Autumn

 "Go, sit upon the lofty hill,
And turn your eyes around,
Where waving woods and waters wild
Do hymn an autumn sound."

 --"The Autumn," Elizabeth Barrett Browning









     WELL, Autumn hit like a sledgehammer this year ... a week ago it was 98, now it's 58. I don't mind -- I love Autumn best. I wish I had a fireplace so that I could enjoy it more. I'm not even bothered that Autumn means the eventual end of my pretty flowers ....

The lavender gets more spectacular every year. I've trimmed it back hard twice this summer, and taken multiple clippings, and it just gets stronger. Want to see what it looked like 3 years ago?

     Amazing how much it grows. This past winter, it was completely buried under the 84 inches of snow we received here, but it thrived nonetheless. I stupidly planted a miniature rose between the two lavenders. I haven't seen it since. I think the lavender just consumed it. Along the side, I planted allysum. I plant that every year, and it spills over and looks just lovely. This year I planted purple allysum (I thought it would please the local Ravens fans), but my garden fared poorly this year, so it wasn't as spectacular as it has been in previous summers.

     But summer is gone, and now I finally can wear all the warm knitted stuff that hides in the drawer from June through September (summers are a bit short here). For example, these socks ...

 No, my feet aren't horribly swollen. I have socks on underneath these. The yarn is that Vanna White acrylic. I've knitted many items with it, and it wears nicely. The colors are vivid, which doesn't come through clearly in this photo.

 

     Cold weather at night means I have to devise shelter for my stray kitties. There's one that lives on the back porch, and two on the front. Those little metal-hooded lights from the bigboxhomestore and a box is all I need to keep the kitties warm. I pad an empty box with whatever I have laying around (this year, it's carpet padding), aim the light into it, and voila! Warm kitties.

      This is Coraline (big sister to Petunia). She is a bizarre orange and black coloring. Her mother is orange and white, and her father ... well, no sire has come forth, but I suspect it was a black cat.

 

 WIP update...

 The Arachne cowl goes to my co-worker for her birthday this week. Hope she wears it! I have one just like it, made from alpaca. I finished mine during one of the blizzards earlier this year. This one is much prettier.

    The "Meeting Socks" continue apace ... they turned out too large (because I have no concept of gauge or scale), so I am knitting the entire leg in 2x2 ribbing hoping that will keep them up. Today I was knitting them while in a class at work. Just a couple more meetings, and I'll have them done!

     And, the think-outside-of-the-sox socks. Very slow going, and I always have a pucker problem when I knit with fine yarn, with stranded knitting. Don't know why I persevere, but I do.















   And, the plans to sell-house-buy-new-house continue, but first I have to fix this one up a bit. With great sadness, I painted over my lovely, bold, unique, cozy, red living room (pictured with cats at bottom of blog page) ... now it is this yawningly boring pale yellow. YAWN.

 

How boring is it? Well, I give you Exhibit A.  

 

     In closing, I invite you to visit my friend Melissa's blog. This past weekend, Melissa -- Navy veteran, mother of four with fifth on the way, home-schooling Air Force wife -- participated in the Honor Flight project. This past Saturday, WWII vets were flown to BWI and bussed into D.C. to see their memorial. Melissa was one of the "guardians" who assisted with this. She has written two posts about it so far. 

     Oh, and by the way --- I predicted this fifth baby in an earlier post, back in August. I won't embarrass Melissa by divulging information about the Night We Knew She Was Pregnant, but it was almost as funny as the salmon-black-cherry-ice-cream-salmon incident of 2008, which heralded her pregnancy with the lovely Maid Mairwyn, pictured here with one of her goofy brothers. I'm not sure what Middle Brother was thinking -- perhaps something along the lines of "Ewww, a girl!"