New TV towers at the Hills

The last 2 days have seen helicopters over our area. This time it wasn't for homeland security or Fish, Wildlife, and Parks, no this time it was for cement! Rick and the kids headed up the switch backs to take some photos of the process. Here is a look down the hill...our home is off to the right, but many of the strips you see are our crops.


Going up toward the top. It is a bit of a climb.


The clouds often made it impossible for the cement to be delivered. (But there was a storm coming in so it had to get done!)


Headed back down the hill.

Now if I can figure out how to get the photos from my camera phone. I took a couple of shots when the helicopters were at the 4H camp grounds.

Knitting Meme

Mark with bold the things you have knit (or are knitting), with italics the ones you plan to do sometime, and leave the rest.
Afghan
I-cord
Garter stitch
Knitting with metal wire
Shawl
Stockinette stitch
Socks: top-down
Socks: toe-up
Knitting with camel yarn
Mittens: Cuff-up
Mittens: Tip-down
Hat
Knitting with silk
Moebius band knitting (may have done this once unintentionally – does that count?)
Participating in a KAL
Sweater
Drop stitch patterns
Knitting with recycled/secondhand yarn
Slip stitch patterns
Knitting with banana fiber yarn
Domino knitting (=modular knitting)
Twisted stitch patterns
Knitting with bamboo yarn
Two end knitting
Charity knitting
Knitting with soy yarn
Cardigan (zippy hoodie)
Toy/doll clothing
Knitting with circular needles
Baby items
Knitting with your own handspun yarn
Slippers
Graffiti knitting
Continental knitting
Designing knitted garments
Cable stitch patterns (incl. Aran)
Lace patterns
Publishing a knitting book (- yeah, right)
Scarf
Teaching a child to knit
American/English knitting
Knitting to make money
Buttonholes
Knitting with alpaca
Fair Isle knitting
Norwegian knitting
Dying with plant colors
Knitting items for a wedding
Household items (dishcloths, washcloths, tea cosies…)
Knitting socks (or other small tubular items) on one or two circulars
Knitting with someone else’s handspun yarn
Knitting with dpns
Holiday related knitting
Teaching a male how to knit
Bobbles
Knitting for a living
Knitting with cotton (tried once, doesn't really count)
Knitting smocking
Dying yarn
Steeks
Knitting art
Knitting two socks on two circulars simultaneously
Fulling/felting
Knitting with wool
Textured knitting
Kitchener stitch
Purses/bags
Knitting with beads
Swatching
Long Tail CO
Entrelac
Knitting and purling backwards
Machine knitting
Knitting with self patterning/self striping/variegated yarn
Stuffed toys
Baby items
Knitting with cashmere
Darning
Jewelry
Knitting with synthetic yarn
Writing a pattern
Gloves
Intarsia
Knitting with linen
Knitting for preemies
Tubular CO
Freeform knitting
Short rows
Cuffs/fingerless mits/armwarmers
Pillows
Knitting a pattern from an online knitting magazine
RugKnitting on a loom
Thrummed knitting
Knitting a gift
Knitting for pets
Shrug/bolero/poncho
Knitting with dog/cat hair
Hair accessories
Knitting in public

Gryffindor Wins the House Cup!

Yippeee!

Felting Fun

My next experiment will include before and after measurements...that way I can calculate the % shrinkage!

Quidditch - final round

Trivia

1. I was the first student to find Potter standing over Justin Finch-Fletchley after he was attacked in my second year. I accused him of being the attacker. What is my name?

Ernie MacMillan


2. I support Lord Voldemort wholeheartedly and my husband is a Death Eater. I constantly have an expression as though I have dung under my nose, according to that piece of filth: Potter. One day my master will finish him off and I would be glad to help him. Who am I?
Narcissa Malfoy


3. I owned an ice-cream parlour in Diagon Alley until I went missing in 1996. My shop showed many signs of a struggle. What is my name?

Florean Fortescue


4. In Deathly Hallows which Dursley will have something more revealed about him or her?
Petunia


5. Which Weasley character will get married in Deathly Hallows?
Bill

6. Who is the Slytherin Ghost?
Bloody Baron


7. What animal can Professor McGonagall transform into?a cat

8. In the Goblet of Fire despite being underage, Harry's name is drawn from the Goblet of Fire to participate in the Triwizard Tournament. Hagrid takes Harry with him on his way to a meeting with Madame Maxime in order to warn him about the first task, battling a dragon. On the way, Harry notices that Hagrid is wearing something rather unusual (unusual for Hagrid, anyway!). What is it?
A flower in his lapel


9. In the Goblet of Fire the Triwizard Champions' first task is to face one of four dragons. Harry draws the Hungarian Horntail – the nastiest of the bunch. What does he use his wand to summon in order to help him with this task?

