The cold spell here seems to be over, at least for now - we've had rain today, washing away all the snow. Now the snowdrops are visible again:



as are the first crocus blossoms. Not open yet, but soon.



It's really nice to have these first heralds of spring coming out! It also reminds me that it's about time to start the tomato and chili and pepper seedlings...

There's always, always this weird effect of things coming in fits and spurts, and events clustering together instead of being nicely spaced out... and it looks like this year will not be any different from any other year in that regard.

With the fairs and markets all cancelled in 2020, it somehow felt like everything was grinding to a stop towards the end of the year - but now there's been not one, not two, but three projects in the planning stage that I am currently discussing. Nothing is sealed and settled yet - that is still to be done - but I'm very happy to have stuff to plan now, and things to do.

While I'm excited about that, you might join me in being excited about this article with  early iron age textiles from Israel - dyed with snail purple!

 
 

Museums in Germany are closed currently (again...), due to the current anti-Corona measures (called a "lockdown", but as we all know by now, German definition of this word is slightly, erm, different to that of other nations).

So in case you miss a museum visit, maybe the Virtual Museum Mecklenburg-Vorpommern will delight you? They have 360° views of their objects, which include a dalmatic made from lampas fabric and dated to the 14th century. There's no zoom-in-function, unfortunately, that would have been really great, but the garment is impressive nonetheless.

After feeling like it was Friday all day yesterday, I'm certainly happy that it's the end of the week for real today. I'm also quite happy that there has been some taking stock, scheming, and planning for restocking my embroidery silk collection, and adding a few new colours.

The red and yellow are almost gone, the purple has been sold out for a while, and I'm planning to add a proper black as well as another shade of green to complement the blueish green and the apple green already in the range. The light blue is also running low... and now I'm wondering if I have missed something?

And while I'm getting things dyed, maybe also some lace braids? And a bit of the silk ribbon? Hmmm...

(Suggestions and thoughts - as always - are very welcome!)

Somehow, today feels like Friday! Which has absolutely nothing to do with the proper content of this blog post... which is:

Around the World in 80 Experiments!

EXARC is hosting the Experimental Archaeology Conference with this title, starting March 29 and ending April 1 (no April fool joke).



Also no joke: It's open access, and completely free. You can find out more about the conference programme here, and register for it here.

Apparently, if you have a newer computer than I do, you can use funny filters in Zoom. Which might or might not be a good idea... probably the latter, if someone else activates a filter and you're a court lawyer who suddenly appears in court as a kitten.

Just in case you needed a laugh!

And now I wonder if my phone is new enough to run funny filters...

There were heavy snowfalls in Germany yesterday, and there was a little more snow also today, and it's rather cold outside at the moment with the prediction of even lower temperatures during the next few days.

The snow that came down turned everything here into a winter wonderland - it looks really, really pretty!



There's little heaps or cockscombs of snow on every twig and branch. Of course, there's also snow on every willow withy that has not been cut yet:



and it will need to get warmer again before we can continue harvesting; it should be above 0°C for the cutting. For now, though, we enjoy the funny contrast between the cut and the uncut bits, both looking very nice:



Thank goodness we're living in an area that is getting snow regularly and so the logistics are in place to cope, as in there's vehicles to clear the streets. People also tend to know how to drive a car in wintery conditions. We cycled to our milk dispenser yesterday, to get milk, eggs, and a few (blue) potatoes, and there were a few spots on the way where we were really glad about our studded tyres. With those and appropriate clothes, winter cycling really is fun, even if it takes a bit longer and is rather more strenuous in snow and on ice than on clear roads.

Traffic-wise, things are not looking so good in some other parts of Germany, where the snowfall has led to delays or cancellation of public transport, and to some spectacularly bad traffic jam, with people trapped in their cars for hours.

The reason for the cold spell, by the way, is air from the polar zones coming down south... which is linked to global warming. Changes in overall temperature lead to changes in the polar vortices, which are air currents around the pole, which means the cold air isn't contained there anymore, and thus comes to visit... so having winters with hard cold spells is just the opposite of what one would suspect at first glance.

Well. At least the snow we're getting out of this right now is pretty.