You get three generations of Ottleys in this shot:

Ginny and Mum, Gramma, and Élissa and me on the High Street in Andover, England, the town where Gramma, Ginny, and Élissa all grew up.

It’s the only shot I can find on my hard drive that has Gramma, Mum, and me in the same picture…

Happy Mother’s Day, Mum and Gramma!

This is the New York Avenue Presbyterian Church.

Not only is this the church closest to my office (the one that tolls every quarter hour to make it abundantly clear to me as I’m rushing from the Metro exactly how late I am), but it’s also a historic fixture of the downtown area.

Remodeled in the 1950s from its original 1860 structure, the church has been home to many illustrious D.C. political celebrities — Abraham Lincoln and Justice John Marshall Harlan were both regular congregants, while other luminaries, including Richard Nixon and Dwight Eisenhower, have periodically attended services.

The church originally started as two separate congregations — the F Street Presbyterian Church (formed by the Scottish stonemasons who built the White House) and the Second Presbyterian Church (which appealed to the higher echelon of society, including Andrew Jackson and John Quincy Adams) — which opted to unite together in 1859 due to their proximity (and the Second Church’s budgetary problems).

The religious home to the Lincoln family during the Civil War, NYAPC served a key role in Lincoln’s search for moral authority in a period of immense strife for the country and for himself. The pastor of the church, Dr. Phineas D. Gurley, offered suggestions to the president on the draft of the Emancipation Proclamation and officiated at the funeral of his son Willie. Several years later, Gurley would again be called upon to help bury a Lincoln — this time the assassinated president. He uttered the final prayer at Lincoln’s deathbed, conducted services at the White House, and accompanied Lincoln’s body back to Illinois, delivering remarks at each train stop along the way, as well as at the interment in Springfield.

Civil rights has remained key to the church’s central mission. In the 1960s, Martin Luther King preached at the church, so it was perhaps not unsurprising that after his death in 1968 the congregants reacted strongly. D.C. was burning due to the riots in predominantly African American neighborhoods and a curfew was in effect. Members of the church ventured north to the Shaw neighborhood, to homes of children and teens in the church’s tutoring program, to provide food and to offer refuge in the church hall to anyone who needed shelter. The tutoring program, part of the Community Club created in 1962, continues to this day.

The church also still prides itself on the legacy of its connection to Abe Lincoln. Chimes (those ones I hear every day, I assume), donated by Lincoln’s granddaughter, still ring in the Lincoln Memorial Tower, a gift of the Robert Todd Lincoln family in 1928 (later reconstructed in 1951). The Lincolns’ pew was saved from the original building. And, most importantly, the NYAPC is the guardian of the original copy of the Emancipation Proclamation, presented to the congregation in 1951.

The yarn fumes are starting to wear off from this weekend’s adventure, but there’s still lots to rejoice over. Here are three beautiful things from the past week:

1. I’m doing well in fantasy baseball — 3rd place. I’ve never done well in fantasy baseball. And I’ve discovered the secret to success — laziness. Fiddle with your roster as little as possible, and you will climb the charts. On other competition fronts, half of our pub trivia team from last month reunited last night to test our prowess again. We finished in second place, which was enough to land us in the money again. Hooray!

2. Monday morning was so lovely I thought it time I pull my bike out for the season and bike to work. Unfortunately, this has been a week of working late prior to a deadline, so I hadn”t been able to bike home (I’m pretty sure the battery on my headlight is dead. Something for this weekend’s to-do list.) until tonight. But still, that’s two short bike rides this week.

3. Rudi sent this to me over IM and it made me laugh out loud at my desk at work.

Sarah (née Sweetpea) and I (not pictured above) hit the road Sunday morning for the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival. Eight hours later, Sarah dropped me back at my doorstep with a heavier bag and a lighter wallet.

Sarah had temporary possession of her brother’s car, so we plugged in her iPod, turned up the tunes and headed out of the city via 16th Street and Silver Spring. We chatted about our weeks and how Saturday had been so hot and sticky and about what a beautiful day Sunday was looking to be.

