When winter gets to you...

... Plan the garden. 

(Or the landscape updates, tree transplants, new gates, and drainage improvements, as the case may be.)

What to do when you are at loose ends in the depths of winter

Christmas Eve

Holiday season begins

More Yard Updates: trees!

I transplanted a bunch of little pine trees from the back where they were clustered too close together to grow up well anyway (I found a couple of clusters of little evergreens when I was out for a walk with my neighbour today) … so I thinned them out and brought them up to make a wind break by the west edge of the yard.

Raspberry bushes and a gooseberry bush, also wild, from the back.

Couple more trees, by the fountain & wildflower-bed-to-be. :)

Winter prep

More winter prep today: The Reluctant Farmer built a landing (with a nice railing and stairs and everything) outside the south wing door - which we will now be able to use in the winter. The south entrance has an airlock (interior doors that keep the cold air from rushing in) so it's better to use that door than the north one, which enters straight into the main hallway. 

The old temporary deck that was outside that door had started to rot, so it got pulled up and the weary bits cut up for firewood and the salvageable stuff set aside. 

Today I restacked the firewood, some still needs longer to dry so it went at the back, some was too long (we got free wood last year and some wasn't cut to the size we need) so that got chopped up with the saw and restacked. The logs still awaiting splitting are in a pile, and things are looking better over there. 

Earlier this week I cleared out the hallway so that when we change doors everything is where we need it. 

Progress is happening! Which is good, because it snowed a bit yesterday ... Time is running out. 

Yes, I’m here.

I haven’t written much lately … I’ve been quite busy, doing one thing or another, recovering from a cold, struggling to sleep, catching up on sleep, working, all sorts of things.

So I’ll just jump in with a bit of a generic update.

The past couple of days I’ve done a bunch of outside work, because Winter is Coming. There’s almost always snow before Halloween, so I have to get a move on if I want to get these things finished before I have to pull everyone in off pasture! With fewer animals, though, we are able to still have everybody out grazing, which is awesome. Some years I’ve had to start on hay by now, to spare the pasture from overgrazing. We’ve still got lots of grass, so that’s wonderful.

I’ve been making bigger changes, as the remaining four sheep are going to be gone by the end of the month: Cherub, The Boy’s 4H lamb (who is now 7!) will be going to a friend’s house for her retirement, and the remaining three will be turned into sausage. Two are Icelandic, Lambie and Jellybean, and I plan to get their hides back and make sheepskin rugs from them … I know for ‘city folk’ that may seem awful, but they are simply gorgeous pelts and I want to be able to fondly remember them and keep my toes warm at the same time. And we love the sausage our butcher makes, so it is a good way to honour the gift of their lives.

Since we won’t need a separate sheep area this winter, then, I removed some fences from the winter pen, making one larger area. I used the nice tall fence  wire to fully enclose the barnyard, removed one gate (which I will need at the Self Serve Cow Buffet), and built the alleyway entrance to the aforementioned Cow Buffet. My Farm Helper will have to come put in the rest of the posts for that feeding area, but it’s almost ready to go, which is good - then I can have my hay delivered and roll the bales in. (We are doing this, if you are curious what I mean by Cow Buffet.)

Basically, we will be able to have the bales dropped in the driveway, roll them into the feeding area by hand (they are easy to roll when they first come off the truck, it’s just impossible once they freeze in place!), remove all the bale string, and run electric wire in front of the front row. The cows eat the bales, then we move the wire backwards when they have cleaned up what they have dropped. No more pitching hay into a feeder, no more trying to get bales up the hill in the winter, just a self-serve Cow Buffet. The space we are using for feeding is what used to be my garden – the quack grass is unconquerable with the energy and resources I have, so this is a better use for the space. Besides, come spring, the area will be trampled down and matted with manure and hay and straw … and I can feed a few pumpkins and zucchini to the animals in there, then close the gate. This spring I fed Sasha a pumpkin in the barnyard, and we got two pumpkin plants in the spot where she’d left some seeds! I can put a few potatoes in as well, because potatoes will grow quite happily in a pile of straw, so I can at least have a few things growing in the nicely fertilized and cow-and-donkey-weeded space.

And donkeys really DO eat thistles! I watched Miss May purposely munching down on thistles in the pasture yesterday, which is just FANTASTIC.

