The Road

The road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began...

unless, of course, the excavator has removed the road. 

Things seem to be moving along nicely.  The house and I are still here, although I idly wondered about the likelihood of that changing when the excavator was digging a trench around the natural gas pipeline.  'Around' as in the pipeline ran crossways to the trench and was nicely exposed.  The workers were definitely careful!  The trench is now filled, and the location is marked by our new fire hydrant.  

Sunday parking ... not the usual cars from church

Morning wake up call - 7 AM

TWO fire hydrants

A picturesque corner

All this work would be perfect if Filia and Filius were back around 4 years old, and they could sit in the window all day and watch the Big Machines.  And, knowing our town, they could probably get a ride in the equipment, too.  But they have grown, and have fled departed the nest, and are coping with a modified first day of college classes.  Poor Filia ... after four years of unmodified first days, the college goes and throws a modified one at her.  Filius has only had two years in which to accustom himself to normal first days, but at least he got a mailing about what to expect as a 'new' student. 

Today is my first day 'at home'.  Ahhhh.  Yesterday ought to have been, but I heeded the cry for "My Desktop Computer, Please!?!" and ran it up to college in the morning.  Today I processed some tomatoes.  Four pints of crock pot salsa, and a yet-to-be-determined amount of spaghetti sauce.  It's cooking down on the stove now, and smells delicious. 

The apricots are DONE wreaking fermenting havoc on the yard, although I hope to sit outside and play 'pick the pit' so there are less trees to pull come spring.  The plums are also done.  I decided the hot peppers were done, and have a tray of them dehydrating in the back room.  Stuffed bell peppers are on the supper menu for tomorrow.  Any favorite recipes? 

I learned that a nervous dog will chew on a pumice stone if left alone.  Sigh.  I suppose I need to limit my bike rides to when the excavator isn't working within earshot (mine, or the dog's?) or after Vir comes home. 

And that's the news from Lake Roadbegon!

More plums!

We have definitely shifted from Apricot Management to Plum Pickups.  It's been raining the past two days, so I NEED to get out there and tidy up once things dry off slightly.  The picture shows a day's haul of usable plums.  The unusable windfalls went into the compost bucket.  (The 30 gallon compost bucket that gets dumped at the town compost heap.  I have learned that fruits with pits make wretched compost, especially when a generous quantity of those pits sprout the following spring.  It's bad enough having to patrol the yard looking for trees that the squirrels planted without myself planting them in the garden thoughtlessly!)

I've got about 5 quarts of frozen plum halves, just waiting to be used in smoothies, 2 quarts of dried plums, a dozen plums ready to be eaten fresh ... and about as many as there are in the picture, waiting to be picked up.  If you're local and want plums, come visit!  But keep reading, too.  

Lunch

 I've been lunching off the yard lately.  Two leaves of kale, a sprig of parsley or basil, several plums, ice cubes, and some miscellaneous additives like flax seed and cocoa powder, and I've a delicious lunchy smoothie.  I think it also covers my 5 fruits and veggies a day in one container.

 

 

Tomatoes

 The tomatoes in the garden had a lovely time of it last week, what with the warm temps and lots of sunshine.  (This week, not so much.  Drizzly, temps struggling to get to 60 today.)  I picked a nice crop on Monday and turned them into tomato sauce.  Fourteen pints canned and ready to go for homemade soup in the winter!  My favorites are the Black Krim.   They make a nice meal all by themselves, too, or perhaps with an ear of corn on the cob from the stand in town. 

 Our sidewalk, Thursday

Our sidewalk, Friday

Construction work on the sewer/water main improvements is continuing, as well as the weather allows.  Last Friday we lost our street.  Happily, the driveway is on a different street, so we're not affected much.  Bandit doesn't much care for the beeps of the equipment as it back up, and some in the household care even less for the fact that the house shakes as the excavators break up the pavement and scoop nice deep holes out there ... but this too shall pass. 

Knitting is going knittily, and biking would be going much better today if it were dry outside.  Ten degrees more of warmth would be nice, too.  I got myself a bike jersey, just in time for the 80s to become 50s!  Argh.  And once it hits 60, the winds are supposed to be in the 20s.  Planning one's ride out of the wind just does NOT happen on rural roads in corn land. 

Enough computer for today ... time to head off and look to the house!

Plums??

This is going to be a quick one ... other activities call!

The end of the apricot pick-up is in sight.  Most of the ones that are falling now are pre-dehydrated, and there are less of them.  It helps that Vir has removed a dozen or perhaps a score of branches from the apricots, so there are less branches for them to fall from.

In place of apricots, though, I am now picking up plums.  This is not a bad trade-off.  The plums are delightfully edible, freezable, and there are fewer of them, probably by three or perhaps four orders of magnitude.  Instead of two hours of collecting apricots destined for the compost heap (the town heap, not my own heap.  Those pits sprout!!!), it's more like 5 minutes of collecting and sorting - into grades of Yuck, Freeze, and Fresh Fruit. 

The beefsteak-types of tomatoes are ripening now.  I put up 3 pints (wow.  Three Whole Pints!!!) of tomato sauce this morning, and did enough other puttering around the kitchen to move my computer time into the afternoon.  The house smells like basil and lavender, while the back room smells like dehydrating onion.  It's a good day. 

No sock pattern yet, but there's a custom order at the yarn shop which should keep me busy for a few weeks.  The yarn for some personal projects arrived, too, so when that is done I won't have to look far to find what I'm knitting next.  And that's good. 

Annemor #9, sort of.

Also on the docket:  bike rides (next up, a 20 miler), Leviticus, harp practice, and LOTS of miscellaneous items. 

