Musings on Christmas Eve

I’ve written dozens of blog posts over the last few months. That’s the good news. The bad news is that they were all in my head.

I will compose a post at midnight, while I am knitting, thinking I will write it out the next day. But then life happens and another week has passed.

This has been the year for dealing with health issues. While there have been no major changes, I have had lots of annoying things that have required medication or other attention. Just when I start feeling nearly normal, something else crops up.

Through it all, I got to spend some very nice time with my granddaughter, Tesla. She is so wonderful! We sing and giggle and carry on like two-year-olds. Oh, right. She is a two-year-old.

Tesla’s birthday party

She loves cuddles and books and people.

The dogs also keep me busy and happy. The were born the same week as Tesla, but two-year-old Border Collies are very different than two-year-old little girls. They can be very mellow, or all wound up. Most of all, they are very loving.

While they spend quite a lot of time inside with me, they love to run the whole two acres.

I haven’t done a lot of sewing the last few months, but the knitting needles are rarely idle. The biggest problem there is that I forget to take pictures for the blog or Ravelry before they go to their new homes. There have been several pairs of socks, some hats, things for Tesla and the new baby.

Did I not mention the new baby? Tesla’s new baby ‘bother’ (brother) was born this afternoon at 2:10.  The planned home birth didn’t get to happen, and he was perfectly content to stay inside. So after much discussion and consultation, a c-section happened.

He is here, he is healthy, and he is Zaius Charles Babbage! We hope he lives up to his name!

Hello, My name is…

My name is Jeanie, and I am a procrastinator. For the last six to eight weeks I have THOUGHT about blog posts, but obviously have not written and posted one. We have had a lot going on at the place hub calls ‘Rancho Babbage’.

There was a cougar siting.

I was in the family room, and saw this creature through the window. I grabbed my camera and shot some pictures through the window, but since he was not in a hurry to leave, I went outside and shot some more. It wasn’t as foolhardy as it sounds as there was a fence and a creek between us. I just wasn’t sure anyone would believe me without pictures!

We celebrated the boys’ birthdays the Saturday after Thanksgiving. Younger son brought remote control cars to play with.

Granddaughter showed off her walking skills.

She has almost outgrown the sweater I made for her!

We put in a driveway from the house to the barn. Next comes more fencing.

We got ready for Christmas with a small tree

I didn’t get too carried away with decorating this year.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And there was the injured Ike. Tina had broken a casserole dish she was trying to take outside. She carried pieces out instead. Ike stepped on a large piece and slashed his toe. Trying to keep his dressing clean and dry has been a real challenge in our rainy part of the world.

 

And of course there has been knitting.

There was a dress for Tesla…

 

 

And gifts for her parents that I never photographed.

There was the hat that she seems to love. She has put it on by herself most everyday since she got it. It is Cat Bordhi’s ‘Anemone Hat’. There were several gift items that I never managed to get pictures of before they went away. Other than that, life has been pretty routine around here. It is nice that life is fairly calm as I really could use a quiet time!

Saying Good-bye to Lucy

Lucy joined our family in 2001. She was a stray, hanging around the shop where hub worked. But there was a big problem. The company was moving, and soon. A lot of the employees had been feeding her and no one wanted to abandon her. So she spent time with several different households, but for one reason or another she was denied a forever home.

When hub talked about a trial at our house, I insisted that she be given a fair chance. I found out that at all the other homes she had only had a night or two. I told hub that she got a month to prove to our resident dogs that she would fit. At the time, we had Scruffy and Jethro. Scruffy was a 10 pound wonder of mixed breed, who was about 13 years old. Jethro was a Rottweiler/ German Shepard mix at about 4 years old. He weighed about 90 pounds and Scruffy had raised him from a pup. They got along very well, and we weren’t sure how a middle sized adult dog would fit in. But we shouldn’t have worried. After a few days, it was hard to remember a time without Lucy.

Fast forward to 2010, and Lucy is the only dog in the house.  Scruffy had lived to be 18, and Jethro had made it to 13. When we got Lucy, the vet had estimated her age at 4 to 5 years old, so she was about 14 and showing it. She also seemed lonely without Jethro. So that summer we were going to get her a puppy. It had worked for Scruffy, after all. Plus I knew it would be easier on me if I already had a dog in the house when Lucy’s time came.  So entered Ike and Tina.

And Lucy helped teach them good puppy manners. Although she was getting slow and grumpy, she handled the pups very well.

She also started taking meds for her aches and pains and seemed to be doing fine.

But now the pain meds aren’t working, and Lucy is crying a lot. She wakes up yelping when she moves, and has a lot of trouble going outside. She’s not eating much, and just seems miserable. Hub insists that it is time. I guess I agree, because she doesn’t seem to have good days any more. We are down to good minutes. But it is hard to say good-bye…

 

What a difference six

What a difference six months makes.  When Ike and Tina joined us I knew they would grow, of course. I had no idea just how beautiful they would become.

Tina weighed about 5 pounds when she joined us. She is now a beautiful young lady at 30 pounds. She has such a regal bearing, it is hard to realize she is such a brat 😉  Tina is the one who climbs on cars…

I’m glad it is an older car. Hub isn’t pleased, but he’s not ready to kill her! (yet!)

Then we have Ike! He, too, was about five pounds we he came home. He is now over 40 pounds and all muscle.

Ike must be part hound dog, with that hangdog look. He always seems so pitiful 🙂 But he is so cuddly and sweet.

This one is all about the dogs. The next post will be the knitting.

There must be a warp…

in the space/time continuum. It seems like just last week I posted about…

Oh well, it is what it is. I have been plagued with either one heck of a virus that never completely goes away, or I have encountered every single one out there this year.  I don’t remember a winter so bad, and it’s not over yet.

I have been knitting a bit. I am halfway on this gift.

I really do need to learn how to do the color corrections. The brown is much darker and richer than shows up here.

I only need to sew on the buttons on this cute cardigan for Tesla.

The Ella Funt pattern is so cute. The color work is in Angora.

There are socks, as usual. These were just finished as part of a KAL.

A lot of the people in the group decided they hated the twisted stitch pattern. I rather enjoyed it, but I am perverse that way.

There are several other things going that are either secret or I don’t have pictures yet.

The puppies are growing fast and keeping me busy. They are 7 months old now.  Ike was neutered last month (Tina was done before Christmas) and the are licensed and legal. They are busy excavating the back yard.  They seem to be after our huge population of voles, but they have yet to catch one.

Lucy is fairly tolerant of the kids.

No knitting here today

You may or may not remember that I had a virus a while back.  Well either it is back with a vengeance, or I have a new one.  You know the drill; runny nose, sore throat, body aches, sleep problems.  I just want to curl up and be pampered.  But this is real life. It’s just not going to happen.  For one thing, Hub doesn’t feel any better than I do.  And, as he is very quick to remind me, HE still goes to work everyday.

I haven’t been able to convince him that sometimes it is better to just hide and let your body work at getting over what ever bug you are dealing with.  I don’t even try to talk to him about the poor etiquette involved in sharing said bug.

The puppies seem to know what I’m talking about.  I was cold.  I was curled up with an old crocheted afghan.  Tina joined me.  WARM!

I spent the morning reading other people’s blogs and twitter feeds.

I did NOT wash dishes!

I did NOT do laundry!

I did NOT clean the very dirty, puppy-slimed floors!

I sat.  It is now almost time for hub to come home from spreading  his version of this virus, and still I sit.  I think I will open a can of soup for dinner 😉 !

I did go outside for a while today.  There has been digging going on.  The pups come in with muddy feet and noses.  I needed to investigate.

They are digging to CHINA!!!!

Each hole is 12 to 18 inches deep!  They are in a cluster in the side yard.

I know these are the holes the pups have dug.

Then there are these.

These are mounds left by some other enterprising mammal.  Maybe the pups aren’t trying to dig to China after all.  I have not seen these other mammals (and they really must be mammals, right?) but it could be that Ike and Tina smell them and hear them and just want to play!

While I was out I discover that we also have fungi.

There are several clusters all around the house.  I picked this one to dry because it was huge and pretty.

Tina lives here, too

A lot of my post have plenty of pictures of Ike.  Most of that is that he is more mellow and is still more often. Then we have Tina, the athletic, the beautiful, the BRAT!  Tina really is my troublemaker.  As I wrote that last sentence, I had to stop to respond to a crash in the kitchen.  My fault, I know. I left the platter with the leftover pot roast on the counter.  Tina knocked the whole thing on the floor. Fortunately the way things landed on the platter it was salvageable. I want to know, is she reading my mind and knowing I’m writing about her?