I also tightened a couple of weak/broken spots in the fences, so that I can be sure the winter pen is reasonably snug (come spring everyone wants OUT ON THE GRASS and they will push if the fences are weak). I have also thought some more about my winter watering plans, though I haven’t done anything with that yet, I’m pretty worn out from all the work I did so far!

I took Miss May for a walk down the gravel road today – she did pretty well, stopping a few times to make sure ewerything was safe, and even though a truck came down the other end of the road, everything went well (my neighbours are very good about slowing down around stock!). We both can use the exercise, and it’s good training for both of us as well. I can see that training a donkey will be very good for me: donkeys need a lot of time to ponder things, to be absolutely sure everything is safe before they proceed. They freeze when they aren’t convinced of their safety … a response I completely understand. It’s my job to be empathetic and encouraging, to show Miss May that whatever she is seeing is safe: For instance, she didn’t’ want to walk through the narrow gate by the water trough for some reason. It looked unstable, perhaps, or too skinny. So I tied her to the post and let her look at it for awhile, I walked through several times, and tried to coax her through, and let her stand by the post when she said she wasn’t ready yet. Eventually she decided it was all right and came through. The next day when I took her through, she didn’t even pause. Donkeys have great memories!

I’ve been reading a lot on donkey training – and I measured Miss May again today to confirm her size and weight: she is 48” at the withers (12 hands) and about 700 lbs, which means I can ride her! Only with a very light saddle, and only after we get some solid ground work under our belts, but it is a possibility!

So I spent the day researching, looking at saddles and tack and learning about ground driving and surcingles and lunge lines and bitless bridles.

It’s all very exciting.

Oh, and when we got back from our walk, I put Miss May in the pasture with all the other animals. Everyone was totally calm about it, having been able to get to know one another through the fence for the past couple of days. Then when I went back outside later in the day and called her, Miss May came running right up to me! Yay!

She is such a great animal. She likes to stand there and have me scratch her chin and hug her neck. I’m so happy she came to live here!

Memories

Our tree is family history. It's not perfect, things don't match, but it tells our story. 

Merry Christmas, from Apple Jack Creek. 

Tree day!

The Boys took the truck, the chainsaw, and the snowshoes and headed out Christmas tree hunting this morning. After much wading through deep snow they found a gorgeous tree ... Very tall (I hear there is a family bylaw requiring trees to be over 8'), lovely branches, very snowy!

It has been raining in the house for awhile now, and lights are being installed. I am supervising, for the most part, from my position on the couch ... I've got the full blown flu-style exhaustion going on just now, so I am trying very hard to pace myself. I do one small thing, like reheat leftovers and eat lunch, then lie down again with my knitting. Being horizontal or mostly so seems to help quite a bit. 

The Boy brought the boxes of decorations up from the basement and Princess Girl put a bunch of things out on shelves and doorknobs, The Reluctant Farmer and The Smaller Boy brought home a load of firewood, and The Bigger Boy has now gone on a dump run (I did have to help him get the car unstuck ... Freezing rain on top of snow is yukky!) and I'm back in my comfy spot for a bit. Soon it'll be time to make dinner, so I have to build up some energy. :)

More tree updates soon!

November

It's the first day of hunting season here - which means I'll be hearing the noise of gunshots for the next month, and worrying about my guardian dogs. They are usually pretty good about staying home near the sheep but they do wander off into the Crown land at the corner (which is open for hunting), so I am always a bit anxious during November lest someone not be sufficiently cautious with their aim. I have no problem with people taking deer for their freezers, don't get me wrong, but not everyone is as careful as one might hope … I worry about having someone knocking on my door for first aid because someone wasn't clear on their target before shooting or some such thing. People are injured every year - though not close to us, so far.

All the snow we had last week has melted away, which is a little unusual for this time of year but not really strange - we usually have snow before Halloween, and sometimes it stays, sometimes not. We do need a good solid snow pack or we have drought in the following year, so hopefully the snow will start up soon ... though I have to say it's nice to have it not be so cold yet.

I have a fire going in the woodstove, heating water for tea and warming the house. A friend had some land cleared last year and had a bunch of trees down, so yesterday he and The Boy brought a pickup load full of long logs for The Reluctant Farmer to chop into firewood ... that'll top up our existing wood pile and see us well through the winter, even with both stoves going frequently. Yay! Because firewood is free and natural gas is not, we try to keep the fires going in the south wing every day (where we spend most of our time) and then in the north wing in the evenings, to warm the bedrooms for the night. It takes a big dent out of the heating bill and is cheery to boot.

