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unicorndukeI am working from home today, thankfully. We have a heat advisory since it's going to be 90F with lots of humidity. Yesterday I was in the field weeding things and drenched in sweat. I was sweating faster than it evaporated even with a breeze, so I was just wet. Work meeting last night too, it was a long day so I'm very glad for inside day today.
F was out of town for the long weekend and I was taking care of her cats. They were the normal tiny weirdos they were, running away but also wanting the treats I gave them. Only goof was that I forgot to refill their water for three days. They were down to the dregs once I remembered, so they hadn't run out but I felt bad.
I've been trying to get into the woods more and I'm succeeding. Went for two walks this week by myself, just going along the ridge path. Other than the sheep flies and mosquitos, it's lovely. I dropped the chainsaw off to get serviced on Sunday, so I'll found out if there's an actual problem or it's just user error. Then hopefully sometime soon I can actually start taking trees down, starting with the small ones along the tree line near the house. I will be putting up some fencing around the garden soon hopefully. Due to the trees needing to come down and the straight up rock under a small layer of dirt, trying to figure out how to bury t posts was baffling me. But F suggested concrete buckets and so the buckets have arrived. I'm going to buy concrete and more t posts in the next week or so, and then I can start laying things out. Because the yard is so sloped, I need to cut panels of the fencing anyway to prevent it from having big bows. So it will be a moveable fence. I also want to lay some landscape fabric down in a couple of spots to kill some perennial weeds. My garden this year is going to be pathetic and I don't have the energy to care that much. Oh well.
Next house project will be the balcony lighting since it just doesn't work. I need to buy two lights, then tear out all of the wiring and lights (because they just ran regular wire outside. just exposed. the birds have pecked holes in the covering), re-run all the cabling with actual conduit covered wire and mount the new light switch spot and lights. I ordered the wiring book my dad has since I really like the diagrams but it's currently somewhere in the mail. This is going to take me a couple weeks to actually do because of everything else going on. Plus I need another person around if I'm going to be up on ladders in strange places.
Mara can't do that hill into the woods anymore and she doesn't really want to go in the swamp either. But I think that's more due to the fact that the woodchucks smell really really good and she wants to find and eat them so bad, so she gets distracted.
She's doing better now that she's back on once a day gabipentin. More energy, less falling over. Pretty happy about that. I've removed all the hair from her belly to help with cooling, will be checking in with the vet on all over trimming for her. Her upset stomach from Tuesday has passed which is great. She ate the pill pockets for another day or two but realized again this morning that there was powder in one, so that's over with.
I found a brown bat in the kitchen sink this morning and turned the faucet on it before I saw it. It's a baby I think, pretty small and it seemed confused. I picked it up in a towel and took it outside. F has had bats in the upstairs, but this is the first in the downstairs.
I finished my knitted sweater up and another 4oz of spinning fiber. Weaving is on hold until the heddles I ordered arrive, I got that project breamed on and then realized I was 200 heddles short of what I needed. Ordered texsolv heddles, which lots of people swear by, so we'll see. I'm working on casting on a jersey sweater from this book, doing math to get all the patterns right with cabling and things. I also learned how to knit backwards last night while I was working on my swatch, which is technically right handed since I originally taught myself to knit left handed. So now I can knit back and forth on something instead of flipping it to purl or swatching in the round. This isn't that useful but it amuses me.
I keep meaning to do some fleece processing but failing, same with natural dyeing. Ah well. I want to get an outdoor area set up for the dyeing, just need to find a good spot and actually do it.
F was out of town for the long weekend and I was taking care of her cats. They were the normal tiny weirdos they were, running away but also wanting the treats I gave them. Only goof was that I forgot to refill their water for three days. They were down to the dregs once I remembered, so they hadn't run out but I felt bad.
I've been trying to get into the woods more and I'm succeeding. Went for two walks this week by myself, just going along the ridge path. Other than the sheep flies and mosquitos, it's lovely. I dropped the chainsaw off to get serviced on Sunday, so I'll found out if there's an actual problem or it's just user error. Then hopefully sometime soon I can actually start taking trees down, starting with the small ones along the tree line near the house. I will be putting up some fencing around the garden soon hopefully. Due to the trees needing to come down and the straight up rock under a small layer of dirt, trying to figure out how to bury t posts was baffling me. But F suggested concrete buckets and so the buckets have arrived. I'm going to buy concrete and more t posts in the next week or so, and then I can start laying things out. Because the yard is so sloped, I need to cut panels of the fencing anyway to prevent it from having big bows. So it will be a moveable fence. I also want to lay some landscape fabric down in a couple of spots to kill some perennial weeds. My garden this year is going to be pathetic and I don't have the energy to care that much. Oh well.
