tales from the ark

It's been raining for 40 days and 40 nights, but our ark has proven waterproof, top to bottom. Those of you who remember when we bought this ol' bomb of a house will understand when I say, "We've come a long way, baby." :-)

Along the way, there have been celebrations of Leah's 8th birthday and Mother's Day. There have been visits to the Bushnell for Lion King and Higgins Armory for a Viking Warrior demonstration. There has been reading and Carmen Sandiego geography puzzles and chess and word games and old Time magazines and flight simulator with historic planes and Time Machine book-on-tape and sign language and Nova Scotia information. There has been spinning by Scott...

and spinning by Leah...
and building of multi-featured creations by Jesse.
And now there is a loom. It obviously still needs to be cleaned up (as do the walls of the room), but it's as put together as 4 non-weavers could manage without reference material or Claire. ;-) I stopped at the library last night and picked up some weaving books, so hopefully we can get it working soon. It's funny because all 4 of us seem equally excited about this contraption, for different reasons. For Scott, it's marveling at the complexity, yet simplicity, of this homemade project. For Leah, it's the allure of creating textiles and playing with fibers in a new way. For Jesse, it's all about the knobs and levers and clackety-clack mechanical aspects of weaving. For me, it's all of the above, plus the thrill of having stumbled into this for free and launching us all into an entirely new art/history/skill to explore.

But today there's a big yellow ball in the sky and there will undoubtedly be rollerblading and a picnic!