What Housework?

Attrition

Well, didn't the overconfident little farmer wannabes take a fall this week! We had a turkey tragedy.

Last week, Trixie hatched out 5 poults and we gave her the 6 we had hatched in the incubator. She was frantic to get them outside and we stupidly let her. One disappeared. And then there were 10.

She was doing fine with them, but kept sleeping out in the woods rather than near the house (probably to avoid Milo!). But my husband and brother-in-law dug a couple dozen post holes for the new, improved goat yard they are building. Sunday morning, we found that 3 of them had fallen into the holes and, unable to get out, had died. And then there were 7.

Meanwhile, the survivors were standing around in the cold, wet grass while their mother tried to rescue the victims in the holes. One died. And then there were 6.

The boys brought the survivors into the house and we put them under a heat lamp while we set up proper housing for Trixie and the poults. One of them just couldn't warm up. And then there were 5.

We made Trixie a nice setup right in the turkey barn, with a board across the door to keep the poults from getting outside but allowing the other birds to come and go. We brought the babies back to their distraught mother and she stepped on one's head.

And now there are 4.

Well camouflaged, aren't they?

Everyone left seems to be doing fine at this point. We are sadder but wiser now and, as with so much around here, have learned from the experience. I feel responsible for the loss of most of the other poults, but such is life on the homestead. You can't dwell on it.

Spring is full of contrasts, especially that of birth and death. Although this week is cold and windy, the weekend was a lot nicer than the forecast predicted. Here's Dave under the cherry tree:

Tulips and grape hyacinths:

My younger stepson home for the summer (do all guys just love tractors?):

The new, fortified goat fence in progress (the permanent part, which will now be electrified so we won't have quite so many daring escapes):

I have been busy in the shop. I shipped off my order to yarn4socks.com and have been concentrating on fiber. Some of you asked about my new Pat Green Triple Picker and what it does. Oh, I'll tell you. Here we have a couple of pounds of scoured Romney fleece from a local farm:

There's some VM, and while it looks quite fluffy, those locks are a bit too intact to put through the drum carder. You put on your leather gloves, feed the locks into the Triple Picker, and within a few minutes you have this:

A lot of the VM has fallen out, and the volume of the fleece has more than quadrupled. It's like a cloud of Romney! Now we can card.

Someone mentioned that they'd like some local fiber pulled into roving instead of sold as batts. I thought that would be fun because it opens up the option of space dyeing and keeping the colors separate. The good news is I tried it. From batts to roving:

It's lovely. The bad news is I discovered that pulling batts into roving takes approximately FOREVER. I will dye this stuff up but the price is going to reflect the labor involved in handling a raw fleece at every stage, from scouring to drying to picking to carding, to re-carding, to pulling into roving, to dyeing, to rinsing, to drying, to packaging, photographing, and uploading. On the bright side, there are not very many sources for non-mill-processed fiber from known sources.

Speaking of mill-processed fiber from an unknown source (weren't we?), I have updated A Piece of Vermont Yarn and Fiber with bamboo/merino top. Before I shop you the new stuff, look what I did with mine. I had meant to spin enough for a Clapotis, but after one skein I realized the colorway was a bit too My Little Pony for me. My daughter loved it. So, here's how it went:

Finished in two days, it's the Shrug This from One Skein Wonders. Like others on Ravelry, I question how this could ever have been intended for an adult. My gauge is smaller than what is called for, but even so... Anyway, it was a quick knit and my daughter (don't you love the summer bob, even uncombed?) modeled it and then wore it to school today. Now she wants a poncho from the same merino/bamboo.

And so we come to the shop update. I posted the following 60/40 merino/bamboo bumps to A Piece of Vermont Yarn and Fiber today:

Spring Fling, Mist, Three-Day Weekend, Mossy Stones, and Farmer's Market:

ETA: FARMER'S MARKET IS SOLD. YOWZA THAT WAS FAST.

