Friday 2 September 2011

Moving on.

Time is moving on again,  the swallows are tearing around the fields filling their bellies with as many flies as possible before the long trip south. Even when the sun shines there is a chill in the air and I'm already thinking about mittens in the mornings.



There has been a good bit of spinning and dyeing. I used the eucalyptus branches and bark to dye some fibre. I had been hoping for brown, or even purple but yellow is what I got and yellow is what I'll be knitting.  The kitchen smelt like cough drops for days. Of course I have no pictures of the yarn. I'll do that next time the sun shines.



I nearly took a great picture of this poppy, one of the many gifts that the garden gave us when we neglected to weed at all this year.  However a blade of grass got in the way.  The colours are still pretty though. We have the most incredible collection of flowers and I have no idea where half of them came from. I'm thinking that the birds might be dropping seeds en route to the feeders but who knows. The feeders have been a great success,  I was looking out of the kitchen window far too early one morning and saw two tiny willow warblers and a red squirrel in our big silver birch tree. First squirrel in fourteen years.



In other news, Magnus has learned a new skill. He has taught himself to pee in the drain outside our house. I caught him in the act while I was testing out a new zoom lens. Should save us a fortune in kitty litter.





8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Dear Magnus, I have 3 cats and would love if they could follow your example. Please let me know if you are organising training ! ;-)
Cheers from Belgium.

Anonymous said...

How cleaver of Magnus. I had an orange tabby that figured the same thing out about the bath tub drain and until we got another cat it did cut down on how fast all the litter had to be replaced.

Lyn said...

clever Magnus!
I love the photo of the poppy photograph, with such a beautiful blue sky too.
xxx

Ellen Mason said...

Dear Magnus, You are brilliant.

Anonymous said...

Love the photo of swallows. So different from the chimney swifts and barn swallows I see on this side of the Atlantic.
Magnus is clever, and sneaky. And, at least, it's all outdoors and not indoors.

zippiknits...sometimes said...

Oh my! A drain to pee in; it must be kitty dreams come true. Fun Photo!

We have swallows flying south in about a month. Poor little things have to fly through Mexico City, with the worst smog on the planet. Poor people, too.

The photo of the poppy is very lovely, the grass just reminds me of the little kid who steps in front of the camera at the last minute and pulls the corners of his mouth out and crosses his eyes.

Jane said...

Ha! Your cat cracks me up! The weather is changing here too. All the songbirds are pretty much gone and the leaves are starting to turn. So not ready for it this year.

Lisa said...

Oh my goodness! That's funny.

Come to think of it, our little cat Smog apparently taught himself this trick, but in our case, the grating lead to our furnace.

The first few days after we turned on our heat were truly vile.