Kelp Forest

As a child, I remember going to the beach in winter after storms had gone through. In California, the kelp grows thick. After a storm, some of the plants would inevitably get uprooted and deposited on the beach. My Mum showed me how the little bladders of air that usually help the kelp aloft in the water could be popped just like bubble wrap. Needless to say, I'd be entertained all the way down the beach. Pop, pop, pop.

The Kelp Forest shawl is inspired by the thick forests kelp that can be found in the waters along the California Coast.The stockinette portion of the shawl is knit side to side with stitches being increased and decrease along one side to stop the "stockinette curl." Once the body of the shawl is knit, stitches along one edge are picked up for the edging. The beginning of the edging has a thin line of stockinette to form the "stem" of the kelp. Then the air bladders are knit in before reaching the thick cabled kelp leaves. The whole shawl ends with a picot bind off which accentuates the mesh background.

Two different, yet similar colors of Mithril from The Verdant Gryphon were used in order to capture the subtle look of light shimmering on the kelp below the water: Forest Clearing and Green Water Snake. Just one color can be used just as easily in this pattern.

Kelp Forest can be found on bear-ears.com, ravelry, and craftsy. 

Tentacles At Monterey

The last time I was at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, there was a seahorse exhibit. Well, in April it became a Tentacles exhibit, which included squid, octopi, cuttlefish, and nautili. I've been wanting to see it for months. This past weekend a whole group of us piled into a car and headed out to Monterey. The first stop was to pick up lunch, then head out to the beach to eat. (I loaned my camera to Jay to play with, so some of the pictures were taken by him, including this beach one. Extra points if you can spot me.)

Photo credit to Jay

After lunch we headed out to the aquarium. In this exhibit, the fish (mackerel I think) always are swimming in a circle. Except on this day some of them got real confused. It was interesting to watch a bunch of fish swim at and away from each other. Eventually the head of the pack sorted things out and everyone went back to swimming in a circle.

After seeing an exhibit or two, we finally reached the Tentacles exhibit. (And I took my camera back for a bit) This guy was eating a fish. The fish head was sticking out past his tentacles.

After the squid came the octopi. I wasn't able to get very good pictures of them. They all seemed to know that they were in tanks and didn't want to be there. I'm going to guess that the octopi were the smartest of the tentacles bunch. After the octopi came the nautili. It was fun watching them swim about using their tube structure. The ones that were resting seemed to be using their tube as a suction cup. This guy was definitely sticking to the glass.

I noticed that the cuttlefish had the same tube structure hiding under their tentacles as the nautili. They seemed to just be nautili without shells. Also, these guys have the most interesting eyelids. It was strange watching them blink.

After the tentacles exhibit we had a look at the jellyfish one. There is 1960's style music playing throughout. Jason said that there ought to be a rule that in order to see the exhibit, you had to wave your arms around kind of like a jellyfish. There were games in that exhibit as well. After three shorter children left, three bigger children took over.

Jason, Elaine, and Connor: The big kids

One of the displayed jellyfish were the upside down jellies. We all thought that there were the least intelligent of the jellyfish world. They worked pretty hard to stay upside down. Everyone but Connor had been to this aquarium and I thought he might get the biggest kick out of these guys. Little did we know that he's seen them up close and personal. I'm pleased to say that I've never gotten stung by one of these guys and now I know not to go to the Florida Keys and walk around in the water if I want it to stay that way.

Photo credit to Jay

As we left, I asked Jay to take one last photo. We had seen these blow up tentacles coming in and I knew I needed a picture with me and my tentacle arms. As Jay lined up the shot, I said, "I need someone to fear me!"

 Fear my wrath, Jason!

The evening ended with a meal at Bubba Gump's where the waiter stumped us with Forrest Gump trivia and I nearly stumped him with a question. All in all, it was a great day.

Drakes Beach

For Jackie's birthday, we went to Drakes Beach at Point Reyes. The day started well. We got food, made sandwiches, and drove out to get a fire permit. Drakes Beach was recommended to us by the person who gave us the fire permit. And I have to say, it is a lovely area. (Bonus: there is an excellent bathroom that was unlocked even though the visitor center was closed)

While exploring the area, we found this grotto with a cross dedicated to Sir Frances Drake's landing in the area. While looking at the cross, a turkey vulture flew to a nearby tree and tried to eat a rodent it had caught. Eventually it accidentally dropped its meal and looked rather embarrassed.

While exploring the beach, I dug into the sand by the surf to see if we could find any sand crabs. What ended up happening is that every scoop of sand contained dozens of sand crabs. They were just everywhere. 

After scouting out a spot for our fire, Laurel started building up a little teepee. Jackie and Karl looked for tinder while I worked on stabilizing our seating situation. We ended up burning up almost all of our tinder without getting a stable fire. Sadness set in as we realized that there was a good chance we might not be able to light a fire. But guacamole saved the day. I went over to where the food was, ate some guac, looked over at our supplies, and realized that we had a whole roll of paper towels. It only took one or two to get the fire going.