Better be off to do them!

Today's Haul

Pictures? What pictures?

Hmm.  As I sit down to the computer to write this week's blog post, I see there are no pictures with last week's post, DESPITE carefully loading pictures to some place via my iPad and then putting them in the drafted blog post and publishing it.  Where did they go?  Why aren't they there?  And how can you appreciate the apricots if they're not showing up?

Too many questions for a Wednesday.

Unless it just so happens that I forgot to publish the post, because I wanted to carefully put the pictures near some appropriate text, but never got around to it.  Sigh.  Well, it will just have to be two blog posts this week.  (clicks 'publish' on last week's post)

The king-sized quilt is now two smaller quilts. One is nicely bound with the original binding, and the other has a contrasting binding halfway sewn on ... next step is for Filia to finish tacking it down on the back side.  She's also just two rows and a bind off away from finishing a custom-made-for-her cardigan.  Maybe today will see both projects completed!  I'm eagerly awaiting a sock pattern from a friend, and am passing the time by working on Annemor #9, a pair of mittens in Teri Shea's Selbuvotter.  I'm also redesigning them.  Because of my gauge and yarn choice, they will fit me (unlike a mitten that was knit to the pattern specs).  I've tweaked the cuff design so that the Selburoses are correct, rather than charmingly botched.  And to avoid some issues with a large motif plastered in the middle of a checkerboard pattern, I changed the stitch count on the second mitten.  Other than that, though, I'm following the pattern perfectly!  (Oh, and I worked the thumb gusset on the right mitten so that it matched the one on the left ... I think the chart had an issue with the printer)

The Menu

The apricot production has slowed down, but not before Vir removed over 25% of the branches in an attempt to prevent future overabundances.  He's not done yet. I've discovered zucchini brownies and honey mustard green beans - recipes from Valley Veggies, a farm up the road from us.  We're enjoying Koralik cherry tomates, Amish Pastes, and a few Black Krim tomatoes.  I'm starting to contemplate what to do when the deluge hits.  (Of tomatoes ... not a second world-wide flood.  Ain't gonna happen.)

And the watermelon jumped out of the sling.  Unripe.

Monday, I spent with a friend whose littlest one was having surgery.  It made for a long day - leaving home before 5 AM and getting home not too much before 11 PM - but was a wonderful time of getting to know her better, being a Pack Mule, Manager of Miscellaneous Papers, and Organizer of the Hospital Room.  Tomorrow is the offical 'Get Spinning Wheel and Drop Off State Fair Entries' day, with a side trip to Ikea.  I've never been to an Ikea, but think Filius and I could easily spend a day there.  It's about organizing stuff, right?!

Last Friday I got a stick-to-the-window finch feeder, and have been enjoying the goldfinches jockeying for position at it.  They're at it when I first check in the morning around 6, and keep on until sunset.  The hummingbirds have investigated it, but it's not their sort of food.  (The goldfinches, on the other hand, regard the ant moat at the top of the hummingbird feeder as their personal drinking fountain.)

Until next week ....

Still more apricots

If life goes as planned today (July 29ish), there will be pictures of apricots in this blog.  The plans of life include the rain stopping, the sun coming out, a stiff breeze springing up to dry off the grass, and ... apricots.  Rumor has it that they are almost done dropping, and that if I would just let them rot in the yard they'd be gone in three or four days ... but if they fall for three weeks (and counting), that's a month of a yard overrun with bugs and a reek of fermenting fruit.  Who wants to walk over that to fill bird feeders?  Not moi!

Life today also includes a cherry pie (baking right now, before the day heats up), putting the bean trellis back together, Day 1 of Precept's Leviticus study, and knitting.  Of course it includes knitting.  I hope to have a pattern to test knit by the end of the week, so I will see what small project I can put together from my stash.  This week has seen the Maplewood Mittens, Spruce Mittens, and a Norwegian Stash Hat come off my needles.  My LYS should have yarn in sometime next week for two personal projects, too.  I'm looking forward to it.  It's nice to have space in one's knitting calendar, and it's also nice not to spend most of one's knitting time figuring out what to make next. 

Another project today is cutting a king sized quilt from the thrift store down to a twin bed size.  (Don't panic, Dawn.  It's bright pink on one side, medium pink on the other, and is otherwise unremarkable.  No quilter's feelings or hard labor will be harmed in the dissection of this quilt)  It has only one thing going for it over the quilt it is replacing ... it fits into a household washing machine.  Hopefully this bit of sewing will not turn into a total neglect of the rest of the household in favor of sewing ALL the things.  Like the Roman shades I am idly planning for the downstairs, once the walls and ceiling are re-drywalled.  No date for that yet. I'm not holding my breath, nor am I moving all the books and furniture out yet. Color me pessimistic, but I think the work on the street may finish up first.  Speaking of which ... the street on the other side of the highway from us lost it's top yesterday.  Sidewalks, curb, asphalt ... all sitting in a nice pile outside of town in a field by the grain elevator.  The secondary water supply is in place -- a cute little blue pipe attached to the fire hydrant on the corner, and from thence across back yards for supplying the individual homes.  Where it crosses streets, it's tucked in under a nice comforter of gravel.  Speed bumps for the morning paper boy!

My State Fair entries are all ready to be dropped off.  Since I have a spinning wheel up in St. Paul, I'm hoping to drop off my entries this year rather than mail them in.  Drop off the knitting, pick up the spinning, go to IKEA (which I've never been to, even though it seems just like my kind of store) ... a nice day trip.  My fair offerings this year fall more into the 'humble submissions' category rather than 'exquisite craftsmanship', for the most part.  I am looking forward to sleuthing around on Ravelry to find the prizewinners!

