3 ton boxes (and other heavy hobbies)

My recent three weeks of blogging silence can be blamed on the exhaustion that results when one changes residences. Over the last five years I've moved around seven times. This time, however, I think I may be living in my new location for a while.

For those of you who follow this blog, you'll know my current location when I write that I'm finally living in the house that overlooks my garden. (Garrett's house!)

Every time I move I rethink my hobbies . . . the bags of books, cooking and knitting magazines. Are they really worth the backache and the pain of moving them from point A to point B?

Yesterday we finally got my last bookshelf in place and I was able to unpack all my books. Garrett had a hard time believing this, but every book that I chose to bring with me is a book that I have read and would reread.

Here are some of the greatest hits:

Barbara Kingsolver's Prodigal Summer

Alice Hoffman's Here On Earth and Practical Magic

Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility

Mary Oliver's poetry

Rumi's poems

E. M. Forster's A Room with a View

and much much more, of course!

Still, I have to admit that I did appreciate the lighter boxes that had to be moved from my apartment. The baskets full of fiber and yarn.

The yarn in the top photo is some of our mill spun CVM romeldale fiber in a soft charcoal gray. I already have a sweater (Interweave Fall 2010) in mind to knit with it when I get the chance.

This naturally colored yarn makes me think of all the colors and textures that can be found in the world around us. Shells, bark, horns and bird's nests.

A sheep's soft fleece.

Here's a specimen from our pasture at Crosby Hill Farm. She's pretty proud that last year's fleece made it into yarn.

Happy knitting and spinning everyone!