A Very Odd Year

Like everyone else in the world, we’ve had a very odd year. We’ve been staying at home since returning from Oaxaca in early March, with Google Maps reporting to me that I’ve really only been to two places since then: over in the Willamette Valley and over on the coast – both places we go for grocery shopping.

That’s really been it. Unusual for us – we usually do some local or regional travelling between longer sojourns. Maybe next year. Or not.

Even the plants are having an odd year:

This little zygo cactus is blooming for the second time this season – it bloomed early in October, too. My theory is that the darkness that we had for a couple of weeks after the Labor Day fire on the coast triggered its first bloom. This second bloom is a normal seasonal bloom for it. This little guy is in a four-inch pot right now and just blooming it’s little guts out. I love it!

Even our garden did some very odd things. The butternut squash were late and I really expected to not get any fruit at all. This guy wandered into the tomato cages – I guess he thought he was a tomato! Or maybe he just wanted a better look around.

(Just for the record – it actually grew here. No funny business for the camera this time!)

While not really odd, this is unusual: yesterday morning, we were visited by nine adolescent elk, who meandered around our outside yard (the area outside the electric fence) trimming the grass for us. They are usually around late at night or before dawn – we very rarely see them here during daylight hours, although there are areas of the homestead where they are known to kind of hang out during the day. They aren’t bothered by the human residents, so they’re pretty comfortable here. Just unusual to see them through the kitchen window in mid-morning!

The last odd thing to report: I have only one knitting WIP right now, and none of the looms are warped. The wheel is bare. WTF??? Yeah. Odd. I woke up yesterday thinking about card weaving and told myself I must finish the current sewing project before I could warp the inkle loom for a little card weaving. I’m just learning card weaving, so I don’t have anything worthwhile to show yet, but I can report I’ve fallen off the deep end into the immersion pool that is card/tablet weaving.

You know me: I’ve bought books. And tools. And appropriate yarns.

And that’s not odd at all.