In the summer I take my knitting out of doors. Winters are long in Minnesota where I live and you will spend the better part of the year inside, so unlike my children, who prefer to spend their time playing video games indoors, I will take my projects outside, to the backyard usually, whenever I get the opportunity. When I go outside for the most part I am left relatively alone. The children will wander out to see where I am, see that I haven't completely abandoned them and to be certain that there is still someone to complain to about their hunger and the lack of food service, then mumble something about how it's hot out here and there being too many bugs out here and then go back into the house to pitch battle with dragons and conquer the evil doers of whatever world they are in and once again I am left to fend for myself out in the wild.
In past summers I would putter around the yard, imagining myself as some sort of earth goddess and play at being a gardener. But this summer has been too hot for playing in the dirt, I'm afraid that the only energy I've expended for upkeep has been the occasional watering of my poor flowers and walking the perimeter.
Do you walk the perimeter? Strictly speaking it isn't exactly walking the perimeter that I do, because I don't necessarily walk the outside edges of the property. Usually I will walk from the back door of the house , which is actually a side entrance on the north side of the house , and walk toward the west around the house down to the front sidewalk , walk around the boulevard gardens then come back up to the house and walk around the south side of the house to the backyard along the tree line to the garage. Then around the garage to the edge of the drive way on the east end of the yard, then back along the fence on the north side and back to the door. I don't know exactly why I do this, I think mainly I do it to see the flowers and how they're blooming but sometimes I just do it because it gives me something to do.
When my son was younger he would walk around outside and tap trees with a stick. I've asked him if he knew why he did that and he said he couldn't explain it really, except that it comforted him. My youngest daughter likes to dangle a chain in her hands and hold conversations with different imaginary characters again it comforts her, Ani has something she does to comfort herself but she would not want me to say what that is, walking the perimeter comforts me. The thing is I would like to be outside more but there isn't much outdoors that I like to do, so I have to come up things to do while I'm outside. Since gardening wasn't happening this year I've been taking my knitting outside with me to keep me occupied. So I've been sitting in our screened gazebo knitting, because the kids aren't wrong, there are too many bugs in the yard. Bugs like this guy (gal?) here. In an effort to bring down the power bill we have been hanging the laundry on a line outside to dry. One morning as I was bringing a load of clothes out to hang on the line, this cicada decide it wanted to hang out with us, there he was just clinging to the screen door. Since he was posing so nicely I decided to take a few pics of him. He's a beauty ain't he, they're big buggers too. Over all they are harmless, the only thing I would charge them with is disturbing the peace.
I can't say that it is really any more peaceful in the backyard than in the house. First there is the sounds from the city, as my husband puts it, planes, trains, and automobiles. We are in the flight path of major airport and regularly have planes flying over, we have a train track that runs behind the house,and there is a parking lot beyond the end of the drive way. Second there are the people. Yesterday I don't know where it came from exactly but a girl screamed very loud and long, it sounded like a scream from a horror movie. I wonder if she saw a cicada? And third, there is the sounds from nature. The birds calls, the squirrels squawking and the sirens of the cicadas. The sirens of the cicadas being the loudest of all.
On Friday my husband and I rode our bikes to the Uptown Art Fair. We enjoy looking at all the exhibits but agree that there tend to be a lot of repetition in subject matter when it comes to the photography especially. So we thought we would make our own art and take a few snapshots of say, a red door, or windows with green frames, or a bicycle against a wall or clothes hanging on the line. Therefore I am pleased to present for your viewing pleasure, a work I think I'll call,
Ani on the line -Basic Black- a study in summer colors.

To complete the diptych is Buckman on the line:year round wardrobe- no long sleeves please.

Speaking of art I completed my op art project, which actually is a buttonhole bag, as I'm sure you already know. Here is the bag before felting. It measured 12.5 inches across the center of the bag before washing it. After felting, it measured 9.5 inches, it shrunk to three quarters of it's original size. Pretty cool.

This buttonhole bag is for an exchange I'm having with some of the knitters in the TCSnB group. All I have to do now is come up with something to put in the bag for a surprise gift. I've been knitting Katie' chocobo scarf and it's coming along, it's my take along project and I carry it in a little clear plastic bag so it looks like I've got a bag full of canary feathers. I've also been working on a calendar project, it too is looking pretty cute but I'm not ready to show it yet. So I give this Ani and Kate at play.