7.25 More daylilies

The daylilies are all blooming now:






and these last three are from the babies that Cathy sent me two years ago:

7.21 Daylily time

When the pink Dot Com Tango lilies start blooming, they signal the end of the Asiatic bloom for the year.

You can see that the white Cappucino are all but done and the orange ones whose name I never remember.

The red Olinas are taller than I am, although they do have the advantage of about a foot boost with the raised bed.


The end of the Asiatics is the beginning of the daylilies and the Orientals will follow very shortly.

7.19 Marketing tool: Temptation

I bought the black/pink/firestar batts from Corgi Hill Farms (on etsy). She has a neat little marketing trick: With the order (I got four batts), she included a cute little mini batt of a completely different colorway:
Now I ask you.

I had to go check out the store just to figure out what the colorway was, since it wasn't labeled. Fortunately she has so many different reds and different fiber combos available right now that I was paralyzed by indecision and consequently didn't spend any more money I didn't intend to right now.

But I have finished the first two batts and am ready to start on the second singles.

7.17 Spinning for a week...

You'd think a week's worth of spinning would look like more, wouldn't you?
I have spun every day, although some days have been on the spindle.

7.9 And on the knitting front...

I've started one of the Eugen Beugler stoles from Best of Shawls and Scarves, the Corner to Corner one. I'm using Jaggerspun Zephyr. The corner went pretty quickly, but now I'm on the full length side-to-side on a diagonal and the rows are longer.

7.8 Spinning on the wheel and spindles

On the wheel is a batt of merino and angelina.

(the batt)


The red is tussah silk from Just Our Yarn (the neverending 3.5 oz I bought almost a year ago - this is what's left of the first half of it.)



And the blackberry English longwool from Freyalyn, which I misplaced months ago and just recently found again.

7.6 Lily forest stage 3

The lily forest is moving along through the bloom cycles. The Asiatics are all blooming now, both in the front bed and in the window bed. The ones in the front bed are the "pastel Asiatic mix", while the ones in the window bed are all Tango lilies.

Some of the pastels up close:

And a closer look at the Tango bed:

Cathy, this is the first of your babies to bloom this year:

7.5 Wheel spinning

Autumn fiber from Cloverleaf Farms:

Spun up to be:

Giving me two bobbins:

One bobbin to go.

7.4 spindlespun

Today's spindle spinning comes via the LDRS 28 rocket launch. We drove down to a farm in Potter where we got to watch all sorts of hi-power model rockets going off. Most of them went up and came down as planned which was fun. Some of them went up and came down not as planned, which was sometimes more fun.

I got a bunch of spindle spinning done while I watched.

6.29 Red lilies

Red Carpet Lily


Not Red Carpet Lily


They're both nice lilies, just not the same.

We have deer here, but by the time the lilies are up and vulnerable, the woods are green and attractive. You notice all of my lily pictures are at the front of the house. The garden at the back of the house is surrounded by a low fence which any deer would laugh at except that it smells like Dog inside (and often has a noisy pesky dog inside). Not quite attractive enough to come into the yard, except in the winter with lots of snow covering everything. Two years ago they pruned my weeping willow, pinched off all the ends of my red twig dogwood (both of which are outside the fence) and just about killed several of the neighbor's arbor vitae hedge which he had just put in.

6.27 Blooms and irritations

The lily forest has started blooming - the Asiatics, as expected are first. The ones to the left, just starting, are the red carpet lilies. The ones in the center are the "ones that were sold to me as red carpet lilies, but aren't". This year the differences are even more apparent; not only are the blooms more orange and more broadly shaped, the plants are almost half again as tall as the red carpets.
I don't dislike the plants for themselves, but for the fact that they don't make the nice border all the way across that I originally envisioned. (I don't dislike them enough to rip them out and start over, but just enough that I will whine about it each year when they get to this point.)
In the back you can see that the Tango lilies in front of the window have just started blooming - the orange ones are always first.

My crankiness level is way up since I started breaking out with poison ivy on my face yesterday. I'm not a happy camper, just itchy.

6.26 backyard toad

I've been tackling the garden in the backyard. One would think this garden would be farther forward than the rest, but the rest of the gardens are essentially raised beds with trucked in sifted garden soil. The back garden began as an oval around the two trees which subsequently died due to trauma to the roots from having heavy equipment moved around. The idea had been to plant shade lovers here and suddenly there was no shade. Of the things planted at that time (not much) only the bleeding hearts kept going.

