Take A Walk With Me!

I remembered my Awesome Camera That I Bought Myself For My Birthday Last Year, finally, on my walk this morning. So join me on my twice daily (when it's not raining) commute! K?
Actually the first part of my trek was undocumented as I was drinking my breakfast. Yes, my breakfast consists of a drink, yummily consisting of oatmeal, yogurt, nuts, frozen or fresh fruit, frozen juice and water. Mmmmmmmmm! Keeps Ya Regular!!
So the part where I hike through the woods and then through the blackberry/raspberry bramble filled meadow isn't here. Picture it in your head, I'm sure you've seen it.
The absolute coolest part of this whole trek is about 1/2 mile through a pine stand. Pic. 1

Another part of the pine stand part:


And yet another:


And another:


Coming to the end of the pines, this is where we veer off into the field. See the fence post? That's my marker.


Part of the field:


Over the hill and more field:


To the old stone foundation:


And finally to the road, where I complete the rest of my 3+ mile trek to work. I have aprox. 2 miles of country road. It's rough!


This morning, since Bu-Dawgh was a bad boy (he chased the chickens), he had to stay home, so I actually got to knit. Found out that the last 2 miles or so are Totally Knitable! And also Totally Barefootable! It doesn't get any better than that. Well, I get some weird looks but pretty much I'm used to that! And... I got a swatch knitted from the recent fibery goodness that comes to me via post every month! What could be better? Well, the trek home, where we have another 2 or so miles of barefootable, knittable walking and then another mile or so of hiking through the woods, fields, meadows, pine stands and blackberry brambles!
Tough commute, really hard to put up with, but what are ya gonna do?

Regular Wednesday Night Stuff (technical term)

So, it being Wednesday, and night and all, and taco night at the Local Watering Hole and a Michigan team was playing (Tigers) and the drinks were on sale because of it, guess where I could be found? Ding, ding, ding.... yup, you guessed it!

I'm not a people person. At all. Mostly ever. Unless there's alcohol involved. Would much rather commune with my critters, and plants and stuff. Wander around the blueberry patch and have an intellegent conversation with the green stuff which produces leaves and which needs to be mowed, and stuff.

But last night at the Local Watering Hole, there were people, and alcohol, and even though I'm soooo not a Tigers fan, a good time was had by all. The Mouth even showed up for awhile and harassed some of the local clientelle. She's entertaining if nothing else.

My yummy, yummy Yarn Of The Month shipment came in the mail yesterday. It was all ribbon yarn. I don't like trendy yarns, give me wool, or cotton or silk any day, and I make enough slubby stuff when I spin that we really have more than enough of that too. But the ribbon yarn came, and one, in particular, a Bamboo ribbon yarn in heathered blues, and teals and beiges, and browns.... all variagated... kind of attracted my attention. It was sooo soft and nice to knit with, if I liked ribbon yarns, which I don't. It had beautiful drape, just the right amount of stretch and was very enjoyable to knit with, if I liked ribbon yarns, which I don't. So, now we have a conundrum, in which we are knitting with a yarn we don't like, that we actually like. Gonna have to think about that one. Not sure which path to travel down now, my world is all mixed up and everything. Might even have to procure a special box to put that one in. But then we get into all the other special boxes that stuff is shoved into up in Little Brain and we have another whole issue.

Have to get a package ready to ship to The Youngest, who is currently in An Old Nuclear Facility In The Middle Of Nowhere In Iraq. Not sure if this is a good thing or not. Don't nuclear facilities just shout RADIATION??? But it is in the middle of nowhere, which is good, even if it is in Iraq, which is not good. Ugh, another conundrum. You can see how it is that I end up wandering in circles out talking to my blueberries can't you?

Hey, guess what? The woodstove has not been started in over a week! That's got to be good, eh? Course there's been a few nights when we've gone to bed in sweats and wrapped up in extra blankets, but hey, the woodstove appears to be retired for the summer. And now that I've said that.... well, you know. Coupled with the fact that I have my tomatoes and peppers started and currently parked out in the sun on our patio table should be more than enough to invoke the Gods of Frost and Snow. But nope, the woodstove shall not be started again, at least until Sept.

LIG enjoyed another beautiful ride to work today, bundled up of course, with gloves and leather coat, and even socks! That's a biggie, I normally don't do socks, but the toes get cold when I ride LIG in 37 deg. temps. It's a nice enough ride to take most of the sting out of the frostbite, but after a few miles you can't feel anything anyway so it's all good.

Tonight I have knit night, but also the Red Wings are playing game 1 of the 3rd round. Another conundrum. Do I stay or do I go.... isn't there a song like that? Guess you'll have to wait until tomorrow to hear of my decision!

