I have not been keeping up with this, too well!  LOL!  This year, two milkweed plants sprouted spontaneously, by my garage.  We’ve have them grow there before, but really do nothing to encourage them, so they either come or they don’t.  Of all the times, we’ve had milkweed plants, I don’t think we’ve ever had a crop of monarch caterpillars, like we do this year.  It’s our own personal biology/science lab!

2 caterpillars - about 3/4 inch long
1 caterpillar - about 1/2-inch long
3 caterpilalrs - newly hatched today!

This is so exciting and we are out there all the time, keeping tabs on them.  We did research on the internet, to find out what the eggs look like and seen videos on YouTube to watch them hatch.  We discovered that there were lots of eggs on our two plants, so we have a lot of watching ahead of us.

Of the few that hatched today, one was so newly hatched, he hadn’t eaten his egg shell yet, and they do, since it has important nutrients for them to get started with.  Our leaves have lots of holes in them already!  These milkweed plants are in a shady spot, and don’t even have buds that would indicate they’re about to bloom yet.  I wonder if they will even flower, since most other milkweed plants seem to be blooming already.

Photos of the first two we discovered on 7-19-08:

They were only half-an-inch long, on Saturday. Today, 3 days later, they are about 3/4 of an inch and a little bit thicker. The front antenna are longer, too. It’s been fun watching them grow!

Here’s my July dishcloth. It was called Love to Knit, by Alice Imholte. I used light blue Sugar’n Cream, with US 7 needles.

Sarah and I just went to the grocery store, and I noticed when we got back to the car, that across the aisle from us, in the parking, lot were a van from Massachusetts, a pickup truck from Michigan, and a van from Maryland!  While we see Michigan plates in WI, all the time, since it’s right next door, Massachusetts and Maryland are quite the find!  The MA van had an outline sticker of a girl doing a gymnastics move and had a sticker that said the word “gymnast” below the license plate.

Also, the La Quinta hotel near our house, had a packed parking lot.  Tomorrow night, we will see how crowded it is over by Blue Harbor Resort.

Opening ceremony tickets hard to find
Photos of set-up for gymnastics meet

Starting tomorrow, in the North High School gym, is the 2008 YMCA National Gymnastics Championship!  We don’t have tickets, though.  It’s just exciting seeing lots of out-of-state license plates.

The high schools both built brand-new gyms in the last few years, so they have enough room, to hold a meet of this magnitude:

4,000 tickets sold
1360 gymnasts
21 different states

http://ymcanationals2008.org/teams.php

I see there isn’t anyone participating from Maryland, but maybe it’s a spectator!

This was fun to do, with lots of yo, k2tog,and p2tog! I’ve never done a pattern before, where the number of stitches changes from row to row, but it’s okay! It varied between 39 and 44 stitches. The yarn is 181 Faded Denim Peaches & Creme and knit with US 7 needles. It was designed by Jamie Monaghan.

I finished my second red scarf, too, last Thursday! Woohoo! I should be swatching my sock yarn, about now! LOL!

The weather has calmed down, although it could be warmer. I’m guess I’m not complaining, since it’s saving us a bundle in air conditioning costs.

This is the June 2008 KAL. It was worked with 54 Baby Green Peaches and Creme yarn, on US7 needles. It makes me want to take a tropical vacation! It was designed by Andi Worthy of the Monthly Dishcloth KAL yahoo group!

This is the mid-June KAL with 2 days finished. I’ve been too busy posting my pictures to knit, this morning! LOL! It’s just yo, k2tog, p2tog, etc, that is making the cable-y design. We aren’t using a cable needle. I love the lacy texture! I’m having fun knitting it. The yarn is 181 Faded Denim Peaches and Creme yarn, on US7 needles.

Oh yeah. It finally stopped raining. My computer corner is all back together, with a new rug on the floor. I love how the new feels to my feet. It’s a lot cushier than the 10-year-old rug was. The laptop was nice, but my regular computer, even at 7 years old, is a lot faster and has a much better monitor.

