Back in June, I posted some knitting goals. I can’t believe that I made every one of them, (sort of).

1.) Since I did sign up for Summer of Socks, I will knit one pair of socks from beginning to end. (I know, one! I’m not really pushing myself with these goals, am I???)

Yes! I just finished my Spring Forward Socks on Thursday – just in time to enter them in the drawing for the last Summer of Socks time period.

2.) I will knit 20 more squares on my Sock Blankie.

Oh wait, I don’t know if I made this one. I certainly knit some squares, but I don’t know if I knit 20 squares.

3.) I will knit one market bag.

I did finish this, but apparently I neglected to post about it both here and on ravelry. I haven’t used it yet though. When I bring it to the store, the baggers just seem to ignore it.

4.) I will knit some things with my hand spun yarn.

I knit 2 hats on the way to Michigan. Apparently I have some finished product posts coming up soon!

5.) I will get at least one of my children to knit something and enjoy it.

Ok, so I got Agent K to knit 2 or 3 rows on a swatch. She wanted to make a teddy bear, but she thought it was super boring so that is as far as she got. Agents B and J, however, really got into drum carding and carded up a bunch of mini-batts for LFG’s birthday before we left for Michigan.

I had a whole bunch of R and D ideas for my Etsy shop, but I never really had any time home alone to work on them this summer. I guess that is what fall is for, right?

A number of you have mentioned to me, either by comment, e-mail, or in person, that the larger-than-life caterpillar photos are not your favorites. I can appreciate that so I thought I would post something from my yard a little more rollie-pollie and hugable (and a little more difficult to photograph). So now, do you think my woodchuck is cute? Maybe he needs a name?

Just for the sake of arguement, however, let me give you a couple of statistics:

Number of spicebush leaves eaten by spicebush caterpillars: About 10 to 12.

Number of milkweed leaves eaten by an entire flock of tussock caterpillars: Just a few large older yellowing leaves.

Number of garden plants eaten by woodchuck: Entire population of squash, parsley, cucumbers, pumpkin, nasturtium, and some tomatoes.

Now that everything is gone – the garden is mowed over and just a few scraggly weeds remain – I am giving in and becoming friends with my woodchuck. I will embrace him as my friend on these last few days before school starts. I need all the moral support I can get.

While I was sitting here waiting for the big yellow Twinkie (as Jenny says) to arrive at my house (yes, I realize I still have 5 days…), I discovered a slide show program that works with Flickr. I’ll just leave you with the slides for viewing right now as I’m in one of those moods where if I just let my fingers do the typing, all that would come out would be venting and complaining. These are photos that show some of the fun things we did while in Michigan.

Earlier this summer, my mom called one evening saying that we “had” to come up to see the caterpillars on her Milkweed plant and to come quickly before they ate the whole plant!  I was in the middle of making dinner, but since I love any excuse to get out of the kitchen I grabbed my camera and scurried up.  What I saw was this mass of caterpillars:

Granted they look pretty cute here in this photo, but in really life they were really wiggly and they made me feel a little woozy.  As you can imagine it is hard to focus and hold your camera steady when you are feeling a little woozy.  Individually, they are very cute though and sort of remind me of the designer dogs the girls have been going on about.

They were very rapidly and systematically eating the leaves off a milkweed.   I had to go home to finish making dinner, but later we all returned to see what they were up to.  What do you think the Agents thought?  Yup, you are right, Agent K had to hold some while the other 2 laughed at her antics.

I had no idea what they were so I didn’t blog about them immediately. So now, this is where the vacation part of this post starts.  On our way home, on our very last day of vacation, we were driving through the Poconos at lunchtime. I saw the Pocono Environmental Education Center on my map and thought there might be picnic tables there.  It turned out that they didn’t have any picnic tables, at least not near the parking lot, but when we went inside the building to use the facilities, there was a display with both the Milkweed Tussock Caterpillars and the Monarch Caterpillars.  The Monarch was happily munching away, but the Tussock was already in its cocoon that actually looks like a little round mass of felted brown fibers.  Very cute!  They had a little information posted on the display and the good news is that the Tussocks do not compete with the Monarchs because they like the older tougher milkweed leaves while the Monarchs like the younger fresher leaves.

Well, I better get ready to drive to field hockey practice.  Last night Agent K tells us that there are 2 mandatory field hockey parties this week.  Sometimes, I wonder if she knows me.  As Jenny can attest, the best way for me to agree to something is not to tell me that something so obviously non-mandatory is mandatory.  Also, when I asked Agent K for more details on the Saturday night party, she says, “Don’t worry, there will be seniors there.”  Ah, parties with seniors?  Surely, she doesn’t believe that is a good selling point.

