Knitting Update

I've been lax on posting about it, but some knitting has been done this summer.
As usual, gifts actually get finished. The first one was a Pinwheel Blanket with a lace edging (Plymouth Dreambaby dk) for a friend's new daughter, born in July. It's a varigated pink-blue-yellow, with a cream edging. Fun to knit, though the couple dozen rows seemed endless. If I make it again, I might do worsted wt instead of dk.
The 2nd FO just shipped out yesterday - a cotton hat for my cousin's new daughter, born in March. Friends are so much more immediate than cousins. I have 16 cousins on my mom's side, and while I like them, I don't see them very often. This cousin and his family live in the San Francisco area, so I spent some time trying to come up with something to make that was smaller than a blanket, and appropriate for the climate. The pattern is quite descriptively titled "Children's Cotton Hats" from Last Minute Knitted Gifts, made in Plymouth Fantasy Naturale (fancy name for a cotton yarn). The bear didn't cooperate so well as a model, but I was in a hurry to send it off, before the child's head got any bigger than it already must be.
The Lizard Ridge blanket has been languishing in the heat. The blocks are done, three of the columns are sewn together, and then it just got too hot to sit around sewing a wool blanket together.
That leaves the two current projects, the Lady Eleanor (from Scarf Style) in Silk Garden,
And yet another baby blanket in Cascade Kaleidoscope dk. I found this nice denim colored yarn last winter while working out of town & staying in Oneonta. They have a nice yarn store there (Knitting it All Together, 175 Main St). They are friendly, have a nice selection of yarn, and share their space with a natural food store.
Perhaps more later, about hilarious letters from health insurance companies...

Rats

I went for a walk in the university's nature preserve last night, since it was the first day of nice weather we've had for quite a while, and I'm not feeling as tired as I have been for a couple of months.

It was a successful evening in wildlife sighting - a doe and fawn, a blue heron, a couple of large turtles (anonymous to me since they stayed 90% underwater), a snake, several frogs.

And a rat.

More specifically, a muskrat. The least camera-shy creature in the nature preserve, apparently. According to Wikipedia, approximately 4x the size of a normal rat, they often live in the same habitat with beavers (this is the case for the nature preserve), have duels to the death in the springtime, and in the Archdiocese of Detroit, can be considered fish and eaten on Ash Wednesday and Lenten Fridays.

Catch & Release

On the way home from Wegman's this afternoon, I spied a little turtle attempting to cross a busy road. Naturally enough, when I came back to get him, he (or she - I wouldn't begin to know how to check on a turtle) responded by running away from me, further into the road. Fortunately, no cars came along, and I am faster than a tiny turtle.
Snapping turtle, as it turns out.
So I took him home, put him in a bucket, and K & I walked him down about 4 blocks to the Susquehanna River. We could hear 4 wheelers in the woods, so we took the turtle right down to the river. When we got close, he started trying to climb up the bucket walls. And when we put him on the ground, he booked right off...
...straight for the river.
Once in the river, he took a deep breath (snout sticking out of the water, with body to the right),
and then settled right in - can't really see him in the last photo, but he's right in the middle, half buried in the river mud.
Finally, he moved on to a denser tangle of underwater branches - just what this website said a snapping turtle would like to do.