A change of plans

You Know that rust yarn I have been working into the teal?  Its out.

Now that I have the sleeves done and can try it on again, I realized there is just not enough yarn in one skein to do what I need it to do.  So yesterday, I went scouting through the vast stash, looking for something else that would work, something that I had in greater quantities.  

I think I found it.  

It doesn't have the punch of the rusty orange, but it looks good with teal.  

I've just finished the sleeves and am about to start working on the rest of the body. First things first, will be a wider stripe just at the upper bust (It looks best when it doesn't hit right at the widest part of your bust). Next a series of narrower stripes through the body of the sweater.  The change in stripes gives shape and form and will I hope suit.  

If it doesn't work, there is one other option but that would mean reknitting the whole darn thing.  I'm not ready to give up just yet.  

Some Top Down Sleeves

If all you did was look at the pictures

You would think I did very little knitting.  Pictures don't tell the whole story.

This little sleeve was knit and reknit and reknit again.  I pulled about half of it out because the wrapped stitches were too tight and were pulling the fabric. Then I pulled it back because I it was too loose.  Then I knit it all the way, aplied the edging and tried it on.  Too tight. So I ripped back and redid once again.  And there may yet be one more reknit. 

There still is a couple of places where there is some unevenness, a sort of ripply look to the fabric.  It might be that my picked up stitches were too close together in that section.  Or not, but there is definitely something funky going on.  Sleeve 2 will tell the tale.  I paid much closer attention to the picked up stitches and if this one is better looking, sleeve one will be redone.  

About the only thing I know for sure, is that sleeve will not be any longer than you see here.  That little capped look used up much more yarn that I thought it would.  Much more yarn.

Though I did finish one sleeve, it was a frustrating day.  I found consolation.  

100% silk Rumple from Handmaiden and the Beaded Beauty Pattern from Holly Yeoh.  Sans beads.  Just a little something for my mom,  who will enjoy the silk even if she isn't sure she would wear a scarf rather than jewelery with her grey suit.

PS
It might sound as if I am not enjoying the sleeve knitting.  Not so.  If I wasn't having fun, the top would be buried deep in the dark bottom of the WIP basket.  Sleeves from the top down make so much sense.

Focus on the Needles

Though my mind is busy with what will be next, my hands are busy with one of the things I have on the needles.  It is simple knitting, just stockinette and a nice change from the patterning of the never ending Shetland Shawl edge. Simple doesn't mean without needing thinking.

I've skipped the collar and moved on to the sleeves of this top.  Part of it is concern for yarn quantities (the polo collar seemed to be taking a lot of yarn) and part of it is that I am just not certain that I really want a polo type shirt, even though that is what this top started out being.

And another part of it is serendipity.  I was digging in the cabinet for the green yarn I showed you yesterday, when I came across something very interesting.  

Webs Valley Yarns Colrain Lace.  The colour matches perfectly in daylight.  The difference you see in the picture seems to be a matter of sheen and perhaps, slight difference in intensity, but that doesn't show up in natural light. I am just so amazed at the matches I find to Colrain Lace. For every yarn in my stash there is a matching lace.  Or so it seems.  

I'm not sure how I would use it,  but maybe it will provide me a way to gain a precious inch or so of length.  By the time I get these sleeves done, I will have used much more yarn than I planned for (the sleeves seem to be gobbling up yarn like nobody's business) and if I decide to add the lace to the mix, the rich rust cotton is very likely out, making every inch of teal even more precious. 

I have to get the sleeves done before I need to make a decision.  If  I really wanted to know, I suppose I could do some math and calculate how many square inches I will get from how many grams of yarn remaining but that would be, ummmm, all mathy.

Nobody told me there would be this much math in knitting.  (There's probably tests too.)  All that math takes the joy right out  of winging it.  I'll probably just keep knitting and see what happens.  

PS, Sandra, thank you for you input with the yarn choices yesterday.  That is exactly what I was thinking and you have confirmed it.   Still not sure about how to use the yarns to their best advantage, but I'm going to keep looking till I find a pattern that is just right.

A cold day

Yesterday morning, it was cold and chilly, toque weather really, but I worked until it started to rain. I could do the cold.  I could do the wind.  What I could not do is cold and windy in the rain.  I came home to warm up and think about knitting.  

I have precisely one novelty yarn in my stash.  It really isn't a novelty yarn, just a lovely blended multi coloured thing. I love it dearly, and for a very long time, I knew just what I was going to do with it.  And now that the time is getting closer, I am not so sure.  

