Minor Trouble In Paradise

It's not all sunshine and flowers in the Dauch household this week.  Tex ran into some trouble out on the range (park).  He took a bad tumble in the weeds and caught his dewclaw on a root.  It was bleeding quite a bit and pointing the wrong way, but the little trooper let me put a temporary bandage on it until he could go to the pet hospital.  Our veterinarian recommended that we let him remove both of Tex's dewclaws as this is a common injury for active dogs and the dewclaw seems to be a vestigial digit with no perceivable function. Now Tex has a new nickname around the house, "Conehead".

he looks very sad, but rest assured he is milking this experience for all the laptime and cookies he can get.

On my daily strolls through our backyard, I have been noticing something is eating the leaves on the butterfly bush.  I closely inspected the bush yesterday and could not see any actual critters, so I'm wondering if the culprit is some kind of night flying snacker?   Maybe the local nursery will know.  Not that it really matters as I apply a pretty brutal "survival of the fittest" philosophy with respect to the landscape. I don't like to use pesticides as the dogs actually nibble on the plant leaves and I also don't want to hurt the bees, hummingbirds and praying mantis.

Mama's got a brand new bag

I finished it, yah!  The pretty in pink knitting bag is complete and actually came out just as I expected it. 

Bag

I would like to report that I finished the knitting bag, sadly that is not the case.  Progress continues, but oh so slowly.

 I did some light, wavy quilting across the bottom to keep the layers together; I am still loving this explosion of girly, pink flowers!










I also just cast on for a light weight wrap type sweater, the pattern is called Odelia.  I bought the pattern and the yarn at the Stitches event this year.  The yarn came from a company called A Verb For Keeping Warm and it feels so nice, it's got a little cashmere in the blend.  The pattern is Odelia from Cocoknits. Below is my knitting swatch (the little practice piece to measure how many stitches per inch and row, this allows each person to size their own garment based on their actual yarn and needles), which shows that I am getting 5.5 stitches/inch using size 7 needles.

Backyard bug update

No crazy new bugs to report on, but I have discovered that we have at least 4 praying mantis egg sacks.  I'm keeping a close eye on them, eagerly awaiting the arrival of all the baby bugs.

I spotted the first hummingbird of the year yesterday, but it was brief visit and there was no way to capture a picture.  On the other hand the bees have been busy for weeks now and tolerated me poking my camera into the plants to take a bazillions photos of them this morning, they did buzz me a couple of times, but no damage done.  I can only imagine that they were thinking "Oh, those darn paparazzi, can't get a bite to eat in peace around here!"

Beautiful weather we're having

This weekend has been just perfect, mid-70's, sunny and calm.  Our landscaping is coming along, the stuff we planted last year is getting really big.  The new plants, from High Country Gardens, we put in early March are growing well, the spring rains we've been getting every 5 days or so are nicely counteracting the dogs digging them up and peeing on them as well as our lag in running drip lines out to them.

I am especially pleased with how the odd parallelogram space in the middle of the concrete patio has turned out.

The little pink flowers are a perfect complement to the grey/green lavender.

 The Japanese Maple has greened out and seems to be doing well in the shady corner.  The pot is doing the trick to disguise the doggie damage from Tex's vigilance against the neighbor's scary motorcycle.

I can't wait for the honeysuckle to really burst out in full flower, I wasn't sure this plant could thrive in the rather harsh sun here, so far it has surpassed my expectations.

Reading Redux

Getting older so far hasn't yielded too many changes I've been thrilled about.  It takes longer to find the right words sometimes, the jelly rolls around the middle are multiplying and my feet get tired faster (in fact, I really never noticed my feet before, they always carried me uncomplaining for hours on end until just last year).  So I was completely delighted to discover a bonafide benefit of aging: I can now re-read some of my most favorite books from the past.  Many years ago I thought I could never re-read a book as I would recall the entire story after only a paragraph or two. 
A couple of things have happened that make re-reading a book possible and sometimes truly great.  I can no longer recall the story lines from the past so easily, which I shall choose to chalk up to my brain being full up with all the books I have read and the life I've lived.  The other change is that I am finding more pleasure in the tone and literary craftsmanship of good writers as a separate aspect of the book than the actual story line, a well crafted sentence, a witty reference, humorous pun or beautifully evocative imagery can really make my day.  Most recently I picked up Snow Crash from the local library, a book I read 15 years ago and I am really enjoying it, Neal Stephenson has a great ear for street lingo and is wonderfully imaginative.

Crafty projects old & new

I just finished my first ever Baby Surprise Jacket, a gift for a friend at work having her first baby in June.  The surprise part of this jacket is the amazing construction, designed by the famous, Elizabeth Zimmerman, okay so maybe she's not famous in a Bruce Springsteen/Lady Gaga kind of way, but definately a Rock Star in the knitting world. 

It's knit as a single piece, when done it sort of looks like a giant knitted tortilla chip, below is an example of what the finished jacket looks like before seaming (in my excitement to put it together I forgot to take a picture of my actual jacket in progress).

 after folding it together and seaming just across the shoulders, voila, the cutest little baby jacket ever!

and Craig helped me pick out the best buttons for it at the local fabric store

 

And now, onward to a new project, a bag for holding knitting projects in progress (yes, I have still have many more knitting projects in the queue).  I picked up this great pattern from the GillianBags booth at the Stitches event in February and just now got around to getting the fabric and other supplies.

 I just couldn't resist the pretty pink flowers

this is what the finished bag should look like.  I really liked the way it opens all the way up, sometimes when I am happily knitting away the yarn gets hung up on the sides of my current bag, which totally breaks me out of the zen stitching zone, I don't think that will happen with this design.