I put two dwarf apple trees in and have plans for a crab apple at the opposite end of the garden. The ground is full of river pebbles and very difficult to amend. Mostly I'm piling mulch on every year in the hopes of building up an organic layer.

Of the bulbs I put in, only the grape hyacinths have been really happy. The sunflowers that volunteer around the birdfeeder always do well. The blue flags have taken over their corner of the world, and the tulips I planted last fall all came up - we'll see if they do so again. That still leaves me with a bunch of space. Some dianthus are going in this year. We'll see if they sow seed.

I also have a friend who seems to have decided this garden is acceptable. Anyone know where to get a toad home?

6.24 autumn yarn

This is how the first braid of autumn fiber came out. It's a three ply and I really like it. The silk gives it that glow that turns into twinkles under the light of the flash. I'll try again when it isn't wet and I can put it under natural lighting.

6.23 Cloverleaf Farms Autumn

Cloverleaf Farms does lovely colorways. This is the merino/silk 80/20. I picked up two of these braids two Septembers ago and promptly put them somewhere "safe". You know how that goes - "safe" turns into "unfindable". I had put them away because I was working on something else at the time, and ran across them again when prepping for visitors. This time I was almost done with the current project and carefully left them where I could lay my hands on them. This is the second one; the first one is hanging in the laundry waiting to finish drip drying.

S finished his last test yesterday morning and is sleeping in this morning. (It's 11 - soon I'll have to say he's sleeping in this afternoon!). K is at her last exams - Spanish and Math today, both Regent's. She's walking down with her friends to the local greenware place for their traditional "last day of exams" paintfest, and then finishing up with a sleepover. Sleepovers at someone else's house are wonderful in my opinion.

6.20 Magic sock pattern

It's been pouring rain all day. Sean played a game of soccer this morning at the tournament and came home looking like a drowned rat, water dripping from every surface, and chilled. We had time to warm him and dry his clothes before he's gone again to his evening game. This morning was 4-1 in their favor.

I've been spending time this afternoon looking through some Workbaskets I picked up last year at the rummage sale and haven't really had time to look at. I randomly started with the ones from 1956-57, which are heavy on the crochet and light on the knitting. Some lace edgings, a very few sweaters. The sweaters are done in sock-or-sport-wool on #1-3 needles depending on the pattern. A far cry from what a modern craft magazine would think they should offer for the random sweater pattern.

In the December '57 issue, they offer a Classic Sock pattern, and I found the beginning interesting: "This knitted sock pattern is simple and easy to make. Use wool sock yarn or nylon and a set of four needles - the size depends upon the kind of yarn used. These directions are for size 9-10. Larger or smaller sizes may be made by adding or subtracting inches in length between heel and toe. To begin, cast on 60 stitches..."

No adjustments are apparently ever necessary in girth or according to the kind of yarn. Magic socks!

6.19 Cake contest

Just when I think I'm going to have time to get on with things, I come down with a summer cold. This isn't one of the full blown congested head sorethroat cough that won't end, but it is annoying and somewhat exhausting.

K and S are working their way through finals - K had one today and S had two. S took his second one at the high school as it's one of his accelerated classes that gives him high school credit and comes with a Regent's to boot. He got to take the high school bus home when it was done so he was home half hour early.

http://www.threadcakes.com/ is having a cake decorating contest, where the decorations are to be based on a t-shirt design. I particularly like last year's winner, but of course I'm a sucker for sheep-on-the-hillside.

6.11 Telling it like it is...

We finished up with the knitted squares at the middle school yesterday. The counselor sponsoring the knitting provided ice cream bars and soda for a small party in the cafeteria where we could admire the results - about 50 squares. Pictures have been promised.

The sixth grade teacher also provided us with a bunch of thank you notes written by her class. We split them up and each took half, intended to swap them today (which did happen, but I haven't had a chance to read the second half yet). They were charming little notes, addressed to "the knitting fairies".

One of the boys was an engaging high energy guy, who declared after the second stitch that it was too hard, he couldn't possibly; he then declared after the first row, this is easy, this is so simple; and after the second day he declared that it was boring. I offered to teach him another stitch besides just garter stitch and he stared at me with big eyes - you mean there's more? Ummm, yes, there's as much more as you want.

His note, in part, said "I'm going to keep knitting this summer. It will be a good thing to do when I get grounded or when I'm really bored."

I'm sure it will be.

