Monday, March 30, 2009

SNOMG

I drove down to Kansas City on Saturday to attend their Coronation and Katrai's elevation to the Pelicanate. Her surprise when I greeted her Saturday morning was worth the 7 hours in the van. I had my pod casts so I was entertained.

I stayed with Gwen and Ulf and had a marvelous time being clambered on by dachshunds and kitties, as well as a hedgehog (so cute).

There was a prediction of snow for the weekend. Rephrase that: GIANT FROGS OMG WE ARE GOING TO DIE FROM WHITE STUFF.

::ahem::

The rain Saturday morning, turned to freezing rain which turned to slush. It was icky and covered all the beautiful blossoms on the trees with ice and snow, but only accumulated a couple inches on the roads. They were slick on the way to dinner and we opted out from going to the post rev, but I had lots of visiting at the event. It was lovely. Sunday was sunny and warm and all the snow was gone from the roads and I had smooth sailing all the way home.

The stockings for Ariel are going well. I'm starting the calf decreases and I got the thumbs up for the clocks. I still think they are a bit big so I'm going to re-chart the design and knit up a test pattern when I knit the foot. I'm trying a shaping method that is closer to the surviving stocking. I should have it well under way for Elizabethan RUSH on the 18th. I'm excited to be going back to Calontir so soon.

This weekend is Coronation in Madison and I'm deciding what I should bring for the A&S display. I'm thinking about bringing one of my tents.

Monday, March 23, 2009

Happy Spring!

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Bulbs!!! I have green growing things in the garden.

We had our neighbors over Saturday night to enjoy a fire in the backyard and I was talking to Irene about gardens and such and I glanced over in the dark and thought I saw something in the garden. I went over and I could clearly see that the bulbs were up! Very exciting! The bulbs came with the garden and were discovered as we were thinning it out from the garage. I put them in a neat little row along the front and they all seem to be coming up just fine.

Sunday I was up early and cleared the dead stuff from the garden and saw that there was fresh shoots from a lot of the plants. I also found some rabbit droppings so I'm thinking the garden may need some fencing around it, at least the vegetable garden. The day lillies, flox, lazy susans, delphinium, and a bunch of the other perennials appear to have survived transplant last summer. I raked a bit in the back yard and pulled up some thistles. They are a real problem in the yard. P has plans to construct a water barrel catch system and we looked at places for it around the garage. Not this comming weekend, but next I want to pull back the black plastic and start weeding the garden bed. Time to start planning the crops for the summer. We also need to trim the fruit trees. A long branch that was nawed on came down in the wind this morning off our maple tree. I'm assuming some animal was nawing on it and I noticed a branch in tha apple tree had the same marks. Squirrels? Interesting.

Naturally there is a prediction of snow this week.

Monday, March 16, 2009

Spring!

I washed the bedding and dried it on the line on Sunday. The temp was in the 60's and you could watch the snow retreat in the yard.

We have a lot of work to do on the exterior of the house and garage.

1) rehang screen door and replace the trim and door handle
2) replace door and trim for the garage
3) install new gutters and downspouts on garage
4) Till and plant the garden
5) Landscaping
6) repaint the front steps
7) Look at replacing the front door

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Keeping track

I've been sewing more pavilions lately and I wanted to keep track of the time it takes me to construct one.

10 spoke round
Cutting out fabric ~ 4 hours
Assembling roof: including roof cap, grommet, reinforcing strip over door opening and loops ~ 4 hours

Tonight I will be assembling the doors and sewing the walls together. My goal is to have ties on both sets of doors, the doors attached to the wall sections and the ground loops attached. I'm expecting to have all the sewing complete by Wednesday or Friday. That would equal 4 evenings of assembly, ~ 16 hours total.

I need to start working on the wood structure this weekend. The wood takes about 6-8 hours of work.

Thursday, March 05, 2009

4 year anniversary

I almost never remember the date, which is too bad, cause it was an awesome day.

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Bardic Madness, March 5, 2005.