Needle Work (ha!)

Good Morning everyone!  Our weather is warming up this week but should be cooler next week. It might be too early to start getting the sunscreen out but I better break out the sun hat soon.  Maybe shop for a new one for this year.  I plan on doing a lot of gardening.  Mike has been working in the back yard lately, removing those darn christmas trees peppered throughout our yard. 

 If he could have squealed with joy in his steel toed boots and his protective (prescription) eye wear, chain saw in hand...he would have.

 Very methodical...he is a manufacturing engineer after all, he trimmed the lower branches to expose the trunk.

 This pile got MUCH bigger after two trees (one big, one smaller...you can see it behind the fallen tree in the last photo).

 TIMMMMMBER!!

In my head, I'm like, "Holy crap...don't hit the lawn chairs!!!!"  It didn't.

So this tree and the one behind it got chopped and shaved.  We saved the trunk pieces for fire wood and he's gonna haul the branches to the dump.  There are two more HUGE trees, just like these, that are next.  He's buying a bigger chainsaw (insert manly grunts) to tackle them.  He borrowed a smaller chainsaw from a friend and is he's afraid he'll ruin it on the monster trees.  We are planning on replacing the christmas trees with "real" trees that have leaves NOT needles and turn pretty colors in the Fall.  Yes, I do realize that means raking leaves.  Thank you very much.  We're keeping three of the christmas trees...two at the back of the south 40 and one in the front yard.

We plan on re-seeding the grass and he's gonna build garden boxes for us to have a veg garden.  The amount of plants this house needs is so large, not sure we can do it all this year but we're gonna try. We have so many fun ideas!

BUT most of this work is on hold now that Joey got an estimate on some work his car needs for inspection passage before he can register...and it's way too high for him to afford.  Like $3000+!  So he and Mike are gonna do the work (the work Mike said was too hard to do before the estimate).  Oh well, you do what you gotta do.  It's nice to see them working together.

Besides, according to garden authorities, it's really too early to start planting new stuff.  Closer to Mother's Day is the time to start. 

On the knitting front:

I'm going to frog the sweater I've been working on called Rolling Rock.  It's just too darn BIG!  Really, when I lay it flat and measure across (not blocked, of course and lace on the back, which will stretch a lot) it's 22".  That's 44" around...UNBLOCKED!  And the yarn is superwash so add a bit more of growth in blocking for that, too.  It's gonna go back to the stash and become another sweater.  For now, I'm gonna put sweater knitting on hold and knit a few smaller projects (ok, all other projects besides sweaters I guess).  

I got my last shipment from Yarnbox and guess what?!

IT CAME IN A BOX!!  Ok, a totally squished and broken box (thanks USPS) but a box nonetheless.  The side says: Caution!! Yarn Inside. May cause extreme happiness.  (And yes, yes it does.)

 The yarn is really pretty and perfect for the pattern that came with it...so I'm gonna cast them on!  The pattern is called Winter Tornado.

I also finished PicnicKnits newest sideways shawlette called Incendiary in my Embers colorway.  Oh man, is it beautiful!!  My model is free (time-wise, not money-wise...haha) on Thursday so I plan on getting pics and posting soon.

Our weather today and tomorrow should be in the upper 70s...what?!  

  Hope the rest of your week is sunny, too.