First the good news: I have started another internship. A great internship actually. In truth I'm fighting back the temptation to call it the greatest internship ever was or ever will be. What is it? Field instructor internship at the Cuyahoga Valley National Park Environmental Education Center.

The bad news: This internship is a black hole sucking up all the time in my day and compacting it into a space no bigger than a marble. I'm enjoying it a lot, but it simply leaves me with very little time for other things and when I'm pressed for time blogging is one of the first things to hit the chopping block.

It's sad really because I really want to invest some money into getting my blog off of livejournal and onto it's own domain, but it seems rather pointless if I'm not going to have the time to actually post.

But don't worry about me darlings. I'll still hop on every once awhile to catch up on my blogs. Just know that even though you haven't heard from me that I'm having a great time.

Dear Jim Blume (or whoever was playing the folk music on WKSU this evening),

I can't complain too much, but things have been pretty crazy here lately. Lots to do....less time to do it in....all that jazz.

Today I started to suspect that the lack of sleep has been getting to me when somebody asked how old I was. Without any hesitation I blurted out "nineteen." I know people lie about their age all the time, but I generally try to be an honest person and I really have nothing against being twenty-three. But by the time I came to my senses a few seconds after the the word had left my mouth, I knew that I didn't want to admit that I had just completely forgotten how old I really was. So I plowed on anyways and tried to answer the rest of their questions as honestly as possibly. As you may have suspected it didn't work out very well. It turns out that trying to pass yourself off as a nineteen-year-old who's already graduated from college makes you feel really pretentious.

But I digress. On my way home this evening I flipped on the radio to WKSU dreading that they would be playing classical music. (I have nothing against classical music either, but I just wasn't in the mood for Mozart.) To my delight WKSU was on their folk music programming.

The first thing you played for me was a song by "Eddie From Ohio" called "Quick." It was absolutely brilliant, although since the song is about Albert Einstein that probably goes without saying. Totally upbeat, and sing-alongable, and of course who did I see, but Albert Einstein himself, sticking his tongue out at me from a billboard as I whizzed down 480 with my windows open and the song blasting on the radio. You must have planned it that way, you clever thing.

Then you dug up a tune by a singer that nearly everyone has forgotten. Remember the song Lullaby by Shawn Mullins? (Everyyyyyy thing is gonna be alright....) The song that all the radio stations could not stop playing my freshman year of high school? Turns out that even though there hasn't been so much as a peep of his music on the top 40's stations since then, he's been keeping up a pretty good music career. So you played a song from "9th Ward Pickin' Parlor" called "We Could Go and Start Again." It was like meeting a best friend all over again.

Then, just as I was getting close to home, you finished with Lunasa's version of The Merry Sisters of Fate, and once again, your timing was perfect and the last measure was playing as I was parking the car in the driveway and shutting off the engine.

I don't know how you managed to pull the whole thing off so perfectly but it is much appreciated. There's nothing quite like good music to lift your spirits, and make you forget if only for a moment that you have a million things that need to get done tomorrow. For many years now Folk Alley has been a consistent source of it. I solemnly swear that I will remember that during the next membership drive.

All my Love,
Robin

P.S. The Folk Alley 'Round Town during the Kent State Folk Festival was quite a stroke of genius too, I hope they do it again next year as well.

One of the buildings in Hale Farm's fictional village of Wheatfield is known as the meeting house.



It was built in 1852 in the city of Streetsboro where it was used as a Baptist church. In the 1930's it was surveyed as part of a Works Progress project known as the Historic American Building Survey (HABS). A storm damaged the original steeple and plans were made to demolish the building in 1969, until it was acquired by the Western Reserve Historical society and moved to Hale Farm in 1970. Using historic images and the plans from HABS they rebuilt the steeple and restored the building inside and out.

They furnished the building with a gorgeous reproduction of hand-woven Venetian-style carpeting. The first one was made in the Stow house shortly after the building was moved. A few years ago it was replaced by another reproduction also made at the Stow House. The second reproduction took two years to weave.