Farmer's Market (the last one, above) comes with a special quantity discount. There are four bumps of that colorway totalling over 16 ounces, and if you buy all four at once, each one is $1.50 off, plus you get automatic free shipping for orders $60 or over. I know how tough it is to buy bigger amounts of fiber or yarn without breaking the bank, but this stuff would make a fantastic summer sweater or shawl. Of course, the discount will only work as long as all four bumps are still available.

And I just have to share the surprise that came in the mail for me yesterday:

That's real Oklahoma alpaca blended with silk. Gorgeous and buttery and I can't wait to do something with it. It was part of a thank-you gift from Susan, a.k.a. Red Dirt Knitter, to whom I recently introduced the magic that is real maple syrup. (I think she likes it.) Thank you, Susan!!!!

So, I have a little time before my daughter gets home to go for a run. I'm up to four (slow) miles a couple of times a week and I can still walk and take the stairs, which is nice. Standing up after long periods of sitting requires a bit more time than it otherwise would, but I can do it without yelling almost every time.

We're throwing a big Memorial Day barbecue/potluck on Sunday night. If I don't get another post in by the weekend, have a good one.

I know why you're here

It's not for the knitting or the spinning. It's this:

I wish I had better pictures of these fast-growing little piggies but I haven't done very well with the camera. The above picture is a couple days old and these are even older (see how fat they're getting already?):

The thing is, these guys move like lightning and I have to use a slow shutter speed because there's not enough light in the barn. In lieu of adorable baby pig pictures, however, I did get some good ones of the older three. It was barn-cleaning day on Sunday and pigs absolutely love to burrow in fresh hay. Here, my brother in law is tossing forkfuls onto two of them. They run around and roll in it and snort and come for more when he stops.

There. Now that we've gotten that out of the way, there's more to report. Such as this on Sunday evening:

No, I don't mean the tractor, which saw a lot of use this weekend. And I don't mean the acre or so my husband tilled for my 30' x 40' garden (the man is a maniac on a John Deere). I mean that black dot way out beyond the pond. Here's a closer shot:

Yeah, that's a black bear. On our property. This was my first bear sighting, since last year I only heard the one that overturned furniture on our porch and bent our bird feeder pole. Maybe it's the same one.

I've got a bit of a shop update. There are four imperfect skeins of Crazy Love in Colonial Superwash:

That violet blotch appears once or twice in each skein. Still, at 20 percent off, maybe it's worth it to you. Four skeins could make a good-sized shawl...

I also put up some Blue-Faced Leicester in what I think are very cool colorways.

Suite: Judy Blue Eyes:

Peace Train (my favorite):

   

Scarborough Fair:

Long Ago and Far Away:

I spun up a tiny bit of this last one and got this. I Andean plied it and apparently the midpoint was in the middle of the black, so it knit up with a sort of gradient look, which was not actually what I was trying for. But it's neat. (And sooooo soft.)

Now, a couple of weeks ago, I spun up some merino/bamboo top. I finally figured out what to use it for: Katja from Knitty, for my nephew's new baby daughter. I'm not sure it's going to fit, as a lot of people on Ravelry said it was kind of wide and mine came out the same. But I'm hoping the colors are going to distract everyone:

I will be putting up more merino/bamboo top next week, and I am most certainly going to re-post these pictures, for advertising. This stuff is incredibly soft and silky.

I haven't blogged in a while because suddenly it's spring in Vermont and we've been doing a lot of outside work. It's been so refreshing (and exhausting) to be able to get outside and hang out with the animals.

The sheep and goats got a new electric fence and lots more pasture:

I have started brushing the goats with the horse slicker I use on the dog. They are becoming frighteningly addicted to getting a good grooming.

My friend Jenn, the newish knitter, just finished a Classy Slip-Up from the Knit Socks! book. I believe she used Plymouth Happy Feet yarn in a clever colorway such as 8. Or maybe 9. I forget.

