Where Has The Time Gone!

It has taken me a while but hopefully I am back to blogging!!! Here is the picture of the rose grey yarn plied into skeins, still have not decided what I want to knit out of it. I was almost to the point the other day of going out in the yard digging a deep hole and putting all the computers and associated items in it and trying to get my sanity back!!We had the session with our internet provider and thought finally we would be on track.......but no....our router crapped out! Now this house was a ready built and we moved to this place and they had all the wiring for what ever run up into the back closet which has no light in it so we were always moving the clothes handling a flashlight etc etc when we had a problem, I have been asking ever since we moved into the house if we could just add on some extra cord and move the router out onto a cabinet right beside the closet.....the other person that lives here said it could not be done...asked older son....and he said you would need an electrical outlet near...I said there is one. So now it has been a few more years and we need a new router. So the other person that lives here went to buy a new router and comes home with the router....and wire and electrical box and a box to run the wire for the connection for the router and he has this great idea that he can move the router out to the cabinet. So it took him a day to that all done and then it came time to get all the computers..e reader...ipad and my iphone...printer..all to recognize the new router and we would be back in business. Should have waited until the next day when the other person that lives here was away....but no we would hook things up now starting with his computer (and his help)he pushes buttons without thinking etc.etc. Finally I left him to do his own thing and I got my computer up and running, got my ipad up and running and got my iphone up and running and got his ereader up and running and told him to just back away and let his computer have a rest. My brain has never been so tired. The next day he had to be off to town so I calmly sat down to his computer and got it running with the router. When the other person that lives here has computer problems I tell him to pack up his computer and take it to his Grandson. I sent a message to said Grandson......Brendan...this is your Grandmother speaking...I am giving you your Grandfather for all his computer needs.... Now with a new router...all the setting have been changed on all the computers etc and some programs are not working as they should so it is a headache finding what has changed so it can be changed back. My computer would not recognize my cameras or my iphone so could not download pictures....then I managed to download them and now can not do anything with the pictures. So while the other person who lives here is not home....I am using his computer because it will let me move pictures into my blog....do not tell him I am using his computer...because if he has a problem...it will be my fault. The picture of the tomatoes is the last of the tomatoes from the greenhouse, greenhouse has been shut down for the winter and I have got them all made up into sauce and in the freezer. They were so yummy all summer but I was glad to see the end of them finally.But now will start grumbling about having to eat store bought tomatoes.....

Spinning and Knitting!!

It has been a while since I have spun on my spinning wheel because of back and hip problems but had processed a rose/grey alpaca fleece and had bags of roving on sale on our market table but no one interested in grey, love the rose grey and it is hard to find, I had bought it off a friend...wish I had the animal, decided I would try to spin it myself and would limit myself to only spinning for about thirty minutes at a time. So that is what I have done and it is working out. I thought I would spin a 100grm skein for display but love!! spinning this fleece and have gotten carried away and it will be a 200grm skein, it is so soft and spinning so easy. So far I have one bobbin full and am working on another one.

Have been knitting wrist warmers for the market table but after the last few colder days RH said last Sat. guys were looking at wrist warmers for themselves, so better go have a look at my yarn stash and find something that would work for guys, it has to be sturdier than what I have been using.

This rose just keeps bouncing back after every wind/rain storm we have had, I just finished cutting off all her damaged flowers from the last storm and here she is full of flowers again!!

Another New Girl on the Farm

Another new llama girl on the farm, the auction mart phoned a couple of weeks ago and said they had a young female llama so RH went down and got her, she has been someones pet as she is very friendly but she was covered with those horrid large burrs...my fingers hurt just thinking about it....have had them in a alpaca fleece we bought. Her face, chest and down her legs were a matted mess, I was so worried they were right to her skin, you could not even pet her without getting stuck with pokes. RH got her into the stock trailer and got her trimmed up, she had never been sheared but she just stood there and the electric trimmer did not even bother her. The burrs were not to her skin thank goodness so he could leave some fibre on her so she should be o.k. if we have a cold winter. She fit right into the herd no problem. Was going to take a better picture of her but she looks pretty scruffy right now. The other thing RH did not tell me until later.....when he went to pick her up......she was in a big pen with a male llama......but he said there is no way he could have bred her as he had fibre to the ground.......famous last words.....marked the date on the calendar so we can keep an eye on her....could be a new addition next year.

