Today:

• Stewed tomatoes cooking for the freezer:(yep, there are still tomatoes)  And Anne, still NO FROST! 

• Fresh yougurt for cheese.  From time to time I show pictures of my neighbors flock.  His sheep are milkers. (My yougurt is cows milk.)  This part of the state has always been dairy.  Within a mile or so of my house there are two award winning cheese makers.  Amazing, huh?

• Tying skeins for dyeing.  It would be a perfect day for this activity if I can fit it in.

• A walk with the camera.. just checking things out.

• and the Ribby.. no, the Paddler hasn’t bitten the dust, but her time is rationed, you know a couple inches of Ribby, a couple rows of Paddler.  The lace has my heart just now, but… time… aaahh… time… the Ribby comes first.

 

She’s out of the bag.  With 2" to go to the underarm decreases, I should get there tonight, working both sides at once, providing I don’t fall asleep first.  The Paddler calls, waits, and I really REALLY want to work on it.  Rhinebeck is closing in, it would be nice to have a new sweater. 

Kim inspired me to read Deng Ming-Dao’s 365 Tao, Daily Meditations.

I hate the way this chicken comes
All bagged in plastic
Without head and feet;
Neck, heart, liver, and gizzard
Stuck into its cavity
No wonder people feel unconnected.

(I confess that I DO like NOT having the head and feet, tho’ I have been served some of the best chicken soup I’ve ever eaten, served with a foot dangling by a claw from the edge of the bowl, in Mexico, outside, on poorly lit streets.. just saying.)

Today as I plucked brussell sprouts for dinner I wondered how many people think milk comes from a carton, how many have seen a stalk of sprouts. 

Beautiful, huh?

 

Sunday was a day in heaven, absolutely gorgeous.  After ten days of taking care (never being out of sight) of C’s 87yr. old Mom, we were ready for a break, a little freedom.   I pictured this.

 

What I did in the morning was something a little different.  As we drove up the driveway the evening before, car loaded with three cats, one of whom starts to vomit as SOON as he hits our road in anticipation, we were stopped by a tree hanging across our drive.
As C held onto the really anxious, we’re here, I want to get out cats, I got out of the car and held the tree above my head while he drove around.

 

 

Just around the bend, he stopped and turned the car off. There was no getting around this one.  Seems Thursday’s wind was a good one.

For us, it was the end of the road.  The poor cats were frantic.  So close, and yet so far.  C. walked up the drive and got our other car and parked it on the far side of the downed tree.  We started ferrying cats into the car and up to the dooryard.  Whew.  Then we went back down and got the essentials…. cooler, knitting, briefcases.  That’s the leadup to Sunday morning.  We hooked the trees to a chain attached to the tractor, pulled and cut them down.  All the brush was hauled to our stump dump.  We were back in business.  After we unloaded the rest of our baggage, I got back to my plans.. lovely.

As the end of the Paddler nears I have a few comments on this pattern.  It has been entirely enjoyable.  The garter stitich will be warm, and was great mindless TV or reading knitting.  The pattern stitch is easily memorized.  You need only to look at the previous row to know what comes next.  If I were to make this again, I would not follow the pattern when it comes to the repeats.  Instead of waiting   until a full pattern repeat can be knitted, I would begin inserting the pattern when a half repeat would fit.  Maybe even before.

I think that this rather large triangle of unpatterned stockinette looks glaringly out of place.  No doubt, others of you who have knitted this, discovered this early on and filled it in.  I continue.  Twelve rows of pattern and six rows of garter remain.  I have one more skein of yarn. (Actually, I DO have more but I hope that one will do.)  At this point in the triangular shawl, I knitted twenty four rows of pattern with the last skein.  Close, huh?