a hammer in the kitchen at 6 a.m. and things going AWOL

Why would one need a hammer in the kitchen at six in the morning? Those small hours of the day should be spent with muted sounds : socks on the hardwood floor, the clink of the coffee pot meeting up with the smooth lip of a ceramic cup, a slow, fuzzy brain humming as it comes to terms with the day ahead.

There's no need for BANG BANG BANGING!

Or is there?

Now, nothing was broken in my kitchen this morning that needed fixing. I just had a craving. A craving for frozen strawberries in a banana, avocado, apple juice and strawberry smoothie; and the berries were all frozen together in the plastic bag.

Even more satisfying was the knowledge that these particular berries came from my parents garden last summer. The best way to eat a berry is either straight off the vine in July, or nibbled off the edge of a cold hammer in the middle of February. (Don't worry folks, this hammer is for kitchen purposes only . . . like shattering strawberries or even raspberries for that matter.)

Hey! I'm from Minnesota. We have a short growing season.

Next on the docket is the realization that the mittens my mother knit me from her own hand spun have definitely gone AWOL. I didn't lose them, I merely left them on my desk here at studio and they seem to have wandered off.

This is the second time that something like this has happened. My red Koolhaas cap wandered off this past November, I knit myself a new one. But the mittens my mother knit me will not be so easy to replicate.

Here are some images of some jars of her raspberry jam. Admittedly this doesn't take a hammer to apply, but it's also a wonderful treat in the middle of February.

some people say it's valentine's day

Some people say it's Valentine's Day this coming Sunday. I won't argue with the calendar, but I will quibble with whether or not you can really say its Valentine's Day if your sweetie is out of town, or if you're single.

Hear me out. Most of the Valentine's Days of my past have been spent as a singleton, cutting out pink and red crepe paper hearts in the middle of my apartment floor with, perhaps, a sad romantic comedy to keep me company. (Sorry, Tom Hanks, it was me, not you.) Or worse yet, snuggled into the corner of my sofa with a stack of poetry books making wobbly copies of my favorite poems.


This year finds me not single (ironically) yet still alone. I fall into the 'sweetie out of town' category so I am forced to come up with substitute to the traditional Valentine's Day. Luckily, my parent's have offered me an appealing alternative to sitting home all alone or overworking myself at the studio.

They're shearing sheep this weekend.

Imagine a clean barn filled with fresh straw, piles of soft wool and freshly shorn sheep. It's always exciting for me to get my hands on this year's wool. I wonder what colors our sheep will produce this year? I know my mom's looking for a certain hue.

As you can see, I like to apply my own colors to our fiber. This roving has already been spun into a fingering weight single ply, intended to be knit into socks for my sister.

Looking ahead, we should be greeting our first lambs sometime in the beginning of March. Keep posted for pictures and stories.