Finally Tomatoes on the plants in the greenhouse, had bought a couple of larger plants to put in the greenhouse as I had so much trouble with the seeds sprouting last spring so had early tomatoes but do not think they were tomato plants to put in the greenhouse as when the tomatoes ripened they split open but they were yummy any way. After all my trouble getting seeds to sprout all these tomato seeds that were on the ground from last years tomatoes sprouted so had tomato plants all over the place, was so hard to pull them out so plants were not so crowded, did keep a couple and they are as large as the ones I had started. One plant produced a long string of blooms....if they all ripen I will have 26 small tomatoes off the one stem.

Hello to the new girl on the farm! We have to stop calling her the new girl and give her a name. People we got her from said she did not have a name......poor thing. A couple of weeks ago we got a phone call, people were looking for someone to come and get a llama, she had been a guard for some sheep and goats and they were gone and the place was up for sale. RH went over to see her and talk to the people and to see what was there to get her in to confine her so he could catch her, she was not wild but very leary of strangers and confused as all her friends were no longer there. We decided the best way to go about things were to bring some grain over and slowly get her into a corral area that was there. RH went over a couple times a day to put a bit of grain in a dish for her, she would wait until he was driving away then she would eat the grain, after few days she finally went in to the corral after he put the grain in the dish and he closed the gate....and she promptly jumped over the corral...ok back to thinking of another plan..the corral was not that high and llamas can really jump if they want to. The next plan was to take over some of our higher panels and make the corral higher so RH took the stock trailer and some panels over. The next week he would go over when he could and try to entice her in with a bit of grain and there was no way she would go in until he left.RH brought the stock trailer home, then we had rainy weather for a few days and he did not get over, then went back and the same thing...no way could he get her in so finally phoned the people and said he was going to have to leave it and if they could get her in to call us and he would go over and get her, he said he would take a small pail of grain over and leave it for them to use and they said o.k. they would work at it. So off he went to deliver the grain....now she had not had her treat for a few days because of the rain and when he put some in her dish....she went into the corral he made with the panels but before he could close the gate she got out, so he started to walk away.....and she went back in...and he got the gate shut. Now this has to be a miracle I tell you!! RH phoned all excited and said he had her and was on the way home to get the truck and trailer, he came home and got the stock trailer, said his friend was puttering down by his garage so he was going to stop and see if he would go along with him in case he needed help loading her. RH said he backed the trailer up and was getting things secured and his friend said....she is going to jump in the trailer by herself...and that is what she did! And here she is! We kept her separate from the others so they could get used to her being here and after a couple of days she was let out with the rest. It took a few days of settling the pecking order, our older female llama was more then miffed and would not let the new llama into the barn where we have a large fan going where they go in and cool off, but after a couple of days everything was fine and she is one of the herd! She is a nice calm girl and I think she is happy to have llama friends....now a name for her...

Retirement.....

I had an email from a friend the other day and she was wanting to know what retirement was as she was supposed to be retired and she was so busy she could not find time to do the things she wanted to do. I was coming back from the garden and this was what I found on the back step. I sent her this picture and titled it " This is retirement" These are our barn cats that are in retirement from being barn cats....they are now in the garage sleeping on fluffy pillows and if it is warm and the sun is out they meander over to the back deck and snooze in the sun. They are over sixteen years old so they have earned it.

Misplaced Knitting!!

This is a test blog to see if It will post, I have been trying to post a blog for ages and they end up in outer space some where!! The internet provider we had was taken over by another company and it has been ages since I have been able to download pictures from my cameras and iphone. The new provider came out a few days ago and put up a new dish for us and I have my pictures downloaded!! So here we go!!! I do not know how long it has been since I started this scarf, can not find the picture where I blogged about swatches to decide whether I wanted to knit this pattern in the multicolored yarn or a yarn of one color. I decided to go with the multicolored yarn and am glad I did, love the way the yarn is knitting up. The pattern is just one row repeated and can not remember where I found the pattern, I thought wow...only one row to remember...this should be easy.....well it was not that easy, for some reason just could not remember the stitches so was hard to knit on it when there were distractions around so it was always tucked away to knit on something else. Just found it again and decided I have to get it finished and surprise....not having a problem remembering the pattern so have been knitting away. Now the decision....is it long enough or should I just knit until the end of the yarn? I think...it has been so long....that I got the yarn from Knit Picks..O.K. just remembered I might have another skein of the yarn tucked away, just went to check and it is Knit Picks and it is a sock yarn alpaca/merino/nylon.I am going to hit post...and see where this goes.....if you are reading it...ya! It is working!

