Winter weather

Winter Temps are Here

/ LDSVenus / 5 Comments

It will get colder in Jan and Feb with minus teens and 20’s in the day time, but the wind chills (-20 to -30) tonight and into tomorrow and Sunday, with this Alberta Clipper, are close to our late Jan and Feb chill. Makes me afraid of what our late Jan and Feb temps will be!! Our mid winter thaw is starting on Tuesday this week (also a month early), but those mid to upper 30’s will be so nice. And tho’ the roads will be messy as all the snow melts, the roads will be clear and then we start over again.

Because of the very cold frostbite temps, my son’s farm won’t be open to the public for alpaca visits tomorrow, tho he’s leaving his store open for shoppers (hope some of them can brave the cold temps for alpaca yarn, alpaca socks and hats, and his 3D printed items.) I get the day off, so the plan is to sleep in, stay home, drink some hot chocolate and knit!

A Buck, Finally a Picture of that Blanket I finished, Some Pictures of Alpaca Stuff

/ LDSVenus / 4 Comments

I showed you a picture of a doe that was eating under a tree in the snow before and I took a picture of a Buck a couple of days ago eating under the same tree. They sure are pretty but pretty pesky here in town.

I finished the Look for Happiness Blanket by Fifty Four Ten Studio a few weeks ago and just haven’t gotten around to showing it, so here it is. I made the medium size for a lap blanket. I still need to wash and block it. Hope she will like it. It took me some time, but I found it a peaceful knit and enjoyed this pattern, so I didn’t hurry through it. :). Taking pictures at night sure doesn’t give true color, lol, this is actually a denim color so it’s a little darker and brighter than it shows up. Maybe someday I will master taking pictures for my blog, or not.

The next two pictures I took last week at the Farm’s annual open to the public Christmas celebration. I neglected to get pictures of the alpaca who were wearing candy cane horns, tho I have to admit most of them managed to get them off, lol. But there were cookies (an alpaca cookie I managed to snag). I accidentally broke it on the way home (breaking things seem to be my thing), but it still took a pretty picture and his reg farm hand drew a picture in the snow of an alpaca before people came out, I thought it was cute. Along with the cookies there was also hot chocolate for the people who came out. They also had Santa who asked all the kids what they wanted for Christmas and he gave them all a gift bag with alpaca goodies. Because it was cold we didn’t have a ton of people, but they had put together 50 gift bags for the kids and they were all claimed ;). I think everyone had fun. They are debating, for this next Saturday because of the Alberta clipper that is heading this way with very cold temps, on rather they will open, don’t want little ones getting frostbite. They would still keep the store open for people wanting to shop for Christmas. It will depend on if the clipper arrives on time or is slower moving. It is supposed to be -30 with the wind chills by Monday, winds from 30 to 50 miles per hr in some areas of IA, ugh.

These minus temps are our late Jan and early Feb temps, I can hardly wait to see what they will be in Jan and Feb :0. Even our mid winter thaw (warm up) is coming early, the week before Christmas, according to the weather man, sigh. We need it tho, in 2008 there was no mid winter thaw (we always get one, but not that year, it’s generally in Jan) so the snow on the ground did not melt and when it melted in the spring there was so much snow melting from the top of IA on down that the Cedar River flooded big time, over flowing 5 miles on each side of the river. Rail road cars had been put on the tracks that go over the bridges to try to keep the bridges from being washed away, but the flood was so high it took the rail road cars that had been filled with big rocks to weigh them down more, right off the bridge. A Dairy Queen that was a few blocks away from the river was flooded over the roof. So we need that mid winter thaw. Maybe it means spring will come sooner! I’ll just keep that thought.

Stay warm!!!

Snow Day!! 11-28-2025

/ LDSVenus / 8 Comments

We are having a snow storm, first big snow of the winter, and boy is it!! I woke up at 3:30 AM to get a shot of the snow and there was a deer there, so I captured that in my picture, so cute. The next picture is the storm alert, so we have about 10 to 12 more hrs to go of this snow storm, at least the wind isn’t terrible. The last picture I took a few hrs ago of the snowfall so far. I’d love snow more if it was warm :P. This storm is across many states, so if any of you out there are in this storm take care and stay warm. 🙂

*Update* as of 10:30pm we have 12 inches of snow, some towns got 14 inches. All said and done we ended up with about 14 inches. Is it spring yet?

