Knitting, Bees, Gardening, and Miscellaneous

In between games and tournaments and swim lessons and orchestra camp, I have been working on projects :)

I've finished a few pairs of socks, I worked on some patterns/samples that have been sent for publishing :) (more on that once the book is finished - I'll have a few patterns in it), I crocheted up 11 hanging pot holders for my fence, and have been working on multiple other WiP's.  I'm really excited about a new pattern I am working on now but I don't have any photos of that yet - hopefully soon :)

Here are a few photos of some recent FO's.

 

Both of these pairs of socks were knit using Opal yarn - the orange was the Talisman line and the other was a Cabaret 6ply. These are the patterns going into the book - a hat/cowl combo, socks, and a stocking that I made based on the one I made for my nephew Z. 

 

My fence is so colorful now!

   

Right before school ended, a friend of mine asked if I would be willing to take a peek at a blanket that had some issues in it for a teacher I used to work with. Evidently this blanket has been around for a while and her kids are rather attached to it but a few of the inner squares were coming unraveled.

 

I hadn't come across an issue like this before but I figured out how to fix it :) As far as I can tell, I think the yarn was just slippery and the knots/joins had come undone with use/washing. Hopefully my fixes will hold for a while. I took care of another few areas that were close to unraveling while I was at it. Can you tell where I fixed it? 

 

I'm going to shift gears a bit and provide a PSA re: Carpenter Bees.  Did you know they existed?  I didn't.  

I was knitting on my deck a few weeks ago and kept hearing this sort of itching/biting sound but couldn't find the source of it.  Maddening as it was, I let it go and later that night, as I was coming up the stairs and could see the area of the deck behind my planters, I found an odd sawdust pile...  I could see wood particles floating down from the railing of our deck but was at a loss as to what would create this perfect hole.

 

 I went inside to do a bit of research and the hubby came home soon after - we found another hole that wasn't as far along and saw part of whatever insect it was.

 

We killed that one and was surprised to find a large bee inside. It looks like a bumblebee but isn't - it's mostly black with a yellow fuzzy area.

 

We went back to the first hole we found and tried to get to that bee but the hole was too far advanced. We talked to our neighbors and sure enough, they had a few holes in their deck railing as well! My neighbor wasn't going to let that go so he got cutting - ours and theirs and we found this inside.

 

What they do, is they drill straight up and then branch it out horizontally where they create these caverns for their larvae. The larvae (little white things) feed on the darker "stuff" until they are mature and then crawl out. They create one cavern, and make a "wall" with sawdust and whatever they stick it together with and move on down the line. Our neighbors had 4 caverns and ours had 5. You can see the vertical hole here on ours. The orangeish areas on the right were filled caverns and it had started working on the left side when we interrupted things...

 

Here's the larvae in better light.

 

You can see the sawdust "wall" on this photo.

 

All of the bees are now dead. I am all for helping out the pollinators, but not this particular kind - they do a lot of damage and keep coming back to the same nests year after year so we will replace the one board and plug the other hole they had started - it was only 3/4 in or so I'm not worried about that. Now you know - if you see a random pile of sawdust, be on the lookout!! 

 In other news, the raised garden beds are going well, I have had to thin a few things out but I am rather pleased with how things are growing. Changes will be made for next year and I might entertain the thought of adding one more box but we'll see.

What's driving me nuts though are these beetles! They're everywhere - I don't recall seeing this many of them around before. Maybe it's a hatching year or something? Anyone know? Anyone know how to get rid of them?

 

A few other random photos of our day/yard.

 I love that this spider seems to have a Santa beard ;)

End of the School Year Stuff, a Little Outdoor Time, a New-to-Us Piano, and Gardening. Oh, and Larry!

Things got a little crazy after Spring Break...  Once again, I apologize for my blog absence.  I thought it would be best to get caught back up in smaller increments.  As I have mentioned before, if you follow me on Facebook or Instagram you'll have a more up-to-date version of our daily happenings as they occur :)

This past school year was the last year that the minions and I will probably work/attend the same schools...  It was a little sad for me.  In the Fall, little man will be heading off to middle school, little miss will remain at her current elementary school, and I will begin a new school nursing job (a full-time position instead of the half-time) at a different elementary school.  Juggling everything next year with drop offs and pick ups and school activities is going to be interesting but we'll get it all sorted.

The minions had a lot of fun during our Field Day this year.

Each year, our elementary schools holds a big talent show that usually encompasses part of two days towards the end of the school year.  This year, little man partnered with a friend of his for a Ghostbusters performance.  As they talked about it, the idea for costumes came about and I was able to find brown coveralls and could customize the patches to make it more authentic.  The proton packs and Stay Puft costume was created by Nick's friend's Grandmother.  I thought it all came together rather nicely :)

There were band concerts and orchestra concerts and piano recitals...  Little man had his graduation ceremony, and plans were made for Summer activities.  Spring was nice though - the weather was good, we played lots of soccer and spent quite a bit of time outdoors.

 

I am very proud of how well both minions are doing in school. As part of little man's 5th Grade Award Ceremony he was one of the ones awarded with the President's Award for Educational Excellence. :)

   

Random afternoon spent trying to "get the shot". 

When the weather was nice and we happened to have an afternoon to ourselves, we liked to head to the parks and stretch our legs for a while.

   

 I think it was early April when I received a call from the minions' piano teacher asking if we wanted a piano for the minions to practice on at home. "How much?" Free - all we had to do was move it! The hubby made a call or two and within a few days the guys had taken a smaller Wurlitzer piano from one house to ours. Then the fun began. Some of the keys didn't quite work but it seemed to be in fairly good condition so we opened it up and found a bunch of stuff on the inside.

 

Some of the paperwork was from the 1970's. Now that it's been properly tuned both minions are enjoying their time on the piano :)

 

Last year, our gardening projects were almost non-existent due to scheduling and weather. This year, however, we are on the ball and have 13 large containers lining our fence containing various peppers, tomatoes, and peas. We had a nice thing of peas going along but they didn't get watered over Memorial Day weekend so we are starting again. Not sure how the peas will do being planted so late, but we'll see :) We've also got flowers, herbs, and I made some hanging pot holders for the fence again this year!

   

I think that's enough pictures for this post.  Next up will be soccer!  I'm hoping to find more time this evening to get that post finished as well :) Totally forgot to put up a picture of Larry. Larry is a tarantula that I got to hold this year :) Isn't he cute????? He's an Arizona Gold.