Yarn Along

David and I are still reading through "Along Came a Dog."  I'm thinking we might have to go straight to another one of the Chronicles of Narnia books after this.  I think he's needing some more action.

I'm finishing up the "Terra" shawl for a friend, and have a few last minute things to put in her care package.  I have exactly 20 rows left, and I'm at the point of the project where I just want it done.  It has been a fun knit.  I should be doing the numbers for my next project so that I can get straight to it next.  I'm in search for a few quiet moments to do that.  Soon harvest will be here.  It's a busy time, but also a time where I get lots of "me time" after the kids are in bed.  Sometimes that's hard.  Sometimes that's nice.  At any rate, I'm hoping to crunch months worth of numbers for various projects during that time.

That's probably not reality, but it is a possibility.

I also have a pile growing of projects that need blocking.  If that isn't the silliest thing in the world!  Projects that are completed but for one step just piling up.  I figure I'll wait until my 20 rows are completed and do a big batch of blocking.  Perhaps on one of the harvest nights.

Linking up with Ginny's Yarn Along.

I'm Blessed

Sorry in advance for this post being a little random.  It's Monday, and it's all I can muster up today.

With the return to Fall activities, it seems that sickness always returns.  Solveig was threw up a few times last night.  She's fine now.  I'm still holding my breath that it doesn't spread.  I'm trying to sanitize everything now.

I'm so thankful that her stomach issue was short lived and no one else got sick.  I've lived through everyone in our house being sick at the same time, and I never, ever want to do that again.

Solveig is such a sweet girl.  She's constantly giving out hugs and kisses to all of us as if that were her solemn duty.  She's not yet 3, but she's determined not to be left out of the big kids doing school.  Her latest thing is cutting up pieces of paper.  She loves cutting paper so much.  So we've gotten into the habit of just letting her come to the table where we're working and let her cut up the older kids' worksheets and other finished papers.  She'll be at the table and cutting for 2 hours easily.  She sits there quietly listening to the big kids' lessons and just cuts and cuts and cuts.  I figure it's a great fine motor skill practice.  I'm so blessed to have this amazing paper shredder right in the family.

I'm blessed that this week both my brother and my parents have messaged me that they just bought plane tickets to come visit us.  My brother's coming for the long weekend of Veteran's Day, and my parents are coming here for Christmas.  I'm already making some fun Christmas plans.  I've never hosted before and I'm so excited.

I've been overwhelmingly blessed with friendship lately.  There's at least a half dozen women who have really blessed me though their friendship and just chatting these last few weeks.  When Knut and I first moved here, we went through a few years of feeling like we had no close friends.  We sat down and had talks along the lines of "What is wrong with us?  We used to have friends..."  Then we would ask each other if we had bad breath or stood too close to people.  We both started getting really self conscious.  We joined small groups and tried way too hard.  Then of course we go to a church near a seminary.  Families often move to go to seminary, and move away when they finish.  We made a few friends and then they moved.

So the fact that we couldn't list on one hand the friends who have really touched our lives in such a deep way in the last year is truly beautiful.  We are so blessed.

Early Fall

I was picking up a wedding gift at an antique shop the other day, and saw a fun tray marked at $2 with a few scuff marks on the edges.  With the spinning wheel and chickens on it, I'll admit I was sold right away.  I've been trying to figure out the best way to put it to use.

The scenery around here is changing in a hurry, most notably the soy bean fields.  When the fields turn from green to gold, it feels like Fall is actually here.

The kids have been taking advantage of this gorgeous weather that's not too hot or too cold and going outside to see the cats as often as they can.  The kittens are getting big.  Silje has been spending a lot of time out there especially, just getting to know our new cats.  She told me, "Mom, I know 'Boots' is the most shy, but I've learned that when I sit as still as I can for about 10 minutes, and just read a book, she comes right up to me to cuddle.  She doesn't like being chased, and doesn't come quickly to play like the other ones.  She just needs a couple of minutes to get used to you."

It was then when I thought. Yes.  This is what I want for my kids.  I want them outside, slowing the world down a bit and watching the habits of animals.  Is there any better way to learn science?  There's something about nature that opens up and relaxes the mind.  Some things you cannot even notice without sitting in the silence of it.

