a day on the farm

On Saturday, Catherine and I spent the day at the Sheep Shearing Festival at Gore Place. We spent most of the time watching and petting lots of different animals, including sheep, horses, rabbits, alpacas, chickens, dogs, and goats, plus wandering around all of the craft stalls, watching the dancers, and standing in line for various food stuffs (kettle corn!). And I took a lot of pictures!

A sheep not yet sheared:



A sheep getting sheared:



Cute lambs:



A grazing cow:



A little goat climbing into the food trough:



One of my favorites, one of the miniature horses:



The alpacas:



And, one of our favorite sights of the day, a herding dog trying to herd ducks:



It was a lot of fun, and I actually managed to restrain myself from buying any yarn there, though I may not have been quite so good at the yarn store we went to afterwards.

I missed my blogiversary--it's now close to two years!--but I appear to be coming up on my 100th entry. Hmmm, maybe a contest is in order? Must ponder...

Gilbert Blythe was trying to make Anne Shirley look at him and failing utterly

My mom gave me a copy of Anne of Green Gables (the book) when I was eight. By the next year I was obsessed. I convinced my parents to go on vacation to Prince Edward Island (beautiful, by the way), owned every book written by L.M. Montgomery, and soon knew the movies by heart. I still love all of that today. Gilbert Blythe was essentially my first crush.

Last night I went to see the musical The Drowsy Chaperone here in Boston. It was wonderful--fun and funny and charming, with just enough snark. I laughed so hard tears were coming out of my eyes.

What does this have to do with Anne of Green Gables? The main character in The Drowsy Chaperone, the Man in Chair, was played by Jonathan Crombie, best known for playing Gilbert Blythe in the Anne movies. He was fantastic as the Man, camping it up just right, and making me snort more than once.

And after the show, at the stage door (where embarrassingly I was the only person there for quite a while), I got to meet Jonathan. He was really sweet and all smiles, and we talked about Slings & Arrows, and it was really really nice. And I got a picture.



I don't think I stopped smiling until after I fell asleep last night.

a touch of the poodle

I went home for a long weekend this past weekend, seeing my parents and some old friends and, of course, the puppy. So I give you: poodle pictures!

Happy puppy



Enjoying ice cream puppy



Tired puppy



And, glory be, knitting talk!

I've got about three projects at least started, but one is a gift, another is nothing to show at this point, and one I've put aside while I concentrate on the first (plus two other gifts I need to work on). So, to tide you over for a bit, here's a sneak peek at the one that's almost halfway done but won't be completed for a while. It's the Lace Ribbon scarf from the latest Knitty.



It's also the first project I've worked on using one of the yarns I brought back from Rhinebeck last year. It's Briar Rose Fibers Sea Pearl.

Red Sox country

So, um, it's been a little while since I've posted. Which means there'll be a few posts in rapid succession just trying to catch up! This first post is about baseball, namely the Red Sox, so if you're bored by my chatter about the boys, I'll post other stuff tomorrow. :)

Anyway, way back last weekend--the 11th-13th, when the Yankees were in town--I got incredibly lucky. Friday afternoon a friend called and asked, "Got any plans to cancel tonight?" She had been given four tickets to that night's Red Sox-Yankees game and was inviting me to come along! We were in the grandstands, under the overhang so we didn't get rained on, and between home plate and first base. Alas, the Red Sox lost that night, but we had a fun time and here are a few pictures:

Clay Bucholtz



Kevin Youkilis



and Manny Ramirez



Then, on Sunday afternoon, another friend called. She had standing room tickets for that night's Red Sox-Yankees game; some people had bailed, would I like to go? So I got to two Red Sox-Yankees games in one weekend! Our tickets were up in the right field roof deck, and we nearly froze to death during an extremely long game, but the Red Sox won, and we had much fun jumping and dancing and yelling to keep warm. Plus, we drank a lot of hot chocolate. A couple of pictures from Sunday night's game:

The view from the right field roof deck



After Mike Timlin's disastrous outing I had to take a picture of his E.R.A. for posterity's sake. It was insane.



Tomorrow: the puppy! And maybe actual knitting!

and the Red Sox take the field

Today's a big day in my neighborhood--the Red Sox home opener! I won't be home when the flyover happens, which is probably good. One year the planes were so low, the sound made me almost fall over. Though I am sad I won't get to see the ring ceremony.

But the World Series trophy was in town this weekend, and yesterday Mike Lowell--my favorite player--made an appearance at Niketown. It turned out to be really for a group of Little Leaguers they brought in for the event; they were given the seats and they were the ones allowed to ask questions, while the rest of us were shepherded to the back. But Mike was lovely and funny. When asked about Jonathan Papelbon's dog eating the World Series ball, his response was, "Uh, we don't really believe him. He probably dropped it in the toilet or something. It's Pap." He was really good with the kids' questions and seemed like a genuinely good guy.





There was a raffle of things like autographed baseballs and Opening Day tickets, but I didn't win anything, alas. After the event was over, they herded Mike away, so there were to be no autographs or anything. But I found the group of crazy autograph hounds outside and hung out with them. I ended up standing in and outside of a parking garage freezing for over an hour, but I got Mike Lowell's autograph as he left:



He was really nice about it, and stopped his car and signed for a group of us. His wife and kids were with him--his daughter has the same first name as I do!

So that was a successful day, in my eyes. :)

And I also got my picture taken with the World Series trophy. (And seriously, I have to be one of the least photogenic people out there. I got two pictures taken and this was the best of the pair.)



Let's go Red Sox!