Calyx pattern

The calyx is the ring of leaves behind a flower’s petals. It often is left behind attached to the top of the fruit, as in the case of an eggplant, strawberry, tomato, or persimmon.

We randomly have a lot of royal purple tulle, and so I suggested to DH that he could be an eggplant for Halloween. He loved the idea, but said he needed a stem & leaves, so I knit some.
There weren’t any patterns that were at all what I was looking for, so I made one up.

My original pattern has 4 leaves, and I really wish it had 5, so here’s the pattern re-written for 5 leaves. This (knitted with chunky yarn) fits an average man’s head (not tightly). For someone smaller, use smaller yarn & needles.

CO 8 sts on sz 8 needles.
I-cord 1”
Switch to sz 10 needles, I cord 2 rows.
Join in round, knit one row.
*KF&B* repeat around row.
K 1 row.
*KF&B, K1*.
K 1 row.
*KF&B K2*.
K 1 row.
*KF&B, K4*.
K 1 row.
Make every 4th stitch a purl to delineate the leaves and their veins. Keep these stitches as purls throughout, increasing around them (use stitch markers if necessary).
Continue increase pattern (keeping purl ditches as established) until 80 sts.
Knit 1” (I didn’t do this and really wish I had)

Knit back & forth on the first 16 stitches to make one leaf:
Sl1, K6, P1, K8
Sl1, Purl.
Sl1, K6, p1, K6, K2 tog. (15sts)
Sl1, purl.
Sl1, K1, PSSO, K5, p1, K5, K2 tog (13 sts)
s1, purl.
Sl1, K1, PSSO, K4, p1, K4, K2 tog (11 sts)
s1, purl.
Sl1, K1, PSSO, K3, p1, K3, K2tog. (9 sts)
s1, purl.
Sl1, K1, PSSO, K2, p1, K2, K2tog. (7 sts)
s1, purl.
Sl1, K1, PSSO, K1, p1, K1, K2tog. (5 sts)
s1, purl.
Sl1, K1, PSSO, p1, K2tog. (3 sts)
Last row: sl1, P 1, PSSO, K1, BO 1, tie off last stitch.

Repeat this for the other 4 leaves. Wear & be fruity or vegetable-ey as you please! (Though botanically speaking, they’re all fruits.)

To make this into a strawberry cap, knit the main part of the cap an extra inch or so before splitting off the leaves. Then do the leaves each as 8 sts wide instead of 16.

For a tomato, split the leaves off after an inch, but again make them 8 sts wide, and do extra straight rows between each decrease to make them longer). This gives 10 leaves instead of 5.

How weird are we?

Since March is apparently "National Crafts Month" I thought I should attempt to chronicle the weirdness that is our crafty household. Also at some point I read an article in Sunset about "the next hip food-crafty trends" or something similar. It listed about 6 "new" things all the cool foodies should try. I realized we'd already done 5 of the 6 things.
Also the big interest in Pinterest cracks me up, because it really seems like a site for people that wish they were craftier than they actually are (but instead they spend hours online trolling for pretty pictures of food and crafts). I actually do make those weird, complicated recipes, and craft those cute things.

So here is a list of our homestead-craftiness:

Gardening:
* 124 square feet of raised bed garden space.
* Additional beds of strawberries & garlic, plus blueberry plants, rhubarb, 4 fruit trees, and hops on the garage.
*Herbs and flowers in the front, as well as a hedge of raspberries edged with artichokes.

Food:
* Homebrewed beer, all from the grain (as opposed to extract- it's like making a cake from scratch vs boxed mix), often using home-grown hops.
+ Home-fermented cider (from apples we press ourselves, grown by us & Matt)
* Homemade rootbeer (from extract, but still)
* Homemade cheese: mozzarella, ricotta (both milk and whey-style, queso blanco
* Homemade sausage. R loves doing this, I just help turn the handle because I hate raw ground meat.
* homemade sauerkraut and pickles, the lacto-fermented REAL version, not the add-vinegar quick way.
* home canned peaches, jams, tomatoes, chutney, and all sorts of other preserves.
* I often bake complicated cookie/ dessert recipes, usually involving some kind of caramel. The last ones I made were copycats of GSA Samoas. All treats in our house come from scratch, not a box or a mix. They taste 500 times better that way.
* Homemade candies: caramel, fudge, divinity, lollipops, fondant eggs, praline, chocolate frogs, marshmallows, beer brittle, toffee.
* We bake bread, sometimes by hand, sometimes in the machine, often using the 3-min-a-day recipes. Also pizza crust.
* Homemade pasta. We haven't done it in a while, but making squash raviolis are on the list for next week's dinner.
* Sssmokin! R got a smoker for Christmas a couple years ago and has smoked: tofu, salmon, many kinds of cheese, almonds, scallops.
* And let's not forget the contribution of eggs by our 3 chickens. :)
* We often try new recipes from all over the world. We've made etouffe, gnocchi, Mongolian hotpots, lemongrass beef noodle bowls, caponata, spanikopita, borscht, schnitzel, tikki masala, chili relleno, Ethiopian lentil stew, tagine, potstickers, ceviche, sushi, wood-fired pizza, kalua pork, etc. Tonight's dinner is pad see ew.
* Also this is not crafty, but trendy- we source all our meats locally from small, sustainable farms (4-H kids, if you want to know) and catch our own clams and crabs.

