still summer

We've been riding a heat wave here in sunny Saskatchewan.  It has been very dry and the daytime temps have been into the high 20s (pushing 80 F).  There were a couple of nights in Sept. that we covered some of the garden veggies because of frost warnings but nothing in my yard froze.  The chilly nights made the leaves turn though.  It's been glorious!

The garden is giving us lots of vegetables (there is nothing better than a tomato picked and eaten while it is still warm from the sun) and the flowers think it is still summer.

Cooper spends as much time outside as possible.  He is definitely not an indoor kind of guy.

All of the dogs have been digging at the base of the big willow tree in our yard.  I think that there are mushrooms lurking along the root system and that's what they're after.  The poor lawn is taking a beating in the process.  Dan has been putting grates over the holes but the dogs just push them aside or dig new holes so it's been pretty futile to try to stop them.  I had trouble getting good pictures of the dogs today because they were so busy sniffing and digging.  Bentley, being a hound, has his nose to the ground most of the time.

This picture of Austin is blurry because he wasn't interested in posing; too many better things to do on a lovely afternoon.

I did get a head shot of Robbie though.

According the weather forecast this heat isn't going to last.  By mid-week we will be victims of an Arctic air flow and it will feel like autumn.  Although I really like the fall season I am sorry to say good-bye to summer.

have to share

I know that many of you fiber folks read Yarn Harlot's blog regularly but for those of you who don't, I just have to share her post today of a truly amazing, thoughtful wedding gift for her sister- and brother-in-law.  I've watched the video twice and it gave me goosebumps both times.

more baby knits

When I posted the pic of the first baby cardi that I made for dearest granddaughter, Marguerite asked how many sweaters this baby was going to have?  The answer, I guess, is as many as I get around to making.  Anyway, here is the latest little knit off the needles.

 Sunnyside

I started this little cardi before we knew that dearest grandbaby is a girl so used Dream in Color Smooshy yarn in the gender neutral Beach Fog colorway and opted for the cabled version rather than the lace one.  As it wasn't finished before we found out that a little girl would be the recipient, I used the picot hems to make it a bit more feminine.  This is the 6-12 month size so will hopefully get some wear before it is outgrown.  I'm pleased with this knit and the pattern is well-written and very versatile so I highly recommend it!

I pulled out some treasures that had been in storage so that they could be used again.  This blanket was knit for me when I was a baby.  I don't know who made it and will have to look for my baby book to see if mom noted it there.

The pink edging and little rosettes are crocheted.  It's very sweet.  I washed it carefully because there weren't superwash wools widely available in the 1950's and this is definitely wool.  You can see the color difference between the natural white wool and the white acrylic sweater in the next photo.

My mom made this tiny cardi when we were waiting to adopt a baby.

Geoff wore this little outfit home from the hospital.  Well, he actually only wore it for a very short time.  We traveled to Saskatoon for him and stopped for lunch at McDonald's there before hitting the highway for the 2 1/2 hour ride home.  I changed his diaper then and was too new at the parenting-of-a-baby-boy routine (ie: keep it covered) to prevent him from peeing all over the front of his little outfit requiring a change in clothes.  Valuable lesson learned.

August recap

My apologies for not getting my act together to post very much lately.  Here is a quick recap of August in Dog-Lover's land.

The first day of the month was the start of the local exhibition/fair and I demonstrated spinning there every day.  We found out that dearest grandbaby is a girl just hours before I headed to the fair so I quickly dug out some pink fiber to take along.  I'm still working on it so yarn pictures will follow when it's done.  Last year I developed tendonitis in my shoulder from spinning at the fair so this year I made sure that I changed up what I was spinning so that my body would move more.  I spun on my wheel, charkha, drop and support spindles so my shoulder was much happier this year.  It was interesting that I had more interest from men than women; I think they were fascinated by the mechanics of the wheel and charkha.  We were not in a high-traffic area this year so it was pretty quiet for the most part except during a huge storm when the midway was shut down and people were scrambling to stay dry.  I would prefer a busier location next year but it's not in my hands.

Katie and Darcie spent some time spinning there too.  Katie has developed into an extremely good spinner!  It was amazing to see how much better she is now than she was last year.  She hasn't spent much time spinning at home so I guess she's absorbing the skills by osmosis.  I had carded some batts for her and she spun and plied about 300g of them in a couple of days at the fair.  I'm thinking I should be hiring her to spin some of what I have on the go.  She's a lot speedier than I am.

I think she's planning a hat with her yarn.

We had a good assortment of various types of spinning as you can see by our little spinning corner during the supper break.

