A Few Sheep Shy of a Farm

Here is how I spent my afternoon today! I built 3 compost bins in the back corner of the yard, just up from the chicken coop. They are built from wood pallets and clothes hangers so completely from reclaimed materials. The instructions came from someone else online . . . and it was pretty easy to put together. That is, once I’d cleared the brush from that corner and moved the manure pile. The only thing I would do differently is to use pallets with more boards than many of these have as the manure tends to go through the spaces; the plan is to use things like leaves, grass clippings and straw to stabilize the pile and prevent it going out the spaces.

please bear with me while we get this figured out . . . .

just having ice cream

I realize I haven’t posted for a while now . . . but I also haven’t done much knitting the past few months . . .

We had a busy spring with Mimmo finishing up his first year of Preschool (loved it); me taking a cake decorating class and Caterina’s First Birthday.  In late May we also hatched a new crop of chicks, 8 in all and we are now waiting to see just how many hens we’ll get . . . Then we had about a month of rain, something like 3/4 of June and into July and now we are trying to enjoy summer.

Mimmo had a terrific 4th Birthday.  He was so excited about having his party this year and had requested a dinasour cake but later changed it to a Dragon.  My plan for putting it together didn’t come off as well as I’d hoped but we regrouped and turned it into a slain dragon, which the birthday boy loved! He had a ball with his friends and cousins and they are getting closer to actually being able to break the pinata themselves, maybe next year!

Mimmo is now taking Karate classes and he’s really getting into it.  He already has his first yellow stripe on his belt and we are all very proud!  We’re also going swimming in Gloucester with the cousins twice a week; he likes the beach but isn’t thrilled with the cold, ocean waters.  Caterina is liking all the outdoor time but going through sunblock at an amazing rate!

Knitting wise, I’ve just gotten back into the swing of things. . . I’ve finished up a pair of socks I had started last fall and I’m currently working on a pair for Caterina for this fall . . . just my basic kids sock pattern so its a relatively quick project.  I’ve also noticed that Mimmo’s legs are much longer now and his feet are HUGE so he’s going to need several pairs of socks before the weather gets cold!  Looks like I’ll have my work cut out for me this year!

I still need to figure out what is going on with the photo portin of the software for this so I’ll try to add photos but I’m not certain in will work.