Works in Progress Wednesday

I haven't done a WIP Wednesday in forever. Since I'm trying to bring everything back to the blog, and share what my projects are, I figured today would be a good day to post a WIP Wednesday. 

Let's see .. currently on the needles is a vanilla sock.  Shocker, I know. 

Knit with Knit Picks Felici yarn, in the "Dark Prism" colorway.  I think.  I have both ball bands but do you think I can find them right now?  They are on my Chiagoo 24-inch circs., U.S. 1, 2.5 mm.

I have one sock complete.  I finished it last week, while on vacation.  I have been really bad about keeping a knitting journal this year, so I don't know when I cast the first one on. 

I'm about 5.5 inches into the cuff of the second sock.  I want to go about another 1.5", or so, before making the heel flap. 

I showed the first sock to my husband, told him the name of the colorway, and asked him if it reminded him of anything. He said no. I said "Really?  This reminds me of the Pink Floyd album cover. 

The other project I'm actively working on is a set of tea towels, made from Peaches and Creme cotton, in the "Ocean Stripes" colorway. I've been watching a lot of weaving videos over on Bluprint/formerly Craftsy. I think I mentioned this already ... 

Anywho, I have one towel done and I've just started the second one.  Hopefully, the finished size will be about 18" wide by 24" long. The first one went together really quickly.  

Since I'm working on tea towels, you know that means I finished the woven scarf I was working on. 

When I pulled this scarf off the loom I fell in love with it.  I LOVE the finished product.  I wish the yarn wasn't so ... hairy and sticky in the loom.  I'd love to have a wider and longer shawl made out of this yarn.  I'm thinking I may bite the bullet and make something down the road out of this yarn. 

I tried taking a photo of the scarf outside, hoping the sparkle would show.  Not so much.  I never would have thought all that sparkle wouldn't photograph well. 

The months that flew by ... And now we are in to June

Where did April go?  Oh, that's right, I was busy baby chick wrangling.

April is this sort of haze of baby chicks, incubator alarms going off, turkey calls, and tending to all sorts of chicken-related chores.

We've hatched out quite a few baby chicks in April, and was able to see them off to their new owners. All "totes adorbs" and sassy in their own little way.

And now May is one-third done with. We are almost halfway done with June. Where is the time going?

Since May started we've experienced some really nice weather days. However, since I last posted an entry, we've experienced more cold, windy, rainy days than should be legal. The wood stove is still running in the evenings.  Sometimes we get it going in the morning. Depends on the temperature inside the house. Yes, that's right.  In *June* we are running the woodstove.

So, a chicken and turkey update. ...

Well, the turkey's have grown significantly, and are out in the open air coop.  They are happy to be outside but are eager to start spreading their wings, so to speak.  We are thinking that this weekend we will let them venture out on their own for a bit.  We will need to keep the big ladies in their coop for a while.  They know each other's smell but I'm not quite ready for a face-to-face meeting.

Believe it or not, the fat babies grew up and had a fabulous life.  They are already in their permanent home in the freezer.

They were processed last week. Thirty birds in two batches. We are happy to have it taken care of so soon in the season.  Sounds like we are ahead of everyone else too.  One person we were speaking with said her birds were nowhere near ready to be harvested.

We still have a mess of chicks.  They are going on two months of age now, and loving life out in the little coop. Bit by bit, they are all going to their new homes.  And that's okay.

My son is all done with school for the year. It's amazing how fast the school year went.  He was sad to see the year end.  However he is greatly looking forward to Y camp, and being a middleschooler next year. I'm still wrapping my mind around him being in middle school.

I've been doing a little bit of knitting.  Bits and pieces, here and there.  For a while I was cranking out a few dishcloths. Then I made a couple bookmarks.

Currently I'm working on a vanilla sock using this yarn. The sock is my purse knitting.  I've been knitting it a few rounds a day.

 

I have about an inch and a half more to go before I can place the scrap yarn for the afterthought heel.

The Pamuya Shawl. Cascade heritage yarn.  It's deep stash yarn and I have long since lost the ball bands.  I'm cranking along slowly.  This is my second attempt at the pattern.  I need to be focused when I work on it.

