Ewww, A Slug!

I thought I'd get the icky part over first.  I looked at the tomatoes and found a slug eating on the ripest one.  Ick, ick, ick.  That means I need to put out a couple saucers of beer to attract them.  I wonder if they'll sell me a beer at 9 o'clock in the morning if I tell them it's for slugs and not for breakfast.  Probably not.  I'll nab one at a gas station on my way home tonight.

In other garden news, the gourd-let is getting bigger and more gourd-like.  It's still a fairy gourd size but it'll grow.  There are a bunch of smaller ones too.  I'm so excited to make a few birdhouses like Grandpa Stephan used to.  The spaghetti squash, only one so far, is looking fat and happy.  I just wish the tomatoes would start turning red.  There are a crapload of green ones out there but the only reddening one is the one that the slug was nibbling on.  (Do slugs nibble?  I don't know, but you know what I mean.)  We need some sunshine to get them ripening.



I cast on hat #4 for the Dobby Hat(s) yesterday afternoon.  I was considering frogging hat #3 and doing it right now that I've written to the designer, gotten a very nice response, and found out that I misread the pattern, but I decided to just forge ahead.  Oh, I have to tell you that when I was talking to VJ the Guild's Master Hand Knitter about the pattern last Thursday she asked how many stitches I had and I said, rather proudly, that I had 131 which is only one fewer than the pattern says I should have and she turned to me with a smile and said, "I always feel very smart when I end up within a few stitches of what it says I should have."  So even one of the best knitters has to make one or knit two together.  Whew.  Made me feel a lot better about my knitting prowess.

This morning a young Downy Woodpecker was hanging upside down from the suet feeder having a good breakfast.  I really like seeing them at the feeder.  They're fun to watch because they usually land on the Slinky on the next pole and have a little ride up and down before fluttering over for a snack.

August 20--brt Photo, #7 More Motion.  Laura brushed her fingertips together and then blew on them.  She'd seen a safecracker do that in an old movie and thought it couldn't hurt.  She knelt on the thin carpet laid over the concrete bank floor and felt the cold rising up her thighs.  "Hurry up," Skate hissed from the shadows by the door.  "I can't," she said, "this takes as long as it takes."  She put the tips of the stethoscope in her ears and pressed the other end to the safe door right next to the dial.  Her fingers turned the dial slowly one way and then the other, back and forth one more time, then her shoulders relaxed and her back straightened.  She reached over with a gloved hand, depressed the handle and tugged open the door of the safe.  "We're in," she said.  Skate moved silently up to reach over her to grab a stack of wrapped bills and stuff them in his backpack.  "Come on," he said, "pack up and fill your bag.  We gotta get outta here."  As she reached for a pack of bills she heard the soft scuff of a shoe on concrete and froze.

And now it's time to head out because Copps has Durwood's favorite soup on sale and I want to get at least a case of it before the vultures get it all.  I'm not a vulture, I'm a savvy shopper.  I can store the soup easier than the store can, right?  Adios.
--Barbara