The first of May, 2023 and I’m really ramping up now. Retreats (yes, plural), gift afghan, and hiking. This will be a busy month.

Ramping Up – First With…Well, Ramps!

Are you familiar with ramps?

Also known as wild leeks, these little beauties just bloomed in massive amounts in this area of the country. Thaddeus, in addition to foraging for mushrooms, also collects ramps most years.

I didn’t go out with him this year. Photo credits for the above three photos is from a friend, Lisa who showed Thaddeus her ramping grounds.

We enjoyed this harvest in pesto, sautéed with mushrooms and in omelets. All quite tasty.

Two Retreats Overlapping

In April and May of each year, the coordination for two of the Men’s Fiber Retreats overlaps.

• Men’s Spring Fiber Retreat is in two weeks from today! So I’m busy with a ton of things that only an event coordinator could possibly have a sense of the amount of activity required.
• NorthEast Men’s Fall Fiber Retreat will open for registration on Saturday, May 13th. Prior to that, there’s quite a bit of web site set-up that needs to happen.

Having coordinated these retreats for 15 years now, it’s become relatively easy. Even when the two events overlap for a month, it’s still not very demanding. And my web development skills have gotten better and better. And once a web page is created, it can be reused or cloned easily for future years. Such as the room accommodation types for the Easton Mountain retreats.

And I’ll be using a new registration page for the NorthEast Fall retreat this year.

I’m hopeful the registration for this event will go smoothly and it will make the set up of the event even more simple. We’ll see in less than two weeks!

Current Knitting

Steady and constant, I’m making headway on the Malabrigo Rios Slip Stitch Afghan.

It’s going to be larger than the pattern says (which is probably why I’m using more yarn than it calls for). The second photo above shows the front and back of the fabric. But here’s a closer look.

As usual, I definitely prefer the “right” side, but I’ll bet there will be a lot of non-knitters who will prefer the “wrong” side. Honestly, with these colors, we’re both right.