Retreating to Knit

(This is a guest post from my friend Nell.)

As you know, Hana (wisely or unwisely) often follows my example, and over the years has taken up challah making, singing in choir, hot yoga and knitting.  So when a spot opened up at a weekend knitting retreat sponsored annually by our local yarn shop, I asked her to join me, and she agreed.  It is worth noting that Hana had to leave the farm behind on a busy weekend of markets and CSA shares and picking veggies, and I am grateful to all those who stepped up to cover for her.

Hana and I have found that knitting delineates our personalities precisely.  I knit carefully, following directions, ripping out mistakes, counting and recounting, measuring, using little markers so I’ll know where I am.  Once, when a finished sweater was particularly unflattering (that’s the polite way to put it), I ripped the whole thing apart and proceeded to re-purpose the yarn by knitting a new and much better looking sweater.  (I am still knitting hats for charity out of the rest of that leftover yarn.)  Feel like you’re getting to know me?

Hana knits with abandon.  Measure before starting?  Hah, an educated guess will do.  Things not going according to plan?  Make up a way to correct it and keep going.  Find a hole (or two or three)?  It will be fine, keep going.  Lose your place in the pattern and not sure what you’re doing?  No problem, make your best guess and keep going.  On a trip and need a project, but missing a pattern?  Make one up!   And if the project doesn’t fit the intended wearer, think of someone else that it will fit instead and make a gift of it.  Someone will love it. Optimism and adaptation are Hana’s rules, in knitting and in life.  I’m still working on following her example, in life if not in knitting.

Our knitting retreat included about 50 ladies (and one young man, who worked at the shop), and most of us were of a certain age, except for a couple of daughters accompanying their mothers.  With two other friends, we drove less than an hour from home to a lovely rural conference facility, with stunning grounds covered in fall foliage.  Airlie House keeps its own garden, and they fed us sumptuously at every meal.  As Hana said, they know their stuff when they can serve so many delicious vegetables every time.  So we were spoiled, and we knitted our way from one meal to the next, from Friday afternoon until lunch on Sunday.

The shop owner had set up a mini-shop full of yummy yarns and delicious colors, with patterns to match.  The group had a quick show and tell, when everyone had a chance to say hello and share a completed project.  And we took in inspiration at every turn, as people wore their creations and shared tips and patterns.  Most of us took the opportunity to learn more about an online knitting resource, and we also took a walk to get some fresh air and enjoy the weather.

For me, the best part was the camaraderie.  We four friends shared a table with four other women, all of us attending the retreat for the first time.  Knitting was the conversation starter and the continuity, but we laughed uproariously and frequently as we talked and shared bits of our lives.  I helped a friend who is new to knitting, and Hana (now an experienced knitter) taught a new technique to another friend.  The woman next to me solved my issues with a new pattern, which had confounded me.  And we met more new people at every meal, and learned something every time.  Never in my lifetime will I get around to all the projects that called to me. 

Given the unhappy political events of last week, the timing was perfect.  I realized after we returned that I had taken a “news-cation,” not reading or hearing any news for almost 36 hours.  Knitting, laughing and learning with friends in a beautiful place was a wonderful antidote.  I’m hoping that we will repeat it.

Super Moon

I was driving back from the stand on my golf cart, with no headlights on -- the moon was bright enough to make shadows.  I was almost to the gate near Blueberry Hill when I sensed a dark something to my right. It moved.  I turned on my headlights and saw two deer moving quickly uphill, away from me.  By the time I got myself turned around, they were gone, but still inside the fence. I hate to allow deer to stay inside the fence.  Without much hope for finding them, I drove all the way back to the pig pen and started working my way along the inside edge of the deer fence.  I could tell they were in the underbrush next to Carrie's house but it was too dark for me to get them by myself.  Alas.  The irony is that Roger the deer hunter has been here for days, hunting further down in the woods, and he is sleeping in Darryl's room.  As I zoomed to the pig pen I saw the lights on there but I knew there was nothing to be done. Roger can't shoot deer with a bow in the dark.  I just wanted to harass those deer before going home.  Uncharacteristically, I gave up.  But I closed the gate so they would have a hard time leaving and I might be able to rustle them up when it gets light tomorrow.  I believe that you need to make them really uncomfortable when they come inside the fence.  They don't know the difference between inside and outside but they can learn there is a crazy person in that region and they should avoid her at all costs.

This postcard was written by a crazy person, no doubt.

