Wednesday, May 5, 2010

C'MON now

so, i'm tapping away productively at my computer at work and i glance outside hoping to catch a glimpse of the sandhill cranes during their spring migration (I work right smack next to a migratory bird refuge)...and this is what i see:

ummm...snow? actually, i just saw the snow. i made katya go stand out in it so i could take the picture.

for crying out loud, people, it's MAY. enough already. give us summer.

i'm going home to knit. sheesh!

Monday, May 3, 2010

Boreal Hat Trick

this is an unbeatable combo: wild cranberries, wild blueberries, and raspberries from the yard. a half-gallon each, a little sugar and some pectin...

...a bit of cooking time...

...and you have the Boreal Hat Trick (as named by Cob)! Dea wanted to know how to make jam and i had some extra berries in the freezer from last summer, so we gave ourselves a little reminder of one of summer's biggest treats.

That's Dea doing the sign for berries - we hope to see that one A LOT this summer! :)

Saturday, February 27, 2010

two firsts

two amazing things happened last week. (truth be told, in a house with a 5 month old, amazing things happen all the time, but these two deserve particular mention...)

On Tuesday, Teresa finished her FIRST knitted project. this after a looooooong spell of her claiming that she wasn't interested in knitting, didn't have the patience, was too much of a perfectionist, blah, blah, blah. i patiently waited through these excuses, never once putting any pressure on her, until she came into the fold on her own.

her first project, a beautiful and happy sweater for a lucky little girl! Garter stitch, shaping, two kinds of seaming, button loops - Teresa learned a lot! i think she's hooked - she's got another sweater and two hats on the needles already. here it is in detail:

the other is something i've also been patiently waiting for the right moment ... there's an old knitter's tale that predicts whether a child will grow up a knitter or not, based on whether they grab a set of needles when first presented them. now, babyG's a visual guy and he's the child of two knitters, but you never can tell what a kiddo will do, so i've been worried about this (yes, knitters worry about whether their kids will knit...). so, on the auspicious day of Teresa's first completed project, i decided to peer into the future just a wee bit, to see what might happen. and this is what happened:

and a close-up...now babyG's been working on holding things, but he's never encountered two thin sticks as a challenge to his grasp. i think he did marvelously!

here he is on his own with the needles. i don't know what you see, but i see a little child dreaming of the wonderous things that will one day spring off these needles.

it warms a mama's and friend's heart to see such accomplishments.