Speaking of Woodpeckers

"The woodpecker might have to go"

Someone asked me why I encourage woodpeckers to come in my yard, and weren't they a nuisance. I haven't had any problems with them and I love the beautiful markings.

We took out the bikes on Friday and rode for about half an hour. My body is telling me the stationary bicycle is nothing like the real thing! But it felt good. I now think I will be able to get off the remaining 20 pounds I need to reach goal. Hopefully by Thursday's weigh-in at Weight Watchers, I will be down into the next 10 pound range.

Uncommon Flicker

Nathan was sick with a cold the last two days so stayed home from school. While looking out the front window he called me over to see a "wierd" bird. We looked it up and it was a common Flicker, a ground feeding woodpecker. It did stay on the ground for quite a while (even though there was a couple of inches of snow) so we had a really good opportunity to watch it. The early spring brings many birds to our yard that we don't ordinarily see.

Palm Sunday

It's looking all Eastery around here. Jordyn and I put out the Easter decorations. These are some smocked eggs I made last year. I really need to do some more smocking but there is never enough time for everything I'd like to do. Why is that? Those are the first of the daffodils that have opened. It has been too cold for more than a few to even try opening. There is a winter snow advisory for tomorrow and Tuesday, so it's not going to be springlike weather for a while. Doesn't look like we'll have an outdoor Easter egg hunt this year.
We cleared out all the weeds behind the shed and will be ordering Heritage Raspberry bushes to put there. Haven't had raspberries since our neighbor doused the ones we had at the fence line with weed killer. He didn't like the way they were crawling into his garden. We should be able to keep this patch controlled.
I'm almost finished with the argyle vest for DH. Just have to duplicate stitch the lines and knit the neck and armholes. Maybe I'll even get it done. I guess that would be a major accomplishment since I have started this vest twice before.
Will start Angel's sweater when I'm through and I am expecting my KnitPicks yarn on Monday or Tuesday to start the stranded cardigan. My first steeked garment!

Bad Dog

Looks all innocent and sweet, right? One of the things we're learning about adopting an older dog is you really don't know what their life experiences have been. Training is spotty at best and non-existent at worst. There has been little or no consistency in their lives and it takes awhile to learn their habits and visual clues as to their needs. What we do know about Frankie is still what we thought right from our first meeting with her. She is an even tempered but exuberant dog who is excellent with the kids but wants nothing more than to escape the confines of whatever box she finds herself in, whether it is the house or the fairly big backyard she has to run around in. Really, really interested in where that door leads to and how she can open it up.

We are working on escape-proofing the backyard with extra fencing and railroad ties holding it down, reinforcing all the corners that have even the smallest space for her to squeeze through. But what is harder to control are the doors and the constant comings and goings of the kids and how hell-bent she is to get out. We are getting pretty good at thwarting her by creating an "airlock" with the garage doors by making sure to shut the mudroom door before opening the overhead door.

But this past Tuesday, when Amy came to pick up the kids, Frankie escaped through the garage. Before we knew it, she was across Campbell Blvd and then across North French Road and running merrily down to Getzville, right at the height of rush hour.

DH, Nathan and Amy ran after her and somehow Amy was able to corner her and grab her collar and drag her home (all in high heels)!

To pay us back for the insult of keeping her from her adventure she proceeded to chew up my brand spanking new Noble Cowl that was completed but awaiting blocking, peed on the rug and ripped up my knitting project book, all within the time it took to get the kids loaded in the car and wave goodbye! (The book in the picture is a hard cover that I had just purchased, she only chewed up the pages I hadn't read yet)

And of course she chewed up the start of the cowl, so I will have to rip the whole thing back. I do have most of a full ball of yarn so I will be able to complete it, but it is going to the back of the list.

Fortunately, she didn't choose the argyle vest to show her displeasure. I finished the front and am working on the back and I have one and a half blocks to go on Nathan's afghan.

The project list I started is a real eye opener. I have 40 projects that I have yarn for! My problem is that it isn't stopping me from buying more. I ordered the new ball winder from KnitPicks (only $19.99 and it is really a nice one) and I had to have the order total $50.00 to get free shipping, didn't I? So that added 3 new projects, a clapotis for Jen, a sweater for Angel for her birthday, and could I resist a ball of kettle dyed yarn for a pair of socks? Of course not! I had also picked up the last two balls of yarn for the dinosaur afghans for the kids and I couldn't go to "Have Ewe Any Wool" without getting something else new so I picked up yarn for the elephant sweater for Jordyn. I did resist the sock yarn (even though I touched almost every ball of yarn there). Both the sweaters are Nicky Epstein designs. I really love the little extras she adds to her designs that make them so special.

But I think I need an intervention! I also got the list of new classes for the yarn shop and two of them appeal to me, and Kelley is going to be starting a knitalong on KnitPicks on Monday that she has hinted is a steeked cardigan, oh boy. Oh, and did I mention there is a new sock book out by Cookie A that they may also have a knitalong for (already in my cart) and all the sock books are 40% off?

The start of warm weather (well 50's in Buffalo is take off your winter undies and go outside and play weather) has started the "It must be time to garden" bell going off in my head. I emptied out the compost pile and added this wonderful stuff to the vegetable patch. I can now start saving all our compostables. I haven't done this for a year, because I wanted the old compost to really decompose and start fresh this year.