I Do Love Little Pigs

For at least five years and probably more, we have invited some pigs to come stay at the farm each summer.  This is all my passion, but other people have come to love the pigs too.  I don't like indoor pets and we could only have a dog if we lived somewhere that it was safe for a dog to run around loose.  But pigs are just about perfect.  They eat everything, they are easily pleased, they are cute, and they have small needs. And they give us a reason to save all our leftovers -- they eat anything leafy, anything cooked, they love pumpkins.  They are always ready to eat, so it makes visiting them and feeding them deeply satisfying.

Nowadays we borrow the pigs from Bev (if you have ever read The Omnivore's Dilemma, Bev is described admiringly by Michael Pollan).  Bev owns Eco-Friendly Foods and he built a slaughterhouse (NO SMALL FEAT) that meets the national standards as well as the animal friendly standards. It is a slaughterhouse but the animals are treated with dignity.  Anyway, Bev connects up farmers with the market by being the middle man.  He works incredibly hard and is still trying to get out of debt.  Somehow he understands me and my need to have little pigs on the farm and he makes that happen.  Not necessarily in a timely manner, but when I ask him to bring me some pigs in the early summer, he rounds up three pigs that seem promising and delivers them.  

We all feed the pigs, talk to the pigs, and make them people friendly.  They usually arrive pretty skittish and shy. By the time they go home in November, they are pigs who like attention -- while they eat, I lean over the fence and scratch one on the back and she leans into me, pretending I am not there.  We only accept small pigs in case they get out and need to be rounded up.  All the boys know how to catch a pig and Peio arrived with pig skills. Generally speaking, we women are not inclined to throw ourselves on a squealing pig but we will round them up by leading them home with food (Carrie, while pregnant, got three little pigs to come home by luring them with a bunch of celery.).

Last week Bev texted me to say he was coming to pick up the pigs sometime around 1:30 in the afternoon.  Usually I am here when they go, but this time I couldn't be here. I told Carrie to watch for Bev and help him.  At 3:00 I get a call from my mother:  "Where are you?"  "On the way to Loudoun." "Are you on your way out or on your way home?"  "On the way out."  "Where is Jon?"  "Shopping.  What do you need?"  "The pigs are out."  "I thought Bev picked them up about an hour ago."  Silence.  We hang up.  I text Michael B and tell him to help Grandma catch the pigs.  I text Carrie and tell her the pigs are out.  I text Bev: "Now you are in trouble! My mother just called to tell me that the pigs are out and I told her you had already picked them up!"  After a pause, he writes back: "On our way back now. Door wasn't latched completely."  And Carrie texts me:  "Bev picked them up 30 minutes ago."

I am mystified by this information and I wait impatiently for more updates.

It turns out that Bev had arrived at about 2:45 and, with Carrie's help, it took them about two minutes to load three very cooperative pigs into the trailer.  Carrie closed the gate and Bev drove away. Carrie had to go pick up Zoey so she left immediately.  No one noticed that the gate opened up and the pigs walked back out of the trailer before Bev got more than a few feet from the pen, probably.  Apparently people were honking and waving at Bev as he drove up Route 7, trying to tell him about his open gate, but he didn't notice.  Apparently he didn't know that the pigs were not with him until I texted him.

Meanwhile, Michael found the pigs running back up the hill through the woods, returning from the Vegetable Field.  He followed them back to the pen where my mother and Michael L. were trying to understand why the fence was wide open.  Bev came back and they all put the pigs back in the trailer and he left again.  He told Carrie that it wasn't her fault -- he should have checked the gate before he left.

One more story: Last year Bev came after dark and the two of us rounded up some uncooperative pigs, using flashlights.  They wanted nothing to do with us.  Finally we had the big one boxed into a horse stall and we had a plan that I would move her toward Bev and he would catch her.  He caught her by a back leg but she squirmed away and ran toward me as I was trying to block an open doorway.  So I had to do what the boys do and I dropped to my knees and threw myself on the pig.  Pigs scream terribly when you catch them, and you have to hold on tight.  I was laughing so hard, holding on to one leg, waiting for Bev to rescue me, and he did.  He lifted that big squirming pig over his shoulders and put her into the trailer, which is much more than I could have done. The second pig he did all by himself, which was absolutely fine with me.

Rebecca says I like the pigs more than I like my own children.  That is a gross exaggeration, of course. But I do appreciate the pigs for all their fine qualities, and they are so much simpler than human children. And Bev tells us that he usually lets them grow up to be moms to see if they will be good moms. If they are people friendly they have a better chance or something.  

I call it the Peter Pan Pig Spa because they are always young, and they get completely coddled here.  Why not?  Every pig deserves to be coddled.  I don't really mind if they get eaten as long as they have had a fulfilling pig life.