Gardens and sweaters

Over the past week, I've seamed my sweater, knitted the button bands, tried to figure out how the collar fit on to an odd shaped neckline, tore out some of the seams, re seamed the seams and picked up stitches for the collar. I guess I didn't pay enough attention to the construction of the sweater and put it together as a raglan, which it isn't. I was confused how the collar would go on, but in talking to Greg about it, I figured out that there should have been shoulder seams with a fitted in sleeve. I changed it to that construction. It now fits better (the neckline had seemed way too big) and the neckline looks much better. I picked up the proper number of stitches for the collar and will knit the collar tonight if I get the chance. As for the garden. We planted the rest of the onion bulbs. The girls enjoy planting them and we just fitted them in kind of randomly into the rest of the garden. They'll either grow or not. I also planted another row of carrots, lettuce and green onions as well as some cucumber. I need to plant more peas and beans as I don't think the ones I planted a while back had a high survival rate. If they do grow now that the soil is warmer, I'll just have to thin them out. I think I'll get a couple more tomatoes and perhaps some celery to finish the space I have in the garden. I spent some time trying to move the dirt out of our driveway. We want to use it to improve the grading around the house, so I dumped some along the front of the house and a bit on the side. I'm not sure yet what the angle of the grading should be, so I didn't want to get carried away with it and over do it, but I expect that we will want more soil there to bring the angle away from the house some. We will need to get two more window covers for the side of the house. A week ago yesterday, I spent much of the day going through stuff (mostly in the basement) to get rid of. On Wednesday I delivered the stuff to my friend for her garage sale to benefit their Boy Scout troup. It felt nice to get the stuff out of the house. The basement looks much more spacious. I do need to spend time going through the girls' toys to weed out some of the stuff they don't play with and our clothes, but I made much progress in getting this place better sorted. Yesterday was my final Friday working. I'm going down to working Monday through Thursday except when there is something that makes me take a day off earlier in the week. I want to use it to do some crafting, but also to get some other projects done around the house. Today, I bought a two barrel tumbling composter. In our back yard, we have a chicken wire enclosure that had been used for composting. It is rather ugly and I think it would be rather inefficient. There really isn't a way to get the compost out of the bottom either. It is supposed to be mixed, but that would be tough as well. The nice thing about the composter I got is that it stays moist, can be turned for mixing and is supposed to be quicker in composting. It also looks much nicer. I hope it works well. I want it to work as I think the idea of composting is great and I assume that I'll want to add compost to my garden each year. I'm sure if I get more than I need, I'll be able to offer some to friends and family. I also did a bit of weeding today. There is one type of weed that we have in many random places in the yard. I've discovered a couple areas where some plants are growing where I don't know what they are. I'm a bit concerned that they're hostas. Neither of us care for them and we don't really want them in the yard. Someone pointed out that they could be lily of the valley. I thought that was better, but they are poisonous and have berries. I'll have to be sure to keep the girls out of them. I don't think they'll be after the greenery or flowers, but they may have to be mowed at the first sign of berries.