Rant

Mom and I went to the farm store yesterday to get some supplies.

On the way there, I saw a deer in the ditch. Not an uncommon sight, unfortunately. Oh, the deer was dead. I also often see live deer in the ditch, but not this one. No, this one was decapitated.

I've said it before. I hate trophy hunting. Taking the head (presumably with antlers), and leaving the rest on the side of the road makes my blood boil. All that meat going to waste. In today's economy? What a shame. What an injustice to the spirit of that animal.

Rant over.

As I said, we went to the farm store to get supplies. It is a huge place, a store with a little bit of everything. What did Mom want? To walk. We've had nasty cold, windy, rainy/snowy weather the past couple of days so Mom hasn't been able to get out and walk for a while. Once I had everything I needed, I parked the cart in an out of the way spot, and we walked the store. She didn't stop to look at anything, just kept on walking. We had a little time to kill before my scheduled pick-up time for the groceries, so it worked out well.

Mom seemed extra confused yesterday. Within herself, almost unresponsive. I gave her a chocolate chip cookie, and she just sort of looked at it. Usually when she catches sight of a cookie, there's a big smile, an "Ooooh", and a thank you. I'll watch her closely, she might be coming down with something. At least, I hope that's all it is.

Hope you all had/are having a good weekend.

A light dusting of accumulation

That's what the forecast was for this morning.

I'd say there is at least an inch already, and it is still snowing off and on. Oh well.

It looks nice, anyway.

I finished up another pair of socks last night. Except for weaving in the ends, that is.

It was nice having some color after knitting with gray for a good long while. Some of you may recognize them, I started them long long ago. Knitting on them again, it brought back the scent of Jasmine (at least I think that is what it was, a little white spiky flower) and the sound of doves and laughter of friends old and new. The last time I knit on them was in Rick's family's back yard.

The yarn was spun on the shores of a lake surrounded by friends, on a weekend when I really needed them. With all the memories spun and knit into these socks, they are mine. All mine.

Try that with a pair of socks from Whatever Mart.

Socks and stoles

I was knitting the toe on the second sock of this pair when Obama was declared the winner last night. The person these are going to will appreciate that fact.

I also took this yarn

off the bobbin yesterday. I think Mom has absconded with one of the legs of my niddy noddy, I can't find it, anyway, so I up-ended a kitchen chair and wrapped it around the four legs. The skein should be a bit over 500 yards of I don't know what weight. Would this be considered cobweb, lace or fingering? I haven't measured the wpi (wraps per inch) to figure that out. It is alpaca/merino/silk/angora, from this roving I got back from the mill in July.

I want to create a lacy stole for a friend with this. I have more spinning to do, I realize. I've been searching for an easy pattern. Maybe Wisp? When I say easy, I mean the lace part needs to be fairly mindless. I often have to stop in the middle of a row to see what Mom is doing, so something with a lot of counting or requiring concentration is out.

I've also been looking through the Harmony Guides 1 and 2 for a stitch pattern, thinking I could just design my own stole. Something with a small row repeat, even better if the return row is knit. Does anybody have any suggestions? I am a lace novice, did I mention that?

I also thought about cheating and just using a large needle and doing garter stitch. That seems like a cop out though, and I don't want to do that.

Tieck in the sun

The sunset the other day was nice.

Then Tieck had to get involved.

Insisted on being the center of attention, too.

Then another llama wandered up. Tieck didn't like that so much. Note the slightly elevated nose, and the half-cocked ears. That was just a warning, and the other llama wandered off again. If the nose was way up, and the ears straight back, that would have been a threat. A sign for me to get out of the way too, she might spit (at the other llama, but there is often collateral damage.)

I moved position anyway and took another photo.

I'll end with a quick Mom story. I was in the living room knitting on a sock, and Mom was puttering around in the kitchen. It sounded like she was dragging something heavy across the floor, so I called out, "Mom, what are you doing?" Now usually when someone is doing something they shouldn't be, and has to answer the question, you usually hear "Nothing" with a rising inflection at the end. Mom, in her most innocent voice, says, "Something." She cracks me up.

Cabinets

Aren't they beautiful? I'm talking about the cabinets, although the bee hives are looking mighty nice too.

My friends came back yesterday and hung these cabinets for me. I was going to say helped me hang them, but really I kept Mom out of harms way while they did all the work.

These oak! cabinets were sitting in my garage for several years. I got them from Freecycle, but hadn't been able to put them up. Now they are off the floor and can be put to good use. I am trying to get the garage cleaned out to make room for a pallet of pellets for the stove. The store will deliver them right into the garage for me.

We also got the bee hives (not in use) stacked under them all tidily. I had wanted to use them, but for right now I think I don't need to add more beings to care for. I know a few of you keep bees, I may come to you for advice in the future.

The garage is starting to look like an organized person lives here. Amazing!

Storm roving

I managed to sneak in a dyepot this morning. The result:

You may remember the inspiration photo from a while back.

My brain and soul are happy today.

Some friends came over yesterday and helped do some raking and other getting ready for winter chores. All of the wood patio furniture, benches, and flower pots are in the shed, the gutters clean, the hose drained and hanging in the shed, several bags of leaves providing insulation for my septic lines so they don't freeze.

Even with Mom's help, there are a ton of leaves still left to be raked, and the stupid green tree is now only slightly yellow and still full of leaves. Despite that, I still feel almost ready for winter. That helps my brain too.

Mom at work

In an attempt to tire Mom out, I made her rake the whole yard.

Here she is, slacking off, taking the time to wave at me. Back to work, lady!

So actually the rake was sitting out, she found it and started carrying it around. I grabbed the camera just to take pictures of her carrying the rake. Then she actually started raking! I wasn't about to stop her, she was doing a great job!

You can see a little clean area and pile behind her here.

I think this was about the time she realized that she was the only one raking. Ooops, busted! But then she got distracted.

Wait, what is this here?

Another pesky label that MUST BE REMOVED!

Whew, crisis averted.

She then proceeded to rake one-handed (one-armed?), since the other hand was busy holding the label. Sometimes dinner is a surprise, since she got into the canned goods and started removing labels.

Yesterday was perfect, very little wind, 60's, sunny. I knocked off work early and we spent a couple of hours outside. She went to bed at 1:00 last night. All that work must have tired her out.