Winter's Here!

Swampy Bush
Originally uploaded by Beaker's Stained Glassworks

We had a beautiful Indian Summer this year so we really can't complain. We are starting to get proper winter weather now. This picture was from the other morning. I was heading home after having morning coffee with my town buddies and where Southgate Road 71 ends and 4th Line SW Melancthon begins there's this swampy bit. Deer cross here ALL the time. Even I clipped one with the VW. He didn't even slow down to look at me. I'm sure I only gave it a sore bum for a few days.


I got all the wood stacked against the house. After I had piled a bunch of it I stopped so Rusty could build some kind of structure around it. Well, he built a structure alright! It's better than the addition on our house...lol. Well, not really but it's close! He put up a plywood roof and sides and then shingled the top to match the house. On the open side, he has two big green tarps. Let's see how that goes, There might be some type of better side next year.

I'm finding it colder than I ever have before. I'm sure it's due to the weight loss. Just gives me a reason to knit more warm things!

I'm going on a weekend women's retreat to a place in Bracebridge. It's normally used for quilters but they rent it out occasionally to knitters. I believe there are 11 of us total going from the shop. I'm really looking forward to it. I'm sure I'll get out and about while I'm there, I intend on taking my snowshoes and camera.

I've been enjoying getting in touch with old friends via Facebook. It's really an incredible thing. I'm lucky because there really isn't anyone that I really don't want to hear from. I don't hold grudges against people. I've been chatting with a friend from back in the Meadowvale days. Laurie and I have been friends for a long time but we drifted apart for a number of reasons about the time her son was born. Well, almost 16 years have passed and Voila! There she is on Facebook!! It's been a blast chatting and catching up and hope to see her again soon. We've got to get the scanner out and scan a crapload of pictures so we can share them all. Sounds like a fun thing to do on a stormy winter day near a warm fire (and maybe a bottle of White Zinfandel.)

Today we're in a storm warning although I see blue sky and white clouds out there right now but from what they're predicting...uhoh. 30-50 cm of snow over the next 2 days?? Wow, that's a lot of snow. Even for here! My big weather vanes are telling me it's gonna snow too. The windmills are facing Barrie (North-East) and when they do, we get snow. Let's see if it holds true today because as I said, the sky is blue with white puffy clouds.

Well, back to the housework, laundry, ironing, vacuuming, you know...normal stuff...lol. My guys didn't come home last night because of the weather so I have food for tonight so I don't even have to leave here today at all! YAY.

:o)

Global warming??

Right now I'm not sure you could convince me about global warming...lol.

It's cold enough here to require a fire almost every day now. Sheesh, not sure my 3 bush cords is gonna last the winter! I like to hold off until the end of October before I start burning fire wood.

I was to a wedding in Collingwood yesterday. It was a lovely ceremony of James and Meegan, new friends from town. They were married outside so weather was a factor. It was quite overcast, windy and cold yesterday but just before the ceremony was about to begin, there was a break in the clouds and the sun even showed up for a while. It was very beautiful but still a tad chilly. The altar where the ceremony took place was only a few feet from Georgian Bay! Just at the end of the ceremony, two Trumpeter Swans landed on the bay behind the altar!! Holy crap, I asked them how much they had to pay for that!! hahahah.

Unfortunately my hubby was still sick with the flu/cold so I went stag. He would have been my DD so I had to be a good girl and keep it to two beers. Those who know me should be proud of me! I stuck to my guns, and had only the two.

Today I decided it's time to start planning the lamps for the house. I want to make one that will hang above the love seat in the living room and another one for a wonderful glass lamp that a friend (Jimmy-bob) gave me. It has a large round clear yellow glass base on it so I'd like to make a shade that would match.

