Excuse me while my head explodes

Phew! Are you ready for Thanksgiving? I'm not! :P

My mind has kind of stalled with the thought of all that cooking and cleaning. This year, for the first time evah, we are having real, live, grown-up people over for Thanksgiving dinner. It'll be awesome, but it's also scary. *waves* Hi, Gail! Hi, Annie! You guys know I'm a slob, right? You've seen my house and my monsters, right? You know my family's slobbish ways are not going to change, right? Right? Right?!?

*crickets chirp*

Sorry about that. The blog's supposed to be this and that and farm dreams and shop updates, not the web published version of my mental breakdown...

So, shop news. I am pleased to announce that Turtle Cove Farm yarns, soaps, and sundries are naw available at Yarny Goodness. Pam's shop is a perfect place to browse Indie fiber artists. She carries everything from yarn to project bags, and I am extremely honored to be a part of it!

I am gobsmacked at the popularity of Bronze Age. If you thought you had missed it, think again! I will do my best to keep this color in stock until everyone's feet are warmed by the shiny, bronze-y loveliness.

Who knew?

I've also been working madly on Turtle Cove Farm's submission to the Phat Fiber box. Have you heard of this yet? It's an amazing box filled to the brim with samples of yarn, roving, stitch markers, patterns... It's like a mini yarn shop in a box. What a fabulous idea!

In the meantime, my spur of the moment sale is still on at Turtle Cove Farm. Free shipping on all yarn orders, including international orders! Hurry! The sale ends this Sunday (11/30/08).

Last but not least, what's the weather like today?

Williston, ND: Clear, 45°F 16°F

CCAFS, FL: Mostly cloudy, 72°F 45°F

Hey look, Ma! Your high temp is our low temp... Heh, I think I'm getting punchy from cleaning fumes. Time for a nap!

Oooh Shiny!

Shiny squishy goodness

The latest colorway for Turtle Feet Sock Yarn: Bronze Age. I just wasn't sure about this color combination until I skeined it up. Now it's one of my favorites.

Sale!

Starting tonight at 7:00 p.m. EST, basic shipping for all yarn at Turtle Cove Farm will be free! Yes, that includes international shipping! Check back tonight for all the details.

Weather Update

Williston, ND: Chance of Snow Showers, 36°F 18°F

CCAFS, FL: Chance of Showers, 85°F 72°F

Election Day + 2

Whew - I meant to post this yesterday, but I needed an extra day to recover! This election season has been exhausting! Did you vote? virtual high five Our democratic process only works when we are a part of it.

As a quiet aside and a sigh of relief: Yay! My boss was reelected; I'll still have a job in January :^)

I have lots of news about the shop. The Knitting Salve is now available in four new fragrances, Orange Spice, Summer Berries, Wake Up! and White Tea and Ginger. I've also started making a fragrance-free version called Liberated. My fingers have never been happier.

I've been testing a new line of acid dyes that have been formulated without the use of hazardous metals. The colors are stunning and as colorfast and lightfast as traditional dyes. Check out the new Turtle Feet Rainbow Collection and let me know what you think.

Rainbow Feet

In knitting news, I've found a new love. I just can't get enough of fingerless gloves!

Armwarmers of Awesomeness (My own pattern)

More Manly Mitts (roughly based on Ken)

Nereid Gloves

Porphyria (Rav link)

One last thing, as both a prod to post more often, and as a reminder that, Baby, it's cold up there, I am going to start posting the highs and lows for both Williston, ND, and Canaveral Air Force Station, FL. These are the weather stations closest to where we want to be and where we are right now.

Weather for Williston, ND: Snow, 31°F 20°F

Weather for CCAFS, FL: Mostly Sunny, 76°F 56°F

Baby, it's cooold up there!

What is this, a petting zoo?

Luckily, Tropical Storm Fay gave us nothing worse than cabin fever here at the House at Two Palms. We had four days trapped inside with a six year old and a five year old… It’s a wonder we survived.

More Fay photos here

During our house arrest, we watched movies and played board games – Blokus is a lifesaver! We also spent a lot of time reading; at one point I was reading excerpts from a book on pasture-raised chickens to the monsters. That was when I realized that we had all gone insane.

See, it started with sheep and goats. We want sheep for wool and goats for milk, and both for meat. But, if we have sheep and goats, we have to be prepared to fight parasites. We want to minimize the routine use of medications, so we will need something to help keep the parasite load down. That led us to chickens.

Chickens are perfect for the job; they can graze behind the ruminants, scratching up bugs and fighting the parasite cycle. Plus hens lay eggs, bringing us closer to self-sufficiency!

But chickens need to be protected from predators. Now we’re learning about “chicken tractors” and guard animals. We’re thinking of adding a few guinea fowl to the flock as watch animals; they may be one of the ugliest birds on a farm, but they sound an alert against intruders, and they eat a ton of bugs.

