Snow Day

Monday was the first snow day my kids have ever had.  We lived in Utah for 11 years, had tons of snowy day and cold days, but the most the kids ever got was getting out of school 2 hours early once.



Sunday night here in Virginia we had freezing rain, and school was cancelled for Monday.  Tuesday morning we got a couple inches of snow, and school was cancelled again!  We loved it!

Ellie took these amazing pictures of the ice on Monday.

Billy Goat Trail

This Thanksgiving weekend, Mark found us a great trail to hike.  It's in the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal National Historic Park.  (Pfew!  That's a mouthful!)  The park contains the old canal and locks that used to get boat traffic up and down past the rough parts of the Potomac River.

Dane at a lock

The terrain is rocky, and you can see why there had to be a better way for boats to get by.

The day was cold, but beautiful.  The kids didn't have time to get get tired, because the rock scrambling was so fun.  We went on Billy Goat Trail A, then back along the canal.  There are two other parts too I'd love to try sometime.

On the way Back

Our "Frozen" moment.  We just watched the movie!

the Canal

Wildlife

Sunset

At the Falls at Sunset

Slug Update and Halloween

I got a few people to try the "stewed slugs" on Halloween.  Way to go brave Maddie who was the first, and Lacey who came back for seconds.

I have to admit, they looked really gross.  Michelle wins points for not hesitating, despite the appearance.

The kids costumes were all great.  The Joker was the spookiest because he was always in character.

Joker and Samurai,

Jango Fett, Knight, Spy

Vampire and Mad Scientist

And Imagination.

I love Halloween for the costumes.  I don't really like the creepy stuff, I don't nee the candy, but dressing up is the best!

Stewed Slugs

Today, I accidentally made a great Halloween joke. I really made plum jam, but I have never made jam that came out such a hideous color.  The plums were little green ones off a shoot of my neighbor's tree that came up under our fence. We've made delicious jam out of the plums off the branches of their tree before, but I guess these were different.  I've been told they fruit trees that grow up from the roots are never as good a the tree they come from.  Usually the branches that bear good fruit are grafted into different rootstock.  So these were little and green.  They were like huge cherries to eat.  But they tasted so good, I decided to make jam anyway.

As I was stirring the pot, I couldn't help but think of those really young baby diapers.  *shiver*  These picture really hide the greenish mustard color of the jam.  It was so much worse in person.  And the few reddish peels look really bad too.

Anyway, despite the color, the jam is delicious.  As I was stirring, I started to think about my mother-in-law's huge halloween party coming up.  (Halloween is more important to Judy than Christmas.)  I think I'll take some jam, put it in a bowl, and add the can of "slugs" I bought in Oregon.  Do you think I can get my nieces and nephews to try it?  Yum, Yum, try some delicious stewed slugs.

Plugging away in chaos

If I could only ever finish a coherent thought, let alone a task...

I'm supposed to be putting up my pears (I decided to dry them, right?), making plum jam, and doing something with all those impossible almonds from my almond tree.  Instead, I dream of more knitting while driving the kids everywhere, trying to decide how often to cross the cable on those leg warmers...

Speaking of leg warmers, I can't even get knitting out of my mind while exercising.  I've got plans for a series of ballet knitting patterns.  Mostly the classics, not something crazy and new.  But today in ballet I stared at the teacher's sweater trying to decide if I'd rather do a provisional cast-on with a folded hem, or a tiny bit of ribbing on the bottom edge when I designed the sweater.  I completely missed the combination she was teaching...

Last night I made some progress on the Radiating Star Blanket while watching the Presidential debates.  There is no better description of how I feel about it than this Non Sequitur comic by Wiley Miller.  If only...

But all in all it was still a good day.  The fall leaves have been amazing, and it snowed last night!  I got to dance, have lunch with my 3rd grader, have dinner with my sister and her kids, and now listen to my children chattering while they're supposed to be asleep.  And my hubby will be home from his trip tomorrow!

Christmas in Progress

I should know myself well enough by now to know that a quick and easy knit gets harder if you think it's so quick and easy that you forget to pay attentions.  That's what's been going on with my Mother-in-Law's mini blanket.  The pattern, Radiating Star Blanket by Alexis Layton, is beautiful and simple.  It shouldn't have been a problem.

The first thing I did was cast on over two needles using the long tail cast on.  I do this almost as a rule to make sure my cast on edge isn't too tight.  Well, I got the center star finished and decided that the circular hole in the middle was really big and loose.  I ripped out for the first time and started over, casting on over only one needle.  It looked much better.

I finished the first skein of yarn and the second star pattern about a week ago.  I used a spit join because I hate weaving in ends and kept on going.  I was trucking along and things looked great.  About 14 rows later, I realized that there was a mistake about eight rows back...but I couldn't figure out how that was possible because the pattern seemed to line up.  I dropped about 8 stitches and unraveled and knit them back up correctly.  But now there were really more problems.  I stared for a long time.  I unraveled and fixed a couple of other places.  I looked at the loose stitches and the additional problems.  What had I done?  I had made multiple mistakes on 7 of the 8 repeats.  Ugg.  I ripped back 8 rows and started again.  I finally got back to where I'd ripped out...and found another mistake six rows back.  Luckily, it wasn't too bad, and I was able to fix it without all the ripping back this time.

Now I've marked the beginning of the round, and I will pay more attention--even if I'm watching TV with my husband!

Smaller Harvest

It's a good thing my pear tree is abundant, because this is the harvest from my Jonathan Apple tree:

Still, it's only the second year this tree has born fruit at all, so I'm grateful for 4 delicious apples.  I also have a red delicious that doesn't have any fruit this year. The apples really seem to be an every other year sort of thing.