Broomstick


10. In the Half-Blood Prince Luna is commentating the Quidditch match, ". . . but now that big Hufflepuff player's got the Quaffle from, her, I can't remember his name, it's something like Bibble — no, Buggins" What was the Hufflepuff player's name?

Baggins


Picture Scavenger Hunt
You can either upload the pictures to your blog or you can link the pictures. Please show us . . .

Lord Voldemort
Lucius Malfoy


The poster from movie number 5


Dolores Umbridge




Ginny Weasley

Trivia Time!

"Greatness inspires envy, envy engenders spite, spite spawns lies."
- Voldemort -

Quadratic Weaving Part II

I found this technique in an article in a Middle School Mathematics Teacher Journal by NCTM. This journal revolved around ways to connect my two favorite subjects. As most teachers of this age realize, these students are all at different developmental levels. Although a few students may be prepared for abstract quadratics, the majority would rather clean their rooms. (Sorry, I just glimpsed my son's shambles he calls his room.)

I plan on playing with more of these equations over the summer, but as a launching point, we used nice perfect quadratics. Each part of the quadratic is transferred to a set pattern. We used the yellow for addition, light pink was our a, dark pink was our b. Three strands on the weaving frame would be for each of the parts of our quadratic. This translates x^2 to six threads of light pink, + is 1 strand of yellow, ab becomes 3 strands of light pink and 3 strands of dark pink, another + gives us 1 strand of yellow, and finally b^2 becomes 6 strands of dark pink. Our frame was large enough to get this repeat, from left to right, wrapped vertically on there twice. Once these strands are in place, the horizontal weaves begin. (The technical terms are warp and w??p, but I will have to learn those terms before they come easily to my typing.)

With the vertical strings set, now we use the same pattern working it from closest to us and upwards. After Brianne struggled through this weaving using a box and oodles of stick pins, I purchased a lap frame. Hopefully, I will be able to gain enough frames to let the each student in the 8th grade create one during the 1st quarter. It would be a great concrete introduction into a formula which is used so often in their classes!

Sunday morning fishing trip

What do you do on the rare day Rick decides to not work? Well, you go fishing! We loaded up the white dodge with all the stuff we thought we might need to fry up fish and potatoes. Although we forgot a few items, we didn't need the peanut butter I brought along in case we didn't get any fish. Silly me, we almost didn't need poles...the fish were ready to get out of that pond!





Delaney got back into the swing of casting.



Garrett had first fish honors.



It was a GREAT outdoor picnic. We may even remember the tinfoil next time!



Sandy found a porcupine...and she got a little too close. Poor kid.

Hauling Cows

June 2nd was travel day for our cow/calf pairs. The evening before, we brought them down to the corrals, then our day began after 5 AM Saturday morning. There were 6 total Semi trucks...that is a lot of cattle! This was their view when the cows came off the truck. Not too bad, especially after you remember there was a huge fire here last year. In fact, the timber is black just off to each side of this shot...you can tell how lucky we were.

Daily Knitting!

Knitting Daily is a great place to find new free patterns. It will be up and 'daily' Mid-June, but the weekly emails I have received so far are a great indication of the fun we will have!

Trivia Time again!

"I'm not trying to say what she did was sensible. I'm just trying to make you see how she was feeling at the time."
"You should write a book, translating mad things girls do so boys can understand them."
- Hermione and Ron, discussing Cho [ch.26 The Order of the Phoenix]

One Dragon Skin is Done!

Number two will be much faster...I won't have to do the heel 3 times! Yipppeee!

Knitter's Tea Swap!

Yipppeee! I get to play! I'll share my stash as soon as I get moved home...some of the stash is in the cupboards at the apartment, while the rest is at home. Until then, I'll flash my button.

The trials and tribulations of owning land

Rick and I officially own my grandfather's pasture, but with that property we have also inherited the "ticks". Remember these ticks are also parasites, which means we are needing a lawyer to remove these critters from our hide....er, land.

I have already put in over 300 minutes of phone calls about this mess...now I get to visit with another lawyer today. As long as we have to have a lawyer, we might as well just evict this person now and save ourselves the hastle next year.

I'd rant more, but I don't want to provide fuel to a defemation of character fire...still, as soon has he called my mother in to the sherrif, it became public record...but I"ll still be nice. (She wasn't tresspassing...rather taking photos of his 60 pairs of cattle which are on the land we bought and he has NOT leased or rented from us.

Wish us luck!

Quidditch Round Two!

