cold breath, warm hands

Can a human be in love with an herb? If so, I'm in love with rosemary (Rosemarinus officinalis) which, in spite of its female-sounding name, is considered masculine gender in the herb world. The potted flowers on my deck have long ago succumbed to freezing nights and what is left is the hardy rosemary that now sits on the kitchen counter next to the stove where I snip off bits of it for roasting chickens, sweet potatoes (which have also been sliced and coated with olive oil and salt), or tossing whole sprigs into soup. Legend has it that rosemary has curative vibrations and magical powers and is used in love and lust incenses. According to Cunningham's Encyclopedia of Magical Herbs, it is also handy when you need protection, want to preserve youth, heal, need the answer to a question, attract elves.

on the outdoors
Sweater-only weather is holding and each day is more precious than the one before. Behind the warmth is a distinct snowbreath from the highest peaks. Sunsets are spectacularly dramatic - particularly when I can watch from my kitchen window while sipping a glass of Chardonney. 

My hiking friends are taking advantage of this long lovely autumn and venturing out daily to different trails. Maggie (Brits are born walking) totes her fabulous Lumix camera with her and yesterday took pictures of fish swimming in clear water at a fish hatchery somewhere up a trail upriver. Now that she has learned that I prefer park paths and city sidewalks and am famously not sure-footed on trails she extracted a (tentative) promise from me that when she returns from England in the spring I will consider hiking with her. Since I will undoubtedly have to buy a new pair of hiking shoes, there's some appeal there to the hiking-in-the-spring thing.

 

on making warmth

So far I've finished five pairs of hand warmers for the craft fair at month's end. Since I set a goal of a baker's dozen, I still have a long way to go. These are softly-lusciously warm in cashmere and alpaca, flattering (in a strangely sophisticated way) to hands and arms (remember when holding a cigarette served that function?) and remember when fingerless gloves were the hand wear stereotype for movie hobos, winos, and Dickensian characters? Things do change - and I want to keep all of them for myself. However, the advantage of being able to knit is that someone else can enjoy what I make and I can do it again. And again. And again. I hope to have my Knitz Mittz booklet available soon. I am often asked how to make hand warmers in an uncomplicated way and the new chapbook will address that request. It will be offered in tandem with the latest edition of Mastering the Art of Sock Knitting available by the end of this month or the end of the year! Will keep my readers posted. 

Speaking of my readers (how arrogant is that?) and just when I was considering cutting off this blog soon, I recently learned that since I started in April I have had almost 2,000 readers! Now that may not seem like a lot to the more popular bloggers, but to me it's friggin' amazing! And they're not all in the USA either! 

Thanks to all of you out there. I'd love to hear from you.