Gardening! Everything is Blooming

 Poppies are blooming, everything is so early this year! It is so hot out that the flowers just last a day so have to be out early in the morning to enjoy them and get a quick picture. Love them so much wish they would stay around longer! For my birthday I got a bird bath! I looked all last year and looked this spring but nothing caught my eye. I needed some thing that was heavy enough so the winds we get would not topple it over and a lot were two piece and I was afraid that Mango the young cat who adopted us would not jump up and dump the top off. Then when I was about to give up........here it was!! The perfect bird bath! They only had one! I said to RH hurry in and get someone to wait on us and I am standing guard over this bird bath! No one came to fight me over it before it was paid for and placed in the car. It is solid concrete so it will not blow down or be toppled by an energetic happy cat.
   I ( think....think....am whispering this..) think I have discovered how to move my pictures into blogger. I have been so frustrated for so long....here is hoping. All we have been doing is clearing out the gardens of weeds and more weeds! with the mild winter we had I am sure every weed seed grew!! Now it is so hot.....31C today all I do is water...and then water, getting up early in the morning to do anything in the garden. And everything is starting to bloom and bloom and bloom!!!

Dog Yarn Sweater Continued......

I will not get into what it has taken me to figure out how to get an imagine inserted into this blog......this time I have written down the detailed instructions. Now to remember where I left off on my knitting! O.K. swatches worked and I had one front knit and it matched the measurements, so on to the other front matching up patterns, so far so good and on to the back making sure the patterns were matching up to the front. Then it was on to the sleeves, she wanted the cuffs long enough to roll down to cover her hands if she wanted. Now this is where I got into trouble with some of the yarn being thicker in some places and thinner than others when I was knitting the raglan portion of the sleeve and the being creative in adding and subtracting rows and stitches, but finally got them the same size and it was at this time my allergy's kicked in......eyes and nose running...throat bothering me....and me starting to feel a little crazy and antihistamines not doing much good.......what am I to do?? I have to finish it. So on to the collar and I thought that should be simple...no pattern....just plain knitting....well.....it was not simple...shaping...shaping...every row was different. Finally had all the pieces knit...and I had to just tuck it away for a while and have a time out.
   Finally I had to bring it back out and get at it, I could not use the yarn I knit with to sew it up as I could not pull the yarn through the knit pieces so went through my stash and found a cone of llama yarn, mill spun, that was close to the color and blended in nicely. But first I had to knit a row of knitting down both fronts to sew the zipper in, if the pattern had been knit in the same yarn as the main body of the sweater I would not have need to do that but the yarn we used for the patterns was softer and would not hold up with the opening and closing of the zipper. So using the dog hair yarn and a crochet hook I pulled stitches through putting them on a knitting needle, I knit one row, then cast off the stitches leaving a strong area to sew the zipper in. Then off to sew all the pieces together...which took a couple of days, stitching the zipper in by hand......what can I say......it is better off if I do not say anything except I got it done. O.K.......sweater is sewn together....now it needs to be lined because the yarn is 100 percent dog hair which as no memory like wool does.....it will really stretch out of shape. I just happened to have some fabric....yes...in my stash ( I have a stash of everything) I had made paper patterns of all the knit pieces before I had sewn the sweater up. I cut  the lining pieces out of a scrap fabric so she could try it on for size, did some alternations to the pattern and made up the lining. Then the job of sewing the lining into the sweater....by hand.

              

And here is the sweater all finished! Dog owner came to get the sweater and I said wear it for a bit

and see if there are any problems and I have not heard from her. Am hoping that is a good sign....

The pictures I could not put on the DOG HAIR SWEATER post.....