Every year in February and March Hale Farm does an Underground Railroad program. Because Ohio weather is pretty unpredictable during the winter and the underground railroad event brings a lot of people to the museum they put down the old worn out reproduction in the meeting house to keep the new one from being ruined by muddy feet. But somewhere during the clean-up after the Underground Railroad the old carpeting was rolled up and put it away.....( cut for cringe factor )

I’m kicking myself because I haven’t updated. A very kind person who wandered into my Livejournal from the vast expanses of the Intarwebs even went through the trouble to say that they thought my blather was interesting and that they would be checking back and that still wasn’t a big enough boot in the arse to get me to update. Hopeless.

My excuse is nothing new. Complete lack of time. How complete? I haven’t even bought the new Harry Potter book yet. Additionally, I have created several disaster zones around the house where my junk has been piled up or pushed aside with the intention of being taken care of later. While frantically tearing apart the dinning room table (ground zero) in search of some important thing or other I realized that the table was best understood as a series of archaeological layers, with the last weeks of school being on the very bottom and the most recent weeks on top. Yeah, that kind of complete lack of time.

And to make it even more interesting I can’t update now because Livejournal is down because of a power outage so I’m typing this up on Word and scowling at it because spell checker keeps on putting little red squiggly lines underneath the word “Livejournal.”

I have one half-written post that is currently trapped in Livejournal Land until they fix whatever problem it is they’re having.

*****Edit****

I was about to type…“Until then I’ll be in Microsoft Word typing, and clicking refresh on Livejournal for the 584,283,798th time. Once Livejournal is up I’ll post this and finish the last entry.”….when the computer, without any warning, went completely dead. I suspect the culprit was the battery backup, as the whole system finally agreed to turning back on only after I had fiddled with it and fervidly expressed my doubts about the legitimacy of its’ parentage.

But the good news is that I now have a new excuse for not updating. The real cause of my lack of blogging has nothing to do with lack of time, nor laziness, nor lack of blog-worthy events. No, the real reason is that the universe is conspiring against me.

***Additional Edit*****

I finally got tired of waiting for LJ to let me log in and went to bed.

When I first got my digital camera well over a year ago I was pretty cocky. Despite my limited experience with photography I decide that I was smart enough to figure it out on my own. This attitude can be summarized by the the immortal words of Gold Hat. "Directions? I don't need no stinkin' directions!"

Before I went to Europe my brother urged me, nay, implored me to look through the camera manual and take it out and practice using the different features so I would have great pictures to share with him. I meant to, I really, really meant to but....well, I never found the time, and the user manual sat in the basement collecting dust, while I tramped all over Europe and took more blurry pictures of beautiful alter pieces than I really care to admit to.

But no more I thought. I set out on a mission to polish my photography skills. To challenge myself, to take pictures that looked like artwork, to take pictures that I could put into a portfolio, to take pictures I could be proud of. So I borrowed a stack of photography books from my brother and started paging through them.

I am grateful for digital photography. I don't have to worry about the cost of development, I can take ten times the number of pictures on a single memory stick than I can on five rolls of film. The advanced features are a lot more user friendly on digital cameras than regular cameras, and being able to see the picture after I've take it allows me to experiment.

But I finally caved. Necessity has finally driven me to page through the manual that came with my camera. And I'm kicking myself for not doing it sooner. While trying to figure out how to export pictures from the internal memory of my camera I came across a disk of software. I popped it into the computer and discovered a whole flash program that explains all the features on the camera. How to take pictures of people, landscapes, no-flash, aperture, shutter speed, white balance, ISO, center AF. Kick, Kick, Kick.

The problem is now I'm going through my pictures to find something for Eye Candy Friday and finding they're all crap. They're not fit for existence, let alone blogging. So for Fiber Friday this week I'm digging out an oldie that I took much earlier this year. And I apologize, I promise to not post crap next week.


Ohio Sunrise

If you had told me two months ago that I would have learned to do anything new on a handmade antique I would have laughed myself silly. Or at the very least rolled my eyes.

