New Sump Pump Coming....wooooowhooooo

Yep, that is the exciting news in my household today. I am having an automatic sump pump installed. This will enable me to live my life without having to go down into the cellar every couple of hours to turn on my sump pump. I can actually LEAVE my house for a WHOLE day while it is raining outside. Progress folks.

I still have not done the three needle bind-off on the sweater...i have been too exhausted to tackle it, and have had too much homework.

Oh...on a brainy note, i am getting a 4.0 right now in my current class. Wow. That is pretty amazing for me! I usually do really well on the discussions and class participation, but suffer on exams...but i got a 10/10 on my most recent essay. Wooowhooo.

Big Accomplishment

Last night i finished the front panel of The Husbands Garter-Stitch Aran Pullover. Woowhoo...only took about TWO years to get to this point. Now comes the tricky part, doing the bind-off. Looking in my Vogue Knitting Ultimate Knitters Guide ( i lurve this thing), it looks a lot like kitchner stitch? I am a little freaked about this step, i have never done a three needle bind-off. Kitchner, yes...with a cable needle. If i go slow and methodical it turns out great. Anyways, reading the instructions though, i think it looks pretty easy. Famous last words? Sheisse, i hope not.
Oh, and last night i fixed a big error, and i am SO proud of myself. I had forgotten to cross the VERY last cable on the front panel. I almost said "meh", and left it, but then said to myself " i am a BETTER knitter than this...i can fix it!". So, i pulled out my handy dandy Knit Fix by Lisa Kartus (Thank you Yvonne....love that book!) and read up a little on the "Incorrectly crossed cables" section...took a deep breath, and off i went. Holy cow...it worked! It is not perfect, i think my ladder is off by one stitch, but it looks pretty good! This is a HUGE improvement on my previous attempt to fix the center diamond pattern. I flubbed up the unraveling, and ended up having to frog back about 20 rows. ugh.

Oh...and i have a bad doggy report. And NO..it is NOT Fred!! it is HENRY!! I know...shocking. Well, the other day i left Fred out of his crate while i ran to the neighbors house. Normally, Fred is crated when we are gone from the house, as he tends to suffer from separation anxiety a little, and he will terrorize Henry with his neurosis, and be COMPLETELY exhausted when we return home. If we crate him though, he rests comfortably, and we return home to a relaxed, calm (ish) dog. OK, so...i ran over to the neighbors house for a few minutes, and when i returned home, i noticed that the little piece of plastic tubing that holds up the canopy on the new burrow dog bed had been chewed, and a portion of the sleeve had been torn. I instantly figured it was Fred, and just sighed...what else can you do? No punishment if you don't catch them in the act. I was a little annoyed with Fred though.
Flash forward to yesterday, and we are all comfortably tucked into the living room for a night of TV (yes, we are party people), and i happen to look down at Henry, and see him nonchalantly chewing on the plastic tubing!! Just all casual, like a cow chewing her cud. I could not beleive it!! My PERECT prince!! I immmediately flashed back to his first year or so of life, where he chewed the HELL out of many many expensive things. My brand-new down jacket when we left him in a hotel room for a couple of hours while we had the NERVE to go out and ski the Matterhorn in Switzerland....several pairs of The Husbands pricey running shoes, which he CLIMBED A SHELF to get to, in another hotel room in Garmisch. A gorgeous pillow from my MIL that he casually chewed the tassels off of, as he gazed out the window. Yes, Henry is lucky he is STILL so dang cute.

Can you tell which dog is......

super well-behaved, and which one is not so much so?








Don't they accessorize so nicely with the gorgeous fall color? I think so, too.








Today the dogs and i played like REAL farmers. We loaded up into the Husbands big truck, i put on my mud boots, and we headed over to the local cattle farmers house for some bales of straw. There are some weak spots in the back of the house as far as the air-tight foundation goes, so i needed to put some straw up against it, now that winter is once again rearing it's head.

The dogs thought this was pretty damn cool! I am sure that they will eat the straw at some point. Doesn't Henry look like a little Donkey back there? He is SUCH a donkey...loves to mosey around the farm, just taking it all in.