Other fiber arts being demonstrated in the building included Jean with her rug hooking,

knitters, stitchers, and other needleworkers,

and quilters with some amazing quilts.

 

 

 

In the center of the building a sand sculpture was constructed over the course of the fair.  It was pretty cool.

There was also an interactive mosaic.  People painted tiles and they were assembled like this.

At first I though I was looking at grain elevators from the side then realized that, from a bird's-eye view, there were two combines harvesting the fields.

The day after the fair ended Austin got very sick, poor dog.  After a sleepless night I took him to the vet clinic and they diagnosed an intestinal protozoa as the cause.  By then Bentley was starting to show symptoms too so I got medication for both of them.  You guessed it, a couple of days later the other two dogs also got sick so they needed treatment too.  I was warned that it could be transmitted to people but thankfully I didn't get it.  All I can say is that I'm very thankful for my carpet steam cleaner.  It got a good workout that week.

That was the first half of the month.  Thankfully the rest of the month has been fairly uneventful.  When I got rested up after all the drama I gave all the dogs a bath and started to catch up on tackling everything around the house that had been neglected for those two weeks.

I totally missed getting the annual picture of the first day of sunshine on my kitchen window ledge.  Here is today's view (ignore the cobwebs on the outside of my window; the spiders have been very busy this year).

The days are getting shorter very quickly but it is still decidedly summer according to our weather.  We are riding a heat wave but the nights cool off much more than they did in July.

I will leave you with a photo of the blue moon on this last day of August.

puppy fix

Yes, I know that my blog has been sadly neglected lately.  I have some catching up to do.

In the meantime, enjoy this little video that I took yesterday afternoon at my friend Jean's lovely yard in the valley.  Jean (YBF Goldens) has a beautiful litter of Golden Retriever puppies that she asked me to help evaluate so Darcie, Katie, and I visited.

By the time I pulled out my camera we had already tired most of the puppies out but Miss Fuchsia was still going strong.  Can you smell the puppy breath?

dearest grand-daughter

We now know that dearest grandbaby is a girl!  I am tickled pink!  (Get it?  Pink?  Girl?  I kill me.)

Isn't she the most beautiful fetus ever?

storm season in sask.

It has been a stormy month in southern Saskatchewan.  The weather has been hot and humid so the ingredients exist for severe storms and we've had some doozies.

For some reason, Tuesdays have been particularly stormy and yesterday was no exception.  We had plenty of storm warnings, black skies, lightning, and rain throughout the afternoon.  I had appointments so I missed good photo ops.

Not so for Greg Johnson, the Tornado Hunter.  Check out his pics on his website tornadohunter.ca.  Make sure you watch the little video on that page if you've never had the opportunity/misfortune to be close enough to hear what a tornado sounds like up close.  It's pretty amazing.  Fortunately, no one was hurt in these storms although there was some damage to buildings.

The following picture wasn't taken during a storm but as I was driving home during a lovely sunset last Friday so stopped to take this picture with my phone (not as good a photo as I would have taken with my camera, of course).

plying woes

I chain-plied the first bobbin of superwash merino that I was spinning for the Tour de Fleece and it turned into an adventure.

I blame this:

It was for sale at my chiropractor's clinic and I decided that I could sit on it while spinning to strengthen my core.  I had tried using an exercise ball in the past and while it worked okay when I was treadling with one leg while the other was on the floor for balance, I couldn't use it when double treadling because it kept scooting away from me.  So when I saw this one on its base I figured it might be a solution.

Now a smarter person than myself would have probably known that it would be a good idea to slowly build up time using it; I got on it and proceeded to ply the whole bobbin (116 g to be exact).  It didn't feel too bad when I was doing it but I was sure sore the next day!  Apparently my core muscles have been on vacation in Tahiti for a few years and didn't appreciate being called back to actually do any real work.

Not only that but the yarn was poorly plied.  I guess I was working too hard to balance myself and not paying enough attention to the consistency of my plying which I had been chain-plying to boot.  For the most part, I decided that it looked over-plied so I ran it back through the wheel to remove twist before giving it a bath to set the twist.

Unfortunately the bath removed even more of the twist and it was terribly under-plied in spots by then.  The wise part of me knew it would.  Finishing yarn always removes a considerable amount of twist and I preach to anyone who will listen that your skein needs to look over-plied before finishing if you want it to be balanced afterward.  I don't know why I ignored the wise part of me that day.  Maybe my brain messages were drowned out by my screaming core muscles.

If you look carefully at the white yarn in the middle of the ball you can see that the plies are not even twisted together in places. 