Honestly, I worry sometimes about dipping my foot into the abyss of activities and sports and running around to this and that.  Something deep in me wants to slow down (not extend) their childhood and surround them with creation.  I want them to intimately know things that are real and good.  I want them to lay in the grass, dig in the dirt, climb up trees and stare at the clouds.  I've found that one easy way for us to connect with creation is keeping animals.  I'm not a cat person, but these cats sure are helping my cause.

Silje is recording her observations of the cats at various ages, and has already started to study up on common kitty sicknesses, and home remedies we can have handy should any of them develop anything.  Always a vet at heart.

I'm so pleased with the cats so far.  We catch them eating mice an alarming number of times.  Seriously?  We had that many mice?  One of the orange ones, Milo, likes to pounce on leaves moved by the wind.  It's a riot to watch.

A friend of mine needs to lighten her chicken coop by 2 chickens by winter, so she has enough space for them all.  So our measly chicken number will go from 7 to 9.  Our coop can hold about 20 over the winter.  I'm so anxious to get easy access to fresh eggs again.  I cannot believe that number got so low.  We lost about 30 chickens total this year to predators.  (We replaced the whole flock at one point.)   I'm so glad we have Missy now.  She's such a great guardian.  I don't want to go through that again.

Knut had Silje collect the chestnuts falling from the tree near the chicken coop.  The shells fell off softly, and she divided them up and left them in the kitchen for me.  I've never had chestnuts roasted on an open fire, but it sure sounds like fun if they make a famous song out of it.

Knut then researched online that our type of chestnuts are not very edible.  Well, he said something about some people eat them, but you have to soak them and boil them and then remove some poisonous part that is bitter and give you a stomach ache, and then you can roast them and then mash them into some sort of porridge.

"Great."  I said.  "You do that if you want."

My plan is to actually just put them in a pretty dish or something for Autumn decorating.  Perhaps a little dish on my new tray.

It may not look it from the last picture, but Ingrid is actually starting to fall into a much easier to handle sleep routine.  Our new found routine that the Fall school days have is rubbing off on her.  We've had a few days in a row now of naps and getting to bed around 9.  It's made my days so unusually productive.

Well, on this particular day she struggled with her morning nap, so I put her in this saucer toy while I got some things together in preparation to go to town for our homeschool co-op and some other errands.  After a few minutes, it got strangely quiet, and she was just out.  So I let her sleep for there for 20 minutes or so before we all had to load up in the van.  I just thought it was a funny sight.

Yarn Along

Progress towards this gift intended shawl is going well.  This ridged garter stitch pattern is quick and easy.  I'm strongly questioning my choice in Brooklyn Tweed for this project, as I wonder if I should have picked something more elegant and less textured.  Sometimes when I'm working with it I'm reminded of the old carpet in the church in which I grew up back in Colorado.  I keep reminding myself that I have worked with this yarn twice before and I have learned 2 things from Brooklyn Tweed:

1) It softens a ton with blocking.
2) The finished object is always stunning.

So I'm going to keep plugging away at this.  I meant to get pictures of my finished Nanook sweater up, but I haven't gotten to that.  The kids have been needing my attention quite a bit lately.

I haven't been able to knit as much as I did even last year.  Ingrid doesn't give me that luxury in the evenings that often.  It's getting better, as she normally goes down around 9 or 9:30pm which is a vast improvement.  I'd love to get her down at 8 with the other kids.  For now we're just trying to focus on this opportunity to spend one on one time with her.

Reading has been less often than knitting.  Well, technically I've been reading a lot, but it has all be homeschool related.  It has been reference books and manuals and Magic Treehouse.

Last night I picked up a book of poems by Robert Frost.  I haven't read just some poetry in years.  Sometimes we don't have time for novels, but there's pretty much always time for poetry.  Well, I accidentally stayed up and read it for 2 hours when I meant to for 15 minutes.  So maybe that's how there's always time for poetry.  ;)

Linking up with Ginny for the Yarn Along.

I'm Blessed

I love Fall.

