Where does the time go!!

I can not believe that it is already the 22nd of April!! I have lost a couple of weeks somewhere!! But we have been busy, we have had our farm for sale for the last year and never had one call from anyone, we were not in a hurry but wanted to downsize in the future. Well a couple of weeks ago we had a couple of out of province call and were coming to see our place and the same weekend we had another couple phone and want to come out. The second couple wanted to buy so that is what we have been doing, we have been back and forth to the lawyer getting everything signed etc. and then have been madly looking around for somewhere for us to move to. The places we had liked were already sold and the couple we liked the area and the houses as presented on the web but when we went to look at them( pictures are deceiving)....one I think will have to be demolished and the other one had a disaster of a floor plan. We kept coming back to this other place but hesitating as the house had no basement and the question was...can we downsize that much....   but the good thing was there are no neighbors right next door except for the ones in the cemetery across the road from us and I am sure we are not going to have a problem with them because of our animals, might have to make a little suit for our Jack Russell Maxx if he insists on attending funerals. We will have to build barns and put up safe fences but the people that have bought our place have no problem with us keeping our Llamas and Alpacas here until we get fences up. It is going to take some time until I get the garage set up for my work room so this month I will be busy sorting fibre and carding fibre to carry me over until I get a work space.
    Meanwhile back on the ranch this is what my garden area still looks like!!! We have had eight inches of wet snow twice lately and the temps have not been that warm so it is not disappearing that fast.

We have never had this much snow out here in April, when we get down off the hill the snow is almost gone but we must have our own weather up here. The little birds have been fighting over the nesting boxes, hope they wait until warmer weather to lay their eggs. have been putting out seed bells for them as they are so hungry, with all the snow cover is hard for them to find food.
   As I can not get out in the yard I have been busy carding my Llama and Alpaca fibre, mixing it with different wools. Cleaned up the carder so I could get some white carded, is a job getting all the black and grey fibres out of the carder, so while I have the white run going am going to try to card most of it then work my way down the other colors.

The grey I carded before starting on the white and I mixed some superwash Merino wool with it, the white I wanted to mix superwash Merino and silk with it but I had the Alpaca fibre washed and dehaired at a mill and the alpaca was so soft and fine it broke it down a bit so have carded it with a longer staple wool and it is working out great. mixed some with some BFL I had and then some with some Corriedale wool roving I had, wanted to get the white all carded up but think I am going to run out of wool to mix with it. Although I have some cream colored llama fibre that mixes well with the merino/silk. And...we still have to try to get our animals sheared before we move.......we have a lot of challenges ahead of us......we have done it before but we are a bit older now.

For some reason my Christmas Cactus are still blooming...maybe it could be the snow they see out the windows???

Love this plant as it is the original plant of my Grandmother's and must be well over fifty years old, I better start some new ones from it just incase. The flowers are so beautiful. The other problem when we move is where am I going to put all my plants!!

I also have about twenty-five African Violet plants too, they need to be repotted which means when I am done there will be more, some have formed extra plants in their pots, so glad it is going to be warm when we move.
   Have not even had time to wash and block my sweater. Everything should be final of the sale of the place next week so will hopefully get back to the fibre thing as it is going to take some time to dry up for me to get in the flowerbeds and then I better start packing!!!

Here she is.......almost finished...with my Sanity intact...I think??

Well we had another big snow storm, lots of snow and blowing snow to replace the snow drifts RH had just cleared away so he is at it again but this time the temps are up so snow is wet and heavy. Hopefully this is our last big snowfall!! Am more than ready for green grass and my flowers!!

On the weekend when the snow was coming down and wind howling I decided to just ignore the weather and get the sweater finished no matter what, what a knitting adventure I tell you!! As the gauge they had for the sweater did not work I had to figure out how many inches they got with their gauge and add extra rows as I went along hoping I would have a wearable sweater for someone, is really hard when you are working on so many stitches but I got it finished up to the shoulders and then picked up the stitches to knit all the way around the sweater opening to make the shawl collar and finish down the fronts and cast off and could not believe it almost fit, right now is a bit snug around the hip area but we will see after I get it washed and blocked, I did make it a bit longer than the pattern said so that could be the problem. The pattern was designed to be open with a tie belt but I am going to put a zipper in up to where the shawl collar starts. love the shawl collar. What a great feeling to finish it and see that it all came together!! Just have to get all the ends woven in and get it blocked.I just noticed the picture looks a bit out of proportion at the angle I took it, will have to get a better picture when it is blocked.

At one of the Christmas markets I ordered a yarn pot from a potter who had his table there and I just picked it up the other day and I love it! It works so great, now am not having my ball of yarn rolling all over the place. Used it when I was finishing the sweater. Pot is heavy enough it will not move unless you move it, he put two holes in it so I could put two small balls of wool in it if I was knitting with two colors.....I think...will have to try it.

No flowers outside right now but the African violets in the house are making up for it, could not believe the bloom on this plant, does this mean spring flowers are just around the corner......but then the Christmas cactus also have blooms on them.......who can I believe??????