Walk About

Don't don't faint dead away. 2 posts in less than a week. What is the blogging world coming to?

There will not be much about knitting today. Not that I haven't been knitting, I have. On the indigo socks, which if you could see my fingers, you would know I am telling the truth. The blue does not lie. And I got a sample of my new sweater yarn into the black walnut pot. What I got out was a nice warm brown with none of the harshness I got with the sock yarn and walnut. So I guess that I will go ahead and start the process of dyeing up 1600 yards of sport weight in a nice yummy brown here as soon as our funky weather gets it's act together. I do not consider 36 degrees and dense fog to be condusive to any kind of outdoor activity.

So on to the real subject of my post. In the few short weeks I have lived here I have enjoyed a number of very nice walks. Some upwards of 5 miles round trip. And I have been amazed at how beautiful the area surrounding us is. So I am taking this opportunity to introduce you to our new neighborhood-with the hopes that some of my dear friends will find it a lovely enough place to come visit some day.

First up will be our closest neighbors. They live directly across the street. And all that separates us from them is an almost invisible electric fence. So some days I look out and it appears they are standing right in our yard. They aren't!! They are so lovely it makes me feel a bit embarressed to not be a vegetarian.

Next house is one we should have bought. It was sold at absolute auction just about 3 weeks before we bought our house. It is a bit smaller house but with about 10 more acres and a killer view. But unfortunately we did not hear about the house while we were searching and missed out on that opportunity. We keep reminding ourselves that it would have meant a lot more mowing and not nearly enough space in the house. We would have had to build on. Still.......

Now these neighbors are the quietest ones we have. No kidding. Never cause a bit of stir. Of course, we weren't around on Halloween. That might have been another story altogether!!

The graveyard shares a nice spot atop a hill with this house. An older gentleman lives there, hopefully not all alone. Cause this house is huge. And again, with what must be a jaw dropping view.

Now, don't start thinking that all our neighbors live quite up to the standards of the last few houses. There are plenty of these around.

There are only a few more houses on our road. They are obviously small working farms with decent houses but really really nice land. They have small herds of cattle, lots of wheat fields and large gardens.

I have always loved old barns with roofs caving in, just barely standing. But enough to protect the hay they need for the winter months.

All around us are old twisted, garled trees, covered with lichen and moss. I love the way they look against a bright blue winter sky.

Even in the depth of winter, I still find intersting bits of color to attract my eye, and camera.

Again, it is not all without its down side. First of all-the interstate runs about a mile behind our house. Of course, it does make it easy access to travel anywhere. Or to come to see us!! This is interstate 65. Runs south from Nashville, thru Birmingham and right down to the coast of Alabama.

And then there is the interesting bit of adult intertainment at exit 6 of said interstate(our exit, of course). I haven't been able to get pics yet. But we have a famous attraction called Big Jim's Boobie Bungalow!! You can Google it, cause it causes quite a stir when traveller's down the highway see all the billboards for miles. Also there is at least 1 adult bookstore and probably one other "club". But honestly except at night, the parking lots are empty. Even then it doesn't bother us. We are just far enough away no one would get lost and come down our road. And it does give us a landmark to tell people to look for. Just get off the interstate at the Boobie Bungalow!!

And so that concludes my tour of the area. Hope you enjoyed the walk along with me. This picture is one of our house taken on my walk back down the hill. I think this summer it will be much harder to see when the line of trees leaf out.

And this my friends-is for you. Just to remind you that I love you all!!

Back to the Business of Pictures!

I used the excuse of not having the transfer cable to my camera for not blogging. Who wants to read about my boring life, unless I at least throw in a few decent pictures. But out of the blue, the other day, I remembered that my fancy dancy laptop has a card reader! I had never used it, but remember reading about it when I first got the computer. So I located the said device on the front of the laptop. I found it a bit hard to slide the tiny card into this miniscule slot and it made me a bit nervous to try and force it. But lo and behold, it did work and now at least I can attempt to entertain you, both visually and verbally. Whether or not I succeed is up to interpretation!!

First up is an attempt at taking a night time photo. I finally found my tripod and we were about to have one of the 2 biggest full moons of the year(these occur at the full moon closest to the winter and summer solstices). So I refreshed my memory on how to use the shutter delay and shot away. This was the best attempt, although it was not just what I had envisioned.

Then this is the very next morning. We had so much rain in the last few days. Some parts of Tennessee set a record for the most rain in 24 hrs. So the ground was very saturated and with the cold mornings it set up the perfect scenerio for the formation of hoarfrost. When I woke and saw what beauty had been laid out before me, I just had to grab the camera and go outside. Cold hands, be damned.

What I failed to get in a picture are the 2 deer that visit the back of our land each morning. That morning they were standing right next to a stand of trees that were sparkling with all the crystals. Just an amazing sight. Of course, those same said deer, will probably be the bane of our existence come spring planting time!!

My knitting is still progressing slowly. Not that I don't work on it every day. But my right arm has really been bothering me. And I can't blame it on my computer use because I just don't get a lot of time to sit here and use it anymore. I am doing all kinds of stretching and range of motion exercises but nothing seems to be helping right now. So at least I get a little done each day, knowing that things will still get done. Just not prolifically, like in my wildest dreams.