You would not believe how much time! Loss of brain cells it has taken to get these two pictures into the blog. But I did find some thing new out......This is supposed to be the new improved Blogger?? But by all the complaints I have come across from people....there are no happy people! And to top that off....they want you to import your pictures from Picasa.......which I also learned....is in the process of shutting down...as they want you to use Google's photo save whatever...which I subscribed to...and now will not let me in...have to go in and find out what people are saying about that!! Anyway I have managed to download two photos, where they are going to be on the page who knows! And how I managed that I really do not know, can I do it again? Do not know!! I tried to download the original picture she gave me of what she wanted but could not get it to download...will try to figure that one out another day. I have the picture of my starting swatch to see if the yarn we were going to put with the handspun dog yarn was going to work and it looked like it would work. Now the job was getting patterns for the sweater charted! She is so small that the patterns I had or could find online did not go that small so finally found a site where I could download blank sweater charts and they had a small size. There were going to be patterns that had to match up on back and fronts and sleeves, remembering that the handspun was thick and thin and thank-goodness after being knit it formed a halo looking like fur so you could not see the rows and stitches clearly because in order to match the patterns there was some creative increases and decreases being made. The yarn shed so much in being knit that I was covered and everything in the house was covered with dog hair. I have so many allergies but so far was doing o.k. and to my amazement what I had charted and knit was coming out to the right size. I was repeating to myself....I am never touching dog hair again unless it is on a live dog!! The next saga in the making of the Dog Yarn Sweater will be continued when I can recharge my brain cells and get more pictures downloaded!

Troubles! Troubles1

Well I was speaking too soon when I said I could post pictures now........many brain cells have been lost....something is going on with blogger and I can not pin it down...except it has not been working and as if that wasn't enough....our internet has been getting slower.... and slower... until we could not open anything. They would not talk to me because my name is not on the contract.....it is only RH that they will listen to and he will not get his butt in gear and call them....until he could not download book to his reader from the library plus I was getting threatening....if only I thought of hiding his reader until he called them (have to remember that for next time) Well he finally called them and found out our internet provider had been taken over by another company which we did not realize, the original provider still had our old address and our e-mail address although it has stayed the same...they had not written it down properly. As we had not paid for our service for two months they had not totally shut us down they put us on the back burner so while still connected we could not download anything. So RH said he paid them and it would be working in a few minutes and they had emailed us so we could get our password etc etc sorted out and off he went to do whatever and he would not be home until late. The e-mail came up...but I could not open it because they had not fixed the problem....I finally called them...and they would not talk to me...of course....but I did say plenty...and RH could not call them from his cell phone....he had to call them from the house phone. They said he could call them when he got home as they are open 24 hours.So finally RH came home and called them (I said make sure my name is also on the contract too!!!!) So he is on the phone and I have to operate the computer....with my sanity hanging on by a string.....while the guy that controls our internet...can not get that we can not open up the emails he is sending. Finally it got through and I got the password whatever straightened out, but internet was not better. Finally the next morning it was working...while not great...I could download emails and open some sites. You do not realize how you depend on your computer working because you do all your banking and paying bills online these days.When you live out of town you have no choice of internet companies...you have to take what is there.So that is my rant!! Now to get blogger working or find another site to host my blog!! So away I go and hope to get another blog post written...and be able to post pictures...here goes....

THE DOG YARN SWEATER!!!!!

Here goes my latest...shall we say putting it mildly...adventure.....Daughter M.J. mentioned she was spinning dog hair for a young lady who had saved her dogs hair when she brushed her and her dog had passed away and she wanted the hair spun into yarn and she was looking for someone to knit it into a sweater.....I said do not look at me. A few months later daughter said the dog owner came to get the yarn and said she had picked up a business card from a table at the farmers market......it was my card.....RH has a market table at the local markets selling our llama and alpaca products, I have yarn and a few knit items on the table. Daughter said the lady would be calling me and she hoped I would knit the sweater for her as daughter had asked everyone in the guild and no one would knit the sweater. The lady with the dog hair yarn called me and brought the yarn over....and a picture of the sweater she wanted knit....no pattern...just a picture of a cowichan sweater...it had six different patterns in it.....I said you only have one color of yarn here...she said she wanted the pattern in the sweater to be turquoise...we would have to find some other yarn....It was just before Christmas so I said I can not even think about this until after Christmas, I had other items on order to knit plus getting ready for Christmas.I had spun a bit of dog hair into yarn for my niece at one time and I had carded the dog hair with some merino and alpaca fibre before I spun it, daughter had not carded the dog hair or mixed it with anything she just took clumps of dog hair out of the bag and spun it onto a stand of wool yarn....I think it was wool, it was thick and thin. The dog hair had been put through a rinse with a fabric softener....with a strong perfume smell....I have so many allergies and even having the yarn in the house was bothering me so I had to wash the yarn, phoned daughter and asked how she had washed the yarn as I had to wash the yarn to get rid of the smell of the softener, daughter said she had not washed the yarn after she spun it she just steamed it....O.K....I washed one skein...hoping it would not fall apart...it did not fall apart (thank-goodness) it actually felted it a bit which was a good thing, so washed the rest of the yarn and tucked it away. Now it is January and I have to deal with this sweater knitting. I charted two of the patterns from looking at the picture of the sweater, mentioned to dog yarn owner who is very small that I thought she would only want two patterns on the sweater as there was no room to put that many patterns on the sweater. I knit a swatch to get an idea on how many stitches per inch I would get so we match up some yarn as we needed a color for the pattern and a background color for the pattern and there was no way I could find the color turquoise in any yarn so sent Dog owner to look in a yarn store to see what color she wanted plus gave her the info on stitches per inch we needed, via pictures on iPhones we decided the colors to add to the dog yarn. So the swatching of patterns begin.

