What The .........!

 Life has been interesting since my last post. I was in a car accident on the 28th of October. My daughters and I were on our way to Coeur d'Alene to pick up our new glasses. I was stopped at a red light with a a dozen other drivers, waiting for the green light. It turned green and suddenly there was a horrible "bang!" and the car shook. The gal behind me hit the gas as soon as the light turned green. She didn't wait for all of us in front of her to get going first. Plowed right into my back end and pushed in a sizeable amount of the hatchback door as well as damaged the bumper. 

She was driving a new pickup truck that was absolutely HUGE! There was no damage on it. I don't think the dust was even disturbed on her bumper. 

I was so rattled it ruined the whole day. I immediately called the police, then moved my vehicle off the road so I wasn't blocking traffic. The police officer was very kind and helpful. Fortunately, the damage didn't prevent the car from being driven, so I went ahead and continued on to get the new glasses after the officer was done making his report.

Since then, I've contacted my insurance, and the car is at the repair shop being worked on. I should be getting it back in like new condition by Friday of this week.

I've been working like crazy on the train cross stitch. I've finished the cross stitches on the train engine car.

It took quite a bit of time to do. It's more complicated than it looks. I've started the last car, which is the caboose. It's going to be much easier to do. To be honest, though, I don't think I will get it done in time for Christmas.

I'm still knitting the green ripple afghan. I'm about a third of the way along.

I took a little stroll out in the back yard today and found some fungus I was not familiar with. This is called Black Elfin Saddle mushroom. It is edible, though I've not tried it.

It's got an interesting look to it.

The weather has been wet and chilly. There is snow on the mountains. Today was sunny, so I took advantage of the opportunity to sweep all the pine needles off the deck and stack the furniture for winter. 

We are going on a road trip in a couple weeks. We've been missing our oldest daughter, who lives in Rhode Island. We haven't seen her since the pandemic so we're going to drive out and spend thanksgiving with her and her partner. The plan is to take the Prius, so I hope it's ready for it. 

I am very nervous about the trip. Husband wants to take our time driving across the country and stop to see things. I don't know how many things will actually be open, seeing as it's almost winter now. I don't know how wise it is to go on a road trip this time of year, but it's what Doug wants to do. I'm hoping for nice weather. 

That's the news for now.

Live long and prosper. \\//

Pileated Woodpeckers

Yesterday morning, when I got up there was a Pileated Woodpecker at the bird buffet. I immediately grabbed my camera, but by the time I'd found where the memory card was and put it in the camera (ugh), the bird flew away. I hoped it would come back.

A few hours later, it did, and it brought it's friend. I took dozens of pictures trying to get my camera to focus on the birds and not on the thin twigs in front of them. It was frustrating. This is the best I got out of the whole bunch. I hope you can see them okay.

It is very rare to see these around here. Not necessarily because there aren't very many, but because they are extremely shy. We've known there is one living near the house because we've seen him in the trees on occasion over the last few years. This is the first time he came close to the house. I am so excited. It's a pair. The upper one is female. She has the black stripe on her face. The lower one is male. He has a bright beautiful red stripe on his face.

This picture doesn't due justice to how pretty they are. Or how large they are. They make the usual woodpecker visitors look down right teeny. I'm so thrilled they came for a visit. A rare treat indeed.

Live long and prosper. \\//

It's WIP Wednesday!

I have made significant progress on Milo. The back and front are done

and I've started the first sleeve.

It's all I've knitted on this week, so far. When I was working on shaping the shoulders on the front piece, I discovered I'd made a huge mistake on the back. I'd put in a garter row where it was supposed to be stockinette, so I had to unravel about 4 inches and do it over. I didn't mind it too much.  I fixed it in about 2 hours. We're getting closer to Christmas so I gotta get it done, and done right.

I also started a cross stitch project.

 It's a Thea Gouverneur kit that will be a picture of flamingos.

The kit comes with black or white fabric. I like the white best, so that's what I got. However, I ran across this pattern on Etsy the other day and bought it.

 I might put the flamingos away until after Christmas cuz I'd like to stitch it for my daughter Sarah. Sarah is an avid bicycle rider, just like her father. She doesn't own a car, preferring to ride her bike to work. She would love this.

Earlier last week I mentioned my Honey Crisp apple tree needing to be harvested soon. I decided, after hearing the weather report, to pick them later that day. It was going to be super cold (it got down in the 20's). I picked them all and got a nice bucket full. Our very first apple crop.