Laurel exclaimed, " We could totally survive in the wilderness!" To which Karl replied, "If we had a lighter." And I added, "And paper towels."

With the fire lit, we set out to stuff ourselves full of food. Hot dogs, corn on the cob, baked potatoes, s'mores. We didn't even get to the watermelon; there was just too much good stuff.

As we looked up into the heavens, I was lucky enough to see a shooting star. The constellation Scorpio was prominent in the sky.

It took awhile to put out the fire. One of the bigger logs refused to stop steaming despite the amount of water we poured onto it. Beach curfew neared, so we threw the log into the ocean. On the way back from the surf, I stepped onto what I thought was sand but turned out to be the tide coming in. My sandals squeaked as we headed back to the car.

Año Nuevo

On Wednesday Mum and I decided to get out of the house and go to Año Nuevo State Park. It was a beautiful day. One of the docents told us that every day she had been out there, since April, had been cold and windy. I like to think that good weather follows me. I hope I'm not jinxing myself.

There is a large colony of Elephant Seals that live at the park. It's a bit of a trek through the sand dunes to get to the area where the seals are, but it is worth it. (It's also worth doing the walk in sandals, unless of course you enjoy pouring half the beach out of your shoes when you are done.)
While we were watching these guys, there were a whole bunch of them flipping sand onto themselves.

I also noticed a pattern in how they itched themselves. Every time any of them had an itch, they would first lift their flipper into the air, where it would stand for a little while. Then they would do the Queen's wave, followed by a good scratch.

But my favorite bit was seeing their tracks. It kind of looked like giant lizard tracks.

Right now there are only juvenile seals out there. But come winter, the large males (with giant, silly noses) will be out there battling for a harem of ladies. I'm hoping we can go out and watch.
Bonus: Elephant Seals fast while they are on land, so they don't foul up their living area. They smell a-ok. The California Seal Lions are another story....

Makara

Today we had a long hike at Makara Beach Walkway. We started out far down at the beach. Then we walked up and up and up. Everytime we crested a hill, there was another hill, followed by a collective groan.

We passed by some sheep. (I've had a request for sheep photos, so here you go.) They looked like they were on the wrong side of the fence.

Eventually we reached the top where there were old gun emplacements left over from WWII. The unfenced in ones were full of sheep poo. There was also a nice bench up at the top. But a sheep had gotten on top of that and had a poo as well.

We ate lunch and enjoyed the view. There was a wind farm placed in a sheep farm. It is a well placed wind farm.  Chris' hat has disguised the gustiness pretty well, but as you can see from my hair, the wind whipped around us all.

Picture credit to Dad.

Eventually we walked down, down, down, to the beach. There were Paua shells littered all over. Many of them were only a touch smaller than my hand. And all the rocks on the beach were blue.

There were some tidal pools. Chris and I hopped along the rocks looking for treasures. I found a sea urchin that had recently died. It still had it's beak.

As we left, it became clear that the predicted storm was sweeping in. We stopped for a coffee before driving back home.

Belated Beach Yarn

After an embarrassing number of months, I managed to finish spinning Melissa's birthday skein. It was so late that I wrote on the card "Happy Belated (almost your next) Birthday." I tried to make up for the lateness with yardage.

It is meant to be a beach theme; going from the sandy edge of the water, through the breakers, and out to deep water.

The skein was spun up from several Faerie Mountain Fibers Crazy Batts. I practiced my long draw while spinning this yarn. The long draw requires only one hand and I've been told that it is sometimes called the beer draw, which I find to be accurate. I did have a beer in my other hand while spinning. I thought (correctly) that Melissa would approve. In the end, the skein was very close to 400 yards of fingering/sport weight. I suggested a center-out triangular or semicircle shawl to best show off this yarn.

After getting the yarn and fondling it, Melissa immediately cast on a Shaelyn shawl. I think she knit it faster than I spun it. I'd never spun a gradated yarn and I am excited that it came out so well. Let us all gaze on how glorious the Shaelyn looks.

Photo courtesy of Melissa

 And now I think I need to spin myself an ocean-themed yarn.

Frozen Feet

The other day I posted my 2013 goal list. Usually I post that sort of thing on January 1st, but this year I was a little busy. My whole family (sans Scooter) spent New Years Day helping me with a photoshoot for The Book. We drove an hour to go to a cold, windy beach where there were a surprisingly large amount of people. Turns out that if you haul a really large chest across a beach, people don't even try to pretend they aren't staring.

I stepped in mud that I later realized smelled a bit too similar to poo. You can see it in the photo below. And everyone's feet went numb in 15 minutes or less. My brother and I started having "I can't feel my feet from this point" (insert pointing to numb part of the foot) contests. I think I "won." But in this kind of contest, no one really is a winner. 

I'm pretty lucky to have a family that is willing to help me out. (And if they aren't willing, Mum has no problem "motivating" the unwilling party.)

Afterwards we cranked up the heater in the car to help thaw our feet. There is nothing like misery to promote family bonding.

Overall it was a really great way to spend New Years Day. And I'm just that much closer to being done with The Book.

