We visited the Estes Park Wool Market on Sunday and WH was along to take some fun sheep and goat photos. Aren’t they cute?

Sheri wishingIhadafewoftheseinthebackyard

It has been stormy and windy here this week! Although the worst of it was south of us – more towards Denver and Castle Rock. Here’s a picture of a storm front approaching, from WH’s camera. I like the cracked earth between the rows. Although that just highlights how dry things are here.

This is almost ghostly, isn’t it? Wind currents sweeping around in the tall grass.

Last night we had a pretty impressive display of lightening across the sky. No thunder – just lots of lightening and wind. It was pretty cool.

I wanted to share a new salad recipe with you. It was so quick to throw together andit was a delicious evening meal.

Strawberry Chicken Salad

1 head of romaine (in bite-sized pieces)
4 grilled chicken breasts (cut into 1″ pieces)
1/2 sliced purple onion
2 avocados, sliced
Strawberries, sliced

Dress with Balsamic Vinaigrette (or Brianna’s Blush Wine Vinaigrette, if you have that in your local grocery store.)

Have a wonderful weekend!

Sheri hopingfornomorestormsthisweekend

Good News: Mocha’s fur is growing out. So many of you have emailed to ask about him, that I thought I’d keep you posted. Interesting to see how much darker he gets as it grows. Here he is sitting on our deck with his “brother” James.

Bad News: Mocha and James don’t really understand why we let Zoe and Gracie in our house and we don’t let them in, too.

Good News: We also have cute squirrels in our yard.

Bad News: This one must have been having heart palpitations at the thought of cats on the deck.

Good News: Love this new recipe that we tried this week. (Original recipe from foodandwine.com, via Pinterest.)

Penne with Roasted Asparagus and Balsamic Butter

1 pound asparagus
1 Tbl. olive oil
2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. black pepper
3/4 cup balsamic vinegar
1/2 tsp. brown sugar
1 pound penne pasta
1/4 pound butter, cut into pieces
1/3 cup grated Parmesan cheese

Heat oven to 400 degrees. Cut the tough ends from the asparagus and then cut the spears into 1″ pieces. Toss in olive oil and 1/4 tsp. salt and pepper and roast on a baking sheet for 10 minutes.

While the asparagus is roasting, put the balsamic vinegar in a small pan and simmer until 4 Tbl. remain. Stir in the brown sugar and the remaining 1/4 tsp. pepper. Remove from heat.

Cook the penne in a large pot of boiling, salted water, approx. 14 minutes. Drain and toss with butter, then add the balsamic sauce, Parmesan, and remaining 1 3/4 tsp. salt.

(You can also make this with broccoli instead of the asparagus. Or add in grilled chicken pieces. Yum!)

Bad News: I have this awesome 18 year old Balsamic Vinegar from the Rocky Mountain Olive Oil Company downtown. (So delicious.) When I told DH that the sauce was a little dark because of the aged vinegar, he thought I meant that I was using Balsamic that I had bought 18 years ago and was still in the cupboard. Ick.

Sheri gotanygoodnews/badnewstoshare?

Today’s post? Random things you might need to know.

1.  The mama owl has three babies, not two. No doubt she’s still exhausted from caring for them. She did, however, pick an excellent tree to match their feathers. Great camouflage. I think they all flew the nest over the weekend, though. We’ll have to wait until next Spring again for more photos.

2.  The elk are in abundance nearby. And you don’t want to get too close to them.

3.  Mocha’s owners shaved him a month ago. Good news: at least he has owners. Bad news: they shaved him when it was still freezing cold out. (No, no skin conditions or anything. I asked. Just some mats that I think could have waited until the weather warmed up. Poor beautiful guy.)

4.  Jason, one of our regular Knit Nighters, is making knitted food for his daughter. He did pancakes with dripping syrup. Here he’s feeding his knitted ice cream cone to Loopy. Next up? Pepperoni pizza.

5.  Did you know old card catalogs make great containers for stash? Long narrow drawers for skeins, plus a place on the front of the drawer for labels. Cool. As someone who likes to repurpose old things, I thought this worked out great.

Have you repurposed anything fun lately?

Sheri probablyshouldhaveboughtbothcardcatalogs
Isawforsale,insteadofjustone.

…. that this week is W Week. (Remember last week was M Week? Malabrigo? Madelinetosh?) That means instead of a regular Monday Update tonight, we’re doing a few Wollmeise updates this week, different days, different times. As usual, we’ll be sure to announce it on Facebook and Twitter and Ravelry when each batch goes up. We just added Twin to the website this afternoon. If you miss one update, there will be another. We also still have several boxes stuck somewhere en route, so if we don’t get those this week, we’ll do another update next week, too. I’ll keep you posted on that.

Of course we’ll have another regular Monday Update next week with more fun things. They’re stacking up in the inventory room and we’re having fun poking through all of the boxes. In the meantime, since it’s W week, I have a wound 950 yd. skein of Wollmeise Lace to give away. I used less than half of the 1700 yd. skein to knit (held double) a Honey Cowl for a friend.  Isn’t that a pretty blue purple color?  I can’t remember the name. There is one knot in the very middle of the skein. I had divided it into two equal balls to knit double, then re-wound the leftover balls into one large cake. This is perfect yardage for another Honey Cowl held double (or two Honey Cowls!), a pair of light socks, a large shawl, a scarf and mitts, or a number of other things.  Just leave a comment below and I’ll draw a name at the end of the week for the winner. I know you’ll make it into something beautiful!

Sheri isitjustme,oristhisdayflyingby??

It has been fun discovering new things about Fort Collins as the year progresses. We had lived in St. Louis for 27 years before we moved, so it has been a long time since we’ve had a new town to explore. One of the things I learned this spring is that there is a tree that hosts a mama owl and her babies each year, right along one of the main roads in town.

For awhile, the mama owl sat on the nest to hatch the eggs and then to keep the babies warm. As the two babies grew bigger, she had to perch on a branch beside the nest. There wasn’t room for all of them in there any more. Now they’ve ventured onto the branch beside her and I suspect it won’t be too much longer before the babies learn to fly and are off on their own. Kind of sad. I like seeing them peering out over the branches on my way to and from work. But my friend Sheryl (who has lived here a long time) promises that they’ll be back again next year. That will be fun!

WH took these photos with a long lens. (Click on the photos to make them bigger.) Aren’t those faces wonderful? The babies started out all white, and just in the past week are quickly getting more and more brown feathers, which allows them to blend into trees much more effectively. Another photographer at the site told my hubby that the father owl is usually perched in a nearby tree, keeping an eye on things. And speaking of eyes – it cracks me up that they always look like they’re frowning. Or very very serious. And yikes – those talons. I would not want to get in the way of those.

Did you know that female Great Horned Owls are typically 22 inches tall with a 49 inch wingspan? That’s a big bird. They eat rodents, rabbits, and … housecats. It makes me glad that this beautiful mama and her babies are quite a distance from our house. No doubt she has to do a lot of night hunting to feed that hungry gang. We keep our cats inside, but you know I have those visiting cats that I worry about enjoy, too.

Sheri whostillthinksowlsarecool.Aslongastheystayawayfrommycats.