My heart goes out to the people still affected by the flooding. Ugh. Even when we had 18 inches of water in our basement, 10 years ago, it still wasn’t as bad as other people had it.

From the Sheboygan Press this morning:

Rainfall for the month of June now stands at 10.12 inches, already above the previous record of 8.68 inches set in 1969, according to the weather service reporting station at The Sheboygan Press.

Authorities said the downpour flooded more than 50 intersections in the City of Sheboygan on Thursday night, but all roadways in Sheboygan County were passable by Friday morning. Alliant Energy reported only 15 county homes lost power, and all electricity was restored by early morning.

Yes, it definitely doesn’t need to rain, for a long time, around here.  My side door won’t close all the way, because the sill is swollen.   We haven’t had to water our flowers, in the past week, because there’s been so much rain.  We got a little water in the basement, so we need to buy one small rug and a little basement paint.  It’s nothing to serious.   Also, the lawn needs to dry out, so it can be mowed.  The end of the yard is getting so long, but I’m sure it’s still too wet, since the sump pump drains there.

Today is nice and sunny, with a chance of thunderstorms, at some point, but I don’t think the storms will be like they were, earlier in the week.  We came through the storms, pretty unscathed compared to some people.  We were very lucky.

Over the weekend, we had 3.42 inches of rain!  For the whole month of June, we’ve had 6.68 inches of rain!  The Sheboygan River rose to 11.3 feet, which is three feet above flood stage.  It was spilling over the banks in a few spots, but not endangering any houses.   It was also flowing scary fast, and in Sheboygan Falls, where there really is a falls, AND a dam, it was going even faster.  We went to Settler’s Park last night and it was like being by the Whitewater Walk, in Niagara Falls!  I still need to upload my videos to YouTube.  I did take pictures, though, too.   

At the lower falls, the water was going by so fast, it almost made you dizzy!  Fortunately, there’s a nice strong fence between you and the water.   It was hard to focus on the water, with the camera, since it was going SOOOOOO fast.  At Settler’s Park, I noticed that parents of young children were keeping a tight grip on their children and being very aware of where the children were.

The rain ruined our trip to Madison on Saturday, since we just had gotten to the Henry Vilas Zoo, when we found out there was a tornado warning.  So, during the warning, we drove from the Henry Vilas Zoo, to the east side of Madison, to Applebee’s, so Emily could watch the Belmont Race.  Unfortunately, we were there for 2 hours, since we got there an hour earlier than we really needed to, because of the weather.  After we got to Applebee’s, the skies really let loose and it POURED!

On Monday, Lake Delton, north of Madison cut a channel through land, where there was no water, washed out Highway A, in Columbia County, and drained Lake Delton, sweeping a few houses off their foundations, in the process. In the newspapers, they show that the lake is empty.  I saw a pier, with just muddy ground underneath, with a boat, sitting on the ground.  So, the Tommy Bartlett water-skiing show, in the Dells, won’t have skiing this year.  Yikes.   In Mukwonago, WI, there is a dam they are worried about.  The ground around the dam is very saturated and they wonder if it will hold.  It’s scary, but nowhere near my house.

My basement got a little bit of water in it and forced us to clean up stuff that we’d been neglecting.  Also, DH is repainting the wall in my computer corner, so I have a laptop on a desk, with a separate mouse and keyboard, until he is done and it’s worth the time to set my desktop computer all up again.  We are still going to be moving things around, to finish painting and to put a new rug under my desk, so the desktop computer will stay in the other room.  So, now I have my charter mail coming into my gmail, since I’m without my Outlook for a little bit.

I’ll have to resize some of my pictures, for posting in here. and get those videos uploaded.  Two days without rain, has been a WONDERFUL thing. 

