Serenity Eye Candy Friday from Camp

Because serenity has been pretty well lacking since I got back.  I need a reminder.  Sigh.

Little Boy Lake at dusk, above.

Saturday, Leaving Camp

Saturday Sky, this morning, outside the beautiful 50-year-old dining hall at Family Camp.

Though there’d been a storm overnight (the first rain of the week) and clouds were predicted later, it was a lovely August morning

as we packed up and reluctantly said goodbye to camp friends.

And the familiar beauty of camp itself: Camp Olson on the shores of Little Boy Lake

(seen here this morning).

I had a relaxed week which is just what I needed.  During which, I made excellent progress on one of my knitting projects, Girasole by Jared Flood.  I think I started this in the car on the way up, actually.  

Here it is, as I knit it on the shores of the lake yesterday.

(I’m knitting it in Malabrigo Sock, in Ochre colorway.  Girasole means Sunflower, and this seemed a somewhat Sunflowery colorway choice.  I am loving knitting with this yearn.)  This is part of a Knitalong started by Sheri of The Loopy Ewe (in fact, Sheri offered a discount on any yarn, like mine here, purchased from her store for the KAL, which was awesome of her).  

I am seeing now why people who started this well ahead of me are saying this pattern is addictive.  (Which is good, because I have plans to do another Girasole, even before I’d actually started knitting this one — though after I’d bought the yarn — the second one of which is going to be amazing.  Just you wait!)

The wind rustling through the leaves, the soft water sounds, the amazingly loud squirrels crashing around every so often….

what better setting to sit and knit?

Though I did do more than that.  Details and photos (of course) to follow.

Up North

That’s where we’re heading today.

To canoe, hike, sail, ride, swim, do target sports, and bask in the North woods beauty, at Family Camp.

See you in a week!

Flowers from Sock Camp

Last week, I went from a week at work where it seemed that every day only got busier and busier, directly to the train station to take the Empire Builder train to BMFA Sock Camp, where I just arrived today.  There was no internet access on the train, so this is my first chance to catch up.  Thus, I have a number of color studies still in my camera and locked in my home computer.  Sigh.  

Well, I essentially did a color study last year for a reason unrelated to color (one of my posts for the ABC-Along).  And since these colors are pretty much non-existent in nature back home this time of year (though they do exist here in the Pacific Northwest!),  I can’t take these photographs right now.

So I present to you with the aid of a blast from the past:  Bright and light colors!

The Colors of Flowers.

All these are flower photographs I took from flowers in my own garden, within the last two years.  My garden is somewhat random, not planned around much of anything other than easy care, frankly.  And blooming time: I try to have something blooming most of the time during the all-too-brief Midwestern growing season.  So it is interesting to me that so many of the flowers are warm colors: yellows, oranges, pinks.  Because when I pick out yarn, or clothes, these are not necessarily the colors I’m drawn to at all, other than red, which I do like very much in anything.

But this collage still makes me very happy inside, just to look at it.  

Especially in March of the winter that wouldn’t end!

Pirates Like Eye Candy Too

Still in Chicago, and very busy at a very good meeting.

Knitting still limited, but garter stitch is do-able, thank goodness.

Unfortunately, no camera cord has magically materialized!

So ye’ll have to do with older pictures on this Talk Like a Pirate Day!  But actually, ye haven’t seen these before, I don’t think, they just happened to be on my laptop from an earlier upload.  Arrrr!

So first, in honor of Talk Like a Pirate Day today:

Sailing like a Pirate at Camp this summer.

(Can you see the sails on the little Sunfish boat at right?  Click to embiggen if not!)

Second, my hoped-for plan is to visit Loopy Yarns tonight.  And I realized I forgot to show you something cool that was outside Loopy Yarns’ old location when I was there in June:

Graffiti knitting!  (Actually, I think it may be Graffiti Crochet?  I don’t remember for sure, but it looks like crochet from here!)

Last, here’s two pretty pictures — also from camp — for Eye Candy Friday, of sunset followed by the moon over Little Boy Lake.  The moon is just past full (some of us know that intimately….).  

Let this substitute for the gorgeous sunset pictures I took tonight from the Adler Planetarium, that I can’t show you until I get home.

Another Camp Flower

Friday Eye Candy courtesy of northern Minnesota wildflowers again.

Spotted knapweed.  (I think I took a picture of this last year, but didn’t know its name then.)

Centaurea species (related to Bachelor’s Button/cornflower).  Apparently a Bad Thing despite its prettiness.  Ah well, I promise I didn’t spread any seeds….

Q is for Quiet

One of the treasures of Family Camp vacations for me is the moments of Quiet.  Though much of camp is filled with fun and laughter, games and activities, it is also set in over a thousand acres of Northern Minnesota lake country.  YMCA Camp Olson is on the shore of Little Boy Lake, and has its own small chain of lakes contained within its property, surrounded by private trails and wilderness. 

I and my husband are both creatures who need some solitude every so often.  (His friends couldn’t believe he ever got married, being such a ‘lone wolf’, but that’s a different post!)  Between my occupation which deals with people all the time, and my busy school-age daughters, however, my alone time is usually limited to travelling for meetings (where, truth to tell, I get a bit lonely, since I want to share new sights with my family). 

