The timber harvesting should be coming to an end soon. Some very large oaks and an ash were cut this week, a couple exceeding 3' in diameter.
I feel badly that Grover seems to be hogging the spotlight anymore. Rowdy is still along with us all the time, he is just not as agile as he used to be. He had an acunpuncture session last week, which did seem to help a good bit for a few days. We will try it again for a few sessions next month, but until we return from our trip to Oregon, there is just no time, which sounds bad, but the clinic is over an hour drive each way and the treatment is a good 45 minutes. We shall see how it works out.
This will be a brief post. I have so much going on and not nearly enough time for all of it. I am getting ready for lots of house guests this weekend. This will be our 17th Labor Day weekend on the farm and for every one of those weekends we have had a number of my family members come to stay. It is a highlight of the summer and of the year. On Saturday we also invite the neighbors and friends and acquaintances to come over for a cookout. We never know who will show up. This year is kind of hard because I have always loved having my niece and nephews here and they are now living in the Phoenix area and well, the drive is a bit long. However, my older niece (other brother's daughter) who was with us on the first ever Labor Day, plans to be here with her husband and their 5 week old baby boy, Blake. The newest generation continues the tradition! I look forward to seeing him getting muddy and wet and dirty and exhausted in the next several years.
My tomatoes are really just beginning to come ripe. It is so late. But is has been a cool summer. I actually purchased a half bushel of roma tomatoes last week and canned 7 quarts. The rest of them are being added to some of our own tomatoes and going into a progressive tomato sauce that is in the fridge right now. Not sure when it will get canned. Friday? Monday?
Otherwise, I put a coat of Kilz on the ceiling and walls of the guest house living room this week. Ugh, I used the oil based stuff to cover soot discoloration and it was no fun. I still have paint speckles all over me. Mom is supposed to arrive today and work on getting that room painted before the weekend.
I have some fiber projects that I did not have room for last week, so since I am short on other material this week, photo-wise, I will post those today.
I started and finished a cowl called Zuzu's Petals
It is a quick knit and I did it with some leftover yarn from a shawl I knit a couple years ago. The yarn is a commercial gradient that came in several little skeins that shift gradually from one color to the next. It came out pretty.
The other is one I am really pleased with so far. This is a sweater I am knitting from my own alpaca/wool yarn that I had commercially spun at Morningstar Fiber Mill. I then hand-dyed it. To the right is the front of the sweater. Because this is a hand-dyed variegated tonal yarn, I am knitting with 2 skeins at a time. The reason for this is that sometimes, even though the yarn was all dyed in the same pot, there can be color variation from skein to skein. If I knit one row with one skein and the second row with the other skein, I can keep it from being glaringly obvious if this is the case. I am more than happy with how this yarn dyed up as well as how it is knitting. I hope to acquire another nice wool fleece or 2 soon to have more of this blend done up. I should be able to do so at either the Wool Gathering or at NY Sheep and Wool in Rhinebeck later in October.
This will be a long sleeved henley style pullover sweater. It has a lace pattern on the back. I hope you are able to see that in the photo to the left. The pattern is
Happy Labor Day and End of Summer to you!
The sweater and cowl are both beautiful. Love the pattern in the cowl and the colors too. What do you want me to bring Sat. other than deviled eggs. Sorry Jill will not be here to enjoy them. The rest of the family will be missed to, but know Jill liked the eggs.
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