Monsoon

We're in the monsoon season, with heavy rain every day for at least a week. The plants love it; I've never seen the lilies and daylilies put out so generously, and they look great against all the wet dark green foliage. Other constituencies are less enthused and would like sun. I know that once it gets sunny again it will also be steaming hot, though, so I say bring on the gloom.
We had a refugee yesterday morning; during an intense downpour, when Phil went to leave for work, the neighbor's dog Hunter, a big smooshy yellow lab who will lick you to death, ran into the garage & refused to leave. You can't argue with about 90 pounds of smelly sopping wet dog, so we left him there and later, when it eased up, I put him on a lead and walked him home. [Goin' for a walk? Huh? Yeah? Walk? Oh boy!] His folks weren't home and he refused to go into the crawl space, where he is supposed to hide out from the weather (yeah I think that's weird too.) So I let him in to their fenced back yard and it seemed later all was well. Something to be said for having your dog live IN THE HOUSE with its people. Just sayin'.
If you scroll to the bottom of this page you will see a little National Park map with "badges" for all the parks I've been to. It's a free widget on the National Park Service web site. Kind of surprised me how many I had been to, and reminded me of some I really want to visit. Got to get to Glacier, in Montana, before it melts, for example.
Have embarked on a cotton short sleeved cardi of my own design, based on the Incredible Custom Raglan recipe. I have to finish this before starting on Phil's office sweater for the fall, so I am being very earnest and resisting all attempts to be corrupted by new patterns, new yarn, etc. Be firm. Oh, this is hard.

Hyenas at the water bowl

Our dogs have something really weird going on about the water bowl. They've always sort of snuck up on it, but now there's a whole kabuki dance-- Rosie wants a drink, she has to entice Jack to drink with her, but he doesn't want to be first, so they sidle around and creep up on the thing and finally--whew--they can slurp up water. As long as they both have their heads in the bowl at the same time. If one pulls out, the other jumps back. We've tried all sorts of bowls and locations for the bowl, and can't figure this out. Do they think lions are waiting to pounce on them? Is there some sort of reflection in the water? Are they experiencing early dogheimer's? None of this applies to Jack occasionally drinking out of the toilet [only in the guest bathroom.] Rosie, of course, has never sunk so low.
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Finally off to the Emerald City tomorrow to see little Cate. My flight leaves in late afternoon, which will seem very strange; I generally fly at crack of dawn. By the time I get there at midnight-- 3AM body time-- I will be a blithering, drooling idiot. A little Vivace coffee the next day should perk me up though. Seattle does have the very best coffee in North America.
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Have embarked on a Cotton Ease blanket loosely based on the Mason-Dixon modular theme. I'll knit six strips of garter, changing the five colors [coral, lime, banana, olive, light blue] at random along the way, and join them to make a 4' x 5' blanket. This is a ton of garter stitch, probably several miles, but it's soothing and useful for doing on airplanes or in front of movies. If I want to be done by early August, I need to knit about 5 inches each day. That should be doable. Maybe. On the other hand 2"/day would have it done by Christmas, with time for mailing. That I can do for sure.
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I'm hoping that the Senate will confirm Sonia Sotomayor in time for the next session of the Supreme Court. I'm hoping it will be done with dignity and gravitas. I'm expecting to be sadly disappointed. And probably madder than a wet hen.

WIPS and things

Just a shot from our trip up to Biltmore. One has to feel for those Vanderbilts, their life was tough, no?

I've been off for a while-- first my computer had to go into the hospital, thankfully still under warranty, but I was without it for two weeks. Serious withdrawal symptoms. Then I got some weird vague bug for a week.

Tried to register for the Sock Summit in Portland yesterday afternoon. Every class was sold out. I may be in Seattle that week, and I have an unused Seattle-to-Portland train ticket, so it might be worth going down for the day just to breath the sock-filled air and ogle the yarn. I'm not even much of a sock knitter, but the event involves some of my favorite people-- Cat Bordhi, Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, etc. Apparently the whole event, all four days, sold out within about two hours. Amazing. Knitters definitely deserve our own TV channel.

Almost done with the Noro granny square afghan, just need a little more yarn for the edging. I'm embarrassed to add up the cost of all the yarn in this thing, mostly from stash-- it edges into three figures. Yikes. It had better become a hair-loom.

Finished little Cate's poncho, and I liked the CottonEase so well that I think I'll make a small blanket too, along the lines of the Mason-Dixon modular blanket. That would be good airplane knitting since it's all garter.

Working on a shrug, lace, from a glorious hank of Cherry tree Hill sock yarn. Problem-- I only bought the one skein that was on sale; I need two; I've lost the ball band..... but I think I know what colorway it is from their website so will try to get another hank. Also finishing up the white winterblossom shawl, which has gotten so big around the outer circumference that it takes me about half an hour to do one row. I'm still liking it, though.

Planning a cardigan for Phil for the winter. The heating in their office is erratic and feeble at best. I need to get him to stand still long enough to measure him properly, but first he needs to be home! Pennsylvania this week, but just for three days. Poor guy has been on the road every week this month and has at least one more trip in June.

I was swatching away Monday morning with the knitting group [a truly wonderful, eclectic group of women and the occasional guy] and we were recounting stories of funerals and resulting family quarrels. There truly are no normal families, thank goodness, or we wouldn't have so many great stories. This group has been my salvation more than once. Is it just knitters? There is something very special about them. I'm so glad I learned to knit!

