but of course

It occurred to me when I posted yesterday that I was enjoying a lack of pain that I should probably not say that out loud. Sure enough. Fate just couldn't let that one go. Dan had just got home from playing hockey last night and left his honking big bag at the top of the stairs. I was coming up the stairs and thought I could sneak around it but caught my foot on one of the straps and went flying. Now I am one big owie from top to bottom. I have a few scrapes and bruises but mostly my muscles hurt from being jarred. My muscles don't like being moved at the best of time; they are loudly protesting my lack of grace. Dan feels badly for leaving his bag there but I don't think it would have mattered. If you tempt fate, fate bites back. If not the hockey bag, I'm sure there would have been some other obstacle that would have been in my way.

Anyhow, on a totally different tangent, here are some pics of my back yard.
After a soggy start to the summer, everything is now lush and happy. We were lucky to escape the more severe storms and flooding that happened in other parts of the province.

Dan has been doing a good job of tackling the weeds in the garden.
We had our first feed of green beans and beets the other day. This is a good time of year for eating.

clean, whew!

So all four dogs have been bathed and groomed and my neck is in pretty darn good shape considering. If I always felt this good, I could get a lot more done around here. I wish I knew why there are times that I feel relatively pain free and other times when a pain flare takes me down for the count for weeks. Anyway, I'll take this lack of pain while it lasts and be thankful.

Today is a perfect summer day. The sun is shining, a slight breeze is blowing, and it's a balmy 24C (75F). The dogs and I enjoyed a little back yard time.

B had a tennis ball (or two) tucked near him and gave Cooper the eye as if to tell him to just try and take one away. Of course that was too tempting for the puppy. Here you can see him stretch out a foot to touch the ball.

Which led to this (it really wasn't about the ball),

then this,

this,

and finally this.

Austin and Robbie were much more dignified.

There is a lot of noise around here these days. We have a few Peregrine Falcons around and their screaming cries are almost constant. As cool as the falcons are to look at (and I can appreciate the efforts that have been made to keep them from becoming extinct), I wish they'd leave because there are no other birds to see and hear. They've either been eaten or had the good sense to leave. I'm glad that I have no little puppies to tempt them.

full moon

Pics taken last night. The full moon illuminated the clouds as they floated across the sky.

Yesterday was dog bathing day. Today they are lovely and clean but they all need to be brushed out. There is light, fluffy, clean undercoat drifting in the air currents in the house and into my eyes. Another muscle relaxant and I am off to groom them.

still spinning

I don't know where the days go. With Dan at home it seems like I don't buckle down to anything for long. The days have been lazy and unstructured which is good but not very conducive to accomplishing a lot.

However, I'm squeezing in some spinning time for Tour de Fleece although not as much as I planned to at the outset.

Here's the latest bit on the Lendrum.
Bee Mice Elf "Snow-Capped"; 50% merino, 25% bamboo, 25% silk.

While I was snapping the pictures of the yarn on the bobbin last night, this was going on beside the wheel.

When Cooper noticed that I was aiming the camera at him he paused long enough to give me this look, as if to say, "What? You've never seen a sheltie rolling around belly-up before?"

therapy dogs

Here's a link to some interesting facts about therapy dogs for your reading pleasure today.

killer puppy

Cooper found last evening's moth du jour on the carpet while I was at the computer earlier today. To his delight, the moth still had a little "kick" left in it.

Whenever the moth fluttered a bit, Coop got all silly (as only a puppy can get) and pounced on it. At one point he laid on his side and pawed at it. You can see his shaved belly from the surgery in this picture. His neck was also shaved for the pain patch but, being a sheltie, he has enough hair on his neck to do a comb-over to hide it.

The poor moth didn't last very long with this treatment but it took a while before Cooper realized that his toy wasn't going to move any more.

"Come to papa."

"Move! Move!"

