Andoa Progress

 I have made significant progress on my Andoa sweater. All I have left to do is pick up stitches around the neck, which you can see I lowered considerably (to 7 inches deep) and make the neckband. 

Then some blocking. I tried it on and it fits so well! I'm very happy with how it's turning out. 

I have worked a little bit on my Estonian mitten. I'm decreasing the top. I figured out how wick decreases are done and I'm doing the half wick decrease. I don't care for how it looks, but I'll keep it cuz, well, it's an Estonian style mitten. Besides, I'm getting anxious to get the second mitten cast on.

You may have heard about the solar storm that hit our fine planet a couple weeks ago causing a spectacular show of the Aurora Borealis. I really wasn't expecting to see much that night, because we have so much light pollution around here now. It turned out to be a clear night, though, and my daughter wanted to try seeing it so bad, so around 10:30 pm she and I got in the car and I went looking for a place with less light pollution. While I drove, she had her eyes on the sky. I headed north on highway 41 for about half an hour, and about a mile or so north of Blanchard, there they were! I found a place to pull off and we spent about half an hour or so just watching the Aurora Borealis, and taking tons of pictures. It was FANTASTIC! I've never seen it so bright and colorful before. It was bright pinks and purples and greens and so amazing! I'm so glad I took her out to see it.

On the way home, highway 41 had lots of cars parked on the side with the owners and passengers sitting outside staring at the sky. It was kind of cool. I felt a certain unity with my fellow Idahoans that evening.

Here are my favorite 2 pictures I took. This one was taken north of Blanchard. The bright light at the bottom is the moon.

When we got home, I discovered we could see it very well from my own back yard. In fact, it was actually brighter! It wasn't that way before we left so it must not have appeared yet. I took this one from my deck.

For me, this was a bucket list item, to see the Aurora Borealis in all it's colorful glory. I can call it checked off and I didn't even have to go to Alaska to see it.

I took this picture last week. My Salome daffodils are blooming. They are so beautiful.

This last picture is the flowers my daughter and her partner sent me for Mothers Day. It came with a good size box of Godiva chocolates too.

I had a wonderful Mothers Day. Ruth made me some Snickerdoodle cookies with chunks of toffee in them. They were so yummy! 

My husband and Ruth took me out for lunch. Then we gassed up the pickup and headed into the Coeur d'Alene National Forest for a drive in the mountains. Last year there was a wildfire up there in the Chilco area and my husband wanted to see how much damage there is. It turned out to be not as bad as we expected. There are some totally burned out areas, but I'd say most of it was just undergrowth burn. The trees were still alive. There was lots of green plants sprouting under the trees, even in the decimated areas. I don't think it's gonna be long before it looks pretty good again.

I wanted to see wild flowers and animals.  I took my camera with me, but ended up not using it because I didn't see anything new. We were up there a little earlier than usual, so there were some flowers not blooming yet, though I did see one lone Fairy Slipper orchid. Mostly it was Trilliums, tiny yellow violets, and the occasional patch of blue Delphiniums, Glacier Lilies, and lots of wild Strawberry. 

Ruth wanted to find some snow. We did find a little bit fairly high up. Not enough to block the roads. Most of it is melted. It was a beautiful perfect day, weather-wise. 

On our way home, we stopped at a carry out pizza place to get an Artichoke Chicken Garlic pizza to take home for dinner. It was a very nice day.

Oh, one more thing. I finally got my Medicare card! I have my Medicare D card too. So all is well with the world.

Live long and prosper. \\//