So back to the wheel I went to add more twist.

Here it is again after finishing for the second time.

 It's slightly over-plied now but I can live with it.  There are 148 yds. of it, 10 yds. less than when I first finished it.

While I was taking the first photo of the exercise ball chair I realized that I haven't taken any pics of my lovely cherry Matchless yet.

It was a limited edition and I've had it since March.  We are getting along famously.  I have no idea why I struggled with the maple Matchless that I had three years ago.  I don't find the cherry wheel difficult to treadle at all.  The pretty little bag is from Blue Mountain Handcrafts.

I had trouble getting the picture of the wheel.  Here's why.

Cooper does match the cherry wood nicely at least.

wonderful video!

Love this!

around here lately

It is definitely summer!  Today the temperature reached 33 C (91.4 F) with a humidex of 44 C (111 F).  We've had some storms the last couple of weeks too.  Tornado hunters hung around Saskatchewan for a few days last week because there was wild weather including rain, wind, hail, and yes, tornados.  We had a dandy Canada Day light show.  Mother Nature decided that fireworks were not a dramatic enough way to celebrate our nation's birthday.  I didn't get pictures but you can see some great ones here courtesy of Greg Johnson.  He has lots more pics on his blog and I am fascinated by the little video on this page.  I like a good storm but those guys get a little too close for comfort.

Although we see quite a few tornado warnings in the summer, we usually don't have to worry too much because most of the southern part of the province is farm land and not too densely populated.  The tornadoes usually touch down in fields where damage is marginal.

Every now and then damaging winds cause trouble when they get too close to structures.  Our neighbors have a cabin at a lake about an hour away from Regina.  Last week they watched a storm coming toward them over the lake.  When it hit, they couldn't see anything out of the windows because of torrents of rain and hail.  Once they could see their yard they noticed one of their sailboats in a tree and the other one blown out into the middle of the lake.  The one in the tree wasn't damaged until it fell out of the tree and broke hitting the ground.  They lost a few trees too.  Another cabin lost its roof in the storm.  I don't know if the winds were in the form of a tornado, plough wind or whatever.  After a wind event, scientists can see the damage and decide what winds technically caused it but I haven't heard if that happened.

Check out my amazing segue for my leap from storms to fiber news....

I was spinning merino on my support spindle while watching live streaming on tornadohunter.comhttp://tornadohunter.ca/live-streaming/ last Tuesday.  My focus these last few months has been to get comfortable with all kinds of support spindles and I'm really loving them!  The pretty one in the picture is my favorite and was made by Lori at Deerfield Creations.

We spinners are in the midst of the Tour de Fleece.  I really haven't done a lot of spinning except to continue working on some superwash merino that I dyed in gender neutral colors.

  I'm chain plying to keep the color sequence in place.  The plan is to knit it into an Elizabeth Zimmermann Baby Surprise Jacket or Tomten for dearest grandbaby when he/she is a little older.  I've also spun some cotton to practice using my tahklis and a charkha.

Mostly I've been washing fleece.  Val (Wooly Wool of the West) kindly sent me some generous samples of soft fleeces so that I could decide which I wanted and I've washed them and started to comb and spin samples.  I decided on lovely soft Columbia and Corriedale fleeces.  We are so lucky to have Val's eco-friendly spinner's flock right here in Saskatchewan!  Her fleeces are beautiful and I do love the process of starting with a raw fleece to spin my yarn!

another baby gift

This one isn't for my dearest grandbaby but for our neighbors' grandbaby, due in a couple of months.  They know that they are having a girl so I put some pink into the mix.

I really do enjoy weaving with textured yarn!

baby sweater #1

I have finished the first baby cardi for dearest grandbaby.

It's the Maile Baby Sweater and I made notes about knitting it on my Ravelry project page for it.  I'm very pleased with it now that it's done!  I had the sweet little Beatrix Potter bunny buttons in my button stash.

I hope the next baby item knits up faster than this one!

BEST WEDDING DANCE EVER!!! Surprise First Dance: You're the one that I ...

I love this...

dearest grandbaby

I saw you today for the first time and fell in love instantly!

You are stunningly beautiful!  Tears came to my eyes when I saw your little heart beating.  You are a lively little one, stretching and bopping gracefully while we watched.  I think I will need to ramp up the yoga practice and add some cardio so that I have enough energy to play with you.  I'm sure you will keep your mommy and daddy very busy!

I am so excited that you will be joining our family and I can't wait to meet you in person in December!  Stay well, little one, and grow strong.

