Purling Oaks

I think cats can read...

Look what my twin, the Marvelously Evil Stacey, sent me!  She's so creative.   I love the stitch markers!  They are very cool (or should I say hot?) and quite seasonal with the "bite me!" and the SOS08 markers.  Here's the whole package with the very clever handmade card and hollyhock seeds.  Thank you, Stacey!  I know exactly where I'm going to start a few this week. 

I think Black Dot can read.  She was VERY interested in Stacey's stitchmarkers.  And here is what she was trying to do to the black marker..........

It was a lovely day on Monday.  We had very low humidity, blue skies, and temperatures right around 80 degrees (F).  I made a bunch of calls and emails for the basement-related reconstruction, read through the great studio re-organization contest entries, and then ran errands and did some shopping in Madison in the afternoon.  When I returned home, I wandered around the yard, camera in hand, primarily to properly blog my Stacey-gift.  The cats were following me and DH as we discussed the chain-sawing of several large trees that fell in the recent storms.  Blue and White Dot were wrestling, as they do regularly, and I was able to capture the fun with the video feature on the little camera.  Watch for the hanks of fur on White Dot's paws.  Fuzzle enters into the video near the end to check out what the boys were up to.

Please enter the CONTEST!

Squirrel scrutinizing

Yes, by golly, it is a slow day here at Purling Oaks. Here are Fuzzle (stretched out), White Dot, and Black Dot observing a local squirrel who, once again, is emptying the bird feeder. The cats make very interesting noises when they watch the birds or the squirrels.

I am on about day two of a cold. My cold. Drats. Darn air travel, doorknob, or whatever! I'm hesitant to do anything crafty since my brain may be about as clear as the rest of my head. I just finished reading Paladin of Souls by Lois McMaster Bujold. I really enjoyed the book especially since the protagonist is a middle-aged (for the storyline) woman. Often the female heroine is a young and fit twenty-something. It is nice to have a different model presented.

Food, Felting, and Fur

I hope everyone's Thursday/Thanksgiving was enjoyable. I enjoyed the day. I didn't have to do anything but eat. And take leftovers home. My DMIL made most of the Thanksgiving dinner but my DSIL slipped in a pumpkin pie and apple pie. All the food was delicious and the company was great. Twelve adults, three children, two dogs and two cats, three squirtguns and numerous snowballs made for a fun day besides watching the Packers win.

An almost finished object!

Today I worked on the fuschia bag. I finished the knitting and seaming, wove in all the yarn ends, and hand felted the bag. The bag, pre-felting, is posing over a large Foodsaver box. (The Foodsaver was used to vacuum pack some turkey leftovers.) The unfelted bag measured 14 inches deep with a 21.5 inch by 11 inch bottom.

Post-felting, the bag is approximately 9.5 inches deep with a 15.5 inch by 8.5 inch bottom. Now, I'll have to decide on a lining, a closure (if any) and find some handles. I'm pretty happy with the Fuschia felted bag today.

Since I'm showing knitting today, I thought a cat photo would be a good addition. Here is Black Dot making herself at home on one of the new chairs. /sigh

Cats and Carrots

Today is my every other Friday free of "work" and, so far, free of any adverse moon influence that has been going around and touching me this week in ways better forgotten. Friday has been a pretty productive day as of posting time. *fingers crossed*

The four kitties were transported to the vet for their annual check-ups and shots, first thing this morning. Blue's on the right and Fuzzle, White Dot and Black Dot also in their transport boxes but black cats are very difficult to photograph. Take my word, they're there. There was a symphony of protest all the way into town to the vet's office. DH thought they sounded like frogs in a pond just after sunset....MEOW, meeeeooowwww, Meow, MEeow, meOWWWW, and so on. I'm glad it was only five miles. Everybody passed Dr. Ron's inspections. We had scheduled this event for last week Saturday, but my DSIL's mother passed away so we attended the wake last Saturday. Rachel was too young at age 67 to be lost to cancer. She leaves her husband, two daughters, two son-in-laws, and four grandchildren.

After a haircut and some laundry, I made my way to the garden. It has been a good week since I've been able to get out there. It shows. Here's my micro greens....well, *ahem* er, rather, my MACRO greens.

But, they will still be fine for a salad tomorrow night with grilled pork chops. I harvested my Kolasco Paprika peppers that were ripe. I'll dry these and grind them for a yummy paprika for cooking. I'm going to try to save the seeds since I can no longer find this variety. The original seeds came from Shepherd's Seeds but Renee Shepherd sold the company and the new company hasn't carried them since. I'm hoping the seeds will work next year but I'll be on the look out for more. (hint, hint) I also pulled a few carrots to sample this evening. Yes, you are seeing purple carrots. I think they are "Purple Haze" but I'm not sure because I didn't make good garden notes this spring.
Fresh carrots are very flavorful and beat out "store-bought" bagged carrots for flavor every day. The purple carrots look different but taste the same as an orange carrot.

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And for knitting progress, here's the Baby Kimono as of the typing of this post. I intend to finish and block this tomorrow. I hope everything else cooperates so it happens.

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I'm going to save the bread baking photos for tomorrow. However, I can tell you, the bread smells delicious as it is cooling.

Happy Birthday to the kitties

When we bought our house two years ago, this is what I found when I walked around the house with the electrician. Such cute little kittens. We don't know exactly when they were born but we are guessing it was sometime this week. G.G. has gone but we still have the other four living with us. Blue is on top of the pile, Singer/Black Dot is the black kitty on the left, White Dot/Star is on the right, Fuzzy is the gray-ish kitty and G.G. is at the top of the photo.

Morning stroll and follow-up photo

Yesterday was damp, weather-wise, at both Kansas City and Milwaukee/Madison. Fortunately, we experienced no travel problems and made it home last night for a very late pizza dinner. Here is the photo I promised: The horse and wagon help the human conduct tours of historic downtown Independence, MO. The yarn shop is just down the block from the Harry S. Truman Visitors Center where you can arrange to vist the Library or tour the Trumans' home.

I took a little stroll outside this morning to see what was new since Sunday. The trees are leafing out more *smile* and the invasive weeds have really shot up. *grimace* We have radishes!
Well, perhaps that is an overstatement. The radishes were the first I expected to see of the seeds I planted last week. I'm betting on lettuce next. I'm sure Black Dot and White Dot will keep an eye out on my "raised" garden.

I've got a lot of other plants coming up but some I'm just not sure what they are since the previous owners planted them and I've yet to look the plants up in a reference book. I know the red shoots are peonies in this photo but I'm not sure what the leaves are that surround the peonies. Peonies are one of my very favorite flowers. I like to cut them and bring them in for arrangements. I usually have a game of hide and seek with the ants before the flowers enter the house but it is worth it.