That was the sum total of my gardening this weekend because it is raining today and there will be snow showers tomorrow. But you know it is coming!

Robins and Crocuses

I'm a little bit euphoric today! It's St. Patrick's day, I've seen the first robins of spring and the crocuses are starting to bloom! Also, the temperature is supposed to get up to 60 F. Of course the weekend weather goes down into the 20's, but that's March for you. I'll take what I can get.

We had a surprise visit from DD#1 with the four kids, Sammy the dog and of course hubby. Got to spend time with the girls and the baby is at the adorable smiling and cooing stage. All the kids were over on Saturday and Nathan slept over so he would get to spend a little more time with his cousins. What a full house!

Frankie and Sammy got along amazingly well and ran around the backyard like two old friends. When they left on Sunday, Frankie was comatose for the entire day, barely opening her eyes

Jen called and said Sammy is depressed, won't leave his bed. He misses Frankie!

Catch-up

So, it's been such a long time since I posted an entry, let's play a little catch-up.

I did finish Amused and it was really a quick knit, even though I am really not a big fan of top down raglans. I noticed a funny spot on the sleeve after it was done, so I want to rip it back and reknit that sleeve before I wear it.

It has been a funny sort of time here and one of the reasons I haven't blogged is due to the plane crash that happened on Feb 12 as a plane was coming in to land at the Buffalo airport. It crashed a few miles away and the whole community has been caught up in following the cleanup efforts and mourning the dead. So sad. Although I didn't know anyone affected, it was still a shock to the whole area.

As far as knitting goes, I took a class on sock making at Have Ewe Any Wool yarn shop in Snyder. Miss Maryann was a wonderful, knowledgeable teacher and I have made two pairs of socks. Although the class was using two cable needles she let me use the magic loop method and I really liked doing them that way. I also have purchased enough sock yarn to keep my whole family in socks for a long time.

I also got the yarn for the two dinosaur afghans. I will start them after I finish Nathan's afghan.

We had a knitting weekend at the Holiday Inn on Grand Island this past weekend, so I now have 4 new projects to add to my Ravelry page: a Fair Isle purse (which I frogged because I didn't like the way I placed my colors), a pink bunny (which still needs two legs and two ears), a cowl (which I'm halfway through) and an entrelac scarf (which is just on the second row).

There were 15 of us. We stayed over Friday and Saturday nights and left after our entrelac class. Very good food and great company. Its nice to spend time with other people who share your passion!

We also got a dog. We've been missing having a dog and have been looking at the SPCA and rescue sites. We found a beautiful two year old dog at the SPCA. She has a very calm disposition around other dogs and the kids. The only problem is she is an escape artist. Even though we have a fully fenced in backyard, she found all the spots it is breachable on her first go round of the yard. Each of the corners have a slight gap and there is a spot under the pine tree that the next door neighbor's cats have been using to sneak in and chase the birds at my bird feeder. DH reinforced all the spots, but it seems she doesn't need a very large gap to get through.

While I was enjoying myself on Saturday at my Knit weekend, she spotted one of the cats and gave chase in the blink of an eye, according to DH. He spent 4 hours looking for her in a pouring rain storm. When he got back, there were two messages on the answering machine. One from NOCO and one from the police. They had the SPCA pick her up, because no one was home here. She got bailed out this morning and has been sleeping ever since.

When DH was looking through her papers, he came across her pedigree. She's a coon hound and when we looked up the characteristics, she was just acting naturally. So it's fence mending time here. Joel is coming over with some fencing and they are going to try and fix all the gaps.

We Are Not Amused

In December I entered a contest on the Knit Picks website. It was a non-thinking contest, just pick out one of three sweaters you'd like to make from Knitty's Winter issue and say why you'd like to make it. I was floored when I was one of the three picked for the "Amused" sweater. I finished my January hat and January Mittens that I had committed to, so began the sweater last week. I'm loving the yarn. It is Swish in Marine Heather which is soft and beautiful and a wonderful color.

But, I have only made hats, mittens and baby clothes for the past few months and as I read through the pattern, would have rows that had (gulp) 324 stitches! I reminded myself that I have been finishing up large projects (afghans) and it was a top down raglan, hence all the stitches and no sewing up, so I could do this.

Size is a question since I have lost a bit of weight and have more to go, but I think the fit of this sweater will accommodate that and I can try it on as I go and adjust because it is a top down raglan.

What I've been doing this week:

Listening to hacking and coughing, Amy and her kids had colds and so does Pat

Had my first sock knitting class on Monday. Tomorrow we will do the heel

Tried to stay warm and out of snow drifts (it's official January was the coldest and snowiest since the infamous blizzard of '77 winter

Made soups (corn chowder and vegetable) and more Dilly Bread yesterday

Went through two bins of old hand knit sweaters and tried to decide what to do with them (more on that at a later date)

I crazily requested all the the Yarn Harlot's books from the library at once (there are 6 of them)and they all came in at the same time. Don't know why I didn't stagger them out a bit. I've gone through two of them and they are just like her blog, funny and well written odes to knitting and the crazy things knitters do, but I think I'll have YH overdose by the time I finish them all.

Really revelling in the return of Lost and all the Lost blogs and discussion groups. Ditto Battlestar Gallactica. I am amazed at how many knitters are BG fans.

Looking forward to the Super Bowl tonight. I should get through quite a bit of my sweater while watching.