Last week I learned to weave on a two-hundred-year-old hand-built floor loom.



( Jealous yet? )

I finally got the official go ahead to post my pictures from Hale Farm on my blog. How convenient that they let me know the day before eye-candy Friday.



This was taken in the Farm Barn, one of the three barns that were built by the Hale family and were original to the property the museum is on. There wasn't a whole lot to photograph inside but I loved the effect that the light filtering in from outside had.



Sadly Hale Farm wasn't able to find anyone to make the salt-glazed pottery this year so the kiln and pottery shed are just gathering dust. I don't even know if this wagon serves any purpose for interpretation or if it was just put there to look pretty.

There is so much more that I want to blog but I don't even know where to begin.

I have been without internet for over a week because the power source on the computer decided to shuffle off this mortal coil. So no Eye Candy Friday last week, but I am determined to do it this week.


Water Droplets on Glass

( Black and Green )

Today was the third day of the internship I'm doing at Hale Farm and Village. The past three days have been a complete whirlwind. The first day we were out exploring all of the buildings and learning about their history, and learning about historic interpretation. We spent most of the second day back out in the museum to observe the interpretors. Today we had a crash course in basket weaving, candle making, broom making, and brick making.

My head is swimming with all of the new information and ideas that has been thrown at me this week. So much has been crammed into my head in the past three days, the stack of books and papers that I need to read is already a foot high, and I'm still having more and more thrown at me. I would feel completely overwhelmed if it all wasn't so interesting.

Anyways, tomorrow I start working with the interpretor in the Stow house where they do the textiles!

Remember when I said that I wanted to improve my photography skills? I still do.

I've decided to hop the bandwagon and start doing Eye Candy Friday but with a small twist. I'm asking that those of you who are have more experience will pipe in and (constructively) criticize or better yet, make suggestions for how I can improve my pictures.

So for my first Eye Candy Friday I'm posting pictures from a hike me and Rosemary Durda went on in April at Indigo Lake.


Moon at Dusk (If you zoom in or look very very closely you can also see Venus right beneath it)

( A few more )And while we're talking about bandwagons I finally got an invite to join Ravelry. I only have two words to describe it: "Seriously Awesome." It could easily become bigger than Craftster. The website is still in Beta, and they already have 5000+ members people waiting for invites. And I thought it would be a long time before the knitting blogosphere topped the Knitting Olympics on the "freaking out the Muggles" meter.

I don't have a lot of time at the moment so I'm updating with a list.

1. I lived through finals week despite having the plague a cold. I milked it for all the sympathy it was worth, but I got through it.

2. This summer I will be doing an internship at Hale Farm and Village in Bath Ohio. For those of you who are not around Cleveland, Hale Farm is an outdoor nineteenth century historical museum. The museum includes buildings that were part of the original Hale family farm, and historic buildings from the area that have been preserved and relocated to make up the fictional village of Wheatfield. This year the museum is going to portray the year 1862. I'm particularly excited because the interns will be demoing a number of crafts including basket weaving, candle making, spinning, weaving, and broom making. I'm going to have a craaaazy schedule this summer but hopefully I will be able to find the time to update this journal with some of the new crafts I am learning, and quite possibly a lot of historical blather. I can't wait for it to start.

3. Every year or so I develop a deep desire to go too the Cleveland Metro Parks Zoo. So I dragged Rosemary Durda along with me. We saw many cute ferocious and interesting animals and learned about them and their habitats. ( Pictures under the cut. )

4. Rosemary Durda gave me two lovely skeins of Patagonia Natura Cotton last year and I loved them deeply but I could not figure out what pattern would do it justice. The yarn has started talking to me in my sleep so I'm making it into Knitty's Argosy. I am loving it even more as it knits up.



The only cotton I've knit with before is the dishcloth variety. This stuff makes a fabric that is so cushiony and beautiful it could make angels weep.