Love,

Your Nana

P.S.  I know it's not your fault that it's too soon to know whether you are a boy or girl but I am going to find it a long wait until the next ultrasound.  I'm itching to do some yarn shopping once we know if you are a blue or pink little person.

goodnight moon

Goodnight Moon was a treasured bedtime favorite for my son when he was a toddler.  Now that I am waiting for my grandchild to be born, I find myself browsing for children's books again.  A career of teaching children to read (along with scads of research) reinforces my belief that children should be read to as often as possible, hopefully starting from the time they are still in the womb.  Goodnight Moon is a lovely, soothing, rhyming bedtime classic.  Children love to hear familiar lyrics and stories over and over again.  This exposure to hearing literature establishes language patterns that are essential steps toward reading.  I've heard so many parents complain that their children have memorized the story and aren't really reading it.  I tell them to celebrate that step as a huge developmental leap to them becoming independent readers!

So what has me thinking about Goodnight Moon in particular?  Well, this from two evenings ago.

And this from last evening.

 

Although I never did get around to blogging about the supermoon in May, I did take a photo.

All pictures were taken from my deck overlooking the park.  The first one includes the rooftops of the RCMP Depot Division.

We have a fair bit of cloud today so I doubt if we will get a chance to witness the rare Transit of Venus unfortunately.

m.i.a.

I'm not exactly sure why I haven't posted in almost a month.  I guess I kind of got lethargic when I ran out of Puerto Vallarta pics.  Anyway, I'm back and my apologies for the extended absence.

At any rate, the past month hasn't been lacking activity or interest, just lacking photos to go with them.  Our big news is that Geoff and Carmen are expecting a baby in December!  Dan and I will be first-time grandparents and I'm so excited!  I've been spending an indecent amount of time on Ravelry looking at baby patterns and have got a wee sweater on the needles.  I'll post pics when it is finished.  We don't know the baby's gender yet so the little sweater is white.  I'm anxiously waiting for the first ultrasound so that I can decide on patterns and colors for either a boy or a girl.

I've been going to a yoga class once a week and helping teach two spinning classes each week.  Both have been great!  I love spinning classes, both taking them and teaching them.  It's wonderful to share my passion with like-minded people.  Deb is the other instructor and it's great to work together because we do so many things differently.  We certainly prove a point that spinning can be approached successfully in a myriad of ways.  Deb is also responsible for introducing me to the yoga classes at Bodhi Tree Yoga.  At first, yoga was painful and it was a good thing that my friend Rhonda was also going or I might have dropped out but it is gradually getting better so I guess my body is starting to respond.  It helps that the Yoga for Backs class is individualized treatment and I'm understanding my alignment and pain triggers better.  Sarah, the instructor, is a wealth of knowledge!  I should have been doing this years ago.

A few weeks ago I did a dyeing experiment for my own interest.  I dyed four fingering weight skeins of different fiber and twist combinations in the same dye pot to see how each took the dye.  I knew that they would be different but was fascinated by how different they turned out.

Left to right:  55% BFL/45% silk, 80% BFL/20% bamboo, 80% high-twist BFL/20% nylon, and 75% lower-twist BFL/25% nylon.

I also finished spinning up some merino/bamboo from Spinning Awesome Good in the 'Ghosts and Gremlins' club colorway.

 118 g, 484 yds., chain plied

I wasn't really excited by the color while I was spinning it but after chain plying and finishing the skein, I like it.  I'm thinking socks and wondering whether the yarn would self-stripe but sock knitting has been shelved while I knit for baby.

 

last PV post, I promise

We received good advice from our travel agent before we went to Mexico.  She told us that the hotel maids really appreciate tips because they don't make very much money in wages.  She also buys small toys and other little treats like fancy hair bands and bath beads at the dollar store before leaving and gives them in addition to the monetary tips.  Most maids are working moms and very much appreciate these small things for their children.

I saw our maid the first day that we were in PV and, through gestures and limited language skills on both of our parts, learned that she had a ten year old boy and a five year old girl.  So each day I left her items for both of the children along with her tip.  In return she left us little origami-type treats made with towels that became more elaborate as the week progressed.

So clever and cute!

Finally, I really debated posting about a medical issue that I had from the flights but decided to do so in case other people have the same problem and don't know why.  It isn't a common problem and getting a diagnosis can be difficult. 

After we arrived in Puerto Vallarta I noticed that I had a rash on my lower legs and feet.  I have a history of getting rashes when we go away* and we thought it was kind of funny at first.  The rash went away in a couple of days so I didn't think much of it.  However, after we flew home the rash reappeared on my legs and was more intense.