Just a quick colour note:  The yarn is not brown. It is a lovely olive green and though the photo doesn't show it, they look wonderful together.  

My plan was to have twining cables climbing up as you can see here. I have looked at this little swatch for a long time.  I like it, but I am not sure I can wear something like this.  I worry that the panels of multi would end up looking busy and fussy.  I don't want fussy.

I've also become concerned about the yarns.  I've learned a lot since I first thought this plan up, and now I have doubts.  One is a pure wool sport weight and the other is a linen-cotton-viscose blend.  Its fine for a swatch, but in a garment the size of a sweater, will the yarns work together?  I worry that the wide panels of the mixed fibre will sag in comparison with the wool.  

I did find a bargain cotton and I think the colours work.

 Far from what the photo shows, the green is a real cedar green, warm and lovely. There is a slight sheen to the cotton that will work well with the sheen in the multi and being cotton is a far better choice for with a mixed blend of plant fibres.  I still don't think the cabled panel plan will work.

. 

I'm leaning to a grown up version of this. Its Holly Yeoh's Jaimie, a sweater originally designed and knit with sock yarns, but I feel sure that its modular construction with uneven stripes will give me  some fun and some good structure for the cotton. I could even add a little texture by switching between garter and stockinette.  It would be casual and easy and would take advantage of the multis good qualities without allowing it to overhelm everything else.  

There is no rush.  There so seldom is in my personal knitting.  There are dozens of projects around here to knit, but this is one of several I could drop everything to play with.  I could, but I won't.  I really want to finish the tank.  I really want to finish the big Shetland Shawl. This next project is kind of a reward for finishing.        

What I can do, in the meantime, is swatch and play and somewhere over the next few days, I will.

Dirt between my toes?

Not at all.  Because I wear shoes.  And socks.  Planting in a field with some stubble still standing from last year would be murder without shoes.  But my ankles are a study in dirt that only a 4 year old could love.

The wind was up and down today and when it was down it could have been misery.  

I can still hear the buzzing of the swarms that stayed above my head all day today.  They stayed near my head just in case.  I mean who know when a patch of white tasty human skin will stick out?  The mosquitoes here are voracious and plentiful, and they would eat you alive if you stood still without a good layer of deet.  I was prepared.  I bought bug spray before the stores ran out last weekend.   

I know a lot of people won't use it anymore but that only works if you live in cities and towns where they either spray or have a good program for keeping the area free of standing water.  Remember the creek on the front of our property?  Its down to very sluggish or still pools. Mosquito breeding country. 

Deet is my best friend.  (But only when I absolutely need it.  I know.  I'm fickle.)

A long weekend

We planted our hearts out and barely scratched the surface.  We got trees and potatoes in, but there still is a nice little bunch of spruce to plants, and I think it is going to be up to me to get that done a few at a time.  Somewhere about 3 pm on Saturday, I was heard to mumble 'who thought this *insert curse of choice* thing up'.  My dear husband ungallantly pointed in my direction.

Today I have to go out to find something to mark the rows so that he can work between them later, and then, off to the garden.  There still is corn, peas, onions, and few other things to put in.  All the tender things will wait, unless I find some hotcaps or other frost protection on my jaunt today.  

There has been knitting too, though it isn't what I thought I would be knitting on.  The wool of the shawl is catchy and my hands are a little rough right now.  I picked up some cotton knitting and that seems to be working up easier.  

 I'm trying to knit a polo shirt but I realized too late that I left out too many stitches for the bands.  That stopped this project for a long while, so its been good to knit on it again.  The two bands will be laced together, I think.  So far so fair.  Proof will be when I get the collar done and can try it on.  Then to the severely short sleeves, and then to knit and see how far the yarn will take me.  

I know I am skirting the bounds of yarn quantities here.  I started with 4 balls of the teal when I really should have had 5 to get the length I want.  Once collar andsleeves are done, once I know how much I have left, I will be able to judge just what I have to do to make the teal go farther.  

See the little stripe in the button band?  The same stripe will be appearing in the collar and on the sleeves.  It is part of the plan to get more distance out of the yarn I do have.   The plan right now is to put in a few stripes of rust in the mid section to help the teal go farther.  I am thinking stripes a la Tempest, narrow at the mid section.   And if that doesn't look right, then it will be hippy stripes of rust among the teal.  

