I Did It!

I FINALLY finished something!

Ok, so it's not quilt related, but at least it's a Finished Object. I've only been working on these sox all summer. They're just a simple variation of stockinette stitch with every other row being a straight knit.

As for quilting, I'm still trying to avoid it and give my back/neck some more healing time. 8 years ago this month I managed to fall off a bicycle at the coast, while camping. I ended up with several stitches in my nose, two black eyes and two cracks in my humerous, right at the shoulder socket. Naturally the lengthy healing led to a frozen shoulder. Months of physical therapy and massage therapy broke it free. One year later, I ended up with whiplash from the go-karts at the Family Fun Center. Ever since then, I've had problems with my neck and back, specifically upper back and shoulders. It means that I have to be careful quilting and I definitely can't do any marathon quilting sessions. :-(

This past week my neck has really been bothering me. So, I've been doing some hand work and watching a lot of Olympics coverage. If ONLY NBC would show something other than beach volleyball. Thank goodness we get CBC, the Canadian broadcast.

On another, totally unrelated subject, we have been plagued with a very smart mole(s) this summer. We've never had mole problems, probably because Sneakers, our old girl, would never have allowed it. She was our huntress extraordinaire. No wild critters were allowed in her yard. Arlo, on the other hand doesn't seem to have inherited that gene. All summer this mole has been busy undermining our entire back yard. We have tried everything from flushing the holes with water, filling them with yard clean-up from Arlo, a hot pepper, bone meal mixture "guaranteed to rid your yard of moles", Juicy Fruit gum etc. Finally I decided it was time to step up the attack. Since I'm reluctant to use chemical warfare because of Arlo, I bought a mole trap. We have been diligently digging holes in his tunnels and placing said trap. The mole either ignores the trap, by-passes it, or tunnels under it, setting it off, but not getting caught. Yesterday I'd have to say he blatantly thumbed his nose at us. When we lifted the bucket off the hole & trap we were confronted with a nice, new mole hill. Buried in the mole hill was the sprung trap and yup, you guessed it, no mole! This morning I looked out, there are 2 new mole hills. I don't even want to look under the bucket to see what he's done this time. So, if anybody has any SURE FIRE, GUARANTEED methods for getting rid of moles, please feel free to share them with me by leaving a comment. We're at a loss and our back yard is in danger of caving in from the network of tunnels once it starts raining.