Rusty is outside fixing my old truck. The solenoid went in it last week. Of course this happened when I was in town WITH one of my dogs. It would turn over but the started wouldn't catch. I called the tow truck guy I know and then went to the bank machine to get some cash to pay him. When I got back to the truck (remember now, I cranked it over for about 20 minutes) I thought I'd try..."One last time" Well, lo and behold ~ it started! I quickly called the tow guy back and canceled the truck. I guess it's a good thing that we replaced the battery in the truck last year. I'm concerned that now it's gonna start nickel and diming me now. The old F150 has very few clicks on it (123K) but it's getting a little long in the tooth. It's now 18 years old! I hope it makes it through another winter. Even though it's 2WD, I just toss in 3-400 lbs of sand/gravel in bags into the box strategically placed over the rear axle and it just plows through everything! It's a great old truck even though it has a crappy, easily misaligned front end.

Well, I guess I better get into the pattern books and check out what I can make for a hanging lamp. It's so dark on the love seat that it makes it hard to knit at night and that's where I like to sit and there's no room for a side table there really.

Have a great day, keep warm!
:o)

Um, yup...I'm still alive.

Wow, been a long time since I blogged. I've got blogstipation.

Been busy lately.

My oldest lad, Mike and I went on a wee road trip to visit a friend near North Bay. We had a great time. I got to properly meet my friend Loony and her family. Mike went fishing from the shore of Callander Bay. He caught a 10 pound Northern Pike! Wowee...that's a biggie.

Here's a pic of the fish:

Once back here, the work began.

First I got a commission to do a stained glass corner piece. It's been a while since I made a 120 piece item. My hands got a little sore! I love the piece he selected and the glasses we used just made the piece. Here's a picture of the completed Grapevine Corner piece:



In addition to stained glass, I have many knitting projects on the go and I'm also the webmaster for my local yarn store. I've been updating their website and hope to be publishing a large group of changes early next week. Stay tuned for the new Woollys Yarns Website.

This weekend is busy too. Tomorrow we have a wedding to attend in Collingwood. I need to get to Orangeville in the morning to weigh-in and then stop by the yarn store to pick up a ball of yarn to finish the socks I'm making for Loony's hubby. It's a great yarn that I'm using on these socks, looks wonderful worked up and feels really warm. My youngest son saw the one sock that's already made and asked who it was for...hahaha. "Hint, hint." he said to me!

Here's a picture of the first sock completed. I'm at the heel flap on the second one.



I'll try to be a good blogger and blog more often. It's one of those things that is on the To Do list but keeps getting bumped to the next day's list.

Have a nice weekend!!
B :o)

The Bad News Bees

OMG, OMG, OMG...and I didn't get a picture of it.

I was sitting at the table in the kitchen reading my email and drinking a cup of tea and I heard a strange sound. I thought to myself, "What the heck is coming up the driveway now?" Thinking it was some type of farm equipment or tractor or something. I looked up at that point and looked out the window. To my horror it was a massive swarm of bees all flying madly around like they were really super pissed at something!! My first thought is KILLER BEES on a rampage. I SCREAMED for Buddy as he was just previously outside sound asleep on the deck. I ran from one end of the house to the other making sure all openings were closed off so they couldn't come in the house.

Still I don't have Buddy, he's nowhere to be seen and of course with my morbid imagination, he's dead on the ground after being horribly stung by bees. The bees, still flying around MADLY, went past the side entrance and then headed around the corner of the house. You could easily hear the mad buzzing through all the closed windows. The other three dogs who were previously sleeping in various locations around the house are all freaking out and barking. Partially due to the bees and partially due to me freaking out and screaming for Buddy who still hasn't shown up.

I ran back to the front door and very carefully opened it and looked for the mad swarm. I didn't see it on this side of the house so I yelled again for Buddy. This time he comes around the corner and runs into the house. His fur was all standing up on his back so I guess they freaked him out too and he headed for the hills until they passed the house.

Now there is no sign of them. I don't hear them. I hope to hell they don't come back!

Hmm, on a side note, I wonder if I should be reporting this to someone. MNR or whoever. What are your thoughts on this? Should I contact the Ministry and report a huge swarm of rogue bees? I fear that if they approached someone, they wouldn't hesitate to sting. They were super pissed.