My other option is to simply accept that this will be a short top (not fond of this choice).  One way or another, it will be a top I can wear.  It will also be a learning experience and that is never a bad thing.  

Its time to get this day begun.  Off I go into the wild garden yonder.  

Farming

I say that with tongue in cheek, you know.  I'm not farming, nor do I intend to.  I did that and this is nothing like the scale farming requires, nothing like the comittment that farming requires, to bet once again on the season being fair.  Farming is not what this is.  This is play.

What I am doing is gardening.  And a lot of what I am going to be doing this weekend, has little to do with gardening, it has more to do with trees.

This weekend we are planting a bunch of trees that arrived this week.  Mostly fruit trees, and berry bushes,  raspberries, cherries, saskatoons, but there are alos a bunch of trees that we are moving from here over to the farm.  

Remember this?  

Not the big trees, the wee ones that pop up every time we turn around here. We never did get around to taking them out and then when the land happened last year, we decided to leave them and move them once we had things organized.  Things are organzed,  Mostly.  This weekend we are going to be moving them and a lot of other small seedlings.  Birch, hazelnut, the occasional small poplar.  These all have popped up in planters and in the mulched areas around here.  So the big move is happening this weekend.  

We missed the farmstead tree order this spring by a few weeks, but next year there will be some good old fashioned Northwest poplar, some laurel leaf willow,  different varieties of spruce.  While I crave the long views and plenty of sunlight, what a good sensible farmyard needs is a windbreak.    

This weekend I shall play arborist, but it is also time to get my flower pots planted here.  By Monday I should be ready to start the garden proper, so this next week or so, there will be plenty of garden, but little knitting.

The knitting I am doing is on the Shetland Shawl.  I am about 20 stitches from the second corner and am really looking forward to the turn.

Way back when , one of my quests was to explain the dirt between my toes.  Now I seek only to put more there.  This is a good thing.

The vest you ask?

Brenda of the comments asked yesterday if I had finished my husbands vest.

Sigh No.  It sits there in a wee basket all its own taunting me, saying not a word but speaking loudly none the less.  I don't have that much to do on it.  I have only the upper body but I have not worked on it a day since last summer.  

I know I mentioned the way the days I worked went through most of the fall.  I worked my regular Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays but for many weeks in a row, I also worked Mondays.  It still gave me 3 days off each week, but for weeks, I did not have 2 off together. I found that so incredibly wearing, to the point when asked to do it again after Christmas, I cried.  I would have been glad to do it, but somehow, there was just nothing left to give. I think it is connected to the over stimulation, the incredible energy that I felt working with knitters searching for yarn.  

My very forgiving hubby's vest has been a victim of that.  I found that following the pattern was hard.  Hard on my eyes, hard on my brain, hard to do when I had no down time after a day of recovery.  Overstimulating. 

Colourwork is like playing a grand symphony.  It is wonderful and marvelous and deeply compelling. There is a pattern to follow flawlessly, there are colours of yarns to change, there is the rhythmic music that flows through you as you create magic on your needles.  Just thinking about it, I can feel that energy weaving it mystic spell.

Knitting lace is a sort of play.  It is fun and challenging and relaxing.  Even the tinking back is fun.  Irritating, but fun so long as you can discover what you did that caused you to reknit yet again.  Ishbel, for all my problems reading the charts, was fun.  

But the colourwork?  The colourwork demands more.  Colourwork at this sort of scale, demands everything and then it asks for just a little more. And for a very long time, I had no more to give.  I was ready only for the relaxing, peaceful joys of garter stitch.        

There is magic in colourwork, but when I get there I want it to be right.  The fall upcoming will be the third fall I have been promising the vest, thinking about it and working on it. It needs to be finished.  

Maybe my plan should be to take it with me camping this summer, where the colourwork can be finished in the great and peaceful glory of the high country.  Where there is nothing more demanded of me than making a meal here and there and to keep the coffee hot, where I scoot my chair around through the day, seeking the sun.  Maybe my plan should be to take it where I have no choice but to work on it.

Two (or 3) extra balls of each of the colours is a bag.  All I need to do, is tuck in the basket with the partially knitted vest and the book and the van is packed for summer knitting.  I will tuck in a little emergency knitting too, but that is only in case of a real emergency, for instance if I finish and have nothing to knit (oh, the horror!). 1 ball of sock yarn is the limit.  