I believe this is only her second pair of socks and she has quickly mastered the Kitchener stitch, although she has to have a paper bag to breathe into the whole time she's doing it. I was working in the shop (playing with my new toy, below) while she was grafting, and I think Sassy did less heavy breathing when she was giving birth to the piglets.

Look what I got:

It's not actually a Milo warning, although it could be:

It's actually my Pat Green Triple Picker, which makes short work of raw fleece to prep it for carding. That, or it's a medieval torture device.

I had some plans to offer some custom dyed Romney and other local fiber this week, but the Romney turned out to have too much VM for me to sell. On the bright side, I'm in the middle of blending up pure silk with Vermont alpaca, which is going to make batts so delicious I can't stand it. I'm carding the alpaca right now and it's so soft I feel like going to sleep while I'm carding. Just wait. More Panda Superwash is coming, too.

Well, I think I've gone on long enough here today. I've covered everything but the gratuitous cat photos. Here:

Piglets!!!

Last night around 8:00, Sassy went into labor. I haven't mentioned her pregnancy much because (a) we didn't keep track of when she actually was bred and didn't have a confirmed due date and (b) I wanted to be sure everything went well before sharing the news. Also, (c) Sassy has grown so unbelievably fat I didn't want to embarrass her:

Everything went well. Here's the first little piggy, unsuccessfully looking for a teat:

The midwives (my husband, daughter, and brother-in-law) looking on:

We weren't sure how much to interfere, but sometimes the gilt or sow can roll on or step on (or even rip apart!) the just-born piglets while she's delivering another one. So the boys moved the piglets out of her way each time she got up and moved around. They were surprisingly lively and wandered all over the pen shortly after being born.

My husband helping Sassy with her rhythmic breathing:

Fudd, the dad, paced nervously in the waiting room:

It took quite a long time between the first two piglets and the next two, but eventually there were four, in color-matched pairs:

Our older piggies seemed a bit curious about all the barn traffic that late at night:

And Fudd got up for a snack but went back to bed:

There was almost an hour where Sassy seemed to be having contractions but no piglets. I took more pictures of the first four but then had to bring my daughter (who was falling asleep seated on an upturned bucket in the pen) up to bed.

A few minutes after I got into the house, my husband called to say two more piglets had been born and it was over. The last one, he said, couldn't get the mucous out of its mouth and throat and would have died if they hadn't been there to help.

I got this picture this morning, although you can barely tell there are 6 piglets here:

Dad is exhausted:

We were very pleased with how smoothly everything went. There is still a chance Sassy could accidentally roll on the piglets but my husband said now that labor was over she was being very careful to tiptoe around them when she got up. Cross your fingers.

There's been a lot of stuff going on, farm-wise, lately. Both of our hen turkeys have been laying eggs, although only Trixie is actually sitting  on hers. My husband took four eggs from each of them and has them in an incubator in the house. We may be lousy with turkey poults in another few weeks.

My husband and BIL devoted the weekend to setting fenceposts for the cows' pasture. You may be able to see a bluebird box on a post to the right of the fence. The boys had to move this, with a nest and four bluebird eggs inside, while putting up the new fence. Mother Bluebird flew around during the process but settled back down when it was over.

Dave the Peacock supervises:

Daisy:

An actual flower picture proving that spring is coming to Vermont:

Although things are turning green very slowly, the weather has been absolutely perfect all week: high 70s to low 80s, breezy, and sunny. We so deserve this.

Lilac buds:

Ed and Lars:

And, Milo, doing what he does while off-duty:

While I'm blogging, I'll throw in a couple pictures of my handspun April socks, made with my BL Sophie/merino yarn. I'm doing the second cuff now but here's the first:

These are the Diagonal Cross Rib socks from Interweave's Favorite Socks book.

I am doing these on 0s, thanks to my loose knitting, but they are a bit snug. I could have used 1s like the pattern calls for. However, I like a rather close fitting sock, so I'm quite happy so far.

