Yopping Update #9 - Monogamous Knitting

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 This week started out a bit rough - two days in bed with a migraine, but by Wednesday I was on the mend. 

We had quite a bit of excitement here on Tuesday evening.  I had finally gotten out of bed and was sitting on the couch when I noticed the apple tree outside my front window was waving in what I thought was a heavy wind.  It was 7:30 in the evening and when I went to the window I was surprised to see one very big bear in our apple tree!  Oh my goodness.  I video taped his antics for 10 minutes while we tried from inside the house to shoo him away.  My husband tried banging pots and pans, and turning on the alarm on both our cars - to no avail.  I was sure the tree wouldn't hold the bear's weight as it climbed higher and went out further on the branches.  He finally came down, and then lay down under the tree.  At this point I went out on the porch, and shooed him away.  Even though the apples are not yet fully ripe the next day my husband and I went out and picked about forty pounds of apples.  This is on top of the forty pounds we had picked when my son was here.  There are still some left too high up for us to reach, but I check every day to pick up any fallen apples.  

On the knitting front it has been all about the gansey.  I am determined to have this finished before the recipient gets home at the end of September.  I am almost at the point to start the underarm gusset and to split for the sleeves. 

I did manage to get for a swim on Thursday and this morning as well.  Despite masks being made mandatory again in indoor spaces the pool will be opening up without need for pre-booking on September 7th.  I will see how safe I feel.  It is also a day to day decision here with our Covid-19 numbers on the rise once again.  Our government is requiring a vaccine passport starting September 13 to attend any non-essential service such as theatres, indoor gyms/pools, restaurants, music venues, etc.  I have to admit I am glad for this and I hope this will get out daily numbers reducing once again.  

I have once again resurrected my novel.  I have applied for an ISBN number, and I am doing final edits (again) so I can upload it to Kindle as an ebook.  I have been working on a cover page this week - although I am in a steep learning curve with the picture editor to try and get the text correct.  My son-in-law has offered to help which is great.  I am also in a steep learning curve between Word and Google Docs and then I have to convert the finished manuscript into the format that Kindle wants.  My son has offered to help with that.  I am so fortunate to have people in my life to help me get over the hurdles that can often impede my progress.  So stay tuned.  Maybe by next month there will be a link to my self-published ebook. 

I will leave you today with a lovely photo of my daughter and grand-daughter inside a very cool cave near to where they live. 

Have a good week dear readers.  If there are bears, may they be gentle.  

Yopping Update #8 - Wait, what? A finish and one wip?

 

A short post today.  I am a wee bit sad as my son left last night, but it was a wonderful visit.  I so wish I lived closer to both of my children which is hard since they live on different continents. 

However, I did finish my Sunday Best socks yesterday:

finally a picture that is true to the colour

This week I also started the gansey for my friend who is graduating next month with a degree in Marine Biology.  I got the welt done and the plain stocking stitch section with her initials.  Today I will start the patterning.  I will be very monogamous with this project as I want it done before she flies home at the end of September.  There is another Imagined Landscapes KAL gnome in September but I can manage that at the same time for sure!  It seems there can never be too many gnomes in my life.

I got in some swims this week - the only time available was 6:30 in the morning - a sleepy start but a great way to begin my day.  I swim quite well while half asleep it seems. Today I swam at 7am.  A bit more reasonable, and this coming week I scored the 7:30am time which is very reasonable indeed. 

The only down side to my week was on Wednesday I started to develop an eye infection which quickly spread to the second eye. I tried to manage it at home but by Friday morning it was much too serious and I had had a very poor sleep.  I managed to get into the drop-in medical clinic by 10:30am and by 11am I had some antibiotics and steroid drops.  By yesterday things were much more comfortable although I do need to keep taking them for a week.  

I blame my swim goggles and they have since been thoroughly cleaned. 

That's it for me - doing laundry today, and, of course, knitting.  

colour should show as navy, not grey

Who knew we had hibiscus trees in our district?

also my marigold finally bloomed!

Yopping Update #7 - Home again, home again Jiggety Jig

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 I'm bacckkk!

It is late Sunday afternoon and I have a window of time to write this post.  Last Sunday we left at noon to go camping, and it was an amazing five days.  The campground was quiet, the lake was gorgeous for swimming and we had excellent meals.  The weather was warm during the days, but cooled nicely in the evening.  Our campground was on the shady side so we could relax there if the beach was too hot. 

master chef at work

master relaxer

Our daughter and her family were never far from our thoughts as our beach towels can attest.

selfie in front of smokey lake

The first day my son and I did a 4km hike that involved scrabbling over big rocks in some places.  It was tiring, but I felt so good knowing I could manage the distance and difficulty. The next day I swam a mile in the glacier cold lake.  It took me just over an hour and I was glad the sun was nice and hot when I got out so I could warm up!  Where is the hot tub when you need it?

On Thursday my son went for a 15km hike and I stayed in the campsite and swam a half mile later in the afternoon.  

My husband got his solar panels working so we could recharge our batteries a couple of times during the week since the campground did not have electricity.  

We woke up Friday morning, the day we were leaving, and the sky was very smokey.  We headed home hoping that there was not a forest fire between home and the campsite.  There wasn't, but as we got closer and closer to home the smokey skies got worse and the heat was intense.  So, yes, we arrived home just as our hometown was in an extreme heatwave, with smokey skies from the fires to the south and east of us. 

Thankfully today is a bit cooler and the skies not as smokey. 

