The Snow is off the Tulip!!

Well the snow is off the tulip but we still have a couple snow drifts still remaining in the yard. Sun has been out but is not that warm and today the wind is swirling around the house....and the smell of smoke...is there a forest fire out there somewhere?? Am going to go out and blow down to the garden area in a bit and see if it has dried out enough to plant some seeds (if the wind goes down....don't want to plant the neighbors garden....) I can not believe the perennials have survived all the snow days we have had lately, they are tough little guys. Knit a couple of scarves, love this pattern, it is so easy to knit, is called a one row pattern. I had picked up this sparkly yarn a year ago but could not find a pattern I wanted to use until I found this pattern I had scribbled on a scrap of paper, can not wait to knit the pattern up in some of my handspun. Then wanted to knit something different and always loved this little sheep pattern...for some reason I keep calling it a bear...it had some cabling on the tummy but I did not care for it so did seed st. and I love it, looks more like fur.....see I did it again....I think I am going to say it is a bear. Just pinned some felt on for eyes and nose for now, trying to decide whether to use the felt or just emb.the eyes and nose on. Just heard from the mill they have my fibre processed and it is on it's way, wanted to have it all spun into yarn but the llama fibre was too long so they put it into roving but could spin the black alpaca into yarn. The black alpaca is from our Blackberry Boy, it was so silky so it should turn out great. Now hopefully the weather will warm up so we can get the llamas and alpacas sheared for this year. Meanwhile I am off to the garden to see what is going on down there!!

HAPPY MOTHERS DAY!!

This is what we woke to today!! my poor little tulip trying to bloom, I keep telling my perennials to hang in there as this can not last forever. Hope everyone has a great mothers day today, this is usually the day I go to the plant places to get some new plants.......but if you can not put them outside.....need a greenhouse of my own again..maybe a greenhouse big enough to just live it with all my plants!! Can always dream!!

Did I say Spring was here......silly me!!

I really did think that spring had come, got all the raised beds ready to plant, admired all my perennials coming up and then.....this is what we got....this is what it looked like a week ago. Snow and blowing snow with hurricane force winds, our power was out for fourteen hours one day. usually we can just go out and hook up the generator for a bit but RH had been doing some work in the barn and did not have it hooked up, he finally went out and got it going just before the power came back on. We have the wind fence and our winds usually come from the southwest but this time the winds and snow came from the northwest and really whopped us. Younger son Ryan had a few days off work so he came down from northern Alberta and brought his holiday trailer to leave, we always put it down on this side of the windfence so it has a bit of protection. When the wind and snow were coming from the northwest I suggested he maybe should sleep in the house, he said no he would be o.k. in the trailer....well...when I looked out the window when I got up in the morning the trailer had blown off the front support and was sitting at an angle, we were just going go down and see how he was doing when he came out of the trailer and blew up to the house. He said he felt it go down and was sleeping with his head lower than his feet. Later in the day when he came in from outside I asked him if it was still blowing so hard and he said he did not think so as he could keep his hat on. The drifts are slowly disappearing as the temp has not been that high. The llamas could even walk on the drifts without falling in, when I went out to take some pictures it was so icy it was all I could do to stay upright. We thought we had it bad but south of us they had more snow and the ranchers lost a lot of baby calves as they got buried under the snow, people we know who have llamas managed to get out to their pasture and could see the cows but could not find their llamas, finally they seen a couple of heads barely above the snow, they called neighbors and with everyone working shoveled them out, thank-goodness they were o.k. Sure glad we did not have the llamas and alpacas sheared as yet but shearing is going to be so late, fleece shows are coming up soon and entry forms have to be sent in, but we will not know what fleeces to put in until we shear and see what condition they are in after all this wet weather. Today we started out with sun but has turned into rain-snow. Planted a couple of dahlias and lilies in pots in the house thinking I would put them out during the day and bring them in at night until it warmed up, now they are going to get too tall. I am going to take them out to the garage and put them in the window, won't be so warm out there, hopefully it does not get cold enough to freeze. I am having a terrible time writing this post as I keep getting booted off, thank-goodness it keeps saving!! Hope I can post next week that we finally have spring....or maybe not...look what happened before when I said it was spring!!

