Wicked Witch of the Wool

My adventures in knitting and my daily life on the farm.

Tuesday, May 29, 2007

A Lot of Work, but a Lot to Show Too!

Hubby and I worked up quite a sweat this Memorial Day Weekend. My veggie garden had been laying idle in half-finished state since last summer. This year we (meaning I, especially) wanted to finish the fencing around it (to prevent certain members of the family , i.e. the goats from eating the crop), work some of our wonderful llama manure in the soil and then plant it full with green goodies.
Here you see the fencing complete (minus the gate) and my dear husband tilling the soil....



I planted sweet corn, cucumbers, onions, peppers, grapes, strawberries, sunflowers, rosemary, basil, marjoram, pole beans, wax beans, tomatoes, cabbage, and probably lots more that I just can't remember off the top of my head. I'm still waiting for my potato seeds to arrive, and I'm still looking for the lovage seeds that Maus gave me last year. The veggie garden is 24 feet by 24 feet, and I'm quickly running out of space to plant. I bought a 4 foot diameter water trough to place in the middle for a little water garden effect.

This is how it looked this morning....



I put up some planks on the right side to form a little wind break for my tender plants, and it turned out to be a very good idea. More on this later. We still need to add more rocks to the path, but it has become very tedious work. We have tons of this rock spread in our garden, but they are not all in one place, rather the dogs have spread them out over vast areas. I have to sit on a stool and pick up each individual rock by hand. Who wants to guess how many rocks it takes to cover the ground with at least a 3 inch layer?! I also need to add a circular bed around the water trough to add some flowery color to the garden. I got the plants today; Nasturtiums, Lady's Mantle and Tree Mallow. Now I need to go get the bricks to form the bed.
Here are some more pictures....







I'm going to hang a hammock in the middle of the back portion of the garden so that I can really enjoy the view.
Here is a close up of the water feature....



I also did some re-arranging on the deck. A table from the basement was brought upstairs and together with a rocking chair forms a perfect place for me to sit and knit. If you look closely you can see the beginning of a sock on the table, along with a good book, the required favorite beverage (diet pepsi) and my binoculars.



This morning I planted two beds next to the house with summer bulbs. I don't have pictures of that yet, since there is nothing really to show yet besides soggy dirt. Yes, soggy! I left for my physical therapy session in full sun and returned in a torrential downpour and hail. The streets were flooded, and so was my poor garden.
This is what the sky looked like....



Here is the deck, after most of the hail had already melted (note the broken leaves on the ground). I haven't yet had the heart to look at the ravage to my garden.



The storms are still raging. The barn has flooded, the horses are standing in mud up to their knees, and the goats are cranky. Speaking of goats, I leave you with one final picture taken this weekend of Annabelle and Trouble.....

Tuesday, May 15, 2007

It's a Hard Life.....



Just kidding! We just got back from a 9 day trip to Bimini, the Bahamas to go scuba diving. Bimini is the least known and least touristy of the Bahamian Islands. There is nothing really to do there on the roughly 9 square miles of land than fish and scuba. Since we prefer to swim with the fish instead of killing them, scuba it is. We had a couple of great days blowing bubbles, but lost 4 of the 7 days under water due to high seas and winds. We also had a lot of smoke from the Florida bush fires. That made for a lot of down time on a deck chair by the pool. We're definitely nice and rested by now.

The dives we did get in were fantastic. Hubby saw a big honking hammerhead shark, and there were 2 testosterone filled male bull shark on our first dive.



I had one spectacular experience swimming with wild Spotted Atlantic Dolphins for nearly an hour and a half. They are such magnificent animals, and the encounter was so serene. I feel truly blessed to have experienced this.

Our trip back home was less serene. Due to the enormeous Florida fires, our little plane had a delay of almost 5 hours which caused us to miss our connection in Fort Lauderdale. Thank goodness we got seats on a different airline so we got back to Denver around 11PM. Then we had a lengthy wait at the baggage caroussel. They had managed to lose our big bag full of dive gear. Not good. Luckily it was delivered to our doorstep within 24 hours.

Tomorrow I get a nerve root block in my back. I had a second opinion on my back issue the day we left for Bimini. The first surgeon had recommended a 2 level fusion, and I wasn't very keen on that. The second surgeon said that a 2 level fusion wouldn't be enough since the disc above the 2 crushed discs was herniating. I would need a 3 level fusion. Now that's a pretty darned involved thing to undergo, and I can forget about ever riding a horse again. I would basically be reduced to a couch potato for the rest of my life. I refuse, I simply refuse. Now I hope this injection will at least give me some temporary relief.

I've been doing some knitting while away, but not as much as I get done while at home.

This is the Anniversary Sock by Nancy Bush, made in STR April 2007 sock yarn club yarn. I didn't like the pattern it came with, so I found this pattern instead.



I've also started on what Blogless MJ calls her Blueberry Shawl. I'm making it with some of the fabulous Brook's Farms Mohair she gifted me. It is so nice and soft.



More later. I need to do a boatload of laundry.