Of course this means it’s nearly time to put the bubblewrap on the windows, and start closing the drapes every evening to keep the warmth inside.

Today, though, it’s still pretty nice outdoors, and I have other things to work on: I am doing my “final exam” for my first aid instructor course this weekend (teaching a standard first aid class with another instructor) so I have some final preparation to do.

I’d best get back to it, I suppose … now that the tea is ready.

Getting ready for the snow

Before we know it, the snow is gonna be here. The pressure to get the summer jobs finished is now at maximum.

I split a pile of wood today, and then stacked it all (we really really needed that done - and the splitter is borrowed from a neighbour so I had to do it in one go, and then send it back).

This is what I did:

I am very happy with the new wood shed. Much tidier than what we had before, and it was pretty easy to build - those are giant long fence posts (which I got by accident, I didn't think to specify length when I ordered them) with scrap wood for the ends and a piece of metal roofing on the top. We did have to stand on something to pound in the posts, but the resulting structure is tall enough that I can stand in it. There are pallets on the bottom, to keep the wood up off the ground, as well as one in front so you can stand on that to get a load to take inside. The kindling goes in rubbermaid buckets that are kept outside – there’s bits of wood and bark all over the ground after splitting, I will ask the Small People to pick that up when they are here next, it’s a good job for people who start off closer to the ground than I do.

The Boy was outside working, so after I came in for lunch, I went back and helped him get finished. We now have finished sheep feeders, and the steps to securing the winter pasture are about 75% done, maybe more. All that's left is to get a gate mounted, so that the barnyard can be locked off from the rest of the pastures, make a feeder for the cow (that's easier than the sheep feeders, just needs a couple of posts and some existing panels and pieces of wood attached in different places than they currently are), and clean up of the barn and barnyard (i.e. shoveling and raking, and moving stuff around).

Then we have hay to be delivered and that'll need to be moved from where it gets dropped off, and the water trough will need to be put into it’s winter box (there is a lid that covers half of the trough, keeping the evaporation down). If I get organized enough, I’d like to set up a recirculating heat reservoir, but I don’t know if that’s gonna happen in time. Hmm, I’m not actually sure we have a working trough heater, either – need to check on that too.

The plan, of course, was to have a lot of this done earlier in the summer, but plans have a way of just doing their own thing and so … well, here we are. Further ahead than in many other years, thankfully, but we still have a few more important jobs to finish up before the snow comes. I still remember one October when it snowed and I said “oh well, that’ll melt in a couple of days” … and it didn’t melt. That was the start of winter that year! So, I try to be ready by the end of September if possible, mid October at the latest … just in case Mother Nature decides to pull a fast one on me again.

We’re not quite there … but we’re close. Whew.

Saving trees from brush hogging

Not a best seller like Saving Fish from Drowning, but hey.

Trees that are too near the road and/or under the powerlines will eventually be brush hogged – mowed down by a great big mowing machine that essentially mulches everything in its path. So, digging up trees from that space beside the road or out from under the power lines is a way to save their lives … and an inexpensive way to landscape our property.

We need more trees. We really need a good wind break along the north border, behind the house, as the wind usually comes from the northwest and it’s been shown that a proper wind break of heavy trees can actually reduce your power bill considerably. Plus, when you drive up to our house it’s not really very attractive – the front of the house faces south, so you arrive at the “back” of the house, where all you see is a plain row of windows and nothing very inviting. Trees and some better landscaping (and tidying things up) will make it look much better, and it’ll have the added advantage of breaking up the wind.

So, I decided to go out and gather up some trees to start the landscape project. I’ll need to plant some more and make the belt a little thicker, but for starters, I took the quad and the trailer and headed down the gravel road looking for trees (particularly evergreens) that were in the brush hog zone. I found quite a few, actually, including a few larger trees that had escaped last year's mowing and grown to a decent size. With the trusty tree planting shovel that my sister used for four summers of back breaking work, I dug up trees and loaded them into the trailer.

 

Boy oh boy do I love having the quad. I know, I always said we didn’t need one, and I was so very wrong. Especially as my energy levels go down and my body can’t do as much, having a tool that lets me go longer distances and haul heavy loads without using my body’s limited resources is just wonderful. I blessed the neighbour who gave it to us again today as I worked, believe me.

