At this time tomorrow we won’t have any electricity. I believe that I’ve said that before. With any luck, it will be back on before it was with Ivan. Dennis should be here tomorrow afternoon. Great Gran is at the Farm this time. My Uncle Bruce and Aunt Patti have moved to Mary Esther and evacuated this way. I think she is happy to be able to stay in her own home (sometimes we have responsibilities after the hurricanes, so we can’t go out and stay at the Farm because we might not be able to get back) but I really miss having her here with us. She’s got a generator and Uncle Bruce knows how to start it, so I am sure they will be fine. God Bless the guy who invented cell phones!

We’re supposed to leave for camp on Thursday. It’s enough to make a girl swear. Don’t tell my mom.

Here is a little bit of fun news, though: the eggs have hatched!

The picture is blurry beucase I really had to zoom –
their mother is just looking for a chance to poke out my eyes.

I was afraid to move the plant to a safer place because I don’t want their mom to abandon them. While I was putting everything in the garage, I battened their tiny hatches as best I could.

That’s two bags of clay and the bottom part of a jack. I hope it’s enough.

The back porch is pretty sheltered and on the northside of the house. I hope that they will be OK. The cement thing beside the bird penthouse weighs about 900 pounds. I felt it would be just fine there. And I just couldn’t drag it another step.

I’ve got 2 inches on the yoga bag. I’d take you a picture, but the batteries are out of the camera and charging. I am getting ready to take a shower, watch some TV and knit until I am really, really tired and ready for bed. In the morning, I anticipate ripping out all of the mistakes I make tonight because I am already really, really tired. It will give me something to do in the bunker tomorrow.

Remember that canoe trip I told you about? It was supposed to be a three hour easy thing down Juniper Creek. But no one had bothered to go down the first part since Ivan, so it was chock full of trees and logs and new rapids. Several places you had to get out, shove your boat over the log and then hop back in. Because of all of this it took SIX hours to get down this creek. We gained a little more experience than we thought we would.

This is everyone stopped for a breather. The green boat is ours!

We took the canoe out in the water in front of Mary Esther, too. I discovered this in my camera when I got home! Uncle Bruce must have taken it from the porch. He’s cool that way.

I didn’t end up taking any of my Works in Progress with me to Mary Esther. Instead, I visited the Target across the street and picked up one of those “Knit This” kits. Just to see. I got the yoga bag one – it’s rated a “3” on the difficulty scale so I figured it might be moderately interesting.

And it is. Here’s all the stuff that comes with it.

I haven’t watched the “How To Knit” DVD (I know about that), but the instructions appear to be clear. The pattern spells out how to do the stitch (it’s fairly complex) as well as giving the abbreviations. I thought that was a nice touch.

For some reason, even though this is not a tricky project for me, I’ve had to start over twice. It’s a little embarrassing and my only excuse is that I’ve got a lot of other things on my mind: SUUSI, Dennis, Starvin’ Marvin (the Hunting Dog that we were feeding*), and the little Kitty Boo** that we found out in the woods while we were tending to Marvin. So this is as far as I’ve gotten:

My biggest complaint is that there is No Way you could get 114 stitches on the 12 inch needles that come in the kit. But I am sure that they work just fine for all of the other projects. I’m going to send the bag to my Darling Sister if I ever finish.

And for all you Weather Nerds, Cindy is mostly gone from our area. It hasn’t rained for several hours but it is still Quite Grey and Seriously Breezy.

*We pick up a lot of strays. About half of the ones we find have families that are looking for them. When we discovered Marvin at the end of the dirt road to Great Gran’s house, he looked like a shrink-wrapped skeleton. We fed him for four or five days (Did those days make a difference!) before animal control could come and pick him up – he wasn’t a Vicious Animal. In fact, he is a Darling Sweetie Pie, but not fond of leashes so we couldn’t get him into the truck. He IS a hunting dog so what do you expect? They don’t learn to do the leash thing. Animal Control came for him yesterday and the fellow mentioned that if Marvin didn’t have a family, he had a buddy who loved Hunting Dogs. So I think Marvin will have a happy ending.

**Kitty Boo (a nick name – I am not all allowed to give her a real name since we are supposed to be finding her a home) was out there screaming and wouldn’t come close to us. So we ran back to Great Gran’s and got tuna and White Socks’ carrier and lured her into it. Kitty Boos are naive that way. Now she is in Michael’s office bathroom (his office is off of the garage). Full of kitten food. And purring.

Here comes the soapbox. You don’t get them often, but sometimes I just can’t help myself:
It takes the Lowest Kind of Person to be mean to an animal. Humans spent hundreds of years domesticating animals – making them dependant on us! – it is our obligation to take care of them now. Report strays. If you have animals that you don’t want: DON’T JUST DROP THEM OFF, take them to a shelter! They can’t take care of themselves. Donate to your local shelter (if you need some knitted ideas, google for “Critter Knitter”). Support “no kill” shelters if you can find them. Spay and neuter your pets. Feed those feral cats (and capture/release spay/neuter them if you are feeling generous – this gets pricey). You don’t have to take one home with you to make a difference.

We’ve been BUSY with camp stuff. The Confirmation Packets made it into the mail on Monday, but only because we had plenty of help. There are just eleven million things to do!