Crafty:
* I've knit over 200 things, including probably 30+ sweaters.
* I dye yarn about 3 times a month, and am learning more about using natural dyes (as opposed to food coloring, which I use now).
* I now create yarn on my spinning wheel! The other day I spun 5 oz of fluff that I dyed myself and got 315 yards of lightweight wool!
* We make our own soap from the melt & pour glycerine. I currently have 25 lbs of goat-milk base R gave me for Christmas. ;)
* I'm in the midst of sewing a green pleated skirt for St. Patrick's Day. I've made a couple other skirts, pillows for our couch, tote bags, the dog bed, etc.
* Woodworking- R has made shelves, spice racks, tables, display racks, a sweater cabinet, a nice box for my knitting, a cribbage board, etc.

Construction:
R built our garage himself, aside from the concrete and framing, which had to be done by professionals. He's also built several retaining walls, our garden shed, a stone patio, a pergola for the grapes over the patio, a trellis for wisteria, and the chicken chalet.

I'm sure there are a million things I'm forgetting, and things that don't really have a good space like "we make our own granola." But yeah, we're foodies, and we're weird. Apparently that currently makes us hip. Crazy.

Happy Easter

I hope everyone had a good Easter, ours was very mellow. R Dutch oven slow-cooked a leg of lamb (from out friend who runs the 4-H program here) and we had asparagus & roast garlic/rosemary potatoes. Most of the day was spent inside by the woodstove relaxing, with a few hurried trips outside to get things planted.

Our garden is in a transition stage, with the cold weather plants begun. R built a cold frame out of an old window from the Habitat for Humanity center, but strangely the seedlings in it don't seem to be doing as well as the seedlings outside of it. It's also weird to have to water the garden every day when it is pouring down rain.

We've had some lovely weather (I even got sunburned one day because I didn't believe it was possible this early in the year at this latitude), but now we're in to the spring storms- rain, hail, thunder & lightning, with interludes of sunshine. This is perfect knitting weather, though I feel like I'm not getting much done. I hope to be finished with my Vivian (highly cabled hooded cardigan) by my birthday, but we'll see if it can be done in 5 days. I'm up to the armpits with both arms connected, so I've got the longest rows of the whole project ahead of me, then the shoulders and hood. After that I'm doing a vest, a quick project to get me back on track!I need to finish my Luna Dress as well, but I think it will require machine sewing the sides to make the dress smaller before I can do the sleeves & turtleneck.

I actually sewed yesterday though, did a square (aka tablecloth) skirt out of black fabric with skulls & rose vines on it for my pirate costume. It will go with the brown felted pirate hat I knit.

I guess I don't have much news now, winter and early spring are always pretty slow. I'm excited for my birthday though, and Eli is coming to visit!

Hey, I'm back!

I promise to make an effort to post in here more often, since it's been approximately 2.5 months since my last one.

I'm still teaching (it's only 1.5 days a week, but that's better than nothing) ELL; I'm assuming I'll be doing the entire semester, but don't know for sure yet. Knitting is going well, I'm plugging along on my National Sweater Knitting Month project (a cardigan of gorgeous merino my Mom bought me) and veeeery slowly making progress on the never-ending Mom blanket (it takes over an hour to knit an inch of length, okay?).

The garden is winding down, mostly just winter-hardy things left like chard, broccoli, parsley, celery. We've got loads of food put away though, and are now contemplating buying a chest freezer so we can get a portion of a pig our friend who works for 4H sourced. She gave us some lamb last year too. Fresh, local meat is the way to go. Through our CSA we've found a hookup for chicken and beef too. Now if only we had a butcher yet again for bacon/ prosciutto/ pancetta/ sausages. We really don't eat as much meat as that makes it sound- mostly it's just a small bit for flavoring. But if civilization crumbles, at least we'll be able to eat well for a couple months- assuming we have electricity to cook. ;)

And since it's been so long I can't process what to say, here's a meme!