Camping isn't that far away.  I am already starting to air and pack the van.  It's been a real pleasure to spend time this morning thinking about summer knitting, focusing on this marvelous work in progress, firming up a hazy plan for when to get to it.  I have not felt the need to push aside the thought and close my ears to its siren calls.  Must be that I am finally ready.  

Brenda, I owe you one.  Maybe two. Thank you.

Moving on

I realized something yesterday.  I realized that I hate binding off. There is something about the physical, technical actions of it that irritates me.    

But there is also a kind of regret that comes when you have to say goodbye to a nice yarn and the feel of it flowing through your fingers.  There is joy that you have a finished object, but mixed in with that dance is the smallest bit of sorrow.

There is also the possibility that I made all those silly mistakes while knitting Ishbel and reading her charts, to avoid finishing.  Because I know how I feel when finishing.

I swatched a few things and pondered what is next, but didn't really find anything I felt the urge to keep on working with.  I stared a little at parts of the stash but could not find an project and yarn that that spoke to me.

So today, I will sluggishly block Ishbel, and I will sort out what is next.  I will work on the Shetland shawl and its1600 rows of knitted edging (200 stitches per side x 4 sides x 1 row attached and one row unattached = 1600 stitches and I am rounding down.  There are more than 200 stitches per side.) I have plenty to keep me busy.

There is also a pair of socks waiting to knit.  Mays socks are sitting there, quietly.  Might do some work on socks today too.  Plenty to do.

Dear Ishbel

Dear Ishbel,

I loved knitting your plain stockinette part.  Your increases filled me with delight.  The cool green mottled yarn was meant for you.  

And then I met your charts. Ishbel, you are driving me batty.  Knit one row, take it out.  Knit tow rows, take it out because the first row is wrong, only it looked like it was ok after the knitting. Reknit a whole section because you aren't sure.  

These are just variations of what I have been doing while knitting amongst your charts, and Ishbel, I am not happy. I have already knit each chart, except chart C several times.  I am seriously thinking about reknitting chart C, because I have one too many stitches on one side and one too few on the other and it matters.

I think that is the problem, Ishbel.  You require perfection and I struggle with it.  You require counting to 2, and I struggle with that too.

I will devote this one last day to you without resenting it.  Some might call you a speedy knit.  Two evenings at moms, plus a morning of charted agony. A good hearty day of slogging through charts here at home.  Not too bad, though, if you would knit up peacefully, with 'gentlemen like manners', I might still consider you speedy.  

I look forward to finishing you.  I can't wait to see your pretty little lace blocking.  I know I am going to love your yarn against my skin. But Ishbel, if you could just see it clear to granting me a little grace, so I could get through the rest of you without issue, you would be a whole lot more delightful than I currently find you.  

With respect,

Your knitter.  

PS
You granted grace.  This morning found I could count to 2!  Isn't it funny how that happens.

Home again, home again, jiggety, jig

Back home and back to work.  Or I would be if it wasn't so darn windy.  I did do a little raking the other day, but the wind kept blowing things around.  It is just going to have to wait.  There might be a small nook, well sheltered from the wind, that I can rake today, but only if the wind isn't so gusty as it was yesterday.  

There won't be any garden work either till the wind goes down a little.  Behind before I have begun. Sounds like farming!

I had a lovely week at Moms.  I had a chance to visit all my sisters and an aunt.  Dad and I went adventuring and mom and I went shopping.  It was lovely.  

There was knitting beside the stop at my Saskatoon LYS. 

Remember these lovely yarns?  The Yellow was made into the lovely Oscilloscope and now the rich warm cashmere is in progress and so is the lovely absinthe Madelinetosh.  

I have all the plain knitting done on the cashmere Trauco.  I worked several rows of the charts, but as everyone knows, the charts are not right, and I am going to have to go back to the written work.  Not visiting knitting.

Then I began the Madelinetosh.  It will be an Ishbel.  The plain parts are done, and I am enjoying the knitting.  Sort of.  

Ishbel demands you pay attention so it isn't visiting knitting either.  But that story deserves a whole page all on its own.

Hanging Out

I'm still posting from dads computer, so no photos from me this week.  But just think of all the good things I will have pictures of next week. 

