I have always loved Salamanders.

When I was young I spent hours turning over rocks to see if I could find a salamander living under it. Often I did find one, usually a Red Salamander.

There was no end to my delight in them.

You can’t tell me that Salamanders aren’t lovable!

I would carefully pick it up and hold it very gently cupped in my two hands and peek into the dark to look at it up close. It smelled like the earth when it rains and it had a silence about it, maybe that was just fear though. I loved it’s cool dark red colour, it’s damp shine and it’s miniature articulate body. It’s tiny hands and feet felt so cool and clammy on my palms.

Salamanders simply intrigued me.

What were they? They were certainly not a worm or a snake or a fish or ant but they landed somewhere between all those creatures. Maybe that’s what drew me to them, they were so ambidextrous in their very being. They couldn’t be pinned down as a ‘this’ or a ‘that’ and

that gave them a certain kind of freedom.

That’s where I left off … and then I grew up and forgot about them. I moved far away from where that particular salamander lives.

Years past.

One day when my daughter was a teenager, we were in the country working outside when I spotted a salamander! Oh how lovely! I remember you! I was so happy to show my daughter these amazing creatures I had loved! But something was terribly wrong with this little salamander. It wasn’t hiding under a rock, it was out in the open in plain sight, and it was a bit too dry, all very dangerous. A robin or crow would easily find it and eat it. As I slowly reached for it, it easily let me pick it up, again very unusual. I noticed something on its eye lid too. It was a tick! Imagine! A tiny tic on this little salamander, poor thing! My daughter ran inside it get some tweezers and I held this little fellow all the while talking to it explaining to it how we could help. It just sat there in silence in my hand. Tweezers in hand I gently got a hold of that tic and unwound it until it until it unlatched from of the salamander’s eye lid. Voila! The operation was a success! That salamander, relieved of its blood sucking burden livened right up and was ready to carry on with it’s salamander business. We gave it a frew drops of water which it drank and then let it go near a dark damp group of rocks and watched it scurry off. Amazing! It actually seemed like it knew we could help it.

and in 20 years I have never seen another salamander since!

So I made some

and then I made some Yarn Bowls

and it is nice to be Salamander-ing again!