Spring has arrived....hopefully!!

Now the snow has finally disappeared and spring has arrived we are now complaining about everything being so dry, need a good rain soooo bad. Other areas around us received so much snow a bit ago that roads were closed but we just got enough to cover the ground and it was gone the next day, the winds we are having right now are not helping. But on the good side I did get down to the garden and put some compost on the raised beds and got them all dug up and ready to plant, thought the mice had done in some of the little poppy plants I had started from seed last year but they are slowly popping up. We got some trees planted so had to water them in good and got a few trees pruned. Now have to get at the front flowerbeds.....that is the only place we have lots of green grass these days. Took a few pictures of our other barnyard children the other day, little Bella the baby alpaca has the funniest little face, pretty soon she will have the funniest little body too...shearing time!! The llamas we just do a poodle cut and they look so cute but the alpacas get the full haircut so look pretty naked for a bit. The boys Paxton and Cusco are really growing up but all their tussling around has left a lot of debris in their fibre so they are not going to be happy campers when it comes to getting cleaned up for their first shearing. Just heard from the mill I sent my llama and alpaca fibre to a bit ago and they are just getting ready to spin it up so will not be that long before I get it back, am pretty excited about that!! Had the carpenter in yesterday to finish up the oak railing going downstairs, it had so many funny curves but he did a beautiful job. Well better go and vacuum up the bit of sawdust he left. So glad to have that finished!! Hope everyone is enjoying that spring has arrived!!

Where does the time go!!

Time is going by so fast and it has been so long since I have written a blog post!! Bad Blogger!! But what can you say about painting trim and cleaning. Have to think back and see if anything else is new. I did get some alpaca fibre sorted and sent to the local mill to have some mattress covers and duvets made and have them back already, I put one of the mattress covers on my bed and love it, is so comfortable for the arthritic bones I tell you. Also sent some alpaca fibre to the mill to have socks made, do not have them back yet. Then sorted some of my better llama and alpaca fibre and washed it up and sent it to a mill down east to be spun into yarn, can not wait until I get it back, the mill owner said they could process it right away before the fibre arrives from the spring shearing, so it should not be that long. In a week or so depending on the weather we have to start shearing our llamas and alpacas, we do it ourselves so it takes a while. This year we have four young animals that it will be their first shearing and their fleece is such a mess so will have to clean them up first, much easier to clean the fleece on the animal than stand at the sorting table picking all the debris out. Last night north of us had a snow storm blow in but all we got was the wild wind, we are so dry here the ground is still brown so hope some moisture is on the way, have been trying to get a few small trees moved around in the yard hoping the moisture will come or we will be watering, I had to water the front flowerbeds as they were so dry, had the water going last night and when I went out to turn it off there was ice forming on the fence so it is not that warm yet. Got a few pictures of Blossom and Posy the other day, Blossom was the one that never wanted her picture taken and Posy was always wanting hers taken, now it is Blossom coming to see what I am doing and Posy saying no way she wants me to take pictures, funny girls. Have to get out to the other paddock and try to get a new picture of Bella the little alpaca, I seen her the other day chasing the gophers in the pasture, wish I had been close enough for pictures, it was too cute.

Is Spring Here Yet???