Dog-wise friends ... got any wisdom for the perplexed owner of a dog who has decided that anything that remotely sounds like a chirping smoke alarm (such as a single squeak of an oven shelf expanding as the oven heats up) is grounds for racing upstairs in a panic?

More apricots

Life doesn't exactly revolve around apricots, but I am getting plenty of exercise squatting to pick up apricots for an hour or two each day.  Today there's a banner crop sitting on the ground, thanks to the early morning thunderstorm and winds that went past.  Twenty gallons, perhaps?  I'm not sure if it's a pity that they're mealy, so we just toss them, or if it's nice that they're not exactly tasty so we don't fret about tossing them.  Regardless, apricots are on today's agenda once it dries out.  Then, showers and slushies.  Heat index is supposed to stay in the double digits. 

The garden grows, and grows.  I'm enjoying a daily dose of cherry tomatoes (Koralik) along with my kale smoothie, and we have some wee little watermelons that are developing nicely.  The peppers are peppering, the herbs are herbing, and the beans have so completely dwarfed, overrun, and conquered the trellis that I am unsure if I will be able to find either it OR any mature beans this year.  It's called 'learning stuff for next year.'  I made sage pesto, basil pesto, and destemmed a few tablespoons of dried thyme this past week.  There are 5 bunches of dried sage on the kitchen counter to destem today.  It's lovely having one's own herbs in the pantry.  Except for cilantro. I could do without that.  I dried some dill for mom, and if I don't pick the seed heads soon, will have thousands of dill plants next year. 

Construction work has stopped on the street for a while, as the pipes are now happily settled under the highway and work on the other half of town will commence.  Our turn comes afterwards.  They'll be removing all the pavement from street and sidewalk, putting in new water and new sewer (plus a new sewer line from our house out to the street).  And then, hopefully have enough time before winter to put in pavement for street and sidewalk, and plant grass.  If not, the adventure will just be a bit longer.  And we won't have a sidewalk to shovel! 

I've picked up the book Favorite Mittens and am knitting random mittens from that to destash my worsted and keep myself occupied. Some of my pattern-writing has moved forwards, and some hasn't.  Little by little does the trick? 

Apricots

The main feature of my life right now is apricots.  Or at least, it seems that way.  Our Manchurian Bush Apricots, adult height of 4-6 ft, surpassed their genetics and have become two 20 ft tall behemoths with a 30+ ft spread and a bountiful crop of tiny, mealy, not-particularly flavorful apricots.  Thousands of them.  I estimate that I will be picking up 100 gallons of apricots over the next week or two.  Because if they're not picked up ... well, image spreading that much of applesauce on your lawn and waiting a day or two in the hot summer sun.  Bleagh.   Kale-apricot smoothies aren't too bad, though. 

We keep our collection container tightly lidded, and it STILL is a buggy, fermenting humid mush after just two days. Two days in the 90s with high ambient humidity, that is. 

The garden is getting a bit dry, and may well need some supplemental water in the next day or two.  I miss the daily/every other daily rainstorms in the wee hours.  Filius added a trellis for the watermelon, and I did some serious pruning of the sage as it was crowding everything around it.  The pruned bits turned into three bunches of sage hanging from our ceiling fans to dry, and a bottle of sage honey.  Mmmmm.  Sage tea is supposed to be good ... I'll probably thin out some more sage this weekend, and collect some thyme, and dehydrate some basil.  I'm looking forward to the tomates ripening! 

The tree chopping activity across the street has ceased.  Seven trees on the other side of the street and 5 trees on this side are no more.  Our view is seriously changed.  It'll be even more changed when the willow loses its leaves this fall and we can see across the street from our living room! 

Nothing is on my needles now.  I finished a second pair of slippers and am contemplating whether I should keep making more and perfect things, or find some other bunny trail to go haring off on.  In the meantime, I am working on making some patterns of mine publishable.  A little bit of polish here, a little bit of polish there, and then they'll be up on Ravelry!

The end of an era

Across the street from us for the past twenty years, there has been a row of majestic crimson maples.  Today, they are getting cut down, and we are sad.  I suppose if a new sewer/water main system is necessary, it's necessary ... but the view will take a long time to be the same, if ever it is the same.

Closer to home, our cherry tree is only 10 or so foot from the curb on another street.  It's not getting the axe this year, but I'm not so sure if it will be spared when the mains are replaced on that street.  Next spring, I will be planting a new cherry tree so that we aren't too many years without jams and pies!

Life continues on.  The knitting patterns I needed to write last week still need to be written this week.  There's no deadline, so it is just a matter of me determining to sit down and write them.  I'm knitting a cute pair of slippers (Noomi) out of stash yarn, and didn't make it through the first outer slipper before starting to mentally rewrite the pattern.  I have lots of ideas, and am beginning to wonder how many pairs I will knit before I settle on The Ideal Slipper.  One-piece, or sewn?  Twined, or not?  Garter, or stockinette?  Tossing felting into the mix will require a good bit of size change.  The originals call for slight felting, but they're too small in circumference to begin with, so I am not planning to follow that part of the directions.

Three students have signed up for a minicourse I am teaching on twined knitting.  I'm excited to see their swatches!

Cilantro and Ceilings

The garden survived the high winds of last week very well.  My basil was having problems, though, and the name of their problems was cilantro.  Since I enjoy basil much more than dish-soap-flavored green stuff, I decided to turn most of the cilantro into pesto. 

