Random Stuff

New yarn bowls are up on the site finally!!! Of course, we can see that many of you have already figured that out without any help from us! :)

We have more Feed Fannin pictures from our Stone Soup Day that we did for the community.

Our dog spent all day at the vet on Tuesday and we found out that his surgery is actually going to be closer to $5000 so - yay. Ahem.....see previous statement about new yarn bowls on the site!

Our dog is so awesome that he is totally worth $5000 but I can't believe that I just had to say that.

After Petey's surgery, Feed Fannin might be feeding us so it's a good thing that we are members in good standing.

Knit Witch is getting a new stove for the dedicated dye kitchen so that is pretty exciting! Man, we need it too - this little tiny stove is about on it's last leg!

Petey is going to have some hip and knee x-rays soon so that should make for some interesting blog pictures.

Petey needs a job - any takers? I wonder if he can skein yarn..........................



Have a great weekend everyone!!!! We have our annual Arts in the Park festival this weekend so that will be fun unless it rains all weekend as predicted. We are (of course) going to be there helping some people with set up and take down and various other activities so I hope we don't spend the whole weekend soaking wet!!

Have I told you all about Feed Fannin? I don't think I have. So, I suppose I will start there! Wayne and I joined Feed Fannin a few months ago (oddly enough they picked us up at the manure yard one day) and we have been going to meetings ever since. At first, we thought it was absolutely ridiculous that they met EVERY WEEK but once we started going to the meetings, we could see why. This group is dynamic and busy, busy, busy and does incredible things for our community.

We run several community gardens that grow food for our local homeless shelter. This way, those less fortunate than us have access to locally grown, healthy, fresh produce. It's really a great program and we have a few off-shoots. One group is called the "snack in a backpack" program and they send kids on the school lunch program home with backpacks full of food on Friday so that they will have food to eat over the weekend. Then, they bring the backpacks back on Monday to be refilled for the following weekend. I had NO IDEA how many kids in our own community were going hungry on the weekends because their parents were out of work and could not afford much nutritious food.

Our environmental group - BRAEA - is going to fall under them as well as another off shoot.

Anyway - long story short (oh wait - too late) a group got together over the weekend and made some incredible scarecrows for the community garden that is at the end of our street. I put them all in a Flickr album for all the members so I'll just send you there. I love them! They are so creative and funky looking! Umm...the scarecrows - not the group members......although......... :)

SCARECROWS

Party!

So, those of you who didn't come missed a fun party out at my dad's place! The weather was PERFECT and we just couldn't have asked for a better day. The animals were fun, there were no major disasters and everyone had a great time. Thank you all for coming - we really enjoyed having you! I ended up working a little bit helping to bring the animals in and rearrange them and everything but I believe the fun conversations carried on in my absence! Here's a few shots for ya.



We presented my dad and step-mom with the pieces of the blanket we are putting together for them! We didn't have time to get it all totally finished but everyone chipped in and made a few squares for the blanket out of yarn I had spun from the family alpacas. What a GREAT GIFT and I know my dad and Gail are really excited about getting it after waiting on me for like 3 years to get it done. I actually love it this was though - everyone has their mark on it for them!


The food was great!



The goats were pitiful - well at least this little girl was. Remember her picture from a few weeks back? She suffered a bit of an accident last week but thankfully is well on her way to recovery! She may be coming to spend some time with us if I can talk my dad and Gail out of her for a little while!



The donkey was friendly.

The filly was completely disinterested.



The peacock was showing off.



The alpacas were entertaining.



All in all it was a great day and thanks to everyone for coming and making it such a good time!

Be honest - Who's addicted?

We subscribe to Netflix so we watch a couple of movies a week. Our list on Netflix is soooo long that by the time we get the next movie we have no recollection of what it is or when we added it. Last week we got the movie "Twilight". I had vaguely heard about this series but not that much really as I don't have teenage daughters!! :)

I was thinking that this could be ok or that it could really suck. This movie followed upon the heels of the last movie we "watched" called Eight Below or something like that. It seems I can never make it through those darn Disney movies without crying. That movie was no exception. I made it about halfway through and then I had to go find something else to do. So, I was hoping that Twilight was going to be at least a better experience than that!