I really have to get my act together, time is running away from me but am really glad it is March already....what happened to February.....Oh...now I remember....the Olympics, thank-goodness for the Olympics, I think we need it every year to make February go so fast. Do not know what happened to us this year that we went so crazy keeping up with everything that was going on, usually we have our favorites and make sure we watch them but no this year we were totally addicted. Every morning I would say to myself....I am not turning the T.V. on until noon but...it was just like a magnet.....the T.V. would just suck me over to turn it on. I did get quite a bit of knitting done, I knit up some wool hats to felt and got them felted, now just have to decide if I want to put some decoration on them, have to think on that a bit. Have been knitting a couple scarf/hat sets out of a cotton acrylic yarn plus doing some house cleaning, the living room has seven windows with venetian blinds on them, have cleaned six of them and hopefully will get the last one cleaned tomorrow, RH was repairing a crack above that window. Have also been painting all the window frames and baseboards, they only had the undercoat on them. So everything is pushed into the middle of the room and it is getting to me, have decided everything will be back into place tomorrow. Weather has warmed up a bit and most of our snow has disappeared, usually when it warms up we get these terrible winds.....I am whispering this.....(we have not had any wind lately) The weather is changing all over the world....so is someone else getting our wind? The weather getting warmer is getting me in a panic to order my garden seeds. Snow has melted back from my flower beds and so far I do not see any mouse damage. Vegetable garden is still under snow and hopefully everything is good down there too, last year all the little fruit trees were munched off and came from the ground up, so here is hoping they are o.k. today we had so many little birds fluttering around, hopefully that means spring is just around the corner.

I am still here!!

A friend just e-mailed me this morning to say I had not posted for a month.....have I been hibernating for a month? Is it spring yet? I was not going to crawl out of my cave until spring arrived, we have had so many days of fog so bad up here on the hill you could not see six inches in front of your face but this morning the sun is out and I broke my hibernation as I was sure it was spring and had a panic attack as I have not ordered my seeds yet. Plus when Feb. arrives I get this urge to spring clean and have been trying to suppress it. After two months of suffering with my sore foot I can finally say I can feel that it is a bit better and last week just spent two hours in the dentist chair getting seven fillings redone, you are really getting old when you out live your fillings. Now my biggest problem is getting the computers straightened out, finally got my new laptop and for a while it was so great, son Tom hooked up a router so I could use the laptop where ever in the house......then.....one day a blue screen came up saying windows had problems and I could not open anything up.....it took me a week but I finally got windows up and running but can not get it to communicate with the router so have to come into the computer room and unhook the net from the computer in here to hook mine up. As the weather has been so bad RH has been on the computer steady with getting his income tax all ready for the accountant and all the Llama Canada business attended to. Do not know about this windows 7 I tell you, now all our other programs are not compatible with windows 7!!!!!! We had just got a new printer fax scanner not that long ago......it is not recognized by windows seven!!! have finally got the printer to work but not the scanner or fax. Is going to take a while to sort all this out, really did not need this headache. Was just wondering the other day.....after I had been working at sorting out computers for half a day.....can a person claim temporary insanity if they commit a terrible act after fighting with a computer for hours??.....just wondering...When the weather and roads clear up son Tom will be out to get me back on the computer track.
Meanwhile thank-goodness I have my knitting to hold on to my sanity! Have not counted how many socks and slippers I have knit while in hibernation,just keep piling them up. Finally got off the sock run and knit a hat to felt, actually it was knit twice, I hate it when you buy a pattern for something.....the picture they show is so great but what you knit from the instructions they give you is not!! My goodness do not know what this hat would have fit, it was so big there was no way it would felt down enough for a human to wear!! So ripped it out and worked with another pattern, still looked really big but after I put it through the washer a couple of times it turned out great. Decided to knit swatches of the wool I wanted to make felted hats out of and try to figure out how much each color would felt before I started knitting which is what I should have done to begin with. What a difference in the felting of the different colors.....note to self....always do a felt swatch to find out if the item you are making is really going to felt or not. Making the swatches showed me that there was no way I should be using the dark brown to felt something, it felted very little and the green really felted in length as compared to the rest. Now will see if I can put all this knowledge into practice....right?? We will see!! Well better go get at the day and enjoy the sunshine we have not seen for weeks. Posting a picture of my jade plant, of all the years I have owned a jade plant I have never had it bloom!! This one had bloomed twice.....do you think with all the dark and dreary days we have had it thought the end of the world was coming so it decided it better do something spectacular??