Talking ebbs and flows again. We saw two praying mantises in one day about 17 miles apart. One on the outside of the doctor’s office, and one on the wall on our front porch. We don’t see many of these a year, and two in one day is remarkable.
The mantis on the house was missing the lower half of both middle legs, which didn’t stop it from easily scaling the wall.
My eldest needed another prop for a play; this time it was ugly needle craft. Hm. In theory, to make ugly needle craft you need to do the opposite of all that is done for good needle craft. The director sent an image of cross stitch as an example, but these guidelines would work for most kinds of needle craft, should you find yourself needing to make cringe-worthy thread embellished decor. So here are my pointers:
Honestly, this should have everyone’s OCD twitching, even if you don’t usually have OCD.
I may need to give an official apology to the neighborhood cats and racoons. I maligned them, accusing one or the other of bringing down an unripe aspire melon awhile back. My eldest caught our dog Griffin in the act of eating an almost ripe melon that he had torn from the netting on the fence this week. Are you kidding me, dog?!?
We gave it a good wash, cut off the parts that had teeth marks, and ate it anyway. Not quite fully ripe, but still very good.
Ok, maybe a wrist warmer, not a full glove, but the reason I only have one is that this is a prototype for what I wish to make with my spun buffalo down. The super wash merino sock yarn I used for this wrist warmer is considerably less expensive, but has a similar weight to the buffalo yarn, which I spun with a tahkli spindle. I wanted to learn the Dalarna nålbinding stitch because I like the way one side looks woven, and I wanted to see if a sideways slit would work for the thumb hole. Testing the concept with white yarn (the buffalo is dark brown) allows me to see the stitches better as well, so I can get the feel of the stitch under my fingers with less struggling to see loops. I’m happy with how this came out, so now it is time to get out the buffalo yarn!
We had Missy the dog’s DNA tested shortly after getting her over a year ago. That test result said cattle dog, miniature poodle, bichon frise, and mutt. Widom Panel updated her results recently and the profile changed. I imagine that as they grow their sample set and the computer algorithms get better, things are going to shift, but I was surprised at the 16% Chihuahua. Hm. Let me adjust that, I was happily surprised there wasn’t significant Chihuahua DNA in the first result, because the rescue said she was a Chihuahua mix. The rescue was right. Looks like dad was cattle dog and mom was a poodle chihuahua mix.
She is a neurotic little thing. Happy and cuddly in the house, just still afraid of everything outside the house. The backyard is a gray zone because chasing balls is fun, but the creatures outside the fence can be scary. She has given herself a job, which is good for the cattle dog half. She is officially the disrupter of cat fights. If she hears a hiss, or sees a stalk, she is over in a flash, putting herself between the two cats. Probably because she thinks they are playing and wants desperately to play too. Whichever the reason it is a positive contribution to the household.
Griffin, our older dog, doesn’t get an updated result; his DNA test is too old. I think his would still show mostly lab and schnauzer. The shifts would be in the single digit percents.
Critters and Craft 