Tag Archives: hummingbirds

It’s Been a Long Week

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Monday, August 25, 2025

It may be Monday but I’m calling it Sunday. My day of rest. Last week I was in the store four out of six days, twice my normal schedule and I could feel it on Saturday afternoon. I’d also been awake since 4:30am when my hubby left to head out to Denver for the arrival of grandchild #2. I’ve been feeling “off” ever since. Partly because it’s lonely here without him and because I’m just weary, I think. Today it’s gray and threatening rain and I sure do hope we get some. Our gardens are so dry and I’m trying to water with great conservation because we have a well and you know what happens to wells in droughts, right? So we flush less frequently (TMI?) and do fewer loads of laundry and water only when really necessary.

I finished my second pair of shortie socks for my August SISC (self-imposed sock club). I thought they’d fit me but they don’t so they’ll be gifted to someone with slightly smaller feet. These have an afterthought heel and having made them, I am reminded why I like a heel flap heel when I’m knitting socks. I’ve cast on a new pair that will be top down and with a heel flap. Photos will be coming soon.

I’ve been working on knitting one of the animals in the Knitted Animal Friends book by Louise Crowther. I’ve had the book and the yarn for quite some time and never seem to have found (made?) the time to knit one. This week I decided to change that and cast on for Noah the horse. These patterns are knit on US 2, 2.75mm needles (suffice it to say, if you’re not a knitter, that these are basically toothpicks) and at a tight gauge. My hands certainly feel it but I am making progress. I’ve got the head, mane, tail and ears finished and am working my way down the body. Nothing is tricky in this pattern other than the tight gauge on tiny needles. I’m going back and forth between DPNs, a 40″ circular and straight needles depending on what needs to be worked. The body parts are knitted flat and seamed so nothing looks like it will when it’s stuffed and assembled. I have to remember to buy some safety eyes.

I had to laugh at the line of eleven pieces of i-cord for the mane. They remind me of tampons and once seen, I can’t unsee it. LOL. The yarn is Sheepjes Stonewashed and I am enjoying the yarn for the most part. Some of the increases are difficult to make without splitting the yarn but I think that’s more about the gauge of the stitches rather than the yarn. I have the Catona for the clothes, too, as the pattern requested. I thought I’d like to make the animals in the original yarn this time and see how it works up. So far so good.

Today I’d love to finish the body and get a start on the legs and arms but I also want to pick up the commission piece that I’ve been working on – I haven’t touched it since early last week when I was working on the back. There’s not much to do to get the back finished and the second side shouldn’t take long either. Then a couple of sleeves and finishing and I can send it off to my client in Louisiana. I’ve promised it in the early winter but I hope to deliver it earlier than that.

This morning I was up early and had my coffee before 8am and I decided to bake. Made some granola for our house and a blueberry cake for a neighbor who’s having some health challenges. I’ll run the cake down later today – when it’s cooled. I saw several emergency vehicles at their house on Friday morning on the way to work and heard from another neighbor about what’s happening. I’m guessing a bit of sweet will be helpful in the short term. I have shredded a huge zucchini and if I get some more baking energy, I’ll make zucchini bread or chocolate zucchini bread. Or both. I still have another huge zucchini in the fridge.

Granola, my secret recipe

I’ve been checking out the vegetable garden and have picked our first tomatoes. I only grew two kinds of tomatoes this year – yellow tomatoes and cherry tomatoes. We haven’t had a lot of either but I now have two yellow ones and will have a tomato sandwich for lunches this week. We have been gifted some cucumbers, green pepper, beets and one huge zucchini from a work friend and I’ll get the beets roasted (one of my favorites with tomatoes and some feta or goat cheese YUM!). I’m not eating a lot of meat this week because I am cooking and don’t love it any more so roasted veggies, cauliflower crust pizza and maybe some grains will be served. Cooking for one isn’t a lot of fun and I’m not one who loves cooking anyway. What’s a girl to do? I can’t just eat ice cream … that’s what I might have done back in the day.

Hubby pulled our garlic before he left and it’s time to cut off the roots, clean it up a bit and start using it. We will plant more garlic in the fall since we seem to have the knack of it now. My biggest yellow tomato is palm-sized and we have another Delicata squash coming along. That makes three. The bees are happy in our squash blossoms and without them, we’d have no squash. One more zucchini is on the vine and the peas are over a foot tall now and starting to climb. I love the veggie garden!

I’m loving watching our loon family fishing just in front of the house today. The baby is getting its adult feathers and is acting more like an adult but the parents are both working hard to continue feeding it, too. They were close enough to hear their little “peeps” to each other. And I’ve heard from two friends on other Maine lakes that they’ve had no surviving chicks this year. (Eagles.) We are very lucky to have four chicks on our lake and I haven’t heard that any have been taken. There is a real emotional investment in these special creatures on the lake. Between boats, eagles and snapping turtles the dangers are real.