The BBC published a list of classics and recent bestsellers with the pretext that most readers have only read an average of six from this list. I’ve bolded the ones I've read.
1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens (want to read soon)

11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare (I'm missing maybe 2 plays, and the poems)
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot

21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck (looks accusingly at me every time I go by the bookcase)
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame

31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma-Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hossein
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne

41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan

51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley (want to read soon!)
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville

71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Inferno – Dante
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray

80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton

91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Ex upery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl (I'm reading this with my students right now, though of course I've read it before)
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo (this is sitting in the living room waiting for me to begin)
** 46 out of 100 ain't bad, especially since several of these are on my "to read soon" list.

August is over already?

Wow, this summer FLEW by, I can't believe it's September tomorrow! August was a busy month for me, though it really feels like I accomplished nothing. I did knit several small things as birthday gifts for my fellow nerds- I mean naturalists, but I still haven't finished the cardigan I intended on wearing to my cousin's wedding (well, the knitting is done, the sewing is holding me up- this is why I tend to only do seamless knits). The wedding itself was great, it was so fun seeing my cousins again. I wish I got to see them more often. The only bad parts were that I had to keep telling people I didn't know why my brother hadn't come, and that the couple that won the "anniversary dance" had been married the exact same length my parents would have been. I still love them, but it's hard being around my Dad's family without my Dad.

August was a month of great baking, as weird as that seems. I made this cake for Steph's birthday, these cookies for Kris' birthday tea (apparently I am on a chocolate & caramel kick). I also made scones several times, banana zucchini bread, R and I made apple crisp & peach crisp, and I tried this intriguing recipe for a famous dessert from a renowned Portland chef. Yeah, bacon + apricots + cornbread + maple ice cream. It didn't turn out as hoped though, we were out of white flour, so I had to sub whole wheat. Healthier? Perhaps, but a lot denser & coarser. I think September will be ice cream month- I'm making Coconut avocado ice cream for our end-of-year interpretive fiesta, and I also decided that we need to make some peach gelato with the 20 pounds of peaches R bought at the farmer's market last week.

Work was busy and good as usual, but I found out I now need to finish a few days early- I'm going to be long-term subbing for the new ESL teacher at the high school who just found out she has a major medical issue she wants to get taken care of before she moves to our little town. It will be interesting, but it's only every other day, so I think I can handle it. And it shouldn't be a problem to take time off in October for the girls' vacation in SF.

The garden is going tomato-rama on us right now, I think I need to make some salsa. Luckily we got some peppers in the CSA share last week, and we have plenty of onions & cilantro from the garden & garlic from our friends' garden. Those same friends have a prolific Gravestein apple tree, so a couple weeks ago we picked, processed & pressed 12 gallons worth of apple cider, which is currently fermenting. Yum!

R is away at a fire right now, the first one of the summer for him, so yesterday I made the house smell of sheep dyeing wool for a hoodie sweater. It started out faded-jeans blue and ended up a lovely violet with hints of magenta and lighter blue. I intended on it turning gray, but I'm really happy with the result, regardless.

And now I really need to get to bed before September starts!

Holy crap, it's mid-July!

Summers are so busy, and they fly by! But at least that means we're having fun. ;) Between the garden and our CSA (1/2 share) we have more veggies than we know what to do with. We picked a bunch of pie cherries from R's boss' tree the other day, he's going to make a sour cherry beer, and I'm going to make my favorite pie- cherry blackberry. It will have to wait until the berries are ripe though, of course! We got a decent number of sweet cherries from our little tree, and the blueberries are ripening now. I need to call the organic blueberry farm down in Langlois to find out if they are open for picking yet. Hooray for summer produce! I know I promised pics, but they are now a month old, so I'll have to take some more.

I was going to make pea & prosciutto pasta for dinner tonight (using our multitude of home-grown sugar peas), but then I remembered I have book club. It's weird feeling so busy! We had a Japanese cooking class Monday to make up for the one a few months back that was entirely sushi based (the description said "learn Japanese cooking beyond sushi" so we complained & got to attend this additional lesson). I still don't know how to make a good teriyaki chicken though. We were supposed to go visit my Mom & Aunts during their week at Kalamath Falls, but couldn't because of the class, sadly.