5. For reasons I cannot completely explain I decided that I really wanted to have an herb garden. The fact that I rarely find myself in need of fresh cut herbs for cooking (or anything else for that matter) and the fact that I seemed to be cursed with a black thumb and the ability to kill even the most heartiest plants did not deter me the slightest bit.



Behold my humble container garden; Lavender, Mint, Basil, Catnip, Chives, Thyme, and Rosemary. It has been four days since I potted the plants and they are not yet dead. This is an encouraging sign. If all goes well I want to add plants that can be made into natural dyes. I must admit that I will probably also add parsley and sage, just so that I can say I have "Parsley, Sage, Rosemary, and Thyme." Yes, I know I'm a nerd.

I am finally posting pictures from Amsterdam.

Yes, more pictures from the Europe trip that started nearly a year ago that I've neglected for so long that everyone but me forgot about them. We shall not speak of how long it has taken me to put this entry together. (Ok fine, three weeks.) Better late than never, I always say.

Warning to dial-up users: this is the biggest image heavy entry I've done. If you're using dial up I recommend finding a good book to read before clicking on the cut. Also, In recognition that Photobucket has made a lot of improvements in making their website better for viewing pictures and not just storing them, and that some of you may actually prefer to look at them using the web page rather than on Livejournal with all of my blather, I present a link for your viewing pleasure. The rest of you may ( follow the cut )

It's almost the end of the semester which means that my life should be quickly dissolving into chaos as I get ready to hand in papers and cram for tests, only....it hasn't yet. For the first time in five years I don't have any papers due at the end of the semester. The only class I had to write papers in is already over, so all I have to do before finals is study for tests. This has me completely paranoid. I don't know what to do with myself. I keep checking the syllabus for all my classes to make sure we don't have to turn in 10,000 words next week, and double checking Web-for-Students to make sure I didn't accidentally sign up for a class that I haven't been attending all semester. (Every semester around this time I have nightmares in which I've done just that.)

( This is what kept me up until 3:00 the other night: )

I just finished making quickie post but for some inexplicable reason LJ tried to put it into rich text mode and totally screwed up my HTML. I'll have to give it another try later today.

Yes, I've been a busy bee. ( clickity click )

*Edit to Add*

How could I have forgotten to mention this?!?

I saw Ken Burns speak!! He was every bit as charming and eloquent as I expected. He talked about "The Civil War." He told anecdotes about working with Shelby Foote. He described what it's like for someone who knows very little about computers to have their own iPhoto effect named after him. He showed clips from his newest film "The War" on World War II. It is quite possibly going to be better and even more well received than "The Civil War." It will start airing in December of this year. You can watch a sneak peak here. I even got a chance to talk to him and shake his hand. I know I babbled something completely ridiculous between telling him that I love "The Civil War" and having him sign my ticket, but I seem to have successfully blocked it out of my memory. It was an honor to get to see him speak.

Thanks to pawmerry for helping me assemble it.

It totally makes up for the fact that my spring break was otherwise a complete wipe-out. All I did was work and fret about work. More later when my brain is actually functioning.

Still not much going on here. All I've really been doing is sitting by the front door watching the mail box and waiting for my wheel to arrive. OK, I'm lying again, but I've been even shorter on time than usual and the only thing I've done is carry my drop spindle around with me everywhere I go so I can pretend like I'm still working on spinning up the purple sock-weight.

I did manage to make my very first submission to The Yarn Museum. (It's in the first skein gallery) I have other stuff I want to submit but I just haven't had the time to photograph it.

The sun is out, the snow is nearly melted, there are tulips poking out of the ground and it is officially spring. I seem to be slowly shaking off the wintertime instinct to hibernate and I'm already making big plans for the summer.

I've still got my fingers crossed tightly for the summer internship program and today I started training for a volunteer program at Cuyahoga Valley National Park. I'm excited to start doing volunteer work again. I used to do a lot of volunteering when I was younger especially through school and Girl Scouts. Then when I went away to college the combination of school and work pretty much nixed that. I'm glad to be getting back into it because I think the program I'll be working with is a great program, and it will also give me a lot of great experience. Never mind that I still have no time, I'll make it work somehow.