Hermie The Hermit Crab

In the previous post, I left off where Mum and I drove up the coast. We stopped in Brookings to meet up with my Aunt. The next day we went to Harris Beach where there are some famous rocks. 

I thought that the footprints we saw on the beach were rather interesting. My guess was initially Skunk. I got poo-pooed and the general consensus was Raccoon. Although I still don't think it's Raccoon. Any insight would be lovely.

The reason we were in Brookings was to see the negative tide, which was -1.4. It was pretty amazing. This funny looking rock is actually covered with Anemones. 

Mum gets the Eagle Eye award for spotting this guy. It was a Sea Cucumber that looked very much like a rock. I'm really happy I didn't step on him.

We stayed around the tidal pools until dusk. Mum and my Aunt chatted a bit as the light faded away.

The evening became even more magical as the lights of Brookings flicked on and twinkled across the harbor.

Our adventure doesn't end there, I'm afraid. For you see I did a bad thing. I found a bit of driftwood that I thought was funny looking and put it in my pocket and promptly forgot about it. You shouldn't take things from the beach. And in typical me fashion, I got an instant punishment. When we got back to the house, I pulled the driftwood out of my pocket and a little shell fell out a crack in the wood and into my hand. Then the shell started to scurry... across my hand. I screeched and threw the now identified hermit crab onto the bed, where he spent some time scurrying. (Quickly I might add) I felt bad about accidentally bringing the hermit crab home, so Mum took me back to the beach where we walked for 10 minutes to get back to the tidal pools. Unfortunately the tide had come in at this point and the only pool I could get Hermie into (I named him Hermie) could only be reached in the brief time between waves. So I waited for the wave to recede, ran to the pool, dumped Hermie in, and ran back. I earned wet pants for returning Hermie. But I felt like I owed it to him. It wasn't his fault he got jammed into my pocket and taken far from home.

Hermie had better live a bloody long life after all that. I hope he's ok.

The Seagulls Of Clam Beach And Other Adventures

When I last left off, I had a really strong margarita in Chico. That night I called up Justin to make sure he'd be around for a visit the next day. The next morning, Mum and I had a good breakfast at the Diamond Hotel's restaurant, Johnnie's. Then we packed up. Mum commented that she felt like she was on assignment. Then she said something that had me giggling the rest of the day. "Let's take the elevator. No need to be a hero." Like taking the stairs would have made us heros.... hahaha. (We were on the third floor, so the elevator was nice.)

When we got to the coast, we picked up Justin and visited Knitter's Lane. Neither Mum nor Justin knit, but both have been dragged to enough yarn shops to know the lingo. They spent time giggling over how the could make complete sentences using words such as dye lot and fiber content. Then they both told me to check the dye lots and fiber content. Haha, very funny guys. 

The shop is small, but well kept and the prices are good. Mum picked out yarn for her annual birthday scarf, Patons Silk Bamboo in Orchid.

Justin pointed us in the direction of a local sandwich shop called Central Sandwich. Mum had a wrap, Justin had some vegetarian sandwich, and I had the The Big Turkey, which is a BLT with additional turkey and avocado. We took our food to Clam Beach and sat in the sand eating. Turns out there are some rather aggressive seagulls that live on Clam Beach. That seagull is about a yard away from Justin, and he had to duck a few times because it swooped at him.

While I was eating, both Mum and Justin started to laugh. Why, you ask? Well, the stupid seagull (who I thought had finally left) was actually hovering six inches above my head. It had its feet outstretched and was about to land upon my head and eat the sandwich out of my hands. I shrieked and ran off, but it followed me. 

And chased me down the beach.

This happened a few times. I'd see the seagull, hide the sandwich in my sweater. When it wasn't looking I'd take a bite. But then Justin took to trying to attract it. Mum thought it was funny. Justin thought it was funny. I did not. Justin got minus points for this. (He later found my lost lens cap in the sand, so he got some plus points for that.)

Before we left, I got my "Jumping At Clam Beach" picture with Justin.

Don't worry Justin. I photoshopped out your butt crack.

We ended the visit with Justin earning a million points. He was able to go to the Natural Fiber Fair in Arcata. (I'd like to point out again that at the moment, he does not knit, crochet, or do any kind of fiber craft) He handed me a box. I thought that maybe he picked up a little roving for me. Justin did so much better. He got me two different colors of Alpaca roving, two skeins of Alpaca, two circular needles, and a cable needle. Justin is awesome. He has earned a pair of hand knit socks. I might even come up with a new design for them. He is that awesome.

 

 From Double Diamond Alpacas

After leaving Justin, Mum and I headed northwards. We passed the Trees of Mystery. They were closed, but I still like getting my "Me and Paul Bunyan" picture whenever we pass by. Me and Paul are buds. However, Paul is much, much taller than I.  Let's put that in perspective, shall we.

Much, much taller. I wasn't even next to him. I don't think I even reach his boot. On a slightly separate note, I've done the Trees of Mystery tour before. It's a fun thing to do at least once in your life.

Not pictured: The anatomical correctness of Babe the Blue Ox.