So on my daily ramble (it can hardly be called a walk, because I stop for ladybugs and grasshoppers) I met one of the "Ladies" that visit often.  "Visit" might not be the right word, I've been startled several times in my knitting corner by the window at night when I looked out to see faces up against the window watching tv avidly.  I would never have guessed deer might have a tv fixation, but they do, at least around here.  They are also the reason our garden is crammed into a fenced back yard instead of gloriously flourishing on the rest of the 20 acres.

I think what annoys me about them is that they don't even consider me enough of a threat to flag their tails in concern.  They merely gaze at me for a moment and return to munching the field.  That would be the field we're trying to build up a bit by planting red clover and fallowing it.  Red clover..that scrumptious stuff we had before the Ladies decided it was their personal buffet.  You may notice there is no sign of clover in the field now...

Grapevines are laden

I see grape jam in our future! The vegetables and fruits are filling up with sunshine and sweetness and one of the things I love is looking at the sun glowing through neat rows of jelly cooling in my kitchen window!

Gardening Progress

We put the little garden in an unused nook near the back deck in order to actually have a garden.  We have a definite conflict of interest with the deer population.  This year we bowed out of our battles with them and they must find another garden somewhere else to fatten on!

Blueberries!

Blueberries!
Originally uploaded by Svarrer.

Doesn't that look like blueberry muffins to you? Hot and buttery morning love!
Actually, the birds think so too, but we share. They don't share much, they want them all. We'll let them enjoy one bush, we get the other three. The birds will undoubtedly win the mulberries as well, but I have another mulberry in the yard and in a couple of years.....and I will have grapes.
I totally love Summer, everything is bountiful and growing. Squash, zucchini, tomatoes, rhubarb..a little of everything. Our first beans will be in the cookpot tonight.

WoW...

You've probably heard a lot about World of Warcraft and wondered why otherwise sane and normal people spend time playing a game.  I admit..I play too.  It's those moments of pure laughter that takes us outside of daily stuff.  Here's a small sample...

Spring again!

Okay, time to make it back to the blog that's been neglected forever!  Things have been going on, just not posted, so rather than play catch-up, we'll just pick up from here.

Just finished another small sweater for a small one, it was super simple fun to do kind of thing.  I do like mindless, since it's my normal state of being.

Bernat Baby Jaquards is always fun, less than 2 skeins, but since I was working out a somewhat color scheme, I pulled from 2 skeins.

I decided not to battle the deer this year, and surrendered to a postage stamp sized garden.  The deer are all wallowing merrily in the clover where our bigger garden would have been...the fat things!

We recently fenced in a backyard area in chain link..(how I've learned to love it!!) and it keeps tots in and away from bigger kids on swings and trampoline.  Keeps Sebastian and Cookie in too, more or less..with Cookie it's considerably less, but she doesn't wander.  She just squiggles under the gate and tags along anywhere we go.

Anyways..the garden..yes..well, there's always a corner of yard that's not used and that's where I parked the garden this year.  It's interesting..having to avoid hitting the electric and propane lines going into the house.  It'll do tho, and keeps me happy.  I even have an itty bitty gas powered cultivator, however I keep sinking it deep into the loamy soil and getting stuck.  That's a good thing.  Deep soft, rich soil.  Ten bags worth of garden soil tilled into it.  Sebastian likes it very much....Cookie swears her teddybear put him up to it...

and more mundanely..

On more mundane news, my dear husband made wooden pens for gifts and a spindle with a perfect spin and balance for me!
And to top things off, I found an antique piano in decent condition! Okay, it does need tuning and the wood needs a little polish, but..it's solid and nothing's broken, the pads are still quite good and best of all, I paid $49. for it. It's a Cable Midget, so it fits nicely and has full keyboard. As soon as we get it tuned, I'll love teaching the grandchildren a little on it!

Emma!

And here she is! Isn't she lovely, just a few hours after birth? Mom and Dad are well, I would have posted sooner, but we were all happy and tired and enjoying the family time. Emma's three older siblings have been at our house and their other Gramma's house and being spoiled and hugged.

She will be a delight to knit for!

Just for fun

Doggie sweaters! It's not quite finished, the little sleeves have to be knitting in, but the first fitting went nicely! I'll rethink my methods and post them here, there's nicer ways to knit these in a universal way. Meantime, Cookie has totally enjoyed the attention she gets in them. This one is bright and cheerful, the first one I made was an autumn brown. It was one of those leftover skeins that had no name.

Cleanup!

That deck we so proudly painted not so long ago is in the process of being stripped. Painful process, lemme tell ya! It'll be resealed and all better in a weekend or two tho. Meantime it was nice and hot, so visions of a nice cool lemon meringue pie kept teasing my mind. Of course I was out of lemons, but when did that ever stop me! Yep, you can make Pink Lemonade Pie! Just adjust the sugar, substitute lemonade mix for the lemons and enjoy! This might be a fun thing for a baby shower too.

Another Summer's Passing.

Those fragrant herbs that blessed my back deck are infused in the knitting that got done on long, sleepy, sun-drunk summer afternoons. Along with the sounds of katydids and crickets. Fall will be along soon, schoolbuses rumble down the road and I yearn for the scent of apples and cinnamon and pumpkins.

Some of my knitting was simply remaking a couple sweaters that didn't work out the first time and needed to rest in my basket until it was their time. These two turned out finally though, and I'm reasonably satisfied. I don't remember what the yarn is for the baby sweater and R's sweater is a discontinued Tweed.

Scarves for when I wanted to watch TV or listen to a book on tape. I totally love The Yarn Harlot's scarf pattern (free) and it's become the pattern we use most for simple warmth.

Dishcloths for utterly mindless knitting, they lend great color to my kitchen.

And the Hannah hat posted as a free download on Ravelry, must make several more this winter! It's a design by Blake Ehrlich. The only buttons I had were white, but rather pretty in the textured design, so I painted them blue and wiped them to show them off.

Eventually, I'll have oldest granddaughter's top-down sweater finished. I really like those, no real pattern, all I need to know is how many stitches will fit her neck, the rest just follows neatly until it's done. I'm about to put ribbing at the waist and then will pick up and knit the buttonbands. The sleeves will be picked up last on my DPN's. If she has a sudden growth spurt this year, I can easily tease out the bottom and cuffs and extend as much as needed. It's rose heather I think, in Wool-ease, on size 5 and 7 needles.

Being summer and all, I've been luxuriating in greenery and flowers, so just out my kitchen door, we put really big pots where deer and kids won't stomp them flat in a matter of seconds. Plants like my little deck obviously. My husband says we should drag them in for the winter, which will be a fun thing. I already have a plant on top of my fridge (it's been there for years, I repot it every 2 or 3 years) that has to be trimmed or it takes over and drapes all over things. A couple huge patio pots will just about guarantee that not only will we have unlimited sage, cilantro, dill, mint, oregano, parsley, feverfew and numerous others at hand...we'll need a machete to get to the oven. You can't see it in the pictures, but there's knitting needles propping up the feathery fennel. (I love knitting in the evenings with the scent of rosemary, basil and mint in the night air. And I have been knitting, I just haven't taken pictures, the flowers were so much fun to play with.)

It's a fact ..the plainest foods sparkle on the tastebuds when a pinch of fresh herbs are added. And I do love chopping up my salsa with a handful of cilantro that's fresher than fresh!
As for the white Lillies, I'd love to know what kind they are, they're lovely and very large blooms on tall plants. And I used to remember what the pink ones mixed with the white lillies were called, they grow more like the canna lillies.