I know Knut will be harvesting soon, but I have to admit, I just love this season.  I love the smell of Fall, and seeing the landscape change color in a matter of days.  Did you know that leaves don't actually turn colors, but the green chlorophyll that is saturating the leaves drains into storage for the winter, reveling the true colors of the leaves.  Silje and I learned that in our botany book.

I love having any excuse to wear sweaters.  I love corduroys, boots, and all things wool.  I love soups and the constant fresh foods in the garden and full to the brim freezers.

We have some new creatures on the farm.  We had a bit of a tragic end to our litter of kittens we got earlier this year.  It was too tough to write about, so I didn't.  We knew right away we wanted to try again, but this time with some gained wisdom from our previous failure.  Then it was just a matter of finding some of the right age, and from a good family.  We tried the humane society first, but they made it plain that they don't have mousers.  They have pets.  They want homes for their cats where they will sit around inside.  The cats they have aren't meant to be outside.  They said if we want mousers, we need to get some cats from a farm.

I felt the need to hurry in our pursuit of getting some farm cats when the mice started showing up at our doorstep.  It's the one part of Fall that I can't stand.  Mice love finding their spots for the winter this time of year.  Since we live next to some big grain bins, that doesn't really help in the mice/rat department.  I really thought we needed a team of mousers to help keep all of those critters away.

So now we have cats...or kittens.  Well, actually a mix of ages.  There's a mom and babies again, but the babies at least have their eyes open.  Then there's a few teenage kitties.  All of them are incredibly social, and the kids who raised them did a stellar job of it.  In fact, I've never considered myself a cat person, mostly because cats haven't always liked me.  I love these ones though.  I've spent so much time petting and cuddling them this last weekend, it's a bit silly.

(David and Elias are really into ties.  I really should make some because I bet they're simple.  I don't ever make them wear ties, but they beg me to let them wear them every Sunday for church.  I don't always let them because I don't think it's necessary to wear ties every Sunday.  I usually just strive for something clean.  I just found some new ties for David so he could pass his down to Elias.  That's why they're so dressed up in these pictures.  I took them after church.)

This time we're not putting them in the barn, at least not now.  We've set them up in the "summer kitchen" which is a small building next to the house that used to be where the original owners cooked their food in the summer, but we use it to store most of the kids' outside toys, as well as some odds and ends.  It basically looks like a playhouse, and that's what it is.

It's so perfect, because the cats can go outside to do their thing by going through the little opening in the door.  Then when they want to hang out or sleep or get away from the dogs, they can just go back through their little hole.  It appears they like this system.

This way the cats can be closer to the house.  The kids will be able to go outside and play with them easier.  I don't like them going down to the barn by themselves as they're just too much in there that they can't touch.

Ingrid is delighted by the cats.  Solveig is terrified of them.  Silje is in heaven.  Both the boys have found their favorites.  We're all pretty much in love.

So we're all happy.

For blessings this week:

-I'm so thankful for some women who have really been a prayerful encouragement to me this last week.

-I'm thankful for my in-laws, who out of the blue called us up this weekend to see if Knut and I could go out on a date while they watch the kids.  How often does that happen?  It was awesome!

-I'm thankful Knut and I have been able to spend some much needed time just hanging out before the craziness of harvest begins.

-I'm so, so thankful that our bedroom projects for the kids are now done.  It's one more piece of normal in place.  No more living out of piles of clothes everywhere!

-I'm thankful for being able to meet a friend of a cousin who provided us with these cats.  Their oldest daughter is just a bit older than Silje and raises rabbits, and their oldest son is just a bit older than David and raises pigs.  I feel very strongly that we will have to get to know this family in coming years as Silje and David have been begging for those 2 animals in particular.

-I'm thankful Silje got to go to a Bible camp retreat this last weekend.  I had so much fun talking with her yesterday as we petted the cats, and her just pouring out all that she had learned over the weekend.  I love her heart.

-I'm thankful for the rain.  We sure needed it.

-I'm so thankful for my kids.  Each and every one of them.

How have you been blessed this last week?