Trivia
1. Who is the Fat Lady's friend?
- Violet


2. When the Fat Lady was attacked by Sirius Black and fled her portrait, who took over for her as guard of Gryffindor Tower? Sir Cadogan

3. Usually when Harry is in Dumbledore's office, what are the portraits of previous headmasters doing?
- Snoozing


4. Which one of the Triwizard champions did not go to the World Cup?
- Fleur Delacour


5. Who did Harry give his Triwizard winnings to?
- Fred and George Weasley


The next two are anagrams. Rearrange the letters to get the correct words.
6. Live gong cram la man (two words) Minerva McGonagall

7. Owl or video Oliver Wood

8. What author's name appears on the book "Quidditch Through the Ages"?
- Kennilworthy Whisp


9. What does the Keeper do in a game of Quidditch?
- Guards the goal


10. In the Goblet of Fire why did the Mad Eye Moody imposter put Harry's name in the goblet?
- He wanted Harry to win the tournament

Picture Scavenger Hunt
Find these pictures and either post the pictures on your blog or links that will take us to those pictures.

- Dobby holding his sock from Harry
- Cho Chang and Harry's first kiss
- Viktor Krum and Hermione at the dance
- Mad Eye Moody

Quadratic Weaving!

Here is our first example of a Quadratic Function in weaving...I am SO excited to share this with you and my students! Thank you Brianne! OH, the equation is a^2 + 2ab + b^2 Enjoy!

Trivia! 5-13-2007

Trivia #1
What's the name of this potion?
This potion has the colour of molten gold, and while exposed to the air, large drops will leap like goldfish above the surface without spilling.Felix Felicis

Trivia #2
Which book is this line from?
"Harry and Cho were now too embarrassed to look at each other, let alone talk to each other; what if Ron and Hermione started going out together, then split up? Could their friendship survive it? Harry remembered the few weeks when they had not been talking to each other in third year; he had not enjoyed trying to bridge the distance between them. And then, what if they didn't split up? What if they became like Bill and Fleur, and it became excrutiatingly embarrassing to be in their presence, so that he was shut out for good?"Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

Trivia #3
Who utters these words?
"Oh I am glad I'm not on duty. I wouldn't fancy having to go and tell the Irish they've got to stop celebrating."Mr. Weasley

Quidditch Images

Images
With the images you can either post them to your blog OR if you do not know how to resize images to fit on your pages without making your blog go all wonky, you can post the link to the image that you found. Below is the list of images that must be found.

Picture of Harry, Ron, and Hermione together



Hagrid
http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-images/Film/Pix/gallery/2002/10/23/Hagrid3.jpg



Buckbeak



Sirius Black
http://lastamberga.altervista.org/immagini_sirius/poapic85.jpg"

Uncle Vernon
http://www.waynescomics.com/images/Cards/H/Harry%20Potter%20POA%20updt%20uncle%20vernon.jpg"

Quidditch Time!

I get to answer these questions, so I am placing them here for me to edit and find...sort of an organizational thing!

Round One
Trivia
1. Who isn't or hasn't been a Quidditch captain?

Cho Chang


2. Who are the Gryffindor chasers? (books 1-5)
Katie, Angela, Demelza


3. Who are the Slytherin beaters? (books 1-4)
Crabbe and Goyle


4. What type of broom isn't made anymore?
Firebolt


5. The Slytherin team all ride the same broom, what is it?
Nimbus 2000


6. Which of these is not a Quidditch team?

http://www.hp-lexicon.org/quidditch/q_teams_britain.html Hmmmm...aren't they all?



7. Who is Head of Hufflepuff House?

Professor Sprout


8. Which Hufflepuff student is reported to have been one of the only people to have ever given Hufflepuff success?
Cedric Diggory

9. In Book 1 who was the first Hufflepuff student to be sorted?
Hannah Abbott



10. What is the emblem of Hufflepuff House?

Badger


Images
With the images you can either post them to your blog OR if you do not know how to resize images to fit on your pages without making your blog go all wonky, you can post the link to the image that you found. Below is the list of images that must be found.

Picture of Harry, Ron, and Hermione together



Hagrid
http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-images/Film/Pix/gallery/2002/10/23/Hagrid3.jpg



Buckbeak



Sirius Black


Uncle Vernon

Spring finals are due Tuesday

Which means I would like to be knitting, stamping, or reading, but instead I am working on making a modeling project. Last week brought some happy times...Delaney is now 15 (as of Friday), Grandpa's pasture at Valley View is now ours (as of Thursday), and then there was Wednesday, which completely made me go into a time warp. I'll post about that mess later, but it has been years in coming, yet it was years too soon.