getting some seeds started

unfortunately the sienna cardigan does not have sleeves yet. i am working on the sleeve caps, but this hasn't been a good week for knitting.

in other news, i joined the native seeds/SEARCH gardener's network. essentially this means steve and i or perhaps our landlords will test out some of the native seeds/SEARCH seeds to see how they do in the climate here. the gardener's network doesn't offer as many seeds as the regular seed listing, but they still offer quite a few. i am going to try patagonia chiles (capsicum annuum), navajo hubbard squash (cucurbita maxima), tepehuan tomatillos (physalis phildelphica), and blue speckled tepary beans (phaseolus acutifolius). some of these guys, especially the tepary beans might not have a good chance here, but we'll see. that's part of the fun. i started to test germinate the chile seeds last night. since i won't be around this summer (summer fieldwork), i am kind of bummed out about not being able to see what happens, but i'm eager to get the plants started and planted before i leave.

a new book

steve gave me a book for valentine's day and boy am i happy. here is the book hanging out with my jade plant.



i'm super excited. i want to make so many things out of here, especially a yoke sweater.

on top of the book is my jade plant. this was started from a cutting (actually it was some bit of a jade plant that had fallen off of the main plant). the cutting was so small, just two small leaves and they fell off once i got roots going on it and planted it. now it seems to be doing better and scheduled for a pot transplant. the pot it is currently in is from a nearby thriftstore. i normally hate glazed pots, but this dragonfly pot has worked out well.

i went cross country skiing on saturday and sunday (two separate trips). we took patty along and she loved it. i had a blast too. i need to find a cheap used set or perhaps a good end-of-the-season deal.

snowy day

we went out to our valentine's day dinner, just as the storm started. the wind was blowing pretty hard and the flakes were flying. but these weren't your average flakes, they were really frozen tiny little pieces of snow. when we got home, we were glad to be in our warm apartment. we were chilling out on the sofa. i had prepared the hot water bottle and was snuggled up against steve and we were watching law and order and ka-chunk - the power went out. this is actually a pretty common occurrence in our house since it's old and there are three apartments in it. during the winter when the upstairs tenant uses the heater, it can cause part of the power in the house to go out. interestingly enough, during the october storm we had power the whole time. last night, it seems that the transformer blew. right now they're replacing the transformer behind our house and it's still storming away. here are some pics:







those power guys (and gals) are crazy. the guy who has been at the top of the pool taking the transformer off and is now putting the transformer on is quite amazing. he was waving at us at one point.

as for knitting, the sienna cardigan is coming along nicely. i have the back, the two front panels, one sleeve minus the sleeve cap and one sleeve minus a few inches and the sleeve cap. i'm in the home stretch there.

after knitting up part of the second austermann step socks and getting different gauge on the second one, i'm going to rip that one back and try again after sienna is done. i'm also thinking of some other gift projects to keep myself busy.