A little knitting and a little cooking

The Iceling Cardigan should have been done by now but, you know, summer interfered. That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it!

The next thing happening with it, is the buttonhole row. I've done sweaters before but I can't remember doing a one row buttonhole so this will be a new experience. Hopefully a good one!

Yesterday I did a bit of cooking. It was the annual Test Plot Tour for our seed plant. Only it rained. So we did the whole thing at the plant instead of in the field.

The AgriPro Wheat representative did a powerpoint presentation and afterwords I fed everyone. Well, I didn't feed them personally I just cooked and served the food. ;) There were about 30 people there and that was a good turnout considering the weather.

We brought 2 grills out to the plant and 3rd DS and I cooked hamburgers and brats while the talk was going on. I had quite a smoke smudge going. I can't grill without a nice fire flareup happening! We did 48 brats and 35 hamburgers.

I had bought 10# of potato salad and made a big crockpot of calico beans. There was an assortment of condiments and these "zero" calorie little puppies...

They look pretty sad all alone on the big pan but they still are tasty. Rice Krispie bars with a caramel layer topped with fudge frosting. They went like hotcakes!

It's been humid and foggy with heavy rain

And now...a weather update! It's been foggy at night, humid during the day and late in the day or during the night there's been heavy rain. We've had 5.5" in the last 4 days. We just don't get that kind of rain around here.

If you click on this you'll see dewdrops all across the grass, looking like a million diamonds.

And here with the closeup...they look more like teardrops.

Some of the flowers don't take the heavy rain so well.

But the daylilies that only last a day, didn't get in on the heavy rain because they weren't open last night!

And so they look fresh and new every day...no matter what the weather. If only I could look fresh and new with the weather we've been having! o.0

A busy weekend, a little baking and a lot of fun!

This just past weekend was our little town's "Days" weekend.

There was a community cooked & served BBQ (tender roast beef, baked potatoes, marinated carrots, baked beans, roasted onions, and watermelon, yummy); canoe races; games for kids (the kind that you rent...this year they had a water slide); paper plate drop at the airport (the local businesses put candy or silver dollars etc on paper plates and they are dropped from an airplane for the kids to run around and pick up); the band, Boomtown, (a very fun-for-everyone band) for the Friday night street dance and a DJ for the Saturday night street dance; and also on Saturday after the BBQ was the singing group from Fargo, Great Plains Harmony - amazing singers and performers.

This is just a small sampling of what went on...the young gals that organize this are amazing. And probably the most amazing part is that most everything is free. They fund raise like crazy during the year.

Also on Saturday was the 3rd annual McBake Off Dessert Contest. I entered the 1st year, was lazy last year and decided to enter again this year. Well, I had a new cheesecake recipe and so that was it. I had to make it. And here it is....

There were 19 desserts in all. That's a lot of tasting for the judges! I didn't win but I did get perfect scores for appearance. :)

It was a very fun weekend. A lot of people came home to visit. Our town was hopping!

I'm sure the organizing committee is taking a break and heaving a sigh of relief and then shortly they will be planning for next year.

Good job ladies!

Actual knitting content!

Done! I finally finished the Eliina Shawl that I knit from the Zen Garden lace weight yarn that I bought at Joan's Stash Busting Sale.

This is really quite close to the color...it might be just a smidge darker in person.

I've tried lace weight yarn before and just couldn't work with it. But this time was magic and there wasn't a problem at all with the knitting. Of course that I loved the color and was going to knit with it come heck or high water didn't play into it at all.

I added some beads to the lace edging to give it a bit of weight and just a little sparkle. They are silver lined pink glass beads.

One bit of info that I learned--When you do a crochet cast off, and add beads while you are doing it, they face to the wrong side of the fabric. I had to pin each bead to try to force them into showing from the front. Uff. It turned out ok I think.

All the information about my Strawberry Ice Cream Eliina Shawl can be found here on Ravelry.

This doesn't look like much yet but it is going to be an Iceling baby cardigan. Norma has been telling how in love she is with this pattern so I thought I would give it a try.

The little cardigan will be for a sweet baby yet to be born in Moldova.

We have 3 foreign workers this year on our farm and all 3 of them are from Moldova. One fellow has a wife back home that is expecting a baby the end of September and they know that it is going to be a boy. I'm hoping that "blue is for boys" is the rule of thumb there too!

Book Club!

So our little community has started a Book Club and I am thrilled to say I am a member! Granted we are reading books that I've already read but that isn't the whole thing...it's the getting out of the house and seeing different people. And I liked these books so much it's fun to reread them.

It is held in our local restaurant at suppertime, so we push a bunch of tables together and have a meal first and then discuss the latest book. So far we have read "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn", "Water for Elephants" and now we are reading "Saving Ceecee Honeycutt". I and the young gal that used to babysit our boys pushed for this book. I'm crossing my fingers that most everyone will like it.

I wanted to tell everyone about the website www.goodreads.com last time we met but I didn't get a chance. It is a social book readers site where you can list all the books you've read, rate them and when you read them etc and also you can have friends and you can see what your friends thought of different books.

My 2nd DDIL is also an avid reader and she told me about goodreads. It's really quite helpful also...it helps me remember just what books I actually have read! ;) I guess I just told you about it....maybe next month I'll get a chance to tell everyone at the book club about it. Until then I'm happily reading and sipping ice tea!

Wishing you a very

Happy 4th of July! :D

Greetings from the middle of the night

Well, I haven't done this in a long time. It's about 2:30 am and I just can't get back to sleep.

DH had the tv going in the bedroom giving it just the right amount of light to attract the miller/moth that is in the house, which attracted the cats, who kept jumping on the bed and the headboard and the nightstand and barely missing landing on my face.

It was more than I could take and still get back to sleep.

I've tried the computer but even Solitare isn't doing it. Maybe a little reading. Or maybe I'll try the bed again. The cats are quiet now.

Wish me luck.