kittycafe

A Winner And A Cuppa

Congratulations to Alison of Hey Good Looking.
Your name was drawn by Littlest as the winner of the Blogiversary contest!

The Mug Cosy above was made a joke gift for The Husband.
Didn I ever tell you I married him because he drank tea? Remind me of that story sometime.
Anyway, he never thinks his tea is hot enough. He thinks it's almost cold right from the pot, while I think it's perfect drinking temperature. So he always makes his own separate mug. The real problem is that he makes a hot cup, carries his mug around with him while it cools and usually leaves it somewhere or just simply forgets about it halfway through drinking it, until it is deemed too cold.
And because changing The Ways Of The Husband is as easy as turning a cruise ship around on a dime, I present The Mug Cosy.
It is a pattern from Winter Knits Kit, a nifty little knitting box of patterns that have small projects in it, perfect for gifts. A copy will be winging it's way to Alison as part of her prize.
The pattern is also available on the publisher's web page here.
And I was thinking, if you make two of them - wrist warmers!

Oh and sorry for the girly ribbon, hon. It was all I could find.

It's Tuesday Already?

Just checking in here.
It was one of those weekends that BUSY spilled over to Monday and now I breathe.
I enjoyed all the comments on the blogiversary post, I love hearing from you! You still have until Thursday to comment there.

I don't often find a time that everything I want to do is booked for that same day, but that's what happened on Saturday. First we headed to The Great Big Garage Sale. As you can see from the link it is massive. Unfortunately I scored very little, there was so much of everything and I saw many things walking out the door that I was looking for. A few books, a vintage bingo game (you can still entertain a group of computer-crazed kids with simple games occasionally, really you can) came home but I'm very selective about what I bring into the house these days.
Then we headed to Everdale Farm. Longtime readers may remember when we went for the Straw Bale House Tour there (can't find this post on my own blog to save my life!) It was Seedy Saturday, and there were heritage, and organic seeds to buy and trade and plants and a BioIntensive Gardening Workshop, which dissolved into a Lasagne Gardening discussion, which may have been my fault (and therefore your's Norma!)
I am now armed and ready!

The Downtown Knit Collective Spring Frolic was also Saturday but there are only so many hours in the day and I had used them up. I did however, modestly console myself with yarn from elann.com.
Sunday was spent at Littlest's Horse Show.

I am going to have to find a new moniker for her, aren't I? She looks all grown up! I'm a sucker for all the tradition of horse shows. They all looked so beautiful dressed up. She won two ribbons so she was pleased. It was a larger group than she had ever competed against. The rest of us watching also took something home, sunburnt faces. It's surprising what you don't notice when there is a cold wind....

And back at home, the first bonfire supper of the season (well, the first ever at this house) Sausages and marshmallows were roasted and eaten, while the large trout in the pond were jumping! They may be next to fry...

Filed under: Just What We Need, Macabre Yard Art.
Here's another found object hanging from a tree, this jawbone. Found in the woods or hunting souvenir, I wonder.
And just because it's pretty neat, a little fungi to finish off.

No wait, wait, a horse's hind end... to end!

Blogiversary, Contest And Cake!

I'm having a blogiversary!
My first post was April 27, 2004.

And what have I learned so far?
Silly little things and important internet user friendly things.
Silly things like even though I am right handed my left hand types faster than my right and therefore I often end up with some dyslexic spellings. Oh and I'm hopeless at editing my own posts.

And if you don't want quite so many google searches for images from your blog, you must not name your photos 'Curiouscat' or 'canoe at dusk.jpg". I did this at first for my own ease of finding and refinding them on my own computer. Now I use my own abbreviated code.
And I can't forget another favourite search with a certain type of internet user on this title post: "Furry babes"
Clearly they were not expecting this

It wasn't long after I first started using a computer regularly that I started blogging. The Husband, who had used one for work for years kept encouraging me.
" But why?", I would ask, again and again.
"You can find anything on the internet" he would say. "Recipes, for example" The man knows how to lure me in
I can't remember now how I found knitting blogs but I just followed link after link and this whole new world and more importantly, new people came into my living room.
People who were like me. And I didn't find a lot of those around me.

The Contest.

All you have to do is leave a comment on this post. If you could mention how or when you found me, that would be interesting to me. If you can remember. The deadline will be May1 st. This seems to be a lull time, computer-wise, as it seems quieter than usual with folk getting outdoors more I guess, so I will give a full week from this post.
I will pick by Random Generator ( most likely one bowl, one hand and small pieces of paper) and send the chosen a gift from the KittyCafe. All I know for sure is that there will be chocolate and something I made myself.