Update on the Baby Blanket & Frigid Temps.

/ LDSVenus / 6 Comments

The first picture is the Look for Happiness blanket (baby size). I am about 3/4’s finished. Getting excited to get this finished, even tho I am enjoying it, I have other things to get busy on!! The lightbulb markers you see running up the left side are counting 10 center patterns (four rows per pattern) because I need 39 and it is easier to keep track of how many I’ve knitted :). Nine center patterns left then the top border :). I will make this again!

The 2nd picture is our weather from yesterday afternoon to 3am this morning. We were almost as cold today, but starting tomorrow we will be a few degrees warmer and by Friday we will actually hit the lower to middle teens (without wind chill). I have stayed in my house yesterday and today, not my favorite thing getting out in way below 0 degrees weather. They are promising us lower 40’s on Sunday and Monday, impatiently waiting! Spring is getting closer even if it doesn’t feel like it :P.

2nd Snow for Winter 2024-25

/ LDSVenus / 6 Comments

I took this picture this morning. We didn’t even get a whole 1/2 inch but it is pretty and white. Our roads are already clear but the weather is cold enough that it stuck on the yards and sidewalks. We are due another snow storm on Sunday, suppose to get up to 4 inches, but we will see where the storm really tracks through. But they said a cold wave is coming down from Canada. Thanks Canada.

Some Catch Up Before New Year’s

/ LDSVenus / 15 Comments

Ok, some of this is a more than a month old and some is this month. If you click on the picture you are looking at it will enlarge. The first picture is a vertical swift my son made for me out of pvc pipe from some plans that I found online (maybe Ravelry). It was made, when finished, for a 4 yard skein around, but I only wanted a 2 yard skein so he cut it down a bit for me. Nice to have a great son who is willing and able to do stuff like this for me, I’m very grateful because he has a full time job and his farm to run, he could have said, I don’t have time, but he made it for me anyway, he is a sweetie!

The next two pictures are to show my progress on the Look for Happiness baby blanket I’m working on. I am loving this pattern, it’s such a pretty pattern, and it’s peaceful to make. I figure I am almost 1/2 way finished :). I took one up close so you could see the pattern a little better. I am still working on the fingerless mitts and will put a picture up when I get one finished and start the other one.

The next 3 pictures are at my son’s farm’s last Saturday with the public for the year (the Saturday before Christmas). He had to postpone from the week before because we had had an ice storm, I took the pictures before people started arriving. The first picture is Libby (the Llama) in a Christmas Top Hat, she was not impressed, hehe. The next 2 pictures are some of the female alpacas at the farm, 2 of them are wearing Christmas hats. They were ok with them. Libby is a bit more head strong, but that is a llama for you :P. They are all loving the cooler temperatures. There were cookies and hot chocolate for the visitors and my son’s mother in law made a wonderful chile con carne, for those of us working at the farm, for lunch, soooo good!!! She promised me the recipe.

Real cold weather is finally on the way, hello winter!

Winter is Here, We Have Snow.

/ LDSVenus / 5 Comments

This is what I woke up to this morning, as you can see it wasn’t much, the ground isn’t quite cold enough for “fluffy stuff” to really stick around very long. Winter’s here, or at least trying to get here, we are suppose to have another warm up by this weekend into the 30’s, then we get hit with another winter blast from Canada. We only got the back side of this big storm that hit everyone with lots of snow east of us. But the weatherman said don’t worry there are more storms on the way. Sigh.

Got my Christmas tree up! I got this one 2 Christmas’ ago because my very old fiber optic tree (that I bought used in 2005) finally quit and I got this new fiber optic tree, I like all the colors it turns. It’s about a foot shorter, but I like it :). It’s feeling like Christmas is coming!!! I’m listening to all the Christmas music on my favorite radio station and loving it :). I’m trying to work on some knitting, need to push through, I have stuff that needs to get done!!!! Hopefully in a week or so I will have some progress to report.

This is Wish, the last cria born on the farm this year. He’s almost 4 months old so this is his first winter. I asked Ev, my son in law, if Wish was running and playing in the snow because of the snow on his back, but he said no, he was sitting by the barn door which stays open, except in bad storms or extreme cold, watching the snow and got snowed on, lol. But as you can see it doesn’t melt on him, because of the dense fiber which insulates his body from the cold and snow. Just thought I would throw this picture in because the cria (baby alpaca) are so cute!

