Unraveled, Week 24/2025

Good morning, friends, and greetings from the puppy house, where we are all tired. I mentioned to a couple of you in my replies to comments that it felt a lot like having a newborn again, and that really is the case. Monday night was better. I moved her crate over so that I could sleep on the couch, which meant that I actually slept. She was up every two or three hours, mainly just needing some comforting, though at around 3 a.m. we went outside and she successfully peed like a real dog! She's still rather skittish around Molly and the Mister, which isn't all that surprising given that she hasn't spent all that much time with them compared to me. Molly is off from school on Friday, though, and I'll try to get her to hang out with Ruthie without me so that they can have some quality time.

I thought about skipping the blog today, but honestly Wednesdays are my favorite day to do it because I get to join Kat and the Unravelers.

With all of the puppy stuff happening, I'm sure it will not surprise you that I haven't knit a stitch since Sunday morning. I did, however, remember to get a photo of my Sugar Maple Tee -- now with sleeves!

I don't know how sturdy it will be in the long run, but I do like how the sleeves are handled in this pattern in such a way that they completely match the body. Essentially you work the ribbing before you bind off the sleeves, so the colors match perfectly, and close the gap under the arm on the round after you bind off by working a fancy decrease. With handspun, it's often impossible to get sleeves to match if you pick up the stitches for them afterward, so this method eliminates that problem. I really like how my thin stripes are working up and I've basically got the section I'm in memorized, but who knows when I will get to work on this again. Perhaps I'll try to sneak in some time in the evenings when the whole family is downstairs; when I'm alone with Ruthie, I try to keep my eyes on her all the time.

Similarly, there hasn't been much reading time, but I've finished two books since this time last week -- both by the same author! I've got Charlotte McConaghy's latest book on hold at the library, so while I wait, I went back to read her last two.

In Once There Were Wolves, conservation biologist Inti Flynn and her team arrive in rural Scotland to release wolves into the forest as part of an effort to restore the ancient forests there; with no apex predators, deer and other animals have become overpopulated and eaten all the seedlings before they had a chance to grow into new trees. Inti also arrives with heavy emotional baggage in the form of her twin sister, Aggie. As the story progresses, we also learn about the sisters' tragic past and the complication of Inti's unusual condition in which she physically feels what she sees happening to other people. When a local resident -- one who was strongly opposed to the wolves -- turns up dead, the story becomes a bit of a murder mystery as well. This is a pretty dark book, in a number of respects, but I really enjoyed the atmospheric quality of it as well as the conservation message it has. It's probably not a book for you if you like everything to be crystal clear and tied up neatly because there's a fair amount of ambiguity. I gave it 4 stars.

Migrations was the earlier book, and I suppose you could call it speculative fiction because it takes place in a world where many animal species have gone extinct thanks to humans. Franny Stone, the woman at the center of the narrative, has found herself a spot on a commercial shipping vessel and convinced its captain to follow some of the world's last remaining Arctic terns on their final migration. But in flashbacks, we learn that she is not what she seems, that she is hiding some dark secrets, and that perhaps she is not so much running toward the terns as running away from her past. Like Wolves, this book has a strong conservation message and a damaged woman as its main character. I found it to be a little less appealing, though certainly still intriguing. I gave it 3 stars.

I should note that I really only managed to finish the second book because it was on audio. That may be how I read most of my books for a while!