6.10 lily forest

The lilies in the front bed are really coming into their own this year. The timing is such that at the moment, the front bed is green and pale yellow. The lilies are making a miniature forest, punctuated by the golden barberry and blocked at the left by the yellow flags. Purely serendipitously, the yellow of the flags is exactly the same as the yellow of the barberry.

Which makes it all the more annoying that I've realized that the yellow flag (iris pseudocorus) is not the same as the blue flag (iris versicolor) in the back. Whereas the blue flag is a native, the yellow flag is an import and, more to the point, is an invasive weed in wetlands. I really ought to take it out and replace it with something else. Grump.

6.9 Let me explain...

No it will take too long - let me sum up.

My thesis was acceptable - I got an A in the class.
I graduated. Final GPA 3.916.
The job search continues.
I had my birthday.
I cleaned house (relatively). Let's say I got rid of some of the worst of the piles. We could find the guest bed.
Relatives arrived.
S had a recital. It went very well.
S had a soccer game. It went well. (2-0 their favor).
K had a recital. It went very well.
Some of the relatives left.
The computer crashed (blue screen of death).
The computer was revived but has been somewhat out of commission as all the connections had been removed. We're slowly getting everything, like camera connections, put back.
S had another soccer game. This one didn't go so well. We could be charitable and say the other team is simply very physical in their play. Their sidelines weren't swearing at our players this year - that was a step in the right direction. No one was ejected this year. Progress indeed. (0-1 not in their favor).

Pictures may follow if I can get the camera to talk to the computer again.

5.21 Done, done, done!

It's turned in. I'm done, except for reading other people's submissions. Wheee!

I celebrated by going over to the middle school and teaching a bunch of sixth graders to knit.

5.17 Heavy sigh...

I asked J to read over my paper for comments. As I'm busy looking through his redlines, I came across a set of brackets around a sentence and the note "consider revising".

Sigh.

This is a sentence I have revised. At last count, about five times.

He's right. It stinks.

Sigh.

I'll try to revise it again. I think it's a point I need later.

Sigh.

Maybe I'll just kill it here and bring it up later.

Sigh.

It's too bad I'm not using a typewriter. There used to be a somewhat visceral satisfaction in threading the paper back into the typewriter and typing xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx. Watching x's appear on the screen isn't nearly as much fun as the wham-wham-wham of the key on the platen.

5.16 Closing in...

I've been cranking away on my paper - three sections, the conclusion and the abstract to go. I will be so glad to be done with this. While I picked an interesting (to me at least) topic, I've been living with it long enough and intensely enough that at this point I despise every word and have no idea whether I'm making sense or not.

I have to run over to the campus bookstore this afternoon and pick up my cap and gown. That happens Friday!

On a completely different note:
I spent a few hours Thursday evening (after my brain was fried for the day already) at the rummage sale put on by the women of the church. I sat (mostly) in the hall, knitting, directing traffic, and making sure no one slipped out the back door without going by the cash register first. One of the rooms I was sitting near was the one with all the kids' toys and games. Someone had donated a plastic car shaped bed, the kind that becomes the "big kid bed" - it takes a crib sized mattress and is used when the kid is climbing out of their crib on their own anyway. The car bed was used as the repository for all the stuffed animals that had been donated (somewhere between 100 and 200 I think).
One small child, probably about four going on five, decided that it would be a good thing to climb into the bed to look at the toys. This was reasonable as his arms wouldn't reach. He sat surrounded by stuffed animals, looking them over and digging through the pile and his conversation with his mother went like this:
Small boy: (holding up a cute horse with sparkles) Do you like this one?
Mom: Yes, that one is very cute.
SB: (chucks the horse over his shoulder)
SB: (holding up a grumpy bulldog) Do you like this one?
M: That's rather ugly.
SB: But do you like it?
M: No, I don't think so.
SB: (contemplates bulldog for a long time, before finally setting it to one side)
SB: (holding up a cute puppy with floppy ears) Do you like this one?
M: Yes, that's very cute.
SB: (chucks the puppy over his shoulder)
This sequence repeated a couple more times - cute things that mom liked were chucked over his shoulder, ugly ones she didn't like were set to one side.
SB: (rummaging through the pile) Oh wow! a snake. Do you like this one?
M: Ewwww! a snake! No, that's awful.
SB: I Want This One! I want the snake. I need the snake.
M: No.... why don't you get the horse? Why don't you get the puppy?
SB: I want the snake!
And after five minutes of arguing, he got to keep the snake, mostly by completely ignoring her and dashing out of the room snake in hand to go show Gramma.

