life for them back home. I hate to be a one-note Charlie, but for me this issue harkens to something I have been thinking about a lot lately, which is that were society to value work that doesn't generate lots of money, then it would allow more people to feel themselves rich. That sounds so obvious, but really it would be a major shift in thinking.

Imagine someone who grows their own food, raises animals for personal and community use, fishes, gathers their fire wood, knows the land, lives with their family. Are they rich? In Newfoundland, there are people like that, probably more here than most places in North America, but many people would say they are poor. And likely they do have little extra cash floating around. But are they rich? Ivan talked about trying to get his colleagues to adjust their "quality of life" markers to include some of the above activities because otherwise most of Newfoundland is listed as having poor quality of life, which we know is untrue.

What if we started telling everyone who lived a life like that that they were rich? Would more people stay in the province? Would young people feel less ashamed to pursue vocations like carpentry or mechanics (as opposed to feeling pressure to go to college) and be able to establish themselves in their community? I suggest that at least half of the outmigration problem comes from our attitude about what is valuable and viable for our young people.

One of the participants yesterday is an older woman named Minnie who left home at age 14 to go teach in a one-room school house in an outport on the south coast. She was teaching children from about age 5 to probably her own age. After that job, she went to another part of the province, raised money in a strange community for the school and generally had incredible responsibilities for a 15 year-old. As she talked about all her remarkable experiences, I kept thinking "is it so bad to give a 15 year-old that kind of responsibility?" Perhaps many 15 year-olds would be much happier if they had to deal with the kind of real, live, physical world realities that Minnie had to deal with. Not everyone, obviously, but what if that were an option that was valued as much as getting a BA?

In rural Newfoundland, the tipping point is nearing for many communities. I have heard talk of another round of resettlement. Maybe it is time for that major shift in our thinking.

Step Out of the Room, phase II

The group of people working with artist, Marlene MacCallum, met together for the second time yesterday evening to discuss the next phase of their collaborative project, Step Out of the Room. Since they last met at Marlene's exhibition at the gallery at Sir Wilfred Grenfell College in early March, each person has taken a full roll of film on a disposable camera in their homes. Last night, they were seeing their photographs for the first time and talking about how they will become the source for installations throughout The House Museum this summer.

The discussion was great. Each person brought such wonderful stories to the table and there was such an amazing mix of ideas. The ages of the people participating range from 12 to over 80, so many generations are represented. Marlene encouraged everyone to think about the photographs as starting points for ideas, not necessarily ends in themselves, and to think of the house - its walls and structure - as the pages of a book to be filled with their ideas. I encouraged people to think boldly, including working directly on the walls.



It was one of those evenings when I thought that art can happen without a physical trace and still be as real as any painting or sculpture.

Unshakeable Logic

While L was perusing Stephanie Pearl-McPhee Casts Off, the following:

L: "Was knitting invented before boats?"

me: "Pretty sure boats were invented first. (long pause) Why are you connecting those two things?'

L: "Because if knitting was invented first, we could have called it rowing."

me: "????"

L: "Because you knit in rows...you know, rowing."

The torch is passed, don't mess with it.

Fiber Intake

There hasn't been enough knitting and fiber-related posting going on here. This is partly because I haven't been knitting much and partly because of the photo downloading issue. Let's see if we can't fix that.


Here is a picture of some icelandic wool that I brought up with me. I washed about 1/3 of the fleece the other day. It is drying near our woodstove, along with its newest friend and companion, Minkie.


I immediately set to spinning it. After spinning an entire white fleece, the novelty of brown was irresistable. Look how beautiful my spinning wheel is in the late afternoon sun...sigh...


Some of the finished product.

And here are some other random pictures of life in Gillams of late:


The weather has been cool and grey, to say the least.


But when the sun comes out...the wash.


And, at long last, we see some sign that spring is really here.

What's Old is New Again

As mentioned below, I have been reading and enjoying Casaubon's Book. I am ready to take up the 90% emissions reduction challenge or at least do the best I can considering that we live in two places 1000 miles apart. Newfoundland is a great place for this kind of life and there remain many people here who live very close to the land. It is only in the 50 years or even less perhaps that Newfoundland and Newfoundlanders have become less self-sufficient as part of a deliberate "modernization" scheme that coincided with confederation with Canada.

Last summer, when THM hosted the special project that invited North Shore residents to loan items they saw as related to their heritage, I received many things such as a homemade spinning wheel, a chamber pot, those iron things with which to repair shoes (I am forgetting their name!). Nearly everyone who visited who was from Newfoundland saw these items and remarked about them with a kind of longing in their voice, even if it was to speak of remembering them in their grandparent's home. Without getting too romantic about a past that was obviously very hard, I think it is safe to say that there were some benefits to that hardship. For all the back-breaking work, there was a yield that couldn't be measured in material wealth. And, I suspect, that was what was causing the sense of loss I heard in so many people's voices. On the other hand, I am guessing that, if I asked them if they wanted to return to using chamber pots, I would have been met with a resounding chorus of "NO!" but the spinning wheel? Many women touched it and lingered around it, telling stories about either using one or knowing women who used one, and children flocked to it. Could it be we are missing something?