So the moments I can sneak away in the North Woods replenish my soul.  Can you hear Quiet?  It certainly takes Quiet to hear the wind softly rustling the leaves, the tiny water sounds, the occasional scold of a squirrel or rustle of who-knows-what in the underbrush, even to hear the loon’s wail (at least my daughters kept missing the loons’ call at first, given their chattering!).  

I might be knitting, I might be hiking or canoeing, but the Quiet permeates my whole self until my pulse slows, my breathing deepens, my thoughts become Quieter as well.

 

This picture is from last year at camp, when every morning, I woke up an hour or more before my family, so would usually take my knitting and sit by the lake various places.  (One morning, however, instead of knitting, I and my father went on a pre-breakfast birding walk with the camp naturalist, as Quietly as possible, and we saw these little guys, baby bluebirds.)

This year, either I was more tired, or camp being a week later in August, and the sun thus coming up not as early, threw me off (or the habit of the girls leaving the curtains closed didn’t cause me to wake up).  Though I still woke up before my family, it was no hour early.  And both girls had friends along, so the cabin was usually full of giggles and shrieks and shenanigans (once they woke up!).  

So I stole my Quiet times in moments here and there, all the more precious.  Starting my Ravelympics projects by the lake before camp officially started, as you saw the other day.  After everyone had left the dining lodge for morning activities.  While waiting for a horseback ride.  Going to see the moon on the lake at night (I really wanted to take a kayak out by moonlight, but it probably would have been frowned upon solo, and I had no volunteers to accompany me). 

The last day, my husband and I took a canoe out on one of the small lakes, which we had all to ourself at the end of the morning; the sound of our paddles was the only thing that broke the Quiet.  (Well, the paddles, and my camera, my husband would tell you!  My camera was in Quiet mode, I’m telling you… and you’ll see those pictures soon.)  But it was really wonderful, being Quiet together, with no particular place to go or thing to do.

We all need Quiet time.

Q is for Quiet.

Vacation, all I ever wanted

Blog Break — off to Camp!

Here’s a flower to look at while I’m gone.

I’ll be knitting on my Ravelympics projects, and doing lots of other fun things too.

See you when I get back!

O is for Camp Olson

Very timely that O came up right now in the ABC-Along schedule.

Camp Olson is the YMCA camp in Northern Minnesota which I went to every year I could as a camper, and where I also was a CIT (Counselor-in-Training). Now my kids are old enough to be campers, and we have gone to Family Camp for the last several years as well, which has been awesome. It’s a special place for us — beautiful, with its thousands of acres enclosing near-wilderness, and with people who make being at camp the unforgettable experience that it always is. It’s named Olson after the farmer who donated thousands of acres of land to make a camp in the early 1950s, so that kids could experience Northern Minnesota outdoors.

It’s hard to pick out one picture of Camp Olson to show you. It takes a gallery. So I cheated again and made a collage, because camp is truly greater than the sum of its parts.

(If you have high-speed internet, here’s the collage bigger amd much more clear. I’m the photographer for all but one picture, but you can find me tucked away in one of them!) This shows most of our favorite activities, except I seem to have neglected photos of the rifle range (I always have to go test my skills and get my bullseye) and archery, as well as the swimming beach & sauna….

Why do I mention that O is so timely?

The daughters just went off to regular “camper camp” at Camp Olson yesterday. (Actually starts tomorrow, but the Preteen’s friend’s mother drove them to the Twin Cities yesterday to shorten the bus ride and have city fun before camp fun.)

And we go to Family Camp the following week!

I am so looking forward to this, our family vacation. It’s the fourth year we’ve gone together. My husband was extremely dubious to begin with, but is now a convert, due to the indescribable and wonderful nature of the place and the people. It’s a week out of time for us, and we all have a wonderful time. We’ll miss my parents this year, however, who have gone with us in prior years; my mother’s foot is acting up (still or again), and walking is unavoidable at camp, where both meals and the bathroom are a short walk away.

If you’d like to see more (for the hard core), the below links are posts & pictures from last year. Or just click on those that interest you.

Eye Candy Friday Courtesy of Camp

Fauna of Camp

What We Did At Camp

Eye Candy Friday (from Camp again)

Flora of Camp

Final Glimpses of Camp

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Just after the amazing fun and friendship and family time of Camp Olson ended last year, we were all brought up terribly short. Please, because I need to remind myself of what I wrote in this post every so often, and I want to tell you again, too — even if you were a reader last year — please click on this last link and read the short post.

In the Midst of Life

Puts a different perspective on the fact that The Preteen went out the door on the heels of a fight about whether she was going to take her hair straightener and her iPod (guess the outcome of those discussions).

I hope you all have the chance to experience your own version of Camp Olson at some point. (Or if you’re looking for a great kid or family camp in the Midwest, follow that link above! No need to be a Y member!)

O is for Camp Olson.

Final Glimpses of Camp

Last time (this year!) for camp pictures:

here are a few final shots.

Sunrise the first day, over Little Boy Lake. This, however, was lost on the Gothlet, who is not a morning person:

Another dawn at the Boathouse; the light was magical.

Followed by another morning and another evening on another lake:

And a final sunset as we ride off into the west (well, ride off into the east for us, I guess).