Forever Student

I remember my photography class way back in high school.  I loved it, but didn't have an SLR camera to play with, though I thought it was essential.  In college I saved up and bought a used, broken film SLR camera.  I was able to get it working with electrical tape, but it was (obviously) fussy to work with and eventually I ditched it.

When I started designing knitting patterns, I saved up and bought a used (great condition) Canon 30D DSLR.  I got a few choice lenses, and started snapping.  Usually, I just snap pictures in "auto" mode, but it has been a goal of mine to learn to move off of the automatic and program the exact shots I want.

So that's what this post is: non-auto shots...at least the ones that turned out.

You will notice there are no kid pictures.  They require just the fastest shutter speed my camera can muster.  Our dog Lena will sit still for me, though.  She's my brown-eyed girl.

Yarn Along

The Nanook sweater just has an inch left to the bottom.  It should come off the needles today.  I also intend to weave in all the ends and block it today.  You know.  It's the boring, ugly part.  That project was so good for my brain and while doing all those plain stitches I was able to figure out many things.  I've been allowing myself to swatch for another project after every completed skein.  I used to hate swatching.  Now it's a method of bribing myself.

I'm swatching for submissions.  I haven't submitted any designs to publications in awhile.  Either I was busy working on a design I intended to self publish, or their style/mood board didn't match up with anything I had in my sketch book.  For whatever reason, now I have 4 submissions I'm putting together.  It seems like a lot, but 3 of them are smaller accessories, and the 4th is a bigger, but very simple project (at least size-grading wise).  I'll likely not get all of them accepted, and they're due over the course of the next 2 months, so we'll see.

Maybe I'll get some emails back from editors, maybe not. Either way, I'm having fun.  All 4 submissions are with companies/editors that I would love to work with, and I happen to have things in my sketchbook that I honestly think is what they're looking for in their current call for submissions.  So it's time to swatch up a bit, and write out some proposals.
What will be, will be.

While I'll be waiting the long weeks to hear back from these submissions that I'm working on, I'm starting up a quick shawl project for a friend of mine.  I picked Brooklyn Tweed for her, which I like, and Knut liked when I made his mittens.  It's so earthy and tweedy.

So yesterday I got out the ball winder and swift and wound up the new skeins.  Nothing mesmerizes my kids more.  Everyone in the room could be yelling, but that swift starts spinning, and everyone stops and stares at it spinning around.  That's the way simplicity goes.

David and I are reading "Along Came A Dog" together.  This is always a book that surprises me.  It's really boring for the kids at first, and very charming for the adults.  Then somehow the kids get swept up in the charm of the relationship between the chicken and the dog, and they start catching onto the humor, and the whole messy life of this little red hen.

It's one of my favorite children's books.

Linking up with Ginny today for the big Yarn Along.

A Day At Home

Finally.  A day at home.  School is underway.  The fog has lifted.  Knitting is in hand.

I've started meal planning again.  My mind seems to be clearing, and my chiropractor has moved me to a trial of once a week adjustments, down from twice a week.  I cannot begin to tell you how happy, and yet nervous that makes me.  I know he wouldn't do this unless he thought I was ready.  My life has been cluttered with things from the accident, and I feel like slowly, one thing at a time, life returns to normal.  Light is shining through the fog to the end of the tunnel.  I'm so grateful for these mornings at home.  They are my favorite.

Silje is practicing her piano.  David is doing his math.  Ingrid is chewing on toys.  Solveig and Elias are coloring.

I love this.

I'm Blessed

Our garden is bursting at the seams.  We had to move the majority of our chickens in the freezer over to Knut's grandma's freezer to make room for a 1/6 of a beef we bought with some friends.  Then the garden decided to go nuts with the green beans and tomatoes.  I'm still in no shape to can this year, so I'm shoving vegetables in every nook and cranny I can find.

What a terrible problem, right?  Too much food.  How will we ever survive.  We're so blessed.  I'm so blessed with the people who saved our garden from being taken over by weeds just after the accident when I was too broken, and Knut was trying to keep everyone going.  We are reaping the benefits of their labor, and these are literally the fruits of our friendship.