Visiting is hard work.  I've been practising saying no to all the good food people ply me with.  I did pretty well too, till last night.  I forced my sister to choose the restuarant, which she really hates to do, and then suddenly she said, maybe we should just do desert and coffee.  So, off we went to a long time favourite,  Alexanders, which is just off Collge Drive near the Field house and across the University. We did a sensible dinner, but oh yes, there was desert.  Mmmmmmmm Peanut Butter Pie.  I am sure that heaven includes not just Peanut Butter Pie, this peanut butter pie.

I should have know I was weak.  There was a small incident at Prairie Lily Yarn and Weaving just before dinner.  I did well...and so did the Prairie  Lily lady. An even deal, though I went home with yarn....OK I won.  She has some glorious things in stock.  Some Prarie Fibre Mill Alpaca Laceweight that is quite breaktaking. Drops Lin was another delightful little gem.  I have enough of it to do a nice summer something.  Really a stunning yarn.  I managed to get out without any Viking Alpaca Silk.  The Alpaca Silk was a real stunner.  I was feeling really under control.

Then I went into the back.  I think she reserves little pockets of goodness all over the store to catch the unwary and the weak off gaurd. 

I spied a nook of tweedy goodness.  Llama Silk from Diamond Yarns Luxury Collection.  Its a chunky tweedy little corner of heaven here on earth.  Fell kind of hard there but it might just be worth it.  Ok it is absolutely worth it and I feel a little guilty. But not much.

The good thing about Saskatoon besides all the family, the conversation and the very very good food and desert, is that Saskatoon only has one full service yarn store. I should be able to ignore one little store in a whole city, right? Even if that one store is calling my name from way across the river.  I am going to keep myself distracted so I don't go back.  But oh if you are in the mood for a fall off a yarny wagon, what a lovely place to fall.        

I have arrived

It was a greatday to drive across the prairies.  Sunny and breezy and just nice.  There are farmers in fields all overthe place and not a bit of snow left anywhere. 

I'm just popping in to say I made it, and if I get hold of my brother will be able to connect to the internet from my laptop instead of moms.  Then I will post pictures and stuff. 

Right now I have to go out for coffee.  Its a tough job but some one has to do it.

Road Trip!

I'm heading on a bit of a road trip today.  I'm heading out to visit my mom and dad.  Mr. Needles is staying home, so I can pack my car with all sorts of good things to take along.  

I'm going to take along some reading material. The Margaret Stove Lace Book and Estonian Lace are tagging along, as is the Book of Wool, Knitting Plus and some Noraha Gaughan and Elsebeth Lavold books.  I'm generally trying to sort out what I am going to knit after I finish this shawl.  I know I want to knit a sweater, but seriously, one ought to knit in summer for winter and in winter for summer, since it always seems that we finish up sweaters just as the season changes and the garment is no longer suitable for the weather.  The lace books are just for fun.  Maybe, just maybe someone will really like something and then I can be sneaky and knit it for them.  

 I'm also taking along some new small shawls for my travel knitting.  The rich rusty cashmere is coming and so is the green yarn.  

The rust is for a Victorian Shoulderette, and the green will be an Ishbel.  (The Ishbel has a story behind it which I will save for another day)

It is my Monday morning spinning session with a friend, and I won't be coming home after that, so I guess my spinning wheel will be with me.  I don't know if it will get any use, I worry about weirding people out, but I am going to be sure I have ample fibre along with me just in case.  

I am taking along my needle portfolio. There is sure to be time when I can sneak out to the Prairie Lily , my home away from home LYS.  They might have something that just demands to be knit.  You never know.  One cannot be too prepared.  Going for s couple of days, prepared for several months is my motto.

What isn't coming with me is the Shetland Shawl.  A few days away from it will be good for my soul.  When I come back, it will be time to start working outside in earnest.  The Shetland edging is going to be just the right sort of edging for finishing in the evenings after a good long day outside.

I have words

I just finished the first side of the outer lace edging.  Mr. Needles was standing right there.

I have knit in front of this man for 4 years.  I have crocheted in front of him for more than 30.  I have sewn and quilted and spun and not once, not once, did his eyes not glaze over and his mind not wander somewhere else while I prattled on effusively.  (It's OK. I do it when he talks hunting and such)

I took one corner and held as much as I could, as wide as I could and then held the rest up.

Mr. Needles eyes did not glaze over.  He was almost impressed.

Big.  Did I mention that it is BIG?

Wow

There are almost no words.

I am so pleased with it.  Just at the very top, you see the small open work triangles that make up the inner lace edging.  You get a feel for the gloriously deep mid-lace edging, and you can see exactly how much I did of the outer lace edging. A stunning design.

