Yarn Along No. 3

 Linking up with Ginny and co. at Small Things!

I'm so close!  A few more buttons, and a little blocking, and the sweater for baby girl will be done!  I doubt it will fit her when she's born in May, but it should be perfect for this fall.

Aren't the little wooden flower buttons the best? 



 

I hate that I have the type of personality that obsesses over the flaws in my knitting (and, well, everything), and I want to be able to let get of that tendency.  So, when I discovered that the needles I used for the body of the sweater are bigger than those I used for the sleeves (I'm still not sure how that happened - they both appear to be size 4, according to my little needle gauge) which resulted in the sleeves being a much tighter knit, I called it a design feature and tried to let it go.  It still amazes me that a pair of needles can turn a long piece of string into something wearable, so I am going to focus on that.  And on the fact that the little . . . idiosyncrasies of hand-knit garments just serve to differentiate them from mass-produced, machine-made items, making them even more special.  If I repeat it often enough I'm sure I'll come to believe it. 

 

I have about 1.5 skeins of this yarn left, and am not sure what to do with it.  The only other yarn I have on hand is sky-blue; I'm thinking of knitting a bonnet and booties combining the two colors but worry it will be too masculine.  Can a bonnet be masculine? 

 

Source



 

 

 

This isn't so much a current read, but I always have a (real!  With paper and everything!) copy of The Complete Stories of Flannery O'Connor on my nightstand.  I always think it's going to be easy to make it through a short story just before bed, but O'Connor's stories are so complex and deep that even the very short stories never end up being a true quick read.  And her Southern settings and characters and dialects are almost a foreign language to this New England girl, but I just love each and every one of them.   





Meat

We've re-enrolled in our meat CSA and had our first pick-up yesterday. I only recently started eating meat again after many years as a vegetarian, and I'm pretty excited about the steaks, ham and bacon that we got from the amazing John Crow Farm. Not only do they grow "beyond organic" produce (no chemicals at all, just lime and manure) they take such wonderful care of the animals they raise. And they are funny. Their Facebook postings constantly make me laugh:

John Crow Farm

November 23, 2012

Yolko Ono likes rolling with the big boys. Chickens just ain't her style.

 

(Yolko Ono!  I am definitely stealing that when we get chickens.) 

 

We've been there to visit, and even though I feel weird about making sure that the animals were happy, it did actually make me feel better to see how well they live until they are, you know, killed and we eat them.  It reminds me of this hilarious Portlandia skit:

 

 

[Does the chicken have "a lot of friends? Other chickens as friends? Putting his little wing around another one, kind of like palling around?" It kills me, so funny.]

 

Anyway, there is very little in life that is more aggravating than someone talking about their holier-than-thou approach to eating food, but that isn't going to stop me.  Briefly, here is why we only eat humanely-raised animals, and would never feed our children anything less:

 

1. I worked on a pro bono case yeas ago in which we advocated for the humane treatment of New Jersey farm animals. That was my first exposure to the horror of factory farming. You cannot un-learn that information. If you are someone can still eat factory meat after learning about the truly cruel conditions those animals are subject to, I do not understand you.   I just don't.   That is the main reason I didn't eat meat for so long - I couldn't live with the fact that animals were being tortured to death for my convenience. Why did I recently give up my strict vegetarianism? Exhaustion, mostly. Coming up with vegetarian meals that meet my almost-constantly-pregnant-or-nursing nutritional needs, and the nutritional needs of my children, and keep my meat-eating husband happy was possible but time-consuming and often frustrating. Since my real issue was with the treatment of the animals, I decided that if I could find a humane source of meat I would be ok with the morality of eating it again. But I truly admire vegetarians and feel like I gave in on this one a little.

 

2. there are some really, really gross hormones, antibiotics, etc. in factory meat. No thank you. Oh, and MRSA. Yum.

 

3. the workers at meat-packing facilities and slaughterhouses are generally treated terribly. While that is true of a lot of industries, eating factory meat is something that is pretty easy to avoid, so we do.

 

4. traditional farming methods, like those practiced at John Crow, are waaaaay better for the environment. Factory farms lead to all kinds of pollution, groundwater contamination, excessive methane gas in the air, etc.

 

 

If this is something that interests you, there are so many amazing resources - anything by Michael Pollan, such as The Omnivore's Dilemma, is a good place to start.  Haley from Carrots for Michaelmas, one of my favorite, favorite blogs, wrote a lovely post on the morality of food choices a while ago:  Food Choices ARE a Moral Issue.

 

And if you live in Massachusetts, check out John Crow!  (I'm not getting anything from them for raving about them here, I'm just a big fan!)

St. Patrick's Day

Jon and I met at a bus stop in Northern Ireland in the summer of 2004, and have been together ever since (although our relationship may have never taken off if I had been aware of the alcohol content of Strongbow Cider, but that's a different story for a different day).  Also, if you couldn't tell by the fact that our last name is Burke, our children are Conor and Finian, and our dog is named Seamus, we are of Irish descent as well.  I have some Italian and Portuguese mixed in there too, which Jon never lets me forget.

