When Knitting Was a Manly Art

Finally working on bottom ribbing on the Aran.

I needed to decrease about 100 stitches prior to starting the ribbing and the pattern says to *not* decrease under the Moss Stitch sections on the sides. That would have meant all 100 stitches would need to be decreased across just the cable area at the front and back. Why? Not logical to force all the decrease there instead of spreading them around the whole sweater.

So.. I ignored the pattern and decreased evenly acrossed all stitches and right or wrong it’s done. Completed a single 2×2 ribbing row and I hope to make enough progress tomorrow to be able to post a photo. We’ll see…

After a very dry February, we go out with a bit of rain. Kind of nice, though. The dust is out of the air and everything smells fresh and new. Not enough to make a big impact on our shortages, but cool enough to require a small woodstove fire all day.

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7:45am – Light rain – Current temp. 44.2F(6.8C)

Max 59.9F(15.5C) – Min 43.2F(6.2C) — 0.08″/2mm precipitation

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8:00pm – Current temp. 44.2F(6.8C)
A wet day after a long string of unseasonably dry ones. More rain predicted for tomorrow. Much cooler also with highs in the mid 40’s.

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The body of the Aran is complete. Now for final decreases and 2 1/2 inches of 2×2 ribbing. I hope to post a picture on Tuesday.

We both needed a walk and so drove a couple miles up the road to a forest road gate and a walk through the woods. We’ve been trying to find a railroad grade that crosses Pumpkin Ridge Road above us. We started on what we are sure is the point that the grade crosses the road, but lost it a bit later when we came upon a new road that was cut through the woods. We did a bit of off road wandering trying to find the grade, but were unsuccesful. Still a nice walk.

And a few pretty little native violets along the way.

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8:15am – Light clouds – Current temp. 43.2F(6.2C)

Max 56.1F(13.4C) – Min 39.9F(4.4C) — 0″ precipitation

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9:15pm – Current temp. 50.7F(10.4C)
Light clouds all day, but the day was still warm and dry. Showers predicted tonight and tomorrow.

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Two more rounds and bottom ribbing begins on the Aran. I expect to finish those two rounds tomorrow morning. When the ribbing is truly started, I’ll post another picture.

The rest of the day was all nursery work. Watering.. Who would have thought that we’d be concerned about plants drying out this time of year. But February has been a very dry month and so I spent the better part of the morning watering the outside plants.

Afternoon was spent watering and weeding *our* plants. We have an area that we’ve been keeping stuff we’re interested in but in too small of quantities to be really for sale. Last year I bought a couple Black Violets and one of them produces an amazing amount of seeds and does a tremendous job of spreading them. I found seedlings 20-30 feet away from the original plant. It seems a shame to rip out all those wonderful, healthy seedlings, but when they start taking over the nursery, something has got to go. I save a couple gallons pots of the plant, but they’ll be isolated from the rest of the stock.

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8:15am – Fog/low clouds – Current temp 39.9F(4.4C)

Max 52.9F(11.6C) – Min 38.3F(3.5C) — 0″ precipitation

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8:30pm – Current temp. 45.9F(7.7C)
Another day that started cloudy and cool and ended warm and clear. Today cleared about 10am and we had a bit warmer day. Still no rain, though there’s a prediction for the early part of this coming week.

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8:30am – Overcast – Current temp. 40.3F(4.6C)

Max 61.3F(16.3C) – Min 37.0F(2.8C) — 0″ precipitation

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8:45pm – Current temp. 39.9F(4.4C)
A bit cooler today, with morning overcast. Clouds finally burned off about noon and we finally managed a mostly sunny with highs in the low 50’s.

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Another beautiful day on the ridge top and I spent most of day in t-shirt working on outside projects. Pruning fruit trees, general clean up, listening to the birds.

Eileen collects and grows carnivorous plants — Pitcher plants, Honeydews, Venus Flytraps. The most interesting of the flowers are the Pitcher Plants. Most are yellow-green, but this one is smaller and a very pretty red.

Hellebores are blooming

And the Japanese Butterbur is nearly in full blossom

And finally the Aran. Another two rounds completed. Maybe 3/4 inch until the start of the bottom ribbing. No more photo updates until the ribbing started.

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7:45am – Clear – Current temp. 38.7F(3.7C)

Max – 60.8F(16.0C) – Min 38.1F(3.4C) — 0″ precipitation

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7:30pm – Current temp. 48.4F(9.1C)
Reading the weather news from California and parts of the East Coast, I’m kind of embarassed to report another beautiful late winter day here in Oregon. Back porch a bit over 61F today and 90F in the greenhouse again today.

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when work gets in the way?

If I haven’t mentioned it before, we are the owners of a very small startup nursery. Because we are small we try to find the least expensive way (read cheap) to get things done.

We have found a local nursery supply that we can get soil from for about $2 cheaper/bag than our regular supplier, but… They really only want to mix up orders that are 5 pallet loads or larger. Now, 5 pallets of potting soil are about what we go through in two years and we really don’t want to buy that much in advance.

Eileen called the supplier earlier this week and was able to make a purchase of 3 pallets of soil, because they already had a customer for the minimum of 5. But.. It had to be moved when the order was complete.

Let’s see.. 3 pallets – 40 bags/pallet – 60lbs/bag. Now… counting on his fingers.. 3 X 40 X 60 = 7200lbs (3266Kg) of soil. The old fart moved them all – twice. Once off the trailer and onto the pickup and then from the pickup to the stacks in front of the greenhouse. Oh my aching back. The good news is that we’re set until sometime next year.

Flowers.
We’ve got naturalized Crocus in the yard and they’re blooming like they think it’s spring.

And as I’m photographing Crocus, I hear the heavy buzz of my favorite insect. A sweet, fat Bumble queen was rooting in the Crocus for nectar and pollen for her soon to be expanding brood. Probably the earliest we’ve had the Bumbles and a sure sign that winter is really over.

Knitting..
Nothing much. A couple rounds on Eileen’s Mexiko sock, I wound up some center-pull balls of sock yarn and I procrastinated on the Aran. Did I *actually* say a week to completion. Whatever…

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