Cilantro, by the way, is a very hardy plant.  I planted some last year in a very shady spot in the hopes that the spot was not so shady as I thought, and that I might perhaps get some delicious Mexican Parsley, that vital accompaniment to so many dishes, out of it.  Well, the spot was indeed the shady, but a rather leggy three plants of cilantro grew, became coriander, was harvested ... and became the parents of several dozen volunteer cilantro plants in the shade, plus some transplanted into my new garden, and my mom's garden, and some gardens in other towns.

The ones in my sunny garden were about 30" tall when they decided to lay down and gently cover my entire basil patch.  Armed with scissors, I went out and snipped all the main stems and brought them inside. 

Cilantro

Abigail and I went through the pile a stalk at a time, removing the leafy bits and leaving the stems and seeds for the compost pile.  This pile became 2 cups of pesto, with the addition of some olive oil and a bit of parmesan cheese. 

The sour cherry tree is bearing nicely this year. There's a pie in the fridge, jam in the cupboard, and many more cherries on the tree to pick.  If Filia and Filius get more picked today, I will probably make another batch of jam.  It is amazing to me how varied the jam recipes are.  One recipe called for 7 cups of sugar and 2 pouches of pectin for 3 pounds of fruit.  The one I used called for 3 cups of sugar and one pouch of pectin for 4 pounds of fruit.  And it is yummy! 

Not exactly before, but not after either

We're also on the brink of a living room remodel. Sometime in the hopefully not-too-distant future, a team of drywallers is going to come in and put some nice smooth drywall on our living room walls and ceiling.  In preparation for that, all the trim has been taken down.  We may be taking out some lathing, too ... fun stuff! 

Knitting is going on in the background of life.  The next thing I really should be doing, knitwise, is write some patterns... but I would rather knit than write.  And since I don't have much in the way of a knitting queue, all sorts of other things are getting done around here. 

Ducksies and Suitcases and Storms, Oh My!

I haven't knitted for two days. Something to do with visiting libraries, being passed a steady stream of Discworld books by my son, not having a knitting project, and an amazing amount of tree branches which were disconnected from their trees yesterday morning, no doubt. I hope to remedy the situation today. I did finish the Duck hats. They came out just as I had planned, not too small, nor too large, and Just Right as far as yarn usage went. I had a few yards of green left over. They're a present, but I am fairly sure the recipients don't read this blog, so I present to you ....

Vir was away to Atlanta the week before last, for a reunion of his college housemates.  It's always interesting when one receives a phone call saying that one is owed a new suitcase, due to a small fire, but just about everything else is okay.  (The 'everything else' did not include the cell phone charger, table charger, a pair of shorts, a shirt, the back cover of an appointment book, and a few toiletries, however.)  I image it was quite a surprise to load up the luggage carrier, settle down in the car for a nice long drive, and arrive at the destination with a hole in the luggage carrier and smoking luggage inside it.  Farewell, blue bag.  You served me through trips to college, Iceland and Scotland, Tbilisi, Omaha, Baltimore, California, camp ... but not more.  And I didn't even get to say good bye. 

Yesterday morning, we made national news!  Some storms passed through the area.  Before they passed through, our main concern was not getting caught in a nasty downpour during the morning paper route.  Thunderstorms can make one exceedingly wet in a very short period of time.  It was dry when the papers got delivered, but there was a band of clouds the size of Pennsylvania lurking a few minutes west of us, so they were delivered by motor vehicle instead of bicycle.  Good thing, too.  Before we'd been inside a minute, God opened the fire hose on us and visibility dropped to 'not across the street.'  After a while, the rains dropped off and the winds picked up. 

Lots of winds. 

Turns out, we should have been concerned about getting walloped by a tree or trampoline or roof during the paper route, not getting wet.  One article in the papers says there are more trees down in town than there are people.  That *is* an exaggeration, but not much. 

Across the street. 

Happily, our willow tree did not lose any major branches, nor did any other tree in our yard.  It was the work of a half-hour to gather up the debris from our trees and from other trees that landed into our yard.  I was a bit curious how we would GET all the debris (two solid pick-up loads, perhaps) out to the compost facility when it opened up on Saturday, but thanks to some neighbors and a flat-bed tow truck, it is gone already. 

The back yard ... our property goes just a wee bit beyond the garden beds

Our neighbors don't usually have a whole tree laying down in their yard.  And they usually have a power line connecting their house to the grid, too.  Once the power company got the line properly dealt with (it's under the tree in this photo), a chainsaw or two and a skid loader made short work of the tree.  As the day progressed, I learned that we might have been the only ones in town who had power (except for a minute or two in the afternoon, probably when the rest of town got reconnected.)  Us, the empty house next to us, and the church next to that, are the only places I know had power.  An amazing blessing - and we didn't even know it wasn't a common blessing!

Canis was MOST unhappy when the power flicked off in the afternoon and the carbon monoxide detector beeped. 

I got two packages of yarn yesterday.  One for a test knit, and the other for playing with.  Alpaca laceweight .... mmmmm! 

Smoke Alarms and Oregon Ducks

Filius is a scientific sort.  He did some research and learned that smoke alarms need to be replaced every 10 years.  We have lived in this house 20 years minus one month ... and have never replaced a smoke alarm.  So, that got put on the to-do list. And do you know what happens when you put a battery into a smoke alarm?  It beeps.

So, as we were getting ready to install a new smoke alarm yesterday, I thought it prudent to have pooch be somewhere else in the house while I put the battery in.  Maybe on the other side of a door and down a set of stairs.  It didn't work. I am his safety blanket, and when the thing beeped, he dashed up the stairs and burst through the door.  Which wasn't latched.  Old houses, old doors, and all that.  But we now have a functioning upstairs smoke detector.  Next up on the agenda is to replace the wired-in one that caused all the panic (for the dog) in the first place.