Here is a fun game for you while I recover from 10 days of vacation and a 10-year-old birthday party (of which the sleepover part is currently occurring). We saw a lot of water on our voyage. I’m going to list them here in the order that we came to them, please feel free to guess in my comments if you know any or all. (Not a contest so please feel free to help each other out and ask for clues if you need them.) (eta 8/27: answers posted in comments)

1.) 36 miles long and 618 feet deep at the deepest point…

2.) Waterfall between Goat Island and Luna Island…

3.) The view from our hotel room on the 15th floor of the Marriott…

4.) This was a drive-by shot…

5.) This one we had to get off the highway and hunt for a good view…

6.) Waves just as high as the ocean, but warm with no jellyfish…

and another view of #6 from a distance…

7.) This one we saw on our way home; we had to go a bit off the beaten path to find a good view…

Good luck and have fun guessing!

We are back from vacation and getting ready for school and agent birthday season.  I think I can smell bus stops, notebooks, and lunch money in the air.  Can you?   Agent K is actually off at field hockey practice right now.  Ahhh… the quiet…

We had a great vacation though and I hope to start posting about it soon.  I haven’t uploaded the 302 million photos off my camera yet, but hope to as soon as our house and yard are in order. Tomorrow night is also Agent B’s sleepover birthday party so we will see how much time that leaves me.

I hope to make my blog rounds soon too.  I need to catch up with everyone.  Hope everyone is having a wonderful August!

We are going to be on last-chance-for-summer vacation for a while and when get back, this one is turning 10.

Yes, not only did we both hit 4-0 this year, but our youngest child is also a decade old.  No wonder we are falling apart left and right.  Literally.  Just as we are about to leave for our longest driving vacation ever, IHA had a lower back incident.

I bet you are wondering where we are going on vacation.  I may have alluded to this trip previously.  This is no mystery trip, but a long planned journey to Michigan to visit Crops-a-lot and her family.  On the way, we are stopping in Geneva, NY at the top of a finger lake (Seneca Lake?) and in Niagara Falls.  I am so organized that I already have our calendar up on the fridge for the week we get back (and believe me, it is a busy one!).  We have all our summer appointments done. We have been to the doctor, the dentist, the orthdontist, and the candlestick maker. We have been to tell the king that the sky is falling.  We have figured out how to get K’s “blue card” from the nurse to the field hockey coach without us being around on the proper days. We have have spent oodles of money on school supplies.  We have even bought new sneakers.  We are so ready!  The only hitch is that our main driver (and usually our only driver) is not up to par.  It will work though, right? We will just take one hour at a time and eventually we will get there.

Breaking Dawn.  What did you think?  Are you done?  Did you love it? Hate it?  Have no idea what I’m talking about?  As the fourth book in the Twilight series, I would have to say that if you were playing “which of these  things is not like the other,” it would be the one that stands out as a bit different.  It does follow the typical Stephanie Meyer trend of a lot of build up (that goes on and on and on) to get to an action (though not quite as much as The Host).  I did enjoy much of this book, but what I am enjoying most about Breaking Dawn is watching Agent K as she reads it.  She is loving it.  She is just so excited over every little thing and dying to find out what happens next.  Since at almost 14, she is a lot closer to the intended age of the target audience, I would say the book is a winner.  I can’t wait until she gets to the end and we can talk about it all.

Well, I better continue on my packing way and tie up any loose ends I shall encounter. Hope you all enjoy your mid-August. “See” you when I get back!

I was outside taking photos of my backyard rain forest when I caught my tomato-eater red-handed eating my weeds.   I can almost think of her as pretty and sweet and gentle when she is grazing on weeds…

It was even a little sweeter because she had her baby with her.   I know, if only they didn’t eat all the things I love to grow…

This is the first time I ever remember Connecticut having consistent rainfall all summer. Usually at some point the whole yard goes crispy, crunchy, parched.  We have had literally bucketloads of rain almost everyday.  The foliage is very lush this year.  I thought it would be interesting to compared the same view from my April photo to now.

Here is a view from my deck in April:

and the same view in August:

and a little bit of a larger view:

I can almost see the monkeys swinging from the trees, can you?

There she is! My Spicebush Girl! I found her when I was mowing the lawn today.  I think she lost her “tails” – you know, the points at the ends of the wings that are swallowtail distinctive.  She also seems a little tired as I was mowing at the end of my driveway and had to run back to the house to find my camera and then all the way back out and she was still alit.  I bet she has some stories to tell…

While we were away last weekend, our Spicebush Swallowtail butterfly emerged from its chrysalis. I think I saw it flirting about high among the tree branches last evening. I’m taking my camera out on periodic butterfly patrols throughout the day. I need that photograph and I miss my butterfly.