I used half of them making apple crisp that was absolutely delicious. We've eaten a few raw, and the rest will go into a pie. Most of them have little bird peck holes in them, so they're not very pretty. I have just been cutting that out and eating around it. They were a bit sour when I first picked them, but they're getting sweet just sitting in the bucket.

We got snow again last night. All of the previous storm's snow had melted away, but this morning we had 4 fresh new inches of it.

My poor flowering plum.

It's melting fast. The sun is shining and it's above freezing out there. I had to refill the bird feeders twice since the snow we got a week ago because so many birds have been visiting us. It's too early for it to be snowing!

Yesterday morning we had big bird visitors. This pair of Turkey hens showed up to munch on bird seed that other birds have knocked onto the ground.

They left when sweet hubby left for work. That big red pickup that came out of the garage was more than they could handle and they ran off into the woods. A few hours later a hen with her 4 growing babies showed up to enjoy a meal.

Zoey went absolutely nuts! She barked at them at the  window, than ran outside and barked at them from behind the fence, then ran back in to bark at them from the window...back and forth, back and forth, barking barking barking! But this mama was smarter than the average turkey. She figured out Zoey couldn't hurt her and ignored her completely.

We've been seeing a LOT of wild turkeys in the neighborhood. More than usual. We have a distant neighbor who is feeding them and the word is getting out I guess. They all kind of gather together at this time of year anyway. I'm not sure what for. It's not mating season until spring.

Spring. I'm ready for it. Bring it on. ........ ... ... ... sigh.

Live long and prosper. \\//

Ramblings

I have started Layette set #40. The cardigan is first. I decided I wanted to knit something different. I've done over 30 cardigans using the same pattern. It's time for a change, so I dug in Ravelry's pattern database and found something interesting. Here's the start.

I love love love this stitch pattern! It's a 2 color slip stitch pattern. It has some texture to it too because there's purl stitches in each little box. I am enjoying this project.

Yesterday I was working on my laptop when I heard a squirrel making the screechiest of very loud screeching. I went outside to check it out. I stepped out onto the deck, with Zoey right beside me. I looked up above the windows and there's this poor trapped little guy.

My cats had chased him up there. He was trapped. He was seriously pissed. They weren't going to let him down soon either. Cashmere settled down to guard the window. It stopped screeching after I brought my camera out and took it's picture.

Zoey was barking and hopping up and down on her back feet. Merino was pacing back and forth. The three of them trapped that squirrel for an hour and a half. Eventually Cashmere fell asleep, Merino got bored and wandered off. Zoey came into the house. After she came in, squirrel jumped down and ran for the bushes.

I bet he doesn't run up on the deck again.

Live long and prosper. \\//

Asa Willow Park

Good things have been happening the past 24 hours. First of all this box arrived.

My new doll had arrived. Introducing Asa Willow Park, my second Iplehouse JID doll.

She has such a pretty face. She came with pale blue eyes.

I put this dress on her that I knit a few weeks ago. This pink looks pretty good on her.

She has what is called Normal colored skin. I like how pale she is. She is my little Japanese girl.

I have bought a pattern for making her a kimono and ordered some silk yesterday. I think I'll try brown eyes on her. I love the blue eyes, but not necessarily for her. The hard part is remembering where I put my doll eyes. Hmm.

The second great thing that has happened is I got a picture of my baby flowering Crabapple. She is in full bloom. This picture does not do her justice. She's pale pink. She's a happy tree. This is the prettiest flowering she's had thus far.

I took down all the little fences I had around my baby trees a few weeks ago and I can't believe how fast the trees are growing and spreading out now. They are happy to be free. I am happy to have a fenced back yard so I could take the little fences down.

The third happy thing that has happened is we are on the roofers schedule to get a new roof for our house. HURRAY! Our roof needs replacing. It's 25 years old and leaking. Earlier this month I called local roofers for estimates. I've hired Mountain States Roofing. The owner, Rich, really impressed me, and the estimate was way lower than I was expecting. He also was highly recommended by a friend he did a roof for last year. He will start working on our roof on June 22nd. That will be the day after we return from visiting my daughter and her husband. We are getting a metal roof so we won't have to go up and shovel snow anymore. It will just slide off. My Sweet Hubby is getting too old to be getting up on the roof.

It's gonna be a busy summer.

Live long and prosper. \\//

The Four Week Old Calf

I can't believe we're at the end of May already. It has been very busy for me. I keep hoping things will slow down, but that isn't going to happen. It's going to be a very busy summer.