School is still kicking my butt *insert cryptic reference to Con Law here* I'm taking a one credit hour class about geography in film. (The DnD geek in me wants to call it my "one-shot" class) I'm really enjoying it and between that and the net-flix subscription I got for christmas I am slowly developing an interest in film that may become slightly less than healthy. I think in the future (in this mythical time period in which I will have time) I'd like to do some research and possibly write a paper for publication on some aspect of history in film.

On a similiar note I am ridiculously excited because Ken Burns is going to be speaking at Kent State Tuscarawas Campus on April 9th. I'm about half-way through watching The Civil War and it's really good.

My brother was also kind enough to loan me a bunch of books on photography. I really want to get better at taking pictures and understand some of the technical aspects of photography. I'm hoping that I will be able to do that this summer too.

Also of possible interest to people I know in real life...The Yarn Harlot is going to be at Legacy Village in Lyndhurst on March 31st. I'm thinking about going but I know I will feel incredibly guilty if I don't bring at least one hat to donate, but I know that there is no way that I'll have the time to finish one before the event. Any thoughts?

Nothing exciting is going on around here.

Ooops! I lied, I forgot about this one thing here. It's just the wheel that, after well over a year of drooling over them, I decided I wanted to be my first wheel. Oh yeah, and now it's MINE.

Ashford. Traveller. Single treadle. Scotch tension.

I would have liked to buy a wheel from cornerstone yarns because they're a local business but unfortunately I want a single treadle, and ashford only makes the double treadle now, so I didn't have much of a choice on buying used.

But other than that...nothing exciting.

I just made salmon.

I. Me. I made salmon. Me, the girl who has to stop and think to remember which side of the spatula she's supposed to use, the girl who doesn't know the difference between a colander, a sieve, and a strainer. I took something that still had scales on it and turned it into something edible. I just made salmon and nothing exploded.

It was also the most delicious thing I have ever made.

However, like many great accomplishments it simply could not have been done alone. I therefore would like to extend my deepest gratitude to Aprilly for selling it to me and assuring me that the scales were supposed to still be on there.

And I'm now eating a fresh baked chocolate chip cookie. Admittedly the cookie started off as a log of dough in a package and at no point did it need to be de-scaled. I might be the Salmon Princess but I'm not that great.

I've spent most of February trudging through school wishing it was warmer out and trying to make plans for the summer. In the spring I will start doing some volunteer work with Cuyahoga Valley National Park. I've also got my fingers crossed tight for a summer internship with a local museum. I should be hearing from them fairly soon.

I dragged Aprilly, Amanda, and Paw S all the way out to Bowling Green to take a "learn to spin" workshop with the Black Swamp Spinners Guild. I finally got to try spinning on a wheel and now I have a pretty good idea of what kind of wheel I want to get. I had a lovely time but I accidentally left my camera at home. Aprilly has some pictures, I may have to rip them off of her.

I finished and felted the first fuzzy foot:


Unfortunately there is just one small (or shall I say "large") problem: ( scale )

I've taken the weekend off so I could just relax and get some stuff done. It's been very nice.

It looks like this outside:



Granted this may look like nothing to yarnwench but I don't live in upstate New York.

Kent has canceled classes today which means that I am having the first snow-day I have had in at least five years.

I probably should be doing important things like reading for my civil liberties class or my geopolitics class but instead I'm sitting in the kitchen watching the snow blow around, drinking hot chocolate, and starting a new project in a yarn that reminds me of spring time and sunshine.


But since this is my first snow-day in five years then damnit I'm going to enjoy it.

Fuzzy Feet in yarn frogged from a thrift store sweater and dyed by yours truly. I've been craving a pair of slippers to keep my feet warm at night.

I've been making a concerted effort to stay away from the heart shaped buckeyes my mom brought home and have been failing miserably.

Happy VD!