Sometimes Monday ...

... is a good day for a quick update. I had planned to be back to posting sooner, but things got a bit busy. In the last two weeks, I have:

• Had a wonderful time in Fort Collins with Ryan
• Enjoyed lots of interesting beer and delicious food
• Cleaned out Ryan's gutters, window wells, and weeded and repaired his patio
• Visited The Loopy Ewe!
• Played chess (very poorly)
• Wondered how someone who has absolutely no interest in gardening (I'm referring to Ryan) can grow such a lovely clematis
• Had the world's best gyro and caipirinha
• Been insulted (in an indirect and slightly amusing way) by a stranger in the Denver airport
• Visited my mother-in-law who was in the hospital with congestive heart failure, and helped set up her hospital bed, Meals on Wheels, and other arrangements when she came home
• Celebrated our 37th wedding anniversary
• Turned 61 years old
• Bought a house in Maryland
• Tried to get caught up on laundry; I'm still trying!

I'll tell you all about the details of these things over the next few posts. There will be photos of yarn!

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.

Birthday Presents and Birthday Cake

Yesterday I told you about buying some yarn at The Loopy Ewe, today I'll confess to the rest of it.

Ryan and I wandered around the store for quite a while and had decided on two skeins of Hedgehog Fibres sock and three skeins of Uncommon Thread Everyday Singles, but then we spied the Wollmeise and Fresh From the Cauldron skeins. I put our first choices back and happily purchased the ones I wrote about yesterday.

We were sitting at dinner, and Ryan (excellent yarn-chooser and enabler extraordinaire) mentioned that he had been thinking about our first yarn choices and wondered if I should have gotten them. I pack in only a carry on bag, so I knew I didn't have one bit of extra space for more yarn beyond what I had already purchased, and then there was the cost of more yarn ...

Some birthday presents to open!

But the more I thought about it, the more I convinced myself that I needed more yarn. Ryan pointed out that the timing was right and one of the colorway names seemed like it was meant to be, so I went ahead and ordered the yarn, had The Loopy Ewe ship it, and it arrived on my doorstep before I did.

Happy 60th Birthday to me!

A True Unraveled Wednesday

I'm joining Kat and friends for Unraveled Wednesday. 

When Ryan chose the graduate program at CSU, my first reaction was happiness that he would be working on his PhD at a school that was an excellent fit for him. My next reaction was dismay that it was 1700 miles away, but that was later followed by excitement because Fort Collins is also the home of The Loopy Ewe. As much fun as it is to shop with them on line, it's overwhelmingly wonderful in person.

I have shopped at this terrific store every time I've visited Ryan, and have more yarn than I need, so this time I told myself I was only going to buy one skein of sock yarn. [Insert peals of hysterical laughter here.] Ryan is an excellent yarn-chooser, and even though he helped me choose too many skeins, I just had to get them all.

Lynn, the Loopy Office Manager, checked me out and of course asked what I was planning to make with my yarn. When I told her I didn't know yet, she offered a great idea. There is a lovely Match and Move displayed right by the front door, and Lynn went right over to show me how it is knit, how my Fresh From the Cauldron and Wollmeise could work together, and just what a great shawl it is. I was so excited about my yarn and the whole experience of shopping at TLE that I didn't take any photos. I was very tempted to wind the skein of Wollmeise when we were on the plane in Denver and delayed due to lightning in the vicinity, but I did muster enough patience to wait until I got home to wind the yarn and cast on.

I gave it a few rows past the color change and admitted that these two yarns are not meant to be used together. There isn't enough contrast between them; in fact, I can barely see the difference no matter how much I try to convince myself. I love the Match and Move pattern, just not with these two yarns.

I will be unraveling as soon as I post this, and getting started on Plan B. I also came up with Plan C, and have high hopes that one (or maybe even both) of the alternatives will work.

Thanks to Ryan and Lynn for inspiring me to knit something besides a Hitchhiker, and thanks to Kat for Unraveled Wednesday so I can look at unraveling in a happier way!

Flora and Fauna

After telling you about spring snow and damaged and fallen trees yesterday, I don't want to leave you with the impression that the flora and fauna aren't thriving in Fort Collins. We had beautiful, perfect weather during our visit, and blooms (and bunnies) are everywhere.

