Month of May Photo Challenge

Ok folks. I have a challenge for you.

I notice so many of you out there in the blogging world also love to take pictures.

My sister, Andee, is the real photographer in the family. She can capture a moment like no one else.

She knows what all the fancy settings on her camera mean. I'm impressed.

I dabble in the photography and I love taking pictures too.

So......here's my challenge to you.

 • Starting May 1st •

For every day of the month of May,

take a photograph that captures the word that

corresponds to the date.

Post to your blog or flickr account

and relink here.

Hopefully Andee can make a fancy button thingy that you can

use to put on your site. But for now, here's the list.

Have fun, enjoy and let's capture some wonderful moments

during my favorite month of the year.

A New Baby

Welcome to the farm little boy!

A sweet little fawn boy born Sunday morning.

He's having a rough go so far, with some nursing issues

and tendons in his legs making him a bit wobbly.

With extra special care, he should be just fine.

His fleece is beautiful!!! What a cutie.

Please stay tuned for my 31 Day Photo Challenge starting May 1st.

Farm Open This Saturday!

Just a reminder that the farm will open to the public on Saturday!

Swing by to see the herd in full fleece. Pretty soon they'll have their "haircuts" and look more

like aliens than snuggle bugs!

We will have our showroom open for the knitters and shoppers. Yarn, accessories, jewelry, hand made cutting boards, gifts, roving and more....

Remember, we have a lot of beautiful knits for spring and summer.

Alpaca is an all weather fiber.

We will also have a yard sale set up.

Get lots of goodies!

Have a great weekend! Enjoy this weather.

Hope to see you on the farm.

Fresh Air

As soon as the big kids got home from school, I put them in charge of Chase and I headed outside
BY MYSELF.

Phew....toddlers wear me out.

I spent most of the day cleaning out all the clothes in Chase's dresser, sorting them and replacing them with clothes that will actually fit him. Man, that feels good. Little ones grow so quickly it's hard to keep up.

Two of the alpacas are due to have their babies right now.

I am on baby watch today, so went to check on the girls.

Both look fine, no sign yet. Hopefully it will be soon.

I love baby season! Of course, uneventful good nursing, first time mommy births are the best.

While I was outside I got some pictures of the farm and a new knitting project.

  My latest project is off the needles. Need to block it.
"Terra Shawl"

 Some of the girls.....

 Wdamo. Time to have your baby!!!!

 Miss Maggie, your turn too! Any day now :)

 Some of the herd enjoying this beautiful day.

 The new pens

 Lilly girl, good thing it's almost shearing day! You can't see!!!!

My shawl and my apple tree. (Thank you DAD!)

Apple blossoms.....maybe in time for my birthday after all :)
Again, THANKS DAD!
(my dad has threatened to cut this tree down every single year now for um, ten years?!)
Every year big branches fall down, get hit by lightning, etc and I have begged that it remain.
Every year this tree blooms for my birthday. I'm a bit of a sentimental girl. To a fault I suppose.

Color inspiration for my next shawl.

My garden will be right up against the new alpaca fence.

Time to get the garden going and move things around. Guess the sprinkler hasn't been used in some time now.....home to a vine.

Looking forward to showing off the new baby crias when they arrive. Hopefully soon!

Just a reminder that our farm will be open to the public this Saturday, April 27th.
Come on by!

Yarn Along

Hi! Happy Wednesday. Looks like we might not freeze today. Exciting stuff.

Worked more on my Jared Flood, Terra Shawl this week.

In a way to cope with what was going on last Friday in Boston,

Liz and I went to the yarn store. Of course. What better stress relief is there than a yarn store?

I bought this yarn to do the edge of the gray shawl. I felt like it needed a bit of color.

Reading, Garden Spells by Sarah Addison Allen for book club.

This boy has been carrying this book around for the past few days.

He's obsessed with it. He's kinda cute huh?

Happy Knitting!

Leanne

Joining in with Ginny

Favorite Patterns?

The search is officially on....

Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival is in a week and a half and I like

to go with a game plan. You know....patterns chosen and printed,

yardage written out, ideas of colors in mind

and of course, that one project that you find hanging up at

someone's booth that you "just have to knit".

So, dear fellow knitters, I ask you for help.

Do you have a favorite pattern/knit that you have made

that you would recommend?

I am loving the triangular shawls right now.

I also love a good cardigan.

Colors make me happy.

Love the monochrome sock yarns.

I will be attacking Miss Bab's booth asap Saturday morning to

get the good stuff. I used her yarn last year for my

Color Affection Shawl and it has held up so well.

So I plan on grabbing some of that yarn.

Here are a few I have in mind....

 Juneberry

Any advice? Would love to hear what you are knitting, or

what a favorite all time knit is.

Paca Kisses, Candy and Books

A few camera phone shots from our Saturday morning....

 Reno

 Jatoba

 Paca kisses for Chase

 New books and candy for the kiddos. Thank you Manasquan.

Picked up my books that I will be handing out this week for World Book Night!!!

I will be sharing the gift of reading to the Meals on Wheels of Manasquan recipients.

The book I chose to hand out is Still Alice. A great read. 

This is my second time participating in this event.

Have a great week :)

A Moment In Time

This little man reminds me of my dad right here.

Dirty jeans, drooping just a little (sorry Dad, but it's true)

Arms on the fence, checking the herd out for a few minutes.

Then moving on to feed the birds and play in some dirt piles.

I think we have a farm boy on our hands.

