How The West Was Spun

Garden Update: May

Temps here have definitely warmed up.  We've been in the 70s during the day and 40s at night.  While I'm grateful for sun to encourage the little plants along, some rain sure would be nice.  We had black clouds most of yesterday afternoon and it rained a whole minute and a half  yesterday out of all of that. 

I've put in my peppers, basil and tomato plants.  The cherry tomatoes actually each have a couple of small fruits starting - about the size of small grapes right now.   The birds (and I get it - we are in year 3 of a drought and there's not much to eat around here) went nuts over the seeds I planted.  They ate everything except a few stragglers of my scallions, so I replanted everything inside and tried again. 

The peas are doing great.

The jury is still out on the cucumbers - the birds have been pulling at the leaves of those, so I may have to pick up a 4-pack of larger started plants.  Likewise, the melon was apparently good eating since both tries at that disappeared.  I think I've managed to get the pumpkin far enough along that will be okay.  I replanted the spinach and we'll see how that goes, and I did get my dill plant started.  That little group of seedlings will be ready to thin out in another week or so.  

I have plastic bags tied on the trellises in the beds, which has seemed to help, but I suspect I'm going to need a cover for everything or the birds will eat the actual crop of anything resembling food (like the tomatoes, and at this point, I wouldn't put them past eating most of the veggies in there.)  The winds here are a bit problematic for that type of cover, but I'll do some research and see what might work best for our area here.

All for now..

From the Bookshelf: Cry Wolf

I had read another book by Patricia Briggs earlier this year, and really enjoyed it, so I thought I'd give the first book in her Alpha and Omega series a try.  Cry Wolf picks up with some of the characters from the first book of hers I'd read, but takes off with a different storyline related to a large North American pack of werewolves.

The main character, Anna, is being rescued from a smaller Chicago-based pack by the sort of Alpha of all Alphas, and his son, Charles, (and a few other pack members).  She and Charles, who basically is the Alpha's hit man, wind up married to each other, but she's got a lot of emotional baggage, and he's worried she'll assume he's nothing but a cold killer.  

First off, I was confused.  Really confused for the first quarter or so of this book.  I felt like I needed to have read something else before this so I'd have a clue what was going on - but I don't know what that something else was, since this was the first in the series.  I'm guessing there is some other secondary story that's lurking in another book about this same pack, but ya know.... if you are going to start off a series, it'd be good for the reader to have a little clue before dumping them into it, even if you have to repeat some things you've already covered elsewhere.

So it took me a while to really get into this one - I kept waiting for an Aha! moment, which I suppose I never really did have.  Mostly that I just accepted the fact there had been other things happening before I got there.   I actually didn't find the main characters of Charles and Anna to be all that compelling - the secondary ones including an ancient member of the pack and an old acquaintance of his from the past, and the back story we are given a tidbit about regarding the Alpha - now THOSE were interesting.  I like the author's writing style and I definitely felt like I wanted to read on in this series, but I also kind of felt like this was a throw-away story.  Maybe setting up the series by introducing some of these folks?  I'm not sure. 

I gave this one a 3 stars, which for me was a sort of middle of the road - didn't hate it, didn't love it. Entertaining, but not engrossing.

I have a couple of other book reviews to post, but I am finished my 6-month 25-book challenge (which encompassed various themes), so I'm now working on the year-long top-100 list from my reading group on Goodreads, while fitting in a few other things here and there that have caught my eye.  Reviews on those to come.

All for now...

 

Ten on Tuesday: Ten Reasons Why I Knit

1.  I like to create things with my hands.  That's a pretty basic reason for most knitters, isn't it?
2.  I love color, and when I knit, I get to pick from all sorts of gorgeous colors out there.
3.  I have just enough of my grandparents' Depression-era mentality that I like home-created over store-bought.  (Despite the fact that most handknit sweaters nowadays cost WAY more than something similar at Target or wherever.)
4.  I like wool.  I like how it feels and anything that tends to be "sheepy goodness" scented, I''m all over that.
5.  I like cold weather.  Cold weather = perfect for wearing knits! 
6.  I like a challenge:  Learning a new technique, or figuring out some great little shaping or other detail makes my brain happy.
7.  I like knitters.  I'm not a super social/extroverted person, but knitting gives me a reason and an opportunity to leave my house and have great interactions with other knitters.  That's good for me.
8. I like having things that fit me just right.  I tend not to like off-the-rack clothes - they generally don't fit me well.  I can make it to fit me perfectly this way.
9.  Apparently I am inherently twitchy.  Knitting gives me something to think about, to work on, to entertain myself with when I'm "just" sitting.  Otherwise, I think I would never sit still.
10.  OCD:  I tend to be a little compulsive about a lot of things, and maybe a bit obsessive too.  I'm not really sure I can't NOT knit at this point - chalk it up to both the obsessive and compulsiveness, but I can live with that.   

All for now....

PORBI

In an effort not to leave anyone hanging, since I've mentioned the PORBI (Project of Really Big Importance) a few times here, if you are interested in details, please hop on over to the shop blog to check out today's post.

Hoping you are all having a lovely spring weekend - they say we may get a spritz of rain here tomorrow!!!!

New Shop Site and Blog

If you are a reader who normally follows my blog here to find out about shop things, I wanted to direct you to my newly arranged/designed shop. The URL is the same, but I've revamped the shop to make it a little more direct to shop (less clicks).  You can visit it at the same: www.woolywonkafiber.com.

I've also set up a blog which is accessible through the main store site, but you can also add it to your readers from here.  And finally, I've got a brand-spanking new Facebook business page.

I wanted to have a space completely devoted to the shop - with updates on things like new yarns, when I get products updated in the shop, when the clubs open, as well as a spot on the blog to chat about things like new designs, when things are getting published, and chit-chat more about my design things.  I'll still be maintaining this blog for now, with tidbits on the garden, personal projects, quilting, and that type of thing. 

To celebrate the grand reopening, I'm having a sale, which you can read about over at the new blog. And I hope you'll also take advantage of the extra savings that you'll be able to utilize if you pop over to Facebook as well!  Lots of things going on over there in the next couple of weeks  - including a new pattern release and more info on the PORBI (Project of Really Big Importance) too!  

All for now....