Yesterday morning, one of the cows got out and ran laps around the barn until my husband got home and settled her down. (I now call him the Cow Whisperer.) Then once we got her in the barn, we found someone had left Sassy and Fudd's gate open. Fudd never woke up, but Sassy had waddled over to the hay and was sleeping against a round bale. Then that afternoon, all the turkeys crossed the road and in my efforts to herd them I tripped over a branch and ripped my leg all open.

And most annoying of all, I was trying on a dress I bought online. It was way too small, and the stupid spandex thing with built-in bra top was so tight I kind of got stuck in it. In my effort to get it off, I think I may have torn something important in my shoulder. Fashion can be deadly.

Today is much better.

The Lemonade Hat

You know that really annoying saying that when life hands you lemons you should make lemonade? Well, I made some.

What started out as a lovely pile of Real Vermonter "Addison" roving (wool/mohair/alpaca)

and was intended to be spun up as sock yarn, turned into lemons when I Navajo-plied it and got 106 yards of a bulky yarn. Soft and squishy, but bulky:

After being angry with it for two months, I finally did the right thing: got on Ravelry and did a pattern search. I came up with the Garter Ribbed Hat by Christa Giles (Ravelry link) and did it up quick.

Yes, that's a ponytail hole in the back.

My garter stitch cuff is not exactly what is called for in the pattern. Let's pretend that I did that on purpose to conserve yarn (which worked, by the way) and not because I misread the pattern.

Best of all, it doesn't itch, even though the Real Vermont has mohair in it.

I'm happy to say I've just updated the shop with three more bumps of this roving. ETA: That first one just sold.

However, it's the LAST THREE TWO EVER of the Addison blend, so if you like it, act fast. I don't have any plans to have any more roving commercially processed. I will start offering blended batts as soon as my new picker arrives, but this is the end of the Real Vermonter roving. Seriously.

Something I have noticed about my handspun lately:

Do you see something these all have in common? I don't even like blue that much. Why is everything blue? It's purely coincidence that I've gravitated toward this color, although lately I do feel a real attraction for blues and greens together. It's the Pisces in me. Anyway, yesterday and today I did something to fight my instinct to go blue again. I spun this:

Do you love it or what?

I totally love it. It's spun from a merino/bamboo blend which, not coincidentally, I am now carrying at A Piece of Vermont. I actually spun this skein in the hopes that I could start selling some of my own handspun, but I'm afraid either I'm too slow a spinner or other spinners are way undervaluing their time. I wouldn't let this go for less than $70 and I don't expect too many people to be lining up for a 218-yard skein of yarn at those prices. Spinning takes a long time, that's all there is to it.

But if you want the top, check it out:


ETA: "Sweetness" above is SOLD

One more bit of advertising. New Colonial Superwash:

Now, I've totally neglected to take any photos of my April socks, but since only half of one cuff is done, you're not missing much. It's....blue. But very pretty. You'll see.

Life on the farm is going well. After so many months of winter it's like an explosion of activity.

Dave the Peacock is wreaking town havoc with his constant trips across the road. Since it's mating season and the peahen is over here, I don't know why he can't stay home.

Every morning, our house is full of my brothers-in-law and their grown sons, several of whom work for my husband. It's the local contractor coffee klatsch and lately it has expanded to include breakfast. Around 7:00, the sun streams in across the kitchen and makes for great food photos. Our own eggs feature prominently on the menu (love that yolk color!), as does French toast with butter and real maple syrup. Yum.

My next project, other than finishing up Ms. Marigold and Sunkist and my husband's seamless hybrid sweater and my April socks, is to spin up some of that new merino/bamboo for a Clapotis. On Ravelry, something like 5,633 people have posted their Clapotis. It's a popular pattern and it's been done to death. But I love it and I miss the one I made and lost.

Spring has arrived in Vermont. Will I make time to knit and spin?

