Spring in Texas

It's spring in Texas, and what does that mean? Bluebonnets! Wally and I went out looking for wildflowers on Sunday afternoon. Texas has lots of wildflowers that grow on the sides of the highways. In March, the bluebonnets bloom, and I love them.

We found a huge field just outside of Brenham. This field was at least 4 or 5 acres, and it was absolutely covered in bluebonnets. It was also accessible to people, that is, not private property. Lots of other people had the same idea we did. It was a beautiful day with clear skies and moderate temperatures. Here is a little bit of what we saw. Here's another close up shot. This one also has what are called Evening Primrose here. I don't know if that's the proper name for these pink flowers or not. They are everywhere this time of year, too.

A nice family was kind enough to take a photo of Wally and I standing in the bluebonnets. You can see how big the field is in back of us. Multiply that space by 4 or 5 and that's how huge the area was. And...it was all bluebonnets. You can also see lots of other people enjoying the flowers.

Later, we stopped at a Dairy Queen, another Texas classic. Wally had a chocolate shake, I had a caramel shake and we shared some onion rings. It was a lovely afternoon.

Oscar

So...it has been almost a month since we "fostered" Wildfire. Needless to say, he did not go back, and we signed the adoptin papers two weeks ago. We have decided to call him Oscar. He is a great dog, very loving and wanting to be loved. If we let him, he wants to be a lap dog as you can see from the photo below. Sarah is the only one who lets him do this, and he knows it, so he milks it for all it's worth. What a face! When everyone else is at work, Oscar is my shadow. Wherever I am, Oscar is there, too. We have beds in strategic places about the house, but if Oscar can't find a bed, he just plops down anyway, even on the tile floor. When I'm working on the computer, this is what I usually see.

The photo is a little dark as I took it without using the flash. That's my constant companion at rest. Oscar will stay there as long as I'm there, too.

He does have one funny habit. He likes to steal things out of the trash. Not food, because he can't get to the food trash, but things like used tissues or dryer sheets or used swiffer sheets. We have to close the doors to the bathrooms so we don't find surprises in the middle of the living room floor. Oh yea, he also likes balls of yarn.

S3's

So, I have had a serious case of Second Sock Syndrome ever since this past summer. I have three pairs of socks on the needles, and none of them finished. Well, I have finally finished one pair. This yarn is Dream in Color Smooshy. I had never knit with this yarn before, but I really like it. It has a good tight twist and feels great after it is blocked. I knit these socks on US 1 (2.25mm) in my plain basic pattern. The colorway is called Petal Shower.

New Family Member

For those of you who know my family well, you know that we have had retired greyhounds since 1996. We had Dancer, Molly, Ticket, Nikiski and Argus in that time. Argus died last March while we were on vacation. He was at our trusted kennel, and one night he went to sleep and did not wake up. That was very hard on all of us. Also, at that time we were building the new house and Sarah's wedding was coming up. We decided it was not a good time to get another dog. I, in particular, was not keen about getting another dog at all. I am the one who takes care of them the most, and I get extremely attached emotionally. Well, Wally and Sarah finally wore me down. We went to the greyhound adoption agency last Saturday and are now "fostering" this great looking dog. I say "fostering", because we have fostered three times before, and the dogs never go back. This great guy is called Wildman, racing name C YA Wildfire. He is three years old and BIG. He is very tall, even for a greyhound. He weighs about 82 pounds. He is very friendly and loves attention as you can see from the photo. He has wonderful manners other than trying to hug everyone who walks in the door. We are thinking about changing his name, but have not come up with a name that everyone likes.

Current knitting

Here is what I am knitting now. It's one of those Noro Silk Garden scarves that everyone has been blogging about. It looked like fun to me even if it is rarely cold enough here it use a wool/silk scarf. I am enjoying knitting on it. It goes quickly, and I like how the colors are always changing. These yarns are Noro Silk Garden, numbers 226 and 292. Needles are US 7.

I have also been knitting a swatch of the new alpaca yarn I posted about last time, but those photos did not turn out well, and they were boring. I have a couple of pairs of socks on the needles, too, but have been enjoying the mindlessness of the scarf right now. I will get back to the socks later.

End of year post

Yesterday I went to my local yarn shop, Twisted Yarns, because they were having an end of year sale. I didn't really need anything, but I thought I'd go look. Well...I came home with 16 skeins of this. Classic Elite Inca Marl...100% alpaca...it feels so lovely. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with it yet, but I figure it will make a good project for the new year. Speaking of the new year, I leave you with an image of my last finished object for the old year. This is my grandson who is 22 months old. I had knit him a cap when he was newborn, but of course he has out grown it. His mom asked for a new cap for him, and I was happy to oblige. The new cap is made out of Berroco Comfort worsted weight. He seems to like it.