Eventually he realized that he had indeed made his first kill and posed with his prey.
"I am the man."

a few projects

I finished the plain vanilla socks for myself out of Trekking Maxima using two 1.75mm Addi circs (I'm a loose knitter*). It's the first pair of the toe-up gusset heel style that I've made for my own narrow feet and I was interested to see how I would like the fit. It fits better than I thought it would. I like the way the toe feels better than my usual standard top-down toes but I like the K1, P1 heel flap better because it snugs up to my very narrow heels better. I guess the answer to the best fit would be to knit toe-up socks with a heel flap but wrapping stitches doesn't thrill me. I suppose more practice with the technique might remedy that but I'm reluctant to force myself to keep knitting something that drives me crazy. Maybe I'll dig out the Crazy Toes and Heels book and use that method instead.

I have been spinning for the Tour de Fleece although not as much as I would like. The days seem to fly by now that Dan is off for the summer.

I finished spinning the second bobbin of BeeMiceElf Latte Love and will ply the two singles together soon. This was the January club fiber and is a lovely soft blend of 75% superwash merino, 25% milk.

I've also done some spindle spinning. I find I'm using my spindles more than the wheels lately for some reason. Here's my latest pet:
a Golding ring spindle. We had very dear Dutch neighbors when I was a child and the Delft porcelain reminds me of the many hours I spent with their welcoming family. The fiber is my own hand-dyed and carded merino/bamboo.

I took Cooper to the vet to have his stitches removed and he has been pronounced healthy and healed. Let's hope he manages to stay that way for good long while.

*As in, I knit loosely; as opposed to, I am a loose woman who knits.

pretty in pink

Katie's socks are finished and ready for her birthday on Monday.

Not pink but very pretty is Cooper.
He is recovering remarkably fast from his surgery and is back to his usual busy life, except that he doesn't yet have unaccompanied access to the backyard (and the rocks).

yet another sky photo and a goodbye

Although we are still getting far too much rain from storms, the skies have been lovely. Here is what nature gave us yesterday evening.

It is with heavy hearts that we heard of our good friend Harry's passing from cancer. It doesn't seem possible that we will never hear his clever take on life and his teasing laugh.

so pretty!

A while ago, my blog friend Monika posted that she didn't like spinning batts. I told her that it was because she hadn't spun from batts that were very well blended so I made some for her myself. She did a terrific job spinning and knitting them and the resulting shawl is so pretty! Her two dogs aren't too shabby looking either. Aren't they cute? (I can almost hear everyone say "Awww".)

okay today

Cooper and I thank you for all of your kind good wishes!

We got a call this morning from the wonderful vet that did Cooper's surgery (Barb at Albert North Vet Clinic) (did I already mention that it's the best vet clinic ever?) that he was doing well and could go home. When we got there he was happy to see us but was also quite happy to be playing with Barb's two kids (they were with their mom because today is Canada Day and the clinic wasn't officially open). It's a good thing that Coop is such a happy-go-lucky dog, what with all the time he has spent needing vet care.

He is ravenously hungry but we can only feed him a spoonful of canned gastro food every couple of hours for now. I think it's a good sign that he wants to eat.

His biggest problem is the dreaded cone.
He's been walking into walls while he figures out how wide he is with it on.

Channon wins the award for best twisted, dark, and hilarious sense of humor (in other words, my favorite kind of humor!) for her comment on yesterday's post:

Glad he's okay and you were able to kill two birds with... you know. (Forgive the bad pun!)


I literally snorted out loud when I read it! Then I continued to read the comments and discovered that Lynn has the same warped mind:

He ate a rock?!?!? OMG!!!! What is it abt dogs and eating everything in site? Well at least you were able to kill two birds with one stone!!!!! LOLOLOL


and then she read all the comments and discovered that Channon had beat her to the punchline:

HA!!!! Channon had the same idea I did!!! LOL

You guys crack me up!

Now we're hoping that the rock eating was a one-off and he hasn't developed a taste for them. We have quite a bit of landscaping rock in the yard. Cooper is a very oral dog; he's happiest showing his love by mouthing hands, ankles, whatever. I suspect he was just mouthing the rock and it went down before he realized it. I hope.

Happy Canada Day to my fellow Canucks!! I seriously love my home country and feel blessed to have been born here. If you haven't done so already, pop over to Yarn Harlot's post today. Her Canada Day posts are always superb!