Pom'd

The consensus of the votes were for pom-poms. Rachel even brought her pom-pom maker with her to spinning Wednesday. After spinning I got a couple made before picking up Brandon from work. We popped over to visit his grandfather (his health is failing and we don't expect that we'll have him this time next year) and do some computer work. So I entertained him with the pom-pom maker. By the time I arrived at Knit Night at Haggen's, I had four little pom-poms and could return the maker to Rachel. A few minutes work to sew them on to the ties and we have:

Can you see the frost on the table?

Here's an idea of how cold its been this last week, the pond:

I've been working on socks for my brother-in-law John. He has a family history of getting fun items at Christmas so I know he'll appreciate the humor behind the socks. He's also had wool socks on his wish list for as long as I've known him. So here's a good portion of one of the socks in progress:

 

At spinning I finished up the purple Spinner's Hill - Corriedale-Finn-Ramboulliet. After weighing them I didn't evenly divide so will have to balance it out with the plying. I went ahead and jumped into the Portland Punch. Its lovely to spin with. 

Dogs & Fleece

The advantage of doing the Goodie Bags was getting to see the samples as they came in. Carissa donated fluffs of alpaca fleece that she has gotten from a church member. She has a garage full of fleeces that she's selling. She had taken samples from a pretty black fleece and I knew what she was selling them for, but didn't want a whole fleece to clean and process. So I asked her if I could get a pound from the partial that was leftover from taking samples.

I now have a little over a pound of alpaca fleece from Magnolia. Taking pictures of it in the sunlight washes out the black making it look a muddy grey-brown. Bringing it inside and with four dogs in the house, some pointy noses and not so pointy ones just had to investigate this new interesting smell. I'd love to know what was going through Nickel and Cedi's minds while they had their faces buried in this new to them experience. Norbert's an old pro now and while he did shove his face in, didn't have to do as thorough of a job at smelling the whole thing.

Cedi buried up to her eyes in the fleece.

If I thought taking pictures of a black fleece was difficult, a black dog with his nose in it was such that I had to pull back so you could see there was a body! ;-)

Norbert also with his face up to his eyes in the fleece.

Nessa getting her chance to smell it, but not so interested.

Nessa would rather be here, talking to her fish. They come up and give her fishy kisses. I had filled the pond this morning so accidentally got the level a little full. She didn't have to bend over as far to get her kisses.

The early sounds of fall were in the air I noticed while I was out filling the pond and taking pictures. The local blue jays/birds (we have both) could be heard in the Hazelnut/Filbert orchard behind us as they were attempting to liberate nuts from their shells. Tap tap tap tap. Means also Nessa will be cruising the backyard for the nut bundles the birds drop. She loves her hazelnuts!

Listening to nature

I've become inured to some of the sounds of our wildlife. The jays with their brash braying, often when they've become used to feasting at the feeder and its empty - fill the damn thing you lazy human! Sometimes they are complaining about the squirrel invading their hazelnut territory and there's some mutual chittering back at them.

The woodpeckers with their call to each other, we have a family of them living in the hazelnut orchard behind us. In the spring the young will try out the area just above the gutters on the roof to see if they can build their next home nearby. Tap, tap, tap.

I think the mourning doves have increased in population but since I can never get them to visit all at once I'm not sure. I like their cooing they do. Cooo, cooo, cooo.

We've had young hawks in the area trying to hunt the doves but they are rare and those noisy jays help dissuade them from lingering for long.

Since we've moved the computers away from the back of the house, mine does sit next to a window and I hear some of the birds with it open, I don't see the robins and the nuthatches or chickadees unless I stand at the kitchen window and look out. I had noticed that this morning that I was hearing a repetitive call from someone but it wasn't truly sinking into my early morning mind (I'm not a morning person people!). Brandon and William had already left and Nessa hadn't yet started her 'fish tv' and I was going to start counting the wraps on my swift for the Embarrassment of Riches yarn. I startled a Blue Heron out of the backyard, it was actually a mutual startling.

