Dem bones

Preparations for Halloween started a few weeks ago. The boys were very specific about what they wanted to be, and how we should make the costumes.

Somewhat disappointingly I was not able to get glow-in-the-dark paint (it's probably toxic). Adam helped me cut out the trousers, we bought the t-shirts from Old Navy.

We had to paint the costumes in 2 sessions to allow the paint to dry. Not forgetting the skeleton feet.

Halloween celebrations started at Adam's school with a parade and classroom party.



As it grew dark we prepared to hit the neighbourhood. Front view (with scary faces):

Back view:

Finally, we ended up at the top of the road when someone suggested that Finlay was the ideal complement to her decorations!

Happy Halloween!

House in motion

We just experienced our biggest quake since we came to California. Reported by the USGS as a 5.6 we certainly noticed it!

We were just sitting down to eat when the entire house started to sway rather severely. We could hear really loud creaks, but nothing even fell off the shelves. We went outside to check and the water in the pool was loudly sloshing about. The quake seemed to last for ages, and we both felt rather queasy afterwards.

It's amazing that the ground can move so much, yet the power didnt even flicker. The movement was really quite strong to us, I can't imagine how a major quake would feel.

Ferret in motion

Remember this http://ferretworld.blogspot.com/2007/10/brotherly-love.html?



Well, he's got it now!





Finlay has been a cycling maniac since he mastered riding a 2-wheeler...he has ridden into town, not to mention the obstacle course that he has built in the back garden.

Another birthday?

We celebrated another birthday here at Ferretworld. The boys were very excited as usual to share in the present-opening.

Here is Nigel about to open his present from us - the boys suggested both the present and the birthday activity...

...and although Nigel accused me of trying to kill him on his birthday he did join in the Skateboard lesson. His new board is very fast!

Adam really had a great time at the skate park, he can now do several of the smaller ramps on his own, and both boys tried drop-offs, and skating off a 'table' (dont know what the skate jargon is here...Adam probably does.

We wrapped up the birthday celebrations with Carrot cake from Icing on the Cake, and a take-out curry for dinner!

The idle hands come to Ferretworld

Blogging action has been a little light around here recently...but knitting action has been hectic!

Christina came to LG to visit and knit.

We spent the weekend at the Full Thread Ahead knitting camp in Carmel.

We had a lovely room overlooking the ocean in Carmel...

and of course we participated in the underwater knitting contest...

(The yarn and needles had to be submerged. The boys were completely thrilled by the idea of this!).

We made bears for The Mother Bear project:

...and a jolly good time was had by all!

Pinnies on Women's Hour

Women's hour is a venerable BBC institution and one that I missed very much before I discovered the web streaming version of it. This week they broadcast an interesting item about the publication of This book . This is 'The Gentle Art of Domesticity" by the woman better known as Yarnstorm .
The podcast of the broadcast is available for download from here .

I've mentioned this blog before - with her colourful and enticing description of a life spent knitting, quilting, and baking fresh buns for her 3 children's return from school. It's a fantasy life - but an appealing one - for all I know this is actually the author's real life - as much as a blog is ever real.


However, what has amazed me is the storm of criticism that the publication of the book seems to have generated, largely accusations of 'anti-feminism' . It is astonishing that even in 2007 women should be called on to defend their choices to work - or not, to knit - or not. To me, the legacy of feminism is that I have the choice to work, be a mother, bake, and knit... if that is what I want to do.


The other avenue of criticism against the book is that it is elitist. That because the author has the leisure to spend her time quilting or icing petit four, before collecting her three children from their fee-paying school, it somehow excludes the rest of us without the income to support such a lifestyle. This really amused me because the one thing that you can say about cooking, baking, and knitting, is that they are not typically the pastimes of the rich!

What has warmed my heart is that my sentiments seem to be shared by the majority of the Women's Hour listeners who commented on this broadcast, as well as the readers of the Yarnstorm blog....well maybe that last one is not so surprising...but Hurray for Women's Hour! After all, this is really just a knitting/crochet/quilting/baking book (which I have not actually read).

The book has been labelled "pinny pxxx" so, to close, here is a picture of me in my pinny.

On the needles

Apart from 'the big project', which is nearing completion, I have been doing a little sock knitting.

That is both 'a little knitting' and 'a little sock'. These are short socks for Adam. He requested blue socks, and this wool is leftover from my Charlottes Web shawl. It's koigu so should make nice socks as long as I have enough. I should have knitted them both together to make sure - and may even unpick and reknit them as Adam says they will be too long. His objective is that his socks not show above his shoes.

