Weekending

The weekend in photos.
A picture is worth a thousand words, or I'm just too lazy to come up with too many words on a Monday? I'll let you decide!

Bloom ...

 

Where you're planted!

I'm not sure if this struggling sunflower is the result of some strategically-placed bird poop or a squirrel raiding the bird feeder,

 but it's growing out of the top of a stone pillar in our front wall.

I can hardly believe it will actually bloom, but it sure has been doing a good job

 of growing for almost three weeks now. We shall see ...

Wishing everyone a wonderful weekend!

Think Write Thursday

The Think Write Thursday topic for today is to write about your three favorite things to wear.

I work from home and rarely have occasion to dress up, so the clothing that I wear now is fairly boring. It's jeans, a blouse, and hitchhiker scarves in the winter, and short overalls in the summer. (I literally work in the field and overalls give me lots of pockets for carrying lots of things.) So, I'm going to interpret this topic as the three favorite things I've worn throughout my life. They're probably not any more fashionable than what I wear now, but they were more fun.

First Favorite: The multi-colored, flowered bell-bottoms that my Grandmother sewed for me.

Girls wearing pants was a big deal to my father and school, so I was only allowed to wear them as "play clothes" at home,
and bell-bottoms were absolutely forbidden ( I have no idea why). In 1967, my grandmother made these for me and I loved them. 

I wore them as often as I could, while eating cheese steaks on the floor

and celebrating our cat's birthday with my sister.

Second Favorite: My Southern Belle outfit

We lived in Florida for a few years while John was working on his Master's degree and I had a job in the lab at Tampa General Hospital. Every single one of of my lab colleagues was from the South, and they were fascinated by my northern accent and speech. They tried to get me to use "y'all" instead of "you guys", and wondered why I never said "Bless your heart". When we had a Halloween party I thought the best costume for me would be a Southern belle with a hoop skirt. I was pretty as a peach!

Favorite Number Three: My graduation gown

I got my Master's in Syracuse at SUNY Upstate Medical University, but had decided not to walk at graduation. My family asked (some might say practically begged) me to participate and promised they would come for the occasion, so I grudgingly signed up. There was a family kerfuffle and I ended up attending graduation and walking across the stage all by myself without any family members in the audience. I was upset for a long time, but now I like the photo as it reminds me of hard work, perseverance, and maybe even a little forgiveness.

Bonus Favorite: Glinda costume

I've posted this photo several times before, but have to include my Glinda costume in any list of my favorite things to wear. 

I can't wait to see everyone else's three favorite things to wear!

Read other Think ... Write ... Thursday! posts here, and sign up for Carole and Kat's great idea here.

Unraveled Wednesday

Joining Kat and friends for Unraveled Wednesday.

There was unraveling this past week, but it was for a good purpose. After digging through my stash, I sat down and knit an experimental swatch with all the colors I was considering for a Match and Move.

The black and white photo looks like they all might have enough contrast, except the black and blue at the bottom. (I'm not sure what I was thinking with that combination!) Originally I was contemplating just two colors, but now I can see several options with three or four colors. There are too many choices, so I'll need to think about this for a while.

This was what my knitting chair looked like, so after I took photos, unraveled the swatch, carefully wound the three unwound skeins, and put them all away, I wound my Birthday Cake yarn and started a Hitchhiker. There has been some unraveling there also because I wasn't paying attention and split the yarn on several rows. I've found that it's best to enjoy only one vodka gimlet if I'm Hitchhiking! Unraveling fixed things and I'm back on track.

In the reading department, I finished Moon Over Soho and Bambi, and started Option B and Bambi's Children, all for Book Bingo. This has happened in previous years with Book Bingo; the time comes when I look at my card, see that I've finished several books, but also notice that I've got a lot more to go for a cover-all. I'll just keep reading (since that's what I would do anyway, even if I wasn't participating in Summer Book Bingo).

What are you knitting and reading this week?

Two on Tuesday

I found the fawns and there are two of them! I expected the family to head to the woods after a few weeks,

 but they seem to like the area. 

(I thought about the family while I was reading Bambi, and will probably call the fawns Gino and Gurri since I've started Bambi's Children.)

No Laundry ...

No cooking, no Netflix, no air conditioner, and sadly, my plans included all of these on Saturday.

We heard several loud explosions on Saturday morning, lost power, then heard the fire and rescue squad sirens. That combination never bodes well, and it turns out that this happened:

There is construction going on in a lot about a block behind us, and the bulldozer operator hit the electric wires, blowing the transformers and blasting two electric poles apart. I still haven't found out details, but I sincerely hope the bulldozer driver is okay.

We were without power for about 18 hours, and I couldn't do any of my planned activities, so I had to spend the day reading, knitting, and facing the hardship of making drinks without a blender. It was tough, but I persevered. We were also without electricity to run the sump pump, and that made for a tense afternoon during some torrential deluges, but we were lucky enough to avoid a flooded cellar.

Our power was back on Sunday morning, so I got to do lots of laundry, make lasagna, turn on the air conditioner, watch some Netflix, and even use the blender. All in all it wasn't a half bad weekend, and I now have completed laundry and a new appreciation for working electricity. I hope your weekend was a good one!

Walk with Intent

Last week when I posted some quick photos of our trip to Fort Collins, several people wondered about these things.

Today I'll tell you about them. 

At the end of Ryan's first year in CO, he was recruited to be part of the prospective graduate students' visit. This is three days of providing the next cohort of grad. students with information about the program, the university, Fort Collins itself, food, and beer. While he leapt at the chance to use the department credit card for entertainment and enjoy some free food and beer himself, he was also in charge of showing the prospective students some of the area's wonderful outdoor activities. He chose one of Fort Collins' 46 Natural Areas for a 9.6 mile hike. While the students seemed to prefer food and beer over a long hike, Ryan came to love the place.

Some of it was the hike, varied views, and quiet solitude, and some of it was the prospect of finding things. He spotted one of these buried in the trail, dug it out, and was surprised to find that it was a round lead ball. He found several more during that hike, took us on our next visit, and we've been hooked ever since.

Our best guess is that these are lead balls that were used in black powder rifles. Cylindrical pointed bullets began to be used around 1825, so these may have been used around that time. We haven't been able to find any historical facts, but have had fun speculating about people shooting at buffalo or target practice with their muzzle loaders. It's hard to explain, but there is just something about searching for an object that is partially hidden, rare, hard to find, and old, and quite gratifying if you can actually find one.

We've collected 91 of them over the past four years, and the photo at the top shows our best day so far with 31 of them from our latest visit. We count the "splatted" ones that actually hit something, and even shards. They look like stones, but as soon as you pick them up, you can tell that they're made of lead by their weight. Ryan is the winner with the most found, followed by John, Justin, and I think I've contributed four to our overall total. This could be due to the fact that I get frustrated when I don't find any and concentrate more on the views, wildlife, wildflowers, and paying attention so I don't step on a snake.

Every time we head out we talk about how we've surely found most of the lead balls we're going to find and maybe we'll have to use a metal detector some day. We haven't yet resorted to this because it would feel like cheating and we found more on this latest visit than ever before. For now, it's fun to walk with intent, and share our finds as a family.