Pollen season

Vermont has mud season, some states have tourist season, we in NC have the pollen season. First red oaks, then white oaks and tulip poplars, and finally pine pollen, the heaviest of the bunch. Whatever color your car is, it's now yellow. So is your house, the sidewalk, and whatever part of your dog touches the ground outside. Your eyes water, your nose drips, and you keep a box of tissues in every room and two in the car. You automatically run the window washer every time you turn the key in the ignition. You become a frequent sudser at the car wash. Golden puffs of dust fly up when you sweep off the porch and deck, to get rid of the tangles of catkins from the oaks. It lasts about six weeks. Meanwhile, it's also truly beautiful outside, with leaves expanding into clouds of spring green, sunny days, things blooming everywhere and balmy temperatures. Welcome to spring in the south!

I saw an afghan on another blogger's site [Alaskan Purl] made of granny squares of Noro Kureyon. I had a pile of this in stash from a yarn sale, that I had been trying to make a vest from. This is a better idea, though, so I ripped what I had knitted and I have about five 11 inch squares done and plan to border it in a dark teal green. I think it will be really cool in the livingroom and best of all will use up the Noro, so I don't have to feel guilty about it.

About half done with the red cotton poncho for Cate--- need to finish it so I can add the Miffy embroidery and call it done. I just hope it fits.

We're headed for a week in Asheville, so I want to pack up good vacation knitting projects to take with---- things that don't take too much concentration. Looking forward to a break from my own cooking!!!!

Construction

Phil's shop is progressing-- see photo-- and should be under roof by the end of the month. Contractors did the concrete work and the bricklaying, for speed (Phil can do just about anything but he has to work for a living.) Phil's doing the framing and almost everything else by himself. The rafter raising will involve a few friends and some beer. The drywalling may be contracted out because we also want to finish off the room over the garage as well and drywall is heavy, awkward, and dusty. And I never want to tape the stuff again in my lifetime. Landscaping around the new addition will be done by, well, me. I'm the plant person, supposedly.

I have slightly mixed feelings about this shop. I want Phil to have a place to work; he needs it for his sanity and in retirement, and can make lovely furniture. But I wish it had ended up on the back of the house (turned out the well was too close.) Putting it on the front means I lose the window in the laundry room, and my view out the kitchen window where we eat, and the kitchen will have less light coming in the bay window, and I think it looks kind of odd to have the kitchen window be in a cave. We have a glorious huge Japanese red maple in that alcove, which I hope will be OK with this commotion. Unfortunately said tree provides heavy shade in summer over said bay window, and makes it all even more cavelike. Thankfully the window on the other end of the kitchen, that looks out over the back yard, is large and south-facing and lets in considerable sunlight. All in all I'll get used to it and there are far worse things to worry about in the world-- I just needed to kvetch a little.

Have started working on two little summer weight ponchos for Cate and her friend Hannah; winging the design, so I hope they work out.

Why it's better not to live near an arsonist.

Got home last Monday and noticed Neighbor Tom, who lives just behind our 1/2 acre or so of woods at the back of the yard, was burning leaves. NT burns everything that hits the ground, in the belief that this is "good landscaping" and possibly because he loves to start a little fire. When I let the dogs out & in, noticed he was burning along his ditch between us & them. Didn't think anything of it because he's always burning, along with Other Neighbor Tom behind him, and Jimmy the Match across the street. [Jimmy keeps a gas can out by the burn pile at all times, ready for any pyrotechnic opportunity.]
A little later the dogs went on full alert as someone banged on my back door-- it was my on-the-right, non-burning neighbor yelling for help, hoses, etc. Seems NT's little fire got away from him and was merrily cleaning all the leaves out of our woods and headed for hers. We got it stopped with some drama and cursing [and wondering very loudly why NT hadn't called the fire department!]
Midway in all this NT's wife came home and found the fire had snuck around the back of their house, nipping at the deck, scorching a bit of paint and burning through NT's one hose, which was tangled around the fence and NOT EVEN TURNED ON.
Has he learned anything from this? Probably not, since his skull is pretty thick. But he won't burn for a while, because I gather wife let him have it.

Snow! We got snow!

And here it is-- a most un-Carolinian batch of white stuff. It snowed mostly during the night, and about ten when I was coming to bed it thundered for a while. Phil's office is closed, the dogs are loving it, and I'm happily snowed in (except it means missing knitting group.) The coffee is especially good this AM.

I rounded the heel on one of the socks, the tan one, with a new short row technique that may work if I practice a bit. I'm thinking maybe go down a needle size to reduce the big honking holes along the seam. They're just for me and in cheap yarn, so they'll do.

In keeping with my nature I then got distracted by a fetching bit of lace in a sort of rusty pink, more about that next time. I started off in bellflower, pretty but annoyingly complex for a whole scarf, and now I'm trying something else.

Freezing rain yesterday, and the power was a little wobbly, so I made supper a bit early-- with bread pudding for afters-- so we'd have it if things went dark.

I've downloaded two books from http://www.audible.com/ to see if I want a membership, a new novel from Mary Balogh and one on climate change, Field Notes from a Catastrophe. I think the non-fiction is going to work better for listening. When I'm reading fiction I really want to be able to lose myself in it, and also want to carry it around (OK, I'll admit it, I read in the bathroom and at the table and just everywhere.) For knitting, I like news and podcasts, and non-fiction fits in there. We shall see.