My coffee order arrived today-I only ordered it on Saturday-9 pounds! These Carrabassett Coffee guys are fantastic. I had ordered two of the pounds ground, to bring to work, but it all came whole bean. I called to ask about this, and without any questions or hesitation, Steve? Tom? said he’d ship out two pounds ground. AND it’ll get shipped directly to work. How incredible is that? So if you’re wanting to try some new (and wonderful) coffee, check them out.

I always want to grow this, then rarely do much with it

bright lights swiss chard-pretty, no?

Uh-oh, the cucurbitaceous stuff is in, and some tomatoes

Remember the rotten pear tree?

they’re not so attractive, but in the past they’ve made a good brandy and a good pie

Today I met Ginny (mom of Sid) to take the three dogs for a lunchtime walk. Sid hasn’t been out there before, so it was chaos, as it always is when the three of them get together. He was thrilled to be in a new place and loose. The girls were pleased to see him, but were a little focused on the ball. We were only a bit down the hill when Miss Zuzu refused to move. She wouldn’t find her ball. She wouldn’t come. Sid found her ball, but she didn’t want to get up from where she laid down. I checked her over, no whimpers in pain, and she’d stand up when I put her up, but she wasn’t moving. So I carried her outta there. Put her down in a shady, flat spot, and realized she had sprained a foot/leg. So I carried her to the car. She could put weight on it, but didn’t want to go anywhere. She gimped around the house a bit. I gave her some homeopathic arnica (not the gel, Ruth!) and then had to go back to work. When I got home?

that’s zuzu with the crazy face here

it is so difficult to get good pictures of black dogs anyhow, never mind when they are zooming around at about 40 mph

Maybe it was a bit of rest? Maybe the arnica? Maybe that she’s a young and healthy dog?

Today I finished all the paperwork, and now I have a ‘real’ job! Working in the same place doing mostly the same things (and sitting at the same spot!), but I am officially an employee of The Nature Conservancy! This is a huge step up from the temporary intern type arrangements I’ve had these last 2 years. Paid holidays! Benefits! Woo-hoo!

So far,

I took pictures of this all over the yard just a few minutes ago…this is the closest to its color. Mel’s picture of his vest swatch on concrete made me look out into the road, where the sun was still shining (flash pics washed it out and made it too yellow). I like the color of this yarn, even though some might think it kinda blah. Totally fits in with my ‘clothes the color of mud’ theme…which I’m actually trying to steer away from, but apparently not trying too much. Not sure if this is a good thing or not, but clothes the color of mud actually look ok on me, far better than bright jewel colors. The yarn is Bartlett in willow (I think my picture is more accurate for its color). This is not deluxe yarn. It’s rugged, earthy, and has bits of the barn in it. But I do like the way it smells, and that there’s still lanolin in it.

I’ve been looking for something for this yarn (it’s been in my stash). I don’t have enough yarn for some of the things I’d totally want to make in it (like Alice Starmore’s St. Brigid (that’s a link to Vicky’s blog, isn’t her St. Brigid lovely, and it’s in a similar color!).

What do you see first when you see a pattern? I don’t tend to make sweaters the color illustrated in the pattern, but for this garter pullover, it is close. Maybe it was the blah-ish (beige in the pattern) color that caught my eye, then I saw the shoulder detail, and realized I have enough yarn for it. Just before I decided to make the garter pullover, I remembered Jared’s Cobblestone pullover in the fall Interweave. I gave it some consideration (because it’s a similar color? Similar textured yarn?), but decided against it for the same reasons it didn’t jump into my head when I first saw it…it’s a lovely sweater, but wouldn’t look so lovely on me!

So it was stinkin’ hot here this past weekend. I drank a lot of this coffee drink I saw in the newspaper months ago, clipped the recipe, then lost it, so I winged it…my friend says it is a Greek drink and it’s called ‘Nescafe Frappe’ (say fra-pay, not frap). Here is Nescafe’s recipe. What I did: put some ice cubes in the blender. Add some milk, a bit of cream, spoon or two of instant coffee (why I had this, I don’t know), and a fair bit of sugar. YUM! And my pal says it is true to what she remembered drinking in Greece.

