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Flowers seem to like it

As do the berries

And the Sweet Walla

The sheep aren’t thrilled, but they are doing ok, keeping mostly to shady spots.

And Edgar is already trying to talk me into shearing him again!

Classic Oak Cardigan is still on schedule.
I made considerable progress while down on the island, cranking out two skeins of yarn,

but still probably have another three to go.

And the knitting is coming along, too.

(I’d be so close if it was a vest!)

And here is what The Man doesn’t want me to show you 🙂
a sneak preview of the latest project

Can you guess what it is?

Here’s a hint-

Whidbey Island, that is.

I’ve got my projects in my chicken bags and I’m (almost) ready to go!

Knitting bag-

and Spinning bag-

StashMo is begging to come along, so I might have to pull out another bag just for him.

Sophie’s all oiled up and ready to hit the road.

She’s a pretty good traveller, as she can sit upright in the backseat. Just belt her in and go-

Coupeville, here I come! 🙂

Which of these things is not like the others?

Yep. It’s that strange orange-brown thing in the foreground.

My poor little quince tree just shut down and died.

It all happened so quickly.
No apparent insect damage. No lesions. No fungus.
The only thing I can think of that might have done this is verticillium wilt.
As far as I can tell, there’s nothing I could have done to save him.

It makes me sad, because it took about 4 years or so to get him established and to the point where he was bearing fruits. And they were really neat fruits.

Dag. Guess we’ll have to replant. Something that isn’t susceptible.

But in other news- I did finish the Tour. Early, in fact. (guess I kind of misjudged that one. I’ll set a more challenging goal for myself next time!)
Here is the Griff yarn hanging out and acting all casual at the finish line.

And it was a good week for the Classic Oak cardigan as well-

The back is complete, and I’ve moved on to the right front-

I also managed to get another almost-15 ounces of wool carded and blended. Hopefully enough to get it done (fingers crossed!)

And, remember the original chicken tote?
I’d been thinking for a while that I wanted to developed another style.
And finally today I went for it.
I’m please to introduce, the Chicken Messenger bag!

here is the inside- lined with an old pair of khakis 🙂

The lining gives it a little more weight and buffers the crinkley-ness of the plastic.
What it really needs, though, is a handwoven strap.
Will work on that.

We lost a chicken Friday.
One of the red girls. (I cannot tell the red ones apart, but we’ll call her “Ruby”)

Seems poor Ruby developed a reproductive system infection, and by the time we knew what was going on, it was too late to help her, other than to end her suffering.

So, in honor of Ruby, I thought I’d post my favorite chicken cartoon.

Many more where that came from at savagechickens.com

On a brighter note, we’re finally starting to get some raspberries ripening.
This is my little haul from this evening’s picking-

Sadie was helping, but she’s one of those eat-as-you-go pickers 🙂

I ought to get a video of her “helping”. She’s so funny.