Somebody is awfully cranky!

"You know, your mood swings are kinda giving me whiplash." Isabella Swan (Twilight)


Mood swings, bipolar tendencies, what ever you want to call it, Mother Nature has had a bad case of it.  We went from below normal temperatures to weeks of rain.  Now we are in the heat and thunderstorm mode.  Some places had severe damage and tornado's but we have been lucky and haven't even lost electric.

You have to squeeze in any yard/garden work between the rain.  I was able to weed the little I had planted.  Grass got cut on high while it was still wet just so we didn't have to walk through a jungle.  Flowers are blooming but don't last long before their petals are beaten off the stems with the next down pour.  The garden is still not planted but that might turn out to be a good thing right now.  I was out there and the potato bugs are crawling all over the weeds since there favorite food is unavailable to them.  I will wait until they go through this cycle and then plant....weather permitting of course. 


I have managed to pick some rhubarb, asparagus and lettuce.  It will be a long time before the first ripe tomato or ear of corn.  


I have one sleeve to knit on nephews sweater and then that is done.  He is very impatient and said he will wear it even though it is hot out.  I have knit some dishclothes and finished a baby dress just to break up the monotony.  I had shipped some wool out for processing and that should arrive tomorrow but I will be too busy to even admire it because the grandbaby is coming for a visit....along with #1 and Sir T.  


So it can rain, hail, thunder and lightning because I will be inside enchanted by the little guy.  Other than dinner at the local VFW nothing is planned until after they leave Monday night.  Then it is back to work.  I hope you all have a safe  Memorial Day weekend.


And I'm proud to be an American,
where at least I know I'm free.
And I won't forget the men who died,
who gave that right to me. -Lee Greenwood

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!

It's a.....

If I had known how wonderful it would be to have grandchildren, I'd have had them first.
Lois Wyse

I became a grandmother at 7:59 AM on May 5th.  After her being in labor for 24 hours they finally took the baby by C-section.  A whooping 9 lb 1 oz and 22 inch long baby boy.

It was wonderful having my own children but this is a whole new area.  It was hard watching her in pain. Then she was upset that she couldn't deliver naturally.  After having sat with her through the day and night, it was hard when they told me to go sit in the waiting room as only dad could go into surgery....but it was all forgotten when he walked through the door with the baby.

In recovery she was shaking so and that was hard to deal with but I showed her pictures of him and held her hand.  Both of us wondering how the heck she had such a big baby.  She was only 5 lbs when she was born, the dad was a normal 7.  She is only 5'2" and was a size 3.  She gained 30 pounds.  She was all baby and now we know why!

We all loved Sir T before but watching him with my daughter and their son made us love him even more.  They are a beautiful couple and will be wonderful parents.

What a truly amazing, heart-aching, topsy turvy day and I am honored to have been part of it and we are over joyed to welcome such a gift into the family.

No Picture Needed

In the end, it's not going to matter how many breaths you took, but how many moments took your breath away


Crispy lettuce 
Spring greens
Chopped up Boca burger
Chunks of apple
A sliced leftover Easter egg
Sprinkle of homemade granola
Creamy Caesar dressing
Outside
Bird singing
Toes warmed by sun kissed deck
Breeze making windchime music
So simple
How can you not be head over heels in love with life?

Simplicity of Spring Fills the Senses

Everything is blooming most recklessly; if it were voices instead of colors, there would be an unbelievable shrieking into the heart of the night.  ~Rainer Maria Rilke


It happens every year.  I get this unbelievable ache at the miracle that is Spring.  Oh to be a poet, author or song writer and  be able to put into words what it is to watch the kids play outside without jackets on the first warm day, to sit quietly and watch the miracle of birth of a lamb, to see the smallest plants fight through the frozen earth and flower, 

the intense green of the new grass, the brightness of the yellow daffodil and forsythia, to listen to the raucous songs of the birds calling their mates, the tiniest seeds opening to what will be summers bounty, the warning of momma duck sitting on a nest of eggs, 

throwing open the windows and having the fresh scent of earths rebirth blow the stale winter air from the house.... It literally fills the senses.  It costs nothing but is worth far more than anything money could buy.  It will continue to happen every year and I hopefully I will continue to be amazed at it each and every time.  

Going Green

Green is the prime color of the world, and that from which its loveliness arises. ~ Pedro Calderon de la Barca



I love the color green so much my living room is painted green.  So you know I am doing the happy dance with all the green showing up in every shade imaginable.