So, we watch the movie, we are totally engrossed, it's great, we go put the next movie on our Netflix list (at the top) and I immediately get the first book in the series (thank you Kindle! Best present EVER from my husband!) and then I put the next 3 books on my wish list.

By now, we have watched the second movie. Again, we are totally engrossed and don't even notice that the movie is over 2 hours long. I finished the first book in about 2 days and am now about halfway through the second book. The books are always better than the movies!!

So, hi - my name is Knit Witch and I'm officially addicted to Twilight. Anyone else?

Gardening

Yes, we are actually doing some - though we have really scaled back from last year! There is just no way that I am going to have the time to do the amount of canning this year that I did last year.

Our lettuce has been doing great and we have been enjoying garden fresh lettuce for about a month now!



A few weeks ago I put our squash in the ground. This is yellow squash. BTW - adding the straw around the plants REALLY helps to control the weeds.



Then the other day I put some of our tomatoes in the ground and some butternut squash. We'll put the straw around these when they get a little bigger and when we finish planting the bed.



Hauling around all of that mushroom and horse manure compost has really helped!! We also started our own composting bins (we have always composted but now we have an "official" area for it) but I didn't take a picture of that for ya!

Seriously, I am occasionally knitting but as of yet, it just really hasn't been enough to write home about. You know how it is when you get to the long rows of a shawl so good night is completing 2 rows, right? Well for me anyway - and this is a small shawl!

Minis!

About once a month or so we get these little rail cars coming by our house. They are so funny! Apparently there is a group that meets and takes a trip every so often. It is hilarious because on one of the cars they put a picnic table and an another flat car they put a port-o-potty so they can "go" where ever they go!

I snapped these the other morning while I was driving to the gym. Wayne wasn't with me so I was driving and photographing at the same time (gravel road with no traffic!!) so they aren't that great. He had gone to an all day martial arts workshop (remember what I said about the overuse statement about his forearm?).

Say hello to Cinco in the second picture - so named because Wayne bought him for me on our fifth wedding anniversary when we were at the Tennessee Aquarium!

A Hair Brained Idea

You know, sometimes those hair brained ideas really do work out!

We are all aware of the Gulf oil spill and what a tragedy this is creating for our oceans, our wetlands and our coastal residents (both human and otherwise). Wayne and I are very environmentally conscious people and try to help participate in anything we can that helps to better the earth in some form or fashion. We also run a local environmental organization here in Blue Ridge (Blue Ridge Area Environmental Action) that we have just gotten non-profit status for and that we are working hard on mobilizing more for our community.

A few weeks ago, my mom emailed me with some information about Matter of Trust. I had never heard of this organization before but you may have heard about it by now because they have been getting a lot of attention in the media over the past couple of weeks. This organization takes donations of hair (from hair salons, pet groomers, shearers, etc) to stuff into nylons that they then make into booms that soak up oil spills in waterways. They have been around for a while and ship these booms all over the place for oil spills (because they do happen more than you hear about in the news!). However, they have been getting a lot of attention lately simply because of the giant oil spill that has been going on in the Gulf.

Any kind of debris-free hair will work. Human hair or animal hair. Natural fiber yarn works too since it is animal fiber! We are now saving all of the clippings from our natural fibers as we skein them and when we get a big bag of them we will send them off. I am so happy to find something to do with all of those yarn clippings that really serve no other purpose!

But, know what we did have to send? These:



We have LOTS of alpaca clippings from my dad's alpacas. These are the bags of the second cuts that don't really make great yarn. We kept the bags of the first clipping to sell at SAFF and we kept the cria fleeces to get those spun but - I thought that we could donate the second cuts to a good cause so we packed them all up yesterday and sent them off!!



That's Wayne with our box all ready to go and Frank (the owner of The Mailbox Company where we ship all of our products from - Frank and Tanya are awesome people!)

BP has not been receptive to this idea of using the booms to keep the oil from getting closer to the shore, even though they work great! However, Matter of Trust has been organizing a HUGE drive of product to get there by May 20th in order to show BP how much public interest there is in using these booms to help. Well, apparently it has been working because I was notified yesterday that BP has sent and inquiry email to Matter of Trust asking for more information on the project because they may be interested - so YAY!!!! I don't know why they wouldn't use any means available to them in order to help mitigate this tragedy.

