Go Hokies

Another far fetch from outdoor adventures, but I had to add this to my blog!!!!!

Crafty Crochet

This has nothing to do with outdoor adventures or gardening, but who wants to go outside when it feel like 0 degrees outside. Plus since I've had a couple of snow days I've had time to venture upstairs and dig through my yarn baskets. I'm not sure who is suppose to have the time to crochet little mini stuffed animals, but for some reason I've been a little hooked on them, simply because they're so darn cute. When I visited my cousin Jessica last summer in Kansas I bought a book called "Amigurumi World." I'm not even sure how to pronounce the Japanese word, but it translates to "knitted stuffed toy," but the instructions are for crocheting. They are a great way to use up scrap yarn, but more time consuming than I expected because of sewing the pieces together, which I'm really not so good at. Below are my first two attempts. I will have to do something to make the bear's eyes stand out more. In the background are a few easy coasters that I made.
The following two pictures are afghans that I had previously made. These patterns were also chosen to use up scrap yarn. My mother-in-law is always giving my bags of yarn, which is fun because I never know what I'm going to get. The granny squares were really fun to make, but a pain to sew together. I've seen blankets since then that have a border between the squares and I think that looks a lot better.
More coasters.

Field Guides

Since I started the Virginia Master Naturalist class I have been reading/reviewing various field guides. Santa left Clay and I each a field guide one for Insects and one for Caterpillars. They are part of the "Peterson First Guides" series, very small and easy to use. I needed to clean out the leaves and other various trash items that had blown under our rhododendron plant near our porch. As I was raking I discovered this little jewel tying to overwinter beside our porch.


You can see how we rolled up into a ball for protection and reviewed the red stripes on his body. They are easier to see if you click on the picture.

So I got to use my new field guide and discovered I had a Giant Leopard Moth. My little guide discussed what to do if you want to "rear" the larva, and I couldn't resist, my students will be so fascinated by this guy. Wish me luck, I will feel terrible if he dies before emerging. This is a link about the moth that another curious naturalist wrote, notice the adult moth picture!

At the same time I took the picture of the caterpillar I discovered the little bugs in the background and got to use my other field guide.
These appear to be a scentless plant bug called Box Elder Bugs. They congregate in large numbers to hibernate during the winter, sometimes choosing human abodes to do so.

I also wanted to include a couple of sunset pictures that Clay recently took. I really like the pink reflection on the river.