March socks

A boring blog post is one that contains knitting and spinning and a shop update, but no pictures of Milo. Prepare to be bored.

I finally finished my March socks. On April 3rd.

Note the heel, as suggested by Elizabeth Zimmerman:

Here's my take on the Colonial Superwash yarn, which, as you will see, has been restocked at A Piece of Vermont: I love it.

This is only my second pair of socks using this yarn, because typically I don't knit socks very often. The last pair (the Anastasias) I did on size 1s and the fabric was a bit wimpy. I dropped down to 0s for these (sob), and I love the way it knitted up. I haven't washed these yet, but the Anastasias softened up beautifully with machine washing so I imagine these will, too. I'm all over the purple and green combo, and although I've really become enamored of the toe-up, short-row heel sock, these do fit my high arches well because of the heel flap. This is a very comfortable pair of socks.

My April socks, which are already behind schedule, were just a pile o' fiber a few days ago. As planned, I blended dyed superwash merino and Sophie's Border Leicester wool into layered  batts (skein of yarn for scale):

That right there is just over 6 ounces, while the skein of yarn is 4. Fluffy! I tore off strips of roving

and started spinning:

Or, for a photo taken by the window:

I know one thing: This is wonderful spinning. It's about 30 percent merino to 70 percent BL, I think, and I can't begin to describe the smoothness of the spinning. The question is: Will it make good sock yarn? It's not especially elastic, so that may be a problem. We'll see. When carding, I alternated layers of merino and BL, all of which were dyed differently, mostly blue but also a layer of green and one of dark pink. I'm hoping the finished yarn, if I 2-ply it, will have subtle color shifts throughout. I can't wait to see.

I made two more batts, but those were already on request and have been sold to Sherri.

So, I updated the shop with lots of Colonial Superwash sock yarn. (By the way, if you are on Ravelry, I finally got in and edited my yarns, something that  Kim at Knits with a Silent K had kindly been doing until I got my invite lo these many months ago. Until now, I haven't had Colonial Superwash entered, so people have had to use the wool/nylon superwash that was there, but it's not the same yarn. Sorry about that.)

Here's what's left of the new stuff:

You're My Blue Sky

Honey Love

Cream of Mushroom

Water Sprite

Still Waters

One colorway (not shown) is sold out already. If you want to get early notice, sign up for the mailing list at the bottom of any page at A Piece of Vermont.

I also have some silk/merino DK ready to go, and I'll have some bumps of merino superwash top going up next week.

In shop news, good stuff: I got my new water extractor so I'll be able to spin out my yarns and fibers in the shop rather than in the house, and it won't felt my spinning fiber the way our front loader does. (Yes, on the spin cycle, it repeatedly stops and changes direction to "fluff" clothes. Remember the silk top disaster?) On the tech side, I can't get a wireless connection so far from the house, so I have to run a cable, or at least make my husband do it for me in his spare time. Which he doesn't have.

Spring is coming, and looking through my archives I see that pictures used to be a lot colorful in the warm weather. I'm looking forward to more of those.

Fortune cookie fun

It finally came to me what happened here. Either something was lost in translation, or the writer of this fortune confused the Golden Rule with golden sh*wers. (Gross. Sorry.)

Anyway.

How 'bout those March socks? I'm sure you've all been sleepless with anticipation. Well, they're not done:

They weren't done on March 31, either, but that's they day I almost finished the second one and decided to try on the first one. It was too short. (It's been a while since my last pair of top-down socks.) My first thought was to give them away so I wouldn't have to knit on them any more, but I really want them.

So I ripped out both toes and added some length. While I was at it, I adjusted the toe shaping. Toward the end, I decreased every round rather than every other to get a more rounded shape. The other is ready for its purple toe now.  Maybe today.

