Being comfortable and up high

while surveying your domain is a good thing.

 

Being disturbed while concentrating on your domain is not.

 

Sometimes you just have to resign yourself to people sharing you with the world. It's a hard job, but has to be done.

Cows In The Mist

Do you remember being the new kid in school?

Not really knowing anybody or having friends? Sitting all alone at the lunch table?
Some days are still seem like that.

Would you like some wine with that yarn?

So I had kind of this wild idea to try dyeing some yarn with some burgundy wine. The light colored skein was dyed at 100% (one quart wine to 100 grams yarn seems like one to one for my purposes) and the dark colored skein was dyed at 300% (aka: 3 qt/100 gr.) I think my experiment was successful.

The freshly stained deck has all the really important stamps of approval.

Is there anything more important than sunshine


and cats?

Non-flurried activities,

at least on my part, has included some knitting.

Would you believe me if I told I have made some more socks?
¡Los Fresa Platano Monos Locos! (aka 12/12+1 and as "The Strawberry-Banana Crazy Monkeys")
Started August 20 and finished September 13.

 

Pattern: ¡Los Monos Locos! – The Crazy Monkeys!
Yarn: Sunshine Yarns
Colorway: Strawberry-Banana

 

I also made a Gaia, also known as a small shawl or scarf. It used one skein of Noro Kureyon Sock. This started out as one of those "I don't know what I am going to do with it when it is done, I just want to make it" projects and I just have to say that I absolutely love the colors that were hiding inside the skein of yarn. (I am still not entirely sure what happens to it now that it is done, but I had fun knitting it.)

 

I have another shawl in the works. This one is using some yarn that was a gift in a yarn dyeing swap. I am absolutely loving these colors as well, and am really enjoying the idea of having a shawl for fall, even though I have never really though of myself as a shawl person.
There is also some incognito gift knitting happening around here and I will admit to having 13 and 14 of 12+1 on the needles.

One of the flurries of activity

These pictures aren't really about animals, though it might look that way. They are examples of why we needed to do something with the deck again this year. When we moved to the (non)mid-west ten years ago, our house did not have a deck, it just had a sliding glass door drop-off to the yard. After we had been here for a few years we were able to add the deck and then stained it the following spring. (For some reason it had to age a little while before that could be done. Don't ask me why, I am just repeating what I was told at the time.)
A few years later it needed to be redone, and the time had come, once again, for it to need re-staining. Apparently if you use translucent stain it lasts just about three years before you see wood instead of stain. Interestingly enough, that is what it says on the can too. Anyways, this was the summer it needed to be done. Of course this required a fair amount of work, mostly on Hubband's part (on account of our regular summer help not being home and we didn't get our act together to have Vet-Girl do it before she left for grad school).

 

I did help with the moving of plants off of the deck onto the patio, making and distribution of ice tea while work was done, and entertaining of animals in the house that really wanted to go see what was happening on their deck. The what was happening involved masking stuff (like the house itself) and stripping what stain was left with nasty stuff that animals didn't need all over their feet, despite what they may have thought about the subject.

 

That part of the deck project took two weekends but fortunately the animals were allowed out there during the week. Unfortunately all the normal deck furniture was down on the patio, but the bench got a bit more use than normal.

 

The next part of the deck project involved paintbrushes and rollers. I was still in charge of animal and ice tea wrangling; I guess I must be pretty good at them. (I must admit to also being in charge of general replenishing of the fuel consumption needed for the general labor contractor as well.)
Of course, after all the paintbrushes and rollers were put away and everything was dry, I helped with the returning of plants and furniture to their proper places. And since I was done with the basset herding job, they got to give everything the required thorough inspection.

 

This time we used an opaque stain that the can says lasts ten years, which sounds way better than doing this every three! Now we just need to do the favorite chairs too. Well, whenever I can stop knitting and stay out of them long enough.

In the last month plus,

there have been flurries of activity mixed with down time. There were several trips back and forth from here to Duluth (some of which involved me and some that did not); several trips to and from the Twin Cities; a visitor and some adventures; lots of vegetables and fruit continue to be had; some extra stuff done about in preparation for another winter and some fun and relaxing activities. (Though obviously not a lot of blogging has been done around here lately. I think that will be changing.)

In August Mr. A came for his annual "See how much I've grown" check-in. A lot would be the results of this year's report. This year's regularly scheduled expedition was on a big ship.

 

Once again they didn't allow pictures of the actual expedition, but I did manage to get some after lunch.

 

(As well a few around and about the house, but I decided not to torture him too much with having his picture taken. He was tortured enough by having to hang out with a couple of old people for his vacation.)

 

On the plus side, he did manage to score a pair of sock while he was here. (They were the 12th pair knit this year, but not 12 of 12. I didn't have the proper color of yarn already in my stash.)

 

There was a birthday last month (it was his idea to put the candles in the brats instead of the desert).


There is more to report, but that is for a different time!

Random Summer Wildlife

(All pictures taken through the kitchen window.)

Hello? Tap!

Hello? Tap! Tap! Anybody still out there?
(Yes, just in case any one is still out there, waiting around, checking in here and wondering, I am still here, on the other side of the computer screen.)