Try To Remember That Kind Of...August?

I think between the new job and the new fuzzy family member, I just lost an entire month.

The month in review (as much as I can remember - it's pretty much a blur):

Honey has now been re-named Miele (Mee-Yell-Eh - though half the time we call her Millie. The other half of the time Brian calls her 'the bad idea'). Miele means Honey in Italian, so in a way we kept her shelter name.

She's doing really well. She loves Trouble:

We have had a guest doggie for past two weeks - meet Cleo. Miele loves him too:

Though sometimes she takes him for granted and uses him as a toy holder:

She came bouncing over to him with this rag I'd given her, got distracted and raced off, leaving him to wonder what the heck was going on.

She's usually rowdy in the mornings:





But she settles down eventually:

Which lets the other dogs catch a little shut-eye too:


And she's very snuggly (though if you embiggen you can see her devilish side as well):


The Puppy's Not The Only Thing Growing Around Here...

The fig tree has begun producing a fig or two each day, and it's a wonderful thing:

(A great combo by the way is a salad of Arugula, quartered fresh figs, and slices of fresh mozzarella, with a squeeze of lemon, a drizzle of olive oil and freshly ground pepper. Absolutely fab.)

We got pumpkins:

There's always zucchini on hand (or on the way):

We're finally getting tomatoes and hot peppers:

We grew everything for this salad except the cheese:

Though to make up for the healthful vegetable thing, we occasionally indulge in a bit o' baking:

Mmmm....banana muffins.....

I made those to take to Rachael's house where we spent a lovely afternoon crocheting afghan squares together. This is Rachael and the temporarily incapacitated and very talented Janine.

This is the beautiful afghan-in-process:

And this is the incomparably cute and appealing Miss Idaho:


I did a little socializing this weekend too. There was a little going-away party this afternoon for my best friend EVAR Tika, who sadly, is moving away.

This is Tika.

And this is me and Tika, being Best Friends EVAR:

No I'm not drunk in that picture. My eyes are super sensitive and it's nearly impossible to get a flash picture of me with my eyes open. That's my story and I'm stickin' to it.

It was a pretty industrious crowd at the party:


And I continued work on my Girasol:

It's actually a lot farther along than that. I started it Saturday and I'm nearly done the 3rd chart. It's a wonderful pattern and as it's a wedding gift for friends, I found some wonderful yarn for it. This is Blue Moon Fiber Arts' Lucious Single Silk (which is a merino/silk blend) in the Bleck color way, It has a touch more lavender than the picture; the skein shows it a bit better.

Before I started this, I was definitely mired in a knitting funk. Even new acquisitions that Kathy brought back for me from Sock Summit couldn't tempt me to pick up the needles (which is by the way, insane, because these are awesome). One is a hank of Rabbitch's Toe Jam sock yarn in the 'Revenge' Color Way, and the other is some hand-painted fiber that Kathy spotted and decided I should own. Poor me.



One afternoon and evening spent with Girasole however, got me hooked on knitting again. My mojo wasn't gone, it just needed to knit the right thing. The pattern is super simple to read and fun to knit. It's all I can think about and it's awfully nice to have the Mojo back!

Parting Shots

This is how we grow a lot in a small space, here at what my husband is now calling the Double D Ranch. But when you grow things vertically, you need to be prepared to support the fruit so it doesn't break the vine. For this job, my husband was very resourceful and found the perfect tool on eBay:



How else would one properly support one's melons?