This isn't so bad

You know, I know I've not always been the happiest about being so far from my home institution, but right now, life in the mountains has its advantages: 

Such as dissertating on one's back patio, with mountains in the distance and the springtime sounds of birds, wind, and a stream nearby.  The folks I'm writing about appreciated the "restorative powers of the pastoral," and I have to say, I agree with them.  This really is a great way to dissertate.  Lovely smells and sounds, a cup of coffee, my computer's screen easily visible in the shade, wireless internet. 

I'm not sure it'll be quite so pleasant in the summer when it's hotter, but in the shade and springtime, it's really, really great!  I'm also not sure this is the best place to churn out the pages.  That would probably be upstairs in my office, or 45 minutes north of here in the library at UNC-Asheville, where on Wednesday I churned out seven whole pages in the course of an afternoon's burst of productivity.

Today Coffeeboy and I purchased tickets for several concerts at our local summertime classical music festival, the Brevard Music Center.  We stepped inside the shed and it reminded me of nowhere so much as Tanglewood, where I spent one of the best summers of my life. To have music in the mountains that I can go to all summer (all summer, that is, except the several weeks I'll be away at archives!)  is yet some more icing on the cake.  

I promised I'd show you a WIP and an FO. I haven't had a chance to get the FO photographed yet, so we're just going to go with the WIP, Tailored Scallops, my current leading-love in the fiber world.  It's Malabrigo, it's blue, and it's feather-and-fan - - how better can it get than that? 

My MIL is in town this weekend (she needed to come to the area on business) so we're looking forward to getting out with her into the nice springtime. I hear the rhododendrons, which grow the size of trees along the streams of mountain coves, are starting to bloom, something we've been waiting for months to see.