We’ve also seen a lot of Hummingbirds lately. They’ve been draining the feeders and that means they’re starting to fatten up and gather the energy to start their trip back south. It’s always sad when the hummers leave. They add a lot of entertainment on the porch, often flying into the porch and seeming to just stop mid-air to look at us as we watch them. We have at least three females now, and a couple of males … I can only identify the females (one looks older, one has a long neck and the third is smaller).

And last night we welcomed a new grandchild. I have just seen him on a facetime chat and he’s absolutely perfect. I am having wicked FOMO watching my hubby hold him but we’ll be heading out so I can meet him in person soon. We are so grateful for a healthy mother and baby. A grandson!

Gone Knitting.

A Perfect Wednesday

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Wednesday, August 6, 2025

It started out well! and kept getting better! We both slept until nearly 7am and then spent a glorious hour-ish having coffee on the porch. Our first visitor was an osprey fishing and then “our” little loon family came by. The parents left the chick in front of our house for a bit (see below). They must think we’re trustworthy chick-sitters. “Our” hummers have been really busy, too. Activity was constant the whole time I was on the porch. We must have five hummingbirds (or more) but you start to recognize them after watching them so intently over the months.

I decided that this was the one day I had nothing scheduled and I was going to take full advantage of the beautiful weather and sit on the porch until I felt I had to get up and do something else. I had started our laundry and the changing of the beds after our guests departed (another weekend visitor over night and a pair of visitors passing through who didn’t stay. We love summer for the visitors) and then headed up to the atelier to get my hands on some yarn. I decided to start the new cardigan that I have on my list, it’s a commission for a lovely client in Louisiana, and I’d have had to wind one more hank of yarn to finish my sleeve.

The photo above is one hour in. I’m knitting on US3 needles with a fingering weight yarn from Urban Girl Yarns. My client sent the yarn to me. She’d purchased it on a trip to Virginia and had to buy the yarn because the colorway is named just the same as her granddaughter – Eliana Zoe. She found my website and reached out to me to have me knit the sweater as she’s not a knitter. I was happy to oblige. The pattern I’ll be knitting for her is the Sorento Cardigan in a size 4-5 Years. For a while my hubby joined me but he left to take a load of stuff to the dump thus the “still life” with all his stuff at his chair.

AND the final photo is the beautiful view that I’ve had all day and specifically what I looked like a little after 3pm when I chose to go inside to get a few tasks accomplished. I am feeling so grateful that I live here and that I can work at home. I’m so thankful that Ned’s dad bought this place back in the 40’s. What a wonderful peaceful place to live.

So, tonight I’ll wind the last hank of cotton yarn (Berroco Pima 100) for my Big Love cardigan. I have only a couple of rows and a bind off left to finish the second sleeve and then I have to finish the collar – I assume that I’ll graft the two sides together. I’ve woven most of the ends in as I went but I’ll weave in the rest. I feel like it’s going to be a bit small for me so I will be blocking it pretty aggressively. Not sure why but it is what it is. I’ll likely wear it open and over a short sleeve or sleeveless shirt but I was thinking it’d be a bit oversized. Oh well. If I don’t like the fit, I’m sure I can find someone who will. The yarn wasn’t too much of an investment so it’s an affordable project.

Big Love in Pima 100 – second sleeve!

Tomorrow I start my day with a hair cut at 8:15am and then to work. I’m teaching Friday but we have the weekend with just us – and a movie fundraiser to attend. Maybe it’ll be a date night or a date evening as the silent film festival runs from noon to four and these days we like to be home before dark. We must be getting smart. LOL

We’ve had a new yarn shop open not far from us. The “girls” at work and I have pencilled in a visit to Wild Fibers (it’s in a renovated mill across the road from a fabulous bakery and cafe) after lunch at Scapes Cafe on Sunday the 17th. It’s always fun to get together with these women. They’re the main reason I stay at the yarn shop … and the customers, of course. We are all on the same page and work so well together – and take care of each other, too. A real team. Meanwhile, the Maine Yarn Cruise is happening through the middle of October and I haven’t gone to visit one of the shops. Maybe the hubs and I will go on a Sunday drive this weekend. He’s been off from work for almost a month, I think, and he’s got to be getting itchy to return, right? (Not really.) We both are very content to stay home and do the things we love to do. He takes photos, reads, fiddles around in his workshop and around the house. I knit and bake and write … what more can we ask for? It’s a good life we’ve built here on the shores of Messalonskee Lake.

The loon chick just off our porch this morning

I’m going to sign off here and get the newsletter for the store written today and get it out of my way and off my list. The rest of the week is going to be somewhat busy. This afternoon’s for checking things off and then I’m. back to knitting to finish my sleeve! Making such good progress!!!