No traffic appeared to slow us down and it really wasn’t until we pulled into the Howard County Fairgrounds that we encountered any kind of slowdown. Apparently on Saturday that same route had three-mile backups just to get to the road that the Fairgrounds are off of.

Arriving shortly after noon, we wandered through a few of the outside vendors’ stalls en route to where I mistakenly thought the Ravelry meetup was going to be. Turns out I was mistaken, but I accosted two girls wearing Ravelry buttons to ask them where it was we were supposed to go. They had a map and pointed us back to the area adjoining the front entrance. Oops.

The Ravelry folks had been overwhelmed at the two Saturday events, and I knew they’d run out of buttons the day before, so I knew our quest for free swag was going to be for naught even as we walked in. I looked for Mia and for Lolly and for anyone else I could actually put a name to in real life, but didn’t see anyone I was acquainted with.

I can be shy. And a pavilion full of strangers (albeit fiber strangers with whom I’d possibly chatted online) just didn’t excite me. So Sarah and I decided to head out in search of sunshine.

Because, folks, the sunshine was abundant. The sky was a deep blue. There was a light breeze. The temperatures were in the low 70s. I don’t think we could have asked for a nicer day.

I suspect Sarah would have been happy enough to settle down with a lamb kebab right then, but I knew the sheepdog demonstrations were going on and I pestered her to go watch them with me. Sarah is a good sport, and so we caught the tail end of the dogs being put through their paces.

I think it’s fascinating to see how thoroughly these dogs are trained. They respond to voice commands if they’re near the shepherd. If they aren’t, though, they follow whistled commands. Sometimes they work singly; other times they’re paired with another dog. Yet still other times, the farmer will get involved if something requires, say, opening or closing a pen.

Nietzsche’s sheepish masses? Well named. Sheep really seem to like to hang together. Individual thought seems to come hard to them and they’re happiest in a pack. Which means if you can get one sheep to do what you want, oftentimes you’re in luck. However, if one of those sheep panics and bolts, you’ve got chaos on your hands.

But eventually, the dogs force the sheep to obey their will. Whether it’s running around cones in a figure 8 pattern, entering a stand-alone pen, or crossing through a gate with a little bridge in it, the dogs know their mission — and won’t rest until they’ve achieved it.

After that fun, we realized we were famished and we each found food to eat near the main stage. The microphone didn’t carry well, but I believe they were announcing the winners of the Sheep-to-Shawl contest, the entries of which were to be auctioned off for charity. We eavesdropped on the knitters around us, but eventually decided we’d better get moving if we were going to make it through the whole fairgrounds before it closed.

So, off we went, winding our way through barns filled with vendors selling all things fibery. There were spinning wheels and drop spindles. There was roving waiting to be turned into yarn. There were garments. And there was yarn.

Yarn as far as the eye could see.

(The fact that this statement would be better believed if I had photographic evidence is not lost on me. You’ll just have to trust me, as I neglected to take any shots of the fiber or the vendors. I’m blaming the yarn fumes.)

I’m not sure if The Fold was the very first place we stumbled into once we moved into the barns, but if not, it was still early on. The Fold sells Socks that Rock, a sock yarn that was once available only at festivals and that still remains an online-only company. This is the booth that festival-goers arrive early to get in line at. There’s usually a run on the goods, and I believe they have, in the past, sold out within the first hour or two.

This year, though, they brought lots, including a huge shipment of the colorway Knitters without Borders, representing a charitable group that the Yarn Harlot put together. They brought so much yarn that there was still some left by the time Sunday afternoon rolled around. It was with delight that Sarah and I realized that we were going to be able to try some of this well-regarded yarn.

Socks that Rock Lightweight in Knitters without Borders	Silkie Socks that Rock in Oregon Red Clover Honey	Neighborhood Fiber Co. Studio Sock in Dupont Circle

After that, it was on to other booths, where we squeezed skeins, felt up fibers, and handled hanks. In general, if Mr. Whipple had still been alive, I think he would have been perturbed. Colorways were admired and debated. In general, I feel we were quite restrained.

Midafternoon arrived and we were starting to wane, our lunches long since worn off. One more barn, we said, and then we’ll stop for a snack.

And then I pet myself right into my new favorite booth.

