socks, and BIG Taenzer brag!

The never-ending socks. Okay, the red ones are ready to start decreasing (finally!), but there's at least an inch left on the other one.



I like a really round toe-end, so I do 6 rounds where I work decreases on one row and work even on the next, then I decrease each round until I get down to like 8 stitches on each needle and kitchener it.

It was about 55 with quite a brisk wind and no sun after work, so while the Ts were playing--and Timber was more active than he's been since--well, the last time it was 55 degrees!--my thoughts turned to my alpaca lace socks (one left to do), and the skein of Mountain Colors Bearfoot in the stash. My poor little toes get so cold all winter! And I have a skein of delicious handspun alpaca I received as a gift that I'm wondering if it's sufficient to make a tam. (And while rooting through the stash I "rediscovered" (*koff*) small amounts of two colors of guanaco, some deep chocolate yak, camel-colored camel, and, greatest prize of all, a couple of skeins of 100% qiviut. I have no idea how much there is of any of them. I need a yarn meter! I wonder if I could piece together a shawl or something? Though I'm thinking of making mittens or gloves with the quiviut.)

Okay, MAJOR Taenzer brag coming up:

When we came in after playing, I was getting their leads off and my shoes and putting away the puppy pen sock, and Taenzer was wandering around, so I said, 'Taenzer, can you bring Mommy her house shoes?" She didn't know where they were--heck, I wasn't sure if they were in the living room or the bedroom, or maybe the bathroom--but she trotted off and came back with--A HOUSE SHOE!! So I freaked with joy and then said, "Okay, Taenzer, go get Mommy's other house shoe." She hesitated a little bit and picked up one of the slides I've been wearing outside all summer, then put it down and went and got the other house shoe! Great shrieking and celebration on my part, with a generous reward of freeze-dried liver. She is SO FREAKING SMART!!! I bet if I could get those big handicapped-style light switches installed she could learn to turn lights on and off.

She's also starting to differentiate between left and right, at least by hand signal. I have a sticky note stuck on a chair in the living room which is a "send-out" for Timber--I point and say "go touch" and he's supposed to go over and touch it with his nose. Taenzer, being slightly more advanced and not quite such a knucklehead over tennis balls, has one out in the kitchen stuck to the stove. I generally indicate the one on the chair with my left hand and the one in the kitchen with my right hand. When we play with tennis balls in the house, the first few are freebies, and then I start asking them each to give me a behavior--sit, down, sit-up, speak, whatever--with the throw of the ball as a reward. Anyhow, since Taenzer is more advanced than Timber, last time we played, just for the heck of it, I tried sending her to the chair with one throw and out to the kitchen with the next, and then during the rest of the game tried to mix them up, and she did pretty well once she got the idea. I wasn't counting her successes vs her failures, but she was clearly not guessing most of the time; she went with purpose to each one as indicated. Mostly. ;-)

I ought to get a notebook just for training Ts. I'd have one section for Taenzer and one for Timber, and a list of things I want to teach each of them--they're not interested in the same things--and then the rest for notes on lesson plans and how things go. Now that it's getting dark early, it's a good time to start indoor training again.