Perfect Pie Shawl

I was working a home and garden trade show when I started this shawl. I had brought the book ' Weekend Knitting' by Melanie Falick with me to keep me occupied, and decided on a whim to go to the kentucky crafted show that was next door. Bought a few skeins of Kid Mohair Blend from Koenig Farm Spinnery and got started right away. The pattern is actually a pattern from Veronik Avery. I opted to use the knit lace edging as opposed to the crochet edging and I really like how it turned out:)

Close up of Shawl Detail

whole shawl

It's a Bee Thing

More like a bee removal things;) I know Bill is happy, but I'm a little sad to see our intruders go. They were definitely not aggressive and were kind enough to let me mow around them. The good thing is they will be returning in a few weeks! I am definitely stoked about that. Hopefully next year at this time we will have our own honey! We have even come up with a label for our jars 'Strat'o'Bees' kind of a play on 'Billabong' surfer wear.

Bee Men Suiting up

Pulling up the siding. Note: The bee guys did an excellent job removing the siding:)

Sawing away the base to get into the floor joist.

Open Sesame

In almost 2 weeks time, this is what our busy little bees have been up to.

Removal of the comb.

The comb being put in frames

Removal of bees using a special shop vac that does not hurt he bees. It does make them very angry though.

All finished

My honey making friends ready to go on vacation until they get use to their new home and we get all cracks filled.

Faux Monster Socks

A simple pair of toe up socks all of my own:) I started out with a figure eight cast on and knit toe up to the hour glass heel. I am now in the final stretch to the finish line.

I don’t know about you, but I really like the look of monster socks. The idea of weaving in all those loose ends….. Not so much! So I thought on it and thought on it. Finally I hit on a little idea, fun little dye technique so that I can knit the monster socks and not have to weave in all the ends.

I’m a big fan of knitting toe up because it allows me to try on the socks as I am working on them. I know when to knit my heel and how well they will fit. I’m a big time frogger, so it comes in handy to not have to rip out an entire project just to get it right.

Garden Updates 6-28-09

Just a few little garden updates I would like to share with everyone. These were taken last month and well, we all know that I'm a bad, bad blogger for not posting them till now! Maybe, I will get this months photos up before the end of the month:)

The fabulous Turkey Foot Fig. I'm not sure how well this little tree will take KY winters, so I have it in a pot on the back deck. Makes it easy for me to bring it into the garage for winter. BTW, the fig pictured was eaten a few weeks ago, but don't worry! Fig trees give you fruit twice a year:) Once in the middle of summer and again in late summer!

This is a little over a month ago of our tomatoes. Since this picture, our vines runneth way up and over the tall cages. Tomatoes pictured are Goliath, Hawaiian Pineapple, Mr Stripey and Cherokee Purple.

Bill's big summer project. He built this lovely deck all on his own. He does beautiful work, but dang is he ever so particular about everything being absolutely PERFECT!

I'm not a big fan of buying Wally-world anything, but my Granny gets her prescriptions filled there and when I walked by these unique echinacea plants.... Well, I just couldn't resist!

And our wonderful and rapidly producing cucumbers! We have encouraged our cucks to weave in and out of the lattice. Makes picking time that much easier:)

There is something in the air!

Yep, there is something in the air and we think it has taken up residence under the siding of our house. The scary thing is that I walk by here almost every morning on my way to do the poopper scooper job each morning. Well, I've been lazy for the past few days and when I walked around this morning.... Well, you see my little surprise! It's not a monster swarm, but this 50 or so is enough to give me a little shock in the am! Especially since we don't know if they have made it up and under the siding yet.

I have put a call out to a friend who is a bee keeper to see what she thinks should be done. See, I'm thinking that if she knows someone with a spare hive, maybe, just maybe.... We can charm the little fellows right in and they might be kind enough to let me keep the little fellows in the back field behind our house.

Our Garden Groweth Over!

Yes, indeed it does.

This morning, my neighbor came over and said his wife told him that we must be doing a whole lot of fertilizing. I laughed and said nope. With a sly little grin in told him all about the dirt mix I had going on. Some of the dirt is of course dirt we have dug up from around the yard, but the trick is to add several different kinds of dirt to your soil to improve it. Especially if you live in a subdivision like we do.

See when a subdivision is developed, not only do they smooth the landscape to make it easier to divide up the lots and build houses on, but they also cart off all of the lovely and wonderful topsoil that help our sweet and tangy green things grow! For this new house, I used equal parts of bagged manure compost, topsoil, sandy drainage soil and potting soil to fill the raised bed Bill created for me.

Our cucumbers have been growing like wild for quite some time now. Unfortunately, we are reaching the end of our fabulous yellow squash as it has been attacked by an army of vine borers! Luckily though, we are becoming a tad tired of butter fried squash, steamed squash and several other squash-a-licious recipes, so there won't be too many tears shed when this last plant keels over. But, they will be missed.

But our prize and joy, the lovely tomatoes just started to ripen in the past few weeks. Shown in the picture are, Brandywine, Hawaiian Pineapple, Persimmon, and Goliath. Some of these tomatoes we started from seed back in late January. Let me tell you our mater plants are well over 5 foot tall and pushing to 6 feet! I am disappointed in the Bonnie Purple Cherokee that I bought at a local store. So far, it has not performed any where near as well as our maters. There is one mater which should be ready to pick tomorrow or the next day, but the plant as a whole is so dang small! Barely 3 feet. Perhaps it will surprise me by the end of summer:)