Weekend Update

Despite my grandson giving me his cold and spending the entire weekend in bed I did manage to get some knitting in. I completed another 30-row repeat of the motif of Northwest Sunset Vest for SFC (Sweaters From Camp) KAL. I also worked some on FLAK (Follow the Leader Aran Knitalong). I added 4" to the sweater body. In a previous picture I tried to show the sweater with a full wing span but it was difficult to see the sweater. I think this picture shows the sweater much better. I am very pleased with it so far.

On a topic other than knitting, on Friday my husband and I cleaned up the leaves from the yard that were missed in the fall or blew into the yard over the winter. We have 4 acres and just about all the leaves come from our neighbors as we have very little trees. We have so many leaves to clean up we purchased an Agri-Fab Chip 'N Vac to pull behind our small John Deere. We literally vacuum up the leaves and the Agri-Fab (a chipper too) grindes the leaves and brances (up to 2" in diameter) and collects them in a large trailer. Once the leaves are collected they go into a compost pile. Leaves can be a cheap source of nutrients for your plants and lawn. My collection area is a simple cylinder made from wire fencing. Once the leaves are dumped there I don't do anything. Next fall the leaves will be composted and the pile will shrink to about 1/3 the size and will look like back dirt. I learned this from a landscaping segment of "This Old House". They called it "black gold".

If you don't have something like an Agri-Fab you can rake your leaves onto a tarp and drag the leaves to the compost. If the leaves are not ground up then you will need to turn your compost pile on a regular basis.