Are you keeping count? When you add the rabbits, cats, and dog that we already have, that makes seven different types of animals. It won’t be a farm; it’ll be a zoo!

Our time together during the tropical storm reinforced the fact that we are all invested in this crazy farm scheme. Even the kids are caught up in the idea: asking questions, learning about the different animals and their care, sketching plans for pole barns and chicken tractors, and just dreaming with us. Seeing the kids excited and involved in our plans is absolutely priceless.

Since no storm can last forever, this week we finally went back to work and school. I am the proud mom of a kindergartner and a first grader. sniff They grow so fast!

Is summer over yet?

Whoo-hoo! Man, I think I should have just taken July off completely.

Wait, you did take July off…

Oops, I guess I meant officially. Wow, what a month.

My 13-year-old twin stepsons were in town for their annual visit, so the House at (at least) Two Palms was filled with laughter, teen angst, a bit of drama, and a lot of fun. We look forward to their visit every year, but it can feel a bit like a five-week hurricane season – exciting, breath taking, and ultimately unpredictable.

I’ve also been working on Turtle Cove Farm, my new on-line store for knitting with soap. It will be a virtual farm for the next few years, but in 2010 Turtle Cove Farm will be our reality, a small-scale sheep farm on the plains of North Dakota.

Well, that seems sudden…

Mister Man and I had a long talk, and realized that for years we have both had the same dream of a simpler life up North. We were both a little embarrassed to admit it, each thinking that the other loved Florida too much to ever move away. And I do love it here, but I want to give the monsters the kind of childhood I had: a childhood filled with the serenity of wide-open spaces, the slow pace of nature, and a family so big you can never remember whether someone is a first- or second- cousin and you introduce yourself by listing your genealogy.


If you get a chance, wander around the new store and look around. It’s still a work in progress, so if you see something that could use improvement, I’d love to know.


In the meantime, if I get that far-away look in my eye, this is what I'll be thinking of:

Thank you for your patience; have some cake

Guess what - I'm a year older. Can you tell?

I think Ravelry has changed birthdays in the knitting world forever. Yesterday I celebrated the day of my birth (thanks, Mom!) and I was inundated with well wishes from both friends and random people who saw my little cake icon. It was quite lovely!

I love the fact that this year my birthday coincided with knit night. That meant double the cake:


One was from the kids, and was choked down with a smile. The other was waiting for me at knit night, and came back home with me. Can you figure out which one's which?

Enough about me... Drum roll, please: it's finally in the shop!


Turtle Cove - your place for the finest handmade soaps, handpainted yarns, and now knitting salve.

Knitting Salve

Check it out:


Coming soon to Turtle Cove!

I Aten’t Ded

Oh, my dearest loverlies, once again I’ve fallen off the face of the earth. We’ve had four weeks of madness at the (New) House at Two Palms… I hardly know where to begin.

First of all, we did get moved to the new house. A huge thank you goes to annieroo, her husband, and GailinCCB. We couldn’t have done it without your help! The move was exhausting and the less said, the better, although it does chap my ass that our old landlord spent many ten hour days fixing all the things he should have taken care of when we lived there.

The new house is faboo; cluttered, but faboo. We will probably get unpacked just in time to move to this:

What is this, you ask? Well, part of the reason the move was so rushed was that we had plane tickets to go meet a new bundle of sweetness.

Little Miss No Name is as sweet as pie, and it was reassuring to find that I have no desire to have another one of my own. These monsters are enough.

While we were in North Dakota, Dad took us out to look at a few acres of pasture perfect for a few sheep, and this gorgeous Sears Roebuck kit house.

Did you know Sears sold houses? I am still gobsmacked at the idea of ordering your house from a catalog. The house is a mess and it needs tons of work, but it is gorgeous. You just can’t find details like this in modern houses.

So now MrMan and I are imagining that house on this land

With a few sheep, some lilac bushes, and a windmill or two, it would be heaven.

Why'd you have to go and let it dye?

As I’m sure you can imagine, much has been going on at the House at Two Palms. I have been sorting our stuff into Trash, Junk, Rummage Sale, OMG What Was I Thinking, and Keep. So far the OMG pile is winning…

I have been terribly remiss in posting pictures of the bunny babies.

They have grown so big!

They are so curious and full of energy that it is really hard to get good pictures. I have many shots of bunnies hopping away :^) For my local readers, the bunnies are finally ready to go to new homes; if you’re interested, let me know.

My biggest news is the debut of Turtle Cove Yarns at my etsy shop. Playing with colors in my soaps naturally led to playing with colors in yarn. I’ve come up with a few colorways that I think you will love.

Today’s post brought to you by the color Black Cherry

Click on the shop link to see more; I’ll list more colors the next time I can steal five minutes on the computer myself.