Where the heck is Stalag 16?

For those of you who haven't seen The Great Escape, just bear with me. Before it got so awfully hot here I was going great guns on the garden. For many years I have looked at the mess in from of the garage and thought I should do something with it. Just as in knitting, there are no easy patterns. You can always make things more complicated. This was the start:

Lots of weeds, no flowers. Whenever The Husband is in a lawn mood he just weed-whacks everything off at soil level. Now, a normal person would pull the weeds and plant something pretty. Ha! I decided that if I was going to all the work of putting something in, I should do it "right". That meant pulling up all the weeds, digging down 8-10", sifting all the soil (you would not believe how much broken glass I got, not to mention the hypodermic needles I found, and yes, I was wearing heavy leather gloves), amending the soil, returning the soil to the trench and then planting pretties. Here is the trench:

It's 16.5 feet (just about 5 meters) long and about two feet (or 50 centimeters) deep. The longer I dug the deeper it got. After I got it all sifted (which took about three days or 20 hours of digging) I added two big bales of peat moss and filled everything back in.

The Husband made lots of jokes about whether I had gotten the tunnel finished, or if I had any room for a yellow fever victim. He didn't do any of the digging for his usual reason, "You seemed to know what you were doing and I didn't want to bother you." At any rate he added some decorations of his own. The Baby had asked if his girlfriend could come and visit for a couple of weeks and as a hostess gift, she brought me a beautiful white rose. Now we have a rose garden.

With any luck next spring I will have something better than weeds to look at when I look out of the kitchen window.

Knitting Content:

After a day at the dig (and I thought anthropology sounded fun) I went in and knit a few little things. For Baby's girlfriend (and do I need to say I love this girl?) Fetching mitts. I put a few rows of ribbing at the finger end rather than the picot bind-off because that seems more practical.

Specs:

Yarn: Some inexpensive cashmere from AC Moore's

Needles: Size 5 DPNs

Pattern: Fetching from Knitty

Changes: 3 rows K1P1 ribbing instead of picot bind-off

It took me two evenings to knit (after ditch digging) and The Girlfriend was suitably impressed. She is spending her Junior year abroad and I hope she will remember us fondly.

I also knit a pair of Red Hat socks for myself. I kind of liked the spiral of color on the first sock, but it wasn't as attractive on the second (and Amy, I found Sensational Socks on the library table buried under The Husband's mail). At any rate they are colorful and comfy to wear.

Tomorrow I am going off with The Husband to keep him company while he travels for work. The boys will be on their own (19 and 22, will the house survive? Stay tuned). I was getting my list made for packing and of course the knitting came first. A pair of Madder Ribbed socks for The Husband, Embossed leaf socks for me (from the same yarn, I didn't realize I had ordered 4 skeins for socks for him) and a shawlette (scroll down it's the first one) for while he is at work and I can really concentrate. Just in case there is a pair of grey tweed basic socks in the car so I will always have something at hand. There's even a pool at the apartment where his company is putting him up. I can sleep late (well, later than he. He gets up a 3am!!), breakfast, go for a swim, and be ready to go sight-seeing or shopping when he gets home. The company he works for even gives him money for food every day! Vacation time ahead!