Gone knitting.

Mother’s Day

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Sunday, May 11, 2025

Yesterday was a perfect day! We had nothing on our schedule so we had coffee on the porch in the sunshine, I wrote the store newsletter, hubby made blueberry pancakes for breakfast and we went to Lowe’s to get some supplies for building the little “nook” for our granddaughter’s visit this summer. I spoke to all of our kids and got a chance to knit a little, too, before a lobster dinner (what a treat! The price of lobster is crazy right now.) I took this photo of our first humming birds who have arrived back in Maine for the summer. I love these little birds so much … and pray that their navigation skills as they zip around the house are top notch … when we sit outside we can feel their wings pass by our ears. They’re miraculous.

Mother’s Day is typically a sad-ish day for me and is often fraught with conflict in my head and heart because my mother died in 2008 which means I’ve had sixteen mother’s days without having a mother to celebrate with. All of my kiddos were already out of the house by then and having adult children living lives of their own is another strange way to experience Mother’s Day. So, I’ve spent many years being sad and having expectations about what would happen and being disappointed and lonely. SO … I’m coming around to the belief that Mother’s Day is hard when you don’t have a mother and that expectations lead to disappointment so it’s better to consider this another day that I choose to make a good day. And yesterday was a good day.

I am knitting away on several projects and have several more in the wings (that’s lined up on the shelf in my atelier). I’m working on my Hermione’s Everyday Socks in On the Round “Wicked” sock yarn. I am loving these socks. The colorway is spectacular and the pattern is soothing. (It’s also free on Ravelry!) They’re what I go to when I need something small to throw into my purse.

I worked my way down the second sleeve of my granddaughter’s purple cardigan (Knitting Pure & Simple yesterday and got the neck ribbing done. I picked up the stitches on the first front band which is the button hole band and have pinned the spots where I’ll make the holes. That means that I am so close … maybe today?

I’m almost to the part where I bind off the Little Tern blanket for our Denver Nugget and start the lace edging. I can’t tell you how much I’ve enjoyed this blanket project again! I love the squishy yarn – Fyberspates Vivacious DK – and I love the pattern. I am so excited to gift this one (as I was excited to gift the first one. This is a family heirloom knit. Exquisite, if I do say so myself.

I have twelve projects lined up on my shelf. Twelve! And that doesn’t include my WIPS that I’m not really working on right now. LOL.

In this line-up are two tams for a customer, a cotton summer dress for Sylvie, two knitted hearts made with fairy lights, a pair of fingerless mitts for my daughter if the first one fits properly, a bulky sweater for Sylvie, more little chicken friends for Ernie, a blueberry hat for the Nugget and Sylvie, the Fair Isle bag I started in a class, my Patty tank, and another Arne & Carlos Christmas stocking. I also have yarn for a Petite Knits Slipover. AND all the animals I want to make. Good grief, I need to quit my job and quit volunteering and just spend my time knitting. (NOT!)

I also have the baby quilt to finish. I did buy some cotton flannel to back it with and I have the batting. I just have to wash the backing and put it all together. I doubt I’ll have time to take it to Candy for machine quilting on the long arm but I’ll give her a call to see. Otherwise, I’ll be quilting this myself on the machine or by hand … I haven’t decided which yet.

We bought the paneling and paint for Sylvie’s “nook” yesterday. The paneling is up on the IKEA storage unit and needs a bit of tweaking and filling in holes and then I’ll paint the whole space purple (her request) before I get the picture hung, the wallpaper up and build a mattress support so she won’t be sleeping on the floor – although she’d probably like that, too. I have a pillow cover to sew, and I hope I have enough flannel so I can make her a pillowcase. I only need to find a little book shelf for the wall and get it all done.

My next house project is to paint our guest bathroom and guest room. We’ve been in the house 10 years around Thanksgiving and we’ve not even painted all the walls yet. The primer has served us well but it’s time! I’m taking on the project hoping to energize my hubby so he will get the stairway and third floor done, too. We are also renovating our guest cottage space. We’ve torn out the bathroom from 1950 red indoor-outdoor carpet and all and we are rebuilding a bathroom that will be a little bit lighter and brighter with new shower stall and flooring. Once that’s done, we will outfit the living room with a counter (likely a buffet) and storage for the kitchen area to include a refrigerator, microwave, coffee maker, electric kettle and toaster oven so that our renters can fix themselves something to eat. A new coat of paint on the outside of the cottage and it’ll be gorgeous. WE loved living up there while we built the house – until it was November and cold. It’ll be a good additional revenue stream for us and a great spot for creatives to create or for couples or singles to call home as they explore Maine. When we’ve made some progress, I’ll post about this, too.

We are busy and contented and life is good. We are so grateful to call this place home.

Gone knitting.