Even our kitty wishes you a Happy Thanksgiving!

Ursula, sleeping upside down.

Want a good look at her thumbs?
I'll bet I could knit her mittens, but she'd probably just lose them...

In the land of chickens, I am a goddess...

I finally got around to cooking off one of those giant delicapumpkins, delumpkins, squadeliumpkins delisqumpkins.


Here's a pic of it sitting next to a 5lb sack of flour, to give an idea of scale. This one is one of the medium-sized ones - we have both larger and smaller.

Madman had to cut it for me - it was just too darn big for me to be able to get any leverage. I used a big spoon to gut it,
then placed the two halves on a cookie sheet, and into the oven it went. I chose to bake it instead of boiling it, because I was concerned it would be soupy, and it turned out to be a good call. These squash er pumpkins objects were far from dry inside.
It was at this point that the camera started lying to me. I took shots of the cookie sheet, both before and after baking, and the camera assured me that I had perfectly lovely pictures. However, when I tried to upload them later, the camera just laughed and said "Pictures? What pictures?"
One of the happiest uses for squash/pumpkin is pie-making.


Luckily, I took about 14 shots of the pie, of which only 5 came out. (Do non-bloggers take obsessive excessive pictures of pies?)
Looks like pumpkin pie. Smells like pumpkin pie. As soon as supper settles a bit more, we're going to see if it tastes like pumpkin pie.

And the title? I saved the squishy squashy guts and seeds and the scraped cooked peels for the chickens. They were very pleased.
So pleased, in fact, that a riot broke out when I set down the dish. A few of the smarter hens grabbed a piece of treat and sneaked off into a quiet corner with it. But the not-so-smart ones grabbed a piece and took off running, holding it high in the air, and squawking that they had the "Best Treasure Ever!!" Naturally the rest of the not-so-smarts took off after them, trying to take their treasures away. There was one big ring of chickens circling the coop, each of the hens who actually had something being followed by 3 or 4 empty-beaked hens squawking "Gimme-gimme-gimme!!"
Of course, there was a whole bowl of 'treasure' right in the middle of the floor. Chickens who knew enough to keep their mouths shut were happily chowing down...

Resurrected UFO

Remember this? When last this project saw the light of day, it was in a courtroom, while I waited for jury draw. (And I still don't believe they let me into a courtroom with those pointy little needles!)
In between blowing my nose, sipping tea, and reading yesterday, I pulled out that slipper and carried on a bit.That's the top, and this is the sole:

The pattern is sort of mitered square meets origami, and is a lot of fun to knit. (And please ignore that one of the squares on the sole is going the wrong way. I've made peace with that fact. Really.)

Finally, a down day

So I finally took a day off 'off'. I laid on the couch knitting and reading. (Oh, happy day! I checked out a Terry Pratchett book from the library that I thought I had read, and it turns out that I haven't! There are few joys greater than finding a Terry Pratchett book I haven't read yet.) I'm hoping this day of rest will pay off in feeling better tomorrow.
This cold is just kicking my ass...

The knitting is the resurrection of an old project. Photos tomorrow when it actually looks like something...

Ummmm.... Uh Oh

I sat bolt upright in bed at about 3 o'clock this morning. "Gah! Did I remember to post last night?!?"
Apparently not.
We had company - friends we hadn't seen in years. They came for supper and stayed overnight, and we had a blast. Talking and laughing, telling stories, playing remember-the-time. The guys have known each other since dirt was young, we ladies were folded in over the years. It was a thoroughly lovely evening, and I sort of forgot about the blog.
Is there a 'Get Out of Jail Free' card for NaBloPoMo?

I wish I'd said that...

This is the best knitting post ever written, hands-down. I can only dream of stating something so eloquently.

And now, I'm headed for the couch. Seriously. I feel better than I did Wednesday (then again, Wednesday I would have paid you to shoot me...) but I'm still fighting off this damned cold. Let the quilt-wrapping commence.

It was a simple plan.

Though some of you are familiar with my plans and their execution.

Let's review. My plan for today was:
1) Wrap up in a quilt and rest on the couch.
2) Watch season 4 of Lost.
3) Knit something. Anything. I wasn't picky.
4) Guzzle elderberry cough syrup.
5) Blow my nose. Repeatedly.

Of these five, I managed to accomplish two. Unfortunately, it was the last two.
What I did manage to get done was:
1) Caught up a little on my blog reading. I'm still roughly 1000 posts behind, but at least I know what some folk were up to through the end of August.
2) Went to the library. Had to - I had books that were due.
3) Made an experimental barbecue sauce for tomorrow night's supper. (It's a crockpot project, so the sauce had to be done today so I could fire up the crockpot in the morning before work.)
4) Finished baking the batch of cookies that I'd started earlier in the week. (Well, we were out of cookies. What's a brown bag lunch without a cookie?)
5) Ran an errand with Madman. Unavoidable.
6) Fed the sheep, forgetting to take the camera out with me. I noticed the other day that their fleeces are now hanging to their knees. All you can see is skinny little legs sticking out of a big puffball of wool.
7) Gathered the afternoon eggs, forgetting to take the basket with me. I ended up with eggs in both coat pockets, as well as a bunch cradled in the front hem of my sweatshirt. It could have ended badly. Very badly.
8) Stacked 84 sheep. (A new personal best.) (And thanks, Laurie, for the new obsession, BTW.)
9) Plied a little more of the merino-tencel. I didn't mean to. But I sat down, and next thing I knew, I had fiber slipping through my fingers. I don't know how it happened. Really.
10) Cooked supper. I was totally going to con Madman into cooking for me, but forgot.
11) Wrote a blog post. This one.

I'm going to go lay down on the couch now. Seriously, this time.