My eye and heart pick out even the tiniest bit of green of Spring.

Do you know what else Spring brings?  Frogs.  

I recently visited the frog pond....not the one I wanted to see either!

This WAS Brooklyn Tweed Juneberry.  I picked it up after a hiatus and realized it looked nothing like his.  I was on row 34 of Chart B at this point.  My mistake was  I had been reading each row from right to left when in fact each row alternates r-l then l-r.  It was making a pattern just not the one he intended so out it all came.  I am now on the last two rows of Chart B.  I have read ahead and see more changes which I will pay attention to.  I guess it pays to read instead of just rushing right in.  Live and learn....again and again and again.

Red Light Green Light

April prepares her green traffic light and the world thinks Go.  ~Christopher Morley, John Mistletoe

Remember red light, green light?  Supposedly April comes and everything turns green?  Not quite.  We did have a wonderful weekend but snow showers are still in the forecast.  I don't want to get too excited and then have my hopes dashed but the daffodils are starting to bloom.

And better late than never the seed starting has commenced. I have kept putting this off so I am a month behind.

And I have an (unblocked)  FO.

Back in February Cyndy sent me an invite to the We Love North American Alpaca group on Ravelry.  I joined and promised Cyndy to do the March S-KAL which was the stacked eyelet cowl.  Almost all the alpaca fiber I have I got from my cousin's at Kuhn's River Country Alpaca Farm.  When I knew I didn't have time to both spin and knit the cowl I grabbed a ball of previous spun alpaca and cast on.  It later dawned on me where I got it....lets just say I bought it in North America and leave it there.  Quick knit which I finished this morning...yeah I know it is April ignore that small fact. It could have been done earlier but I was baby knitting and #1 keeps calling with pregnancy questions and chitchat.  When I say I have got to hang up so I can get something done she gets annoyed.  I can clean house while on the phone but I can't knit for long or my neck starts hurting from holding the phone.  Wise guy that she is she sent me this...



Somehow,  I don't think I was on the phone while she was crafting that!

Momma always said "Patience is a virtue"

"Patience is waiting.  Not passively waiting.  That is laziness.  But to keep going when the going is hard and slow - that is patience."


I have been waiting....waiting to become a grandmother and for warmer weather.  Annoyingly enough I have control over neither of these so I pass the time preparing for them.

In babyville, #1 has reached the 35 week mark.  We had her baby shower last weekend so she didn't have to travel during the last month.

I did finish the baby afghan, some bibs, a hat and a stuffed toy.  The baby afghan I found in a magazine shortly after my mother died. I fell in love with it because the afghan was done in yellow (my mom's fav color) and the name was Angel Wings.  I promised myself that I would make it for my grandchild and think of my mom.  She would have loved to have been a great grandma.  Happily I did not have to wait long...even if these past couple of months have been dragging!  Can you see the angels?

When I was unable to concentrate on the afghan I decided to knit an umbilical cord hat in blue.  Years ago my mom had made #1 a whole purple layette to put away for this occasion but what if it was a boy?  So I got to the decrease part and #1 calls and says she saw a hat on Ravelry...the Munchkin hat.  I drug the decreases out, went back and picked up stitches to change from a rolled brim to a k2p2 and ended up with....

After receiving it she decided she wanted a girly version so we went thru stash and found some she was satisfied with and  I whipped out this one before she left....

Earlier in the week the weather forecast was calling for 8-14 inches of snow.  It would have been Mother Nature's April Fools joke, but we only got a sloppy 2-3 inches!  It melted away and today it is back to work out to the yard and garden.  I know what I am planting and approximately where in the garden I am going to plant it.  I am late getting some seeds started but last year I started early only to run out of room as they got moved into bigger planters.  My greenhouse is only 8x10 and the daily rotation of taking flat after flat outside so I had room to work and bringing them in was troublesome.  Each year we work to  fine tune this but each year we grow different plants with different requirements.  Of course if I had a bigger greenhouse....(was that a blatant hint to the man or what?)

So I continue to knit and plan because soon my waiting will be over.  So it must be true, good things come to those who wait!

AHHHHHHHHHHHHH Spring!

No winter lasts forever; no spring skips its turn.  ~Hal Borland


The first full day of Spring and the kids have a two hour school delay which if it keeps snowing like it is might end up as a cancellation.  (Note: before I had time to post this they did close it!) 

