Sunday, September 28, 2008

new address

I finally, after purchasing the domain name more than a year ago, managed to figure out how to link my blog to the domain!

Yes, I DO currently work with computers for a living. (wince)

My new location for the blog is 20AcresNoSheep.net.

Cool, eh?

If you continue to log in at Tonyiasblog.blogspot.com, it will still direct you to my new domain.

Paul and I took the dogs for a walk this morning in the arboretum.

We have a few geocaches in the arb.

We walked out to check one of the geocaches.
Unfortunately, in this fall weather, there are lots of burrs and sticky seeds!

Poor little Chip got a snootful of little tiny ones.

Guess that's why he belongs to Girl of the House. She can remove the burrs!

Then we headed to Paul's folks for birthday dinner.

Both of his brothers, and families, were there.

The two youngest grandaughters discussed the birthday candle placement with Grandma.




We had a fun dinner, and then were home in time to sit on the deck to relax.


I sampled up the new CVM fleece. Three different styles of yarn. Pictures, possibly, tomorrow.
(They're hanging, drying, in our bath.)

Saturday, September 27, 2008

Continuing Education Knitting

I had an all day continuing education class today. Don't you hate it when you have to get up earlier on Saturday than you do the rest of the week?!

My class was an hour away. It was a good opportunity to catch up on a few podcasts. Sound Opinions and This American Life. Someday, I'll be all caught up on my podcasts. But for now, I catch 'em whenever I can. My commute to work takes less than 10 minutes, so there's no podcast listening during the drive.

It was an all day class. I managed to get lots of knitting done on the Alpaca Sox. The first one is almost complete. (those veg are getting a workout holding up socks, aren't they? Really, we've been eating them, too!)











Look what met me on the sidewalk when I came home on Friday.








Two pounds of CVM (California Variegated Mutant), already made into batts, ready for spinning.

I love the sound of that - Mutant Sheep - welcome to the future!



This is my consolation for not getting into SOAR this year.

I, and several of my friends, were waitlisted. Not a one made it off the list.

This may not be a terrible thing. It appears that they don't have enough hotel rooms available for all the participants. Nice - book a large gathering at a place without enough lodging for everyone.

Bitter? Who, me?!

Hah! I bet no-one at SOAR has two whole pounds of CVM! Take that, Interweave and SOAR!! Hah!

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Clockwerk asked about a certain warm sweater I began the past winter. January, actually.

It, too, has been picked up and put down multiple times. It has not traveled from state to state, as it is a bit more complicated.

It seems I last left it in a state of partial neckline completion. The right side has the edging knitted.

The left was, seemingly, abandoned.




Perhaps, as Clockwerk is about to have a major birthday, I will get on it and get the poor, armless
thing completed.

After the neckline is done, it's only the seaming up that is left. Shame to leave it so close to finished, for so long.






I've been doing some sampling of the finn fleece.

I've got a small skein of worsted weight and a small skein of lace weight.

I like 'em both.





Every morning, on my way to work, I pass this alpaca farm.

They're multiplying! See the little bitty white one?

This coming weekend is the Alpaca Farm Tour in Minnesota. Be sure to check it out, if you're in the state! There are farms all over Minnesota.









Clockwerk probably won't read this post this far down, will he?

Girl of the House is baking some special SPO (student post office) birthday love, to be posted in the mail tomorrow.

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

The six state sweater

If you recall, I started Rogue in February of this year. It's been picked up, knitted, put down, picked up and knitted, put down, etc, etc, etc.

This sweater has been knitted in Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska, Colorado, Kansas and Massachusetts. In fact, it's been to Iowa several times, most recently this past weekend.

I have finally reached the hood. I think I'm coming down the home stretch. (Of course, that will leave the seaming up...)




I spun up an ounce of the pretty roving while we were camping this weekend.

Camping always makes me want to get out the spindle.






Last, but not least, my carry around sock.
This is Alpaca Sox yarn, and I'm almost to the heel.

It's good to have a sock to knit while you're sitting in a choir concert. You can knit in the dark.

It's been raining here since I returned home from work. Brightest room in the house is the kitchen - thus the sock is keeping the garden veg warm.

Monday, September 22, 2008

Twenty One Soon




My boy child will be 21 this coming Sunday.

Old enough to vote in his first Presidential election.

Young enough to enjoy birthday gifts that say "For ages 4+" on the box.

A pirate at heart.