 

A mood scarf. A different color for each day, for the month of June.  I need to take a picture from today.  This photo is a few days old.

On the garden front, I *finally* got the garden in this past weekend.  Then the next day we had hard rain and I'm not sure if my seeds washed away. I should know within the  next week if the seeds stayed or not.

No reading has been happening, sorry to say. I haven't been in the mood, which is odd, because we have had so many rainy days.

Now that summer is in full swing things are going to be busy, busy around the homestead. I'm enjoying the little bit of down time before the garden starts sprouting (fingers crossed) and all the other things that will be occupying my time. Thanks to some "found" free time, I've written my first blog entry in a few months, I won't be quite so hesitant about writing again and trying to think of ALL that stuff that's been going on.  Now would be a time to mention my Instagram, Twitter and Facebook social media, I think.  I post photos a lot more frequently than I blog, lately. I didn't mean to, it just happened. The buttons to my other social media is on the right side of the blog.

Well, I guess that's the jist of the last couple months. :-) Let's get in touch again, sooner than later, okay?

A crappy thing happened on the way to work

It was a bit of a rough morning at the homestead. My son told me earlier in the week that he had been picked to participate in the school's spelling bee.  He said he didn't want to participate but got picked because of a "fluke." If I understand correctly, four students from each class were chosen to advance to this level of the spelling bee. 

Anywho, he *really* didn't want to do it. There was a little gnashing of teeth and maybe a few tears, mixed with a whole lot of "I don't wanna."

I promised him I'd pick him up something special today.  He was appeased slightly. 

Off I went to work.  I was cruising along on the highway when I saw something brown-reddish out of the corner of my right eye.  I glanced over just in time to see a bird the size of a chicken fly into the passenger window of my car. 

Not cool!

Never in my driving career has a bird decided to fly into my car like that. Ugh.

When I got to work I inspected the impact area. To my relief there was no damage.

And then I shifted myself and looked at my side mirror.  Oh-em-gee! The whole outer shell of my mirror is gone.

 When I took a second look at the mirror when I was in my car I realized the whole thing has shifted some how.  I haven't tried to adjust the mirror yet and I can't see if the defrost works. 

Grrrr.

I spent most of the day fretting over the potential cost of  having to replace the mirror. Because, the more I thought about this, I figured I would most likely have to replace the whole thing.

Fortunately my guy has good google-fu when it comes to finding deals.  He was able to find a replacement part for much less than I thought it would be. There is a youtube video where someone explains how to replace the mirror. Fingers crossed for me please.

Work was fairly quiet. I made myself go out at lunch time and the sun was out.  The temps were over 30 degrees F and the snow was a bit melty.  If I didn't know better I would have sworn it was spring time.

The special goody I got my son?  A brownie box mix. He was a happy camper when I pulled the brownies out of the oven.  I had only a small nibble.

 My son told me tonite that he didn't make it all the way through the spelling bee.  He got flubbed up on the word "truffle." I'm proud of him.

A few days ago I started my shawl. I'm four repeats into a 10 repeat pattern.

I've tried doing a little bit more tatting but I haven't been successful with anything yet. The pieces haven't turned out right or something weird happened while I was pulling the thread through the stitches. 

I'm feeling very TGIF-y for tomorrow.

Pseudo-lazy Sunday

After doing our bi-monthly trip to a town about an hour away this morning we decided to trek out and check out the blueberry bushes out and about. We are still looking for berry spots.

So we wandered up and down this road and that. 

The sky was a perfect blue and the clouds were so pretty.  Even the darker ones. 

While we were looking there was a quick rain storm. It lasted only minutes.  Big fat raindrops. 

We pulled over on one road and hopped out of the car to take a look.

There were *some* berries but not much. Soon, though, very soon, there will be plenty.

We picked and kept about half a cup of berries.  I know my son was eating them as soon as he was picking them. If I was nice, I could make blueberry pancakes to celebrate the first pick of the season. 

On one of the other roads there were wild roses growing in the ditch.

I haven't seen wild roses in years. 

In knitting news, I'm all done with the shawl I was working on. I cast off this morning and weaved the ends in tonite. It's currently all folded up and tucked away.  It is the Splendid Triangle Shawl by LionBrand. I used HomeSpun yarn.  I love this yarn for comfy shawls.