There is interesting post for thought at the link Blogging Without Obligation above , which I thought was appropriate for this post. I think it's pretty accurate to how many feel about blogging.
But as much as I have enjoyed blogging and do it for me, I wouldn't be truthful to say I don't like comments. It's not nearly as much fun when nobody comes to play.

So I will throw this out for all you lurkers out there, too.
You can come out of the shadows just once, yes?

And my Blogiversary Cake?
I was experimenting with a can of mango puree again. (A partial can. I have a feeling mango lassies are in our future.)
This time, cupcakes. I think they came out rather well.
You just can't have an anniversary without cake! *

KittyCafe Mango Cupcakes

In mixer, beat
2/3 c softened Butter and
1 Cup Sugar
Beat in 2 Eggs,
1 C canned Mango Puree
grated rind of one Orange (or Lemon)

In another bowl, mix dry ingredients together:
2 C Flour
2 tsps Baking Powder
Pinch of salt if using unsalted Butter
1/2 chopped Walnuts
1/2 C Coconut

Add dry mixture to mixing bowl alternately with
1/2 C Milk ( I used buttermilk to use it up)

Spoon into greased or lined muffin cups and bake at 350'F for 20 minutes.
I filled one muffin tin, quite full and 3 ramikins.

Icing

Half pkg of Cream Cheese, softened
I Tbsp Butter
1 tsp Lemon Extract
about 2 C icing sugar, or until you have reached glazing or spreading consistency, whatever you like.

Beat until smooth and spoon over cooled cupcakes.
Dust with icing sugar when set.

* The timing for the aroma of baking worked out perfectly because no one told me every farmer in the county spreads manure on his fields the same day!

A Week in Pictures

After all the kvetching about winter, we have a week of summer! Particularly the weekend. Everything is rapidly greening and coming alive, myself included.
Gardening is top of the list these days, with plenty of this:

Our new property is a bit of a blank slate landscaping-wise but I did find some of these under the apple trees:

I've also done a lot of equine photography for portraits:

So now I have a lot of this to do:
I love my wicker paint box. It makes me fell very Beatrix Potterish.
Work is always unfortunate when I started two new knitting projects:

The wildlife are back. We watched 6 deer come to drink at the smaller frog pond, 20' from the house last night. No one went for the camera, we just watched quietly. And they watched us.
New visitors included raccoons, which strangely enough we didn't see all winter.
Btw, he's not looking to jump down here. I tapped the window and he was shooting me a 'look' over his shoulder.

Mr and Mrs. Canada Goose have chosen our larger pond as their own. They gave me a very good talking/sqawking to as I followed them around the pond before they had had enough.

Unfortunately, they aren't the only ones using the pond this weekend. The Littlest wanted bragging rights as the first to jump in the pond. Now, it was a very warm weekend (25'C) but there is still a little snow in the shady parts of the woods. But then, I think determined is the word for my girl.

I had a little chat with Lynne this morning on her first day back to work. It was nice talking to you, Lynne.
I am getting to work now , really I am...

If This Blog Was A Job I'd Be Fired

I have been ignoring the several drafts I have to post as this tiny little project had been lingering around too long.
Never has anything been so difficult to finish. There were inexplicable missing charts. Reworking of charts. Missing needles. Cats carrying off wool. I have had this wool, so luxuriously soft (why aren't I making a sweater out of this?) since after Christmas and the idea since before that.
But yesterday I was determined. I put on a taped episode of Masterpiece Theatre, Persuasion, because one must be in the right mood for these girly projects. Ignoring housework (and thus sitting in relative household squalor while knitting and keeping company with Captain Wentworth) I finished it off. And then, the freaking thing was a bit limp so I had to line it.

The sewing things are in the bedroom, so no Complete works of Jane Austen to watch in there, just sewing drudgery.
And finally here today, the Rose Tea Cosy, as reluctant to bloom as this fickle spring itself.
It was designed to fit my oblong tea pot as my other cosy was a bit snug for it.
Now I really should at least go dust something.

G is For Green

Is white the new green?
It certainly looks that way to me.
The landscape is still awfully white in this neverending winter but I have been dreaming about green. There are evergreens of course, I've been looking at those all winter. Today I woke up and they were covered in new snow! In April.
I want to see grass green, leaf green, even pond scum green would do!
So I made it myself.
Years ago (over 20!) my new husband and I went on a road trip. One of the places we visited was L' Ile de L'Orleans in Quebec. There was a heat wave, I remember that clearly, but on this little island there was a breeze. We spent the day driving down rural roads circumnavigating the island and stopped to buy blueberries from the road side stand and purchase cold drinks in our barely adequate French. And to snap pictures. I was getting quite a collection of churches and barn photos. This was one of them.
A couple of decades later I sit in my own rural home and look out the window of my studio and see the evergreens and a lot of snow that does not promise spring as it should. And I take that hot summer day in my mind and make my own green.

