Adorable Devastation

Recently a family of groundhogs took up residence under our shed. For a while the burrow there was empty. I suspect the racoon that we saw over the winter was living there. It dragged its back end and went foraging around our yard. It probably got hit by a car. Anyway, the groundhogs managed in just a few days to eat 20 of our tomato plants leaving only three with marginal amounts of leaves. I dug them up and moved them to the tasty greens patch as well as planted more seeds. I hope we can still have a late harvest if we can get new seedlings but it makes me mad because we worked so hard on getting those guys to grow in the house. They also nibbled on our cucumber and pepper plants and ate three broccoli plants and all our green beans so we put together a modular shelving unit and put that over the other plants until we can erect another fencing solution like the tasty greens plot. Here's a photo of the couple at work on our cover crop near the tasty greens plot (forgive the blurriness but this was on my highest zoom setting).

In knitting news, I've been pretty busy. I joined a baby blanket square swap. The idea is to knit 16 squares and send 15 of them out and keep one and then other swap mates do the same so we all end up with a blanket but with all different types of yarn and patterns. I think it will make a very neat baby item that will probably be fun to touch and explore. I'm knitting my squares out of Knitpicks new organic cotton yarn. I got two of the colors but the other is on backorder. I'm on my second square and they are nice to work on when I want something mindless. This is the Moss Diamonds pattern from my Harmony Guide which I haven't got to use all that much. It should be fun to try out all the different stitch patterns.

I'm also knitting a baby hoodie in Knitpicks City Tweed yarn. I really love it! It is very soft and nice. The pattern is the Jasper Diamond Hoodie from the new book Vintage Baby Knits. I can't say enough good things about the book. The patterns are great and many call for sock yarn-a great use of my stash of it. The photography is also adorable, though I'm sure my baby will be cuter than all of them. Ravelry link here. I don't have much done yet, but the diamonds are already emerging.

This Saturday Mom and I are going to Knitters Connection and I am very excited to see all the yarn. I had hoped to buy lots of stuff to make baby things but since we still don't know what we are having (other than that it is a human) I may just hold off and purchase at the Wool Gathering in the fall. I'm sure I will find something for me though or something more gender neutral. I love butter yellow and mint green after all.

Next baby appointment at the end of June and then hopefully an ultrasound to follow soon when we can find out the sex. We are so excited about knowing so we can start really planning things out.