Blow Ye Winds

This is unbelievable for July.

We hit a high of 11 degrees at the farm. 11 degrees! And howling winds from the North West.

Like flippin' winter out there!

I had already turned off the heat in the farmhouse and in the wool shack (um, when I turned the air conditioners on)!

Farmers who make hay need a minimum of 3 good days in a row to make hay. Preferably 5 good days. And by good I mean dry and not too humid.

It's not all bad news. Most grass species in Ontario are known as cool season grasses, which is to say they grow better when it's cool than when it's hot. But that's not helpful if you can't get some of it baled for winter.

On the Sock Machines today:

Nadda!

Too cold in the wool shack and I am NOT turning the heat back on out there in July! (OK, I confess, I did turn it on in the house when my fingers got too cold to click my mouse!)

I did, however, wind some yarn that I will HOPEFULLY be warm enough to knit tomorrow.

Click for mouth watering high res version ;o)

This is a Koigu KPPPM medley I think will make for an interesting sock project.

The colours, from left to right, P608, P219, P207, P439 and P402.

Opal meets Trekking

On my continuing quest to restock my Large blues... this pair is Opal Feelings series, colour #1703.

And another find in the stash:

This is Trekking XXL colour #166.

OK....I'm back up to snuff in Large Blue Socks....thank you for bearing with me...I'll see what other colours I can find to knit next week.

Where's What's the Beef?

Reading further along in the same Ag Rag that got me steamed about Turkey.... came an article about Beef.

It seems that President's Choice (huge higher end grocery label) is dropping their Ontario Corn Fed Beef from their lineup in Ontario supermarkets. Bucking the current consumer trend to shop 'closer to home' a la 100 Mile Diet, and even acknowledging the success of the local corn fed program, the chain is dropping the line so it can offer a 'National Line' instead - to avoid duplication of warehousing costs.

I read that article upstairs in 'the reading room'. And when I got downstairs I checked my online news site to see what was going on in the world (other than the MJ saga), what before my eyes does appear?

President's Choice is undergoing a massive recall of their beef due to e-coli contamination.

It would be funny except I'm sure the will make up the loses by paying the farmer even less next go around.

This is what it's looked like at the farm for days and days. Barely a few fleeting moments of sun.

That can make a farmer grumpy!

Peacocks and Turkeys

This is Opal #1616 Pfau (Peacock). One of the Opal wildlife series yarns resident in my stash.

And this is a size Large pair, knit up with the 72 needle cylinder on my Verdun 47.

While I like the colourway, I don't know that I would have named it 'Peacock'. It is colourful, but not as wildly bright as what I'd expect from the name.

And speaking of birds....

Do you know how to tell this is not an Ontario turkey?

Turkeys in Ontario, like chickens, eggs, and cows milk, are Supply Managed. You need to buy quota in order to farm these products commercially. And the Supply Management Boards impose have regulations written by agribusiness conglomerates to eliminate small family farmers that farmers with quota are obliged to follow.

I was reading in an Ag Rag today that Turkey Board regulations prohibit turkeys from being outdoors. Ever. And apparently regulations for chickens are heading in the same direction.

This screws organic turkey producers who, under Canadian Organic certification regulations are OBLIGED to ensure their turkeys have access to the outdoors.

It doesn't completely eliminate organic farmers....anyone can have up to 50 turkeys without falling under the oppressive thumb auspices of the Turkey Board. But it will prevent organic farmers from competing with factory farms.

I can think of some other turkeys who shouldn't see the light of day.

More Blues

I got cleaned out of size Large blue socks at the Farmers' Market on Saturday, do I've been scrounging though my stash to see what I have left in blue.

This isn't ALL I have left in blues , but its getting perilously close!

You make recognize some of the yarns above from my recent Blue postings. And a few of them I haven't knit for quite a while - found them hiding under other yarns.

While the cranking is happening upstairs in the wool shack, downstairs:

A batch of Country Blue sock yarn (my own 75/25 wool nylon) brews on the stove.

Singing the Blues

I was as surprised as anyone to hear Michael Jackson died. I was never a fan, and frankly my initial reaction to his passing was, well, uncivilized.

But I do have one MJ memory.... in 1982 DD was a tween. Neither of my kids asked for much their entire lives.

But in 1982 DD asked for MJ's Thriller video for Christmas.

I'm quite certain that every tween in the entire world asked for the same thing that year, but I was seriously determined that DD would have it!