I already swam at the pool this morning for forty-five minutes, and then my son and I went birding for two hours.  After a yummy Thai lunch he is napping, and I am relaxing on the back porch.  Hubby is reading blogs on his computer.  It is a nice quiet afternoon, and we bought some fresh salmon to bbq for supper. 

Can you tell we are having a wonderful visit with our son?  Oh, yes we are!

I did manage to do a wee bit of knitting in the campsite and turned one heel successfully, totally messed up the second heel, tinked back the second heel as the campground was getting darker and darker, and then last night re-knit the second heel as I sat on the back porch racing to finish before it was too dark to see.  

So, I actually knit three fish lip kiss heels for one pair of socks!

If it cools down enough I should get to start the foot of the socks tonight.  It is hard to knit when my hands are sweaty holding the needles and then the wool doesn't slide easily.  I know, I know - first world problem.

The weather app is predicting rain tomorrow.  That will be a nice change for sure.  

I bought a new plant for my back porch today, 

Silverweed

and my son bought me an air plant which will be sitting on my kitchen window sill after it posed for the picture below.

The big deal about these plants is that this is the first time I have gone into a garden store since the pandemic began.  Baby steps to re-integrate into the world now I have my two vaccines.  I take it as a huge win, as was going into a grocery store for a big shop in person to get all the supplies for our camping trip.  I felt so brave and proud of myself. 

I will leave you with a picture that came up on my fb memories.  This is my aunt on her 100th birthday five years ago posing with one of my cousins.  My aunt is wearing the shawl I knit for her.  She was a grand, grand lady, and I miss her so much.  

Until next week - hope you are all well and finding your own reasons to be proud of yourself. 

Yopping Update #6 - Sunday Best

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One progress pic:

This is as far as I got this week on my Sunday Best socks as this week my son has been in town and we have been getting ready to go camping today!

I did manage to get to the pool three times this week and with all the pre-camping errands I have averaged 10,000 steps a day!!

Next week I am sure that although there will be very little progress on the knitting front, there will be lots to share about our camping trip.  We haven't been out in our camper since October 2019!  This probably explains why it has taken us all week to get ready to leave.  

I checked the campground information yesterday, and they do note that it is bear country (but we have lots of bear spray), and also that there is a momma cougar with two cubs who has been seen frequently on one of the trails (not one I plan to go on!)

Mostly I plan to sleep, and swim and play crib with my son.  I hope also to sing along to my dh's guitar playing and maybe, just maybe I will knit a wee bit more on the socks.  

I have started the planning for my friend's gansey.  I have asked her mom to sneak me a sweater that fits her well so I can get the dimensions from it without having to let her know I am knitting for her.  Hopefully she will have found a sweater by the time I get home from camping. 

We had to get the truck starter fixed this week too, and while waiting for the repair my dh and I walked around and saw this lovely mosaic on the sidewalk near the river.  

Yopping Update #5 - It was a spinney kind of week

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Good Morning!  We had some rain in the wee hours of the morning for an hour or so.  Yay!  I think it has been over forty days since the last bit of precipitation.  I am sure the plant world is very happy. 

I did finish my toque to match my gansey and my fingerless mitts.

Lovely free pattern Rainbow Indigo Fisherman's Beanie

I then started my gansey style socks called Sunday Best 

Colour is more purple than this picture shows

I didn't get much done on them because I was busy spinning the 250 gms of fleece (unknown breed). I spun directly from the fleece using the long draw method.  It was easy to spin from the fleece and the locks seemed to easily get spun into the drafting area.  Using the long draw method made it easy to pick out the grasses and such as I came upon them and this particular fleece must have been washed because there wasn't much lanolin in it, but after each bobbin spun (I ended up with four) my lap was full of dust and fine dirt that I would have to shake off.  I ended up with 346 metres of aran weight yarn.  Now I have to decide what to knit with it.  I want to knit something fairisle using it with the 250 gms of white I spun during Tour de Fleece. 

Speaking of Tour de Fleece I found out yesterday that I won a $25 Etsy gift certificate.  I already found something to buy - a hand tooled birch wood darning disk.  They are made in the UK but it does say they ship to Canada.  Stay tuned. 

Also this week my key fob cover was looking tatty so I double knit a new one out of some rainbow hemp I have lying around. I forgot to take a picture of the one I replaced, but trust me this one looks much nicer. 

My navy Frangipani yarn arrived on Thursday so I hope to cast on my next gansey sometime this week.  I just have to verify the recipient's measurements.  

The best news of the week is that on Friday (our 44th Anniversary) our son arrived!!  We haven't seen him since October 2019.  We have three weeks with him!! (Yes, all those exclamation marks are necessary)

Last night's sunset walk

There were quite a few errands run this week getting ready for his visit, and for a short camping trip we hope to take  with him later in August.  Bear spray, camping chairs, and a propane fire pit (because wood fires are banned in our province because the dry weather has sparked many, many wild fires).  I even reorganized the camper and bought a three drawer unit for one of the cupboards so my husband's clothes can be better organized than just one big messy pile to sort through.  It feels good to be getting things done in the house and in the camper.  Between my husband and I it seems like we have deliveries coming to our door almost daily! You are welcome Amazon. 

Okay - that's it for this week.  Despite this morning's rain it is supposed to get hot and humid again later today so I had better get some chores done before the heat starts to build.  I already had my swim this morning (my son came too), so after chores I will get my knitting out for certain.