I have been casting around for something to knit, and remembered that I have some Oregon Ducks hats in my queue.  And I have yarn for them!  I do not have yarn for the Antifreeze balaclava-y thing I owe Filius for running his former one through the wash.  It would now fit a much younger Filius.  But I do have John Deere Green and Yellow for the Oregon Ducky hat, and a picture of a hat.  Take those two things, and I shall come up with a hat.  Two hats, actually. Yayyyyy!  Something to knit!  Over the weekend, I was reduced to knitting swatches for projects I didn't quite have in mind.

Today is a beautiful day, perfect for working in yards.  So that is what shall happen.  The canine will be delighted to chase rabbits far, far from nasty smoke alarms that go BEEP. 

I leave you with a nice tranquil photo, albeit one without the chipmunk I was trying to photograph.  This is the view from my front porch.  The trees are apricot bushes, theoretically 4-6 ft tall.  They overachieved. 

Garden!

Cilantro, Sage, Parsley, Chives. Thyme, and Lavender

Tomatoes and Basil

Kale, Lettuce, and Asparagus

Peppers and Beans and Peas, Oh My!

A pound of fresh oregano

Yesterday morning, today was going to be a nice quiet day at home. Yesterday afternoon, today was going to be spent in town, running a few errands after picking up some now-working power wheels for a wheelchair. And this morning, the phone call came in which said that yesterday morning's plan was actually correct, and today WAS going to be a nice quiet day at home. So we get to pick up the wheels when we're supposed to be getting 1-2" of rain (followed by 1-2" more at night. I don't think I need to water much today.) I now have rhubarb-pineapple jello in the fridge, along with a quart of rhubarb syrup for rhubarb-lemonade slushies, 2 cups of oregano pesto, and a half-gallon of minty sun tea. A kale-banana-rhubarb smoothie is in the plans for lunch, and homemade yogurt will start incubating around then. Three loads of laundry have come out of the dryer, too. But it's been a quiet morning.

Yesterday was another matter.  Yesterday we ran some errands in town (mostly to get groceries for starving teenagers), did some work at my mom's in 90+ degree heat, and then came home to an Utter Mess.  Our poor pooch (whom we have had for 5 years as of today, according to Facebook's memory thingy, making him 13 years old!) had stayed at home and things had not gone well.  Puddles and a pile greeted us, plus a dog that wanted OUT.  NOW.  My first thought was that the chocolate he had consumed Sunday (sniff.  MY chocolate, from the 4th shelf of a bookkcase) had given him some tummy issues.  So out he went, and I began cleaning things up.  Then Filia noticed that the electric smoke detector was giving the 'low battery' beep.  On a scale of 1-10, where 1 is l put it on a to-do list and ignore it for a few days, and 8 is clean the poop off the kitchen floor from in front of the sink, low battery beeps are around a 3.  So I didn't think anything of it, grabbed a mop, and began to make the kitchen a safe place to walk-n-wheel.  I wondered if the pup had gotten into the compost bucket as well, since there were things that looked like sweet potato peels laying around the kitchen too.

Oddly enough, the glass with asparagus in it had been knocked over on the counter, but the asparagus hadn't been eaten.  That's a serious indicator of an unhappy pooch.  He will, given a chance, climb into your LAP at the dinner table to remind you that you must share your asparagus ends with him.  He adores asparagus.  (And radishes, and dill, and parsley, and sweet potatoes, and pea pods, and and and ... but not iceberg lettuce)

As the clean-up progressed, I found four piles, a knocked-over trash can, a knocked-over harp (EEEEK!), and zig-zaggy splashes all throughout the downstairs.  And the windows were a mess.  Kinda like some kid with dirty hands had reached up as high as he could and then dragged his hands down each windows several times. 

This was strange. 

So I checked on the pooch, who was laying down in the shade outside but quite happy to come in. He came in, had a huge drink of water, ignored the food in his dish, and looked most unhappy. 

Until the smoke alarm beeped.  At which point, he jumped out of his skin and halfway up the stairs. 

Poor thing.  For whatever reason, our electric smoke detector, which has not had a battery for some time, decided that it was going to beep once every few minutes while we were gone.  And the pooch got stressed.  So stressed that our house looked like a textbook example of 'What happens when a dog experiences severe stress.'  (Except the textbook left out the asparagus on the floor, the paw-streaks on the windows, and the splinters from trying to chew and scratch his way out of a door or two.  And the harp.  They didn't mention anything about knocking over a harp.)

Fixing the beepy thing became much more a priority.  But how do you make a smoke detector stop the low battery beep when there is no battery in it?  Happily, my intuition gave me an answer that worked: whap it a few times with the mop handle. 

(we interrupt this blog post to accept a box of unexpected chocolates from the UPS man. I will keep them UP two feet further than the last box of chocolates was kept.  The one which met its demise on Sunday.)

Clean-up continued for an hour, and I still have some windows to clean (didn't notice yesterday that he reached the upper pane of the windows) and will probably mop again today, and maybe if the smell lingers still tomorrow, wipe down more walls and cabinets.  The stressed pooch just wanted me to settle down so he could sack out and collect his poor tender nerves.  Eventually things got tidied up, the groceries got put away, and he settled down.  He's not letting me out of his sight today. 

Poor, poor pooch. 

When life throws you juicy stories ...

When life throws you juicy stories, you get distracted.

Seriously distracted.  I can blame Filia for everything, though, and back up that sentiment with hard facts.  Of course, we will have to skip the fact that she has my genes.  Or else blame the genes on my mother.  She was writing county courthouses looking for records and probates and such before I was even born.  I have the checks and the letters to prove it, thanks to a trunk or two from the garage. 

