Yarn Along at Summer's End

FO: Octopus from the book Amigurumi Knits by Hansi Singh

Joining Ginny's Yarn Along

Okay, so maybe it's not really summer's end, but for me, the freedom of days to myself, working in the garden, spinning, knitting, and spending time with my two alpacas is sadly over.  The reality of having to go back to work is here, and I will be forced to be much more strict with time management, as I will have to carefully balance work and farm life.

The garden, early on.  Before my zucchini flopped.

Summer has been quite a busy one, and the busier I was, the faster it went.  The garden I didn't get planted until mid-June began providing us with food about four weeks ago.  While my zucchini plants rotted (totally my faulty for planting them too close), my beans have exploded!  I filled a five gallon bucket the last two mornings.  I was able to barter with my next door neighbors for tomatoes.  This was a good trade, as my husband got a bit too aggressive with pruning our plants and our tomato harvest is minuscule.

A mixture of wild flowers including Calendula, Poppy, Red Clover, and some other Composite.

I also spent much of the summer learning as many of my local plants as possible; figuring out which can be used as foods and/or medicines.  I've made a number of my own tinctures: Yarrow, Motherwort, Plantain, and Calendula.  I hope to take some time and write more about these later as some have curious stories to go along with them.  Lastly,  I've also focused on growing some of my own medicinal herbs: Calendula, Comfrey, Lemon Balm, Spearmint, Catnip, California Poppies, to name a few.  It's been amazing to watch these plants grow.

Bracken and Bramble, happy to be among their own kind.

We spent the summer searching for a farm of our own, with no luck, I must add.  So as my summer was coming to an end, we realized that it wasn't going to be feasible to continue to travel each night to the farm where we had been exchanging with a friend alpaca boarding for splitting the chores.  She has sheep and goats and took care of the morning chores; we did the night chores.  Since I will be teaching night classes starting this coming week, we decided to move our two girls to board at another farm where they will be cared for by the owners of the farm.  It was a good move, even if I'm sad that I don't get to interact with them on a daily basis.  They are with other alpacas and seem much happier.  And this makes me happy.

The summer edition of Mary Jane's Farm and my second Octopus

I'm still working on the book "The Snow Child" by Eowyn Ivey (I've actually renewed it from the library twice now).  And while it was a summer goal to actually 'read' it, new textbooks and lecture writing have become its replacement.  I may just end up finding the audiobook and enjoying it during my commutes.  We'll see.  I did pick the latest edition of Mary Jane's Farm magazine recently, however.  I love this magazine, but only purchase it occasionally as I already subscribe to Mother Earth News, Mother Earth Living, and Spin Off.  But this edition was packed full of articles on growing and using medicinal herbs.  I couldn't resist.  

From hand dyed, handspun BFL.  

I finished my hand warmers from the last Yarn Along and have been knitting Octopi (I actually think the plural of octopus is 'octopuses').  These were the reason I learned to knit few years ago, and have just felt learned enough to complete them now.  They are an amigurumi patterns by Hansi Singh in her book "Amigurumi Knits".  You can also find the pattern here on Ravelry.  If you enjoy knitting amigurumi, she has some other fabulous patterns as well.

And guess what?!  It won a first place ribbon at the Butler Farm Show!

Yarn Along

This is the first time I've participated in the Yarn Along, but one of my goals this summer (I've taken the summer off!) was to actually read a book; not just listen to it as an audiobook, as I so often do, but actually read it.  I even went so far as to (finally) get a library card to my local library just so I could borrow this book.

I saw this book recommended by SpiderWomanKnits in one of her Instagram photos.  I've only just begun reading, but from the cover's description, it is about a childless couple who moved from Pennsylvania to the wilds of Alaska.  Longing for a child of their own, they build a girl out of snow only to find that she magically turns into a "real" girl.  Here's the actual synopsis from the inside cover of the book:

I'm really looking forward to this book as there seem to be many parallels with my own life.

As for what I'm knitting: I'm working on a set of knitter's mittens or fingerless gloves.  But I'm knitting two at a time on the same needles and from the same center pull ball.

I've never done this before, but I always find that (since I'm usually making up the pattern as I go along) I forget what I've done on the first one, so the second is slightly different.

I figure that if I knit them at the same time, the pattern will be exactly the same.  I'm using some of my hand dyed, hand spun BFL that I had stashed away for such an occasion.

The summer has been pretty darn rainy so far.  On one hand, all the rain has been really good for my late planted garden (I didn't get it in until almost mid-June!).  My beans, squash, and zucchini are getting ready to bloom already!  On the other hand, everything is so incredibly wet and muddy.  I can say though, that when it's raining, I don't feel guilty about staying inside, reading a book, spinning, or sewing.  Those are things that are difficult for me to do when it's nice outside.  We had a pretty big storm this morning and then again this evening.  They were calling for flash flooding, and as you can see below, we got it.

Fortunately we live on top of the hill!