Elias picked me a bouquet of flowers while we were outside.  He's such a sweetheart.  I wish I had captured the shy, but proud face he had when he handed them to me.  I will certainly never forget it.

Ingrid is getting into everything, and loving everybody.  The poor older kids often have to deal with her climbing up using their feet as they do schoolwork.  I've been trying to rescue them.  I'm pretty sure they love the distraction.

There's been a lot of harvest prep work going on by the grain bins next to our house.  Not only did some bins get moved around earlier this summer, now they're adding some more dump pits so that when the semi trucks come back from the fields they will be able to dump the grain and move on faster.  Knut called in the midst of us working in the morning and said, "There's some fun stuff going on back by the grain bins right now.  You guys should come check it out."  So we put down our work and walked outside to watch what all the guys and cranes and machines were working on.  I feel so blessed that my kids just get to do that: see real jobs and real work going on as a normal part of their day.  I feel so blessed that they get to see Dad at work regularly.

How have you been blessed this last week?

Acorns

Silje and David recently got their checks from their 4H fair projects.  This was their first time contributing projects.  David got $7 and Silje got about $14.  That's a lot of money for my kids, and it lit a fire under them.  I suggested to them that they do one 4H fair project a month, so that by next county fair, they have 12 projects (plus animals, etc.) all ready.

David started collecting acorns.  I wasn't sure why.  

I've heard that oak trees go through cycles of every few years dropping a bumper crop of acorns, and this appears to be that year because our yard is packed with acorns.  He filled a huge container of them, and our driveway is still full of them.

He then told me he was going to be an oak tree farmer.  He wanted to sell oak trees.  With the money he made from that, he was going to buy himself some pigs and be a pig farmer too.  He had it all figured out.

When David decides to do something, he fixates on it and I was worried he had no idea what he was doing.  With his 4H enthusiasm going strong, I told him this would make an excellent fair project.

So I told him to check out the library for some oak tree books.  Most of the books he and the librarian found were about the life cycle of oaks, but none of them had much how-to information.  He wanted to just dig hundreds of holes in our yard, but I knew that may prove disastrous.  He was not happy with the idea of planting one or two acorns either.  How could he make a profit off of that?  Plus, it might be a few years before the oak tree has a bumper crop of acorns again!  It just had to be this year.  If he had hundreds of acorns, he was seeing hundreds of dollar signs, and wasn't willing to let good of good profit like that.

So together we turned to Google, and found this site, which is the diagram we are using for this project.

First we took his acorns, and dropped them in water to see if they would float.  The sinking ones are supposed to germinate, and the floating ones are already "dead."  This picture is just of him starting out.  We filled this bucket with acorns multiple times.

Next we grabbed some Ziploc bags, and some wood chips from the bag we use for the chickens' bedding, and added some water.  With wet wood chips, and a bit over a month in the fridge, these acorns should start showing a root.  I was expecting most of the acorns to be dead, but the vast majority were good to go.

So now there are 4 of these packed, gallon sized Ziplocs taking up space in my fridge.  Now I'm trying to figure out what to plant these all in, and where on earth to keep them this winter.  I think I have a plan forming on where to put David's crop of trees.  I talked with David's great aunt who is a master gardener, and she gave me the name of a place where I could buy some perfect soil for trees for when they are at the planting stage, and suggested we buy a big pack of paper cups for our pots.  (All of which David and I are keeping an itemized list, so he can see the cost and profit margins of his whole project.)  If this works I may ask our local farmer's market if he can get a booth for his seedlings next summer.  Well, that's my idea.  David wants to hold onto them for 10 years or so, because you can make more money on larger trees.  I'm trying to convince him that he could sell some of the seedlings next summer, to pay for his costs, and keep only a handful over for the next year.  I told David I'm charging him 1 oak tree for rent for the use of the fridge for the month, and for space for his seedlings that will likely grow this winter in our front entryway, at least for now.

We struck a deal.  

I know just where I want to plant that oak tree, too.

Maybe someday, David will buy this house from us, like we bought it from Knut's parents.  Maybe he'll have a big oak grove he can say he planted when he was just a boy.  Maybe.

To see Part 2 of David's Acorn Adventure, click here.