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Thursday, June 28, 2007

More Mots on Montana

I thought I would stay with the alliteration theme.

Somebody commented (privately) about the restaurants where we stayed, so let me clarify what I meant. The east side of Glacier National Park is bordered by The Blackfoot Reservation and the towns are really just hamlets. There are places to stay and in the park they have very nice views, but there are no restaurants. That's why we were glad to stay in East Glacier because it was a bigger "village" with a few restaurants to choose from.

In fact I want to mention where we ate on Saturday night, not because it was outstanding, although it was good, but because of its ethnicity. We went to a Mexican restaurant. What's so exciting about that you ask? Well, there is a dearth of Mexican restaurants in Calgary - good or bad - so this was a treat for us.

We went on a couple of hikes and there were warnings about bears. At one point I asked why I was leading and the boy child very kindly said that I would see the bear first and scream which would warn him and his Dad to run. Nice child! Sunday morning we saw a bear. We must have disturbed it as it ran across the path in front of us and, thankfully, away from us and into the woods. I didn't scream (and enough of the funny comments from Jill, yes, I scream for mice but not bears) but I did stop and then I did my own mother bear thing and gathered up the clan.

So we lived to tell the tale and gave boy child an (exaggerated) tale to tell at school the next day.

Tuesday, June 26, 2007

My Monday

The day started with my flip flop breaking. No big deal as they were pretty old and now I have to use my old designer ones.

I needed to prepare the batting for tonight's quilting class. I was fortunate to get some help. Just not the sort of help I wanted.



Later in the morning there was a storm. Look at my beds.



Yes that is hail. I managed to move the tomato plant as the hail started but I haven't been outside yet to see if there is any damage to other plants.

On the positive side at least with all the rain we have been having I haven't had to water very much and everything is growing.

Monday, June 25, 2007

Big Sky Saturday

As you can probably guess from the title we were in Montana at the weekend. It was about 3 1/2 hour drive to East Glacier Park. Which wasn't a bad place to stay as it had a few restaurants.

So here is a picture of the big sky



At one of the water falls we saw a bird that flew in and out of the water. It floated under the water and jumped out at just the right time onto a rock. Considering how fast the water was flowing this was an amazing feat.



I took a lot of photos over the weekend many of them duplicates because I was trying different shutter speeds and I am not going to bore you with a load but this tree fascinated me as I could not see what the roots were growing into as I thought we were on solid rock but there must have been some goodness there somewhere.

Thursday, June 21, 2007

The Yarn Harlot Stole My Idea

Actually, I don't think that's true. Although she is in the same country as me I'd be very surprised if she had ever come across my blog, but I thought that the "snappy" title would get someone's attention.

The title does have relevance and is not just a gratuitous reference to the Wise Knitter. In January I wrote about how nasty some people can get on-line. This week the Yarn Harlot has written about meanness in blogs. She doesn't mention anyone by name and doesn't say if the blog post is because she has been targeted or that she has come across nastiness in blogs that she feels is unnecessary even if she doesn't know that target.

So the Yarn Harlot did not copy me but it is nice to know that other people think that on-line nastiness is just, nasty. Although there are going to be some who will say 'get-over-it'.

Tuesday, June 19, 2007

Knitting and Sports

I take my knitting to the boy child's sporting events. Most of the time you are sitting down so why not knit? Now that he is playing lacrosse, I take something simple that I do not need to look at as lacrosse is a fast game.

My heart sank on Saturday when I saw the referees, I have mentioned them before as they just do not call anything. During the game one of the fathers commented on me knitting. "Normally you're laid back and knit along slowly but today because the game is so intense you are knitting really fast." It was true; when a game is poorly refereed you worry about what advantages the other team will take. Especially when early on in the game a fight breaks out because penalties haven't been called. I tell you my hands were moving so fast even I was surprised.

Unfortunately, at the game on Saturday and last night's game I experienced poor adult behaviour. Firstly, the boy child scored 3 of his team's first 4 goals. So the other team's coach said get number 12. And that means stop him anyway you can.

Secondly, one of our parents shouted really loudly "ref, you're an idiot". Which, not surprisingly, the referee took exception to. To cap it off they didn't think they had done anything wrong because they didn't swear. That gives you such a warm and fuzzy feeling to know they are part of your support.

Thirdly, yesterday the sister of one of our team got into a heated argument with one of the opposing team supporters and then her mother joined in. I just wanted the ground to open up and swallow me. At least the mother apologised when she saw how embarrassed I was.

Anyway that is it for another year; and we won't come across these parents next year as their son's are a year older than ours. But we will come across others like them, we will see more poor refereeing and more dirty teams. Such is the nature of sports and life.

Sunday, June 17, 2007

Saturday Sky

I bet you're glad you waited for this one!



In California they call this June Gloom. Not sure what we should call it here. Anywhere else it would be April showers.

The good thing - don't have to water the garden.
The bad thing - grass is growing but it's too wet to cut
The good thing - we have a water butt (aka rain barrel)
The bad thing - it's not connected to a down spout (yet)

Friday, June 15, 2007

Some Quilting

I completed the 5th project from the I Can't Believe I'm Quilting book. All the fabric used had been given to me from my mother-in-law from her stash.



I have finally signed up for a quilting class. The spousal unit gave me some gift vouchers for the local quilt store and I decided to take a beginner lesson. Although I have taught myself quite successfully, I decided that I should start at the beginning in case there were any must know techniques. I had the first lesson (of three) on Tuesday. There were only 2 of us in the class which was great as we were able to proceed at our own speed. Whereas in bigger classes you either have to stop what you are doing to be shown the next step or wait for everyone to get to the same point.

I'll let you know at the end how useful the class was.

Wednesday, June 6, 2007

Some Knitting Content

The other day I mentioned that some knitting photos would appear so here they are. The photos actually came out better today; a grotty rainy day than the sunny day that I originally took them. And you gotta love digital cameras; there were still a few photos that were rejects. I usually have ISO on auto and have found in the past that changing it hasn't made any difference to the photos, this time I changed it to 400 and was pleased with the difference it made to the photos.






The pattern is Tiger Eyes from Socks Socks Socks. The picture in the book does not show the mock cabling for the back of the sock. I am a little annoyed with myself as I had hoped I had knit the length of the sock so that I only used one ball of yarn for both socks, but I ended up starting the second ball. So I am going to split this ball into two and work yet another toe-up pattern with it. All the socks I have made just lately have been toe-up.

The yarn I used was Regia in raspberry. This was yarn that I bought in the Boxing Day sale.

I have not cast on any more socks as maybe it is time for a break.

Monday, June 4, 2007

Almost Knitting

Almost knitting, "what's that?" you ask. It's when you intend to post photos of your latest completed projects but the photos aren't very clear. So, in the meantime, you take photos of the next stage of the garden project.


BEFORE




AFTER





That is 6 cubic yards of garden mix and one cubic yard of mulch that was moved from the front of the house to the flower beds in the back. The beds have been planted with seeds and plants so I just have to wait and see what decides to grow.