Peppermint Pattie Goes Lawn Surfing

Here is El Husbando.  He is a man of dreams and ambition.  A man of plans and determination.  A man who would never let his desire to become a cowboy be stymied by the mere fact that WE HAVE NO HORSES OR COWS. 

Instead, we have rocks.  Periodically, we catch them and put them to work for us.  Here is El Husbando's most recent project:

It is not a holding pen for baby rocks.  It is, as you can clearly see, a fire pit. The rocks, large and small, were all organically grown and tamed by our own Rock Whisperer. They were  hand selected and arranged and rearranged and then re-rearranged to create the perfect pit.  They are the product of great labor and my husband takes knows each of them personally.

But sometimes the little rocks are not enough to fulfill the needs of a true artist.  What is needed is a Challenge.  An Everest to be scaled. ATitan to be battled.  A Moby Dick to be hunted.  What is needed, is a Peppermint Pattie.

Peppermint Pattie is the Rock Whisperer's personal Everest. She was discovered by the RW along the western border of our lands (sounds grand, doesn't it?  Really she was about 30 feet to the left of the driveway).  She was partly buried in the dirt, but the part sticking out was a perfect stone replica of the almighty mint candy itself. And all the RW could think was what a perfect seat Peppermint Pattie would make at the council fire. Unfortunately, PP is several hundred pounds of rock and it was not immediately clear how she would make it the quarter mile from the driveway to the fire pit.  Carried by hand? Nope. Pulled by lawn tractor?  Nope.  Levered out and rolled all the way home?  HAHAHAHAHAHA. 

But the Rock Whisperer is  a man of dreams and ambition, a man of plans and determination, and not a man to be defeated by a rock.  There may be no horses and no cattle, but the RW had a plan and the roundup was about to begin.

Meet the sled:



With a great deal of labor and a lot of rope, the RW did manage to lever PP out of the ground and on to the sled. 



The sled was then tied to the modern suburban substitute for the ranch horse, the minivan.



And off we went.  Above is Peppermint Pattie taking a little ride up the driveway.  Below is PP hauling @$$ across the lawn.



A ranch hand easing the mighty beast into her new home:



And the second in command showing poor Pattie who is boss:



Here is a dizzying picture of PP in her new digs. Considering that she spent the last bajillion years stuck in the ground at a 45 degree angle, this is probably a pretty accurate view of things from her perspective. The RW has taken good care of her, though.  She has been washed and polished and is now just waiting for us to find three more giant rocks to complete the seating.



In knitting news, here is the lovely Isabel showing off the latest in finished garments:



It is the Central Park Hoodie and it is DONE!!!  The only alteration I made to the pattern was to continue the back cable up the hood and over the top of the head.  Took a little fiddling, but I like it better than seeing a plain stockinette hood (and the hood seam, which was supposed to run across the top of the hood) blocking the back cable.  The sweater is extremely warm and it actually fits (me, not Isabel) and it is (did I mention this?) DONE!