I think she's in trouble.

I also decided it wasn't the best time to mention that when S was the same age, he had an entire collection of snakes: stuffed, plastic, and rubber, from little bitty ones only a few inches long up to the four foot handmade beanbag snake K found him for his birthday at the Saturday market in Eugene.

5.14 tulips and lilies

I showed you the mixed tulips and lilies, but that was before anything bloomed. The tulips are in full flower (or were before last night's rain/wind storm blew through). I definitely need to do some thinning this fall.

5.13 red tulips

Aside from the blueberry cream and DD tulips, I also got a red tulip mixture. These also went into last year's new bed and I was looking forward to seeing what they looked like - I approve.

The paper is coming along, more slowly than I could wish, but satisfactorily at the moment.

5.9 Looking up

I did finally have a breakthrough on my paper yesterday. I managed to make a lot of progress. I foresee one more potential blockage, but I'm trying to nibble round the edges and circumvent it. I'll probably hit that part tomorrow.

Bloglines is down - how can I see about checking on everybody? Aaaagh.

5.7 frustration

I've been been battering my head against the wall of my thesis this week. I woke up this morning with a strong feeling that I'd broken through and that things would flow better today.

Wrong.

5.6 Things that make me go hmmm...

Twice a week I take K & S to school. S has jazz lab, he needs to be there at the same time (pretty much) as K has to be there, the schools are right next to each other, and I take them both. S hates this as he thinks K should take the bus since she doesn't have to go then, and if she goes we have to leave five minutes earlier than he absolutely has to in order to be on time. He spent a bit of time earlier this year in a passive-aggressive attempt to always make us five minutes late leaving the house, but that didn't go over well and he gave it up (partly because I expressed my disapproval somewhat vehemently, and partly because making us late didn't make K late, but did make himself late. Not a win-win.)

The schools each have a one-way loop across the front and at that hour of the morning, there are always many cars dropping students off at each of them. I've noticed an interesting phenomenon that I just don't really understand. The stopping-zones are laid out such that at the shortest walking distance from car to school door, just about three cars is the right number to pull forward, deposit their students, and then pull away in the minimum amount of necessary time. The student in the fourth car back would reach the first-car dropping off point at the same time whether they walked or waited, so generally people in the fourth-car-back wait until the car pulls forward to first-car status. (This ignores complications such as students who stop to gab with the driver after getting out of the car, and those who wait to gather up their multitudinous belongings until after getting out of the car.)

As a rule, this social endeavor works fairly well, with a reasonably steady stream of cars flowing through the loop well enough that the line doesn't back up beyond the entry of the loop leaving cars standing in the two lane road, blocking traffic in both directions to the annoyance of the non-school-going morning commuters.

There is one set of people I just don't understand, however. In about one car in five or six, the driver does not move on when their student heads for the school, but sits there watching them until they actually vanish from sight. Why?

We're talking about students aged 14 and up. The only reasons I can think of are:
1. The driver is worried someone will attack them before they enter the building. Huh?
2. The driver is worried they won't enter the building at all, but will go somewhere else instead. Again, huh?
3. I dunno. I lack further imagination.

In the case of 1, at the high school, there are many students visible at all times from car to door. It's highly unlikely anything could happen, and if it did, there would be many people to intervene or to send for help. At that hour, there isn't a supervisor inside the door, so inside or outside, what difference does it make? At the middle school, there are fewer students around, but the front door isn't actually visible from the drive. If someone were going to interfere with a student's entry into the building, that would be the place to do it, out of sight from the drive. But the drivers don't actually escort the students to the door, just wait until they are out of sight and potentially being ambushed. Right.

In the case of 2, at either school, waiting to watch the student enter the building doesn't preclude the student from walking straight through and out another door. What does watching them enter buy one?

I don't get it.

5.5 hyacinths and hearts

Every year I enjoy this juxtaposition - grape hyacinths and bleeding hearts. I would pride myself on my forethought in planting these next to each other, but, honestly? Totally random.
Last spring the bleeding hearts were about twice as big and I really gave serious thought (at the time) about moving the hyacinths farther away because they did get overshadowed pretty badly as the summer went on.
Last fall however, the combination of dog and chipmunk took care of the problem at least for this year. The birdbath had been positioned between and to one side of the bleeding hearts. The chipmunk decided to move in for the winter, into the base of the birdbath. Brandon took exception to this and dug up half of the bleeding hearts in his quest to get at said chipmunk. I didn't realize what was going on until much damage had been done.
Getting the chipmunk out from under the birdbath took a bit of effort. It was not at all interested in coming out, even when Brandon had been shut in the house. When I turned the birdbath on its side, it scrambled up in to the pillar of the bath, which is hollow. I got a wrench and undid the nuts holding the bath on the pillar, leaving just a hollow tube. It still didn't want to come out, despite the fact that its happy home was now in pieces. It would scramble from one end to the other, but wouldn't leave. I finally got the hose and sprayed its furry little butt firmly. It shot out of the tube as though from a cannon and scrambled into the neighbor's yard, under his fancy deck.
The birdbath was put back together (with thanks that it hadn't been glued or welded originally) and left on its side for several weeks, partly to discourage a return to the old homestead and partly to discourage Brandon from digging up any more of the bleeding hearts.
I wasn't sure they'd make it, but they were well established at the time and seem to have made a recovery.

5.4 blueberry cream tulips

These are blueberry cream tulips - it says so right on the label.
A very unripe blueberry perhaps.
Again, I'm not unhappy with what I've got it, I'm just a little surprised. in this case, it leaves me wondering if I have soil that's too acid, although, if it's too acidic, why aren't the blueberries doing better?
I may have to blame the blueberry bush question on the clay soil.

5.2 donald duck tulips

I got some new tulilps for the garden last year. The first to bloom were the Donald Duck tulips, which somehow weren't quite what I expected. I'm not unhappy with them, they just aren't what I thought they'd be like.
I find it exceedingly interesting that if you do a google search on DD tulips, all the commercial sources are using exactly the same photo for illustration, and it doesn't particularly look anything like what I have growing. On the other hand, everyone else's private pictures look very similar to mine. Hmmm...

5.1 sock

Believe it or not, there has actually been a bit of knitting going on. Exhibit A: A sock. (sort of) This is the second time I've gotten to this point, as I completely ripped the first attempt.
When I started, I assumed that if the sock didn't fit me, I would just let K have it. That plan worked up to the moment when I had three repeats done and tried it on K's foot and it wouldn't come close to going over her heel. Hmmm... I generally knit loosely, and often have to scale down a bit, but a (nominal) size 8 sock is apparently really a size 8 sock (or less) and will not fit a size 9 teenager, much less a size 11 adult (why yes, big feet do run in our family, why do you ask?)
I have not knit many socks, and as a consequence, I don't have a good feel for what sort of sock size (in terms of stitch count, size yarn, and or needle) is going to work out well to make a sock that will fit any of us. My gauge calculations to date have been pretty useless. I envy people who can say - why I cast on my usual 53 stitches for the perfect sock size and went to town. I realize that they got to this point by doing a bunch of socks that didn't work, but I haven't been able to make myself do enough of that bunch of socks to get to that point myself.
To date, I have knit three pairs of socks, two single socks and three half socks. I get bored and put them down.
Working on the theory that I get bored because I'm knitting plain socks (trying to get to that internalized understanding of what makes a good sock for me) and that I might continue to stay interested if I pick livelier patterns, I'm trying Cookie A's Sock Innovation. So far so good, even if I have started completely over. On the other hand, I may trip over my other problem with knitting socks - if I have to modify the pattern to make it fit (which I just told you I did), I also have to write it down so that I can remember what I did for the other one. Since I almost never plan to knit the same thing twice, I don't have to remember this step for anything else I knit. My record for doing this for socks isn't very good.

4.30 Susan magnolia

Two years ago, I planted a Susan magnolia in the back yard. Last year it gave us three blooms, at widely scattered times (bloom, wait a month, bloom, wait a month, bloom). This year...Wow. What a difference a year makes.
The hot weather recently has encouraged it to think summer is here. We won't be past the average frost date for another week or so.
I just love the way the blooms look. Eventually, it should be tall enough it will shade the office window in the summer time, which is good as the window is full west and that room heats up like no one's business.

4.29 mushed together

The late cold weather followed by sudden temps in the 80s has made the plants feel like they're late, hurry up. The tulips, the daffodils, the hyacinths and the magnolias are all blooming at once - which is notable as they usually are spaced out a bit more. In my front window bed, the tulips usually have time to come up, bloom and fade before the lilies are more than peeking out of the ground.

Not so this year, as you can see.

I can also see that I probably need to thin both the tulips and the lilies again this year.

4.28 spring willow

Spring is here with a vengeance. The late cold, followed by the sudden high (for us) temperatures, means that everything is trying to bloom all at once.
The willow tree has bloomed and is giving us lacy yellow-green fronds. It makes a brave picture against the still slightly drab woodlands behind it.
At the base, you can see the squirrel who has decided the willow is big enough to make an emergency bolthole if the dog, cat, or neighbor threaten it. I'm not sure I believe this as the tree is only about 12 feet tall and is not close enough to other trees to make a leap practical. However, I'm not going to bother trying to convince the squirrel otherwise.

4.20 Rainy day

K and S are off of school this week - spring break. (Usually spring break is the week after Easter. I haven't heard a rational explanation yet for why, this year, spring break is the week after the week after Easter.) So of course, the chance of rain today is 100%. We need the rain, but it is going to make timing Sean's mile a little wet today. He might try wiggling out of it, but Tuesday and Wednesday this week are also supposed to be wet. I've promised to let them sleep in today, but playing the following (singing Muppet sheep!) has apparently pried them out of bed, and at only 10:50 in the morning!
That did let me get a bunch of reading done for my homework, which is all to the good.

4.9 sunny day

It's a beautiful sunny day. It doesn't even seem to be terribly windy, which is a change. Tomorrow, it's supposed to rain again, so I think I'll take what I can get.

I seem to be in a terribly restless mood. I want to throw away two thirds of my possessions and strip down to basics. There are reasons why I hang onto stuff (mostly because if I throw it away or give it away I will hate having to buy it again if I ever need it once more). Paperbackswap has been good for getting rid of books I don't want, but it really only works for swapping books I don't want for those I do (which is somewhat of a good thing) and leaves me with a zero sum game. I want a reduction, not just a changing of the guard. And besides, the books that I've listed for swapping have to go somewhere so I don't lose track of them when someone wants one, and those piles are more damn piles.

This rant all started with reading Madwoman's Lunchbox, which took all my vague feelings and bundled them up for me, seed crystal in a supersaturated solution. J had noticed that stuff had been leaving the house via the trashbin and the recycling options - I'm afraid he hasn't seen anything yet.

The term Spring Cleaning exists for a reason, honed over generations of people rasped to tender nerve endings by being closed up in their domiciles for too many months on end. I've got a bad case this year.

4.7 snow in April

Every year, we get an average of five inches of snow in April. Why does it always take us by surprise?

The year-to-date snowfall is around 103 inches for the winter. Just about average, really.

4.5 changing of the guard

J left for Tucson yesterday morning. K got back from Williamsburg last night. J will be back next Saturday night.

K's Treble Choir got a gold award. The Jazz Ensemble got a gold award, the bands got a gold and a silver, one band got the Adjudicator's award, two students got Maestro awards, one director got the director's award...

Basically, they cleaned up! They were exhausted when they got home; all of them were drooping when they climbed of the bus, but they claimed they had a good time. Hurrah!

4.3b Sheep cake anyone?

There's a lovely sheep cake at Cake Wrecks today.

4.3 pink green violet

I posted a bud picture of this one a few weeks ago. This one shows any number of open blooms, and if you look very closely, you can see the pale green edging around each of the blooms. It is one of my favorite African violets: green leaves edged with white; double pink blooms edged with green.

4.2 crocuses

3 years ago I planted 20 crocuses. This year, they're making a brave show.

They've been blooming for several days now, so tomorrow's rain may start battering them a bit. They don't open on grey days, and they snap shut the minute the sun goes behind the house, but the rain is not their friend when they're getting a little tired.

K got on her way this morning. My second interview in two days went well. The state taxes as well as the federal are done. Red Dwarf VII arrived in the interlibrary loan today, after a three week wait. Not a bad day after all, even if it started at 3:30 am. 'Night.

3.31 vertical but coughing

My cough just doesn't want to quit. Other than that I'm pretty much mobile again, which is good as I have a job interview tomorrow morning and K's suitcase has to be at the school tomorrow for inspection by 7:15. Laundry is happening, an angelfood cake is in the oven, and assistance with homework is happening on demand.
Missing two days of school for a field trip has led to massive amounts of homework ahead of time, trying to finish up everything due on Thursday, Friday and Monday, and undoubtedly will lead to massive (additional) amounts of homework trying to catch up on everything assigned on Thursday and Friday that she won't receive until Monday and Tuesday, along with everything assigned to everyone on Monday and Tuesday.
I'm not sure I would think it worth it, but everyone going on the trip does, and since they are the ones actually doing the homework, I suppose it must be.

It must be spring, based on the crocuses, the robins, the falcons, and the goldfinch. The March wind blowing snowflakes around yesterday, I could have done without.

3.19 Down again...

There has been knitting occurring chez nous, but only sporadically. Recovering from my second round of bronchitis and antibiotics has left me massively behind everywhere and the blog is about ninth on the list, behind schoolwork, obligations with deadlines, catching up with my family, and a bit of housework.

Right after my next nap.

3.11 pink green violet

pink green violet
Originally uploaded by zinlizzie

I've another violet trying to bloom. It's almost as though it's frozen in time. The blooms have looked like this for over a week now, just poised to open but not doing it.
This is one of my favorite African violets. The leaves, obviously are edged with white. The flowers are pink shading to white, with a green edging.
One of the most interesting things I read about African violets years ago is that they are very unstable genetically. There are only a few original types of plants and all the variations in color and structure have been bred into them over time. Stressing an individual plant can cause the "fancy" part of its genes to break down.
One time the thermostat in my office broke down over a long weekend and the temp was over 120 F in the office when we came in on Monday. Since African violets prefer a nice steady 75-80 F, this didn't do my collection any good. I lost about half of them right away. The others eventually recovered, but one of the fanciest was very peculiar after that. It had originally been very similar to this plant - white ruffled edging on the leaves, pale blue rather than pink blooms, but very ruffled. When the plant finally recovered enough to put out new leaves, there was a strong line of demarcation down the center of the crown (new leaves on an African violet grow out from the crown, where you see the smallest leaves in the photo). On one side of the line, the leaves were ruffled but not as much as originally, and the white disappeared altogether. On the other side of the line, the leaves were completely smooth, also without white. Blooms on the ruffled side of the crown were still ruffled, but were darker than originally. Blooms on the unruffled side were the simplest form of dark purple violet bloom.
I wish I had a picture of that plant. It looked almost as though someone had cut two plants in half and glued them together.

3.10 green hoodie

This project is turning into one of those Projects from Hell. I told you all the story of trying to order the yarn. Well, I have all the yarn. What I don't have is gauge.

Plan A: The project started out to be Vivian, from the Twist Collective. A lovely hoodie that I may try again, but not in a bulky yarn. Worsted, perhaps.

I knew I was in trouble when I checked the ballband recommendation - a size 10.5 needle is to give me 13.5 stitches per 4 inches. Just peachy, except that the gauge claimed by the pattern is 17 stitches per 4 inches on a size 8 needle. Unfortunately, since I tend to be a loose knitter, I need to go down to a size 4 needle to make gauge, and I don't think so.

Plan B: A nice plain hoodie, same yarn. Gauge called for here is 13 stitches per four inches on a size 10.5 needle. Much more doable... almost.

So far I have achieved the following:

1. 14.5 stitches per four inches on a bamboo size 8. Fabric adjudged too stiff.
2. 14 stitches per four inches on an Addi size 8. Fabric adjudged better but still a bit stiff.
3. 11 stiches per four inches on an Addi size 9. Fabric adjudged flimsy.
4. Despite repeated checking, I don't appear to have a bamboo size 9 to try.

I'm still debating with myself about buying a bamboo size 9 - I don't often knit with size 8s and 9s, despite the fact that I do own the preceding list of needles.* If going from bamboo to Addi at size 8 gains me .5 stitches per four inches, will doing the same at size 9 get me from 11 to 13, or at least 12? Logic would say probably not.

So - do I spring for another needle that may or may not help, or just go with the Addi size 8 and make the adjustments which I have already calculated? Does anyone know if Addi's come in size 8.5?

Actually, I've taken the only sensible way out: I cast on for a completely different project, for which gauge matters not a whit.

*Side note: I have an appalling number of large sizes - why on earth do I own sizes 13, 15 and 17 circular bamboo needles? When did I buy them and what was I going to do with them?

3.9 red bobbin

Here is a better picture of the dark red I'm spinning. Cushings black cherry on a heathery brown from DHF.

Once upon a time, when I was working on the Beginner Triangle, I spun up about a third of the pound. That time I used it as a singles in the two-ply with a variegated BFL. This time, I'm doing a three-ply of the cherry by itself, and it is intended as the accent yarn to accompany the red leaf yarn.

