The cold front is here. It’s 32° with a 24 mph wind, which means it feels like 19°. Winter just jumped up to remind Texas that it’s still January. And just look at those nice, taut wires stretched on the new, taller electrical poles. No wires swaying in the wind! The bottom wire is our TV/internet cable and it did have a lot of slack in it before because they didn’t want to tighten it too much with old, split poles. Now, it doesn’t even budge in the wind gusts.
We are snug and warm indoors. We’ve got streaming video, laptops, books to read, and I’ve got my knitting. So, we’re good to go. I’ll finally start my pot of soup in a bit. We slept in since we didn’t need to be anywhere this morning. Brad’s thumb is much better, he got it to drain a little more just now, and my knitted ‘dishcloth-turned-hand-towel’ is coming along well.
We both have heavy wool afghans to snuggle under in our recliners. You can see part of mine in the photo above.
Full size photo of my throw. This is Elizabeth Zimmermann’s Stonington Shawl pattern knit up in Lion Brand Fisherman’s Wool.
Brad’s Afghan knitted with Cacade 220, worsted weight wool, non-super wash. This baby is a bear to launder and block, but well worth the effort. It is plenty long to cover his 6’3″, 330 lb frame. Yeah. He’s a big guy. And he loves his blanky.
I did a bit of a twist on the miter square by turning each row so that the miter lines form zig-zags. There are no seams in this throw. Each block is knitted onto the block next to it, row after row. Five blocks by eight blocks with a wide border knitted on. I love garter stitch!
Brad is on the phone with Audrey about getting his king size My Pillow mattress topper out there for her to use. It’s like new but we don’t have a king size bed anymore, nor does Audrey and David, but she plans to cut it up for dog beds for both of the German Shepherds, and any left over will be used to insulate the new chicken coop. Smart lady!
Everything is going well at the farm. Audrey took baby Gabriel out to see the livestock yesterday and he was promptly licked and groomed by Grover the bull and snuggled with Dusty the Palomino. He was stroking Dusty’s nose with both hands and the horse was going to sleep! I think they’ve bonded.
Grover is very protective of his herd, including his ‘hairless calves’, meaning our grandkids. I don’t envy anyone trespassing on farm property with Grover on watch. That wouldn’t be a pretty sight. He charged the barbed wire fence once when a car load of knot-headed teens decided it would be fun to stop and throw things over the fence at the cows and calves. I can only imagine what that must have looked like to the kids in that car. The road is several feet lower than the pasture. You are having a blast when all of a sudden a 2,000 + pound Charolais bull lowers his head and charges right at you from the pasture. He skidded to a halt with his chest pushing against the barbed wire fence…as the knot-headed children burned rubber down the road. Awesome, dude!
Rural Texas Knitter 