Way out in the Middle of Nowhere

Remember that from last semester? Yeah. What did that job last? A week? HA! I've beaten that with this semesters' work study.  My work entails streaking petri dishes with bacteria, as well as inoculating broths with said bacteria. I also make more media to put into those petri dishes. Yeah, that's more like what I do every working day Each of these tasks is a skill. Yep, a skill I've had to learn and am still learning. Yesterday's mistake was that I should've set the media I just made into the autoclave and ran it through. TOTALLY forgot about it while I was doing other stuff.  But while I'm perfecting these skills, I'm getting $9.00 an hour instead of minimum wage. So the question I always ask about a minimum wage job with minimum wage skills is this: If I can walk into your job and with about 5 minutes of 'training' DO your job, then your skills are worth minimum wage. I don't think that other people could do what I do with 5 minut...

30 day writing challenge? Screw that. It wasn't near as much fun as I thought. I'll just go back to normal here: Knitting and birds...with a bit of class thrown in. So I'm finished 98% wise on a request from friends of mine to make booties and a hat for their upcoming baby.   I chose the baby UGGS and a pumpkin hat. The hat just got dyed orange so it's not available for photos. The Uggs turned out decently but the pattern needs tweaking if I ever do it again. These are going to be too big for a newborn. It was worth a shot, though. I got in a pissy mood the other day and it got so bad that I couldn't even stand myself, so I took time off the internet and started knitting something  It's the start of a pattern called a heelhead scarf with a bit of change to the pattern. Link to the pattern:  IT'S A FREE PATTERN! YAY! Right now, It is about 2' long, but before I start increasing for the hood part, I will make it another foot, then start. The...

I swear that there are times when my husband spends more time in front of that mirror than I! I know he's done showering, but I don't even WANT to know what he's doing in there now... So here's my two knitting projects going on right now: The shawl is called Geese in Flight so DUH, I had to knit it. It's actually an easy pattern to memorize. I'm on my 2nd skein of yarn and it will end up being my own shawl, I think. http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/geese-in-flight-shawl Then there's this Scarf: knitted from Fisherman's wool. It's a Purl Bee pattern, I think. April Showers Scarf It's supposed to be done in a lighter weight yarn, but here in the frozen tundra, the heavier yarn will be better. 

With all the rants lately, you'd think I was not knitting. Actually I am, I just don't talk much about it. With part time work, part time flock,  part time school, I DO knit, just mostly when I'm sitting at the end of the day watching TV. Incidentally, the thing that we've been watching other than movies lately is Grimm. We're trying to catch up on the whole storyline. It's an interesting show. I swear Monroe and his wife make  the show with their candor. My 1/4 German ancestry comes in handy during the show too. My Paternal Grandmother is German, and much of my kin live in the same town today near Sparta WI. I know German. First up is my prayer shawl  that I've been working on so long I swear it will have it's own birthday soon. It's the usual yarn from Hobby Lobby and a pattern that's easy to do. The Pattern:  * I usually start off with about 6 rows of garter stitch at the beginning and end so the shawl has a bit of structure. * 1 row ...

Today we will be accepting the delivery of a pair of new recliners to replace that old busted up part of a sectional sofa/recliner that has been my rest for over 6 years. I'm excited! I'll be able to sit closer to my hubby, watch tv and take good naps. On the knitting front, I've been going through the spare bedroom where my sewing/craft excess is stored. I found a few more projects and will think about whether to frog or finish. In an effort to puzzle out a pattern I saw online of a cute little fox hood for a kid, I tried to create a semblence of it in an adult size, without the ears and with a pattern to the hood. My effort was interesting. At first, I made the hood part too short. Which made it just insane to try to wear. This is when I added another 2" to the whole thing.  All of the yarn in this hood was handspun, two ply. I held 3 strands together and worked on size 11 needles to give it a ton of warmth. I casted on 90 stitches on circular needles. Then ...

