At last I can heed the requests for more photographs of the Colorado odyssey. Thanks to Fred Meyer’s one-hour development service, I was able to get these on a CD before we drove up to Friday Harbor. (Easterners: Fred Meyer is like a local version of Wal-mart, only with better quality stuff and fewer lapdances for Satan.)

Anyway, clockwise from top left: 1. Wrangler Jerry, a 17-year-old Amish kid we corrupted, looking over the edge of Black Face Butte. 2. Sandra Lake as seen from the trail up to the saddle between Wilson Peak and Mt. Wilson. 3. The boys stubbornly disregarding the trail we clever girls found and riding across the Meadows in the San Juan National Forest. 4. The view of Vermilion Peak and Gabriel’s Horn from Black Face. 5. Lizard Head from the trail below. 6. The group reaching the remains of my great-aunt and uncle’s 1933 cabin.

And we wouldn’t want to forget the knitting content:

              
This is one rough-riding sock, friends. And Cassidy is a patient pony, little fazed by the antics of his crazy knitter and also unparalled at following deer trails through all kinds of unwelcoming terrain, even when assaulted most cruelly by yellowjackets. The picture on the right not only captures the art of knitting in a hail storm at 12,000 feet (okay, this is just post-hail), but reveals Phase 1 of a fall project I’m cooking up: dyeing with owl clover. I collected a plastic bag full up at Sandra Lake, and you can see it here drying on my laundry line.

I have no idea if I’ve got enough plants to make a reasonable quantity of dye, or if my haphazard drying process was too compromised by damp weather and the necessity of stuffing the plants into a duffle bag on a pack horse every day. They’re in my basement now, sad brown shrivelled husks of their former selves. Will they still yield a pretty red dye? Who knows. I also haven’t the faintest clue what to do to them to extract said color, so obviously a lot more research is necessary. Pat at Abundant Yarn & Dyeworks keeps making noises about offering a plant dyeing class, which I’m panting to join, but hasn’t given any details yet. Anybody have any good plant dyeing resource materials to recommend?

It’s a beautiful sunny day in Friday Harbor, so I’m going to wrest myself away from the computer for a trip up to my parents’ property to give my two cents on architectural and landscape design. It’s terribly odd to imagine my parents in a house other than the one they built before I was born, but change is good for the spirit. And they’ve got an undeniably beautiful site for a smaller place. Stay tuned: you might get to see a picture of it. Yesterday we went out on a birding excursion and I got some photos I think may turn out well, so maybe I’ll put together a little island montage for you.