Earlier this week, we had a little adventure here at the Parkarosa. On Wednesday morning, after Sweet Hubby left for work, I was sitting in my chair knitting, with Zoey sleeping in my lap, when I noticed movement out the living room windows. There was a pure black calf trotting across the yard. It went around the back of the garage to behind the garden fence, then headed off into the woods. It was a bit disturbing. I'd not noticed any calves in my neighbors pastures, so it was a stranger to me. If I had known who owned it, I would have called them, but I didn't. So I hoped maybe someone missing a black calf would stop by sometime during the day. The calf hung around all day long, passing by the living room window every 2 hours or so.

In the evening, the owners came looking for him with a large group of people to help. They live more than a mile from us. That morning they had the calf and a few other cows in a trailer. They were driving by our house when the calf jumped out of the trailer. They saw it go down our driveway, but decided they should get the rest of the cows home first before another one jumped out. They wanted to know if we'd seen it, and which way it was going. We told them, and Sweet Hubby went out to help them look. We figured it was in the woods to the northeast of us. It was getting dark though, and after some searching, they gave up for the night not having found the calf. We decided to leave the gate open on the back yard on the chance it might, during the night, wander in and then we could close the gate and trap it.

Thursday morning I got up and that was the first thing I checked. It hadn't. I closed the gate so Zoey could run around for awhile. I went back into the house. Five minutes later the calf trotted by the living room window. Sweet Hubby and I both jumped up and ran out the door. The calf was standing behind the garden fence. Sweet Hubby went to open the gate near the calf, I went the other way, through another gate, hoping to keep the calf from taking off into the woods again. But I am slow, so it got a bit into the woods. I was determined to get this calf into the back yard so I headed in after it.

There I was, in my fuzzy purple bathrobe, trying to get this huge calf to go back toward the house, in hopes I could herd it into the back yard. I've never herded a cow before, so I really didn't know what I was doing. I kept yelling for Sweet Hubby to come help me (which he ignored) as I went toward the calf, then the calf would trot away, and I would change direction. Slowly, but surely, I managed to actually herd that calf right back to the gate and through it. Sweet Hubby closed the gate. It was caught! I herded a cow! All by myself. HURRAY!! I was so excited!

I ran back into the house and called the owners. They came down, licketysplit, with their trailer. Now they had to catch the thing. They tried laying a looped rope on the ground in hopes it would step in the loop and they could catch it by the leg first, but it was too smart for that. It ran around the backyard eluding us. Eventually it went into the corner beside the house which is a narrow area.

Aha! We could catch it there cuz it was a small space. I put myself into a position that would block the calf from getting out. They chased it into the fence and grabbed hold. It took some work to get a rope round it's neck because it was a big and feisty fellow who did not want to get caught. It bucked and ran and bucked. They got a rope around his neck. Despite the rope, though, no one could get a hold of it.

Then the rope got wrapped around a tree. Now was their chance!

It took 3 people, but they got it on the ground. They tied it's feet, and put a sweat shirt over it's head so it couldn't see what was going on. It calmed down after that.

The calf was a big boy. He was born 4 weeks ago and weighed close to 300 lbs already. Now we had another problem. How do you get a 300 pound calf all the way around the house, through the gate, and into the trailer? I got my gardening wagon because it can carry up to 500 pounds. Sweet hubby joined in to help, but 4 of them could not lift the calf into the wagon. It was too heavy. Then someone said "It's too bad we don't have a tractor." Sweet Hubby has a tractor.

He got the tractor and carefully put the bucket flat on the ground beside the calf. They gently rolled the calf into the bucket.

Then Sweet Hubby lifted the bucket and drove the tractor around the house, out the gate,

and to the trailer

 where they gently rolled it into the trailer. Problem solved.

The whole incident made for a very exciting morning, and we got to meet some of our neighbors.

I haven't posted much this month. Mothers Day was nice. I slept in, puttered around the house, and took it easy. I was feeling very tired that weekend for some reason. In the afternoon we went to see the movie Guardians of the Galaxy 2, which I enjoyed very much. Ruth was home for the weekend too. It was a nice relaxing day for me. We didn't go out to dinner because I didn't feel like it.

My daughter Sarah gave me a wonderful Mothers Day present. She bought 2 plane tickets to Rhode Island so we can go visit her in June. I am so excited! We're going to spend a whole week with her and Frank.

One of the projects I got done this past week was the reupholstering of the deck furniture. I did the bottom cushions last fall, if you'll remember. It's been bothering me a lot that I hadn't finished that project yet. I spent all day last Wednesday making a pattern for the back cushions and cutting out the pieces. and All day Friday I worked on sewing the new covers and installing them.

