Garden, Chooks and Fibre

Today I replanted some of the zucchinis and cucumbers. It seems that there is a hungry beast, birds most likely which is eating one side of the garden. It's gotten the cucumbers, a zucchini, some Dyer's Knotweed and some Marigolds. I don't mind so much about the Knotweed as I've got it planted elsewhere and these were just a few plants that I'd started in a different pot and had forgotten about. The cucumbers however were ones I'd started early and were doing really well. I've now planted extra seeds in hopes that I'll have more than the birds can eat.

All the planters that I was going to ignore this year due to lack of time have been planted with purple Petunias and orange Marigolds! Thanks to my boys who dug out the worst of them for me. There was a tree growing in one and both were overrun with Goat's Beard.

The herb garden is planted. I didn't think I'd get it done this spring and had started planting some of the herbs in the regular garden. However, with some help with the digging from my son, it is done. I've got Lovage, Sage, Borage, Oregano, Rosemary, Thyme, Savory and Chives. I will admit to planting Borage mainly because I like the blue star shaped flowers, rather than eating it. I ended up buying a few of the herb plants because mine were still too tiny and some were crushed by the snake. I broke down and bought the ones which are larger, so we'll be able to harvest at least some of them this year. We should have enough for drying as well.

The chooks look like chickens now! They have started checking out the roost and once in a while we even see them on it. Some of the white meaties have a harder time getting up there and most of them haven't even tried! The pullets like it though, which is who we put the roost in for anyway. All we need yet is a nesting box or three for the girls, but since they won't be starting to lay until the middle of September, there isn't a huge rush on those.

I've been doing more sampling. blech... I'm getting tired of spinning up 10 yard samples and enough to knit small bits. I don't have a tiny loom weavette type loom because if I did, I'd be weaving my samples, rather than knitting them all. I need to get it done, so I'm chugging away at it. I ran up to Spinrite yarn outlet and picked up a few bits of wool for future projects. I've got some yummy Alpaca/bamboo blend and some Silk/Bamboo blend. It's thicker than I normally like to use, but it was very soft and very yummy. I've not enough for a huge project, but enough to make a scarf from each. I have 6 balls of this sock yarn so I started a new pair of socks yesterday. 6 balls = 3 pair of socks, at least. It's a bit bright for me to be really happy with that many similar socks, but it was really inexpensive, so I figured it was worth it. I'd hoped they had white so I could dye it, but even in their regularly priced sock yarns, they had no solid colours :( The name of this colourway is Sailor Stripes.. I'm still trying to figure out what part of Sailor uses bright pink, yellow and green. The blues and white, I can see.. hehehehe.. must be some cool Navy!

Over the next few days I'll be washing wool. I need to do a bit of sewing before Pennsic. There are still a few rows of beans to plant and then I'll start thinking about the Perennial beds. Currently it seems like there isn't much left to bloom in the Perennial beds. If it is all early flowering, it will be pretty sad to look at the rest of the summer. It will be a ton of work, but I like late summer flowers!