But Newfoundland poses a real challenge. In many ways, returning to a simpler life here is easier in part because there are still people around with the kind of skills and knowledge that have been lost in other places. Yet, adopting or re-adopting a lifestyle without all mod cons has a kind of stigma of poverty and backwardness that Newfoundland has been trying to shake for decades. The reputation of the "dumb Newfie" has been fading in recent years, for sure, and perhaps it has faded enough so that a simpler life could be embraced as part of a heritage of self-sufficiency that is seen as a model not a bad joke.

I wonder if all this tourist industry talk about "cultural tourism" and "heritage tourism" could not have a good purpose in increasing people's pride in those kinds of unique skills so that they become not just for tourist display, but remain well-integrated in everyday life?

Trees for tourists

There has been some discussion lately on local radio about how the Corner Brook Pulp and Paper Mill (arguably the reason why there is a Corner Brook, or at least, why Corner Brook can boast of being Newfoundland's "Second City") can not harvest upwards of 25% of its trees because they are in areas that have become increasingly popular with tourists. The mill has had to import wood from other places because the goverment has been telling them that they don't want to ruin the aesthetics of the landscape for tourists. Given the increasingly competitive market for newsprint, which is mainly what the mill produces (do you read the The New York Times? The paper most likely came from Corner Brook), the mill is upset that it can't get to its own wood.

The mill has asked the provincal government to create a resource strategy that would clarify some priorities so they can plan for the future but the government is being a little vague, side-stepping the real questions with broad statements about supporting all industries and economic sectors, etc., etc..

It will be very interesting to see what will happen now that a major economic player like the mill has bumped up against everyone's new favorite belle at the ball, the tourism industry.

close your eyes slowly and offer a delusion...I mean...donut

I have been think a lot about validation lately. The House Museum project has been totally funded by me (and my family). I used up the vast profits from my percent for art project to get it started and, despite my efforts otherwise, it is, to date, an unfundable project: too Canadian for US foundations, too American for Canadian agencies. But so what? I don't have to answer to anyone else's ideas about what is acceptable, I have free rein. But....but...

Besides the money thing (and that isn't to be overlooked lightly), grants bring with them a certain amount of validation: we think what you are doing is worth something--money plus our seal of approval. I sometimes feel a bit of a fraud for not having that kind of validation. I mean, anyone could do anything and call it art! Oh, wait.

Perhaps it is all just part of a larger issue I have with seeking other people's approval. I know I am much too attached to the good side of that, judging from how sharply I feel the negative side of it. I don't know. Would I feel less like just one person doing my thing in a little house on the edge of a big rock in the north Atlantic if I had a letter and a cheque from some institution?

Any kind of fairy tale will do, apparently.

the key to all mythologies, etc.

I have lifted this from another blog that I have been reading and loving for its topics as well as its title: Casaubon's Book. Anyone who names their blog after George Eliot's Middlemarch is ok with me. I invite you visit her blog and visit often.

She is currently trying to reduce her family's energy footprint by 90% and is challenging others to try as well. Here is what she has to say:

"So here are 5 reasons to participate in the 90% reduction challenge.

1. Because we need to make be be the finale of seem. Instead of seeming to act, instead of talking about things like raising mileage standards on new cars, we need to deal with the reality that most of the cars have to come off the road. Instead of talking about biofuels as though they are meaningful substitute for oil, we need to start talking about feeding people in an increasingly hungry world. Much of what is happening now seems to be action, but isn't. The lie that we can keep things basically the same, only with windmills needs to be killed and buried, and the truth brought forth, with all its horny feet.

2. Because what we are doing is simply rational preparation for what is to come. Dave Pollard's analysis of the economic impact of further rises in gas prices is really important http://blogs.salon.com/0002007/2007/05/23.html#a1873- the fact that we've absorbed 3.50 gallon gas is no indication that we can continue to absorb price rises. I think Pollard's conclusion is an important one, and should remind all of us that we *will* be making massive cuts in our energy usage sooner or later. But sooner is better for the earth and better for us - voluntary cuts are a lot less painful than mandated ones.

3. Because with great power comes great responsibility. We're rich. If you use a computer and can read this blog, the odds are excellent you are among the richest 10-15% of the people on the whole earth. Yes, I know you don't always feel rich, but you are. So making major, voluntary cuts is not impoverishing yourself - it is balancing the scales a little, making things a little more just.

4. Because in order to keep up our lifestyle, we're doing things like this: http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,484661,00.html, and that's just plain wrong. Does anyone think that the damned war wasn't about the oil anymore? The less of it you buy, the less incentive you give the bastards who orchestrated this to keep killing them.

