Chat Back for December 11

Responding to comments left since the last time I did Chat Back.

With many thanks to the readers who ask me questions so I have something to blog about on Saturday.

Kristinbc asked . . .

I love the picture in your blog header. Did you take it?

AND
Stringplay wrote . . .

Nice header. New? Or did I not even notice the other day? All three deer look posed for photo.

Thanks for all the kind comments on the blog's new header picture of three deer looking down the road.

I took the picture out my front window last March and used it in this blog post.

It was an amazing lucky shot to catch the deer posed like that and have the light be right for a good picture. I was waiting for the first significant snowfall to use it as a header. We've had a few of those now.

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NMjewel wrote . . .

You are so lucky to see deer that close up. I know they nibble down things that maybe you'd like to grow.

My philosophy about living in the country is that if you're not prepared to live in peace with the wildlife, you should stay in the city.

You can try to fight nature. You can drive yourself nuts trying to shoot/kill/eliminate the wildlife you don't like. You can poison yourself and your family trying to eliminate things like mosquitoes, ticks, blackflies, spiders, ants, and . . . it's a long list. But in the end, nature is going to win.

One common mistake people make when moving to the country is to built a rustic cedar home. The woodpeckers peck holes in their siding. Big holes. Sometimes the holes are big enough to pull the insulation out.

Oops, I think I'm off on a rant. I'll stop now.

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Judy S. asked . . .

That doesn't look like a grey squirrel; is it?

The common name is Fox Squirrel. They're very similar to the Gray Squirrel except for being auburn color and having a different range. They have beautiful, bushy tails which you can't see in this picture because it's covered in snow.


We also have many Little Red Squirrels. They are about half the size of the Fox Squirrels and ten times as hyper.

It was a Little Red Squirrel that chewed its way into the house to get sunflower seed when I let the feeder run empty in August. Read about it here.

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NMjewel asked . . .

Why are the colors a different weight?

I've read that different dyes react differently with the base yarn, but I don't actually know the answer to your "why" question.

I can say from experience that it's true, however. Even Cotlin, a cotton/linen blend, was much softer in light blue than the deep red I'm knitting now.

The gray Andean Treasure is much fuzzier than the red Andean Treasure I swatched. That makes it a heavier yarn even though both colors are sold as DK weight. I was able to knit the red comfortably at sport weight gauge, 6 stitches/inch. The gray needs to be knit at 5.5 stitches/inch or even 5 stitches/inch.