Now to pick out the next project.

Daily 5 things of the day that made me happy

1. Getting lots of groceries without breaking the bank.

2. Watermelon for dessert.

3. Going out on an "adventure" with the family.

4.  How well all the chickens put themselves to bed each night.  I may have said this one before but it really does make the evening easier.

5. First really good corn on the cob of the season.  Mmm, when it's good, it's good!

The last of my vacation

The weather has been not so great the last few days.  So, nothing much going on except for rain.

I dragged my son in to Cost Cutters on Friday so he could get a much needed hair cut.  I can tell he likes it because he's been a bit more spunky than usual.  We had a surprise lunch with my guy, too.

Saturday we got up and went fishing. I can sense a tradition in the making.  I'm fine with that.  Gives us all a chance to do something together, gives my son a chance to learn something that he really enjoys and the boys get brunch.

I caught a big sunfish and a decent sized bass this week.

The sunfish was pretty.

The bass looked like a bass. Both were tasty.

We let the guineas and turkeys out with the big girls and Roos the later part of this week.  Everyone played along well. Actually they stuck to their own groups.

I had let the little babies out and they ended up hiding under the coop.  We caught them and put them back in their own coop. It's been decided the chicks are not mature or big enough to hang with the other chickens. They are quite content in their little coop.

The guineas and turkeys are starting to explore and stretch out their boundaries. It makes me nervous.  I'm still impressed with how quiet this group of guineas are.

Elvis is still broody and we put her out of the coop yesterday and today and she ran circuits around the coop, looking for a way back in.  She was chugging like a locomotive and that naughty Buck tried to make hearts with her. Elvis shrieked and Brewster came running and body slammed into Buck.  It was a sight to see.  You can always tell when Buck is up to no good. He's trying so hard to be with the girls and none of them want anything to do with them.  Half the time the girls beat him up.

In other chicken news: We have just the four baby chicks hatched out from the incubator.  My guy and I did some research and realized we had the settings set incorrectly on the incubator.  In fact, these four babies are pretty darn lucky to be alive.  The incubator is set for degrees Celsius and I had it set too warm.  I'm pretty sure I had the humidity set too high as well. 

So yeah, four very lucky little babies.  The last one to hatch out almost didn't make it.  We have another little runt and I think that one might be a boy.  Why?

Because yesterday we went to Hayward and stopped at the Fleet Farm and picked up ten new babies and when we put them all together, the little runt got all territorial.

Yes, we bought more babies.  Five Rhode Island Reds and Five Black Australorps. 

They all seem to be playing nice together.  And yes, I have chickens back in my craft room.

Speaking of crafts, since the weather has been a bit cruddy, I've been knitting.

I knit three dishcloths. I really do like the Ballband dishcloth pattern.

Yesterday I started a Splendid Triangle shawl from LionBrand.

 I got a lot of the shawl done and when I was admiring it after completing a repeat I saw that I managed to flip the repeat somehow and I was working the pattern on the wrong side.  Grrrrr.  Since this may end up being a gift, I have to rip it back and rework the last three repeats.  If the weather stays raining I could have this done by the end of the week.

Since today was Father's Day I cleaned my guys car and washed the outside. He was very much appreciative.  We picked out a nice steak for supper and he smoked it and finished it off on the grill.  Oh, it was good!

Tomorrow it's back to the grind.  Vacation was great while it lasted.


Daily 5 things of the day that made me happy

1. Getting to sleep in just a bit.

2. Bananas and cool whip.

3. The steak my DH made for supper.

4. Hearing the frogs right now.

5. The guineas and turkeys put themselves to bed tonite. 

Sunshine on the homestead

It was my work at home day. It was a good day for it.  I took a walk around during my lunch hour and snapped a few shots (partly to prove that I *did* go outside).

The start of our wood pile. You can't see it, but there is a LOT more wood there than you can see.  With more to be added this weekend.

Our solar panels.  I ran the solar power almost all day. At one point we were capturing 600 watts of power.

Here's the sun. It was bright and beautiful.  Did I mention that the temps were nice too?  Temps hit the 20s today.