The pups went to the vet for more shots a week ago.  They get weighed every time they go in.  Tina now weighs 21 lbs. and is beautiful.  She started obedience classes and is doing pretty well, even though she is the youngest dog in the group.  I must admit I have never taken a dog to obedience class before.  Usually I have only one pup at a time and they are with me 24/7.  With two pups, they spend more time with each other and it is harder to get them to pay attention.  It is working, but work is the operative word.  The other issue I didn’t give enough weight to was my stamina.  Jethro  was a pup 14 years ago and while I was probably starting to have symptoms from the MS, my energy levels were much higher than now.

Tina doesn’t care about any of that.  She just wants loving, on her terms.  She really is much more delicate than her brother, and is much more impish as well.

I am NOT cooking Thanksgiving Dinner this year.  While it is a job I enjoy, we have been invited to join our older son and his family at H’s mother’s.  Here it is  Sunday, and I don’t have any idea what to take.

Other than knitting, of course.  I have a pair of pants for Tesla.The colorway is ‘Froggie’  from KSD.

And a pair of socks in ‘Iris’.

These match the dress

There are other things on the needles that I can’t show right now.

WHAT WAS THAT CRASH!!!!!  bye!

It has been a while…

Like a lot of people, I had a doozy  of a head cold for three weeks of the last several weeks.  I was curled up, medicated and knitting.  Of course, due to said medication, the knitting was slow and error ridden.  A lot of it ended up in the frog pond.

I did complete a new pair of socks for ME!  They are in a lovely merino/bamboo blend from KSD.  They feel wonderful on my feet!

I’m also working on a new project for Tesla in Celeste hand dyed by SpaceCadet.  The colorway is Iris with the purples, greens and that pop of yellow of traditional ‘flags’.

My photography does not do justice to the wonderful colors in this yarn.

Ike and Tina have been getting Lucy more active.  She must be feeling better because she is much more interested in them.  She even wags her tail when they lick her snout.

The pups are also showing some signs of maturing.  They have grown a lot, with Ike weighing in at over 22 lbs, and Tina at 17 lbs.  They are not so frantic about everything.

Tina is supposed to start ‘school’ next week and they will both learn some manners.  They won’t get to interact with Tesla until they can follow a few more simple commands.

Ike gets so worn out with his day of play that this is how he has been spending his evenings.

Fall has arrived…

Fall really has arrived here at the Babbage patch.  The apples are falling off the trees and the blue jays are knocking down the rest.  We had a beautiful red-headed woodpecker out there this morning.  Even the puppies enjoy the apples.  I feel guilty that the trees haven’t been pruned for several years.  We would probably have better fruit if the trees were better cared for.

Knitting has been progressing well.  I have finished a couple pairs of socks and have another pair on the needles.

This pair is for me.  The yarn is from KSD, and is a merino/bamboo/nylon sock blend.  It is very soft with a soft bloom.  I’m curious to see what it will do when washed.

I completed the sock monkey suit for Tesla.

Her parents have promised lots of photos.

I finally found the other hank of yarn to finish Flint. I had been test knitting this wonderful sweater and misplaced the yarn in the midst of reorganizing.  It is so purple that it really is hard to lose, but lose it I did!

The pups have been keeping me busy. Ike decided to see what made ‘his’ pillow fluffy.

He then took a nap because exploration into textiles is hard work.  But the fact that it is flat does not take away its cuddle properties.

In other news Tina will be starting school next month.  She will then come home and teach Ike her new tricks.

and in case you missed it here is there newest video

Stitches and more stitches

I have been working on several projects lately.  One project is completed, a pair of socks for an undisclosed family member. The green of this yarn is so cheerful.

It is too bad I don’t know how to correct the color the camera sees. 😉

One other pair of socks is in yarn I got as a Christmas gift last year.  The colors really remind me of the vineyards where I was a teen.

Again my photographic skills are lacking.

This yarn is going to be something for me.

This is from KSD and I just love it.

One of the other projects is a hat using Jared Flood’s Habitat pattern in KnitPicks Swish.

Again the color isn’t true, but the stitches are great.  It is a fun fast knit.

One of the main problems I have had with my knitting lately (besides having more ideas than time or energy) is how difficult it is to knit with a lap full of puppy.  They are getting big and heavy. They entertain me as much as each other.