Next house project will be the balcony lighting since it just doesn't work. I need to buy two lights, then tear out all of the wiring and lights (because they just ran regular wire outside. just exposed. the birds have pecked holes in the covering), re-run all the cabling with actual conduit covered wire and mount the new light switch spot and lights. I ordered the wiring book my dad has since I really like the diagrams but it's currently somewhere in the mail. This is going to take me a couple weeks to actually do because of everything else going on. Plus I need another person around if I'm going to be up on ladders in strange places.
Mara can't do that hill into the woods anymore and she doesn't really want to go in the swamp either. But I think that's more due to the fact that the woodchucks smell really really good and she wants to find and eat them so bad, so she gets distracted.
She's doing better now that she's back on once a day gabipentin. More energy, less falling over. Pretty happy about that. I've removed all the hair from her belly to help with cooling, will be checking in with the vet on all over trimming for her. Her upset stomach from Tuesday has passed which is great. She ate the pill pockets for another day or two but realized again this morning that there was powder in one, so that's over with.
I found a brown bat in the kitchen sink this morning and turned the faucet on it before I saw it. It's a baby I think, pretty small and it seemed confused. I picked it up in a towel and took it outside. F has had bats in the upstairs, but this is the first in the downstairs.
I finished my knitted sweater up and another 4oz of spinning fiber. Weaving is on hold until the heddles I ordered arrive, I got that project breamed on and then realized I was 200 heddles short of what I needed. Ordered texsolv heddles, which lots of people swear by, so we'll see. I'm working on casting on a jersey sweater from this book, doing math to get all the patterns right with cabling and things. I also learned how to knit backwards last night while I was working on my swatch, which is technically right handed since I originally taught myself to knit left handed. So now I can knit back and forth on something instead of flipping it to purl or swatching in the round. This isn't that useful but it amuses me.
I keep meaning to do some fleece processing but failing, same with natural dyeing. Ah well. I want to get an outdoor area set up for the dyeing, just need to find a good spot and actually do it.
knitting
Date: 2023-07-06 01:45 pm (UTC)I think when people knit entrelac patterns they sometimes knit backwards. Otherwise the turning would get really annoying.
I've been doing a lot of clearing out lately. That Gladys Thompson book is one that I kept. I treasured it. I bought it when it was new, during a time of being completely obsessed with knitting. Just looking at it takes me back to a particular time.
I also still have the two Mary Thomas knitting books; have you ever seen them? Her embroidery books also excellent.
Looking forward to hearing how your new sweater progresses.
Re: knitting
Date: 2023-07-06 02:29 pm (UTC)Entrelac! I thought there was some type of knitting where it made sense to knit backwards.
I got the Gladys Thompson book since it seemed like guernseys and jerseys are durable and practical, which is something I need for my sweaters and things. I'm pretty excited to try knitting one and I'll be doing my first cables on it too. I'm also a very slow knitter, so it'll take me a while to make any progress. The last sweater took me 10 months although it was light fingering ish weight yarn.
I haven't seen the Mary Thomas knitting books, I'll keep an eye out for them. It's lovely to have some physical books even if I mostly use digital patterns. Hopefully your cleaning out goes well!
Re: knitting
Date: 2023-07-08 01:43 am (UTC)I taught myself to knit so I don't feel bad about all the errors I made. I still think of that cable sweater with fondness.
Knitting slowly is good. Trying to knit fast messes me up every time.
Re: knitting
Date: 2023-07-10 01:51 pm (UTC)I make so many mistakes in knitting and crochet but 95% of the time, they don't actually matter and can either be fixed in the next row or they aren't structural mistakes. I make stuff for me. I actually got my stitches twisted on this sweater when I connected them in the round but I was only 4 rows in when I noticed and flipped it around and knitted it to rights. It's not a big deal!
no subject
Date: 2023-07-06 03:51 pm (UTC)Little brown bats -- the species name! there's Big brown bat, too -- are really little. (big brown bats seem misnamed.)
Glad to hear Mara's dosage has been sorted out.
That fence seems like plenty of garden work for one year.
Also, yay! having a spotter when you're up ladders.
no subject
Date: 2023-07-06 04:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-07-06 07:08 pm (UTC)It will be very interesting to see if your concrete buckets work as you hope.