All my life, I have lived on, or near, the Niagara Escarpment. Most of that has been in west Hamilton, where the spectacular views on the drive along hwy 403 up ‘the mountain’ were an everyday thing. When we moved to Burlington three years ago, I was surprised by how strongly I felt about the geography I had left behind, even though it was only 15 minutes away. When I have occasion to drive into Hamilton now, I am sometimes overcome with my strong feelings for the land. Princess Point, the shale of the escarpment, the waterfall, and the view over the city and out into the harbour… I miss it all.

But near where I live now, there is this piece of escarpent that stands out as if it was the last standing wall of an ancient ruin. There, I can see the layers of shale and the shape of the outcrops it creates when it crumbles. Right there, is a little piece of ‘home’.

I took this photo a few days ago. The wind has been blowing hard today, though – windows rattling, yard funiture blowing around and plants bent over to the ground – so I imagine that much of the colour in that photo is gone now. No matter. The starkness of bare branches against a shale background is part of the escarpment’s natural cycle and I cherish it as much as any other part of the cycle. Winter is coming. The escarpment says so.

I came home the other day and found this jar of liquid lighted gold on my doorstep. That’s honey, fresh off the hive. That’s a lot of honey, like, more than 2 kg. A family friend keeps bees and he dropped this off for me.

Isn’t that pretty much the most beautiful thing you have ever seen? I keep moving it around so that the light catches it. Sometimes, I just stand there and look at it. I swear, light actually eminates from that stuff. Jordan has been caught twice, dipping his finger in for a taste. I admit to eating it off the spoon. There is nothing more perfect than honey. Bread and honey. mmmmmm. I’m making carrot soup for dinner, and with soup you need tea biscuits. And I’ll be making extra biscuits today so we have some for eating with honey. I see honey cake in my future. And I see a lot of gazing at that jar of golden light.

I admit to being a little overwhelmed by my knitting lately. That I apparently have developed KADD – Knitting Attention Deficit Disorder – isn’t helping. I have also developed a real knack for choosing yarn that is beautiful, yet really hard to knit with or patterns that appear straightforward, but really aren’t.

The only good knitting choice I have made lately – “good” meaning something that I can knit as a christmas gift that the giftee will like and that doesn’t take months and months to knit and doesn’t cause my elbows and wrists to swell with the effort – is to make a couple of Booga Bags. This is excellent car and watching-hockey knitting. This is knitting on big needles (I used 8mm). This is knitting with wool. I love knitting with wool so much, I’m going to marry it.

This is also a good project because I am using wool from my stash. I had a bunch of natural Lopi and I dyed it, using Lucia’s instructions, with purple Kool-Aid. I’m really happy with the results. Purple is not my colour. It just isn’t. I think it has something to do with a childhood experience while watching Donnie and Marie and something about his socks or something. Whatever, purple is not really for me. But this purple I like. And I really like how the colour varies. It gives a really nice depth to the fabric. So the knitting is done and now I’m waiting for the current load in the washer to finish up so I can send this thing on its first felting run. Can you feel the anticipation? I can :D

Before I set off to do another tortuous pattern repeat on a Silky Wool scarf, I want to thank Rob – who is Canadian, so you *know* he’s a great guy – at RobswURLd Best of the Web. Yesterday, he named my blog in his Today’s Blog Recommendation series. Thanks Rob!