Finally Pictures.......I hope.......Here's Mango!

Here I go and hope it works! I have found how I can put pictures in my blog!!! It took me long enough! And here he is...Mango! Is hard to get a picture of him sitting down...he is always on the move...he is an energetic cat! We have three cats outside that are 15 years or older and they are putting up with him (barely) he wants them to play with him so he come up to them and jumps at them...play with me....they just give him a swat....do we have to get another younger cat for a play mate for him?? Now that I can post pictures on the blog......I will show you what I have been doing on the knitting front.....I think I need to be committed....why did I get roped into doing this ??? Stay tuned!

His name is Mango and We are his Human's

Good grief....just looked at my blog posts...where did the time go....the tomatoes are gone...munched...munched and it is time to start new plants for the coming spring. Last summer with no rain and watering steady I lived outside so blogging went by the wayside....like how many pictures do people need to see of a growing tomato....right. But can not wait until my flowerbeds start coming this spring. Last year was a sad year as we had to say goodbye to all three of our fur babies in the house, they had been with us for over fifteen years through two moves, living in holiday trailers etc while houses and barns were being built.First was Maxx the Jack Russel in the spring, then Sheba in the summer and finally Grey kitty in the fall and they are so missed. We decided to try to live without animals in the house for a bit. We still have three barn cats who are over fifteen years old and have moved with us too, we do not call them barn cats now...they are garage cats who live in a warm garage with a cat door, they move slower and spend their time soaking up the sun when there is sun. We have a younger cat Batman we inherited when we bought this place who had been terrorized by the two house cats and being the gentle sole he is he would not retaliate.....he would just quietly leave. Then we were adopted....by a cat....RH was out working on the garage and all of a sudden he came in the door and said look what I have....he was holding a small orange kitten....RH said he was up on the ladder and all of a sudden here was this little cat up on the step ladder with him. Where did he come from....we do not have really close neighbours. RH went around to the closest neighbours asking if they were missing a cat...no one was missing a cat but the neighbours to the south of us said they would take him, our older garage cats were not happy to have him around. So RH took him over to the neighbours. But I could not quit thinking about him....I said to RH...maybe you should go bring him back.....I do not know if he is being taken care of....RH said they said they lose a lot of cats to coyotes....I said go get him!! He didn't and the next night I did hear coyotes...and could not stop thinking about the little cat. The next morning RH came into the house and said look who has come back....he was holding the little cat and little cat showed me his sore paw as he had walked all the way back to us. I said he is going to stay here....little cat said...you realize I was a house cat....I said hmmm....do not think that is going to happen....take the warm garage and I will make you a nice warm bed. So off to the vets, getting neutered...shots etc....now he is called the million dollar cat. RH came into the house the other day and said I need some toys for that cat as he is taking all my stuff off the shelf to play with...so found him some toys. We were calling him Little Cat but now that he has grown a bit his name is Mango. He is the happiest cat, he loves the snow, found him gathering snow in his paws then standing up on his back legs and tossing a snow ball, then it was snowing and he was trying to catch the snowflakes. The older cats have decided he can stay and they will put up with him, he is Batman's shadow, he has so much energy and occasionally gets a swat from Batman. I am already worrying about my flower planters come spring and my flowerbeds...... I wanted to add a photo of Mango but for some reason between my computer and blogger this is not happening!! will add some photos when I get things working again....I am not happy...trying to not say bad words!!