The Home Stretch

Bare with me for not posting this week - this is the last week of school - tomorrow is the LAST DAY! I have a work day Friday and then that's it until the end of August. I get to be 'Summer Ashley' - which is a lot more fun than 'School Ashley'.

Speaking of fun, this weekend we'll be going to see a Baltimore Oriole's game in MD! Yea! It was for my sister-in-law's birthday that we got the tickets. She is a Boston Red Sox fan (blech) and I was sure not going to drive all the way to Boston and I grew up an Oriole's fan so I figured it would be fun for all of us all the way around! We are going to stay with Logan's grandparents in Front Royal which is about an hour outside of Baltimore and then go to the game Saturday evening. If it's on TV be sure to watch and see if you can spot us! We are sitting right above the press box behind home plate. I am not sure who is more excited - me or her! Pictures WILL follow!

To leave, here is my 'sock progress'. Kind of slow going but I have been drained both physically and mentally this week so I haven't much felt like working. However, I have a 4 hour car ride to look forward to on Friday so I am sure I will have plenty of knit time!


Gabby checks out my work to make sure the stitches are lined up...and the bamboo is flavored to her liking.

Run for the Wall and a New Knit

Today was a very busy, hectic, stressful yet fun day at school. Wytheville is the second to last stop on the Run for the Wall motorcycle trip and is a huge event with our school. Our elementary school sort of 'hosts' the bikers as they come through and present the bikers with a program before they depart.

First, for everyone who isn't familiar with Run for the Wall, here is a brief description from their website: www.rftw.org:

Run For The Wall (RFTW) was started in 1989 as an effort by James Gregory and Bill Evans. They were a couple of Vietnam Veterans who traveled across the heartland of America on motorcycles, talking to local radio, TV, and newspapers about the fact that we had thousands of men and women still unaccounted for from all of our wars. The need for this awareness continues today and we continue this tradition every May.

We don't give political speeches or stage demonstrations. Run For The Wall gets its message to the public across by riding through the United States. We obey traffic laws and treat all citizens with dignity and respect.

But the issue of public awareness is only part of the benefit of Run For The Wall. We also give Vietnam Veterans and all Veterans the opportunity to get their own welcome home and start their healing process...

The trip takes ten days to reach the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, where our Run officially ends on Sunday evening before Memorial Day. Additionally, we have things scheduled for the weekend, ending with participation in the Rolling Thunder Parade in Washington, D.C., on Sunday. It is quite a sight to behold, 350,000 plus motorcycles all starting from the Pentagon parking lots, parading through downtown Washington, and ending at the Wall.

Along the way across the U.S. we make stops at Memorials, Veteran's Hospitals, and schools. We enjoy parades, escorts, and welcome-home receptions from many of the patriotic towns.

Our whole school (grades preK-5 with one preK and 6 classes of every other grade) all go over for the ceremony and program. I always feel super stressed trying to keep up with 20+ kids with hundreds of other students, bikers, and other spectators down there. It always works out though and these are honestly some of the nicest men and women I have ever come across. Many of them will walk up and hug you just to be friendly and appreciative of us as teachers and Americans. Here are some pictures I took in between wrangling students and praying they didn't touch a bike and knock them over like dominoes:


The Motorcycles were lined up all the way around the park on the walking track


One of the trailers that ride along with the bikers


Just a little taste of HOW CROWDED it is! Ahh! Luckily I didn't lose a kid!


Afterwards we all sent them on their way - they rode through the town before making their way back on the interstate headed to Roanoke before ended at D.C.

After that morning and then trying to keep the peace through the rest of the day, I needed a little retail therapy and headed over to the yarn shop which is almost right next to the school (very convenient!). I got brave and decided I was bound and determined to try to knit a sock (or 2!). I have thought about starting several different patterns this week but nothing appealed to me that I already had so I picked up a cute 'footie' sock pattern. I ended up getting 2 skeins of sock yarn - one neat orange and yellow color and the other a self-striping yarn as well as a partial skein in the 'bargain bin' of another self-striping sock yarn. Yea! I also picked up a set of size 2 dpn which should cover basic sock-ery. While waiting for Logan to get off of work, I cast on and started the first row. After dinner I sat and finished the cuff - moving very quickly and after learning how to juggle the dpn I have hit it off. I *heart* socks!