The people who actually go out and place the booms are all HazMat certified and know exactly what to do with the booms once they soak up the oil. So, they are all disposed of properly.

If you are interested in taking this information to your hair salons, pet groomers or indie dyer just have them go to the Matter of Trust website. There they sign up for an account and can get information about their tax deductible donations for sending in their hair. We were proud to be able to donate some alpaca hair to the cause!

Chick Update

I know you have all been anxiously awaiting the latest chick update! Well, they are about 4 months old now and they are doing GREAT! They are all looking good and are very used to us by now. Most of them will eat right out of our hand. And we have discovered that they LOVE WEEDS! They won't eat the lettuce or other things that we like to eat when we put them in there (or not much anyway) but they go nuts over the weeds. I am hoping that this bodes well for letting them do some scrounging around in the garden.





Red (the Rooster) has learned his place at the bottom of the pecking order (for now) so the girls aren't picking on him anymore. They are even letting him sleep in the coop with them. He is starting to get some dark feathers around his neck and in his tail. I think he is going to be a fine looking rooster!




We are planning to let them out to free range during the day. They will go back into the coop at night, which shouldn't be a problem since they are already used to sleeping in there at night. I worry about the cats harassing them but I am hoping that Red will be protective enough of his flock (once he actually realizes that he is a Rooster) that the cats will leave them alone. This is why we are waiting for them to be full size before we start letting them out. Shouldn't be too much longer though! Probably about another month.

Petey needs a little more work to so that he realizes that the chickens are not dinner! He does not even give the geese a second look while they are over here though so he'll probably be used to chickens roaming around in no time. At first they will be under strict supervision! We have trained them so that when they hear us shake a can with rocks in it that it is time to eat. So, they'll come running back to the shed when they hear this so we should be able to collect them fairly easily when we need to. This is why we are waiting for them to be full size before we start letting them out. Shouldn't be too much longer though! Probably about another month or two.

The Bionic Man

Several years ago, Wayne was involved in a serious car crash that required (among other things) him to have total reconstructive surgery on one of his hands and a plate in his forearm. Lately, something about the plate has really been giving him trouble so off we went to get a radiograph. We wanted to make sure that he didn't have any screws backing out or anything like that. Luckily, the x-ray is normal. Unluckily though, we still don't know what has been causing him so much pain and swelling.

Actually, I CAN tell you - it's overuse (Mr. go to the gym everyday, martial artist, build everything in sight) but Wayne won't listen to that explanation at all.

Anyway, thought you all might be interested in seeing the x-ray. Or, maybe since I am a Nurse Practitioner, it's only me that thinks this stuff is cool!



Check it out - Warlock innerds!! :)

More Critters

I looked out the back window the other morning and I saw this. See him?





Luckily, he and his friend (brother, sister, mom???) came up the driveway after that so that I could get a better shot for you.


Shortly after this, we ran Petey up to the vet for a quick evaluation. Turns out - he has a luxating patella! Great, so now our "free" dog is going to be costing us about a thousand bucks for surgery (so umm - go buy some yarn will ya?). Anyway, on our way there we stopped to get this healthy looking guy out of the road.



Even though we were trying to help him - he wasn't really too appreciative!!



He finally quit trying to act like he was going to kill us and moseyed on along. This is pretty much a typical Spring morning around here. I love it! Well, except for the $1000 surgery part!

The new math

Did you know that 1 + 1 = 8?

Well it does when you are talking about..................

GEESE!!!

Remember way back when I was talking about the geese setting up a nest across the street? Well, we figured they never did because they left the pond across the street each night and returned every morning. I guess they had us fooled! We woke up a few mornings ago to some new additions to our neighborhood!!



I have no idea how they managed to pull this off without sitting on the nest all night. They were very sneaky about their operation this time. In any case, the result is 6 beautiful, happy, healthy little Canada Geese! They are so cute to watch with all of their little fuzzy bodies!

Island

Wayne and I have been thinking for some time now that we need some type of island in our pond for the turtles to sun on and the birds to hang out on. We started brainstorming. It had to be a decent size, float (obviously!), be able to be tethered into place and the turtles had to be able to crawl up onto it. Wayne started out with the idea to try and use that darn satellite dish. That just didn't work out and it looked way too "southern engineered" for us. So, we ditched that plan!



