Mahoney State Park

Dan, Jill, Maggie, Shelby and Natalie went camping at Mahoney State Park this week. They invited us to join them for an evening, and so we did on Monday night. They borrowed Jill's parent's camper and were all set up in the Lakeside Camping Area. What a great park! I would like to rent a cabin there sometime, or stay in the lodge.

Some of the activites include a water park, paddle boats, horseback riding, miniature golf, hiking and biking trails, and I am sure there are some more things that I don't know about yet. Children have to be six years old to go on a trail ride, so Maggie was not able to do that this summer. She and Shelby went on pony rides instead.

Knitting all around

It has been a good week for knitting. Last week my friend Cheryl (aka Dodie from Dodies Crafts and Gifts) and I went to visit KW Fiber Farm in York, Nebraska. We tried to do this in June, but the owner, Karen Wahlmeier, was out of town. When I called to make sure she would be there she told me that we were welcome to come and see what she had in her yarn shop, but that we would not be able to take the tour because of the heat--too hard on us and too hard on the animals. That was fine with us and we went. When we arrived she said since the day was cool, we would take the tour and off we went.

She and her husband own four acres on the outskirts of York, and they have five alpacas, several baby doll sheep, a miniature donkey, ducks, rabbits and chickens. It is attractively arranged and not crowded, as well as being very clean. We were introduced to all of the animals and then she served us banana cake and iced tea under a big shade tree in her back yard! Her yarn shop is on the front porch of her home and her spinning wheel is in the front hall. All of her yarn is from the animals on the fiber farm and she does all of the work except for cleaning the raw fiber. About half the yarn was space dyed and half left its natural color. She had quite a few knit up items like mittens, socks, scarves, hats and purses. It was so much fun!

Cheryl and I have been trying to get a knitting group started for quite a while, and Karen loves to knit, so she is coming to Seward next week to knit with us at the library.

Later the same day I presented a knitting program to the women's club at Ridgewood West. Five ladies showed up and we talked about knitting and had supper together. Two of them would like to learn to knit, so that may be my knitting group. Cheryl and I have been meeting for two years, sometimes inviting another knitter to join us, but usually we are the only ones who come. The activities director said there is a box of knitting supplies at Ridgewood East, so I think our next meeting will be investigating what is in that box and getting started.