I've been super busy in the shop. There's an update on its way soon, hopefully tomorrow. I've got merino/silk yarn, to die for:

A crapload of Colonial Superwash:

And hopefully, I'll have blended up what you see there on the table (in the SUNLIGHT):

That's a coil of merino top on several batts of Sophie's Border Leicester fleece I dyed up. It's soooo pretty:

Whatever this turns into, half will be for sale (yes, Sherri, you get first crack at it, as promised) and half is going to become the yarn for my April socks. The last two times I've hoped to spin sock yarn, it's turned out too thick. It's not because I can't spin finer; I finally realized it's because I knit so loose that I dread spinning something so fine I have to use really small needles. This time I'm not going to worry. If I have to, I'll 3-ply it.

I also have some merino roving to dye up but that won't go up until next week. I just ordered a bunch of new fiber, including some merino/bamboo top, which I'm dying to try and which could become my next Clapotis, because I really want one out of handspun, and I lost my last one. I also bought some pure silk and something else (which I can't remember at the moment), which I want to use in some more custom blends. I have some light-colored alpaca coming in from my friends at the alpaca farm, and I see great things happening with all those fibers.

I will be busy today, since a guy from the local computer store* is coming to test the shop and see if I can get a wireless connection from the house--because I will have a new computer out there by next week! Then all my photography, packaging, and shipping can happen right from the shop and I won't always be lugging stuff back and forth to and from the house. As my friend Jenn says, "Work smarter, not harder."

*I am a big fan of buying local, having concluded that a slightly higher price usually is a good tradeoff for personal service and higher customer satisfaction. I noticed that a certain computer mfr was having a big sale online. So I built the system I wanted online, got a price, and called my local store. They are coming within $100 of the major manufacturer for an almost-identical system (and that's assuming there was no shipping charge from the online place) and they're already going out of their way to make sure I'm all set up and good to go. And they know my name. And when I have a problem I don't have to wait on hold for hours and speak to someone on another continent. Buy local. Saving pennies for crappy customer service is totally not worth it.

Since I'm on my high horse, I might as well throw in some other animal pictures. Polly and Gert:

The four little piggies:

Love the curly ears on this one:

And, of course, Milo causing trouble:

We are in full mud season in this part of Vermont but today we will get a break before the next two days of rain/snow: sunny and 52F. Now that's springtime, for us.

Mud

When it's March in Vermont, things happen.

You might find yourself, one Sunday afternoon,

wandering down a muddy log road

on the way to a special place.

And your daughter runs ahead because

friends are waiting

at the sugarhouse.

It's sugaring season (time to make maple syrup, for those not from these parts) in the north, and  we had a wonderful time at our friends' sugarhouse, which used to be a tiny shack with a wood-fired maple sap evaporator. They used to use four-wheelers (and I assume horses before that) to go through the woods and gather sap and then stay up all night boiling it down into maple syrup.

Times have changed.

The new sugar house is bigger and fits lots of people, an enormous evaporator, a wood cookstove, and lots of computerized equipment that turns a lot of sap into over 500 gallons of maple syrup, which the owner uses in his local diner. No corn syrup/food coloring imitations around here.

These days, high-production sugarers have even abandoned the sap buckets. Not quite as picturesque to see miles of plastic tubing running through the woods, but apparently it does the job better and faster (excuse the overexposure):

There is even a high-tech reverse-osmosis machine that removes some of the water from the sap before it gets into the evaporator, so instead of boiling down what was 2% sugar and 98% water, the process starts with 12% sugar. Now the guys can get home by 11 at night instead of 3 in the morning.

If you have never sat by a woodstove, in the company of wonderful people, and had a sip of freshly boiled warm maple syrup, you need to come to Vermont some springtime. Heaven.

Apparently, mud season is also shearing season, as Sophie and J.J. found out this weekend.

Andy the Traveling Sheep Shearer came and got to work.


Sophie, naked:

J.J. was next, but apparently I don't have any more pictures than these two.

