Category Archives: Animals and Nature

Animals and Nature, Family

Where Do I Begin?

Posted on by Jean

So much has been going on since my last post a million years ago…. I don’t really know where to begin so I’ll begin where we left off. The winds of change are still blowing and we still don’t know where they’re blowing us.  I’m really surprised at how calm I am about not knowing where we’ll be in life and in location less than a year from now.  I just have this feeling that everything will be okay and definitely better than it is right now. 

Dan put in his retirement paperwork a few weeks ago but they’re trying to talk him out of it. In the beginning he would have dropped the paperwork if they’d told him for sure that we could go to Ft. Hood, TX but they may have waited too long. “Penciling” us in just doesn’t cut it after five deployments and 20 years.

I do have sad news to share.  A part of my heart was taken on May 22nd. I got a call from my cousin that my Grandmother had suffered a heart attack and and it didn’t look good. We were on the road within an hour and made record time to NH. Though she never regained consciousness, her heart stopped two hours after we arrived in Wolfboro so I was able to hold her hand and tell her I love her and how very much I’d miss her. I had just called her the day before to let her know we’d be coming up the first weekend in June to help my uncle paint my grandfather’s workshop.  She was very upbeat and I’m so glad that I’d called her.  At least she didn’t have to suffer the Alzheimer’s.  She was in the early stages and it was already very frustrating for her. My grandfather is heartbroken. They loved each other since they were six years old. I’m grateful that Dan took the job at West Point so I could be so close to my family and spend some time with her. We had a private funeral for her on my little acre on top of the mountain. She had eight children, 25 grandchildren and 14 great-grandchildren and every single one of us felt her love and were devastated when she passed away.  I still can’t get my head around the fact that I can’t just pick up the phone and call her anymore.

I came into this world wearing layette sets that Gram knit for me.  She was buried in the Field of Flowers Shawl I knit for her a few years ago.  It made me feel good to know that she’d have that wrapped around her to keep her wrapped in the love I felt for her.  I miss her so much.

To end on a good note, I have news about Lucky.  He may get his hearing back!  While visiting Kim of Woolen Rabbit a couple of months ago, she mentioned PSOM might be the cause of his deafness (he’s not completely deaf, he can hear very loud sounds and Aggie barking).  When I got home and googled it, I was amazed to find out that the vet at OSU doing a study on PSOM was the very vet that did Lucky’s BAER hearing test when he was in foster care last year!  I emailed her and after doing several other Cavaliers, she thinks this might be Lucky’s problem after all.  Her initial reaction last year (just a couple of weeks into the study) was that it was nerve damage.  Daniel, Lucky and I will hit the road next week to Ohio.  Keep your fingers crossed that his surgery is successful!

Animals and Nature, Knitting

54 X 3 = A Lot Of Frogging

Posted on by Jean

54.  That’s how many rows I was into Lilly.  Oh.  And let me not forget to mention that I was knitting her in one piece to the underarms.  So multiply that x 3.  At… oh…. about row 25 or so I was thinking that I didn’t like the way the side shaping was looking and that maybe I should just go ahead and rip it back out before I got too far.  Naaahhh… it’ll be fine.  I convinced myself of this with every right side row.   You can see on the 2nd, 6th and 8th column that I’d messed up too.  And I just now spotted one on the 4th column from the right.  Dropping stitches down to fix an error in this pattern is near impossible.  Obviously I wasn’t successful and by row 54 I knew I wasn’t going to be happy with the finished cardigan so…..

Frog City.  I hooked it up to the ball winder and cranked away.

I cast back on but I’m going to do it in pieces so the shaping won’t be so noticeable.  I’m already on row 59 of the back and it’s looks SO much better.   The pattern is almost mindless now but it’s an awful lot like ribbing with a backwards yarn over stuck in there now and then. I’m really glad that I went ahead and ripped it back.  This Jaeger Roma that I bought from Elann back in November is beautiful stuff.  Soft and easy to knit.

In my last post I had a little verse from a song from what I thought was a popular line dance.  I was surprised at how many people didn’t catch the verse that I wrote.  I found this video of people doing it at a wedding (of course the clap your hands line isn’t until the very end of the video):

Kinda like the Chicken Song.  Dumb but fun.

Poor Aggie.  I’d made some banana bran muffins (I’d share the recipe but they were horrible) on Saturday in our quest to lose weight.  Dan had one the other day and decided that the foil liner was the perfect accessory for Aggie.  Poor dog.  She wasn’t amused.