We'll see how it comes out - I do like the two sets of colors next to each other.

PS It is amazing what we can forget when we want to. I was looking for the triangle post to link to it, and I had completely forgotten the story about the neighbor suggesting that the triangle shawl was worthy of being put in the Gift Exchange. It's also amazing the things we can find amusing at the distance of a couple of years, when they were only appalling at the time.

3.8 turkeys again

The whole flock came wandering through the yard again. I couldn't get a shot with all of them in it without alarming them to some extent, so all twelve of them are facing the other way. They still wouldn't hustle and lose their dignity, but they were on their way somewhere else.
This flock seems to be all toms, and pretty much of a size. In good condition too! I don't think it's turkey hunting season though... I haven't noticed any hens around although that doesn't stop the boys from fanning every now and then. Either just keeping in practice, or else putting off possible rivals, even if they are hanging out together for the winter.

All of the snow is gone and the woods are pretty much bare. The stream in the gully is pretty loud at the moment. We've not yet seen any coyotes go through recently, although there has been a bit of detritus from meals visible. So, what do wild turkeys eat in the winter when the snow covers pretty much everything and the marshy areas are frozen over?

3.6 turkeys

The weather has turned sharply warmer in the past few days. All of the snow is gone except for a few pitiful piles of dirty ice crystals, shrinking by half each day.
This morning we had some visitors again; the first time we've seen a flock since late last fall. They meandered through the back yard, nibbling at the exposed, and fairly dry, grass. They were too much on their dignity to flee when they saw us watching, but they did find occasion to change direction and mosey on out of the yard at a somewhat quicker pace.

3.4 Books

And She Knits, Too posted a book meme. Apparently The Big Read says that, on average, adults have only read six out of the following list. My total is 48, but I'm not sure that it will ever be more than that due to lack of interest in the ones I haven't. On the other hand, I have read, and certainly will continue to read, a few other things.

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen - Over and over...
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien – Over and over...
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte - Over and over...
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling – Yes
5. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee - Yes
6 The Bible –Yes
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte - I've tried...
8 1984 - George Orwell - Yes
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman - I've tried...
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens - Yes
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott - Yes
12 Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy – No
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller – No
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare – Yes - the plays, not the poetry, and not all of the histories.
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier - Yes
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien - Yes
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks - No
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger - Yes
19 The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger - Yes
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot- Not yet
t21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell - Unfortunately
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald - Unfortunately
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens-Not yet
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy - Not yet
25 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams - Yes
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh - No
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky - No
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll - No
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame - No
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy - Not yet
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens - No
33 The Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis - Yes
34 Emma - Jane Austen - Yes
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen - Yes
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - Yes - we mentioned the entire Chronicles earlier, why the repeat?
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini - No
38 Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres- No
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden - No
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne – Yes
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell -Yes
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown - Unfortunately
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez - No
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving - No
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins - Yes
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery - Yes, and pretty much everything else as well
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy - No
48 The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood - Yes
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding - No
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan - No
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel - Yes
52 Dune - Frank Herbert- Yes
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons - No
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen - Yes
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth - No
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon - No
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens - Yes
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley - No
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon - No
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez - Yes
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck – Yes
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov - No
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt - No
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold – No
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas - Over and over...
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac - No
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy - No
68 Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding - No
69 Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie - No
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville - No
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens - Yes
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker - Yes
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett - Yes
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson - Yes
75 Ulysses - James Joyce - No, and don't intend to
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath - No
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome - No
78 Germinal - Emile Zola - No
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray - No
80 Possession - AS Byatt- No
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens - Over and over...
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell - No
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker -No
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro - No
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert - No
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry - No
87 Charlotte's Web - EB White - Yes
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom - Yes
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle - Yes
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton – No
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad -No
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery – Yes
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks - No
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams - Yes
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole - Yes
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute - No
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas - I've tried, repeatedly. I get to the same spot and put it down...
98 Hamlet – Shakespeare – Yes - wouldn't this fall into the complete works listed above?
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl - Yes
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo - No

On the whole I think they could have improved the list by condensing a few things (why so many individual books by Dickens or Austen?; why Middlemarch and not Silas Marner? why the DaVinci Code and not half a dozen other bestselling nothings?) why not say "anything by..." and add a few more authors to the list?