At work there is a very nice central courtyard that has a basketball court and a number of other amenities. Currently it is also the home of a little family of killdeer: two parents and three babies. A co-worker told me about them and mentioned that I should try to get some photos. I brought my camera one day, but the lens I had chosen was too short to capture the birds the way I'd wanted since they were all very wary of the big stalking thing that was following them around.
I finally remembered to fit up my camera with my long telephoto zoom lens and brought it to work on a day when there were a few sun breaks in the oppressive rain and hail (not anything like it is in the northeast). The whole outfit was heavy enough that it made me realize just how week my right side is since the break in my wrist. Everything was shaking so bad that I ended up shooting at a much faster shutter speed than I would have normally used. It's not like I was going to bring my honkin' tripod to work just to photograph a few baby birds (I have some sense of decorum… or at least a little). So the photos are a bit blurrier and/or grainier than I would have liked, but I was able to get a number of good ones. I like this one a lot with it's blurred out basketball pole to the left and the little fuzz-ball taking this big step forward. You can see the whole set here.
I've been wanting to add another fountain to my garden patio for awhile and I finally just went ahead and did it this weekend. I used a great ceramic pot that my Mother had given me and an old birdbath that never really fit in anywhere and a pond liner to make the whole thing water tight. I pushed the pot itself back from center so that the whole thing balanced without me needing to use any shims.
I made a mistake cutting the liner to short - I should have folded the edges into the tray and covered it with rocks. But I sealed things with silicone and will trim it a bit more. If things go to pieces, I have more than enough liner to try again.
I like the final look with the chairs and the little folding table that I have, but I need to figure out how to hid the cord somehow...
You can see a photo sequence of the install here.
Took this shot from my back yard path after the landscapers came and laid down a fresh coat of gravel. I usually do the gravel every year or so since it seems to vanish, but I didn't feel up to shoveling a yard of 1/4 minus with my arms all up in arms... I think the face planter really adds something to the view - I need to pull out the plant that didn't make it over the winter and replace it with something else, but I think that can wait for a few weeks.
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Managed to finish the body and one ear before my wrists gave out. It's very frustrating, not being able to do as much hand work as I'd like since breaking my wrist. I just need to take it slow I guess. I'll wait a few days and then tackle the last ear and move on to the arms and tail.
I'm just about done with my first sock made from a pattern in Cookie A's Sock Innovations. I love cables and the day that I figured out that you could cable without a needle was one of the best days in my knitting career. I'm never going back to using a cable needle unless the cable pattern is comprised of a wicked number of stitches being swapped - I've found that when you get to around ten stitches it's just easier to have a separate needle instead of trying to slide your left-hand needle under so many stitches.
Eunice gave me a bit of trouble since it requires the use of two cable needles, but I figure out that if you keep the yarn in the back for the first set and then move the yarn to the front, slide the purl stitch over and then move the yarn to the back again, everything works out just fine. The heel flap chart looked wrong when I started working it, but I thought that I just wasn't getting it. I worked about five rows before I thought to check Ravelry to see if there was an errata and there it was. D'oh! I unknit things while berating myself for not paying attention to my hunches. I wonder what people did before the interwebs when it came to getting pattern updates? Photos of the socks soon. Hopefully.
Labels: knitting socks projects cables books Ravelry
I love the colors in this and the fact that there is one single drop of water left over from the tiger's drink from the pond. The only issue is that it's fuzzy when looked at in a larger size. The day at the wildlife safari was a great time but I don't think that I'll go again unless I was heading somewhere verrrryyyy south - the drive there and back in one day was murder. I still can't believe that I was only two feet away from both a tiger and a cheetah. The bears, lions, elephants and giraffes were all interesting, but I loved the tiger and the cheetahs. I'm a sucker for cats (we only saw the lions from afar). Watching the tiger eats chucks of raw meat killed most of my dreams of being able to pet one...
