I took a morning hike through the hollow with a friend who knows every nook and cranny of this countryside. She is the Ferrari of hiking, notching top speeds as I huff and puff behind her, trying to keep up. It is always invigorating.



But what I love most about this friend is her utter disregard for things temporal: she loves you just the way you are, and despite what mess you get yourself into or how much complaining you do, despite the way you walk or don't walk, she carries on at your side.



If you step in a cow pie with this friend, you don't even stop and say anything. She doesn't notice - so you just trek on. It sprays up your calf and runs down your leg that is bleeding from tramping through a thorny forest, and you just travel on. When you get home you expect there to be cowpats all over your body, but though you wash your shoes in the garden hose and take a shower, you are always surprised to see that most of it fell away while you were hiking ... at her side.

Real friendship will do that; friendship makes the dung just melt away.

New fingerless mitts for little darling, completed just last night. Why is it these are so therapeutic to make?

I had left them by her place at the breakfast table to find before school, and was brushing my teeth in the bathroom this morning when she came beaming in to show me.

That smile makes me want to knit her a thousand more.

Some call it dreaming, others contemplation. But sometimes inwardness is the only road to sanity.

When the Swiss complete a multimillion franc tunnel, they celebrate in style.



And before anyone drives their cars down the freshly paved road, people come from all over to bike, scoot, walk, skate or just eat a sausage on the new road.



You meet friends about halfway through and stop to talk in the freezing dampness.



And a free ride in a rolling car effectively scares you about what would happen if you were to violate any traffic rules.

A Sunday walk over the knoll means a long hike upward...



unique flora... (which the Russian claims you can eat)



greatness...



and a little outdoor knitting for the soul.






It is good to be out where the mind is free.

Let's be honest: the other day I was feeling blue. And it wasn't a cozy country blue, or an inspiring sky blue, it wasn't even a cool denim blue. It was a flat royal blue - the color that makes you walk out of a department store when you see their fall collection.

That was me: a low-grade fall collection royal blue.

It was time to spice things up a bit, and what better in the fall than Whoopie Pies to inject a bit of ebullience into your flat-blue blood. They were as delicious as they look - moist and spicy and sweet, the frosting fatty enough to make you moan aloud as you eat.

I have come to call this Whoopie Therapy.



It is a sure-fire remedy, too. You can either pay your shrink a hundred bucks an hour to accompany you through your struggles, or you can invest in Whoopie Therapy, which costs about five dollars a session and applies to everyone in your household. :)

I'm up to making another batch this week, so if any of you are free please join me!

When translated literally, the German word for glove is "hand shoe". Yes, you heard right - a shoe for the hand.



And in case you don't buy it, they literally hang - a - hand from the post to squelch your incredulity. You do see the linguistic rebellion beginning to surface, don't you? :)