So, a load of trees came home, most of them with considerable soil still around the roots. None of them had travelled far, and the soil is pretty similar, plus I figured keeping them covered in damp earth while they were being transported would be good for them. Once home, The Boy helped out by removing the fence that was along the north border (not a very good fence, it wasn’t sturdy enough to hold anything in and mostly just got in the way) and then I started digging holes and planting trees.

I also went across the road to where the power line comes up to our house and dug up a few large poplar trees from underneath the wires. It’s nice to have a few trees that are tall when you are starting out, so it’s not just a row of teeny seedlings.

This is right by the driveway, you can see the rocks that mark the edge of the culvert that goes under the access from the main road. I put a few little dogwood trees down there near the culvert, as they like moist soil and the ditch stays reasonably damp. The nicest, tallest evergreen went right at the corner – maybe we’ll get some solar Christmas lights for it this winter. The other trees are staggered along the north edge of the property in a bit of a zig zag pattern rather than a single straight line … I’ve been reading permaculture books and straight lines just aren’t a natural thing, plus I want to avoid creating a wind tunnel when the wind is coming from the west, so breaking up the tree line a little is important. Besides, grouping the trees in little clusters will provide more visual interest and eventually give me little mini climate zones where I can grow smaller shrubs and maybe even flowers – though since the grass is actually quackgrass, whatever I grow has to be reasonably easy to mow around, so probably bushes and shrubs which can stand up to having the weed whacker run nearby will make more sense than flowers.

I found some big rocks and set those out next to the smallest trees so that I don’t accidentally drive over them or mow them down. I also moved the Blue Sign (the county address sign) down to the edge of the driveway and put a couple of large poplar trees on either side of the posts that hold the sign. You can’t really see those trees in this picture, but they’re there. I think I’ll try to plant some morning glories or another climbing plant under the sign and it’s supporting posts, and see if we can get something to grow in all that grass.

It’s still pretty rough looking, but it’s an improvement. The Boy and I also raked up all the leftover hay from the yard and he hauled it to the garden where it will serve as perimeter mulch: in the Ongoing Battle Against the Quackgrass a solid mulch at least a metre wide around the area you want kept clear is the next thing to try. All that mouldy hay has gotta go somewhere, so that seemed like a good place for it. The trees all got a good long soak from the rain barrel hose while I raked up mulching hay, too, as they need lots of water after they’ve been transplanted and I could just move the hose from one tree to the next as I worked.

After a day like this, I’m all out of strength … thank goodness for Advil, or I might be unable to move. Still, it was a good day for this kind of thing: the weather was pleasant but not too hot, I needed a sweatshirt on most of the day, but nothing more than that. Hopefully most of the trees survive the transfer … but if not, at least we’re not out any money, and Mother Nature will provide us with more if we’re patient.

Tomorrow’s adventure … probably the new wood shed. Stay tuned for more spring excitement!

Spring is crazy busy on a farm

Springtime is nuts around here.

The weather has been a bit crazy – it’d warm up, then we’d get a heavy wet snow blizzard, then it’d warm up some more … the winter felt like it went on for absolutely ever this year. Of course, last week, after having most of the snow melt and some beautiful work-outside-kind-of-weather days all in a row, we got another late storm, super windy and wet and snowy … so of course we had twin lambs born that morning, and then another single born that afternoon! The twins were very cold and had to be brought in to warm up, tube fed colostrum (they were too chilled and weakened to nurse) and given a boost of oral glucose to get going, but they did perk up and are back with mama who loves them both, thankfully. All the lambs born that day are boys, haven’t come up with names for them yet.

On the warm day before the storm, I went outside and did some work on the front steps: our patio door opened out onto a low temporary deck that’s been there since the house was built, and it was time to replace it with something sturdier (and with less of a steep drop when you stepped out the door). I’ve been reading permaculture books lately, and so I had the thought of putting some garden space right outside the door for herbs and things you’d like have within reach of the kitchen. This led to the idea of a set of raised beds with steps in the centre, and so with stuff I found around here already, I was able to build something that works. Today I gave it a few coats of stain, so it doesn’t look like the scavenged and mismatched wood that it actually is. I do still need to add the trellis supports for climbing plants (I saw a climbing strawberry plant that I think would be really neat, or perhaps a grape vine, to take advantage of the extra warmth up here by the house). The beds are presently mulched with straw, and my Easter lily got planted though the snow may have done it in.

