a little sunrise, a little laceweight

It's quarter till October. The equinox snuck past me in a furtive manner, almost ashamed to still be wearing summer temperatures, but the angle of the sunrise tells me all I need to know. "Stock up!" it whispers in my ears. "Generations of your ancestresses knew this and survived to mother offspring. Lay in supplies for the winter!" I'm long past offspring, and still that ancestral voice nags on. "Eat up now while the eating is good. You may have to live on that fat come spring." I could fast for the whole month of March and still not use up the fat in my keester, but the inner voices don't listen to reason. They listen to signs and portents and the nattering of starlings. I write poetry in times like this.

To an Autumn Caterpillar

You humble, bumbling fuzzy bugger
in your Halloween-colored coat,
trundle through the summer sunshine,
chewing leaves until the spun fine
silk cocoon becomes your lifeline.
Then when you could not be snugger,
slumber till the spring-time molt.

Life is short and so uncertain.
We scry the winter in your bars,
then fill the woodshed and the larder
to be prepared against the harder
season still to come, and barter
labor now for comfort when
the hungry wolves howl down the stars.


And knitting? I must knit WARM THINGS!


Heide in her ubergenerosity sent me some gorgeous hand-dyed laceweight because it has some breaks in it. I guess you can't knit lace with broken yarn. So I added a strand of mohair boucle and a button, and made a vest. There wasn't enough yarn to make a pocket, but the two yarns came out almost perfectly even, so I am pleased. There was about 5 yards of mohair left over.