Fall has Arrived! Yay!

Thank goodness it has cooled off around here. We have had a couple of cold days and frosty nights, which have improved my state of mind considerably. After a few days of coolness, the sun has come out, but with much less vehemence than a few weeks ago. I'm thrilled!!! The only thing about cold days is that the flies are literally begging to come in the house. They are plastered on the outside screen doors and take advantage of every opportunity to get in. Happily, I am very adept with the flyswatter. Porter has become a great fly hunter, too, so between the two of us, I'm sure the flies have the impression that they have entered the House of Death. The breeze is blowing a bit now, and I'm watching a shower of yellow leaves fall to the grass. I love fall!

Funky Burfday Socks

I promised a good friend some handknit socks...oooohhh....well....about a year before I left Peru. They were to be for her birthday. I jumped right on them and started knitting away. Got one done, got half the second one done; found a mistake WAAAYYY back by the cuff and had to rip it out and do it again. Discovered the second sock was smaller than the first, so I ripped it all out and started again. Started and stopped, started and stopped, then moved and packed them up and lost them, then discovered them again, but the needles had come out of the stitches and some were dropped and pulled out. Soooooo...I ripped back and started again. Finally I got them done and here they are:

Not the most beautiful I've ever made, but she is tickled to FINALLY get them, and now I can start on socks for myself. Or not. Maybe to sell. Who knows.

While I was in Iquitos, I had the opportunity to eat Paiche. If you click on the link, you'll see that Paiche is one of the largest freshwater fish in the world. Although it is said to be on the verge of extinction, it is widely available in restaurants on the Peruvian Amazon.

In this photo, the fish is as large, if not larger than the man carrying it. There are several places near Iquitos that raise Paiche, and it is being successfully farmed. I have to say that Paiche is one of the few fish that I enjoy eating without being prepared in ceviche. It just figures. A nearly extinct fish that isn't available anywhere near Cheyenne. The paiches I saw in the domestic fish farms in Peru were just babies, no more than 4 feet long. So here's another picture that I ganked from the internet: