tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow

I just finished up this bag, a kit from KnitPicks, for my sister’s birthday. I hope she likes it.

Full of yarn:

Some detail of the woven stitch bottom:

We picked up our quarter cow (processed) today. We bought it from Over The Grass Farm in The Plains. That whole area is so incredibly beautiful. It really makes me want to have a farm.

We got so much beef – tons of ground beef, delmonicos, filet mignons, strip steaks, roasts, stew beef, soup bones, etc. It all looks so much better than anything I’ve seen in any grocery store. I love that I know that the steer had been 100% grass fed with no antibiotics and was able to wander and graze freely. I think we’re going to join their cow share program so we can get raw milk…and they have vegetables, too. Sounds like a good deal to me!

We grilled a ribeye and a T-bone tonight and they were the best steaks we’ve ever had. Beyond delicious. The thing with grass fed beef is they say you need to cook it less, since it’s such a leaner meat. But when you corn, or grain, feed a steer, the beef ends up being more fatty. The beef also ends up with a lot less nutrients, like Omega 3.

Now isn’t that interesting.

Eating grain makes the steer have more fat.

Yet we are told that grains are ‘healthy’ for us and ‘necessary’.

Makes you wonder, eh?

So it’s 1am, and we’ve just reached home. We brought Illy inside, said hi to the cats and started bringing the bags in to the house. I had Illy’s bed in hand, and I am one step from the door when Illy pops her head out from behind Aaron and darts outside. Normally when there is a lot of noise and movement she stays as far away as possible, but not this time. I guess she really did get comfortable down in VA Beach.

I try to shoo her back inside but she takes off down the street. I call to her and she completely ignores me and keeps trotting. I start after her and she takes off at a run.

Shit.

So I take off after her. I’m not running yet, trying not to spook her, but I need to keep her in sight. I can’t see that far in front of me since it’s 1am, and she’s black so she’s got built in camouflage. She reaches the trees and hangs a left. I start running since she’s heading for the street. She hears me coming and takes off like a shot. She bounds like a deer through the trees. She really might be a deer crossbreed, I’m not sure. She even leapt sideways like they do.I can barely see in front of me, I’m stomping through puddles and running into tree branches, but I can’t stop. I can just imagine her darting into the street, which still had some traffic even that late on a Sunday.

She stopped for a pee and I almost caught her, but she heard me thrashing through the pine trees and took off again. Luckily she turned right instead of going straight into the street. Unluckily she took another right … into a large wooded area bordered on two sides by roads. The grass, or whatever it is, is waist high in places. I have never even thought of walking in there before – who knows how many ticks, snakes, homeless people, etc are in there. But I barged in after Illy, trying to hear where she was going. After a few minutes, I couldn’t hear her anymore and I realized I could barely see anything. So I ran back to our house, grabbed a leash and a flashlight from Aaron (at least one of us was thinking clearly!) and then told him where I saw her and told him to drive around to make sure she didn’t run out the other side of the woods and into the street.

Anyway so then I had a flashlight and was able to get further into the creepy little woods. I was running around there like mad, calling for her and trying to get her to move so I could hear her…but then I would think, wait, what if she’s already escaped out the other side and is way far away? So then I would get out of the woods, sprint around to the other side and see if she was over there. Then I ran into about 5 guys wandering the streets. I asked if they had seen a dog but they said no. As I walked into the woods again with them walking along the sidewalk next to me, I realized how it suddenly felt like I was in the opening scene of a Law & Order episode. I guess they were either well intentioned, or thought I was suitably crazed and wielding a huge maglight flashlight that they didn’t want to mess with me. Anyway they kept walking and I kept searching.

Aaron was driving around all this time, since we thought she might have escaped our ‘perimeter’. Eventually I got in the truck and we were debating whether to give up for the night and wait until it was light. But there was just no way I could have left her out there all night. I knew she would run into the street eventually. While we were talking, I suddenly heard 4 barks in a row.