Happy New Year to everyone. I hope all of you have a safe and prosperous year.

I'm still here. I promise. I will try to come up with a decent post soon. Honest.

What's new

This weekend Corwin spent Saturday night with us while his parents went to a party. On Sunday it was such beautiful day, Wally decided to work in the yard. Corwin helped. Here is a picture of the two of them out in the yard. Somewhere, I have a photo of Wally and Andrew in just about the same pose. I will have to dig it out and scan it for comparison. One of the things Corwin loves to do when he is visiting at our house is get in and out of one of our chairs. He goes up and down, up and down. Here is a photo of coming down. I had trouble photographing Corwin, because he moves so fast. Anyway, you get the idea.

This is Corwin's favorite chair, because it is low enough for him to climb into, and he can grab the wooden arm rests for better leverage.

Canada

The week before last Wally and I had the opportunity to be in Canada. Wally had to go for work, and I came up later to sightsee. Here we are at Lake Louise. It was a beautiful day, but cold as you can tell from the way we are bundled up. We stayed at a B&B in Banff which is a lovely little town. One of the sights we saw was this elk down by the golf course. He was just munching away on the grass at the side of the road. I was probably less than 20 feet away from him in the car when I took this photo.

All in all, it was a lovely few days away from routine. We would like to go back again sometime.

Hurricane Ike

As promised much, much earlier, here are two photos of damage from Hurricane Ike. We saw a lot of trees that came up by the roots. It was sad to see so many of the old oak trees that came down this way. The pine trees tended to snap off in the wind.

Great box!

Caroline B has painted another outstanding box. Go to uniqart.blogspot.com

Update

I did not realize it had been so long since I last posted. Sorry. So...what's new?

The most excitement came from Hurricane Ike on September 12 and 13. Living in the Houston area, we got hit pretty hard. We lost 9 trees in our yard, but none of them fell on the house. We had four holes in our fence, but Wally was able to repair two of them quickly. The other two are pretty big, but fixable. We did have some leaking around our chimney and vent pipes. Since the house is only 4 months old, we are getting our builder to check the roof. There should not have been any leaks, even if Ike was a catagory 2 storm. We lost electricity for 14 days, but we had a natural gas generator built into the house, and it worked really well. We did not lose anything from the refrigerator or freezer, and we were able to make ice for our neighbors. All in all, it was a bad storm, but we were incredibly lucky.

We took some pictures of the downed trees, but have not uploaded them to the computer yet. I will try to post photos later, but I'm not making any promises.

Still Here

I have not fallen off the face of the earth. I'm still here. We have been dealing with an ancient computer, so no photos for now. I am knitting. Currently, there are three pairs of socks on needles. I know, I know, I should concentrate on one at a time, but yarn was calling my name. I have finished two stocking caps, one for Wally and one that I thought was for me, but Sarah likes it, too. I am still working on trying to unpack boxes and find places for things in the house. So nothing extremely exciting.

Beautiful Box

Go look here. This box is so beautiful.

Firsts Meme

I don't usually do memes, but I thought this one was interesting. I copied it from Zeneedle.

1. Who was your first prom date? And only prom date, Frank H.

2. Do you still talk to your first love? Talk, no, Christmas cards, yes.

3. What was your first alcoholic drink? A Whiskey Sour.

4. What was your first job? Other than babysitter, summer office help.

5. What was your first car? A 1973 Ford Pinto, which was rear-ended by a gravel truck after I had it for two weeks. I was lucky I was not killed knowing what we know about Pintos now.

6. Who was the first person to text you today? No texts today.

7. Who is the first person you thought of this morning? Wally

8. Who was your first grade teacher? Miss George, Manoa Elementary School

9. Who was your first best friend and are you still friends? I have no idea who my first best friend was.

10. What was your first sport played? Sports? Does a reading marathon count?

11. Where was your first sleepover? No clue on this one either.

12. Who was the first person you talked to this morning? Wally

13. Whose wedding were you first in? Cindy and Wayne's, I was a bridesmaid. It is also the only wedding I have been other than my own.

14. What was the first thing you did this morning? Put my glasses on.

15. What was the first concert you went to? It was either Jan and Dean or Sonny and Cher, both of which were in the old New Orleans Municipal Auditorium in the mid-1960s.

16. What was your first tattoo or piercing? Ears 1969, one hole each, done by a friend who lived across the hall from me in college.

17. What was the first foreign country you went to? England

18.What was your first run in with the law? None, so far.

19. When was your first detention? Never had detention.

20. What was the first state you lived in? Pennsylvania

21. Who was the first person to break your heart? A boy named Wayne in the 6th grade.

22. Who was your first roommate? My sister, Jan? College, Sue and Kathy.

23. Where did you go in your first limo ride? Obviously, I have been deprived. I have never ridden in a limo.

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.