3/4 of an hour has passed since this incident (which only lasted a couple of minutes, maybe less) and my heart is still beating hard and my hands are all shaky! Freakin' bees.

After 3 days of cutting

After 3 days of cutting
Originally uploaded by Beaker's Stained Glassworks

Well, it's finally done! Yay, the lawn is cut...lol. Doesn't take much to make me happy eh?

Good thing I got it done yesterday, currently we are experiencing some pretty intense thunderstorms.

There was so much grass that I don't think it's possible for my tractor to mulch the cuttings back into the lawn. I may need to rent a power sweeper or something. I just can't imagine trying to rake 3 acres by hand.

Well I guess it's a good day for inside stuff. It's too humid to wash floors but I still have enough stuff to keep me out of trouble for the day :-)

Tonight is our Fingers & Toes class at Woollys Yarns in Shelburne. I think we're learning toe up socks tonight...not sure. I will blog and post pictures of what we're doing later. I've been trying to finish up the other Feather & Fan sock made with hemp yarn. I'm at the heel flap on it so there's not that much left to do.

Well, I've been into town for my coffee and breakfast. My dogs are all sleeping in various locations around my house staying away from the thunder. I've checked my mail both electronic and the stuff in that box at the end of the driveway, posted some pics, now it's time to get some housework done...lol.

The thunder sounds far away now and it just got a whole lot brighter outside so maybe this will clear off and I can hang my laundry on the line rather than using the dryer.

l8r
:o)

Revenge of the Lawn

Long time, no blog. I'm a bad blogger person...bad bad bad. LOL. It's funny really. When I'm sitting on the lawn tractor for hours on end, I compose these awesome, articulate blog posts in my head. When I sit down in front of the computer to type them up, the only thing that comes to mind is "duuuuuhhhhh."

The summer so far? Rainy, thunderstormy, weird weather. We had so many thunderstorms in a row that the river that runs across the lawn in the spring was back with a vengeance! At the tail end of these thunderstormy days, I got some type of flu. I was down for the count for 5 days. It was horrible. I feel back to normal for the most part now, just get a little light headed from time to time still.

Well, all this rain has made for a very lush lawn indeed! Holy crap! I tried to cut with the secondary tractor as my Craftsmom was still down. We got the part in the mail to fix the blade assembly and Rusty put it back together for me. I got into the thick part where the river runs across the lawn and the cutters got stuck and I had much burning belt. The cutters wouldn't dis-engage so I ended up damaging the drive belt. It was a really old belt to begin with and needed to be replaced anyway so off Rusty goes to town to get another belt. I head back into the house as the little red tractor will not even go through this thick lawn. He comes back and puts on the new drive belt. After he puts the new belt on, he tries to start the tractor. Nope! The starter motor fried....lol..the Gods don't want me to cut my lawn!

Off on the road again, this time to a friend who does small engine repair to see if he has a starter motor for my wee Craftsmom tractor. Yup, sure enough...Chris has the part we need and back he comes home.

So after all this running around, I have my Craftsmom tractor back up and running. It's like a little bush hog on wheels, you can cut almost anything with it. I've finished the first cut and am about 25% of the way on the second cut.

I think I'm done for today though. My ears are ringing and I'm a wee bit sun burned. According to the weather network, it should be nice for at least the first part of tomorrow. I should be able to finish the rest of the lawn then.

Last week we had a nice unexpected visit from my brother and his family. They came on July 1st after he got off work. They live in Windsor which is a good 4½ hours away so the sun had just finished setting when they got here. We had a small fireworks display for Canada Day.