This picture is for my SIL, a self-confessed dirty hooker! (that means she doesn’t cut her tails until she’s done…oh, that doesn’t sound that much better…)

This is our Information Manager’s house! Somebody made it for her as a gift…but she.is.moving! For all the right reasons, and I’m pleased for her. But I’m also in a panic for me! Because all her responsibilities will fall on my desk. I must push the boss to post the position!

Anybody seen The Knitting Man(ual)? Franklin posted about it, and it looks pretty good, but it hasn’t shown up at local bookstore for a peek.

scotland the thistle… and out where we walk too

The FO… This took about four hours of my day yesterday,

how did that ball get in the house????

One of these days we will put down a new floor. My latest thought is 14″ wide pine planks, shiplap style. Anybody out there have pine floors and dogs? Only about 4 feet of the end of the room is like this, the rest of the room is narrow maple running in the other direction, with a very crappy join where the wall used to be. Here, you can see a little,

zuzu is howling while the kid plays his saxophone

I wanted to just sand it all down, plug the holes in the floor (the room was once the kitchen), and call it good enough. Just about nobody else thinks that way. But somebody came through recently who suggested that idea all on his own!

Remember Slates burning?

They’ve started reconstruction!

Seen at LYS last night,

man fondling yarn

Wednesday was Miss Maggie’s birthday. I got thinking…I remember people’s (and my dog’s) birthday, but I don’t remember when they died. I could puzzle out the date that my friend Leonard died, it was the Tuesday after 9-11, but I can tell you his birthday. I’m hoping this is a good thing, not that I’m forgetful of their deaths.

Maggie’s last xmas, maybe 2004?

The boy wanted short socks!

which is fine with me since they made up more quickly

It was just a happy coincidence that the stripes lined up-I did nothing special!

Stopped in to LYS this afternoon, and got to see new yarns from Trendsetter and a few other smaller distributors that the rep carries. This is one of the things I miss about being at the store regularly! As soon as the rep left we tore into the boxes from Classic Elite! I brought home this pattern booklet. They retail for 14.95, but Libby sells them for 8! She only got this other pattern booklet. I think she got all the colors of Waterlily, a nice looking merino, and a bunch of colors of Desert, another interesting wool. She’s also getting Alpaca sox, but I have no idea what colors.

I’m feeling like knitting something mindless-ish, and have been thinking about EZ’s bog jacket. Somebody did one in 2003. Wendy shows the basic idea of the pattern here. And here is info but without referencing Elizabeth Zimmerman??!?!?! OK, just looked a little closer, maybe because the last one is woven not knit? But that garter pullover in the classic elite pattern book is also calling me…

Some pics from a couple of days of walks…

…zuzu is the obsessive one about the ball…

Behold the Burdock gauntlet…

burdock both sides of the road, for maybe 80 feet?…that stuff in the road toward the bottom is more burdock! The girls are put on a short leash to go through here

Now last year this road was not nearly anything like this…burdock is one of those two year plants, first year a (sometimes ginormous) basal rosette and then in the second year it shoots up and gets all the ‘burs’. This page has some good close-ups of the flowers and fruits and seeds. And talks about its edibility (aka ‘gobo root’)-though he doesn’t emphasize that you should not eat the leaves! Ack, I just scrolled down, he’s even selling burdock t-shirts…guess it takes all kinds!

Today DS and I took the girls to the arboretum (also here). I sometimes volunteer there, lead school groups around, train the other volunteers, that sort of thing. It’s a reasonably interesting place, used to be the farm for the hospital. So a hundred plus years ago there were few trees. But there was a

piggery-this is remnants of a large barn

Did you see Spirited Away? I tell the kids it must’ve sounded like all the pigs in that movie. The boars were on the bottom level (thus the metal rods), sows and piglets on 2nd floor, feed on 3rd. It burned. Was rebuilt. Burned. Was rebuilt. Burned. And I guess then they decided not to rebuild. One kid asked once what happened to all the pigs. Hmmm, how do you approach the tough questions? I went with honesty (and brevity).

Here’s a shot of the hosta path,

gotta keep the dogs leashed here, notice the taut leashes-a mole had just scampered across the path!

Just a few of the bazillion kinds they have there,