survival mode

How boring is this post!? Flashlights in case the electricity goes out, canned fish and soups because the stove and oven are out, hardboiled eggs made yesterday with the little gas that was left before it disappeared. We're surviving this natural-gasless state of emergency as well as can be expected. It's all about acceptance, preparation, and letting go for awhile of things we take for granted. As long as we have electricity there is access to water, microwave, radiant heat. The fear is that the grids could be overburdened so this area of northern New Mexico is being asked to conserve electricity. Apparently that's not the case in places like Albuquerque and Santa Fe and it seems that when the gas is finally flowing again - which could be 5-7 days - they will get it first. Our only problem right now is keeping the pipes in the studio from freezing. There is a woodstove out there but someone has to traipse through the snow into the subzero night at least twice to keep it going. We're taking turns but Ron is the main woodstove guy and  knows how to set it at dusk so that it burns slowly and efficiently. And since we hardly use it (using the gas heater instead) we don't have a huge supply of firewood. I have always been a proponent of earthship living, but he's never been keen on it. Something about all those tires and aluminum cans is off-putting. I did hear him mumble something this morning about building an off-the-grid house, only I think he imagined it in Arizona!


yarn trifles
Browsing through patterns last night (by candlelight at the kitchen table) I caught myself thinking I should be doing something more important. Like helping people who have no heat at all in their homes and have to go to shelters or neighbors and are suffering through temperatures that were expected to dip to -26F by morning (they did). This morning we learned that the shelter was used by only about five people and the list of volunteers is endless. So what to do? Wool warms and the most fundamental thing I can do at this point in mid-winter is knit warm things and give them away. So today I'm going to start a pair of chocolate brown alpaca mittens with stash yarn that's been languishing downstairs in a basket for two months.

I promised to share the information on the gorgeous Classic Elite Alpaca Sox yarn I received the other day and here it is: the color is #1870 "watercress".

 I'm spending way too much time gazing at it (thinking of new leaves on trees still dormant) and trying to decide what to knit. It has to be special. I've made numerous Lace Ribbon scarves and socks with this yarn and they're nearly perfect (although several people who own the socks have reported "accidentally" throwing them in the washing machine, causing SFD (serious felting disorder). This alpaca and merino yarn absolutely must be hand washed. I'm still finishing up other projects so maybe by the time they're done I'll have had an aha! re this yarn.

What I'd really like now, though, is a shower. But there's no hot water and our well water is deep cold snowmelt down from the mountains. Clear and cold to drink.....

the mountains look black
in the cold half light of dawn
he gets into the swing of survival mode
suggesting blueberry waffles
for the toaster