The next day they headed out to Inglis Falls for a day trip, I stayed back on the farm to get a few things done. The next day we went on a wee road trip. First to Markdale in the morning to have breakfast at Sidekicks Cafe. They make awesome food! If you're near Markdale, Ontario, and it's between the hours of 6 am and 2 pm, you should drop in and try something! We went from there to Meaford via some back road. Along the way we stopped to take pictures of Canola fields and Georgian Bay. We went along Highway 26 (I think) from Meaford to Collingwood where we attended our favourite store on the main drag, Altered Native. Oh yeah, we stopped at WalFart too...lol. We then headed back to the farm. Unfortunately my bro had to work the next morning at 7 am so they had to head back to Windsor around 7 pm. :-( Too short a trip.

It's so quiet here right now. Rusty and one son are in the shed fixing something (imagine that!), youngest son gone out with friends, oldest son not home this weekend. All the dogs are strewn about the floor in here sound asleep except Buddy who is on the deck just outside the door, also asleep.

There's a nice breeze coming in through the open windows and it smells so fresh and clean. I love living here! I can't imagine living anywhere else.

I promise to try and blog more frequently. Even if it's just a few words about what I'm working on.

:o)

Life is a Paradigm Shift

I wasn't sure what I was going to use this blog for when I first started it, and I'm still not totally sure but for now it can just be the place for thoughts to go. I'm not sure who (if anyone) even reads my blog but I've decided that it doesn't matter if anyone reads it, it's a place for me to get my thoughts out of my head.

A lot of things have changed for us in the last 5 years, more than changed in the previous 20 years we have been together.

I got laid off from my 20 year job in 2002 and I started Beaker's Stained Glassworks then. I opened the studio on Lakeshore Blvd West in Toronto July 1st, 2002.

During this time, unknown to me, my hubby was scoping out this property that he had been watching for 3 or so years. We went and looked, fell in love, listed our big house in the city and moved our three sons (12, 14 and 16 at the time) 100 km north to near Dundalk, Ontario. The moved occurred at the end of November 2002 but only I moved up here at first (with Buddy). We let the kids finish out 2002 and have Christmas at school with their friends and all that in the city and then moved them up here. We still had the house in Mississauga until April 30, 2003 so the move was painless. We just moved a bit at a time.

So now we live on a 200-acre grain farm in Melancthon Twp just southwest of Dundalk. We have a tenant farmer who has crops here every year. He's a great guy and I love to see the stuff growing.

I was a life-long smoker. I tried to quit on a number of occasions but failed each time. In January 2004 I made the decision that I would quit for good during that year. I went to see the doctor in Mississauga and he gave me a prescription for Zyban. Well, it worked for me! I've now been more than 4 years cigarette smoke free!! That really feels good to say that now...I'm SMOKE FREE!! I get sick less now and hardly ever get colds anymore! Yeah, I gained a little weight with quitting but I was already grossly overweight.

That brings me to the big changes that started in November of 2007. I decided it was finally time to do something about the 100 excess pounds my poor old body has been carrying around for just WAAAAAAAY too long (more than 20 years!) and I joined Herbal Magic in Orangeville.

Well, I must say that it is going VERY GOOD! As of last Saturday (April 19th) I am down 60 pounds. Yup I said sixty....the big six-zero!! Sixty pounds gone forever!! I can feel the energy coming back, my knees don't hurt anymore, my ankles aren't crying out in pain and my feet finally don't feel like someone's driving metal stakes into them!! My clothes are literally falling off me! TeeHee, giggle, giggle. I feel soooooo great!!

The years and years of chronic depression are fading. I've been battling it for a long time. I'm not a pill taker (well, other than the Zyban that helped me to quit smoking) so pharmaceuticals are out of the question so it just kinda got worse and worse until I felt myself doing a slow crash in late October of last year. I am so thankful that I have the most supportive and giving husband anyone could ever ask for. I love him so much.

This was just a quick blubbering from me. Like I have said repeatedly, I'm not sure what this blog should be used for. I'm not sure if I want to just have a separate blog for knitting stuff or what. I guess the last thing I need is another page to maintain online :-S

Well, I really should get back to the laundry. It's a very windy day here so stuff is drying VERY quickly today. Really, what smells better than fresh laundry on the line??