Bike Ride - take 2

On Sunday we set off for a bike ride. This was the second attempt; on Saturday we got half-way to Santa Cruz before the boys fighting in the back turned us around and back home! Sunday was a much better day


We went to the coastal side of Big Basin State Park to try to Skyline to the Sea trail (although we were headed from the Sea). It was a lovely trail, heavily wooded and running alongside Waddell Creek.

We didnt get too far up the trail, after a couple of miles the trail became very narrow with steep drop-off to the side so we turned back.

But not before we had a snack in the tree. Tea for us and hot chocolate for the boys.

This is the view headed back down the last part of the trail, where Waddell Creek joins the ocean. There is a historical marker showing where some of the missionary priests camped for a few nights in the 18th century, and the boys were most mystified as to why they would camp...their idea of camping of course involves loading the car up with a million and one things!

Of course after all the exercise we needed sustenance, so we headed to our favourite wharf restarant: Gilberts.

What did I eat? This one for Farve:

Sanddabs!

We spent some time after lunch watching these guys:

and pointing out to the boys that there was plenty of room on the pontoon for all the sea lions and no need to be fighting over places....we never like to miss a chance!

Brotherly love

Adam has been trying to teach Finlay how to ride a bike without the training wheels.





Finlay does not have Adam's interest in cycling, at the same age Adam was already riding his own bike alongside us - I can see me taking Finlay to high school on the trail-a-bike at this rate!

Fun Run

Adam did his fun run today. It was of course a beautiful hot day! Adam's class teacher started off leading the entire school in a yoga warm-up.


and then they were off... It was quite impressive; they had a DJ to provide rousing music; and 450 children headed off at speed was quite a sight!

Adam completed 17 laps (laps are 1/3 mile, so just under 6 miles).

Thank-you to his sponsors - he walked hard to earn his sponsorship!

Paddington's favourite

I saw recently on the BBC that apparently Paddington prefers Marmite .

Although I like Marmite as much as the next man (which is Nigel, who likes it quite a lot), I still like a bit of marmalade on my toast. Marmalade seems quite expensive here, and since our neighbour has an orange tree, it makes most sense to make it myself.

The oranges are quite sour and really inedible raw, but they make great marmalade.

The first time around I made it rather runny, but after a second boiling up it seems a nice consistency, and tastes just like the real thing....but more orange-y. I usually pay a 1-jar tariff to my neighbour for the oranges - no idea what he does with the marmalade...maybe he even eats it?

Pumpkin pie

Our vegatable box this week included a pumpkin (a sugar pie variety).
Finlay was inordinately excited about this and wanted to cook it himself.
He couldn't decide between pumpkin pie and pumpkin soup. A favourite book is Pumpkin Soup by Helen Cooper in which 3 animals co-operate to make soup.

For lunch today we ate the completed pie, and it was delicious!

Finlay did all the mixing and measuring - a big advantage of cooking with American cup measures. We used this recipe from the farms which supply the vegetables.

There was enough pumpkin left over so I made soup as well - which we ate before the pie....a very pumpkin-y meal!

Magic comes to stay

This weekend Adam got the care of the class guinea pig; Magic.


He is a lovely little creature and appears quite placid. The only excitement he has exhibited was when presented with lettuce.

Adam has actually taken good care of him, making sure he has food and water, and of course, exercise.

We were thinking of keeping him instead of mowing the lawn - but unfortunately I'm very allergic to him. Tomorrow we have the fun of cleaning the cage - not required of host families, but I thought it would be a good example for Adam of what is actually required when caring for a pet.

It never rains but it pours

This was the view from my front porch today:



It seems fitting to welcome the first day of Fall (autumn for the Brits). I hope it clears up by tomorrow because the boys are invited to a pool party. The forecast is good - but I pity the poor hostess if the weather does not improve and 30 small boys arrive at her house.

The rain was pretty hard - the remnants of a weather system moving north from Southern Californina. Apparently it rains on 2 days in the average September, but last year we had a dry winter so it seems 'early' for rain. It's also been snowing in the Sierra... I don't know if that actually bodes well for Thanksgiving skiing or not, but we like to think so.

Messing about in Mountain View

We spent most of Saturday in and around Mountain View. It has a real downtown, although dominated by restaurants. The shops are somewhat different from Los Gatos:




We had some lunch in a Thai noodle bar - Finlay wolfed down bowls of spicy noodles although they both gave up trying to eat soup with chopsticks.