oh Hey! that's George saying hi to me. He and Fred like to come up and chew on me a bit while I'm outside. I've been inside now for a few days struggling with a nasty cold. First day was the clogged yet drippy sinuses, Yesterday was the migration to the asthmatic lungs. Today is just meh.  really really meh. I'm tired and glad to be going nowhere. Last weekend was the Sheep and Wool festival in Jefferson, WI. As Dave found a cooking partner this year for his task of cooking the roasts for the Church's Harvest Festival, I got to go! I finally got my hands on one of Adam Mielke 's spindles. I've wanted one since he started making them. I understand he's stopped, but a few can be had. I started spinning with some nice red merino roving in it from the Fairy Yarn Mother. . Susan is a good friend of mine that I enjoy talking with at the fair each time. She has the most wonderful shades of roving around.  It's the one roving I am most trustworthy ...

I'm determined to not let it get me down, but then it pretty much did. Last Saturday I was out doing night chores and slipped on the ice. I went down carrying to canisters of water. My arm was not happy to suffer another injury. The left knee has a bruise and oddly enough; my stomach muscles were pulled. Aleve is my friend this winter. A quick look at the chickens that were hatched last weekend. We had 8 hatch, and another two are expected today.  This is the 1st week of the 3 week long hatching fun that will culminate in us having 30 chickens to raise to butcher and eat next fall/winter. They're doing well. I have one that hatched last night that is a bit more tired than the others. As you see in the photo, we first stuck them in the bathtub after realizing the usual spot in the laundry room was not going to work. There is little heat in the laundry room, and the heat lamp was not putting out a consistent temp. **Normally, the weather outside by now is consistently ...

Classes start again at the end of the month. I'm using the time to rest . Usually that would mean not doing much, but in my case it means doing what I want to do instead of have to do. So....I'm knitting, spinning and sewing. The first up is the baby quilt fresh off the sewing machine. It's a zig-zag pattern that is inspired by something I saw on Pinterest. No, really! I actually DID something I saw on Pinterest! The pattern is a bugger though. In order to get the zig-zag lines to come out right, you need to put a solid color between the patterned pieces and keep the same solid color throughout. I sewed a top last Saturday that was just tragic because the lighter stripes were not consistent. The gray thing is a sweater. It's from the book Men's Knits: 20 New Classics  . It's the one called the Tweed Cabled Sweater.    It is one sleeve short of completion. I was knitting this for any male in my house, but a preliminary pre-blocking fit test showed that I...

Calculus is going decently.  I sit in the back of the class next to a young man who has had the pleasure of being in two classes with me. He reminds me much of my son, Alex but with ambition. So, Alex got discharged from the Marines for failing to meet their physical criteria.  Right now he's thinking that he'll spend 2 years copping a squat on my couch while going to community college.  Meh.  I'm still ticked about that, but apparently my prayers and my wishes will never be taken into play with his life. That's the way it goes, I guess. (I'd credit the photo, but I'm pretty sure it's from a meme generator.) Poultry is well, except for Daisy the Duck who got into a fight with like 1/2 the flock and was injured. Now there's a nice, melodic story about picking maggots out of wounds that I could share, but why? It's bad enough that I got to DO it. Suffice it to say she's healed from her external wounds, but will need another month conval...

Nope, I'm not dead.  I bought a wool fleece off a farmer on Ebay.  Four pounds of wooly goodness.  I've been washing and spinning up bits of it all week.  About 500 yards of fingering weight cream colored wool has come off my spindle. I happen to go off in my own little world with a fleece.  I totally immerse myself in the process of washing, drying, carding and spinning.  I find it very calming. In fact, you know in the Harry Potter movies, where Harry is being taught how to produce a Patronus charm and he must remember a very happy moment? This is one of mine. The other one involves snuggling with my honey on the couch watching the Packers. At the time I had sprained both my ankles and could not go anywhere.  My ass was planted on that couch whenever I was home for like,  4 months.  When there's no where you can go, and nothing you can do...you accept it. Dave sat near me while I had both ankles under ice packs watching the Packers pla...