Because, as I have neglected to mention earlier, the juicy stories are of the family genealogy sort.  The internet has revolutionized genealogy for genealogy hobbyists, like me, who dive into it for a while, remember there is more to life than dead ancestors, and carefully extricate themselves from the tangle of begats and bequeatheds, and resume a normal life.  So much more data is available without even leaving the house. 

Like www.findagrave.com and www.familysearch.org and http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/.  And learning that the nearest Family History Center isn't two hours away, but is practically visible from where I sat in the library while Filius was in class this past year. 

Oh, my. 

The first story was that a great-great-great grandfather of mine may not have died in Michigan, as reported, because there is a probate record for him in Iowa.  Except the microfilm I looked through didn't have any mention of wife and children, like the on-line index did.  So it may not be him.  Then again, it may.  We've never found anyone with the same name as him elsewhere.  (How DO people whose ancestors are named things like John Carlson ever manage?) 

The second story was that a great-grandfather of mine figures prominently in four newspaper articles from 1898, involving the sort of wrong-doing that would have him and a few family members show up on a talk show.  We had no idea!

And the third story was that, thanks to Filia ferreting out relatives on Findagrave and linking all sorts of family members on there, a third cousin of mine found us and we have been having way too much fun mutually expanding our knowledge of family and family stories.  The third cousin isn't related to the great-grandfather of the second story, above, but her great-grandmother is.  And they had no idea either. 

With all that fun genealogy floating around, who has time for knitting?  Well, me. But it has not been easy, and I'm about ready to set a Real Timer That Goes Ding for my genealogy work, and leave more of the day for actual things which are useful.  (Not that finding new third cousins isn't a good thing ... and I do plan to write two relatives this week to stay connected with them, and perhaps get caught up on new things in their nook of the family since 1999 ... but losing entire days to the Genealogy Bug is just not something I want ought to do regularly.)

The garden grows.  Asparagus, Rhubarb, and Radishes are still being picked regularly.  Everything else is growing reasonably.  The weeds are, dare I say it, under control.  At least at my house.  Mom's yard is another story, but it is still an improvement over last year.  A great improvement.  Whenever I am up there weeding and lopping, I thank God for the mowers who are doing a superb job and not letting the weeds encroach on the yard around the edges.  In fact, they're doing the opposite ... each mowing sees some areas being expanded by a few inches.  Yay! 

I have just a few more samples to knit, and then there will be some blocking and seaming to do, and then that job will be done.  Which is good, because I have material for another job on the way.  And another job arrived today!  I am delighted. 

One of these days I will have charming knitting photos, but not yet. 

A conundrum

How does one write a blog post about sitting back and enjoying life, when stepping away from the computer to sit back and enjoy life is the next thing on the to-do list? 
Quickly, I think.
The weather has warmed up, the Encyclopaedia Britannicas have found a new home, and my minivan is full of things to distribute around Mankato tomorrow as we begin the summer adventure called "Clean Grandma's Garage."  The checks my dad wrote in 1967 will be getting recycled, along with the rest of the checks from the late 60's and early 70's, once we pull the ones with social security numbers on them.  In the olden days, you sometimes needed to put your SSN on a check. 
And phone bills were $8.64. 
The garden is growing beautifully, and we are enjoying radishes, asparagus, and rhubarb.  The little beanie heads have popped out of the soil and should be snaking up my PVC trellis and overwhelming it in the next month or two.  Mom's nettles are beginning to take over parts of her yard, but we are managing to keep them out of quite a swatch that they reigned supreme in last year, so I am pleased. 
Yarn for the miscellaneous small items arrived as scheduled, and I will be continuing to work away on those once I finish this post.  Knitting is my idea of sitting back and enjoying life.  Especially when I can sit by an open window, listening to the nearby birds and the not-so-nearby lawnmowers (since Filius mowed our yard earlier today), and watching the activity in our willow tree.  I may also be listening to a dog snore.  He's been VERY busy at my mom's this week and seems to be catching up on his rest today.
Filia and I put in a few hours in the kitchen today, and it now boasts Rhubarb Apple Salad, Rhubarb Pie, German Potato Salad, and Oatmeal Butterscotch Cookies.  It no longer boasts a puffed oven pancake or a rhubarb lemonade slushy. Those have been consumed.  And if the breeze is doing what it is supposed to, there is a large pile of clean and dry dishes in there for me to put away! 
Anyone have a favorite rhubarb recipe to share? 

Life continues

It's been almost a week since I had a daily drive to Bethany Lutheran College. (Not) oddly enough, I do not find myself putting together my purse and knitting basket, preparing to head out the door.  I do find myself on the computer more, writing blog posts and e-mails and the like.  That needs to stay within bounds.  Life is more than being on the internet.

Life would be a lot more gardening and yard work, too, but for the fact that is has been COLD and wet.  It's May 19th, and we had a frost warning this morning.  I thought about covering my 8x4 bed of tomatoes and basil but opted to live dangerously.

The hummingbirds and orioles are back.  The mourning doves are back in evidence too, and my new friend the Yellow-bellied Sapsucker makes daily visits to the willow tree.  The bleeding heart is still in bloom, and the columbines are adding to the color with their red and yellow flowers.  The beans are keeping their little heads under the soil yet.  Someone must have told them that the 80-degree weather wasn't going to last.

I'm in a decluttering and cleaning mood.  Yesterday saw the evisceration of the storage space above the master bedroom closet.  Yesterday morning, it was full.  Today, it is half-empty.  Today's target has not yet been decided upon.  Anyone want a set of Encyclopedia Britannica from 1976?