WIP Bulky Cabled Alpaca Hat

/ LDSVenus / 11 Comments

This WIP (work in progress, for my non knitting friends) hopefully soon will be an FO (finished object, again for my non knitting friends.). I started this a few weeks ago and the progress was not fun as I had eye surgery on both eyes 2 weeks apart about a month and 1/2 ago and seeing anything close was, well to blurry to see. I had an around the neck magnifying glass my daughter got for me but it made everything look 3D, lol. So I’d knit for a bit then put it down and the Ott light my son got me was awesome for light.  But last week I found a pair of my old glasses from 4 years ago and I can see through the midrange section to read!!  So I have started working on this hat again for my son-in-law, who gets to go out in this very cold weather to do farm chores with the alpaca. 

I had made him a hat some months earlier but it was a bit tight and even tho he said it a fine, it wasn’t fine to me, so this new one. The yarn is bulkier (yes the yarn is from their alpaca :)) and I went up a size needles so I wouldn’t have to adjust the stitch count, this should be correct, the pattern was written for a woman’s size and my son-in-law can’t wear that size very well.  Because the yarn is bulkier, I did not make this a fold up brim, it would just be too heavy. You see a new owl chain stitch counter on there. I had to order an XL one that had bigger rings for the bigger needles (size 11).  I love it, it keeps the count so I don’t have to go back and keep recounting as I get closer to the row for the cable, saves time and aggravation having to keep recounting. I get these from Twice Sheared Sheep . The link is to her best sellers so you can see some of the things she carries, but to see all her things just click the home link and then on the 3 horizontal bars on the top left of her home page. She has some for only up to 5 rows, and some that are in a circle if you don’t like the one going to 10 rows hanging down so far on your work. There is a little clip thing on it (you can see it on the 0 by the owl) and I suspect it is for counting crochet rows instead of using the rings that go on the knitting needle, but as a knitter I would use to put on the numbers to tell me how many times I’ve done the 10 rows in case I needed more than 10 rows so I wouldn’t lose count (think socks). Her things are pretty darn cool!

I go back next week for a vision check and to get updated glasses, so my sight should be adjusted back to normal, yea! 🙂

Hope everyone is staying warm, we had -30’s again last night and for tonight -20’s, but starting on Monday we get our midwinter thaw and will be in the 30’s woot woot!!!

Monday Funny – For a Very Cold Day!

/ LDSVenus / 4 Comments

My son and his spouse, Ev, had this picture taken at Disney World a couple of years ago. We are all Star Wars fans and Ev sent this to me because it seemed appropriate today (return of the Jedi is my favorite), it felt like we could be on that planet with temps Sunday night forecast to go down to about -50.  I asked him if I could use it on my Monday Funny and he said sure! 

Everyone stay warm!

More Snow, A Blizzard, Spinning and Some Roving

/ LDSVenus / 11 Comments

Yeah, more snow. Started early this morning about 1am and should be stopping soon, looks like about 4 inches extra on top of the other snow, so total about a foot of snow? The winds have kicked up gusting to about 50 mph off and on and causing blizzard conditions until about noon tomorrow. We also get wind chills from now until Tuesday morning. I think the coldest will be down to -35 or -40 on Sunday night with the wind chill. Ok, it’s officially brrr.

On to nicer things :P. I am working on the Tweed Pop Rox color roving, it’s so pretty, not quite to the point yet that I need to make up my mind about how I want to ply it, but I’m getting there. The last picture is a roving I bought, oh my gosh maybe 10 to 12 years ago – a long time ago. I saw it and fell in love with it. It is 64% BLF-Corridale cross, 27% Alpaca and 9% Sari Silk waste (left over when the silk is processed that will give some texture to the yarn as I spin). You can see the black wool blended with I think the blue is Alpaca & green Sari Silk waste. I am trying to work on older fiber purchases that I bought because I loved it, to work my stash down a little. The Pop Rox color way was newer, but it was calling me to be spun :P. The After Midnight color way will be next :).

Stay inside and warm, it’s chilly out there!