5. Oh, and it helps stop global warming too ;-)."

a thing rarely encountered

(updated 5/26/07)
We travelled under a cloud. A four-day car (and ferry) trip and all of it rainy. At the end of eight hours in the car with two children, getting to our motel room and watching HGTV wasn't quite enough to keep one happy or sane. Yet, we made it safe and sound and so I am very grateful. And this morning, I awoke to...not snow (that was yesterday)...but brilliant sunshine. I did the only logical thing: laundry!

I had another tearful reunion with my washing machine today. After three years of use, I never, ever take for granted the notion of tossing in a load of laundry at the last minute while in NYC. On the other hand, no electricity has its benefits, such as the upper body work-out that only three loads of laundry can give, and the chance to do laundry while day dreaming and gazing at the lovely Blomindon Mountains. Still snow covered, which is partly why we are still having temps below 10C (that means below 50F).

But I can't complain. I love cold weather, I love the chance to see spring transform the landscape not once but twice this year, and I love my adopted home here in Gillams.

I had some lovely pictures of our laundry and even an arty shadow shot that was all about fully enjoying that thing so rarely encountered of late: sunshine. Alas, dial-up service seems to make uploading photos a lengthy procedure. I will try another time.

PS. Just to be clear, most people in Newfoundland have all mod cons. It's just that, when we had the basement dug under our house, the contractor advised us that our "septic system" could not withstand regular use of a washing machine as well as toilet flushing and showers. So I purchased a hand agitated, non-electric washing machine made by a Mennonite in Pennsylvania. I love it and it does a great job, but I do suspect that nearly all other Newfoundlanders have a septic system, not a "septic system" and therefore avail themselves of a regular washing machine. But hey, everything in life is a trade-off...

I am not busy. You?

At F&L's dentist appointment the other day, the dentist was asking me about homeschooling (after I explained why we were able to come to an 11am appointment), and one thing leading to another, I remarked that I bake most of the bread we eat because, you know, I have the time to do it. The hygenist laughed and said, "That's the first time I have ever heard anyone say they have enough time! People are always talking about how busy they are!"

It got me thinking. I mean, we are busy. Homeschooling is one of the biggest misnomers of all time--we are not home very much--enough to make bread but I figure it out around everything else. But why is everyone is going around talking about being so busy? It is pretty safe to say that everyone is busy. It is a given of modern life thanks to all our time saving devices. So why even talk about it? Sometimes I think people are actually bragging about how busy they are--as if a full schedule is a way of determining one's importance. Who knows, maybe the opposite is true.

I also have been thinking about this after seeing the movie, "Into Great Silence" (see post below) that documents the lives of Carthusian monks who live in near silence and spend most of their time in prayer. And because I spent the better part of three days in a Zen sesshin a few weeks ago where I sat zazen for upwards of 14 hrs/day. During the movie and during the sesshin some of my thoughts were spent in wondering if this kind of thing--long periods of silent meditation--were worth anything at all to the rest of the world. Or was it only valuable as a personal experience? And if so, does that have any value to the rest of the world? I have no answers--three days of meditation left me with more questions than answers! But it made me decide to stop talking about how busy I am and start talking about my time in a different way.

I have decided that I am not busy.

I have time.

SABLE: Does the World Really Need to Know?

I have a friend in Omaha, NE, who could support himself as a clipping service for people. He clips'n'saves newspaper articles on a range of subjects for various friends. For a long time I didn't bother to read the New York Times since I knew he would save any articles that might interest me. Then he got a real job and the clippings have, understandably, dwindled a bit in number. Yesterday, however, he sent along a clipping from his hometown paper, the Omaha World Herald. It is a story about a widower who discovered "Skeins and skeins of (yarn). Shelves and Shelves full." It belonged to his wife and he found it after her death. I can't find a link to the actual article, dated 4/16/07, but here is the quote that really got me:

"Nathan said he found skeins of yarn on every shelf of every closet he opened in his Omaha home. He found it in big garbage bags. He found it in plastic bins..."

Apparently the yarn, patterns, needles, etc., were valued at about $5000. He donated it to the local Girls Club so they could teach young women and girls to knit.

Ok, a happy ending for all that yarn. But knitters...let this be a lesson to you! I made Dan promise not to go public with the extent of my yarn stash after I die. Now that I think of it, he really didn't give me a straight answer on that.

Last Harvest

I was listening, very casually, to NPR last weekend and suddenly I hear some guy talking about sprawl and suburbs and going out and really talking to the people who live there about what they like about it...and I think, 'damn! he stole my project!" As it turns out there is room enough for the two of us (he is not a knitter for one thing). His name is by Witold Rybczynski and he is, among other things, a writer. He has written a book called Last Harvest: How a Cornfield Became New Daleville: Real Estate Development in America from George Washington to the Builders of the Twenty-first Century, and Why We Live in Houses Anyway.

I have only read about the first 50 pages or so, but it is an interesting take on the changing look of suburban development in the US. As a resident of Sunnyside Gardens, I can atest to the success of living in a walkable, mixed use community centered around common green spaces. If this is the future of development, as Mr. Rybczynski seems to be suggesting, then that is a good thing.