No, Spring hasn't really sprung here, the new pictures are old ones

20060515_dandilions-1
Originally uploaded by Beaker's Stained Glassworks

It's been very rainy and generally icky around here lately so I thought I'd post some pictures from spring of 2006.

I love the 'Sea of Yellow' as I call the lawn before the first cut of the dandilions. People spend too much time and money on chemicals to stop the dandilions. I love them. To me they are Spring.

I hope that I'll be posting pictures of the growth this spring here soon!

Cheers,
B

April Fool

20080401_3301
Originally uploaded by Beaker's Stained Glassworks

Wow, the melting!! It rained most of the day, sometimes quite hard yesterday and into the night. There was a great thunderstorm just after dark that was a joy to watch, I really LOVE thunderstorms.

This morning it was incredibly mild but really windy. It was still raining a bit when I headed into town. When I came back from town I noticed that the river was exceptionally high so I thought I'd snap some photos of it. Here you can see that the river is at least 50 feet the wrong side of the fence! I hope we don't lose any posts to it.

The picnic table and two benches are down by the campsite. I hope they survive the current!!

Like I said, it's extremely windy today. For anyone that's been here, they know that it's ALWAYS windy here (thus the reason for the massive wind turbines) and when I went to the house about an hour ago, the temperature had dropped significantly. I hope that the weather keeps going like this...melt one day, freeze for a day. That will stop the roads and everything from getting too soft too fast.

It's difficult with 4 dogs trying to keep all their paws clean! I spent a good while the first time the dogs went out today. Well, except for Buddy. He hates to be dirty or wet and somehow avoids walking in the mud. I only had to clean the very bottom of his paws. Princess is another story. She loves to get wet. She's the first one into the river in the summer so I'm extra careful with her right now. There are massive chunks of ice floating down the river and now in our fields.

Well, I must get ready for knitting class tonight. It's the Fingers & Toes class tonight. We get to start our Mystery Project. I'm so excited....wheeee.
lol.

L8Rs
B

The Mystery Project

20080331_3285-1
Originally uploaded by Beaker's Stained Glassworks

Well, I got my ball of yarn rolled up. That was a huge pain. I'm sure there are tricks that people will be able to tell me to help with that in the future.
I remember my grandfather sitting there holding the skein between his two hands and my grandmother rolling it off. Unfortunately, my grandfather was not available to help today so I had some problems with the skein. But at the end of it all, my ball is rolled, there are no knots or breaks in the skein and I didn't rip out too much of my hair doing it.

So tomorrow night I get to find out what we're making. I've got my cabling and 4mm needles all ready. I've never made anything with a cable on it so this will be a learning experience for me for sure!

So getting back to the winding of the ball. I was doing some research last night and discovered a tool called an Umbrella Swift. If I were going to be using yarn in the skein form a lot, I would look into buying or making one of these. It's used to hold the skein while you roll it off into a ball. Oh yeah, I'd probably invest in a ball winder too but for now, by hand will be fine.

For an interesting article on Umbrella Swifts:
http://www.knittersreview.com/article_tool.asp?article=/review/profile/020808_a.asp20808_a.asp

I'm about 3/4 of the way through the first Marathon Sock and it's looking great! I'm really loving the way the stripes are working out.

Well, I best be off. I think we're gonna lose our power soon. There's a thunderstorm rolling in. The satellite dish just went out and I keep seeing the sky light up with lightning.

Later

Beaker's Glass Box holding Beaker's Beads Stitch Markers

20080328_3241
Originally uploaded by Beaker's Stained Glassworks

This is the first prototype display box created for the knitting stitch markers. I only had a small piece of mirror in stock and needed to make the box quickly.

This box is located at Woollys Yarns, Shelburne, Ontario.

www.woollysyarns.ca

Marathon Sock Yarn - Maui

20080328_3247
Originally uploaded by Beaker's Stained Glassworks

K. I'm just checking out how to create a blog entry from Flickr.

This is the sock I started during last Wednesday afternoon's knitting group.