Happy wandering!

Wednesday Night Nothing-ness!

I got nothing for you today. So let's take a wander around the Little Brain and see what pieces we can pick up, shall we? After all, leaving pieces around for Little Brain to trip over is not exactly the recipe for anything good to happen. At all.

First of all, the sweater picture you see is a project that is definitely on my to do list. I actually got to pet the sweater, I tried not to drool over it, and the shop owner, Peg, from Tawas Bay Yarn Company graciously allowed me to photograph it. Not saying it will be the next project, just that it will definitely be on the list.

Let's see, here's another piece: Little Brain and I went to our favorite store last night after work, Tractor Supply, to aquire little buddies for our sole hatchling. They didn't have any meat birds, have to special order those, but they did have lots and lots of cute bronze turkeys and "miscellaneous straight run chickens". So of course, we had to buy our daily supply of cute and picked up 9 "miscellaneous straight run chickens" and 3 bronze turkeys. Just because. I didn't really need them, didn't really want them, but Little Brain won out on this one, they had to come home with us just to keep the sole hatchling company.

Awhile back, on ebay, I bid on and won 25 blueberry seedlings, which arrived in perfect health and as soon as I planted them, died. This was my fault, totally, as it was too cold to plant them outside so I stuck them in a few buckets of compost, and didn't water them enough. I wrote back to the original seller to ask if I could purchase more and he very very kindly offered to replace them for the cost of shipping. I won't do this, it was my fault, totally, not his, so I will send him what I originally sent him for the 25 plus shipping and expect in return another batch of gorgeous blueberry seedlings. How great is that? I've had a lot of good stuff happen with ebay and a lot of bad stuff too, but this guy went above and beyond and deserves an A+++++++++++++ rating. Here is a link to his "stuff". Seriously, this guy rocks! http://search.ebay.com/_W0QQfgtpZ1QQfrppZ25QQsassZjohnnynoseQQssPageNameZMERCQ5fVICQ5fRCRXQ5fPr4Q5fPcNQ5fQ5fSI

Along the same lines, kind of, in a berry kind of way, Tractor Supply was clearancing out some strawberry plants and I scored 30 of them for 15.00! I also got more tomato seeds that need to be started, jalapeno seeds (finally found them), and cilantro seeds. Can you say yummy salsa? Got to get some onion sets too.

Tonight is knit night, and I'll continue to work on granddaughter's sweater. I really have made some progress on it, tonight being knit night AND my Red Wings play a late game I should get a good 4 or 5 hours to knit. That ought to be good for a couple of rows anyway! Then tomorrow I'll post pics of both the sweater and my new birdies. I love baby birdies!

Go Wings! Take that Colorado Brother! (cause they are playing the Colorado Avalanche, in case you're just tuning in and are, GASP, not a hockey fan!)

When Work Gets in the Way of Life!

This morning I was handed a Total Shift In The Way I'd Been Thinking About My Newest Project. This is all fine and good, unless you know me. I don't do change. Ever. I avoid it. Religiously.

The first thing this change requires is for me to bring my Little Brain to a screeching halt! This is never good. At some point Little Brain will be expected to run yelling and screaming in a different direction. Forge a new path if you will. As a person who doesn't do change, you can imagine the stress that this involves. Just pulling in the reins on Little Brain is enough to derail me for an hour or so, but then to set off in a totally different direction, and expect to be productive? Ok then!

Not that this new direction isn't best. Actually it will be better for all involved (except for Little Brain), it's really a better way to go, and the masses seem to agree, so all the distress sounds you hear in the background is Little Brain trying to accept the inevitable with grace and dignity. We don't generally do grace and dignity either, but sometimes drastic measures must be taken.

I think I need another cup of coffee.

So, in my knitting world not much is happening. I have 2 sweaters that have to be done, 1 that should have been done about 120 yesterdays ago and another that needs to be finished in another week. Ugh. Ok, we have Knit Night tonight and the 120 Yesterdays Ago sweater will be tackled with vim and vigor (but probably not grace and dignity). It is after all a sweater! And there will probably be a beer or two involved. This is all well and good. A beer or two will be just what Little Brain needs to switch directions on this project too. And there you have it. Not only is Little Brain being deluged with changes on the work project, but also on the knitting front.

Turkey egg count is still at 6. I posted yesterday that I was getting a turkey egg every other day, but I forgot to lock the door to the house and the turkeys evidently got hold of my computer and read that post. Because.... no egg yesterday. I was all set to have 1 egg every other day, or roughly 150 eggs per year and now even the turkeys are conspiring against Little Brain. How much more can she take?

Must. Have. Coffee..... Beer