We headed down to Decorah, IA to see him this past weekend.

It was parents weekend. They even put on a concert for us.












My dad came with us for the weekend.

He hadn't been to Luther, so he got the grand tour from Ben and lovely girlfriend Becky.






















Dad camped with us for the weekend, a few miles outside Decorah. We had a campsite right on the Upper Iowa River.

He and Girl of the House skipped rocks and looked for fossils on the bank.

We had gorgeous weather - into the 80s.
Extraordinary weather in September!


Sunday, September 14, 2008

Morning coffee spot




Here's our coffee spot from this Saturday morning.

Anyone guess?








Here's Sunday morning. Does this help?










We went to Temperance River State Park for the weekend.

It's on the shore of Lake Superior. We reserved our favorite campsite, months ago.

We planned to be on the shore, awaiting the rising of the (almost) full moon over the great lake.

Unfortunately, we arrived after 9 pm on Friday. The moon was risen, and beautiful, over the lake. We looked forward to seeing it Saturday evening. But it began to rain late Saturday afternoon, with the attendant clouds. No moon at all to be seen through the clouds.

And yet, we had a great time. When we couldn't be outside, we played cards and listened to the iPod. We played cribbage, we played RAGE. I am the RAGE champion. Three out of three games. (We won't discuss cribbage...)

It was my birthday this weekend.

Look at the gift from the Girl of House gave:

DISHES!!

She did dishes all weekend. Now, really, that is a gift!




We did some hiking before the rain began.
We found the State Park geocache, after a few geocaching challenges. Perhaps reading a map is not one of my strong suits - especially now that I'm another year older!

There is so much to see in this park, beyond the Lake.






There were tons of people at the beginning of the trails, but they thinned out the farther we went from the road.









I started and finished another hat from handspun while on the drive. (Temperance is 275 miles from home.)

Recognize this yarn?

It's the spindled yarn from our Colorado trip.

Saturday, September 6, 2008

Another hat?

We're canning today. Girl of the House has gone to the Defeat of Jesse James Days, Northfield's annual big festival, for the afternoon.

We've made 31 pints of Salsa and 20 pints of canned tomatoes.















It would have been 22 pints of tomatoes, but two jars broke during processing








Yay, salsa!












I finished this hat from handspun earlier this week.


I really don't know who's going to wear all these hats.

But it's good to use up some of these little skeins.





A sample skein. I have a coopworth lamb fleece, aging in my stash. I added some scraps from the recent hats, and carded them up together.

Makes a pretty, slubby, yarn.









By the way, our little dog is a pervert.

This is one of last year's (male) kittens.


I know, it's just not right...

Tuesday, September 2, 2008

off to school





There she goes, to seventh grade.

Monday, September 1, 2008

no fiber content

AT ALL - not a lick.

It was the final weekend of official summer.

Paul took Friday off to get Ben back to college. Before taking him down, he ran to Sakatah Lake State Park and dropped off the camper.

After work, I met Harlan and Coleen, keepers of the Girl of the House for the past week, in Faribault. A quick trip to the wine mecca - Haskell's - and we were off to Sakatah.

Started a campfire, put supper on the grill, and so began the holiday weekend. Harlan and Coleen stayed for supper. Paul made it around 9:30.












Early Saturday morning - 6:45 - the dang dogs woke us to go outside. We walked down to the lake for coffee. It was a bit farther than we usually undertake; about a half mile to the lake. But well worth it.



Sakatah State Park is on the Sakatah-Singing Hills Trail, a great paved trail that stretches 39 miles from Faribault to Mankato.

We did some bike riding, and some geocaching.

There are tons of caches along the trail, and several in the state park. We added 9 geocaches to our count.

(I discovered I can take a picture while riding a bike! Who'd have thought?)


We came home on Sunday. With the GotH being absent from home for near a week, we had a number of things to prepare.

We headed to the city today, for some last minute school clothes shopping.

Before we headed north, we headed to three brand new geocaches. They were just published this morning, and we were first to find on all three.

This was taken at the location of the most difficult find.

Yup, this is me, high in a tree above the lake. Getting up was a bit tricky, but do-able. Then I was sure I was stuck. However, Paul and GotH refused to bring me my meals for the rest of my life, and the bathroom situation was a bit iffy, so I slowly made it down.

At least I made it down without falling in the water.

I think I'm too old for tree climbing. Isn't that why I married a younger man?!