Wayne bought some 4 inch PVC pipe and connected them and sealed them together for the flotation portion of the project. We decided to us that again but change the platform. Wayne came up with this brilliant plan that worked perfectly and used up a bunch of scrap wood we had hanging around!!

Here he is putting it together.



Just about ready to go in.



We put the PVC under it and Wayne had some eye hooks on each side of the platform that we used to tie cinder blocks to. We went out in the canoe and tied the cinder blocks on to hold it in place.



Instant island! And, you see Petey going out for his daily swim.



I love it! My husband does great work!!! Now, do you think the turtles have been appreciative of this and used it? Of course not. I am hoping they will discover it soon though. Lately it has been cloudy and a little chilly here so that may be why they haven't sought out refuge to soak up some rays in the safety of the middle of the pond. As of now we have a huge snapping turtle, a small snapping turtle and a slider out there. There are probably more but those are the ones we have seen so far.

Luckily I took these pictures last week. This blog is going to get pretty boring if I don't find one of our cameras soon!

As promised.......

Well, better late than never, right? Remember these that I showed you last week?



We finally got them up on the website - sorry about the delay! We did some rearranging and "cleaning up" of the website and we added a Knit Witch Stuff page where you can find gift certificates, t-shirts, mugs and other various things related to Knit Witch.

I do have a few skeins of yarn left to put back up on the Discount Page so we will try to get that done this week.

How was everyone's Mother's Day? Wayne and I spent the day just piddling around the house. My mom is coming to visit today so I got some fun goodies ready for that yesterday! Other than that it was just a low-key day. I picked some beautiful flowers for my mom out of our yard and as soon as I can find one of my darn cameras I can take a picture of them for you!

We have hit the big time now!

Well, what do you think?



This idea was shamelessly stolen from Dragonfly Fibers. She says the she does not mind that I copied her though. Imitation is the sincirest form of flattery, right? She had these great looking mugs at Stitches for her shop:



Aren't they cute? Of course, I had to have one. Then Wayne started working on a design for Knit Witch. They came amazingly fast. So, who wants a coffee mug??? :)

Have a great weekend everyone!!!! Tomorrow is my best friend's birthday. I am so happy that he is spending another birthday with me!!!



Happy birthday sweetheart!

Alpaca Party!!

Elyse (owner of Only Ewe and Cotton Too) and I have put together an informal alpaca party! The party is on May 22nd. The plan is to go hang out at my dad's farm and see the alpacas and other critters around there (of which there are many). We are asking everyone to bring a dish to share and whatever you would like to drink. We will have a few things there like some water and soft drinks. We have 16 people signed up right now so there are 9 spots available. If you are relatively local to the Atlanta area and would like to join us - please call Elyse to get on the list. It is going to be a fun time!

HERE is the link to the invitation. The invite has all the necessary information for making your reservations.

My dad's farm is in Milton (Alpharetta) just so you know where it is in relation to you so you can see if it is within a reasonable distance. Once you are signed up we will give you formal directions. I think there are some carpools meeting at Only Ewe and Cotton Too that morning just so that we aren't bringing quite so many cars over there. Also - there are a lot of dogs and animals there so PLEASE don't plan on bringing your pets. We don't even bring our own dog because it is just too much of a disruption to the pecking order around there.

If you join us - here are a few of the things you will see!

Alpacas (of course). There is a baby alpaca that was born a few months ago. They just got sheared so they are all skinny and nekkid!



Horses.


Pheasants.



Goats (LOTS of goats).



All kinds of fowl (turkeys, chickens, pheasants, peacocks, guinea hens, ducks, etc.)

I hope some of you out there will join us!!

Boat Ride!

We took a few pictures on the boat ride at the Tennessee Aquarium. Here was the boat we rode on.



Here's a shot of some of the scenery. The weather was perfect!



And some penguins! Well, these weren't exactly on the boat tour - they were in the aquarium!



Speaking of which - here's the aquarium.

Check out these two cutie-pie macaws!



I am actually knitting something but I haven't worked on it much at all lately. I'll try to get a bit more done on it this week so that I can show you some pictures. Dang those shawl rows get REALLY long!!!