A Keeper…..Mar. 25, 2006

Every now and then a puppy will come along that causes a breeder to get excited……….this little girl is just that puppy.  Time will tell if she will hold it together as she grows, but for now, this little girl is my keeper, in this bunch of babies. 

We call her Bibbity, but I will have to start thinking of a real name for her.   Her Mum is named  Ballymena Winter’s Wind, so I am going to play off of the Wind part of her name.  Interestingly enough, Zephyr is a wind….who knew?  I am leaning towards Ballymena Wind in the Willow, but I would love to hear your suggestions too ;-).

My days are pretty full with caring for the puppies, dogs and kids right now.  Every morning, this is what I wake up to.  Eager little faces waiting for their breakfast……..

It is amazing how fast they go from blind, deaf, helpless little babies to happy, bouncy puppies, who eat their meals with such gusto.

Today the puppies will get their first taste of the outdoor world.  My summer pups are in the yard so much younger than this, but with the cold temps we have had and the very wet ground, these guys have not had that opportunity yet.  I will spend some time knitting as they have new discoveries.

Knitting
Speaking of knitting…..remember that Shapely Shawl I was working on last week?  Well here it is.  I don’t know what it is with my concentration these days.  This lace pattern is about as easy as they come, so why can’t I get the row count right??  As I was tinking it back for the umpteenth time last night, I decided it would be easier to just rip it back to the beginning.

I’ll give it one more try……before I work on this…….

The beads that I ordered to go with Judy’s yummy Spring Green yarn came yesterday.  I am really looking forward to working with this yarn/bead combination.  Judy did say that it took 2 hours per skein to string the beads, so I figured that in between working on the Shapely Shawl, I could prepare these skeins. Hopefully training on the easy lace shawl will help my counting concentration again, and get my brain in shape for the Dancing Leaves shawl.

Spring
Isn’t it wonderful how one day you are out in the yard and you hear……….noises, wonderful noises.  The birds are back!!  Every morning before I even have my coffee, I clean up the dog yard.  This week, I heard those glorious noises.  I haven’t seen a robin yet, but  I know it will be any day now.  I do miss the birds when they leave us in the fall.  So happy that some of them are back!

With daylight savings almost upon us, my thoughts are turning towards the outdoors.  We will be very busy over the next few months, putting in a new dog yard, which will be a huge undertaking, as they are getting a covered patio for the winter and their yard is tripling in size.

I will also be putting in a new garden!!  I used to garden and I loved it, but somehow, life got a bit too busy and I let that fall to the wayside.  After reading Norma and Liz’s garden tales, it made me realize how much I miss it.  How fun it is to look over the seed books again with renewed interest!