So yesterday was a big day at our house! We had my family over and served grilled malted barley sausages, colcannon, soda bread, baked beans, Irish cheddar, an Irish whiskey mousse cake, and molasses cookies with green sprinkles, making them Irish, right?  Oh, and entirely too much homebrew, Jameson, Magners cider, and Irish coffee.

Such fun. (I don't have any pictures of the crazy shenanigans with cousins here, because I don't like to post pictures of other people's kids, but just imagine a pack of under-4s dressed in green, running around the house pretending to be leprechauns.)

Grammy love.

At the table, Jon asked Conor to tell everyone "what we say" before we eat.   The four of us always say "slainte!," but we never say grace as a family. Last night, though, Conor responded: "In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit" and I just about died of pride.


Because one blog can never have too many pictures of soda bread.

Ranunculus from the grocery store.  I needed a little bit of spring, even though we are getting ANOTHER snow storm tomorrow.

One of my favorite Irish blessings, which I read in a cookbook from the 1960s, is Slainte 'gus Saol agat:

 

Health and long life to you,
Land without rent to you,
The woman of your choice to you,
A child every year to you,
A long life, and may your bones rest in Ireland.

Snowdrop

I've been keeping busy stalking smokestacks and inspecting public gardens for signs of spring.  And finally, it's happening - I spotted this snowdrop on the Greenway this morning.  I think this particular winter has felt extra long because I associate it ending with this pregnancy ending and getting to meet my daughter.  It makes waiting that much harder.  There have been many irrational days when I am convinced that this will be a never-ending winter (maybe too much Game of Thrones?) and think that it's impossible that I'll ever be barefoot on the grass holding a little baby.

Despite all that, I am not wishing away this pregnancy.  I actually love being pregnant (which is a good thing!) and I'm not eager for my little Finnster to give up baby-of-the-family status. He's still my little monkey, and I hate that his place in the world is going to change, even though I know adding a sibling is always a good thing for everyone.  Both boys have been kissing my belly and snuggling up as close as they can, but we haven't done much to prepare them for what's going to happen.  It might be about time to start talking about what babies do (cry! nurse! sleep!) and what it means to be a big brother.  They are going to be wonderful, I know. 

Two Worlds

I live more than an hour outside of Boston, but commute into the city every day for work.  I can't seem to get over how different the two environments are - luckily I love the city and the country, so I feel lucky to get to have a little bit of both:

This weekend we went for a walk in the woods behind our house.  It's conservation land, and there are some gorgeous trails cut through the trees.  We went in the late morning, and the woods were kind of an eerie green color.  This path leads down to a little river that beavers have dammed up into quite the swamp.  The boys love to go throw sticks into the water, and the dog can't seem to chase enough geese.  But see all of that snow still on the ground?  Even so - TICKS.  We always come home covered in ticks, and in Massachusetts ticks are no joke.  It almost makes me hesitate to go into the woods - but what kind of childhood would that be? 

 

And then, in the city . . . I love grabbing photos of some of my favorite Boston things, like the federal courthouse (law nerd, I know) or the little spots of color in a grey winter city.

Courthouse with the best views.

Sculpture outside my office.

I love these spare displays in the florist's window.

Very controversial Os Gemeos mural in this straight-laced city, but I love it.  And I think that box in the foreground will be a little urban farm box-thing in the summer?  I hope so!

 

Yarn Along No. 2

So, last week I went on and on about how the pattern for the baby sweater I was working on was so simple, so easy, it was one of the first things I ever knit.  Well, since then, I have goofed up the yoking around the neck four times and had to start over.  Four times.  I am not much farther along than I was last week, even though I have been knitting almost constantly.  And it's completely my fault!  I keep trying to knit on a crowded train or at night while totally exhausted, instead of just setting aside some quiet time to get back in my sweater-knitting groove.  I have also forgotten everything I ever knew about unknitting and fixing mistakes, which I need to re-learn stat.  So frustrating.  But on a happier note:

 

I blocked the second Norwegian Star hat!  Unfortunately, it is way too big - I wish I had done some ribbing along the edges or something, so it wouldn't be so loose and wavy, but I suppose they can get a couple of years of wear out of these.




Source

I'm still reading Wolf Hall (love!), and I'm re-reading Scott Hahn's Signs of Life: 40 Catholic Customs and Their Biblical Roots.  I read it before, but a refresher never hurts!  Its 40 short chapters line up nicely with Lent, so I'm aiming for a chapter a day.  Hahn's writing style isn't my favorite (is that heresy?  Maybe.) but his books are always full of wonderful, accessible information.  Good stuff. 

Go see Ginny at Small Things for more!