Animals and Nature

Robbing Peter to Pay Paul

Posted on by Jean

Aggie is the most vain dog I’ve ever met.  Pull the camera out and she’s in front of it.  She actually came running over and put her face in the shot.  Yeesh.

So yesterday I was so excited about Tracy’s (Wool Windings) little felted box that I cast one on of my own.  I found some Noro left over from these and some Lopi Lite left over from Hues in Horizontal and cast on with a strand of each.  I was cocky and cast on the largest size. I  wasn’t even through the first side and realized there’s no way I had enough of the green Lopi so I ripped it all out and started over. I  crossed my fingers and cast on the smallest size.  I knew it was gonna be close but this is ridiculous.  Six stitches left to cast off and see the little inch of green yarn left.  I will not be defeated.  I’ll just take a little from one of the cast on ends.  See?  There’s plenty here:

We’re driving up to NH this tomorrow so I’ll have to finish it when I get back.  I’ll post a picture then.  Thanks for the inspiration, Tracy! 

I’ve been working on the Clapotis (finally) and I needed a little change for a bit so the box was perfect.

I’m using Brooks Farm Duet that I bought at Rhinebeck.  I don’t know the color name because it’s not listed on the labels.  LOVE this stuff.  I do wish that I’d alternated each couple of rows with each ball of yarn because I’m not crazy about the way it’s pooling.  I’m half tempted to start over again.  I’d mentioned on the Elann chat site that this one’s been on my to-do list for a long time and wham-bam!

I’ve also been working on my photography. I’ve been following along with Two Peas in a Bucket’s course that’s ongoing online.  Yes, folks, you *can* take your camera off of Auto!!  This coming from a professional photographer’s daughter who’s had an awesome camera for a couple of years now.  The only thing I dared to do was take a picture without the flash.  Now I actually know how to METER it!  Can you imagine?  The freedom of it all is mind boggling.  Oh how I’d listened to my father when he tried to teach me about f-stops and composition.  He even made me take photography in HS but let’s face it…  that was a couple of years ago… ehem… so I remember zilch.  Since Aggie was so obliging and right there anyway I took these of her this morning.

And here’s what I’ve learned.  The first shot I love.  Look at those catch lights!  I’d just cleaned her eyes so I wish I would have waited until they dried and it would have been perfect.  The second shot… I should have had the focus on her nose, not her ears.  Still…. kinda cool. 

And a serious improvement from the pictures I took of her a couple of years ago.

Lucky’s not so easy.  He’s almost afraid of the camera.  I guess I would be too if I saw a huge cyclops in my face all the time.

A virtual dozen roses to you.  No chocolate because Dan and I started Weight Watchers on Monday – tell me how stupid is to try and start losing weight Valentine’s week?

Happy Valentine’s Day!!

Animals and Nature, Knitting

Now Comes the Hard Part

Posted on by Jean

Knitting is finis

Now it’s time to cut the steeks

Who has the valium?

A little Haiku for Sandy (Sandy’s Knitting).

There it is.  Knitting finished.  Now comes the part I dread.  I’ve done steeks a bunch of times but it always takes shots of vodka a strong will to cut something you’ve knit.  Especially when you knit it in acrylic – GASP! Because acrylic doesn’t stick together like wool does.  Dan’s Hardangervidda has been a royal pain.  It was knit in super-wash wool and the yarn is slicker than snot.  Every time he wears it I have to repair something.

I’m a wool snob but I love my cousin.  She has four girls age eight and under and now the baby.  I think she’d appreciate not having to worry about felting wool.  Still… now that I think about it I wish that I had gone with the wool because she’s going to have to hand wash it anyway and seriously, he’s probably going to get to wear it like twice.  I need to get it in the mail in the next couple of days because if he weighed this on January 1st….

… chances are that he may have already outgrown it.   We’re going up to New Hampshire for a visit in February but I’m afraid to wait that long.  Usually it takes me at least a week to work myself up to cut but I don’t have the time with this one.

Thanks for all the kind words about Lucky aka Sir Cha Ching.  He was pretty out of it all day yesterday.   Aggie was very gentle with him and sort of hovered over him all day like she knew.  She’s usually jumping on him and tugging him around by an ear or a lip or whatever she can grab with her teeth.  Not yesterday.  She sniffed all the parts that hurt and stayed by his side.  It was so sweet.