Hopefully I will still love them after this one is finished!! I had better with what I paid for yarn today ;)

A Quick Knit and Growing Peeps

After the marathon knit of the draft-stopper, I needed something I could whip out and have immediate satisfaction before starting another longer knit. I am not the fastest knitter by far - I get easily distracted, spacey, and sometimes sleepy when I knit - I can't knit for hours on end unless a good girl friend and a lot of coffee is involved and around here, there are always a million other things to be done. Yet I love to sit down in the evenings, sometimes in front of the TV, other times by myself, and knit my troubles and stresses away.

So, I did a super-quick seed-stitch headband. I started it on Sunday and thought I would finish it that day but, refer back to paragraph 1. I ended up going to the tack shop in search of a bridle for Jetta, grocery shopping, buying new chairs for the deck, putting together said chairs...Get the point? The knitting didn't get done. Yesterday, I worked a little but was just wiped out after a school Monday. Today it got finished rather quickly. So, here is the cutesy little headband - knit on size 8 needles with nothing-too-special acrylic yarn - Caron's Simply Soft in Autumn Red.


I am a big fan of the seed-stitch pattern - I like the pattern of the little 'seeds'


Watch out! Professional headband model in the makings!

In 'farm news' the chicks are growing like crazy. Most of them have their little wing feathers in but are still fluffy every where else. They are getting fast too! It's a 2-man operation to catch one for a health check-up. We should get the other batch next week. We'll probably put the first 5 in a separate box and let the 15 new ones have the big box to themselves.




Check out my new fancy feathers!

Adventures in Felting

I finally finished the knit draft-stopper I have been working on (and off) for it feels like forever this weekend. I started it in the winter when our house was like an ice box and the door to our mud room has a 2 inch gap under it (why?). There isn't any heat in the mud room so the heat from the living room got sucked out. Enter: draft-stopper.

It was a fairly brainless knit - nothing fancy, just stockinette stitch and all I had to do was count rows to know when to start my next color. I used 100% wool (Lopi by Reynolds) because it would need to be felted. It was easy but it felt like it went on and on forever! So, here is the draft-blocker in pictures and explanations!



This is the draft-blocker pre-felting. I felt like it was miles long and it was difficult knitting near the end because it was so long and heavy and it took more than just a second to get everything adjusted to knit a new row.



A close-up of the pretty stitches pre-felting to show you the difference with the next picture...



A close-up after felting. Felting 101: Felting is a blending together of wool yarn to make it into more of a fabric than a knit. I placed the draft-stopper in the washing machine on a hot/cold cycle (it's the hot water that does the felting) with several towels to help it along. After washing I popped it in the dryer for just 5-10 minutes to get a majority of the 'wet' out and then stretched it into shape and let it dry the rest of the day.



Here's another shot of the whole thing laid out after felting and drying - notice that it shrunk (it was supposed to) and isn't rolled anymore. The miracle of wool + water!



AND the final product - sewn and filled with kitty litter. Tah-dah! It's not a sweater but I am still pretty impressed with it. On to the next project...

PEEPS!

They came they came! We got the chicks today. Well, that's only partially true - we got 5 chicks today. Our Brahmas had a late hatching so they didn't come in with the rest of the order today - we'll get those in 2 weeks. So, these are the 'test' chicks - hehe. We got these free with the bag of chick starter. They are settling in nicely and the cats swear we are teasing them like the lobsters in the tanks at restaurants. I don't know what kind of chickens they are - I have guesses on some but Logan threw away my Murray McMurray Hatchary catalog and my ADD is getting the best of me on the computer so they will have to stay 'mystery chicks' for awhile longer.

So, here is introducing the Morrison Flock: (sorry some pics are blurry - it's hard to keep a chick from running off and take it's picture with 2 hungry cats lurking at the same time!)