This same little farm boy has driven me to exhaustion this week.

I am at the point that I crave a vacation or even just a few hours to myself.

I have to remind myself on a daily basis that this stage is quick and I will miss it.

Right? I will miss this stage at some point when he's big. I don't know. So far in my limited parenting experience I think being a 10 year old boy is pretty much the coolest time of life.

11 has introduced the weird hormones and smelly feet. So yeah, 10 is pretty much perfection from our experience. 

So for now Mr. Chase, I will take deep breaths, remind myself that

you are learning and growing, and we should let you have fun.

Skipping gymnastics class to play with the "pacas" and birds "quack quacks"
was what we were supposed to do this morning.

For that big brother's laptop you cracked in half last night....well, that's a different story.

You're still in the dog house for that one.

Wishing everyone a safe weekend. Stay safe, pray this awful person is caught.

Yarn Along

Hello!

Joining in with Ginny and the other knitters for this week yarn along.

I wish I had read more this week, but just didn't get to it.

Hours on the baseball fields lends itself more to knitting time, not reading time.

So here we go....

A new project on the needles.

Terra by Jared Flood

Knitting with Charlemont yarn from Webs (Valley Yarn Brand)

Finger weight yarn in dusk gray

An easy, nice pattern that doesn't require too much attention.

Have I mentioned that Jared Flood is a genius? Well, yes I will say it again. He is. I think I have a nerd knitting crush.

And oh my.....the orange top.

I might have my first gray hair because of this. 

After starting the lace part (and I LOVE lace and think I know what I'm doing at this point) 

 had to RIP IT OUT at least 7 times before it was right. UGH! 

After calling Andee with an S.O.S. call before I poked my eyeballs out, we figured out that the chart must be written wrong. Fab. 

 So, I think I figured it out. 

Not sure if I'll get this thing done in time for Maryland, but summer for sure.

 

 This is the chalk message I've had up for the past week or so to my boys. 

After the bombing this week, this is more appropriate than ever. I wish everyone could just be kind to each other. Prayers continue for Boston folk and the rest of us that have been forced to question things.

And for those of you that believe in prayer, please keep a friend of mine in your thoughts.

She is trying to recover from a ruptured appendix. It's a long road and she's in the hospital while

her husband takes care of their two kids. She should be fine, but it's a tough time for her. 

I also want to add to the list the little tiny twins that

were born to a childhood friend. They need every prayer out there.

Ok....sorry for that bummer news at the end, but my one grandmother isn't with us

anymore and the prayer group from church is all up there with her!!!!

They were some powerful ladies, so just putting it out there!!!

Happy Knitting!

-Leanne

 

Hand Dyed, Hand Spun

Liz just spun up her first skein of her hand dyed top merino roving. 

Pretty cool!

Dear Boston

Today I didn't have regular tv on. I was busy caring for Chase and also watching my friend's 4 month old daughter so she could visit one of our very ill friends in the hospital. I didn't see the news. I wasn't on Facebook. I wasn't on the computer. I had no idea of what happened in Boston to innocent people cheering on their friends and running a race of a lifetime.

Then I got a call from my girlfriend to thank me again for watching Kate and then she told me about the bombing.

I don't understand. How can we understand?

I have been to Boston one time. I was 6 months pregnant with Chase and we were

there for Patriots Day and the Boston Marathon. We didn't plan it that way, it just

happened to be the time we went.

Our hotel was one block in from the finish line. We all had so much fun in that beautiful city

and I fell in love with it on that trip. I was there. In that exact spot where the bombing was.

This scares me to no end. Yes, it was three years ago. But the people injured today did nothing wrong, knew nothing was going to happen and it's just plain scary.

So Dear Boston, my heart goes out to those that are hurting and in fear.

I hate that we have to explain this to our kids.

I hate that it makes us double think things.

Stay safe.

(All photos taken from our trip 3 years ago)

 

 Rick and Garrett checking out the marathon finish line preparations from our hotel.

That's not scary....

This post has nothing to do with alpacas, knitting or farm life. 

But it makes me happy so I thought I would share.

This is Chase, being Chase.

Randoms...

Just some recent random pictures from my camera....

 Flower thief

 Watching silly YouTube videos

 A new knit. Jared Flood is a genius.

 Thank you Mr. Peacock for your feather

 Mantle...need to pack up those xmas lights.

 This week's delivery. Silly how happy these boxes make me and my family.

 A picture of me as a little girl that reminds me of Chase

 Pretty yard flowers in a vase my mom brought home from Alaska

 A reminder that I am two pounds from my lifetime weight goal = FREE!!!!

Love my Thursday morning meetings.

 Dalton's life right now....Chorus concert music and baseball

 A snippet from my recent book and a line that I love...."I'm just very, very fond of you."

From The Fault in Our Stars

 An HOUR of total happiness and leaving Mama ALONE! THANK YOU Beatrice from Thread and Ladle for your simple idea....I went in the pantry, found an old cookie tin, paper cups, mason jar lids and canning funnels. A WHOLE hour of happiness for little man.

 G and Chase... CHEEEEEEESE!

 Saturday morning...reading and watching bad tv. Those darn Kardashians suck me in. I know...it's awful but I love it.

 Lizzie at last week's yarn party.

 Courtney and Paige. I love this photo.

 Tara starting her new sweater

 Hi Reno Beno

 Saying hi to Grandpop's birds

 Hey Reno...Again.

That was Random......I told ya!

Have a great week :)

Leanne