Pressure Cooker

As most of you know Mr. Man and I are big on environmentalism. We try to buy locally whenever possible and actively seek products that are at least "Made in the US" for appliances, products, etc. Well, if you have ever tried to buy American, you know that buying American is no easy task for most items. Shameful really but I'm not here to get into my feelings on all that - we would be here forever and I would probably bore you to tears.

No, my loyal readers, as usual I have a humorous story for you. Before we moved into our house we bought a pressure cooker because we knew we would be learning to can. We looked and looked for a pressure cooker made in America with no luck so we ended up buying one made in China, unfortunately. I sat down today to read the instructions since I have never used a pressure cooker before (please, no snide comments about THAT).

The directions are poorly written, poorly translated, have lots of misspellings and misuse of words and no care for grammar at all. This irritates me. While I can fiddle around and figure out what the instructions are trying to say, I should not have to do that. A product that is sold in this country should have instructions written in English that I can easily understand how to use the product, yes?

Obviously, these instructions were originally written in a foreign context. If there were any doubt at all, just check out the Table of Suggested Cooking Times:

That's right, the first item listed is PIG ELBOW. Seriously??? I suppose that must be a common pressure cooked meal..........somewhere. Not in this house though.

Today is the LAST day to enter THE CONTEST! You have until midnight tonight and winners will be announced tomorrow! We have had a BUNCH of entries so thanks so much to everyone who has entered. GOOD LUCK!!!

Island in the Sun

Or..............in the kitchen!

My most awesomest husband in the world started on this little project (husband cut out of the photo for the usual reason):


And made me THIS!!!!


I LOVE THIS!!!!!!!!!!!!! About two years ago he went shopping alone at the tile store (never a good idea for my husband to go shopping alone because he likes "bargains"). He came home with this huge piece of granite that they sold him for $50 because it has a stain on it (that you can't even see). I was like "Ummmm.........yeah, ok so what in the heck are we gonna do with that?!?!" Apparently nothing until we moved and he built the perfect kitchen island for it to fit on top of!!

He even made little slots for the baking sheets to slide into. This is great and I am so excited! I'm going to christen it by cutting up fresh cukes for making sweet pickles!

Here's a picture of the kitchen before we moved in. Just say no to track lighting in the kitchen.




And we have a hot tub cover now - yay!! It makes a great tool holder for Mr. Man, don't ya think?

I'm totally famous

In case you have ever doubted that - here's the proof:

Lime n Violet post

Ok, yeah, so that doesn't really mean I'm famous but ya know.........a girl's gotta take what she can get! I was so excited when they contacted me to feature the yarn bowls on their site! I love that word about these crazy things is getting around. For those of you interested, we have a NEW type of yarn bowl coming out soon that is kitten proof! Guess what made us think of THAT idea?


In other news, I have spun up the second bobbin of the Knit Witch roving and and set and ready to ply I think. So, I need some opinions here. Do I ply it to itself or do I ply with with something else that might show off the colors better?? Of course, that means spinning up the something else which I don't actually have at this point in time. I do have some alpaca but it is second cuts from our animals from last year so I think it might take away some of the softness. Hmmmm..........decisions decisions............


I have no freaking idea why these spinning pictures turn when I post them. The bobbins are the ONLY pictures that do that!! Weird...............

And, of course - your daily dose of wildlife. I shot these this morning sitting on the deck. We have SO MANY hummingbirds it is crazy!! We must have about 15 of them or so that are constantly fighting for the feeders. They don't share well.




Don't forget!!!!!!!!!! There's two more days to enter the contest!!!!

I am all that AND a bag of chips!!

Woo hoo! I'm starting the week out with an actual fiber post!



I started spinning the second roving that I received from Heather. You remember this, right:

She hand dyed it especially for me and I LOVE the colors! So, of course, I didn't want to screw it up so I did the first batch first (that made sense) so that I could practice. Well, if you remember, the first batch didn't go so hot. I believe I remember referring to it as something that resembled something that sucked.

