Apple Trees on Easter

Early this Winter I ordered 5 apple trees from my cousin, Marvin, who had bought a quantity of root stock and had grafted a variety of apples onto that stock. The trees came to us a couple months ago and Dad kindly heeled them into their garden in Onalaska until we could get down there to plant them. This weekend the trees finally found their homes on our own 5 acres. What a nice Easter to be outdoors in the sun with my Mom and Muffin planting trees!
The trees (from farthest to closest) are: Yellow Transparent, Red Gravenstein, Honey Crisp, Gravenstein, and a Chehalis apple tree. I hope the deer don't munch the trees down to nothing. Mom and Dad's trees do okay, but they are a bit closer to their home. If these take off, we will have some lovely apples in a few years. The Red Gravenstein was from some cuttings originally taken from my parents tree years ago.

I did find some eggs today. Mom and Dad sent home about three dozen lovely farm fresh eggs in a cute Easter basket, as well as some lovely pickles and jam. I should have taken a photo of the beautiful eggs. They are light brown, cream, and green colors and there are small Bantee size to huge double yoke eggs. What a treasure. The pickles are from Mom's cucumber patch in the garden with home grown dill and garlic. The jam is from their raspberry plants that produced so heavily last season. The farm is such a special place where you know where the food comes from and the work that it took to grow it.

Coming in from watering the trees I heard some hawks calling. There was a pair soaring over the field. There had been only one earlier, but now there were two. I think they were looking for field mice or rabbits. They stayed pretty low and were just sort of hanging there in the sky over the field.













I have had a lot of fun spinning and knitting this last week. I bought a headband kit when I was at the Whidbey Island Weaver's Spin In. I got the Shetland roving spun and plied on my drop spindle and I knit the headband pattern that came with the kit. I think I'll spin some of the Shetland I have in my stash and make another for a friend of mine. It was fun to do and I know the Shetland I have is very soft and will be excellent for this project. The tulips where some Tina and I bought on the way back from the Spin In when we were in Mt Vernon. They have a big tulip festival every year, but it hasn't started yet. These were some of the first of many that will be coming out of their fields. They have lasted over a week on my table without any additives to their water.

Wayne's socks are coming along. These are toe up socks that Jen and Kim inspired me to knit. The song "The Beat Goes On" is going through my head as I knit only with the word "Beat" being changed to "Feet", well that and a few other lyrics being changed. I just started sock #2 of this pair.

There is news on the Braids sweater. The sleeves were perfect! I don't know how but they ended up right where they should be when my sister tried it on. However, after putting it on we both decided it was a bit short in the body length. It was knit as a cropped sweater and to make it a truly magical sweater I think I'll take the couple extra skeins I have of the Cotton Fleece and see if I can make it longer. This may be a bit tricky since this is knit from the bottom of the sweater up. I'll have to try and see what I can come up with, but I'm sure we can make it happen.