Tis the season to winterize.  While some in Durango gather wood, clear the decks and yards for the snow season, we’re getting ready to get ready for another season at a lower latitude.  Not that we don’t have projects to finish before we leave; they’re just less about preparing for winter’s cold.

Stanna has been weaving a number of scarves for the Women’s Shelter on her hand loom, in conjunction with her Four Corners Weavers Guild. This scarf project accomplishes two goals for Stanna; thinning her yarn stash and providing a little holiday cheer and warmth for women in need.

Scarves are not a fashion accessory we need often, however it was about as holiday festive as this WIS volunteer could muster – when paired with a red hat on the Xmas Train – this year. The newest scarves weren’t available to me, so I wore a Nepalese one Stanna brought back from Nepal.  Odd as it seems, a man on the train asked me if I knew what one of the symbols on the scarf end meant.  He and his buddies snickered, and tried to explain “OM” to me, as I was slow to comprehend.  The language was a bit thick but I eventually realized they were talking the yoga Om our fill-in Yoga teacher encourages to utter.

Needless to say it was, once again, pretty special helping families cut their own Christmas Tree beside the Silverton Narrow Guage train tracks, 26 miles the valley up near Cascade Wye.  The railroad provides the saws, the National Forest Service designates which part of the right-of-way needs tree thinning, the WIS volunteers provide the guidance and muscle getting them to the tracks and onto the narrow gauge boxcar.

Back on the home front, it was time to repair the Netflix monitor. Our 10 year old flat screen wouldn’t light up when turned on.  The clicking symptoms were easy to diagnosis with an internet search, which found numerous YouTube videos describing how to fix the errant capacitors that have gone bad.  Parts were only $1.99 each but I’d discovered my soldering iron was on the boat.  (Funny how you find things you didn’t realize you miss, nine years later)  Amazon provided everything for less than $20, and, as the last video I watched by a DIY woman said, “Even a girl can do this”.  Lucky I passed her admonition.

So our remaining projects for the winter are a thorough house cleaning and packing for Thailand.