Starting the day with a walk

I'm trying to spend more time getting healthy but days like yesterday when my fatigue levels were in the basement, actually below the basement, don't help.  But I did wake up at 7:10 a.m. and took Professor for a walk.  He's limping on his right front leg and I can't find any obvious injury so I'm guessing it might be arthritis or something like that.  He managed to do very well most of the walk but toward the end was slowing down considerably and his limp was more pronounced.  I hope to take him walkies twice a day from now on.  And treat myself to a solitary walk where I'm not stopping at every tree or lamp post.  I've got some podcasts to listen to while walking and it would be nice with this lovely autumn weather.

I had to frog the hat I was making Zach because I discovered my size 6 (16") circular needles were actually size 5s, making the hat way too small.  That was annoying.  You expect something to be what the label says it is, but since I bought those several years ago, there's no hope in returning them.  StuffMart has little in the way of circulars or dpns so I went online to look at Lion Brand's selections since I'm somewhat of a fuddy duddy and like Boye needles very much.  They had them but they didn't have any size 8, which I also need.  And at over $5 a pop, nothing I can afford right now.

So I'm knitting the hat flat and will seam it later.  It goes much faster this way and I can seam it fairly invisibly but there is something about knitting in the round that I really like.  But the end result is important, too, so I will plod along and get 'er done.

I finally found a pattern for the sweater I can live with.  I wasn't happy with the way my color-work looked.  I need to practice with some spare yarn because the transition from one color to the other doesn't look even and in spite of carrying the yarn as loosely as I can in the back, still puckers as if the yarn is pulling too tight.  I plan on digging out my reference books or going online to figure out what I'm doing wrong or if it evens out in the finishing.  I have seen some work by some knitters who are very experienced and I've seen puckers in their colorwork so I wonder if it's just the stitches getting too lose while knitting, making the floats pull too much and will settle in after a wash.  I'll try it on a smaller object that I haven't invested months knitting.

Anyway I'm going a twisted purl stitch which is very similar to a stitch I used on a baby blanket.  Minor differences and I'm not changing colors because I don't like horizontal stripes on me, but the texture is really lovely, the pattern is so easy to memorize and most of it doesn't require a lot of tedious attention.  I should be making progress now and hopefully be done by Christmas, although Thanksgiving would be even better, but since I'm also working on a very long poncho, I doubt T-day will see anything done.  Aside from several hats for Zach.

Tom is leaving tomorrow to go bow hunting.  I'll admit I was sweating out the cost of the trip which I don't begrudge him and would rather trim down something rather than him miss out.  Lo and behold, I got a birthday card in the mail from my aunt with a check for the socks I knitted her.  It took my breath away because it was more than twice what I thought was fair.  So now I don't feel anxious at all about the trip, although we still need to do some trimming of expenses because heating bills will be showing up eventually.

The weather is cooling off although we did have a few very warm days.  Not Indian Summer because we haven't had frost yet, but more like August weather.  Today is supposed to start out fairly warm and end up fairly cold.  It was a bit cool and misty when I walked Professor which was very nice.

I still have a lot of tomatoes in the garden.  I picked three yesterday and there will be at least that many more by tomorrow.  Plus all the green ones still on the vine.  I'm keeping an eye on the overnight temps but so far there is nothing to worry about.  I bought a Farmer's Almanac for next year.  My grandfather used to farm by it and my mother used a lot of the folk remedies and went by a lot of the folk tales.  We do use herbal medicines for some things but I don't give up my pharmaceuticals. I'm not anti-modern medicine at all.

Well, time to get busy. It's another errand day and I've got to find some semblance of order to this house.  I get really antsy when it's cluttered like this.

TTFN