Driving the Blues

So I jumped into my 1981 blue Oldsmobile and drove from record shop to record shop all over the greater metropolitan Toronto area. I swear I put a few thousand clicks on the car. Eventually, a friend of a friend who had a cousin who had a friend who's friend owned a record shop came to my rescue, and they saved me the very last one.

Christmas was good that year!

So, I asked DD the other day if she still had it. Not only does she still have it - but it happens that her DH had just played it the day before MJ passed on the other world.

(which other world who knows, but if I were a betting man...)

Bamboozled

Today I played with bamboo. This is my own 60% Wool 30% Bamboo 10% Nylon; ~ 400 yds/112 g.

The colours are all vat dyed.

I use Washfast Acid Dyes which are protein dyes, so the bamboo doesn't take the dye. But because the bamboo is so well blended with the wool it gives an interesting effect of shading the colours down.

The first pair, size Large, is Evergreen with Shale accents.

And this pair of Medium + is Charcoal with Shale accents.

This Medium pair is Shale with Mulberry Accents.

This Medium pair is Mulberry with Charcoal accents.

And the last pair of the morning is size Medium in Shale with Charcoal accents.

And that cleans out another little cubby in my stash!

Swallows Crash and Burn.

Well, they crashed anyway.

The Swallow nest that I watch outside my window fell to the ground. I think the babies were so big, and what with a mom and two dads landing all the time to feed them, I think the party got too rowdy.

And this upset has turned them into the Swallows from Hell. When I step outside the door they start dive bombing me....I presume the young ones are on the ground in the garden by the window.

So, yet another White house is revisiting its policy toward alternative families.

Smokin'

This is a pair of size Large Trekking XXL socks, knit with the 72 needle cylinder on the Verdun 47. I can't tell you the colour number as I washed the tag when I washed the socks ;o(

And here is a pair of Bamboo socks, size Medium:

It is my own 60% Wool 30% Bamboo 10% Nylon; the main colour is Evergreen and the accent colour for the stripe, heels and toes is Charcoal.

And with July 4th on the horizon, I dug through the stash to see if I had any Fortissima Nation Color USA left, and I did have a few balls.

This size Medium pair is cut and paste of the yarn. Using two ball winders, I rewound the balls, winding the blue/white portions of the yarn onto one ball winder, and the red/white portions onto a second winder. That way I could 'schedule' the colour changes where I wanted them. A little extra work, but a better, I think, result.

Smokin'

This morning, I knit socks.

At lunch time I mowed the lawn. And this afternoon I tilled the garden, and mowed a pasture.

Then I went into the wool shack to fill a pail of water to give my tomato plants a drink.

I was standing under the smoke/carbon monoxide detector while I waited for the 5 gallon pail to fill.

The detector when off! (It's wired in and speaks, besides beeping, "fire, feu, fire, feu").

As soon as I moved from underneath, it stopped.

I'm not sure if I was giving off smoke or gas!

Gone Fishin'

Fishin' wires that is.

In January an electrician replaced the old fuse panel in the house with a new circuit breaker panel. A vast improvement I'm sure, and no small wonder that the house hadn't burnt down years ago!

But one advantage of the old fuse panel was that you could increase the size of fuse, of even jam a penny in the fuse socket in order to add heavier use appliances without constantly blowing fuses. (Small wonder....)

With the first heat wave of 2009 on the way, SIL helped me put the window a/c units in place yesterday. As fate would have it, the electrical outlets near the windows in question are all on the same circuit, and since I can't use pennies to load up the circuit anymore, I decided to add a new circuit, in lieu of knitting today, so I could at least get the largest a/c unit onto its own line.

First off, I cut a hole for the electrical box in the wall near the window frame (the pale rosy white trim on the left side of photo).

I've never poked into this particular wall before and wasn't sure what I'd find. The drywall is newer, and behind it was a plastic vapour barrier, the original lath and plaster, and then the original triple brick exterior wall.

This is directly below, in the cellar. The foundation is a lot wider than the walls above, but I can access the space between the floor joists. You can see the coat hanger that I pushed down through the crack between the floor boards and brick wall.

And here I've fished the new 12/2 wire up from the cellar, which I will hook to the new outlet, and to a 20 amp breaker at the panel in the cellar.

And yes, that is a shop vac ...I try to clean as I mess!

And finally, as the thermometer hits 27 in the house, I plug into the new circuit and prepare to get cool!

Only a little paint touch up to do, and no worry about circuit breakers popping.