My guy worked near home today so I offered to make him lunch.  He decided that he'd like hamburgers so I set out to make hamburger buns. However, I had *just* enough flour.

I also set up my new phone.  Two words: Love it! I told a friend that I feel like I can do anything.

So I took my phone out to the coop and took a video of Brewster crowing. 

Elvis decided to teach the babies how to scratch.  And boy did she!  Pine shavings were flying this a.m. Then I saw one of the babies picking at the feed station then trying to scratch the purple plastic and look for food.  It was really adorable. What was *not* adorable was the pine shavings being thrown into the water dish.  The poor babies had no water when Elvis was done scratching.

It is religious ed nite so I took my son out for dinner before class.  We went to A & W and used a g.c. from my MIL.  (Thanks D! )

By the time we got to church my son was hyped up on sugar so he ran laps around the parish hall.

Some knitting was done today, but about an hour's worth of work. This a.m. when I picked up my shawl I realized that I wasn't actually done with the section that was giving me fits.  Tonite when I was knitting I realized that I was off one stitch on one side. Counted many, many times and opted to add a stitch.  Then I worked the next section and counted the stitches again and now I have one extra stitch.  That's when I decided I was done for the night. 

Daily 5 of things that made me happy today

1. Having lunch with my guy today

2. My new phone.  It made me very, very happy today.

3. The temps broke the 20s today.

4.  Seeing the baby chicks "scratch".

5. Showing my son his ultrasound pictures.  He forgets and then wants to see them every couple of years.  I get a kick out of seeing his expressions of looking at his own baby pictures.

Another hard day, but baby chick pics make it worth it

Today was another day full of splitting and hauling wood.

The guys went out at 6 a.m. and split wood for more than an hour.

We also made another video of the log splitter in action. 

This is the Homelite log splitter that we picked up at Home Depot.

I can't remember what time I went out and my son and I started moving wood from the garage to the storage area.

While I was thinking of it, I ran into the house and grabbed the camera to take a few photos.

This is what the log pile looked like from the outside. 

My DH cutting up the big logs for the second load to be split.

 "Why are you taking my photo?"

Getting ready to climb the pile a bit.

My son working hard.  When he noticed that I was taking photos he said "Hey! You aren't helping!"
 

This is a smallish load.  I used the wooden sled to haul wood.  My son used a plastic blue sled.  The plastic sled has split in half.  I hope I can find another sled somewhere.  Having two sleds going is pretty ideal.

Even though it was in the negatives this a.m. I didn't mind it.  I decided that I"d rather be doing this now than in the fall when I would have the chance to get hot and tired out faster.  Now, the harder I work I'm just more comfortable. I wasn't cold. 

Around lunch time we decided to head to Hayward.  After we came home and ate lunch we went back out and started splitting the second load and stacking it.

Meanwhile, someone came and delivered a load of seasoned wood.  So when we do get the wood stove completely installed we will be able to burn right away.

We wrapped up about 6 p.m.  I was tired, mostly tired of bending over.  My son was still in good spirits and my guy was tired and was ready to be done.

Earlier in the day I snuck back into the house and snapped some photos of the chicks. 

We can tell that the babies have already done some growing.  We can also tell Elvis is feeling a bit restless because she can't leave the tote.  She stretches her wings out and she's taking a "bath" in the pine shavings already.  She's also very interested when the towel is lifted and the whole thing is uncovered.  Yeah, she may head back to the coop sooner than later. I'm sure she will be happy to be able to stretch her legs though.  The babies may miss her. 

Currently we are watching the Olypmics. Specifically, the men's downhill skiing.  Those guys are flying!

Some knitting did happen today but I stopped before a section that required just a little bit more brain power than I have. 

 

I may pull out the wheel and do some spinning before bed tonite. 

1. We are done with wood for a week.  It will give my body a chance to recoup.  I'm just not used to this physical labor! :-)

2. Pistachios. So good! They hit the spot tonite. 

3. I'm so very impressed with how well and hard my son worked.  He made his mama proud! 

4. My big warm comfy  bed.  It's gonna feel good tonite. 

5. Getting to watch some Olympics tonite.