More Wildlife, But Smaller

Living in the forest has lots of pluses(sp?) and minuses. It's quieter here. We can see the stars better here. We have lots more insects and spiders here. This is one of my favorite critters that we have here. Green tree frogs! We have lots of them. They appear on the windows at night and eat mosquitoes. When it rains they sing loud and long. This particular frog likes our front door handle. He/she sits on the inside of the handle and dares you to open the door. Sometimes he brings a buddy, and there are two frogs sitting in a line one behind the other. (Photo by Sarah)

At the Beach

Where have I been? At the beach. We went down to Gulf Shores, Alabama for our annual trip to the beach. We were there for two weeks this year and rented two houses. We had a total of 28 friends and family during the two weeks. Not everyone was there all the time, but we did have a lot of people. It was fun, and I will post more pictures later.

Crystal

I have been the care taker of my mother-in-law's crystal for a number of years now. However, I was not taking the best care of it. At my old house the crystal was in the top of my cabinets in the kitchen. It was dirty and dusty and didn't look very pretty. So Wally wrapped it all up in paper and moved to the new house, but left it in the boxes in the kitchen. Today, Sarah and I opened all the boxes and washed all the crystal. Since it is crystal, we did it by hand. This is one of the reasons it had not been cleaned for a while. I'm a dishwasher kind of gal. Having Sarah help did make the task go more quickly. I am grateful for her help. Here are two photos of what the crystal looks like now. And here is the artsy fartsy shot. I couldn't help it.

I think when we get things more under control here, I will look into some sort of cabinet to display the crystal. It seems a shame to let all that loveliness hide in a cabinet.

Forest Neighbors

As many of you know, we have moved into our new house. We are still moving things from the old house, but we are sleeping and eating in the new house. The new house is on an acre plus of land, and it is in a heavily forested area. We have lots of trees, so we also have lots of wild life. We have seen deer, wild pigs, racoons, opossums and lots of birds. Yesterday, between trips to the other house, Wally and I were eating lunch at the new house. All of sudden, Wally called me to look out into the backyard. This is what we saw. If you can't see too clearly, here is a closer shot. Now our fence is 6 feet tall, so you know this is a big bird. We have seen lots of vultures out here, but never this close up. They are usually on the side of the road or gliding on the air currents.

What you can't see in this picture is the blue jays dive bombing the vulture. I don't know if there was a blue jay chick on the ground or what, but the blue jays were having a fit. They were squawking and carrying on and trying to get the vulture to move. The vulture just stood there and looked around. He was not moving. Finally, Wally went out into the yard, and the vulture decided to leave. It took off and went flying over the pine trees. We saw it circle around a few times, but the vulture did not return. Then the blue jays decided to dive bomb Wally. Ah, the joys of living in the country.

Busy, busy, busy. Moving, boxes everywhere, wedding, boxes everywhere, utter and complete chaos.

Knitting for a change

I finally blocked the rusted root sweater for Sarah. It's been sitting waiting to be blocked for months now. Sarah has been telling me, "If you block it, I will wear it." I will try to get her to model it for me later. The current sock is a little different than what I usually do. I usually knit simple, easy socks because they are very portable, and I don't have to think too much about them when I'm knitting. These socks take a lot of concentration, but I am really liking the way they are turning out. This is the front of the sock at the ankle.

This is a side view of the sock after I turned the heel. These are the Salto socks by Rebecca Kerner from Spring 2008 Knitty. It's a free pattern that can be downloaded. The yarn is Berroco Comfort Sock, 50% Super Fine Nylon and 50% Super Fine Acrylic, color 1811. I am knitting on Knitpicks Harmony DPNs, size 1 (2.5mm). The yarn is really soft, but it does have a tendency to split. It does not have a very tight twist.

Almost There

Here is how the house looked as of yesterday afternoon. We have grass, roses, azaleas and other plants now. The front door still needs to be stained, and there are lots of little things that need attention on the inside, but we are getting closer to moving in.