Now, Illy never barks. It’s just not her thing. But when we were down in VA Beach, she barked for us a few times. Like I said, she felt comfortable down there. Thank god for that! I screamed, “I hear barking!”, jumped out of the car and took off into the woods. I’m sorry for the people who had to have heard me yelling for her at what was then 2am, but my girl was in trouble!

Thinking back, I guess she barked because she couldn’t hear us anymore and she was annoyed that we had left the game. I finally heard her tags clinking and the sound of her moving through the woods. Then I saw her eyes reflecting the flashlight. So close! I was yelling for Aaron, “I see her! She’s right here!” and then she took off.

I chased her in circles through those damn woods, and almost had her a few times. I almost twisted my ankle and hit my head on a branch, too.

She ended up running back towards the back of our row of townhouses, toward the field where we walk her every day. I kept her in sight and Aaron was following us. She outpaced me though and I lost sight of her. I took a right to go to the field, and I told Aaron to go left and see if she went that way. I ran into the field and thought I saw her. But it was just two deer. Aargh! I figured she couldn’t be in the field since she would have chased the deer already. If she had gone into the field, I think we never would have caught her.

But she went left, behind Best Buy. I took off at (another) sprint until I caught sight of her. I yelled at Aaron that I saw her and I ran as fast as I could – faster than I ever have – so I could pass her. I knew I needed to get her between us. I thought my heart was going to explode, but I passed her. Like I said before, it was a good thing I didn’t take a jog earlier in the day, or I never would have had the energy. As it was , I barely made it. But she got scared and turned around.

Aaron, the animal whisperer that he is, had put his flashlight away and crouched down and called to her. The tired dog started wagging her tail and ambled toward him. He grabbed her collar and petted her.

I jogged over and snapped the leash on and collapsed. She was scared of me, so I gave the leash to Aaron and we walked back to the truck.

We finally got home around 2.30am. I checked Illy and myself for ticks, but didn’t find any (until today – two!). I took a shower, ordered an electronic training collar, and went to bed.

Here I am, happy and exhausted after my hour and a half run around the neighborhood.

Here’s our runaway dog, relaxing after her fun game.

We had a lovely weekend visiting our cousins in VA Beach – luckily the rain stopped just in time for our Friday night drive, so traffic wasn’t horrible and we made it in 3.5 hours. Dee and Christopher were kind enough to wait up for us so we were able to catch up a little before going to bed.

In the middle of the night we got hit by a sudden thunderstorm. I heard the loudest crash of thunder and then felt four paws simultaneously land on me and opened my eyes to Illy’s tongue panting in my face. She crawled in bed between us to hide from the storm. I still ended up waking up at 7.30, so we got up and hit the beach with Dee and Archie.

Illy had a great time chasing crabs.

She doesn’t like the water though, but Archie sure does.

She was a happy girl.

Here she is giving Archie bunny ears.

We spent the rest of the day enjoying the sunshine and relaxing. Aaron and I had a nice lunch at Bubba’s. They have the best she-crab soup and crabcakes ever.

I took a jog after lunch, and I actually did pretty well for it being 88 degrees outside.

Archie had had enough exercise at the beach.

Gratuitous hot husband shot:

I tried to get Illy to look at the camera, oh well.

We didn’t do too much on Sunday either. I took Illy for a walk and she found a baby bird who was on the ground, apparently learning to fly (obviously needed more practice!) She suddenly darted for it and tried to pick it up – just retrieve it, not eat it, mind you. The mother bird who was right overhead did not take kindly to that. I told Illy to drop the bird, which she did, but then the mother bird shat all over Illy’s back and then dive bombed her. Right then a car was passing. The bird scared Illy so she panicked and tried to run away…into the street. So I had to hold her back, totally yanking on her neck to keep her from running headlong into the car. The lady driving gave me a look that clearly indicated she thought I was abusing Illy. Oh well. Luckily the little birdie hopped away, and I kept Illy from chasing it again, although the mother bird kept yelling at us. The baby did end up climbing back up the tree to try and fly again, so I have to assume Illy didn’t hurt it.