The yellowish one might be either a Rhode Island Red or a New Hampshire Red and the brown one that looks like a little mink might be a Partridge Rock. The black one maybe a Black Star? I guess only time will tell as will it tell whether I have little girls or little boys!



Either way the cats said they didn't care as long as they got the first taste test!

Prep Work

First...The irises bloomed today! Sorry the pic is dark but this is the first chance I have gotten today to do much of anything. Also, here is a kind of blurry pic of the neat 'ruffly' daffodils I have coming up by my steps I planted a few months ago.




So, why have I been so busy? Because tomorrow the baby chicks arrive!!! Hooray! I have spent my time since I got home from school preparing their brooder - where they will spend the next 6-8 weeks of their lives. They have to stay warm before their adult feathers come in which is the purpose of the brooder (a fancy term for a big box with a heat light).

I have had a hard time getting the temperature adjusted correctly. For the first week, the temp has to stay at 95 degrees and then every week after that it lowers 5 degrees until you meet the temperature it is outside. First I bought a heat lamp - wayyy too hot - even raising it as high as it would go it was 112 degrees in there! Yikes! So then I bought a 'brooder light' from Lowe's - still too hot. So Logan and I went back in this evening and got just a plain flood lamp in 2 different wattages and I am having much, much better luck with this. I want it at a stable temp tonight so it will be ready for the chicks tomorrow. I am so excited! They will be spending the first few weeks inside the house so this is going to be REAL interesting!

We got 15 'light Brahma' chicks and then we got 5 free from the feed store - who knows what those will be. Here is what our Brahma girls will look like when they are all grown up -



Beautiful huh? I promise to have lots of pictures tomorrow of chicks and getting settled! Should be interesting to say the least!

Mother Earth Monday - Clean Green

Sorry for the brain slip last Monday - it's the end-of-the-school-year brain scramble and I am lucky to remember where I live, let alone a blog schedule!

Tonight I am doing an easy one - "green" cleaning products. I have currently switched almost all of my cleaning supplies over to eco-friendly products. This one was a huge no-brainer for me for several reasons. Here's just a few off of the top of my head-

1. I hate the 'chemically' smell of cleaning products
2. We have a septic tank and well water so whatever I put down my drain goes immediately into the ground
3. My body touches a lot of what I am cleaning and whatever is leftover from cleaning is going to make its way into and on my body

My favorite products are the Method line, found at Target, and the new Clorox Green Works line that I now use for all of my household cleaning. Method has a great cleaning 'soft scrub' that I use for both my bathroom and kitchen sinks plus a tub and tile cleaner spray - both of them come in a eucalyptus scent that smells very minty and clean. I use the Green Works toilet bowl cleaner which has a great lemon scent as well as their surface and glass cleaner. I also like Method's all-purpose cleaner for the kitchen - I have it in grapefruit scent. The great thing about all of these are they don't smell chemically - I hate the bleachy-disinfecting smell.

All of these cleaners are biodegradable - which I feel is very important going into my septic system and there for into my field where my horses feed. They are made of natural ingredients - not petroleum based as many cleaning products are. They are proven to clean the same as 'chemically' stuff and are not tested on animals (another plus - read some time about why animal testing makes no sense for humans - I won't get into that rant).

I also have switched my laundry detergents over to biodegradable, phosphate-free detergent. Right now I am using Simplicity (sold at Wal-mart) in both laundry detergent and fabric softener. Why are phosphates bad? Essentially they cause algae growth in places where algae wouldn't normally grow and excessive growth at that - remembering back to elementary school science, this throws off the food chains and ecosystems and pretty much sends everything out of balance.

I still have a way to go as far as switching things over. I am using the rest of what I have of other supplies and when I run out I will switch those over to 'green' products. I would like to find better dish washing powder for the dishwasher that meets these criteria and I will eventually switch all of our hand soap to non-antibacterial. I have several bottles of 'gifted' soap so I am working on using that before going out to buy new stuff. I also want to have this stuff under way by the time we are ready to have children. I have read some very disturbing studies where some of these cleaning chemicals (as well as chemicals used in plastics) are found in new-born babies bloodstreams. Yikes! No thank you sir!