E and F, F, F -ing along

E is for Equestrian
I sometimes feel there are more horses than people around here.

A photo of chocolate Easter Eggs was supposed to go here.
They seem to have gone missing....

F is for Found
There were a number of things we found in this house when we moved in. Some we found right away and others we came across gradually.
In the storage loft, an old typewriter. Here in all it's dusty glory. I think this was just too heavy to move. It has found a new home temporarily, keeping a crawl space door closed in the Lad's bedroom. Very useful.

On the wood stove, this welcoming trivet.


Hanging from a nail on the kitchen beam, this little guy. My new kitchen witch/warlock?

And in the dryer, along with a tea towel and a denim shirt, the piece de resistance, a quilt.

No need to mention the denture cleaner under the bathroom sink, really.

Knit, Repeat, Double

I really do have a garnstudio obsession.
I found this cardigan a while ago and put in on the back burner until I was searching in the stash, which mostly consists of odd balls and came across this Briggs & Little Heritage I found at a thrift shop for $1 a skein. It was earmarked for dyeing experiments.
It was a cold night when I found this again and started to count the skeins. Mmm, enough for a cardigan, I'm thinking, shivering.
I quickly knit up the back , one front and was on the other side when I came to the conclusion that it was just too lacy in this yarn. I knit up the other front doubling the yarn. I executed a quick family poll. The consensus was too knit it double.
I was torn because:
a. I did not want to look (cough) bulky in it
b. I did not want to lose the shape.
c. But I still wanted it to be warmer than the lacy version.
A sane person would have just cut their losses and bought other wool but then this is me.
I am happy with the outcome, all said. It makes a very cosy outdoor sweater...that I also wear indoors!

And I got this beautiful kimono in the mail last week, made by Lynne
Ah, colour!
Thanks so much, Lynne

D is for...

But wait, can't I do S is for Snow?

Okay, D is for Duvet.

Dear readers,
I didn't mean to disappear but this is where I was.
Littlest got home from her school trip, a week in Quebec and promptly came down with the flu. And she took us with her. Three out of four of us were down for the count for the entire week, most of it spent under my nice toasty duvet. At one point in the week, we were snowed in, being to weak to shovel. Luckily, neighbours we haven't officially met yet came by with their plow and cleared our driveway.
The second part of the storm, the one that tried very hard to break the record for the most snowfall in one year, last seen in 1939? It came on Friday. It looked like this:

D is also for Drift.
You knew I was going to get the snow in there somewhere, right?

Please excuse the dirty window (cat paws)

That was once part of the driveway. This was once a picnic table spot. Yes, that bit of driftwood there. Now completely hidden.

I still can't get out of this door to feed the birds. It's hard to see perspective-wise, but that drift is waist deep.

So, yes, what were you all saying about spring?
Uh, huh.
I'll be back soon. I actually have photos that are not snow.
In fact there is a rumour, they may be of knitting.

Substitute C

I really can't believe I am behind on the ABC's at C.
Well, yes, I guess I can at the moment.
I am putting pieces together (paintings) for a local studio tour. You know the kind? You drive around to artist's studios, to see the artist in person and their working environment and hopefully buy some of their work.
This one is not until autumn but I have only a week left to get some work together for the submission.
I have wanted to do this for forever, and now that we have our rural home and the opportunity, I'm a bit nervous.
And then there are the two craft projects I have on the go. That's the problem with more than one in progress at a time ( I just typed poorgress, which is only too appropriate) nothing is completed and there is nothing to show. And then how does one feed the blog, I ask you?
This is a roundabout way of saying one of these projects was my letter C.
And the other one I would dearly like to be wearing right now.

So I was stewing about the last piece for the art submission this morning and I thought I would take a little walk in the woods to clear my head. I set off in the opposite direction from our biggest patch of woods and went instead towards our neighbours. When we met the neighbour in December (by snowmobile, from across his farm field) he mentioned that he had built a log cabin in the woods. (His woods, although there are no fences or borders to clarify where one wood ends and the other property starts. There is just a heck of a lot of trees.) So I walked in the sometimes knee deep snow, quite a workout, until I found it.

So C is for Cabin.
I had limited vantage points for photos unless I wanted to stand on a rather substantial frozen pond, which I was not willing to risk. I'm pretty sure it was completely frozen, unlike ours which is spring-fed and therefore never completely freezes. But 'pretty sure' can also lead to hypothermia.
The footings for the porch appear to be right at the water's edge.
I am entirely smitten with this cabin in the woods, an at-pond's edge-summer-house idea and I ran back to give The Husband plans for a summer project (and to take the bread out of the oven)
Even the little wood shed is divine.