On the left side of the bottom bed there are some twiggy things: I went to a workshop hosted by the county on starting trees from cuttings, and learned how to start willow, dogwood, poplar and aspen from cuttings. The twiggy things there are rooted cuttings that are in some pots of soil so they can develop sturdier roots (not just the ones they put out when they are in water), and then they’ll be planted around the property. Free trees! From local stock! Perfectly adapted to our climate! There’ll be more on this topic soon, I have some big plans (those permaculture books got me thinking)!

Today was a day to work on fences. Our infrastructure is still evolving – not something I’m really all that pleased about, I’d like to have gotten things more settled by now, but, it is what it is, and as we change the way we do things, we keep finding better (or hopefully better) ways to deal with the shape of our land and what’s on it. The wind tower has three big guy wires that keep it stable, and the animals rub on the wires, loosening them. Today’s job was to adjust the fence line so that the entire wind tower and its guy lines are enclosed by fence (actually that’s not quite true – one of the anchor points is still outside the fence, but there’s another fence going in that will protect it). The Boy and I took down some very ragged and damaged fences then put the posts back in, tightened and attached new woven wire, and cleared up a lot of the mess of broken fences, leftover posts and destroyed gates that had accumulated in the general vicinity. We also mounted some ‘lamb stoppers’ along the fence and gate: there were some gaps big enough that small sheep could pop out through the fence, and I need to know that the lambs will stay inside the fences before I start planting my garden!

Lamb stoppers are just chopped off bits of trees nailed to the fence to make the gaps too narrow to fit through, even for a little sheep:

Nothing fancy, but I think it’ll work. The price is certainly right.

There’s a lot more fence work to be done, but what we did today should mean that we can keep everyone reasonably well contained until the pastures are green enough to let them out to graze. We have some more water and pasture access changes to make, so there’s a few more big fencing days ahead still.

Ah yes, pasture. Since the grass isn’t ready for grazing yet, we’ve still got everyone on hay. We’re all out of the hay we had delivered, but there are some bales in the pasture that belongs to our neighbour that we are able to use – they’ve been sitting there for a couple of years, but when I was out there last week, I noticed that though they’ve been sitting a long time, they had been baled when the hay was nice and dry and so they are not mouldy or anything. They still smell good! The Boy and I took the quad and the big trailer and headed over there to load up.

A Boy and his Dog … and a haybale.

I rode on top of the hay wagon on the way home. :)

It’s just grass hay, nothing spectacular, but there’s plenty of it, so we feed generously and everyone seems reasonably content.

I’m rather stiff and sore after all that work, but tomorrow I have a baby shower to go to so I’ll have some enforced relaxation time before I get back to the outside work.

Okay, THAT’s not what I expected…

Yesterday morning I dragged my aching self out of bed to help unload a few more bales of hay that were delivered. The farmer said he’d gotten on the road early so as to miss the bad weather, and I thought “what bad weather?”

It’s sunny, melting, everything is all drippy … well, maybe the temperature is gonna drop and things will get icy. That happens a lot this time of year.

I went back inside and crawled back into bed. The Boy did afternoon chores for me as I couldn’t drag myself upright for longer than it took to get a drink and use the loo and collapse back into bed.

This morning, I looked out and saw this:

OH! That’s what he meant!

Pink. Purple to be added shortly.

The PTSD fatigue has, up until recently, kept me too tired to spin at the wheel (thank goodness I found supported spindles - I can still spin, even when I’m too tired to treadle!) … but today, the mood finally struck. Jacqueline and I decided to play.

I spun two bobbins of hot pink hand dyed Tunis (actual woolen prep rovings from the local mill) - about an hour per bobbin.

I was aiming for something I could use in a 2 ply for socks, and I think I got it. I plyed on my Norwegian (since she has no issues going backwards, and that meant I only had to wind off once onto a Lazy Fred storage bobbin). The finished yarn is now back in the dyepot soaking up some splotches of purple.

Ah, here we go: out of the dyepot.

Left to right: great wheel spun blues plyed with spindle spun whitish singles; hot pink and purple sock yarn; garnet silk/merino, spindle spun.