Well, I sat down to start the second batch. My goal was to spin one ounce, as evenly as possible without any crying. Notice, I didn't say without cursing - I didn't want to push my luck. Well, lemme tell ya, this stuff spun up so easily! I felt like I actually had spinning mojo back! I spun TWO ounces and there was no crying OR cursing!!! It was just a pleasant spinning experience. So this is what I ended up with.

It's pretty darn even if I do say so myself - possibly a bit overspun in a few areas but overall I am extreemly pleased with it. I'm not sure what is different between the first batch and the second. The second is superwash but I don't think that really has anything to do with it. It did feel like the staple lengths were shorter in the second batch. When I was spinning Kermie I could hear Jane over my shoulder saying "You have to pre-draft before you spin!!". So, I was good and I pre-drafted and that did seem to help. On the second batch I started to predraft and I just ended up pulling it apart. So, sorry Jane, no pre-drafting on the second round! Maybe Jane is still at a dude ranch somewhere and won't read here that I didn't pre-draft.

Heather? Any differences between these two that I am missing?

Thanks Heather!! I love it! You should all go buy from her Etsy site right now!!

Contest! Not mine this time.............

Hey - everyone knows by now that we are big supporters of improving our environment, right??? That's part of the reason that we started the whole Amia Yarn Company thing. We want to promote eco-friendly practices and buying locally and supporting our own fellow Americans. Not to mention, we also run Smaller Footprint which has information about greener living and ways to decrease our human impact on the world.

So, that being said, here's a contest for you to enter that promotes more of the same. All you have to do is leave a comment on her blog about ways you are making the world a more beautiful place - easy, right???? Winners are getting one of these GREAT crocheted market bags!!

Good luck!!!

Storm Brewing

Is this what the start of a funnel cloud looks like?


These little fingers kept going down, then back up into the clouds then back down again. It was weird. Never seen that happen before. Come on my mid-west readers - chime in here and educate a Southern gal.

We had a lightening strike in the woods right across the street from our house during this storm. There was a huge flash, big boom and then the woods over there smoked for about an hour! I was glad it was raining a lot otherwise that could have been bad news. We were sitting on the deck watching the storm and it scared the bejeezus out of us!!!

Take a look at the "baby" geese!!!! They are just about ready to fly - they keep practicing.


Here's what happened when Wayne walked down there to get them off the dock - they were goose-pooing on the dock way too much!!!

Oh, and I have another before and after for ya. I finished these up the other day. As much as I loved that pink carpet (BARF) it just had to go. I'm pretty proud of myself too because I did this job from start to finish completely by myself! I figure Mr. Man has enough handyman work to do around here so I try to help as much as I can without getting injured TOO severely.

Unpacking

We are slowly but surely getting unpacked. We haven't unpacked any clothes yet because we haven't started working on the closets yet, but the other stuff is moving along. I actually hung some pictures and stuff over the weekend! The shot glass collection is back. This time the boxes that were labeled "shot glasses" actually contained shot glasses so that was a nice change.

I have more but they have yet to reveal their hiding place as of yet. I also unpacked all the 45's and loaded the juke box - w00t!! Haha! Now we can play the cheese machine and listen to it while we are in the hot tub if we open the windows. I'm telling you - the fun never ends.

I have even hung some valences in the bathroom. Our bathrooms here are huge - I think you could fit all three of the bathrooms from our Tucker house into one of the bathrooms here!

Oh, and you can actually walk in the pottery room now.

Here's a before shot. I know you can't see the lovely pink and blue tile squares carpet that he had in here in this shot but trust me, it was there.

It too is getting organized slowly but surely. I'm kind of a nut about keeping a reasonably clean, reasonably organized house (my huband would say obsessive but I don't think that is really true!) so it feels SO GOOD to finally be getting at least some things in order.

Right.....this is a fiber blog.

