Walks and hikes – Page 5

Our Daily Walk

Every day, we try to get in a brisk walk. Generally, we shoot for a graded or paved area. In the next county, where we do most of our shopping and dining on outdoor patios when we eat out, there is a Rails to Trails grade. This trail begins in one town, ends about 9 miles away in the next town, but in the past couple of years, it was also extended with a connector trail that goes another 7 or so miles still in the same county, but in our direction, terminating at the pond we frequently walk around. Our walks aren’t long, varying from about 2 1/3 miles to 2 2/3-3 miles. We also live a few miles down the mountain from Mountain Lake Conservancy where the hotel used in the movie Dirty Dancing was filmed and there are a number of trails and graded paths to be walked there. Some of the walks are nearly flat with only a few gradual ups and downs.

We do this to keep us strong and to improve our health as we are both well into our 70’s.

When I had my primary care physician visit after my hospitalization, I made the comment that I wasn’t your typical 70 something from this area and he whole heartedly agreed. Life has been hard on some of the residents here and many even a decade or more younger are much older physically than either of us.

Today, we decided to do a section of the Huckleberry we had never walked before, it is in the newest section. There is parking at a heritage farm park and the trail passes through it. We had wandered the paths in the park before the trail was put through. We started at the park and walked back towards town. It was a lovely section to walk with a wooden causeway over a wetlands and much more contour than the other sections we normally walk so a bit of a challenge. If we had walked one more mile, we would have been back in town.

Autumn is here…

at least this week, though it is going to warm up next week, not to summer temperatures but much warmer than this week. The winter squash were all harvested and some pumpkins and gourds purchased at the nursery along with a mum, just beginning to bloom. The fall decorations in storage were brought out.

A bit of fall decorating was done with the winter squash, some beeswax candles, and mum.

The past few mornings have been in the low 40’s f (4.5) c and we awaken to heavy fog and glistening dew.

The asparagus look frosted. A quick trip into Lowe’s for a tarp showed me small bundles of dried corn stalks from Canada, about 4 stalks for almost $10 each. I should go out and cut our stalks and bundle them to add to the decorations in front of the house or at the corner of the garden. I must have $100 worth out there.

Because of the chilly nights, the houseplants that spend the summer on the front porch are being brought inside after spraying the bugs and spiders off of them with a jet of water. The move back inside also resulted in some pruning and transplanting.

The two largest house plants and the two hanging spider plants still need to be sprayed and brought inside.

I went out to use the line trimmer this afternoon and it is missing the bump ring, so it wouldn’t function. I am going to have to purchase a new one. I want to repair the wood wheelbarrow that my Dad made for me about 2 decades ago and fill it with fall color.

A nice afternoon walk away from town today showed lots of fungi and greenery that benefitted from the rain this week.

I was happy to see several patches of running cedar (Diphasiastrum digitatum) or fan clubmoss growing in the woods. Though it lacks legal protection it is becoming more rare due to destruction of it’s habitat and over gathering.

This morning, I began the second test knit of the mitts. I went down a needle size and extended the cuff on this pair. The gray handspun yarn is showing off the design much better.

My knitting gauge must be much looser than the pattern designer.

It is nice to be beyond the hottest weather, but I’m not looking forward to the cold months ahead. Spring and Fall are my favorite seasons with the milder temperatures. The nursery today had fig plants and mine that I transplanted into a half barrel wasn’t looking very good. I had hoped to bring it in to the garage for the winter, but it was already so pot bound, that I dug it in to the walled garden below the southwest exposure of the stone retaining wall. I will shield it with heavy gauge plastic and mulch when freezing temperatures are expected. It formed about a dozen and a half figs this year, but none of them came to maturity. Maybe it will be happier in the ground in the sheltered location where it will get regular watering during the summer.

The hydroponic gardens are sprouting.

Craftiness

This month’s spindle challenge was an easy one, just spin a minimum of 15 minutes each day. This is going to lead up to two consecutive months of produce items using your Jenkins spindle spun yarn. Since a lot of my yarn this year has been producing squares for my Breed Blanket Project, there are lots of bits and bobs of leftovers from the squares and a scrapy scarf or cowl will use up a lot of them.

After spinning three breeds this month and knitting several squares, I started on a braid of wool dyed in Ruby colors that are not for the blanket and just for fun. The first 12 g were spun on a large spindle plying on the fly until I decided that the spindle was just too large to use in the car, so I switched to one of my smaller spindles that fits nicely in a Talenti gelato container and drops into my carry all bag.

The colorful case is a rigid sided, zippered pencil case that is perfect for toting a spindle or two when I want or need to go away. It was a recent acquisition to my collection. The ruby yarn that will be produced will become fingerless mitts and a hat or cowl for holiday markets and my Squareup shop.

In early to mid August, I did a test knit of a cabled hat pattern, Debbie’s Tobaggan on Ravelry for a friend. As I usually use my own handspun yarns and I didn’t have any yarn in the correct gauge, I purchased a skein from another friend (Sunrise Valley Farm) that vends at the local farmer’s market. Her wools are lovely and hand dyed.

The pattern designing friend was at the fiber retreat I attended in late August and she was working on another pattern, fingerless mitts or mittens. About a week ago, she asked for test knitters for this pattern. I had purchased a skein of alpaca/wool blend yarn from yet another friend and had enough of it left from a project to test knit the new pattern, Blue Ridge Mitts, which will soon be released on Ravelry. See the mountains and the sun?

The mitts are currently drying from being washed and blocked, and I am about to start another pair using some of my homespun Shetland in a soft gray.

Recently my decade old Nexus tablet quit. That tablet has lived in an Oberon Design leather cover for most of it’s life. I am a real fan of the Oberon products, owning a card case, notebook cover, checkbook cover, and the tablet cover that have been purchased by me or given to me by hubby as gifts. I was trying to think of a new life for the tablet cover and as many of the patterns that I knit have charts in the pattern design, I took a metal chart holder that was a bit too large and with tin snips, cut it to size, so now I have a pattern holder.

I consider that a win/win!

My health crisis appears to be behind us. My diet is back to normal and we are walking every day (except the day of the monsoon) and doing at least 2.25 miles and trying to challenge myself on speed and inclines. Most days, hubby and I goad each other as to who is pushing who, but it is all in fun and should one of us feel taxed by the effort, it just takes a word to slow the pace down a little. We are both fitter for the effort, which is good for our senior bodies.