It of course had also started sprinkling and I'm still in night clothes but there I am pushing aside plants to try and find/count our fish. Luckily they were smart and keeping under cover of the plants or in the case of the smaller ones shoving themselves under the bio-filter. I think I'll finally get that brick house for them that I've been asking Brandon to put in since that's one of the suggestions I've found this morning.

I think we'll be making/purchasing a 'deer chaser' (Japanese version is Shishi-Odoshi) to our pond. We do have an extra pond pump so that won't be a problem. I get to do research locating one in the area.

Apparently heron's are pretty smart. You can't get a decoy and plop it next to your pond and be safe. If you try it you have to move it around. There's the 'scarecrow' method which really isn't a scarecrow but a motion detecting (yeah right with dogs this would be smart) system that then makes a loud noise and sprays water in a 90 degree arc. Mary, the nice lady we got our gold fish from had this netting system over her pond. Not terribly attractive in our opinion and truthfully I had wondered about it. The neighbors were asking about raccoons and we haven't seen those in the years since we've had the fence up and the dogs. Throw in a dog door that allows easy access to the backyard and the dogs hear anything out of the ordinary (yes, they failed this morning with the heron) and they're taking up the 'charge!' to go bark the snot out of anything stupid enough to cross the barrier. No, I can't help if there are suicidal squirrels or cats, though both species seem to have an impressive ability to go vertical when needed.

So the moral of this story is to listen when nature is trying to smack you upside of the head with a wake up call.

ETA: Brandon got home and put a brick they had found last night in the pond and we did a tail count and only found 5. One of the orange fish is gone. It was one of the one's with a white tail, darn it.

Spinning & Fish

I've done a few short stints at the wheel since getting it on Wednesday and after Bobbie's tutorial on how to use it. Today I backed pretty much all of that off the bobbin and started over. I'd noticed that it was pretty loose on the bobbin and you could see that in the yarn. I then spent about an hour with the Schoppel Wolle pencil roving I picked up at Knit/Purl. Since it is pencil roving it's almost pre-drafted. I still did a little bit more. There's some thick and thin going on but I think when plied it might end up being a fingering weight.

Here's what I have right now:


Brandon and I picked up the pond fish on Friday after work. Four came home with us that night and it was a bit of work just to get them. I think the longest orange one is about six inches long. Mary also sent us home with some 'lettuce' and 'hibiscus' plants. I put them in quotes because those are what my memory came up with and I'm not sure if that's the 'real' name for them. Saturday she gave a call to Brandon, but he's down in Lincoln City helping with the roof, so Norbert and I ran over to pick up two more fish and a palm and iris that she thinned out of her pond. I really should have taken the camera to get a shot of her pond - very pretty. These are the shots I have of the first four fish in the pond:



The fish are pretty skittish still. The two new fish - one red, smaller than the others and a white with yellow headed one that she thinks is female so that we too can have babies next year. The dogs are curious about the what's in the pond, right now anytime anything comes near it they dart for hiding under the plants.

Nessa is stressed by Cedi. Cedi has a nasty habit of resource guarding the kitchen and since she's taller than Nessa, she just finds it easier to hide out in the bedroom. I did take her out and got her a doggie cone at Dairy Queen last night that she did enjoy and shared with Norbert. I'm sure she would be counting the minutes until both dogs are gone if she could do that. ;^) Norbert is much more relaxed about them and hanging out on the back of the couch.

In case you were wondering, I've taken the Beach Glass Basket Rib Handtowel out of my projects. When you dread knitting something, you shouldn't. So it will get frogged once again and become a Seafoam Hand Towel I have in my queue. Damn boucle.

I also discovered I can't count. I have five nephews, I had four fish. So I whipped up another one yesterday while watching TV:

I've also started work on Kaisha's Pasha Penguin. The feet are knitted as well as the wings. Cast-on for the body, it's two pieces. I foresee this as a quick knit, it's going to be all the seaming up that will take some time, of course.

I'm going to check with Knit/Purl to find out if they have more of the pencil roving so that I can either ply it with the same colorway, or a complementing one. Question is, drive or MAX? May have William practice the drive down before his drive test on Tuesday. I'll have to get in touch with Kim to see if I can get the third bobbin for her so that I can ply.