Of course, alternatives to buying 'green' products are making your own. I do like to use as much kitchen-cabinet cleaning supplies when I can. Clogged drain? Use baking soda and vinegar - yes like a science-fair volcano! Flush with hot water! Vinegar makes awesome window cleaner too! Oh -and of course, don't forget to use your reusable microfiber cloth - no paper towels mind you!! Be good to your Mother!

Method Cleaning Products

Simplicity

Clorox Green Works

Growing...Growing...Green!!

It seems like everything is finally starting to take off around here growing-wise. Being higher up in the mountains, we are a ways behind all of the 'low-landers' with blooming and growing. Case in point - my irises that were planted last year around this time haven't bloomed quite yet - the flowers are there and they are getting ready to! Logan got those for me for my birthday last year and they were planted late so they didn't bloom -this will be the first year I get to see what color they turned out! Fun!

This morning was so nice and sunny, we started hardening off the tomato and pepper plants that have been repotted from the greenhouse. They have been repotted for some time but we have avoided putting them out because the wind is terrible a lot of days and unpredictable. We are starting just putting them out for a few hours today and will gradually build up to having them out all the time and some are ready to go in the ground once they adjust to being 'outside plants'.

I found this super neat strawberry pot at Joanne's Fabrics last weekend and debated whether to use it as a strawberry pot or pot neat flowers in it but Lowe's was having such a good deal on strawberries that I got a pot of them and divided them up - three on the bottom and - look! I already have 'future' strawberries coming! It isn't going to be a ton but Logan isn't a big strawberry person so they will be fine for me! I did put a marigold in the top - hopefully to ward off some of the strawberry-loving buggies!

Even Jetta is getting in on the greenery action! She is adjusting much better finally and Logan has been riding her around about every other night and working on her manners the other nights. She might even be able to go for an 'outside' ride soon - gee, I would love to ride my horse - very convenient that Logan bought another horse for him to ride - haha. Daisy will have to be my trail buddy for awhile I suppose until Jetta is 'wife ready' :)

Note - SOL from the previous post stands for 'Standards of Learning' - not the other s.o.l. - although for some that is a more appropriate acronym.

How Many?

Ok, so goes my day. I just typed a whole post and with one fell swoop, erased it all who knows how and of course it decided to save the post immediately after all was erased...The story of my life this week. I am so ready for school to be out - it's 'end-of-the-year-burnout' that all teachers know quite well - where the students are filled with all of the information their little brains can handle and try to test you in every way humanly possible. Top that with pretty weather and the dreaded SOLs looming around the corner and it's a recipe for disaster.

So, with that said, I am going to leave with my 'serenity now' picture (tell me you've seen that Seinfeld episode - Logan looked at me like I was crazy the last time I said that out loud). This picture was taken at our little Cove House one morning before I left for work. SERENITY NOW!

Only 15 1/2 more days of school.

Feeling Fruity!

Hold on to your seats - we have fruit! While making my fruit tree rounds -I like to check them out to make sure everything is going well and everyone is healthy - I discovered ACTUAL FRUIT! No way, you say! It's true! My baby trees are producing their first fruits - hopefully barring major disaster and plague (such as birds and insects!) we might have some fruit this year! So far it's just the cherries and peaches - no apples (I have Winesap and Granny Smith) or pears yet - this may not be their year - but they bloomed later than the others so I'm still holding my breath!

Peachy Peaches!

Choice Cherries!

In other 'farm news' our garden is coming in strong! We early-planted a row of corn, black beans, peas, black-eyed peas, and onions of all shapes and sizes and so far everyone is coming in nice and strong! I planted my herb garden over the weekend and getting ready to go in soon will be spaghetti squash and other assorted veggies along with my thriving tomato plants and various peppers! Hooray Spring! Now, I might not be saying this come picking and canning season since that's when I am off in the summer and according to Logan I have 'nothing better to do' (um, do my 1 billion knitting projects count?).


Don't mind the crooked rows - everything grows the same, straight or not!