I also delight in spotting all the flowers and animals painted on Fort Collins' cool utility boxes.

Ryan passes these chickens in hats and hamsters in wheels every day on his way to campus.

And Fort Collins even has colorful sheep. What a great place!

The Oval, Trees, and Spring Snow

The Oval at Colorado State University is one of my favorite places in Fort Collins. It's just what its name says, a large oval drive, with academic and administrative buildings around it, bisected by a lovely walkway lined with 65 mature old elm trees. The math department is located in the Weber building, so Ryan is lucky enough to spend most of his time right on The Oval.

I didn't label this photo, so am not responsible for the misspelling of Isotope Drive. :-)

The Oval is lovely in all seasons and for many reasons.

But some of those seasons can cause problems. On May 18th of this year, Fort Collins had eight inches of heavy, wet snow. Classes were cancelled (the first time CSU ever had a snow day during the summer session!) and The Oval was closed for almost a week because the snow caused many tree branches in full spring leaf to fall.

Eight hundred of CSU's 6,000 trees were damaged enough that they will have to be removed, and there are still hundreds of branches dangling precariously all over Fort Collins.

Like this one hanging on Ryan's roof. Many calls have been made so we're keeping our fingers crossed that he can get it removed before it splits completely. Colorado really is wonderful, except for the damage from hail and spring snows!

Discombobulated

Hello, and Happy Friday! I'm back, but feeling just a bit discombobulated, slightly disoriented, and not with it. I had some medical concerns to deal with, but then rewarded myself with a visit to Ryan in Colorado. We got back home at 3:00 am Eastern Time yesterday, but my mind and body were still (sort of) on Mountain Time. Three hours of sleep along with the post-vacation chores of laundry, grocery shopping, mowing, and a garden gone wild do not make for a good blog post, so I'm going to make do with a few photos for now, and will tell you more about them next week.

Thanks for stopping by and I hope you'll be back on Monday so I can tell you about all the good stuff!

Eat, Drink, and Be Merry

The title pretty much says it all; besides yarn shopping, that's exactly what we did in Fort Collins. Ryan and I anxiously make lists of all the great restaurants we want to try and/or visit again, but we never seem to have enough time to eat at all of them.

We have a tradition (because we've done it three times now) of going out for a reuben as soon as Ryan picks us up from the airport, before we even go back to his house. This year we went to a new-to-me place, Avogadro's Number. I would love to have a place like this here at home -- great food, bar, and music. We knew we were in Fort Collins as we relaxed on the patio under clear blue skies and enjoyed excellent reubens, seated by the smiling snake water feature.

I love going out for breakfast, so we also made sure to go to Lucile's. Their eggs, sausage, pancakes, coffee, and biscuits are absolutely delicious, so I will definitely go back again (and again ...). Yes, that is one (very large) biscuit.

We also had to compare reubens from Choice City. They make one of the best I've ever had, but I'll have to return to Fort Collins for more taste-testing before I can proclaim the definitive winner.

My favorite dinner (aside from the amatriciana sauce Ryan made for us) was at The Moot House, an English-style pub. We had some great artichoke dip (that's English, right?) and my fish and chips were wonderful, as was my Snakebite (cider, lager, plus blackcurrant cordial).

This is only a few blocks from Ryan's house and we enjoyed it so much we went back a second time. I miss fish and chips, sitting outdoors by the fire pit, and Snakebites. We also ate at a great burger place and a churrascaria, but luckily for anyone reading this, I didn't take photos.

Along with the eating, there was also drinking. Some of it was at the New Belgium Brewery. I've been on the tour twice and Ryan has been countless times, but we made a big sacrifice and went again for John's sake. The only slight negative was that the sour room was closed (my favorite) but that was because they were blending a new Tart Lychee. I probably won't be able to get it here in the east, but Ryan has instructions to get some and save it for the next time I visit.

Our drink wasn't all alcoholic; we also drove to Boulder to visit Celestial Seasonings Tea. It's a fun tour with lots of tea to taste. I found some new ones to try and got to inhale the intense aroma in the Mint Room.

There was plenty of merriness also -- fishing, hiking, finding good rocks, and just visiting and being together. I miss Colorado, that western blue sky, good beer, good food, and Ryan!