Animals and Nature

Cha Ching

Posted on by Jean

Lucky has yet another nickname.  Lucky, I now knight you Sir Cha Ching.  No.  That’s not Oriental.  It’s in reference to the money this sweet, sweet little guy has cost us thus far.  After the initial adoption fee and the gas to drive to Indiana to pick him up he’s had a few medical issues.  A few weeks ago he had a skin infection.  While at the vet it was discovered that his teeth are rotting right out of his head due to the lack of nutrition all those years at the mill.  We took care of the skin infection and he had his dental appointment today.  Holy Shnikies.  You know it’s bad when you walk in to pick up your dog and the vet says, “I’m warning you… it’s not pretty.  The boy is adorable but he’s a train wreck.  We had to pull seven teeth instead  of three, he has a ear infection and an anal gland infection.”  then she turned the bill so I could see it.  Let’s just say it was over $900 and less than a grand.  Did I say Holy Shnikies already?  My first thought was that Dan was going to have my head.  My husband is the sweetest guy there is but he grew up on a ranch.  He loves the dogs but he sees them as dogs.  I see them as kids.  I decided to take the bull by the horns and call him from the vet to let him know.  He said a couple of things and then said, “Well… it had to be done.  Hopefully he’ll be okay from now on.”   He loves our dogs more than he’ll admit.  You only have to see him with them when he thinks no one is looking.

  • rescue fee: $350
  • gas and hotel $500
  • vet bills $1400
  • This face:

Priceless.  He’s worth every cent and we’d do it all over again.  Just know that if you take in a rescue you better be ready for vet bills.  Lucky was worse off than a lot of rescues are but just take it into consideration….

Haiku for Sandy (Sandy’s Knitting)

Sweetest little dog

He’s learning to enjoy life

One day at a time

Animals and Nature, Knitting

Hot Diggity Dog

Posted on by Jean

As you can see, Lucky is coming along nicely.  Since he’s still a little lacking in the hair department, he needed a sweater for our daily walks that help build his muscle tone and confidence.  Isn’t he handsome?  He’s even sweeter than he looks if you can believe it. 

Pattern:  Fiber Trends Dandy Dog Sweaters (with some adjustments).

Yarn: Elann’s Highland Wool in Claret (#2020)

I’m one of those people that never follows a recipe exactly (and then wonder why it doesn’t taste the same) and I rarely follow a pattern exactly.  Instead of knitting the chest piece I just knit a band in garter stitch to go around his belly and then I knit a little triangular gusset to fill in where the polo neck pulled apart under the front of the collar.

Work it, Lucky!

Animals and Nature, Knitting

Fitting In

Posted on by Jean

I can’t believe that I keep forgetting to tell you guys about this….  Last year I mentioned in one of my posts about a surprise but it was hush hush at the time.  One of the Elannites, Michelle Ciccariello, was working on a possible book deal and asked if any of us would volunteer to test knit for her.  This is the sweater that I knit.  I sent it in unfinished because I was under a time crunch with Dan coming home from Afghanistan and we were getting ready for the move back to the States.   A bunch of us on the Elann chat site decided to give it to one of our own who is going through Chemo.  I sent it off last week with cards from some of us.  I’m getting kind of nervous because I haven’t heard yet if she got it.  I’m sure it’ll catch up with her.  I hope I’m not letting the cat out of the bag but I don’t think she reads my blog so I’m feeling pretty safe about having a big mouth.  🙂

Especially gorgeous on Margaux, the daughter of wonderful Ann, owner of Elann.   It’s knit in Highland Wool.  Thank you Ann, for giving me permission to use the photo here!

I’d say Lucky’s getting comfortable around here.  This morning he decided that his new favorite place is Aggie’s bag.  She isn’t too happy about it.  I’m going to go out to our storage place to get one of the larger crates we have so they can share.

The woman that actually rescued him from the mill wrote to me and told me that the conditions were awful and they weren’t sure he was going to make it.  He most likely spent all of his life (he’ll be three in February) in a cage of some sort just being used for breeding.  There was a special on Entertainment Tonight last night about puppy mills.  I was a little disappointed in how little they said but there’s a second part on tonight so I’m hoping that it has more detail. 

He’s doing really well considering what he came from.  He doesn’t walk hunched down anymore and comes running to me a lot when he sees me.  He and Aggie have actually played… sort of.  It’s more like she’s playing and he’s laying on his back swatting every now and then.  He also tried to play with her ball yesterday but he got scared when it moved and ran for the sofa (where he felt safe until he took over Aggie’s bag). 

