Tink the Adventure Dog

We are still learning about our new house and garden. Tink helps out in her own doggie way, by showing me where the holes in the fence are. Last night while we were getting ready to go to dinner I let her out in the back to take care of business. S was on the phone and I was getting myself dressed. I called her and she wouldn't come in and I could see her at the back of the garden, sniffing at the fence. I know she heard me because she stood there, looking at me. Little dickens!! So I took off my high shoes, put my feet into my garden shoes sitting on the deck and marched out across the lawn to get her. As soon as she could see I meant business and was coming through the garden, up to the fence to grab her she started squeezing herself under the fence!! And I was that close to grabbing her but she got through and I could see her, tail high and wagging, running around the neighbor's back yard. I dashed back to the house and S hung up and got into his car and drove around the block one direction and I took off running in the other. He made it back there before I, of course, so when I came around the block I could see his car sitting in front of the house directly behind ours and my phone rang - he had her. That silly little dog - she is pretty smart. As soon as she saw him she came running to him, he said "Tink" and she stopped in her tracks, obviously not liking his tone of voice, and turned around and headed back to the fence to try to squeeze back into our yard! She wasn't fast enough for him though.

Now I am going to have to go around the entire perimeter of the property and inspect the fence. Another piece of the puzzle fell into place this morning while I was getting ready for work. S called out to me - "Come here, quick!" And I ran to the back and looked out into the yard and there was a whole family of raccoons, playing in the yard. Big ones, too! So that's how my dahlia got trampled. I didn't think Tink could have done that. And also, that's how the holes got under the fence. It's a wildlife paradise I guess. I found a gopher hole in the side yard this weekend as well.

It was blazing hot all weekend so what did I do? Turned up the air conditioning and did some serious knitting! My goal was to find the most comfy and best place to knit in my new place. Really, the first weekend I've had just time to myself with nothing to do but knit (and watch football). I found that the purple comfy chair in the living room is the best place to knit because a) it's comfy and b) there is lots of natural light. I measured the Trellis Shawl after using 3 balls of the Silk Mountain and calculated that I needed 11 balls for the body, so Saturday I rolled up 8 more balls. Now when this basket is empty I will be finished with the body of the shawl. For some reason that's less intimidating to me than stopping and measuring all the time. Here's how it looks so far: Not too exciting. You can't really see the trellis pattern, even in close up. Maybe when it's blocked. It's good TV knitting.

Oh -- the Seahawks won their second preseason game. That was my Saturday night while S worked. Pretty nice - knitting and football. We all know that's my favorite!