Small town Brooklyn

I really do love our Brooklyn weekends. After two of the hardest weeks I've ever had, this weekend was SOOOOO what I needed. The last two weeks have been back-brakingly hard (yarn is NOT light when packed by the hundreds in cases), so what I needed more then anything was to relax. Saturday it was blustery and wet, so we stayed home all day. I got on the spinning wheel in the morning, and didn't stop spinning until my pal Nell came over. We then cracked out the wine, cheese and Paul Newman documentary we added to our Netflix cue the day he died.

I'm really happy with the yarn I spun. It's my very first three ply yarn. One ply is the Cascade Magnum I started spinning when I got sick of knitting with it




The other ply is the Corredale roving I bought from Morro Fleece Works



And the third ply is a mix of them both. It resulted in a pretty dreamy mix


I took it up to the garden to dry in the sun



and here it is all skeined up . . . mmmm





I still have tons more to spin, so I should get a whole sweater's worth out of it.

Much to my shock, although we've left it TOTALLY unattended, the garden doesn't look half bad




Even more bizarre . . . veggies are still growing.



Last night David made our (probably) last meal made from our crop. Pasta w/ eggplant, peppers, tomato, basil, green beans. Every bit of it (except the pasta) grown in our own little Brooklyn roof top farm.

Today was sunny and georg, so we headed over to the Fort Green Halloween Festival. Brooklyn often feels like a small town to me, and anytime we go to these park festivals, I feel like this could just as easily be the town fair in Stars Hallow (Gilmore Girls anyone???).





We got there right at noon in time for the Dog costume show - The Great PUPkin! Here's a few cuties:

Goldie Locks & the Wolf that ate Grandma:

Lego Helicopter (runner up)


Diva


Peter Pan


Laverne (of & Shirley)


Peas & Carrots (Third Prize)



More food . . . Sundae


yet more food . . . Lobster Dog
Dancing Queen


Sweet 16 (she really was 16, and it took a LONG time for the old gal to walk around the ring)


Pumpkin


Dogzilla


The stubborn Caterpillar (second prize)

Then there were many political dogs. Our first place winner was Joe the Plumber tries to fix the Fort Green Dog fountain (an inside dog owner joke). What pushed him over the top, was the fountain was rigged up to shoot water . . . very cute

Lipstick on a Pig


Revenge on Sara Palin



Continuing with the same theme. Here's Palin & McCain (note the devil tail & horns) guns a blazing w/ a moose & polar bear. Here she "shoots" both dogs


The golden parachute


And my personal favorite, a truly Brooklyn entry . . . Marty "Barkowitz" and Bruce Ratner. For those of you not from Brooklyn, click here

After they took a turn around the ring, someone in the crowd shouted "roll over for emminent domain", and the dog promtly rolled over . . . genius!

We ended with a late afternoon walk in Prospect Park, and then back home for some knitting. Tomorrow it's back to hauling furniture & boxes around (sigh)

So many boxes . . .

It's been ages since I've had a moment to blog. I'm up to my (&^% in boxes getting the Studio ready to open. I have managed to get sick for about a week in the middle of it all (yeah). The sucky part was missing the Yarn Harlot when she spoke at B & N in Park Slope. Michelle (who is cool lady working in the Studio with me) even saved me a seat, and I was WAY too sick to go. On a brighter yarny note, I did get a lot of knitting done in my sick bed.



This cotton bam boo top is taking me forever. Plus I no longer get any knitting time on the subway since I'm back to rush hour riding (which means standing . . . boo).

Amongst working sun up to sun down David and I did manage to squeeze in two great weekends. Two weeks ago David and I did our Brooklyn open house thing. I wrote about our Saturday at the cemetery, and then Sunday we did a whole other round. First we stopped at the Montauk club. It's right down the street from our house, but I've never seen the inside. It's both opulent and oddly run down at the same time. Kind of hard to describe.


On our way to Fort Greene we passed Urban Glass, who was also doing an open house. It's a really big glass blowing place that has a gallery and they give classes and rent their space to artists. I love that places like this still exist in Brooklyn.


Next we went to the fab new(ish) Brooklyn Flea Market. It was a perfect fall day and the flea market was great. We spent the rest of the day walking around Fort Greene. I must admit, we don't spend much time there. It's really cool. The neighborhood has changed so much, and it's filled with great restaurants and shops. We will definitely be going back for the Halloween festival next week. I've always wanted to see the dog costume contest!




After another back breaking week at work setting up the store, I was hanging on to the light at the end of the tunnel . . . RHINEBECK!!!!!!!!! We headed out late on Friday night and got into our B & B around 10:00 pm. We didn't get to see the amazing grounds until we looked out our window the next morning to see this:

We were staying in a spa / B & B on a ton of land, called Buttermilk Spa. Just like last year, it was bright blue sky and perfect color. . . only difference, about 20 degrees colder then last year.

Our first glimpse of the fair grounds was an explosion of red


We started by visiting the little darlings that give us the fiber we love. Here's a little cutie getting shorn.



We decided after such a killer week that we would take it easy this weekend. I did a little shopping, ran into some pals, watched some Canine Frisbee toss, ate some cheese, and then we headed back to the B & B in the afternoon to go to the spa and walk around the grounds.

My first day's booty was a pound of this stunning Corriedale roving



After the spa we walked around the grounds which were swell




They also have their own little herd of sheep and alpaca.



SOOO cute.

After a wonderful dinner, great sleep, great breakfast it was back to the fair grounds. Our pal Francesca was meeting us. She was on hiatus from the Spamalot tour, and we've been trying to go to Rhinebeck together for three years, and we finally made it!

We started again by visiting the animals. Why can't I have a farm???


David was trying to take a picture of this cutie alpaca, but right as he snapped, the alpaca stuck his nose right in the camera. It's my new favorite picture


Francesca went through her budget in the first 10 minutes or so . . . mostly at Brooks Farm. I picked up another pound of Merino roving


Here we are saying goodbye to our wonderful weekend, clutching our treasures


Monday it was back to unpacking boxes and counting balls of yarn.