Knitting Iris

opening day

of hunting season.

I'm going to try to get out for more and better pics during the week.  For now, this is all I have.

Already this morning, while feeding the chickens and letting the sheep out of the barn into the field, a shot rang out in the distance .

C is away on a several day backpacking/hunting trip with a friend/neighbor. 

You couldn't pay me to camp in rainy weather with freezing nighttime temps like this,

but I know he's enjoying it. 

The larch are at their peak of fall color.

Two days ago, the boys were helping their papa move piles of lumber when the stirred up a yellow jacket nest.  Much screaming and running and stripping off of clothes ensued, and squishing and untangling of wasps caught in hair, and wailing and crying, baking soda and baths, benedryl and tylenol.  Our neighbor is a talented herbalist, and her "stinger zinger" worked as well as anything, if not best, to ease the pain.  Then smoothies and waffles before a movie and bed.

Poor E saw the worst of it with 15-20 bites on his legs, arms, hand, chest, back, neck, and head, it was hard to tell how many there were under his hair.  C had 5, and R got away with only 2. 

Ouch.  Traumatic pandemonium at the time.  Now, just a story to tell and retell.

Yesterday afternoon, E sat calm as can be at the picnic table while a yellow jacket circled around him, checking him out.

Yesterday evening, while driving the boys to spend a couple of nights with their cousins,

it felt as if we were travelling within some hazy and slightly moody painting.

Returning home again after dark, the ewes were being stubborn, and so I had to round them up by the light of the full moon.  I was too tired and rather irked about it at the time, but

if they hadn't made me come out into the field and chase them, I never would have seen that shooting star streak clear across the sky.

Today, the boys went to the pumpkin patch with their aunt & uncle and cousins.

On my way home I saw that this afternoon's drizzle had turned the grasses a bright golden and the damp weather had made for for wisps of fog and mist across the landscape.  I had no camera with me.

Tonight, after work, all the sheep filed happily into the barn for me.  Thank you.

It's so quiet,  I have't wanted to spoil it by turning on the radio, putting in a movie, or even answering the phone.

A fire is crackling in the stove.  The kitchen sink is dripping, slowly, one drop at a time.  No one else breathing inside this house.  The occasional whir of the laptop fan.

I've pulled an armchair right up next to the fire in the middle of the room.

Back there, to my knitting, my cup of tea, and cinnamon toast...

then a long and deep night's sleep,

while he sleeps, cinched up tight and warm in a sleeping bag within a tiny tent on the other side of the mountain. 

I can know he's been contently snoring away there for awhile already.

woods ranch october 2010

i was outnumbered by our scruffy headed boys.  they chose woods' ranch over the actual woods.  a familiar place, an old homestead, with nooks and trees like old friends.

a good choice, it turns out, except maybe for the argument and tears that broke out over a stick, some particularly special stick, that stood out from all other sticks, at least for the moment...ending in my yelling, too, in disbelieif, and far louder than they themselves, grrr. 

over the years, they've had far more fights over sticks than toys, which, i suppose, is a good thing...that they'll place more value on a stick than some plastic toy. 

once that was all ironed out, all went smoothly the rest of the afternoon...aside from finding ourselves nearly blocked from leaving by a rolled truck down the road - teenagers driving too fast on gravel roads.  they like this place too.  everyone was o.k., and we were able to just barely squeak our car around, but it led to a good talk (lecture) with the boys about who to drive with, who not to drive with, and how to drive, themselves, when they're old enough to do so - we'll see how much good that does when the time comes.

apples.  branches.  clouds.  running.  throwing.  climbing.  warmth.

quiet. 

clouds.  cider.  peanut butter by the spoonful.  grass.  bear scat.  sticks.  rosehips.  trunks.  leaves.  shadows.  wind.  ravens.  grasshoppers.  yelling.  laughing.  sunshine.

we didn't go with the intention of doing any picking even.  we brought our own bought from the fruit stand the other day: 1 gala, 1 honeycrisp, and 1 macintosh to taste and to share. 

fortunately we scrounged up a plastic bag and a crate from the car for our haul.

some of the many tiny apples we gathered will become jelly, the rest will go to the chickens (few are bigger than 1 to 1.5 inches across).  i hope the bears won't mind too much.  there were SO many huge piles of scat full of apple seeds, some quite fresh, and many broken branches, under and around the old trees.

that "tablecloth"?  a bedskirt i've seen sitting at the thrift store for at least a month now.  we stopped on the way through town and finally bailed it out and, as it turned out, it made a great impromptu covering for a very, very run down and broken picnic table top.

Frankensocks

"Frankensocks" knit for the boys with leftover stashed sock yarns.  For E's I switched yarns every  15 rows and for R's, every 10 rows.  E's are knit over 50 stitches, R's over 52 stitches.

On a similar note,  I have two big brothers and one of them is named Stein.  I always wished my other brother's name was Frank so I could introduce them like this: 

"These are my brothers, Frank & Stein."

Ba dum bum!!

By the way, all the episodes of The Munsters (loved these growing up) & The Addams Family (never saw any of these) are on instant download right now over on Netflix.  We are so excited to share all that goofiness with the boys!  Last night we watched the first two episodes to giggles galore.

Seeing as it IS October, as in Socktoberfest, over the next week or so I'll be trying to post about a few more pairs of socks that have been knitted up in 2010 but have not yet been blogged about. 

The garden is pretty well wrapped up...just a truckload of leaves I picked up around town yesterday to spread out over the beds, a little more clean up to do, some daffodil bulbs and a few shrubs to plant. 

Tomorrow I start with seasonal work again making holiday wreaths a couple of days a week, so today the boys and I are going to spend the afternoon playing hookie, heading out into the woods to enjoy all the fall color, with hot cider and camera in tow.

glimpses of fall

 

 

 

remember, if you don't see me here, i'm likely posting over at flickr.

Cody, Wyoming/Yellowstone trip

 

 

Still here.  Just busy.

Both preparing for and returning from a week long road trip/business trip to Cody, Wyoming late last month.

Chris was in the Cody High Style design show featuring contemporary western artists at the Buffalo Bill Historical Center.

We all went along, and the boys and I spent our days at the museum, in Yellowstone, and around Cody.   The historical center is a smithsonian-quality museum with enough hands on things for the boys to do that it took us three days to thoroughly see and do most of the 5 wings of the museum.  Then, we spent 12 hours one day touring the park and felt as if we barely touched upon it.  Fortunately, we had plenty of time for all of it, and we considered the entire trip to be one long homeschooling field trip.

(O.K, fine, and we watched our fair share of cartoons and crappy t.v. shows, too.)

Then, on the way back home we drove through Yellowstone all together, stopping to sightsee, watch Old Faithful blow off some steam, and for a couple hour hotspring soak (ahhh!), then staying and visiting with dear friends in Bozeman both on the way there and back.

Always, it's good to get back home but we came back in the thick of soccer/birthday party/chicken butchering/garden harvest season, with still so many pieces to pick up and get back in order from before we left, not to mention mountains of laundry.

Amidst the everyday chaos and messes at hand, fall is unfolding around us here at a lovely, leisurely pace.  It isn't exactly sunny, but it has been mild, allowing a long grace period for wrapping up the garden for the year...so far.