I wake up every morning and get out between 5 or 6 every morning to 'release the hounds'.  This is the shot of the back 40 this morning as Sissy and her Posse were out grazing. We put the 2 goslings I hatched in the incubator with her 3 babies yesterday afternoon.  I had them out with the ducklings in the pen, but the ducks were beating them up.  So I thought to put them with their own brothers and sisters.  Sissy looked at them, said, "Honk" and led them all away. I guess the adoption is complete then! I've made these little pockets out of wool roving that was on sale as yarn for $1.00 at the fabric store.  When baby ducklings first hatch, they like to burrow under stuff to make them feel like they are under mama's wing. I cannot walk around with baby ducks under my arm, so I invented these little pockets.  In the nursery, I put the pocket on it's side and the ducklings snuggle inside and sleep. It's funny to see naught but a little yello...

Lockdown is a term used to indicate the last 2-3 days of incubation on a poultry egg.  The eggs are not rotated any more but left in the position ideal for hatching.  The humidity is raised to help thin the shell and the warmth stays the same.  This week, we have 10 duck eggs due to hatch.  The first 4 are seen here.  I see internal pipping with the top left one.  That means that the duck has started making a hole to the outside. They all rock back and forth from time to time. It's getting crowded in those shells, and they want out!  We stand there watching for movement, excited when we see them rock back and forth even a little bit. BUT, onto Knitting and Spinning. This is the start of the Tree Roots Scarf by Kristi Holaas.  The yarn is the real story on this scarf so far. In search of yarn/fiber to become my Easter present, I happened on these skeins of Martha Stewart Wool Roving at JoAnn fabrics on clearance for a buck.  Now, I took a...

I went in search of some undyed roving in my stash today.  That led to me finding oh, about 6 projects that are unfinished in various totes and bags in my 'she-cave'.   So I think this will be my sacrifice; to finish up these projects and get them off the needles.  Three of them are sweaters, which is my bane.  I cannot finish sweaters for anything.  This is going to be a challenge for me, so to do so during Lent should give me new perspective. 1. These mittens are 2/3 done.  That should be my first goal since it will give me a sense of accomplishment quickly.  The yarn is Malabrigo worsted; which I would love to buy a million yards and just sleep on it. It's so squishy! 2. The   Dockside Cardigan   is a funky knit sweater that starts on the outside and moves to the inside.  That's why it looks like a jumble of crap right now.  I'm on the back and from what I remember, the issue was that the textured pattern was giving me fi...

It's like 6 degrees Fahrenheit outside with a wind chill of -30 degrees Fahrenheit.   NO Animal gets outside today...well except for me to do chores. African Geese can get their knobs frostbitten. So we made the decision to keep them in their enclosure today.  I went out and got them fresh food and water and plugged in a radio to keep them less bored. They're listening to country music. But let's talk knitting, shall we? Or at least fiber play.  Some new things off the needles: Not really all that new, but I've been working on my sock leftover blanket for about 5 years.  I'm currently working on straightening it out.  The right side needed another row added down to the bottom and the left side needed another row added to the top. That squares it up, so I can keep knitting it longer.  Right now, it is about 4 1/2' long by 3' wide. A Pair of fingerless mitts I have been working on for almost a year now.  You know the S...

I seem to have lost my ability to write a coherent thought and extrapolate on it, so I'll do random thoughts today. 1. New Years' goals: Work out for one hour with our new Wii every day.  So far, so good.  Even Dave was bowling and doing archery on it yesterday. The tennis part is kicking my butt, but I've got plenty of time to perfect my swing. 2. Another goal: Pay attention to serving sizes on food.  For instance, this is one serving of cereal.  I've been serving myself way too much of everything.  Time to get into the habit of looking at serving sizes. 3. Our Son has made a decision about the military. More when I get concrete proof this is the real deal. 4. Every Morning since it's been so cold, I schlepp out to the animals 3 gallons of water in the morning and in the evening. Odd thing is that I think they prefer that water to stuff from the faucet. They don't get let out of their pens until the thermometer reaches 10 degrees Farenheit.  Tod...