We drove down to the lake today, and could see where the muddy river water, joins the lake!  The whole harbor had muddy water, too, since that water has been flowing out there, in such a hurry.

Rapids, just below the dam, next to Settler’s Park, in Sheboygan Falls:

Lower Falls, in Sheboygan Falls

Gary just did some photos on worm castings, for the newspaper recently.

Casting their lot in the worm-poop business

So, he went out later and bought me some.  Today, I planted the geraniums, vincas and spikes, with the worm castings added to the soil!  We’ll see if it makes a difference!  I can’t wait.  I do have starter pictures taken and will post later.  I have to be somewhere right now.

We got up to about 82 today! It felt heavenly! We were wearing sandals and leaving the jackets in the house! Unfortunately, we only get one day of this glorious weather! Tonight it’s supposed to cool down into the 40’s and only be in the 50’s tomorrow, so we will have jump right back into the long pants and sweatshirts.

We went to visit my SIL and BIL today, since Roger needed some help on his computer. The kids had fun dipping their feet in the backyard pool. We hadn’t thought to bring swimsuits, but the water was still pretty cold, so they thought they really wouldn’t have wanted to swim, anyway.

We ate lunch at Noodles, where somehow my Pad Thai turned into Pesto Cavatappi. We checked the receipt and he’d never even put the correct order in, in the first place! Was he even listening? Or are the buttons close together, on his register? I didn’t make a fuss, because the Cavatappi looked good and I didn’t want to waste perfectly good food. I guess I’ll have to try the Pad Thai some other time. The cavatappi was good, though! On our next visit, I’ll be waiting while my husband pays, so we can double-check the receipt right away, before they’ve made me something else.

My favorite thing about Noodles is the fresh lemon wedges that they have by the soda fountain, for the people who drink iced tea. Those lemon wedges taste really good in my Diet Coke, too! Yummmy! The heck with all the chemically-flavored Coke and Pepsi products. Nothing tests better than actual lime juice or lemon juice squeezed into a glass of soda!

Here is the mid-May KAL. It’s called Every Day Any Day, by Sue Schaefer of Harvest Moon Designs. It took me a while to knit, because I was trying to do all the purls, with the yarn over the top and that’s new to me, so it takes me a while. I can purl a lot faster, with the yarn going underneath the needle. I was watching some women knit, at my knit-night the other night and they were so fast, and so efficient with the yarn over the top of the needle. I guess I just need more practice with that. I like my continental knitting with knitting in the back loops and the purls underneath the needle! I’m pretty fast, with plain stockinette.

My daughter Sarah, just sent me an email, that says the cold front is working it’s way down the Lake Michigan coastline and that it should be going through Sheboygan, right about now!  I guess that’s the end of our warm day, huh?  Well, it was nice, while it lasted!  (7:05 pm, CDT.)

This time I didn’t overwrite the contents folder, so it was a LOT easier!  I see the little nags on the various pages went away, too.  I’m glad not to have to figure out why something in my design isn’t changing and having to figure out again, where it is, in the code!  phew!

I finally finished Elisa’s Nest Tote this past Sunday night. After sitting for 2 months, I found out that the handles were easier than I thought. It was knit with Patagonia Nature Cotton by Araucania, which has a thick and thin texture. It’s 100% cotton. I’ve already used my bag, twice, too. It easily held my detergent bottle and my latest Debbie Macomber book, for a trip to the laundromat with a big quilt. Emily and I also took it to the grocery store! The pattern for the nest tote is from Purlbee.

Dots within Stripes is the name of the Mid-April 2008 KAL for the monthly dishcloth group. It’s a pattern from Knitting on the Net. I’m thinking this one would look pretty in lots of different color combinations!

Oh yeah. It’s still cold out and supposed to get down into the 30’s tonight. Oh joy.

Jasmine’s delicates looked less red and swollen today. She also isn’t scooting and licking down there anymore, too, so I’m guessing it all feels better. I’m glad we took her in yesterday.