The two sheep didn't recognize each other after, so they squared off in their little barn, one at each end of the room, heads down. The goats (who also got their hoofs trimmed and got vaccinated) stood well out of the way, on window sills and in food troughs, and wondered who these strange animals were and how they got here.

Everyone's happy now.

I'm happy because the sourdough starter I've been struggling with (just flour and water in a jar on the counter) has finally taken off, turning my twice-weekly loaves of brick into real bread:

If you have never tried a sourdough starter, it's a fun little science experiment (Hey kids, let's capture some yeast spores!) that makes fantastic, chewy, flavorful, crusty bread. Except when it makes bricks.

My handspun sweater had another setback. My husband started asking if the body wasn't perhaps a bit wide. Turns out 52" is 4"  more than he needs.

I ripped it out Friday and stated over, but I'm almost back up to where I was. And so it goes.

And yesterday, in case I was suffering from a lack of starchy winter foods (not), I made bagels. Have you tried this? Piece of cake. Make your basic dough (water, flour, yeast, salt, sugar). Knead it. Let it rise. Punch it down and shape into bagels. Boil for a few minutes. You get this:

Then bake.

Then eat. I made 24 and with a house full of teenagers yesterday they were gone by 4:00.

Finally, isn't anyone going to ask when I'm going to update the shop? It's been forever, I know. I have some Real Vermonter roving (in 6-ounce bumps) and a bit of Panda superwash ready to go, but I want to get more dyed. By request, I have lined up some silk/merino (DK weight, I think) that will be hitting the dye counter this week. Taxes are done, bills are paid, school is open, and I'm planning a big week in the shop. Hold on.

Calvin (the bedraggled rooster who is finally looking good and being accepted by the other birds) wishes you a happy, muddy week.

Springtime in Vermont

Ha, ha, just kidding. It might be springtime elsewhere, but here it's mud season. Oh, and ice season. Pictures from this afternoon:

It's a good day for staying in and huddling under a blanket, like Sophie:

It's also a good day for knitting. And guess what: I have finished the sleeves on my husband's handspun sweater. I have now learned why consistent spinning is important, especially in a garment with symmetrical elements. My first sleeve was fine but my second sleeve, from a bulkier skein, revealed a slight problem at the cuff:

I have since re-knit the second sleeve and moved onto the body. The sleeves are still not exactly identical, but I figured if my husband's not perfect, his sweater doesn't need to be either. I love the way the yarn is knitting up, at any rate.

I have also started my March socks. These will be boring because (a) I want to focus on this sweater and (b) I had to drop down to a size 0 needle to get my Colonial Superwash at a gauge I liked. I have no interest in knitting a challenging sock on 0s right now. I'm going top-down this time, but I'm still using magic loop.

I'm using two of my own hand-dyed skeins from my "factory seconds" pile. Both skeins had imperfections in them, but thanks to the magic of knitting, neither seems to be showing any faults in the knitted product itself. I'm going to do a checkerboard on the heel flap and a purple toe to match the cuff. (Purple and green. I'm so predictable.)

Yesterday morning was mild and sunny, and the brief taste of spring prompted the turkeys to take their first trip across the road in months. They complained loudly the whole time my husband was marching them back across our front yard.

In my spare time I've been mostly working as office manager/bookkeeper for my husband's business, which I have started to realize sucks up a lot more of my time than I give it credit for. In addition to the usual weekly bid-typing, bill-paying, and payroll stuff, this was tax-appointment week. Everything went fine but the whole concept of taxes and accounting always gives me a stomach ache and generally made me nervous and jerky all of Thursday. I am really not a numbers kind of girl. Thank God for Quickbooks.

In other news, I finished painting my stepson's room and his bed. Now I'm onto end tables and dresser and then I'll be pretty much done. (Hmm. At the current pace, that will be June.)

Milo continues to be evil.

There is one saving grace to his general love-you/chew-you demeanor, however.

As much as he'd like to eat us, limb by limb, he can't fight one fatal flaw:

He's easily distracted.