I am now at the heel of the 2nd Indigo Firestarter. Of course, I was already there once. A few days ago. But in turning the heel, I just did not have enough stitches. I counted and recounted until I finally realized, my stitch count had been off from the beginning. Or almost the beginning. Since I started at the toe, the first thing I do is a bunch of increase rounds. So I just stopped with those a little early. And it makes me mad, cause I should have known. At one point, I had put the finished first sock up against the one in progress. And they did not match up quite right. Did I stop then and try to figure it out? Well of course not. I just kept on going another couple of days. So then I had to just frog the whole thing and I am just now back where I was. But hopefully it will just be a few more days to finish up. And in that time I can get my next project started by dyeing the yarn. I have a huge bucket full of black walnuts soaking on the back porch. I will strain that off in a couple of days, throw in the yarn, let it sit for a couple of days. Then rinse, dry and wind into balls. I did decide for sure to make the Gathered Pullover from IK. I have the pattern somewhere in the sewing room stuff, still packed. So I will probably just rebuy the pattern from the IK on line store. In fact I may never buy their magazine again. But just wait until a pattern I like shows up there. Some show up in a matter of months. And I will always be that far behind in my knitting projects anyway!!

So now I will close with a cute couple of pics of my monster kitty Lexi. She has had to become a completely indoor kitty now. And thus, has been a bit bored and restless. She is climbing on everything(she did not used to) and getting into everything. I am trying to be better about giving her some one on one play time each day to tire her out. So far that is working-NOT!! But I will stop in and buy her a few new toys next time we get to town. She loves a laser pointer and we don't seem to have one right now in our possession. But she is a good girl and she let me put her in a dog sweater while we were still in Chattanooga. She didn't even act to horrible about it all. I think she looked quite like a little fashionista!!

And now of one of Lexi helping us unpack.

Just a few Words(and only words)

I have to admit, I have gotten quite addicted to using a blog reader. I happen to be using Google's Blog reader, but there are many others. I can go every day to Google Reader and there are all the new entries made since I last checked in. And on the home page there are always 3 new blog suggestions for me. They home in on the content of the blogs I read and then find others that I may also enjoy. So far I have added a number of new knitting and fiber related blogs to my list and very much enjoy reading about all the projects that they are pumping out. And this brings me to today. I bring up my page and there are 16 new entries for me to read. And then I start to feel guilty. Very very guilty, knowing how long it has been since I posted to my own personal page. So here I am, for what it is worth. Maybe I will show up tomorrow on someone else's blog reader. And that someone will say, Gee I thought maybe she fell off the face of the earth.

I guess the best thing to happen since my last post is that the move to the new house has been made. Everything is here, except my camera cable. So there will not be any new pictures for awhile. Til either I find the wayward cable hiding somewhere, go to Chattanooga and find it there, or if all else fails, buy a new one.

We have done a fair bit of unpacking. The kitchen is up and running, although I am still missing a few pots, pans, utensils and dishes. I went and made a grocery run to Walmart which costs the better part of $400.00!! That's right, it now costs a small fortune to restock a pantry and eat for a week.

The rest of the house is partially together. At least the best we can do til we decide to buy more furniture. I have a few pictures up but have already run out of the picture hooks that I use. Both computers are operational. In fact we are quite pleased to say that our internet access is much better than what we expected. We are using a company that provides signal thru cell phone towers. As far as we can tell it is the only company that is not rationing signal by using a FAP, or Fair Access Policy. All other non land based providers ration signal so that if you download much of anything you can not use any more signal that day. Or you can pay an horrendously huge amount of money each month to use a business level account. And even then you probably could only download 2 or 3 songs a day before they cut you off. But for now, with this company we can surf and download just as freely as we did with our cable internet access we had in Oklahoma. Yes, it is a bit more expensive than cable. But until the phone company decides to provide DSL(neighbors on each side of us have it) this is what we have. And darned happy to have it.

The kitties are adjusting quite well. Lexi has regained her bad habits of jumping on tables and counters. I keep putting her down and telling her no but I think she just has to "own" everything first then she will stop. Jack took a bit longer to come out and relax but as we speak now, he is lounging on my knitting on the couch, waiting for me to come back and sit with him.

On the knitting front: I totally have the February Ladies sweater done and it has even been worn. But I do not have a good finished picture yet. I started the Firestarter sock in my hand dyed indigo. I have one sock done and just cast on for #2. The yarn turns my fingers slightly blue every time I knit but it gets less with each session. The yarn, with it's subtle variations in color are gorgeous, soft and cozy. I love the Firestarter pattern and this is the 2nd time I have used it. This time I was knitting with finer yarn than called for so I had to add stitches. But it has all worked out perfectly in the pattern and the socks fit me to a T.

I am starting to think ahead at my next project. I have some yarn here I could go ahead and knit up a shawl. But I am not in the shawl kind of mood. I am in an anther sweater mood. Maybe it is cause the house is cold and propane is so very expensive. But for whatever reason, I think I will go and order enough worsted weight undyed, and dye and knit something fast. I am thinking maybe Gathered Pullover from IK. That is such a nice, easy sweater that I think will flatter my figure and look good with jeans. I have lots of natural dyeing options that wouldn't be too hard to dye up in a large enough amount for an entire sweater. More on my decision next time.

Ken is in his office working with Abba playing. It really makes me want to see Mama Mia. To bad we can't find the DVD player!! We know it is out there, just have to work thru the boxes a bit more!! Meanwhile I think I will go dance a bit in the livingroom(out of DH's sight) and use it as exercise and to warm up just a bit!!