Saturday, April 25, 2015

Hello little baby

On Wednesday of this week, Earth Day, our girl Sacajawea "Wea" gave birth to a little baby boy cria.
He was born very early but so far, things are going well.
Every day is better. He gets stronger after every feeding and things are hopeful.


Please continue to pray for this little guy!







I think it's time to name him :)
 

Wednesday, April 22, 2015

Yarny Stuff

Hello! Happy Yarn Along Day.
For those of you that have been to our farm, you have probably been in the Coop (aka our farmstore).
It's an old chicken coop that we converted into a store. I remember the day that my dad said he wanted to make it into a store and I laughed. There were groundhogs, critters and tractors living in this old building. A store? Seriously? But it worked. And now it's where I spend a ton of time teaching knitting to wonderful people and I love it out there in the coop. Anyway...I was out there yesterday teaching and I noticed my mom's basket full of newly wound handspun yarn. It was just shouting to me to take their picture. 

So, I'm sharing some photos of my mom's handspun yarn mixed in with some alpaca yarn from our store.
Soooo pretty! I am the only girl in the family that doesn't spin. I don't know...not sure it's for me. But I kind of want to try it. Hmm....




 My knitting....
Haven't done as much knitting lately as I want to. But I am super excited for a new sweater that I just cast on for. It's the Woodfords Sweater by Brooklyn Tweed. I'm knitting it with Beaverslide dk weight yarn in the Hidden Lake color. It's so hard to photograph! It's a pretty teal blue.
Random Saturday morning swatch and cartoon time with the littlest kiddo.
 



I finished a new sock. It's the green striped one on the left. I also finished "the ugly sock" which isn't as ugly now that it's done. Neither have a match yet, so I wore them together...obviously.
Knitted in Indulgence 6 ply yarn.

 

In other news...Garrett, my mom and myself went to the city on Sunday for a great day and  saw Wicked. LOVED it!!!!!!!!!!! It was nice to visit NYC for a day. And then I was very happy to drive back to the farm. I'm much more a country girl than a city girl, but I do like it for a day.

 Wishing everyone a Happy Earth Day!



And thank you to Purple Debbie for the ice cream money for Chase. Debbie slips money into Chase's pocket every time she visits the farm and tells Chase to go buy some ice cream. He chose a McDonald milkshake today :) So fun.

Joining in with Ginny at Small Things.




Wednesday, April 15, 2015

Yarn Along

Hi guys. Happy Yarn Along Day.
I don't have much to show and share because my body rebelled on me and hurt like crazy all week. Not a fan of when that happens!!! So, had to take it easy and give my shoulders, hands and wrists a break. It's baseball season and that means lots of baseball bleacher knitting.


Last night was my middle son's first rec game and I was there knitting on a sock.
A lot of our teammates are the same as the past few years (we have the BEST team!!!)
One by one, the families trickled in to the field and all commented on what was I knitting?

One dad that we are friends with said to me, "If I had walked over here and you weren't knitting I would have taken your temperature to make sure you weren't sick!" I had to laugh. Because it's true.

What are you knitting? Share with us and everyone over at the Yarn Along!

Sock: Vanilla Latte Sock (minus the ribbing)
Indulgence 6 ply sock yarn. Size US 1.5 double points.

Reading:
Why the Sky is Blue by Susan Meissner
It's free on Kindle Prime right now. I read two of her books and LOVED them both.
This one is really good so far. I love her style of writing.




Wednesday, April 8, 2015

A Really Good Book and a Really Ugly Sock

I love to read. I love to knit. Shocker, I know.
I get very excited when I have a good book to read. I'm even more excited when I find an author that I love. I recently read A Fall of Marigolds by Susan Weissner. It is a great read and I picked it for our book club. The girls are reading it and really enjoying it. Yay!
I thought I would push my luck and try another book by the same author.
Success! Secrets of a Charmed Life was just as good. I couldn't put it down and stayed up way too late reading it. Great books...I highly recommend both.

So, that explains the really good book.
Now, the Really Ugly Sock.

Hmmmm.....

I am a reluctant sock knitter. I don't love knitting socks, but they are easy, quick and portable and fit the baseball season lifestyle. I picked up this yarn at the lys last week and I knew when I bought it that it was out of my "normal" color choices. I'm trying to make some changes and yarn color is an easy change. I thought it looked fun and springy mixed in with gray (which I love). Well....I started knitting and it's SOOOO UGLY! Ugh! Love the yarn base though. It's Indulgence 6 ply sock yarn. It's a pleasure to knit, just not to look at!

The pattern is Vanilla Latte Socks and I really like the pattern.
I'll finish this sock and then head back to the store to buy something more "my color".




Happy Knitting and Reading!
Joining in with the Yarn Along at Small Things.
p.s. If you missed my post last week, I am very excited to be the designer for the new yarn along button. I hope you like it! It was a pleasure working with Ginny on this logo.



Tuesday, April 7, 2015

Catching Up

Howdy. Just thought I would share a few pictures from last weekend.
We started off the weekend at a chilly and windy Fishing Tournament in Spring Lake, NJ to kick off the trout season. We ended with some fun on Easter with the Alvino cousins and my parents.

Here are a few pictures...









No one caught anything, but the kids had fun.







That's some of the crew! We missed the Fagan boys. They are having fun in the sun in North Carolina.



North American Alpaca Show

Last weekend, my mom and dad took some of their alpacas to compete in the North American Alpaca Show. An alpaca show is a place for alpaca breeders to gather and compete against each other with their best animals. The animals are judged by color, age and gender. The judges look at their composition and fleece. The show is similar to a dog show. However, you are not allowed to do anything with the fleece. The primping that goes on at the dog shows is not found at an alpaca show. They are field to ring animals. Hay and all!

Here are the results of the Arrow Acres animals.

1st Place Rose Gray 
"Shushi" (she has a fancy long name but we call her Shushi)

2nd Place Medium Fawn:
MFI Out of this World "Spacey"- She is on the far right

3rd Place Modern Rose Gray:
Arrow Acres Stone


3rd Place Silver Gray:
Arrow Acres Mr. Bates


We want to wish a huge congratulations to our Smoke Ring's little sister for winning Color Champ!
That's the proud big brother below. CCFN Smoke Ring is a beautiful herdsire that is available for spring breedings. If you are interested, please contact Dee at 732-861-1385



Congrats to all the winners!