I have spinning to share! I plied up the two bobbins of Kermie that I had and here's what I got:


I'm not going to say it sucks on my own blog but I will say that it closely resembles something that sucks. I LOVE the colors though!!! Merino and I have a lot of getting to know each other to do. Perhaps we should go out for cocktails together. I want to get started on the next batch of merino but it is so freaking hot and humid! It's nearly impossible to get the wool to move through your fingers unless you get up to spin at 0500. Well, I'll just keep plugging along at it.

Sock progress:


I have finished the heel and foot and have started the xo cable up the sides. Shouldn't be long now!! I knit a bunch of it while we watched a movie last night called Deja Vu. Anyone seen this movie? It was good but VERY bizarre. It's one of those movies that makes your head hurt.

On another note, you think YOU have had a bad day??? Well look at poor Mr. Goose - he can't even stand up to drink out of his water bowl!! Man, life is rough when you are a Newberry cat.

Fun in the Sun

On Sunday we were going to do more work on the house. I finally got rid of the last bit of pink carpet on the stairs on Saturday and was planning to sand and stain them on Sunday. But, our friends Bill and Allie called and invited us to go kayaking down the Toccoa River with them. Seriously, was there a choice? We HAD to go! It just wouldn't have been right - us staying home working on the house while they were out in the wilderness all alone. We care about our friends far too much to allow them to go kayaking alone. We didn't go for the fun or the beauty of it - I swear!

It was a lot of fun! The biggest danger on this river is bottoming out - yeah it's pretty darn shallow in places. We all bottomed out several times but other than that it was a great way to spend a Sunday afternoon. After that Mr. Man and I came home and had pasta salad and a beer on the porch. It was a great day!

On the wildlife front I give you - FROG EGGS! Yes, apparently the frogs feel the need to take over Barefoot Ridge, which is fine with us, so I suppose there was more hawt secks happening in the small pond and as a result we have these:

There is a BUNCH of them. We just had a conversation about doing away with the small pond and building a flagstone patio there instead but I guess that will be put off until our tadpoles are gone. We have some HUGE tadpoles in the big pond. I tried to get a picture of them the other day but it didn't turn out very well. I'll keep trying though!

Oh yeah............

The hot tub deck is finished!!! Check it out! Mr. Man finished it on Saturday. Before you see the final pictures can I just say that he built this entire thing BY HIMSELF! I think I helped him hold one end of the chalk string for a second or something - other than that it was all him. This man continuously amazes me. (Seriously, we HAVE ordered a hot tub cover and it should be here soon - we aren't going to leave the white trash tarp over it forever - REALLY.)

The heel of one sock is finished but there is much more interesting stuff than that going on.

After all that talk about snakes in the last post - look who wanted to be included on the blog! I was pulling up some weeds and this little guy wiggled out - I guess I disturbed his peace and quiet. He was generous enough to hang around while Mr. Man ran inside to get the camera for his "five seconds of fame" shot. (Pinky finger comparison courtesy of Mr. Man)

There are just 10 DAYS LEFT to enter the grand opening contest for Amia Yarn Company! Have you entered?? If not, be sure to email me at theknitwitch@gmail.com to get entered. Click on the button for contest details.

Witch's Brew

Take one toad


Tail of one snake


3 baby bird beaks

Six kitten toes

And a scorpion


Bring to a boil under a full moon and you will get a potion for.........

Yeah, ok - so I know nothing about witch's potions but all of the stuff that we are finding around our new home has me convinced that they must all fit into a potion somehow. That little scorpion was inside the pot that was sitting on top of our stove!! Mr. Man found him this morning. Nice.

And, I have about 1/2 a heel done on the sock. I had to frog the heel yesterday b/c I totally bummed it up so now it is actually being done correctly and working much better now. It's a short row heel and I just forgot my marbles and started doing it in a way that was simply never going to work. It took me getting halfway through it before I finally came to the conclusion of "This isn't right and it's never going to work". I know, my picture taking skills leave much to be desired.



Homemade margaritas and then out for Mexican food later this evening!! Woo hoo!!! I'm looking forward to it - it's the perfect way to end the week. Who's coming????? Cocktails start at 5!