Without really pinning it out, without opening up any of the lace properly (all I really did was pin it flat), the lace edging is well over a foot wide. It took up about 2/3 of the square tile.  According to the pattern, the lace edging should be about 22 inches deep, and I have absolutely no doubt that it will be. 

This is going to be a big shawl.  

There is that word again.  BIG.  Spring 2011.  The season of big.  

All Shetland, All the Time

It was a day of hard slogging on the Shetland Shawl yesterday.  I have one round of patterning, 3 plain knit rounds and a round of eyelets to knit and I am done the middle lace edging. I had kind of hoped to finish yesterday.  Still, I had 'that' feeling. 

You know the one that says even though you know you are close and you would love to get there, put it down or you will pay in mornings cruel light?  Yes that one.  I  chose wisely.      

The knit rows, which till now have been a bit of a solace, have become long and tedious.  With this number of stitches, the pattern rows feel downright peppy in comparison.  Getting to the end of this section will make me feel like a conquering hero.

Next up, the outer lace Print o' the Wave edging. I know that just as these last rows of mid-lace edging go slowly, the outer edging may yet drive me batty.  I hold on to the hope that its fewer stitches and quick turns on rows,  will carry me through.  I look forward to the ebb and flow of the repeats too.  When you focus on the repeats ending and beginning again, the knitting feels like it goes fast even when it isn't.  

I will finish this section today.  I ought to have photos for you tomorrow.  I also hope that I have time to do a repeat or two of the outer edging.  It would be nice to get a feel for it before I set it down for the day.  

Still, I hope I don't fall into knittings little trap, where you are having such a good time that you don't listen to 'that ' feeling, even when you know you should.  I hate when that happens.

May it be a day of wise choices.    

A couple of busy days

After a couple of busy days, this morning, I can finally sit still.  And I plan too.  I might even make some coffee later.  Coffee is a rare event these days.  

This afternoon might find me outside the house working on one flower bed, which seems to be dry.  

There is  only the Shetland Shawl to knit on and while it is good, it does not make for good knit blogging.  It occurred to me yesterday, that this might be as close as I ever come to knitting a pattern exactly as it is written.  Right number on the centre, right number on the mid-edging lace, and we shall see about the outer lace edging.  

This is a big shawl but it is such a pleasure to knit.  I love the yarn, I love the pattern, the needles are OK.  Its a great time to be knitting.

Updated:  Oh yes there will be coffee.  There is a new Savvy Girls podcast!

Time to farm

Yes it is time to farm. Eventually the new place will be a retirement home, but it will also be a retirement project.  It will give us something to work together on, to play together on and just to have a little bit of fun with.  Its a good investment besides.  

And though we were starting to wonder, spring showed up! You saw our Easter Sunday photos.  This is a week later.  

out the front door

out the back door

And most revealing of the enormous change, 

the site of the Easter egg hunt.

When it decides to go, it goes.  No whimpering allowed.  The weather has been decidedly springlike, coolish, windy, but no heavy overnight frosts.  The ground is warming rapidly.

Though I did knit yesterday, I did not knit much.  I had lunch with my favourite knitters, I spun with a friend, I stopped at the yarn store, but it just wasn't a knitting sort of day.   

My plan for today is to get the Shetland Shawl to a knit row before lunch, do some housework, and then head to town for errands and knitting where I will knit 1 row.   

It is time to farm. It is time to go play in the sunny open fields.  It is time to wake up this lovely shady yard.   

A farm weekend.

Ever since we became farm owners again, at least once a week, we head over and check things out.  It is reminiscent of the Sunday drives of my childhood. It is casual and relaxed with no defined purpose and no real goal. Instead of ice cream at the end, there is usually coffee at the beginning. It usually is the first thing we do on those laid back days.    

That is at an end now.  The ground is more or less dry and it is time to refine and set some of our plans and it is time to get to work.  

Before we could plant anything or work anything up, we had to decide where we would put a the yard and where we would situate the house. 

It will be somewhere out there.  Yup.  Good decision.  Really definite looking.  

Its kind of hard to show in photos.  There really were a couple things to consider and look at.  Placement of the yard will determine style of the house, cost of putting in the yard, water, septic.  It may not look like a lot.  It may not show up in photos.  But with this one decision, a whole host of other things are settled.

Time to get to work on the garden.  It is time to play in the dirt.