There is one thing that stinks about being in the North Country, and that is NO decent Thai food. We have been to two restuarants, and they were horrid....so, i just make my own. So far i have Pad Thai and Tom Kha Gai down pat...and last night i added Green Chicken Curry to my repertoire. I am work on Red Curry...and hope to have it all down good so that the husband and i can feast when he is home on leave.

Another thing that stinks....the closest yarn shop is over 50 miles away. Can you even believe this? I cannot!! Today i really just had the urge to hang out in a yarn shop, sit, knit and chat a little....but the idea of driving 50 miles to do it pretty much killed that urge! So...i baled straw instead, drank a beer on the back porch in my adirondack chair, and chatted on the phone to the 'rents instead.

Dog Park Social Lepers

My friend and i started a new club at our local military post. It is a Dog Club, and we meet monthly at the dog park. Today was our first meeting.
I usually do not like to go to dog parks, and my excuse is that it is germy, and mean dogs could show up. The fact of the matter is though, my dogs are social retardos. I am just sitting here thinking about todays visit to the park, and shaking my head. I am the co-chair of this club, and i think i am about to become the first member to be kicked out of the club. Let's see, where do we begin.
First off, when one of our club members showed up at the gate, Fred rushed the fence and absolutely scared the sheisse out of her, and her two gorgeous, white German Shepherd Dogs. Then Fred decided that both dogs, the girl AND the boy, were unbelievably hot, and tried to hump both of them every chance he got. Then Henry raised his leg and peed on my friends Cairn Terrier. Now, that one really mortified me. Anyone who knows Fred completely expects ANY socially unacceptable behavior from him...but Henry? He is my sweet prince!!
My poor friend, her dog sleeps in her bed at night, and she just does not have time today to bathe her. Let's hope Henry was well hydrated.
ahahaha!

Bummer, Dude

Well, i am not the only one who is bummed about closing down the pool for the season.....

In other news....we have a giant dumpster in front of our house.......

This is to prep for the roofing material to be removed, which i REALLY hope starts soon!!

Yarny Yuminess

My good friend Gaylen sent me a treat in the mail the other day. She felt sorry for me, i was having a rough few weeks there, and she knows the way to make a knitter chill out!!

This yarn comes from Clementine's Dry Goods, and it is loverly. I used it today to help teach a new knitter how to knit! I started a little knitting club up here in my neck of the woods, and today was our first meeting.

I've always thought that Vizslas....

....made the BEST accessories! Don't they just coordinate SO well with the fall colors?

Notice the hunter orange ree ree's? It is officially deer hunting season here in the North Country, so the dogs will be sportin' some orange for the next few months.

Actually...it is a PERFECT fall day today..little bit misty, and damp and cool-ish. Yvonne, what does that mean? Yep....TRACKING WEATHER!! Can you believe it, i actually laid a few tracks for Henry today!! I used the lower hay field, and laid down three tracks of variable lengths. Henry has still got it, although he is a tad rusty. I really need to make a committment to getting him out there a couple of times a week, now that the growing season is over, and the snow is not here yet.

I contemplated taking Fred, but i am hesitant, as i know that the husband REALLY wants to hunt with that boy, and you just cannot do hunting and tracking at the same time. Especially if you are going to practice on planted birds. I will double check with my old tracking instructor and see what she thinks though....but if i remember correctly, a dog that has been trained to track, will follow YOUR scent right to the planted bird. Kind of defeats the purpose of them finding the BIRD on their own.

The rest of the day is going to be spent watching Anne of Green Gables, and knitting. I am at the portion of mein Soldat sweater where i need to join the two shoulder seams together, and start down the sleeve...never done that before, and it is COMPLETELY new and a bit scary! eeek!! if my LYS were just down the street, i would not be such a wimp...but it is 50 MILES away.

On another note altogether...i took my XC skis in to get the bindings put on yesterday. Wow...cannot believe we are almost getting into ski season around here. Gotta get a move on, and figure out which pair of SNOWSHOES Mein Soldat wants......Hey...soldat...that is a HINT for YOU.....go to rei.com and look 'em up! or you're going to be stuck with what i get you.