Yard work and house work and knitting, oh my!

Oops...once again, it's been a while. I need to get back into the habit of writing. I don't like this writing once or twice a month stuff. And yet, I keep doing it. Oh, well.

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Anyway, we did more outdoors work this past weekend. Most of the window trim on the back of our house was rotten and/or bug-eaten. It had gotten to the point that it needed to be replaced ASAP, or the rot would have started to get into the framing of the house, which would be really expensive to fix. So we hired our new friend Kerry to come and replace all of the rotten trim, and Hubby and I worked alongside him, learning as we went. Then Kerry's employee John painted the whole back of the house, and all the trim around the whole house(the front and sides of the house are brick). My house looks so good now! Well, on the outside, anyway. I need to do some serious cleaning and de-cluttering(as my mom calls it) inside. Maybe I'll do some of that today.

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We also did a bunch more yard work while Kerry and John worked. Hubby went behind our back fence, into the poison-ivy-overrun pasture, and cut down all the trees and vines behind the fence. I can see the sky behind my fence now! I am so happy about that. And he sprayed some "vegetation-killer" on everything that was growing back there. It's pretty strong stuff; the fumes were giving me a headache, and I was next-door talking to the neighbors when he did it. Hopefully it'll kill all the poison ivy, poison oak, and poison sumac; we've been assured all three are back there. Inside the yard, I did more trimming, and raking. Hubby cut out the roots of the bushes and trees I had cut down, so we'll be able to plant grass in those spots.

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I'm not really much of a gardener, but I'm making a valiant attempt this year. I'm doing a container garden on the deck right now, and I might move some of the plants to prepared ground if I think it's necessary later. Here's a pic of my baby tomato plants; I just transplanted them to these containers, and I'm hoping they survive the shock.

In the largest container in this picture are pumpkin plants, and the little one to the right of that has zucchini.

In this last picture are my bean plants. I love fresh green beans! I also just transplanted these ones; I had about 15 plants in one pot. I picked the best 10, and split them between two pots. The ones in the right-hand pot have perked up some since I took this picture on Saturday, thank goodness.

The next thing on the to-do list is to burn all the brush; once again we have piles. We won't be able to work on that today; it's supposed to be windy. Safety first. But another thing on my to-do list is to pull all the pickets off the back fence. We're going to redo it, as inexpensively as we can, which means leaving the posts and some of the supports that are already there, as long as they're level and square. We're also going to make it about half the height that it is now, to take advantage of the great view of the pasture, now that all those trees and vines are gone.

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In knitting news, I've made a bunch of squares. ☺ And I'm working on more. I also got yarn to make baby blankets for a friend of mine who is having twins. I'm going to make a pink and a blue blanket, both with the same pattern. I'm designing the pattern, and I'm going to submit it to Knit Picks, for their Independent Designer Program. I'll be using Knit Picks Swish DK yarn, which, I've been told, is a lovely, soft superwash wool. It definitely feels soft in-the-skein; I can't wait to get it knitted up.

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And I have a new favorite yarn: "I Love This Cotton" from Hobby Lobby. I got some for making squares, and now I'm wondering why I waited so long to try out this lovely yarn! It's incredibly soft in-the-skein, and even softer in the knitted fabric. It has great stitch definition. It's a much smoother, softer cotton than the "Peaches and Cream" that Walmart sells, or the "Sugar and Cream" that Hobby Lobby sells. And the price isn't much higher than that of those yarns. If you haven't worked with this yarn yet, go get some. You will love it, too.