But I did find time to finish the front of Honey and start putting her together.

I’ve done all but one side and that one side is just going to have to wait ’til Monday. I’ve got to get a shower and iron and pack and check email again and write notes for the Kitty Sitter because we are headed to Mary Esther for the weekend. I don’t know what I’m going to take for knitting! Not Elspeth, I think she’s too complicated for knitting with company – plus I haven’t decided what size I am making yet. That leaves that Empire Dream in “Creative Knitting”, a long sleeved-sweater (I am sweaty just thinking about it) or a vest for Michael (which also makes me feel Rather Warm). Guess which one I’m taking. Bah. I haven’t swatched for it yet so that means that I’ll have to take more needles than I actually need. I know I sound unprepared, but I swear to you, I just don’t have enough hours in my days lately!

Michael said to be sure to mention to you that tomorrow we are going out in the canoe. Did I mention that we got one? I love it and there are plenty of places to paddle around down here. Since I haven’t swatched (and I don’t have a sock on the needles – odd), I’m not planning to take any knitting with me in the boat.

If I don’t start packing I won’t be taking anything with me at all! Y’all have a terrific 4th with fireworks and cookouts for all! Liberty and Justice are nice too. I love this holiday! It’s my favorite.

By now I am sure y’all have figured out that we didn’t blow away. I disapprove of the way that the newspapers around here mocked the weather. “Serene Arlene?!” I’m not sure how this will affect our Tropical Karma, but I am blaming the next storm on the Mobile Register.

I spent all last week coughing and coughing and coughing and feverish and trying to clean the house for the SUUSI Planning Meeting. I finished everything and even had the time (barely the energy) to write the agenda with no time left to knit! I did finish up the back of Remembering Honey on Sunday afternoon after everyone had left. I know I already made the back. It’s not a mistake. Remember how I didn’t measure the back correctly but I had started the front before I figured out that the back was wrong? Well, someone spilt coffee on the finished back (which I had to rip out anyway) so I decided to go ahead and make the front the back. This morning I ripped out the original back to the armholes and coffee spatters and began re-making that back into the front. And then, because I was feeling depressed about never finishing this sweater, I knit a swatch for Elspeth.

Calmer isn’t like anything I’ve ever used before! It’s made of two woven strands that give it a cushy, squishy, mushy feel. It’s very soft and yummy.

I (and the cats) watched two little birds build a nest last week in the fluffy ruffle fern on my back porch! This week there are eggs! There used to be five in the nest, but now there are four in the nest and one outside the nest. I guess the little one said “roll over.”

It’s so sweet the way the kitties check on them every day, salivating through the window. . .

Now, the interesting thing is that the “Tropical Storm Force Winds” are only right around the center. When you get away from the center, there is an immediate drop to 30 mph. Only the people who are hit pretty much directly by the eye that will get Serious Weather (Serious Weather besides the Flooding, I mean). Naturally, that would be us. The thing is coming right into Moblie Bay. Whee! Let the Rainy Day Knitting begin. Right after I finish reading blogs and email – I am trying to hurry in case the power goes out.

You’ll notice that there are three posts this week. I think I may be trying to make up for lost time.

I’m sorry, I have to tell you about yesterday. I have titled this entry:

Why Emily Never Gets Any Knitting Done

The guys are here with the trackhoe* and bulldozer to clean up the hurricane debris we couldn’t get on our own. I know what you’re thinking: “Wasn’t Ivan a long long time ago?” Yeah, it was. Sometimes you just have to be patient. And grit your teeth. And seeth. And try to pretend that you don’t really see the massive up-rooted tree stumps and mega limbs and the trees that the loggers didn’t take. Yesterday, not only did the trackhoe drivers crush all the black-eyed susans that we spent hours sowing last fall, but they also took out the phone line (which took out the DSL) AND ran over the waterline up at the street. The phone line is temporarily repaired (with duct tape I think) and is coiled up on the ground. The actual water meter was split when they ran over it (the guy said he had never seen that happen before). It split on our side of the meter (of course) and just before the place where the consumer can turn the water off. Many bathtubs full of water gurgled into the yard before the guy with the T-shaped thingy came to turn it off on his side.

It took me three hours to get through my email (camp junk) and then another three when I finally started on my list from last weekend.

And every now and then I had to stop and take pictures of the animals doing darling things:

We tried to watch a movie last night (I was knitting) and the phone rang no less than 6 times. All for me. I managed to do two rows on Honey and 6 on the white tank that I started in the airport.

So that’s why I can’t get any knitting done lately. And now I get to go and spend three hours with my email.

I did sell the Calmer, so I’ve got that going for me. It’s going to Traci the Knitting Mom with the blog. I might have ordered another wrong color. “Drift” is apparently not as off-white as the web sites would lead you to believe.

*I googled for “trackhoe” and would you believe that they’re for sale on ebay?

Update: I just got this from the Yarnzilla Lady. I feel much better:

Hi, Emily!
Rowan Calmer in color 460 Drift *is* off-white; I think your friend might be
thinking of shade 471 in Calmer, which is blindingly white. Your yarn is on
the way — thanks so very much for your order!
Best Regards,
Linda

So don’t worry, Traci, I think everything will be fine! But keeping your fingers crossed never hurt anybody!