It's Molly's Fault

I spent some time last week wondering what to knit after I finished a pair of gloves and one mitten, which were all that was on my knitting calendar.  My wonderings were answered in the form of an e-mail, and now my knitting calendar has two more mittens and several miscellaneous small items.  I figure in 2-3 weeks, I will be wondering what to knit next.  And by then, I am sure a new answer will crop up.  Worst comes to worst, I can knit a summer tank top.  That should put off the decision for 2-3 days.  Unless the weather is good and I spend those days outside eradicating uppity weeds. 

Molly's Fault was finished on March 30th.  It was a long time in the making, mostly because I ignored it for a very long time.  It is (in its current size) 17 diamonds wide and 24 diamonds tall ... or 816 wee little diamonds.  I love the result, and may make another one sometime during my time on earth.  But not with my current yarn stash.  I sort of used up all my miscellaneous sock yarn! 

On the needles now is a mitten, minus top and thumb.  When that is finished (this afternoon), I will start a second mitten.  And by the time that is done, I should have more yarn and be able to start in on the miscellaneous.  If that package hasn't arrived ... oh dear, I need to figure out what to do in that case.  Hmmm.  Something to ponder while knitting!

See you next week!

The End of an Era

When Filius exited Honsey Hall yesterday around 11 AM, it marked the end of an era.  The end of his high school years.  Even though he has been enrolled full-time in college for the past two years, it was dual-enrollment and therefore somewhat, kinda, almost sorta homeschooling.  But that is no longer the case.  He has finished the course of his high school years, run the race, and has a summer stretching before him before he returns to college to continue growing in his knowledge of all things Chemistry, plus whatever liberal arts the school requires of him to graduate. 

He is not a fan of the liberal arts, or at least liberal arts as they relate to him.  He's fine with liberal arts for other people.  He would prefer a full schedule of chemistry, or perhaps chemistry and computers. 

Filia is home as well now, and we are beginning the process of settling into a summer routine.  Pray for me, gentle readers, as I endeavour to nurture two teens with learner's permits into two independent drivers. 

Gratuitous Knitting Picture

The garden is in and protected from the average bunny, my mom's yard is not overrun by weeds, and the summer stretches before me, just filled with opportunities.  My twined gloves are moving along.  After a week of little progress, caused by a week of sunshine and abundant opportunities for yardwork, things are moving again and I have only 3.75 fingers and 1 thumb left to finish. Since it is rainy today, I hope to reduce that quantity by at least half before I go to bed tonight. 

And if I am to do that, I will need to get off the computer.  Staying off my tablet won't be a problem.  It's in the repair shop.  The jump off the top of a mini-fridge onto the concrete was too much for the screen.  And I have an aversion to glass splinters in my fingertips. 

A Tale of Two Yards

Another week has gone by, and the school year is one week closer to completion, and the weeds have one more week of the growing season under their belt.  At least, some weeds do.  My yard is in pretty good shape.  If there is a weed with more than two leaves on it, it's probably not in my flower or vegetable beds.  And Mom's yard is looking good, too.  I put in four hours of nettle pulling yesterday, and made decent progress.  We found a relatively non-toxic (to humans, pets, etc) weed-killer made of vinegar, dish soap, and epsom salts.  It works nicely on small weeds in sidewalk cracks.  Two of Mom's four weed raised beds are covered with plastic, and even if the other two don't get in coverable shape this year, that's two beds more than last year! 

Two of my four veggie/herb beds are protected at least reasonably well from the bunnies.  I hope to lash some chicken wire to the remaining PVC frames later today, and then can get them up tomorrow afternoon, weather permitting, and pop my tomatoes and remaining plants into the ground.  Asparagus and rhubarb production is in full swing. 

The First Frame, protecting the First Asparagus

Next week, I start a Bible Study on the Sermon on the Mount.  And I'm not leading it!  Two wonderful things.  To prepare, I want to finish memorizing Matthew 7.  I've heard that one part of the homework for the study is reading through the Sermon on the Mount each week.  Nothing like being able to do part of your homework while laying in bed in the morning with your head on the pillow and your eyes closed! 

Knitting has gone slowly this week, due no doubt to how gorgeous the weather was and how much time I spent with a pair of loppers and fist-fulls of nettles.  The leather-palmed garden gloves I got this year -- in April, I think, but possibly in March -- have a split seam, several serious scuffs in the leather, and a spot on the thumb that looks suspiciously like a popped blister, about the size of a nickel.  They're getting serious use.  I wish they looked like they were longer for this world.  It's not every garden glove you can use to pull Russian Thistles without getting stuck! 

I did, however, get One Single, Solitary Thumb knit on the first glove.

And five ticks off of my dog.
 

Spring!

I think it really is spring in Minnesota.  I have done oodles of knitting, and would talk about it, but with the nice weather comes the green growth, and with the green growth comes another year of nettles and volunteer trees taking over my mom's yard.  And branches falling down from old volunteer trees. 

So, rather than put together a post with pretty pictures of twined gloves, I will say instead that I am hoping to spend 10+ hours pulling weeds at mom's house this week.  And keep up with the smaller weeds in my own yard!  I'll be picking up anti-rabbit fencing tomorrow, then carving up some PVC pipe and making frames to lash the fencing to, then mounting them on the raised beds.  The theory is that I will be able to remove the frames for weeding, winter, etc, but keep the bunnies out the rest of the time.  We shall see how it works.

The asparagus harvest has begun, and I do believe I will make some rhubarb something this weekend.  I've transplanted cilantro, chives, sage, and thyme into my new herb bed ... more parsely, basil, thyme, sage, and perhaps one lavender will be transplanted later.  The peas are in and starting to come up (unprotected from the bunnies, eeeek!), and the radishes are starting to poke their tops up as well.  The mint and oregano survived the winter, but they are NOT going into my raised bed.  I will pop them into planters, where they will stay put and not take over the bed/yard/neighborhood.