Knowing my feelings about this winter you might think this snow upsets me but it doesn't.  I had a taste of Spring last Thursday and Friday so I know that it will come, that there is a light at the end of the tunnel and it is getting brighter each day.  And I have thawed out, 40's now feel balmy.


While the weather was so gorgeous, I worked in the garden.  

I have piles of old tansy stems and mint to burn.  The rhubarb is coming up and the strawberries made it through the winter.  My nephews are selling bulbs/plants for their school, so I bought more strawberry plants and some stargazer Lilly.


I have been very busy getting ready for the coming grandchild.  I wish I could knit faster to make all the things I want to make.  Of course after the arrival I will know in which direction to go!  There are so many cute girl things to knit...boys kind of get rooked.  I have said it is a boy from the beginning but only time will tell.  I love the fact that #1 and Sir T choose to not know the sex but stores no longer sell unisex things.  It is either pink or blue even down to fingernail clippers!  I guess they assume everyone will want to know and not just appreciate the anticipation of the baby no matter what the sex.


Another time suck has been.. lambs.  

I did not want more lambs but Rambo had other ideas and broke into his girls.  We were hoping he hadn't been in there long but it was long enough to do the deed.  We had six lambs but lost one.  Like all babies you can just sit and watch them interact with the elders and each other.  Each time I see them doing it all I can think of is the "Oh So Happy" lyrics as they just seem so full of joy they can't contain it.


We have also been playing baseball for exercise and because nephew joined Little League.  I shocked them by knowing how to hit a ball.  Yes they did have baseball back in the day I told them!  Got a shot of the moon while waiting on someone to hit something out into the field for me to catch.

So while the snowfall continues I will return to my chair by the wood stove and knit...and wait....for the snow to melt and the grandchild to arrive.

First Robin in the Yard

“Bearing His cross, while Christ passed forth forlorn, His God-like forehead by the mock crown torn, A little bird took from that crown one thorn. To soothe the dear Redeemer's throbbing head, That bird did what she could; His blood, 'tis said, Down dropping, dyed her tender bosom red. Since then no wanton boy disturbs her nest; Weasel nor wild cat will her young molest; All sacred deem the bird of ruddy breast.”

~A Breton Legend, in "English Lyrics"

What a wonderful way to start a weekend.

Little Things

What we call little things are merely the causes of great things; they are the beginning, the embryo, and it is the point of departure which, generally speaking, decides the whole future of an existence. One single black speck may be the beginning of a gangrene, of a storm, of a revolution. - Henri Frederic Amiel


Maybe because I hated this winter I have been noticing every little thing happening around here. Little changes in temperature have melted most of the snow in the woods. The snow on the yard and garden is getting thinner. My driveway is only icy when we go out in the morning. The birds are making more noise in the woods. I am seeing more deer near the edge of the woods.

I heard on the news this morning that these little changes had the crocuses coming up in one ladies yard. I had to go see if there was anything peeking out in my own neck of the woods and sure enough there was. A quick walk revealed daffodils, snow drops

and the bleeding heart

are making their annual debut. Although there was no visual confirmation due to a cloudy day, I have heard geese flying over head. Now I am on the lookout for the first robin in the yard.

With a little bit of change in the temperature and a little more sun, I was hanging laundry out to dry without my fingers in danger of frostbite! No drier sheet can duplicate the smell of laundry fresh off the line.

The little bit of additional light has made the chickens start laying more. Not to be out done by their feathered counterparts the ducks have decided to start laying now also.

A little bit of patience made me go back to spinning alpaca. I had picked up 4 ozs of gray and 4 ozs. of charcoal in the Little Barn while at Rhinebeck. When I first started to spin it I was not getting enough twist and it was so slippery. After several attempts I put it away and went back to spinning wool. Not to be bested by mere fiber I took it out again the other day.

For some inexplicable reason I had absolutely no problems with it. I finished spinning it and plied it. Today I started spinning the charcoal.

Now with a little bit of practice I will be spinning on the newest oldest spinning wheel. Cyndy emailed me to say her CPW was up for sale and I bought her. This is my first double drive wheel so lots to learn and I better be a quick learner because soon little bits of seeds will need to be started to become plants for this year’s garden. I still have to get my flats all washed, mix up some soil, clean the greenhouse…..