Natural progression ... of sorts

We've had a long stretch of uninterrupted bone-chilling cold.

The second heat lamp in the pump house has been kept on

[ not good to risk frozen pipes with our primary water source ]

but nothing stops the back pond from freezing over;

much to the chagrin, I imagine, of the small band of buffleheads

that paddled around in sweet abandon for a week prior.

Wonder where they've gone off to now?

The ice crystals criss-cross in a beautifully random manner.

Knitting seems to be primarily a winter habit for me ... dunno why.  

It's a soothing activity in the long hours of darkness.  I'm not much good at it

[ close inspection would reveal many wabi-sabi mistakes ] but I enjoy my time with it nonetheless.

The season has arrived, for this bit of lacy indigo recently came off the needles

and this green scarf-lette jumped on next.

Fell in love with this nubby yarn ... a blend of 70% silk 30% cotton

called  summer tweed in the colorway  Hedgerow

Very light ... shall come in handy on my summer travels when an 

evening breeze next to some bonny shore

has me reaching for an extra pinch of warmth.

Had to order an especially long pair of circular needles for this one

as my longest edge will be 52 inches.

Whoever invented the circulars should be awarded a Nobel prize,

don't you think?

So, late yesterday a pleasant walk with the dogs took us round the far back side

of the pond where we hadn't ventured in quite some time.  There are two

"wrapped trees" back there and it's been my practice to check up on them occasionally,

see how the cloth is faring ....

oh my

what a surprise

to discover the downed willow was missing its wrap!

And not only was the the cloth gone, but

the tree had been severely gouged by wandering deer

who'd used it for a scratching post

If you've been visiting here for awhile you may remember its earlier days ...

Here's the photo I posted four years ago showing the fresh wrap

[ notice the willow hadn't grown any lateral shoots yet ]

~ newly wrapped, September, 2010 ~

This piece of old cutwork cotton was from a tablecloth

I found at the thrift store.  So pristine, so   WHITE    back then ...

Then, just two years ago this is how it looked, greening up nicely from the lichen

and lord knows what else.

~ January, 2012 ~

~ May, 2013 ~

By spring of last year, the top portion had slipped some although the binding cloths

were still holding fast.  I contemplated removing it at this point but my curiosity 

won out and I decided to wait some more.

At that time, I was the last holdout amongst the members who'd

joined 'wrapt, tied and marked by nature' 

[ the blog has since been removed by its owner so I'm unable to provide the link to all the stories ]

... an interesting group project which involved about 8 of us from 

different areas of the world who wrapped cloth around parts of trees, 

leaving them for a period of  six months or more

in order to see what marks Mother Nature might provide.

We then recorded our results on the group blog, exchanged ideas, encouragement, etc.,

great fun overall.

Other climates produced very different results and

since I saw zero change after six months,

I decided to just keep going.

I wish I'd copied my original posts from the group blog

where I described in great detail the varieties of trees and the types of 

cloth I used for each.  Alas, all is not lost for I still have all the photographs spanning

the years, if not my written words.

But back to the fallen willow ....

After rooting around in the leafy detritus piled underneath,

lo and behold I found a scrap - ONE scrap of the original tablecloth !

I had visions of local deer galavanting about the woods with cutwork

dangling from their antlers -- what a sight that would be --

for what other conclusion was there than they'd scratched all

the rest away?

It's barely holding together.  Quite a fragile delicate thing now.

Once it's dried I'll carefully lay it out flat, assess what's really become of it

and make a decision about what's to follow.

First it was found,

then it was dyed ...

I may already know what comes next.