Is someone holding the sun hostage?

Give me the splendid silent sun

with all his beams full dazzling.
Walt Whitman

As expected Spring brings rain.  I love to wake up to a cool breeze stirring the curtains and the sound of rain softly falling....until it happens for a week.  I know we need it and would have no problems if the garden was planted and mulched for optimal weed control but that is not the case.  The plants in the greenhouse are getting big and would love to stretch their roots into some prime soil but most of the garden hasn't even been tilled yet!  I do have garlic, kohlrabi, carrots and lettuce coming up...between the weeds.  

On the ruse of getting Sir T's and #1 daughters garden planted we got to visit with the grandson.  All prejudice aside, he is amazing!  I love every little hair on his head.

Raising my own kids was rewarding but exhausting.  As a single mom I worked all the time to pay bills.  The older ones got stuck watching the younger ones.  Although economical this is not the best solution as they lose the sibling relationship in lieu of stand in parent.  I don't know if it is because I think I can make up for past mistakes or because I am in a better place in my life, or if it is just being older and wiser (?) but I feel I was made just for the job of grandma.


I watch him with the same utter amazement that I watched #1 with but now I have the added bonus of watching her with him.  It is truly mind boggling.  Some family members had the audacity to call me a baby hog because they said I wasn't letting them have any time with him!  The nerve!!!


Besides being hypnotized by my grandson I have been knitting a sweater for favorite nephew.  He is here every day after school and sleeps over most weekends.  He was getting a bit jealous that baby products were getting made.  He reminded me that he hadn't had anything made for him in a while.  I said I made you mittens and he said it wasn't winter so that didn't count and the socks don't fit him any more.  He said he wanted a red sweater.  I had a leaflet of raglans and he picked a button down the front one.  I am about 4 inches below the underarm so he is happy again.  


So far as the shawl I was working on...I ripped it out, rewound the yarn for another project and put the pattern away for some other time.  I had found the first mistake, ripped it out, restarted it, got through both chart a & b only to realize I didn't have the right number of stitches.  I am not saying a one or two stitch difference but a huge difference.  I thought maybe I was to repeat one of the charts but no, I looked for an errata but didn't find one so I gave up until  sometime when I have the patience to deal with it.  With garden season coming now was not it.


I have also been playing around with milk.  I was raised on a dairy farm.  I remember fresh milk with all the cream that rose to the top.  I remember collecting that cream and making butter.  I always wanted to make cheese after finding a cheese press among my mom and aunts canning stuff.  She said someday she would teach me but it never came.  So I have had the product/instructions and would psych myself up and then chicken out.  I finally started making my own yogurt in the crock pot.  Love it!  Right now I have cream cheese in the making.  I haven't worked out the cost of the cream cheese but the yogurt is cheaper than store bought which is good since they devour it!  Next will be mozzarella.


And canning season has started.  I picked ten pounds of rhubarb.  I froze some for future use, cooked/canned some with sugar and made relish with some.  Plenty more is coming in and if it doesn't stop raining that may be all we eat this winter!