Apparently the skin on my legs and feet is thinning because of my diabetes and isn't thick enough to protect the capillaries from the air pressure changes when taking off and landing so they burst.  I also have some genetic tendency toward this because my grandmother lost both of her legs due to poor circulation and she didn't even have diabetes.  Frankly I find this news quite depressing although I'd rather find out about it now when I might still do something about it.  I am monitoring my blood sugar more closely and exercising more in the hope that I can slow down the progression of this problem.  There is one small upside to all of this - my normally hairy-as-all-get-out legs don't need shaving nearly as often as they used to.  For future flying, my doctor suggested wearing compression stockings during take off and landing and to take an aspirin to guard against the compression stockings affecting my blood circulation.  Oh, the joys of getting older.

*I developed a red, raised rash all over my body on our honeymoon.  It was a contact allergy to something that was used in the laundry of the linens in the hotel room.  My skin felt like it was on fire and it hurt to the touch so it put a bit of damper on being close to my new husband, to say the least. 

city tour and Mismaloya

Another highlight of our trip to Puerto Vallarta was a tour of the city and nearby Mismaloya.  Dan heard an announcement at the hotel one evening that there would be a free city tour the next day from 10 am to 3 pm so we signed up.  I didn't hear the announcement, or much of anything really, while we were gone.  If Dan hadn't have been with me to let me know the important or interesting details, I would have missed a lot.  I have suspected for quite a while that I was losing some hearing but the trip really confirmed it.  It convinced me to get my hearing checked when we got home and I am losing most of the higher range of sounds.  I will need hearing aids at some point but can get by for now.

There were ten of us from the hotel to join our taxi van and driver the next morning.  We were exceptionally lucky to have Jose as our driver and he was the best tour guide ever!  Here he is cheerfully posing with my sock-in-progress while we overlooked the city from Ah Carumba! restaurant (he says he takes his first dates there).

 If you ever want to see the Puerto Vallarta area, get him to take you (padillajosemanuel@yahoo.com).  He's enthusiastic, informative, and just plain fun!  He suggested extra side trips along the way and asked, "See it or leave it?"  Of course we wanted to see everything.  The tour was supposed to end at 3:00 and we got back to the hotel at 5:30.  A really great day!

There were so many things that I can't show you because the pictures were taken through the window of the van while we were moving so are blurry.  It was interesting to see the areas of Puerto Vallarta where most of the people live.  There are open air markets for shopping (the locals can't afford to shop in the tourist areas).  Most live in apartments, often with more family members living in a small suite than we can imagine.  Wages are low for most people so they can't afford more than the basics, especially if they don't speak English.  Even so, maybe because tourism is such a large industry in PV, there doesn't seem to be the abject poverty that we see in pictures of other places.

We visited a Tequila Factory which is actually a small museum to show visitors how authentic tequila is made.

 

 We saw the houses where Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton lived in downtown Vallarta (Gringo Gulch).  There is a small road between the two places over which is a wooden walkway to connect them.  Since then, the walkway has been torn down when they were estranged and rebuilt when they were together, repeatedly.

There are spectacular homes in the lush jungle vegetation on the side of the mountains above the city.

If you look closely in the center top of this picture is a condo with a pool on each terrace that flows down to the next one on each level.  (You can click on each picture if you want a bigger view.)

The road to Mismaloya offers amazing views of the bay!

Los Arcos

We saw what Jose described as a rare black gecko.

and saw another one shortly after.

There were several iguanas.  I snapped this pic as the iguana was scuttling away from me.  I guess I got too close for his comfort.

The small town of Mismaloya is not as modern as Puerto Vallarta.

There were chickens running on the road not far from here.

We had lunch there at an open air restaurant with breathtaking views.

We capped off our afternoon with a side trip north of the city, along a dusty rural road.  I don't think it's included in most tours; it was one of Jose's "see it or leave it" ideas.  I'm very glad we saw it.

But I wouldn't want to see it any closer than this!  Along an estuary is one of few places in the world to see crocodiles in their natural habitat.  Local fishermen visit daily to throw the crocodiles the fish heads and whatnot from their catches so the crocs can frequently be seen here.  This big guy put on quite a show for us, rolling and snapping his jaws before moving on.  It was so cool!  There is barbed wire along the bottom of the chain link fence to keep the crocs away from nearby cattle.

I haven't included the downtown stops we made on the city tour because I covered those in a previous post.  We did make one downtown stop that I will always remember - a store with amazing fire opal jewelry.  I bought a modest ring while we were there (talk about an unplanned purchase) and it will bring back lovely memories of our trip and the bright colors of Mexico every time I wear it.