We then headed off to the Visitor Center at NASA Ames Research. We have been there before, but the exhibits were changed and now include a mock-up of a part of the SpaceLab in which Ames was involved. There was also a photo opportunity.

As usual Finlay was the most interested and has clarified his desire to be an astronaut: now he want to be a scientist who makes things that astronauts use.

The staff at the visitor center recommended that we also visited the Museum at Moffat Field. This turned out to be fascinating. The giant hanger that we can see driving past was originally built to house dirigibles, or blimps, employed by the UA Navy for surveillance. At least one of these also acted as an aircraft carrier with small planes attached below. These were in their heyday in the 1930s-1940s.

The museum was staffed by volunteers, one of whom did a sterling job answering a million questions. He treated the boys by opening an aircraft cockpit that they are currently restoring, and letting them sit in the pilot and co-pilot seats and 'fly the plane'.

The boys left the museum full of enthusiasm about planes and flying:

In the back here you can see one end of the giant hangar, and also the cockpit that we visited.

On the lack of knitting content

There has been a dearth of knitting at the Ferretworld blog recently. This does not mean that there is no actual knitting chez Ferretworld. I've been doing a lot of knitting, but am focussing completely on a large, but secret, project. When other bloggers say this they mean "I'm about to get a knitting pattern published" but you know that in my case it means "I'm knitting a gift for someone who reads the blog". Of course this is the problem with the start of the Christmas knitting season too....most of what I'm currently knitting is destined for someone else.

Turning Japanese*

This last weekend I had the pleasure of attending a workshop at Knitting Arts on knitting from japanese knitting patterns. The workshop was given by Takako Ukei, the owner of Habu Textiles. For the uninitiated (and that would include me before yesterday) japanese knitting patterns are completely different from English or American patterns - apparently japanese knitters are expected to work a lot harder!

In addition to the short, but extremely informative workshop there was also a 'Trunk Show' of a large number of garments knitted from Habu yarns. I had previously seen and admired the yarn - but never thought of knitting from it. I mean, the idea of stainless steel wool is intrigueing, but what would you knit?





Seeing the garments and being able to try them on has completely opened my eyes to the appeal of these offbeat yarns: natural, with subtle but often intense colours. Now, I want to knit everything. This jacket is Kit 36 knitted from linen, mohair and silk. The one I really liked is Kit 65 which looked wonderful on...but from the photo seems rather uninspiring.


I was very restrained. I had not budgeted to buy a kit, and they are not cheap. However, I am planning a trip to New York in 2008, and guess where the Habu store is? Hmmm...now I just have to persuade my mother and sister that this would be an excellent place for us to visit.

* Turning Japanese was by the Vapours who were a 1-hit wonder band in 1979.

Bunny slippers for Nancy

I had a commission to replace a pair of much-loved slippers that had worn out. I found a pattern, and started off with my dishcloth cotton. I finished the first slipper, and realized that it would easily fit me, rather than my 4-year old neice. So, it was back to the drawing board. I knit another pair, and these came out too small. Finally, like Goldilocks, these came out just right (I hope).

Mostly my own design - knitted in dishcloth cotton. I need to do something about the soles; the leather soles I bought are grey which I dont think looks so great with the white and pink slippers.

Otter school

Today was Finlay's first day at his Jr Kindergarten. He was very excited at being one of the 'big boys' at his school.

He got to choose dinner tonight - so of course we had pancakes again. This is him showing how many he ate:




The night before I asked him if he was looking forward to Jr K and he explained that co-incidentally Tuesday would also be Fruit's first day at Jr Otter School.

This is Fruit (his stuffed otter from the Monterey Aquarium.)



Finlay explained to me that up to now Fruit has mostly been doing drawing at his Pre-Otter school, but that he was really looking forward to Jr Otter school where he would learn how to catch fish and stuff like that.

Things are not always what you expect

We have had delivery of a load of beetroots in our vegetable box all of which were quickly eaten. Yesterday Finlay and I decided to use some of the reserved beetroot juice to see how it would dye wool.

We did some research on the internet and used a vinegar mordant. This was the colour of the wool in the beetroot juice:



We had read that beetroot actually resulted in a muted colour, and this was our final result:

Its a rather nice pale pinkish fawn colour. However, since the boys wanted me to knit socks from this wool, I think we will overdye it with something else. It was fun to try a natural dye like this and a good experiment for Finlay and I.