culprit

How is it, I ask you, that the animals in our lives seem to sense when an object is special to us and then persist to roll all over said object, thus infecting it with their hair, odor and various dried seed pods and bugs?

Let me introduce you to the culprit: Jackson, our chocolate lab of mysterious origins. (Wrapped in a scarf a friend brought back for me from Paris.)

I say mysterious origins because he came to us as a rescue dog from the kennel. We don't know how old he is, or the place where he spent his puppyhood. Like many rescue animals, he has formed a strong attachment to my mother, his primary caregiver, and in her absence, to whoever is in the house at the time. He's petrified of thunderstorms and huddles close when anything rumbles.

Recently, Jack has formed the very naughty habit of perching in all our favorite places whenever we leave the house. If a door isn't shut tightly he curls right on top of our bed pillows.

Yesterday he pitched a picnic on top of one of my very special finished objects. (It's something I can't show you yet, but soon. Very soon.) He could have laid anywhere on the bed, but he choose to settle himself right on top of my knitting. Why? 

My sister has a cat who does the very same thing to any of her quilting projects. She sits right on top of the pieces she has spread out across the floor. My only guess is that animals sense when something is special to us and they want in on the experience. 

Or maybe they're giving us their approval? Or maybe (especially with cats) they just want to vex us? 

You can bet I won't leave these socks unattended for long. I'm almost finished with the second, and calling them chicken scratch socks in honor of our new chicken coop here on the farm and the fact that the 'v's in the lace pattern remind me of tiny chicken feet. (These are the socks I was working on at Shepherd's Harvest.) The lace pattern is Elizabeth Zimmerman's Gull Pattern, familiar to anyone who owns a copy of the Knitter's Almanac. The fiber in the apple tree is some of my hand painted, hand spun roving. 

Can you see the tiny sheep in the background? 

(No dogs were harmed in this photo shoot, but they did get taken for a long jaunt afterwards.)