It’s really hard to get used to the fact that he can’t hear us.  I still call him and then slap myself on the forehead and think, “Oh yea… that’s right… he can’t hear…” 

Animals and Nature, Family, Knitting

Lucky

Posted on by Jean

We have some huge new family news but first a little knitting.  I finished the scarf for my Gram.  This is the yarn and pattern that I bought at Morehouse Farms when I went to meet Jennifer (Major Knitter).  Simple Feather & Fan but I can’t tell you how many times I had to frog back several (once it was about six inches) rows to fix an error.  I even tried once to just drop down the stitches where the repeat error was but I made a bigger mess of it.  Click on the pic for a bigger view.  This merino yarn was SO soft and the colors are beautiful.  Because I used two skeins, I did two rows and then switched skeins so that the color variation would be more even.  There was quite a difference which gives it that striped effect.

Now the big news…

We’d been toying with the idea of getting a companion for Aggie.  We thought about a puppy and then thought we’d look into rescue.  Cavs are such a great dog that there aren’t a lot of them in rescue (well, one is too many, but compared to other breeds there aren’t a lot of them) but I looked anyway.  And then we saw this guy who was rescued by Lucky Star Cavalier Rescues from a Missouri puppy mill.  These two photo were taken after he’d been in rescue care for about a month.

When he was rescued he had a terrible case of mange.  You’ve seen Aggie and other healthy Cavs on Kim’s blog, so you can see how badly he was treated.  He’s also deaf, which no doubt in my mind, is due to ear infection, I could be wrong but it wouldn’t surprise me at all. 

So I wrote to his foster mom and told her we’d love to bring him home and give him the love he needs.  Sadly, she wrote back that he was already being adopted.  We wrote back and forth a few more times and last Thursday morning must have been our lucky day because I got an email from his foster mom saying that the adoption had fallen through and if we were serious we could have him!  I would have left right then and there but we had Joe’s parent/teacher conference Friday morning.  As soon as that was over I hit the road for the twelve-hour drive through NY, NJ, WV, PA, OH to IN to pick him up.  About halfway there I was thinking, “What the hell am I doing”… do you have any idea how wide PA is?!  It was 730 miles each way… at least 400 of that was PA! lol.

The second I saw him I knew it was worth every single mile and every gallon of gas.  He is the sweetest dog I’ve ever met.  It was a pretty full weekend getting him accustomed to our home but he’s fitting right in.  He’s very skittish.  It’s hard to remember that he’s deaf.  He can hear a loud whistle, shout or when Aggie barks but that’s about it.  Aggie, the priss that she is, growled at him as soon as I brought him in the house but we layed her on her back and let him smell her and she’s been fine since.  Here’s the proof:

We toyed with Texas A&M names like “Bear” for Bear Bryant (a great A&M coach), Kyle for Kyle Field and Sarge for Old Sarge but we couldn’t really name him anything other than “Lucky”, now could we?

His birthday is listed as 2/1/2005 so he’s six months older than Aggie.

I’ll keep you posted on Lucky’s progress. He’s going to be absolutely gorgeous when his coat comes back in and he gains some weight but it doesn’t matter.  He’s such a sweetheart and cuddler I’m completely in love with him already.  Who couldn’t be? Rescues are the best.

Animals and Nature, Cooking, Knitting

Happy Birthday My Little Redhead

Posted on by Jean

From this (Aggie is on your left):

to this:

in two years.  I took this picture on Aggie’s 2nd birthday (Saturday).  Happy birthday my sweet girl.  To celebrate I bought Aggie a gift!  Wasn’t that nice of me?  She’s always wanted a skein winder that she didn’t have to clamp down!  Who knew?!

What better way to try it out than with the yarn Kim (Woolen Rabbit) gave to me over Labor Day weekend. 

Finished the socks I started on Labor Day from Regia.  I have to say that the mismatched look drives me nuts.  Someone in the family is definitely getting these socks.

The color got me thinking of blueberries and blueberries got me thinking of one of my favorite treats:

Blueberry scones and a cuppa tea.  Must be the Scottish blood roaring through my veins.  I’ve made them enough to have been able to tweak the recipe a bit from various recipes I’ve found in books and on the web.  I like a denser, not so bready scone with an almost crunchy outside.  This was my latest try and so far it’s our favorite.