I'm using the 4-ply self-striping Jacquard sock yarn and 2.25 mm DPNs.

I'm just having fun with software here...tee hee. I know, NERD ALERT.

Knitting Group 27-Mar-08

Tonight's group was great. Sharon was working on her knit doll making the other shoe for it. I'll try to remember to take my camera for next weeks group and get some pictures of it. It's quite amazing. The entire doll is knit and assembled. Then she made a bunch of clothes for it. She's still working on the wig, etc. She's making it for her daughter.

Max was working on yet another square for her poncho. She may own the store and own the farm that has the mohair goats but (oddly enough) she didn't know how to knit. So the Lianne and Leeann (seriously, that's the two women that work there!) are teaching her to knit starting with a project that uses a bunch of squares made on large needles.

I continued with my Marathon - Maui sock. I'm a couple inches into the stocking stitch of the first sock using 2.25mm DPNs. I really like the way this wool works up. 1/2 inch Jacquard stripe and then a 1/2 inch blue stripe.

I was sorry that Zehava had a bad headache and couldn't make it to group tonight. She's a laugh and it really wasn't the same without her.

A bunch of new wools came in. I picked up a ball of Noro Kureyon Sock Yarn and a skein of Auldcroft Angoras lace weight 60% Mohair, 40% wool, which will be used in next Tuesday night "Fingers and Toes" class that I've joined too. It's a mystery project. All we know is that we need 4mm needles, a cable needle and a skein of this Auldcroft Wool. The colour I selected is called Cupid's Dart, a combination of pinks and cream. It's hand painted and still needs to be made into a ball (thus the reason I bought it today, not next Tuesday.) The Fingers and Toes class is a year long thing. The first Tuesday of every month. I just joined tonight so I missed the first two things they made.

Okay, I just mentioned earlier in this blog post that Maxine has mohair goats, well Auldcroft Angoras is her own brand of wool. The mohair is sheared from her goats and then sent to a mill near Elora where its spun and blended with wool. So this wool is VERY local. Actually for Wednesday afternoon class both Maxine and Lianne were away shearing the goats.

There is an ongoing used book/magazing/patterns sale going on a the store. The proceeds from this ongoing sale are going to another member of the group, Paula. Paula is raising money so that she may be permitted to attend a walk-a-thon for cancer. It's an agressive event, 60km walk in 2 days! Also required is a minimum of $2000 worth of pledges. I think she's well over $500 so far and the event is in September. There's also a Knit for the Cure event at the store. May 3rd, from 10:00am to 4:00pm. Sit around and knit for 6 uninterrupted hours, they serve a light lunch, snacks and drinks!! I am sooooo looking forward to this event. I really hope the weather is nice and we can sit outside the store in our lawnchairs. Meg is coming from London and I hope that I can get Diana to come from Mississauga for the event.

I've been selling Knitting Stitch Markers at the store on consignment. I left them 7 sets of 5 for up to 5mm needles and they have only 2 left. Then we thought that maybe loose might be better so I made a glass box with dividers in it that divides the box into 6 compartments and made 130 smaller stitch markers. I'll take a picture of the box the next time I go into the store. I just made it today kinda last minute. It turned out pretty well but I just used normal window pane glass so it's not schmancy or anything. They've asked for more of the sets in the packages and for larger loose ones. I figure Rev B of the display box should have smaller compartments but more of them. I was limited to the piece of mirror glass I had for the bottom of the box today.

I should create a seperate blog entry for glass stuff! I have a bunch of orders that I need to get on top of! But, I'll leave that for now. I guess I should stop drinking coffee in the evenings...I am totally wide awake still and it's 1:43am! I'll be a zombie tomorrow if I don't get some sleep soon.

Maybe I'll just knit for a few minutes.....



Please feel free to make comments, etc. I'm new to Blogger so please be gentle :-)

My first Blogger post.

Well, just what I needed...another page to maintain!

I don't have time to submit a proper blog entry right now. Have to finish a glass box for the wool store for tonight.

Will blog soon!