Farming

These photos are from about a week ago.Maybe I'm better at this than I thought?
Looking very forward to harvest time.

Lazy

I took a mental health day on Friday, if that's possible when you weren't scheduled to work anyway. I did not clean the house or mow the lawn though. I did a little laundry and a lot of knitting and I took a nap. Very therapeutic. Of course, now I have to get some work done. But I blog instead.

On Friday the sun was out.
We haven't seen a lot of sun lately.

I thought about mowing the lawn but left it 'till Sunday.

I thought about giving myself a pedicure but maybe tomorrow. You know you're being lazy when you won't even polish your nails.

I thought about cutting the last of the peonies, but that was left 'till the next day when it started raining again.
Mostly I moved my chair, following the sun through the yard with my knitting.

It was one of those days when the ball of yarn stays the same size even though you've been knitting for hours.
I still have to look at my students' homework and get ready for Thursday's class. Off I go.

BTW, Yarn bombing made Time magazine on June 20th. It's a brief article, but a little press is better than no press.

Hats

Hats are such a satisfying project; quick FOs. They're very portable too, which is always nice.

Last Friday at The Yarnery's Knit Night our hostess said that her 2011 project is to knit a hat every week. She was not clear about what she was going to do with them at the end of the year, but I guess she's working through her stash and getting a lot of FOs in the meantime.

I recently finished two hats - this one, made from the leftover yarn from the Faith Shawl, is for the Knitters' Guild chemo hat project of 2011:
I've made the pattern before, most memorably for Heidi, who still talks about how much she used that hat, and loved it, five years ago when she was going through chemotherapy. Yup, five years cancer-free, yeah!


This is MaryLou Egan's Knotted Cables hat, which I made for a friend of a friend of Boy-child last winter. I love the pattern and the Malabrigo Twist yarn is perfect for it (one skein, almost exactly).
I made it for Boy-child's advisor. I owe her and that school a lot, given that he's graduated.

I'm also working on Veronik Avery's Blue Point Stole made out of Viola, which I purchased on Groundhog Day in Alexandria, VA. It's impossible to photograph unblocked lace. I've dubbed it the Groundhog stole in honor of that outing.

Fortunes

Don't you love fortune cookies? I do. So silly, the anticipation of hoping to get a good one. I found one in my purse the other day and it let me down, but when I get a good one, I like to save it. I think Girl-child got me going on this little tradition.

Anyway, I have a couple of good ones on my bulletin board in my office. The second one is pretty recent. And it was accurate!

I've been trying to get signed on as adjunct faculty so that I can teach a class - kind of like a freshman seminar - and sure enough, I got one this quarter.

So much for leading a life of leisure this summer!

OMG

Ok, so it's an informal poll, and it's early in the election cycle, so it doesn't really mean anything, right?

(click to embiggen)

But will someone please tell me that Michele Bachmann is not going to get the GOP nomination? I remember when I was living in Spain in 1979-80 and folks were asking me about Ronald Reagan and I said, "Oh, there's no way he can win, he's too far out in right field to win!"

Somebody, please tell me she's not going to win the GOP endorsement! She's in a three-way tie for second place!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Poll available as Question of the Day on the Minneapolis Star Tribune. Or you can try here.

International Yarn Bombing Day

Grad

Boy-child was spotted in cap and gown last night.
Graduated. Finished. Didn't drop out, didn't flunk out didn't get expelled. Finished. On time.

I guess I'm not the only one; everyone's happy.

Knitting and Down at the Farm

I've been knitting sporadically. This is a new project I started with the yarn I purchased on Groundhog Day at Fibre Space (Blue Point Stole by Veronik Avery with an 81 st CO):
The yarn is a merino silk blend which makes it deliciously soft.

In the meantime, Miss Q's green birthday socks progress. At the moment there's only one toe left:

I finally finished the Faith shawl that I started in March, thanks to a fellow Raveler who sent me a ball of yarn when I (foolishly) ran out. The color is fairly close in the second photo:


Auntie's red socks are also progressing. That means I'll have two gifts done before summer officially starts.

Speaking of summer, we have an Excessive Heat Warning today. I guess a regular heat advisory isn't enough. I94 buckled in several places yesterday. I'm glad I don't commute during rush hour.

I was going to try to be less of an old lady and take fewer flower pictures but I can't seem to help myself. Miss Q gave me some iris that, if I don't kill them will probably look like this:

And finally, did I mention that Girl-child and I got a community garden plot? We did. We've planted sunflowers, tomatoes, bell peppers, cucumbers and sugar snap peas. I can't wait.

These poppies are in someone else's plot:

Our only harvest so far is asparagus, which are growing as leftovers from the previous occupant. They're delicious:
This is our plot when we first planted it:

And this is what the community plots looked like at that point:

If the heat doesn't kill everything we should have some great produce this summer.