My daughter, Ruth, helped install them, which I greatly appreciate because it was a big job. We hand sewed the covers closed after pulling them over the cushions.

I love this fabric. I think it looks fabulous. It's a very good quality fabric, so it should last a few years.

It was such a relief getting this project done.

This last weekend the weather was wonderful. The sun was out and it got up into the 80's. I would have liked to have the windows and doors open, but the pine pollen is very thick right now. Thicker than usual because of the wet spring. Everything is coated in a layer of yellow and the air is full of it. I turned on the air conditioner for the first time this year.

On Saturday Ruth and I went to Westwood Gardens Nursery and bought plants for the pots and boxes on the deck. We spent the afternoon planting them. I got Marigolds, Snapdragons, and Sweet William (also known as Dianthus) this year because I don't have to worry about moose and deer eating them. One of the benefits of the new backyard fence. Hurray! I also bought 3 beautiful flower baskets full of petunias and such. Ruth swept up the winter dirt and pine needles off the deck. Now the deck is ready for use. I'm ready for summer.

Live long and prosper. \\//

It's Early!

Spring is coming early to the Parkarosa this year. It's been unseasonably warm. The whole month of February was way warmer than normal. Pretty much all of our snow is gone and things are starting to bud and grow. I took these pics on Monday.

My daffodils have sprouted!

I discovered this Viola blooming in one of the flower boxes on the deck.

This one is blooming in one of the big pots on the deck.

So is this one.

These guys are volunteers that sprouted last fall. They started growing again a little over a week ago. I was quite surprised to find them this mature.

I tried knitting outside on the deck in the sunshine on Monday. It was 51F degrees out. I thought I could do it. The sun was so warm and inviting.

But the breeze that was blowing was extremely cold. It took 15 minutes for my hands to get so cold I could hardly move my fingers, so I gave up and went back in the house. I need to be a bit more patient. Soon. Soon I will be able to go back to knitting on my deck.

Live long and prosper. \\//

Help! Snow!

I've been home, but too busy to blog. Had to scramble to get ready for Christmas. We had a fantastic trip. It was hard to come home.

I caught a nasty cold the very next day after we got home. So I've been scrambling while feeling wretched.

On top of that, we've been inundated with snow the last few days. Over 2 feet so far. Trees are falling all over the area from the weight of the snow, knocking out power. Ours has been out twice in just the last 24 hours, and the snow just keeps coming down. We get dug out and 6 hours later we gotta dig out again. Would someone please send a St. Bernard with a brandy cask?

This is our Christmas tree for the year 2015.

Liked it so much when it got to this point I decided ornaments would spoil it. I wrapped the last gift about half an hour ago and put it under the tree. So I'm ready, I guess. Bring on Christmas.

Live long and prosper. \\//

Love Is In The Air

People will tell you that spring time is the time for love. I beg to differ. For a goodly part of the animal kingdom, autumn is the season for romantic encounters

It's rutting season! For some reason the four legged hooved critters have decided the Parkarosa is the romantic place to be.

This morning we had a pair of moose hangin' around. The bull was quite obvious with his intentions (can you say horny?). He followed the cow all over the yard with his nose close to her behind trying to have his way with her. Despite his efforts, she played coy and hard to get. Click on the pics to embiggen them.

I first noticed Bull as he strolled by the living room window. When I got my camera and returned to the window he was rubbing his nice pair of antlers all over my snow berry bushes.

Missy Cow was hiding behind the tractor. When she realized I was no danger to her standing in the window watching her, she strolled over. Mmm, a tasty snack!

She's a Diva, so she had to pose for the camera.

As moose go, she's kind of small, but very pretty.

Bull didn't like having his picture taken, so he moved out of camera view to stand behind the trailer and watch Missy Cow daintily slurping up all the snow berries.

She wandered to the backyard. He followed her, nose first.

Eventually the two settled for a nice rest in a corner of the lawn by the garden fence.

A few minutes later, two Whitetail does showed up in the same corner. They walked right by the moose within touching distance of each other. They were very shy of me though, so they headed over behind the garden.

A couple minutes later I heares Ruth say "Mom, there are three bucks down the hill!" They were following the does. I couldn't get a pic of them. They went into the bushes and refused to come out.

None of this seemed to bother Bull and Missy in the slightest. They hung around for about an hour more, Bull resting in the grass, and Missy chewing on things here and there,

then slowly ambled away. His nose was close to her behind. I expect he'll follow her until he gets what he wants. Daughter says "He's gonna have a long day."

The does and bucks came back, but I chased them away. Cabled needed to pee.

Live long and prosper. \\//