Scottish Lamb’s Blueberry Scones –

  • 2 1/2 c flour
  • 1/3 c sugar
  • pinch of salt
  • 1 TBS baking powder
  • 1/2 tsp baking soda
  • fresh nutmeg (I grate about a tsp worth if you’re using the already grated stuff, I’d double it)
  • 1 TBS grated lemon rind

Preheat oven to 400F.  Mix above ingredients in a bowl with a whisk until well blended.  Then cut in:

  • 1 stick unsalted butter (1/2 cup) – do NOT use margarine

Until it looks like cornmeal.  I usually stick the whole bowl back in the freezer (or at least the fridge if there’s no room in the freezer) for about a half an hour before continuing so that the butter gets nice and cold again.

Then add about a pint of fresh blueberries (you can use frozen but don’t defrost them so they won’t turn the dough blue).  Really, you have a lot of choices at this point.  Try raisins, craisins, nuts, cranberries, etc.  You really can’t go wrong.  My favorite is blueberries or raspberries though.

Beat together:

  • 1 egg
  • 3/4 cup milk (buttermilk will make the crumb softer and lighter if you’d like to try it)

Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix with a spoonula until it comes together into a ball.  Dump onto a floured surface and gently knead just until it is combined well (you have to do this carefully with berries so you don’t crush them).  Flatten out into a disk about an inch thick and cut like a cake into wedges.  Place on a sheet pan and brush with either milk or an egg wash.  Sprinkle with sugar and bake at 400 for about 20 min or until golden.  Best when fresh out of the oven. Brèagha (Gaelic for Beautiful)

Animals and Nature, Family, Knitting

1/2 a Saturday Left

Posted on by Jean

As of right now we have 1/2 of a Saturday left.   The boys think we have two.  Here’s the clicker.  For weeks, at least six, I have thought the 7th was on a Thursday.  Dan’s Detachment Sgt’s wife called me from Italy yesterday to see what my plans were for “Wednesday”.   I assumed she wanted to drive up a day early and needed a place to stay.  I said, “Oh, it’s only a 2 1/2 hour drive for us so I’ll just go up on Thursday morning.  Would you like to spend the night here with us and follow us there?” 

Dead silence.  Cricket.  Cricket.   I’m thinking, “What?  What’d I say?!”

“But, Jean, they come in on Wednesday.”   WHAT?! I ran to look at my calendar.  Holy crap! She was right! Why didn’t anyone tell me that the 7th was Wednesday?!  LOL.  I mean, I would have realized it sooner or later, probably tomorrow when I look at the calendar for the next week, but NO ONE told me!  Not even Dan.  I have sent him an email every single Thursday for weeks now, “Six more weeks today!…..  Five more weeks today!…”  He never caught on.  Everyone around here said they thought I was just excited and mixed up.  What a great gift!  It also means I have to get off my tail and get things done.  Wednesday is SO much earlier than Thursday.  Seriously.  Thursday is at the end of the week.  Wednesday is in the middle.  There’s a HUGE difference. There’s a rack of beer to be bought, house to make sparkle, banners to finish and hang up, clothes to be washed (his clothes have been in a closet for a year… they need freshening up)…  I think Daniel will figure it out (if he hasn’t already) but Joseph doesn’t have a clue and I can not wait to see his face when he realizes we’re going to pick up his dad.  He keeps saying, “I wish it were the 17th so dad will already have been home for a day.”  It’s killing me.  I’ve never kept a secret so well. I’m going to pretend I overslept and they missed the bus.  I’ve already set up the ground work and keep telling them that Aggie has a vet appointment (I just said, “next week” in case the flight gets delayed) so they won’t wonder why she’s in the car.  They won’t realize until I make a right turn for the Autobahn instead of a left for the school.  I wish I could run a video camera and drive at the same time.  lol.  So please everyone pray for on-time flights, no bumping of  seats and great weather from Afghanistan to Germany so that he actually gets home when they say he is because I don’t think I can keep quiet much longer. 

I gave Aggie a bath and good brushing yesterday.  Can you believe she’s 17 months old already.   She’s grown into such a beautiful little lady.  I use the term “lady” loosely.   She’s really a big pig.  I know it’s hard to believe looking at that face but you can bet that within five minutes of eating a huge belch comes out of that pretty little dog.  It’s hilarious and we laugh every single time.

I cast on the Chick Knits Ribby Cardi a couple of nights ago.  I’m using my favorite yarn, Elann’s Highland Wool which I bought for this pattern over a year ago.  I also bought it in medium and dark blue.  It was just serendipity that the Elann group is doing a KAL.  It’s a perfectly relaxing knit so far.

Okay.  Gotta get to work.  You probably won’t hear from me until next weekend so everyone have a great week.  I know I will!  :-))))))))))))))))