Florally, I found a lot of volunteer columbine under the bird feeders, so I have transplanted a dozen or two into places where they won't get mowed over.  Columbine aren't supposed to like being transplanted ... we'll just see how they do.  I moved some hostas, and unknown nursery plant, daylilies, and irises around as well.  And today, two peonies. 

Only two and a half weeks of driving back and forth to Bethany left.  And then ... I have no idea what life will look like. 

Anyone want a tree branch?  Fresh rhubarb, vitamin C-rich nettles, and walnut trees are hiding underneath it.

The Fiasco (part 2)

I'd rather be knitting ... but my to-do list included a blog today, and so I will blog.  Then I can knit with a clear conscience.

Where we last left off, dear reader, I was in the middle of knitting a fourth mitten and realizing that the second mitten did not follow the prescribed color theme.  Or at least, it did not follow the prescribed color theme above the wrist.  Below the wrist, it was fine.  No, I managed to  mess it up ABOVE the wrist only.

From the first mitten, I learned 'Write down the color names/letters CAREFULLY.'
From the second mitten, I learned 'READ the color names/letters, not only when you start the mitten, but also when you are in the middle of the mitten.'

What could go wrong from there?

Not all that much, actually.  A healthy dose of paranoia kept me checking the color combinations every 3-4 rounds of all the remaining mittens. (That made a total of 6 mittens.  Two botched, and one correct.)  I knew I wanted a mix of thumbs -- some on the left, some on the right -- and by not paying much attention to things ended up with 3 left thumb and one of the right thumb.   On the correct mittens.  The botched mittens had right thumbs, through no fault of their own.

At that point, I weighed yarn, considered, and the decision was made to make pairs out of all the mittens.  With an eagle eye to matching colors, I successfully knit a purple mitten to match the purple  mitten, and a green mitten to match the green mitten.  By diligent observation, I managed to make the second mittens of each pair so that they would fit on a standard pair of human hands.  No 'two left mittens' for me!

And then, it was decided to have a yellow pair and a red pair.  Botched, but paired.  And for this, I pulled out a Very Special Bag of Tricks.  Because by the little gremlin that was throwing monkey wrenches in everywhere she could, I had two yellow mittens with two left thumbs (or rather, a left thumb and a left thumb opening), and two red mittens with two right thumbs.  AAAAAAARRRRRRRGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH!

 Fear not.  I am an intrepid knitter.  And I have friends who simplify some of my convoluted ideas.  (You know who you are.)  

Step 1:   Pick up stitches in the row below the waste yarn, and the SECOND row above the waste yarn.   Remove the waste yarn, and gingerly snip the yarn in the first row above the waste yarn in the middle, so there will be enough to weave in.  Hopefully.
 

 Step 2:  Work a simple single-color graft across the unneeded thumb opening.

 Step 3: Cleverly use Swiss Darning (aka Duplicate Stitch) to add four green stitches just where they belong, more or less.

 Step 4:  Pick up stitches for a thumb on the right side.

 Step 5: Remove the sacrificial row of yarn between the two rows.

 Step 6: Knit a thumb in four colors. 

Step 7: Take a picture of the finished fix, to delay weaving in all those ends.

Fixing the second mitten is another excellent way to put off tail weaves.  Let's see how this one goes!

Step 1:  Pick up stitches all around the top of the mitten, just beneath the first tip-shaping row. 

Step 2: Undo all the tail weaves at the tip and unravel the mitten top.  Only down through and including the first decrease round, not down to the thumb.  Why ever did I think that would be needed? 

Step 3:  Squoosh the mitten so that what was a right thumb is now a left thumb.  While leaving the beginning of the round where it was, work the decreases in what was the middle of the palm/middle of the back, so that the right mitten is very neatly converted to a left mitten. 

Step 4:  (Not shown.) Weave in ends, and ends, and ends.

Enjoy!

The Crayola Mitten Fiasco (part 1)

Once upon a time, there was a knitter.  Now, this knitter was fairly proficient in her craft.  She was so proficient that often she knit while doing other things.  Usually, this resulted in getting many things done simultaneously. 

Sometimes it resulted in a bit of a mess. 

One day, in the not-too-distant past, this knitter began to knit a mitten collection.  Each mitten in the collection used four colors.  The same four colors.  What was color A for one mitten was color B for the next mitten in the collection, color C for the third, and color D for the fourth.  And color B in the first mitten became color C in the next, and so forth. 

What could go wrong? 

Quite a lot, as it turned out.  See that lovely green fringe?  It's supposed to be purple.  But did I the knitter notice?  No.  Not until I the knitter was working the decreases at the tip.  Because I (oops) the knitter was busily pondering various themes found in Romans Chapter 9, as expounded upon by John Piper at Desiring God.

And so the knitter sighed deeply, worked the last dozen or so rows of the mitten, and set it aside.  Why bother weaving in ends, or work a thumb, if the whole color scheme of the mitten was faulty due to a copying error when colors B and C were jotted down?

With a renewed attention to detail, the next mitten was begun.  (One in each of the four color schemes was the goal). 

Five mittens later, she had the desired four correct mittens.  It wasn't until knitting the fourth mitten than she observed that the third mitten was flawed.  And it wasn't until the following day she figured out that no, the third mitten was fine ... it was the SECOND mitten that was wrong.  And it was only wrong above the braid, when the purple and greens got reversed.  Again. 

(To be continued)