I was going to try another jog, but I was sore from the day before so I decided to rest. This was probably a smart idea, as you’ll see in my follow up post.

After that we went to a long lunch – Mother’s Day is not a good day to try and get a quick bite to eat, apparently. The foods was great though, so I can’t really complain.

We had a nice sunset as well.

We headed home shortly after dinner. We were making great time until we hit 95 and came to a dead stop. We moved a mile in an hour. At least after that we were fine again.

We made it home at 1am, exhausted and ready for bed.

Unfortunately, it was not to be…

…to be continued…

I’m closing in on the finish of my Birds of a Feather shrug. It’s my first time doing a color chart, and I was a little too tight on the first sleeve, but hopefully the second sleeve will turn out a little better.

Here’s the first sleeve:

And the backside of it:

And here’s the first chart of the second sleeve:

The wool I chose is slightly thinner than what the design was written for, and I always knit a little small anyway, but as it stands I need to stop eating for about three months so my upper arms lose about 4″ in circumference so it will fit. I’m hoping the magic of blocking will fix some of that. Otherwise I may need to find a depressed teenager to give it to.

This weekend was the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival. Kim had gone last year and booked a hotel for this year. She was going with her mom and  her friend Heather, and there was room for one more, so I jumped at the opportunity.

I wasn’t really sure what to expect, but I knew I wanted to see some sheep and alpacas, and pick up some yarn.  I went in without a game plan – I just wanted to browse everything and see what caught my eye – and I think it worked out well. I ended up seeing everything just about twice, and I made some nice purchases.

I headed up Friday night and made it in an hour with no traffic. I settled into the room to wait for Kim et al to arrive. They showed up with food, wine, and plenty of empty bags. We had a good time catching up and then hit the sack.

We were up relatively early but still hit some traffic on the way to the festival. We lucked out with a great parking spot though. It rained for about an hour but the rest of the day was pretty great. Not too hot, not rainy, not muddy.

I met up with another friend there, Sharan, and we wandered around together while Kim et al. shopped for fleece and spinning wheels.

Here’s Kim in fleece heaven:

I really enjoyed wandering around the barns and checking out all the animals. Sheep are loud! I wanted to steal this one:

I also found the alpacas! How could you not love this face?

This sheep got up close and personal, but held still for my camera phone. This is the face of an angry sheep.

One of my favorite things was the border collie sheep herding exhibition. Sheep are pretty stupid.

All the other dogs were dying to be able to get in there and herd those sheep as well.

Here’s me loaded with gear. Well ok, my bags are stuffed with yarn and other various goodies.

Don’t think I didn’t contemplate rugby tackling this girl to get to this lamb.

All in all it was a great day. After 6 hours of non stop walking around in poorly chosen waterproof hiking boots, my feet and legs were killing me. We cleaned up at the hotel and headed out for Mexican. This was a damned good strawberry margarita.

We ended up going to a Ravelry after-party at another hotel (they had a chocolate fountain!) but we didn’t stay very long. We were in bed, asleep, by 10.30! I headed home in the morning, but Kim and the rest stayed for another few hours on Sunday, when it was pouring all day.

This is part of my stash. Not pictured are my sheep covered socks and a lovely soft handwoven cotton table runner. The grey yarn there is going to be a big squishy blanket. The dog is now named Romney. The puppy basket is Aaron’s ‘in’ box.

I sort of wish I had splurged and bought a large watercolor print, by the same artist who did the one in the lower right corner of that picture above. She had a lovely print of a bunch of sheep standing outside an old barn. I was really drawn to it, but wasn’t sure I wanted to spend the money.

Thanks so much for letting me crash, Kim! I had an awesome, awesome time. Next year for sure!

One more alpaca for the road!