Well, this weekend has been a lot better than LAST weekend.

Yesterday was the butterfly workshop. I learned to identify a number of species I hadn't noticed before. I can tell the sulphurs from the hairstreaks, and both of those from the swallowtails.

And buttonbush (Cephalanthus occidentalis) is one of the best butterfly plants out there. Unfortunately, it requires more moisture to grow than I have in my yard; it's sort of a floodplain species.

The funny thing was, when I got home, a Silver Spotted Skipper (one of the species I learned that morning) was visiting my abelia bush. I grinned at it and said, "Hey, you! I know who you are now!"

I think I'm going to join the environmental-education group they have up there; it seems like a good group of people. The woman who is the reserve biologist is a former student of mine. She asked me to do a soil-science workshop in the fall, which should be fun as there are lots of neat hands-on things people can do with soil testing, like the particle-settling test for determining soil texture, and also soil color determination.

Last night I found that the first "Pirates of the Caribbean" movie was on USA Network (mmmm...Johnny Depp), so I sat and watched it and knit on the current simple socks.

I don't know if you've seen the "Red Stripe" beer commericals - I guess it's a Jamaican beer - but they're sort of amusing. A very formally dressed Jamaican man (he looks like an ambassador, down to the red sash that says "Red Stripe" on it) either says "Hooray Beer!" (or, "Hooray Responsibility!" in the ads designed to promote not overconsuming Red Stripe). There's a new series where he starts off saying "Boo" to something icky - like, on of the ads was "Boo Creepy Foot Doctors! Hooray Beer!"

Well, I have to say:

Boo USA Network doubling the frequency and number of ads as the end of the movie (the exciting part) gets closer!

but

Hooray Socks!



Yeah, I finished 'em. And I've decided I'm keeping them - they fit so perfectly. And I love the colors. I think part of the problem with some previous socks I've made is that I thought my feet were bigger than they actually were. I take an 8 1/2 in athletic shoes but the most recent pair of dress shoes I bought were only 7 1/2s. So I made the smaller size of socks and they fit great. They're 48 stitches on a size 2 1/2 (US) needle, using Regia 6-fach (sort of between sport and dk weight). It's a color combination that I think was called "Paris." It was a several-years-ago sale purchase from Yarn Forward.

I more or less followed the pattern for the "thicker socks" in the Not Just Socks book - I made the leg shorter because I really don't need an 8" sock length - I wear them under jeans or slacks mostly.