Pink and purple splotch socks.This should be a decent antidote to the muck and slush of the (hopefully) upcoming spring season. :)

(Spring in northern Alberta is NOT something to rhapsodize about. It’s messy. It takes too long. I want to go from 2 feet of snow to summer in two weeks, but it takes two months. Of muck. And grayness. Pink will help.)

New year, new strategies

What it all boils down to is that I’ve had it up to here with being unwell.

I’m not what most people would call “healthy” – my mental health is still quite fragile, and I am very easily triggered into The Darkness. I’ve gained weight, I don’t have much strength, and I have no stamina at all.

And I’m sick of it.

Resting and knitting has gotten me as far as it’s gonna get me. Time to try something else.

For the past couple of weeks, a new strategy has been put into place. Every day there is housework to be done: a schedule, like the old “Monday is for washing” kind of thing, each part of the house gets dealt with on a scheduled day of the week. It takes 30-60 minutes per day just to keep up with things around here (so you can imagine the disaster the house was in most of the time when it only got done ‘as we got to it’). This is a lot of work … and that doesn’t include the laundry, which is one to two loads almost every day (it’s a small machine, and we hang the clothes to dry, so you can only do one or two loads before running out of drying space). 'It is nice to have things cleaner, and now that the ‘backlog’ has been cleared, the daily work doesn’t take quite so long. Still, it feels like a big investment of time, though it really isn’t on the whole.

I’ve also taken on the outside chores again. The Boy hates doing them, always has, and when chores got rushed through too many days in a row, I decided enough was enough, I’d do it myself. It’s hard physical work: if I’d known I was going to be doing the chores during the winter there are some things I’d have done differently in the fall (The Boy uses different strategies than I do, but he’s younger and can hop over fences and carry more at once than I can). We’re halfway through winter feeding season, though, so I’ll just make do. So far, my arms and hands are very sore, but I haven’t done myself any harm so I’ll take that as a sign of building muscles!

Finally, I’ve put some plans into action for a new business venture. It might be a complete flop, I don’t know for sure, but it might work … won’t know until I try. I had to acquire some new equipment, and I’m in the process of homeschooling myself on it’s use. I hope to have a sample of the new product to show by the end of the month, so stay tuned!

In the meantime, best wishes to all of you for a better 2013. I’m ready for things to start getting brighter, aren’t you?

Simple pleasures

Ornaments filled with history and meaning.

Snow on the tree.

Lights in the darkness.

Knitting by the fire, with my family around me.

~  ~

May I always be able to remember these simple pleasures.

Merry Christmas, all

The mental health flu is slowly abating, and I have managed to free a few of my words … just in time to wish everyone a lovely holiday filled with peace and love.

The tree is lit, I baked a few cookies, the buns are made for tomorrow, and the giant genetic freak of a turkey that The Reluctant Farmer got as a Christmas bonus from his employer has been thawed and cut into pieces (I prefer hacking apart a turkey when it is uncooked) and made into a giant turkey roll. The drumsticks look like something Fred Flintstone would eat! I won’t touch industrial poultry, but the rest of the family don’t have the same qualms, so it’ll be enjoyed by everyone else and there’s plenty of side dishes for me to enjoy. At the market in early December there was a lady selling nylyshnyky and piereshke, and boy am I looking forward to those!

Time to stoke up the fire and get some dinner going, then it’ll be a quiet evening of knitting and looking at the pretty tree with The Boy and The Reluctant Farmer. The Small People will join us tomorrow.

In all the bustle and activity, may you find a few moments of peace to reflect on the things that really matter … which aren’t things at all.

Peace to all.

Christmas Knitting: COMPLETE!

It’s done.

Ten projects, done.

Five already given away, five under the tree or en route to recipients.

 

Amazed?

Yeah, me too.

Almost done

Christmas Knitting Project update!

Projects 1 and 2 were given out already (for my inlaws, when they were here earlier: socks and mittens) … 3 and 4 have also been delivered (to my parents: a sweater and another pair of socks), 5 was also given away (a little headband made of handspun alpaca, for my friend who knits and spins all the the time but sells or gives away everything she makes and has no hand knits of her own unless someone ELSE gives them to her!), and projects 6, 7, 8 and 9 are all wrapped and ready to go. Project 10 (the last one!) has just a little bit of finishing work left, then it, too, will be ready to wrap up.

Yes, folks, it is possible to get your Christmas knitting done before mid-December.

You just have to start in August.