The Fibre Co. had such luscious yarns and such significant discounts I knew I wouldn’t escape unscathed. It was just a matter of choosing what kinds of fiber I wanted and how much.

Okay, some people might not consider seven skeins to be unscathed. And I can see where they’re coming from. But will it help if I say I know what I’m going to make with each of them — and that most of it is designated to be gifts?

On the right is Khroma DK (a 50-50 blend of merino and baby alpaca) in Plum, Cypress and Winesap. The colors are vibrant and the yarn is pettable.

On the left, though, is Canopy (a baby alpaca, merino, and bamboo blend). These skeins are so squishable and smooshable. You can’t help touching them and then immediately cuddling with them. The colorways (from left to right) are Purple Passion, Paw Paw, Palm Bud, and Blue Quandons. I totally had no idea what I was going to make with them when I first laid eyes on them, but I knew they had to come home with me.

Sarah and I paid for our yarn and emerged back into the sun for funnel cake and some rest for our feet. We paused for about half an hour and then went back in for our final building. The clock was against our loitering anywhere, particularly when we arrived at the Cloverhill Yarn Shop booth, our final intended destination, with less than ten minutes until the end of the festival. That didn’t stop Sarah and me from examining nearly every skein remaining in the booth, mind you. It just meant that we didn’t linger over many of them. The staff was just noting it was five o’clock when we sprang to pay for our Neighborhood Fiber Co. skeins, each of us buying the colorway that represented our home turf.

We paused on our way out to purchase a couple of plants for our respective gardens and then got in the car and retraced our steps from earlier in the morning.

It had been a good day.

I’m going to be mean and put off my Sheep and Wool Show and Tell until tomorrow.

Instead, I offer you Week One photos from my garden plot:

This is our gigantic sage plant, the lone holdout from the previous owner of our community garden plot. Believe it or not, the week before, when I was turning over the garden, I chopped a third of the plant off. (By the way, does anyone local need sage? Rudi and I are drowning in it.)

I am a lazy gardener. If I can get away with putting pre-bought plants into my garden, I will. Last year, my broccoli and lettuce plants did remarkably well, and, not being entirely devoid of sense, I figured I ought to buy some more for Year 2. Here they are in the ground and looking fine.

A week is not a lot of time in the grand scheme of things. But in terms of a seed, it’s a lifetime. My peas and beans were already sending up little shoots after a mere week. Aren’t they adorable?

During Week 1, I added more beans and peas to my tee-pee trellis. Instead of following the directions on the seed packets, as I did last year (which netted me a small, if sincere, crop of peas), I opted this year to just plant them all in a confined area and see what happened. If nothing else, this ought to prevent me from accidentally pulling up the bean vines when I mistake them for early-stage Virginia Creeper.

(As you might guess from the above shot, I waited until it was raining to head to the garden. I swear it wasn’t raining as I was packing up to head over. In fact, I suspect the very first drops of mist touched down as I reached street level outside the Burrow. But by the time I was done in the garden, it was definitely coming down at a consistent drizzle.)

I also planted zucchini and yellow squash seeds. Again, I planted more of them this year than I did last year, when I was warned that I didn’t want to be overrun by squash. While that’s a fair warning, I can’t think that the half dozen squash I did pick last year was anything close to being an overwhelming harvest.

I leave you with this shot. Violets are one of my three favorite flowers. Mia thought I was crazy last year when I announced that Rudi and I had dug a bunch of them up from around the garden and replanted them in the back corner of the garden. But doesn’t it just look so lovely there?

I was going to write a long, glowing report for you about Sarah’s and my trip to the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival tonight, but apparently spending the whole day basking in the sun, breathing in yarn fumes (and fried dough smells), handing out cash, and chatting with a friend is exhausting.

I arrived home to find Rudi holding us a table on the local Starbucks patio and, after a cuppa, we returned home to watch Monk, Cranford, and Sherlock Holmes. I knit a little more with my pretty purple yarn and fully expect I’ll have a finished object to show you by the end of the week. But, really, I didn’t have a lot left in me for an active evening.

So now I’m going to wash our supper dishes and then go to bed.

It was a great day, but I’m bushed!