Busy day at Hodge Podge

I spent yesterday, helping Sue at her sale.  Toward the end of setting up yesterday, almost 9:30, I was pricing things and got a whole bunch more, and Sue said, “It’s set for $3, just make it all $3!  So, I blithely marked down a lot of $10 skeins to $3.  A lot of people took advantage of the sale, so we were very busy. I don’t know where she keeps getting more and more stuff out to add, but she does!  I bought some baby yarn and some interesting variegated stuff to make a scarf.  I’ve had my eye on a bag of Noro that is absolutely beautiful, and keep telling myself I have no reason to buy it, but it’s so pretty…there were several bags of this stuff, which went fast…only two more bags left.  Single skeins were marked down to $6 from $12, and bags of 10 at $55…I will probably get it this morning; I have in mind a side to side boxy jacket to wear with a black skirt.  The yarn is multicolored.

I am going back there today, in about 15 minutes…the store is open from10-3 today.  In Newport, on Belknap Avenue, at the northern end of the common!  I would guess there are still 2000 skeins left. The sale goes on through next Saturday. I think you can see photos of yesterday on Sue’s blog, which is listed to the right of this entry under other blogs to check…

Frost?

Well, the weather guy said that maybe, just maybe we’d have frost tonight…and the leaves were dying back on the squashes, so this morning after chores, I harvested them: it wasn’t a great year, with very little water, so I didn’t get nearly as many as last year, but I have 4 of those fancy French ones, whose name I always forget, 4 blue hubbard, two golden hubbard, two Anna Swartz hubbard, many butternut of two varieties, a handful of delicata, and for me, about 15 butternut, to make soup!  So, Kay, if you are reading this, Tuesday I will have a car full of squash!

Got them all up to the porch (some of those suckers are heavy), and got a call from Boz, that he’d be over for the pigs. This year it was hard getting them in a small pen, which we accomplished just as Boz pulled up.  However, since I didn’t have time to tie down all the connections for the green gates so they couldn’t toss them and take off, we had to stay while he shot and bled them…yech!  He winched them up into his truck and took off to do the stuff you do before hanging.  We went out to lunch at the Red Barn (read, simple)and came back for a short nap.  I didn’t feel real refreshed afterwards, but the sheep needed moving, AND the meat birds needed moving to clean ground, so…now it’s all done, and I’m wiped.  I had thought to work on my painting this afternoon, but now, I don’t think there’s time before dinner, so I guess I’ll leave it.  Saturday and Sunday, I’m working at Hodge Podge in Newport: she is having a gigantic sale, hundreds of skeins at 40-50% and more off.  So, she needs more help.  I’m game!  I’ve already bought a ton of stuff at ridiculous prices…now I have to spend the winter knitting!

It feels good to have accomplished so much, but it also feels like I’ve been run over by a truck, so the rest of the night I do nothing but read and talk to Bobby and Ian who are coming to visit.  I hope you have a great weekend, wherever you are…and if you’re near Newport, AND you knit, I highly recommend you come visit…on Belknap Ave., at the end of the town common.

A long hot summer…

Three weeks ago I took a bunch of photos of life around the farm, intending to blog that evening, or maybe the next morning…life intervened…and company, company, more company.  But here, Kay, finally, are the photos you requested, albeit, three weeks (or is it four?) old!

First, Daffodil and Pansy, who seem to be twice as big now as when these photos are taken, and who will go to the butcher next week:

Next, the “chicks” who are also about twice as large now.  They are due to start laying sometime in the next two months. There are 8 americanas, 5 silver laced wyandottes, and two golden comets.

And the meat birds, Kosher Kings, arrived August 9th…that must have been when I actually took all these photos!

And we mustn’t forget the turkeys, named Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter, and Dottie (for neighbor!) (I know, I know, I’m in a rut about holiday dinners, but we LIKE turkey!)

At this point, the turkeys are in the big pen behind the sheep shed and the “meaties” are in this big chicken tractor in “Chicken Village.”

So, I think that’s all the animals but the sheep, and I didn’t get photos of them. Next week, when both new rams are here…

However, I did attempt to grow some squashes this year in the winter ram pen, once the piglets had dug it all up for me, when they first came, back in April.

Here is a new kind for me, Anna Hubbard:

And a golden hubbard, also grown for the first time:

And old faithful, the Blue Hubbard:

And another new one, a delicata, the very species of which I have forgotten:

And one of two types of buttercup,Uncle David’s, I think this one is, along with a French squash, whose name I’ve forgotten, Galois something,maybe…I’ll look it up, I promise. It gets “warts”all over it by the time it matures…

Oh, I almost forgot: presenting the newest members of our family, now 12 weeks old, but then 9 weeks old: Eloise (grey) and Hector.

Okay, finally, I got these up.  Now, considering that we’ve had “Girls’ Week, followed by Cousin Katie for aweek, followed by son and family for nine days, surely, I can be forgiven for not blogging!

Meanwhile, I took most of the summer off from my Italian lessons, and will begin again next week.  June will be here before you know it, and Tuscany beckons.  Also, I started taking oil painting lessons after my friend, Dottie, an accomplished artist came during “Girls’ Week” to give the girls (granddaughter, Laura, 8 and great niece, Emma, 9) and me a morning of lessons.  I got bitten, so now I am a weekly student of Dottie. She has taught me a great deal, but I’m still not at the point where I want to post my paintings.  Maybe the next one?…