Being busybusy means I don't have any finished knitted objects to show off here. (Well, I did knit a couple tiny slugs & snails as gifts.) I'm still working on the shawl & ballet pullover & I started the linen cardigan. I hope to enter a couple things in the county fair at the end of the month. I haven't spun any since my "lesson" though, which is kind of sad. I love how gorgeous & active the summers here are, but I also love the more slow times during the winter when I actually feel productive.

Another thing that's been taking up much of what free time I have is researching for our girls' trip in Oct- final destination: San Francisco! I would love any advice!

Hello, summer!

Well now it's officially summer, nearly July. Summers are always amazingly busy times for us, partially because I work odd schedules, but mostly because it's so nice out we have to spend so much time outside working. It is great to be back at work though, I can't believe a month has already flown by! We have a lot of good low tides for tidepool tours this summer (the photos are from South Cove during the amazing minus tides last week: a red-gilled nudibranch and sunflower star). I've successfully led my first try at my new program, a guided hike along the cliffs and through the forest. I've done both my mountain lion & sea otter evening programs (to good-sized audiences), and I'm working on developing my animal tracks one into 2 separate programs, one for kids and one for all ages.

Our garden is going gung-ho, we've already made several harvests of radishes, broccoli rabe, beets, peas, and salad greens. I'll take a photo today to upload whenever I get a chance to post again (don't hold your breath) later. We're also sharing a CSA membership with R's boss this summer, so we're overloaded with veggies! Lots of strawberries too. We went to the master gardeners' plant sale this spring, and found that our tomatoes we had started in the windows of the garage were about 5 times as big as what the "experts" were selling. Currently our tomatoes are blooming! We found a good sale on a pressure cooker the other day, so I hope to get a good batch of tomatoes we can can this fall.

As always in summer, we can't plan any vacations, since I work weekends and it's hard to get days off. But I'm planning to go to my cousin's wedding in Seattle in August, and we've already had visitors twice- Brandy and Evan came down at the beginning of the month and we went camping (in my park, so it didn't feel much like a vacation for me, but was fun all the same); then last weekend my Mom came for a visit and brought be a spinning wheel from my aunt in Cali, exciting! R's boss' sister happened to be up that same weekend, and she taught me to spin, as she has the exact same type of spinning wheel. Serendipitous!

I also bought myself a wetsuit, finally, and am so learning to surf, if the wind and waves ever cooperate. Fall is the best time to surf here, so we'll see. Steph is also a beginning surfer, and her boyfriend has several boards we can borrow.

As for knitting, I finished a pair of socks for R's birthday, and am still working on my aunt's shawl, now that she's actually finished chemo, sigh. I need to finish it soon though, not only to give to her- I need the needles for a jacket I want to wear to the wedding. I'm also working on a "so you think you can dance" sweater (a ballet top knitted while watching that most addicting of summer shows). I dyed the yarn for it myself, it looks pretty cool. I'll put up a pic when it's finished. Here are R's giant socks:


I hope everyone is having an excellent summer and enjoying gorgeous weather! If you aren't, just come visit us here! Oh, and PS- check out the slideshow at the bottom of the blog for photos from Kauai.

Spring Break, Wooh!

So spring break is over now. Nothing terribly exciting to report, except that my Mom & Aunt came to visit. We took the dogs to the beach and watched for whales (yucky weather, saw none) and drove around. I found some yarn in Bandon for a very pretty skirt at a really cheap price too, go me! I volunteered for Whale Watching Spoken Here on Wednesday and Saturday as well, skunked on Wed (clouds so you couldn't see more than 1/2 mi off shore and sideways rain in heavy winds- thank goodness that was an indoor site!) and saw just a few on Saturday (the rain kindly waited until after we left to set in). Oh yeah, Saturday night we also participated in Earth Hour, not using any electricity for an hour. We played cards in front of the fire, and I knitted.

I finished my vest recently and wore it to school friday before spring break (I worked every day that week, it was pretty nice). It's a bit small- I guess I sized it down too well, but not TOO small. It works well over a T shirt.


Then this week I started and finished an Owls sweater! That was fun, it was such a quick knit, and it's very cute and fits great. It used a lot less yarn than I thought too, so it ended up costing like $20! Yay for making my own clothes!

We worked a lot in the garden the past few days, pulling out old stuff and weeds and planting early seeds for this spring. It actually was frosty this morning, but apparently not cold enough to kill the sprouts, thank goodness. We got a whole bunch of good soil out of the compost bin and made up some organic fertilizer, so I hope we'll have good production this year.

Today I went out to lunch with Steph and her friend Crystal (whom I met at the Diego's Umbrella show) and then we took the dogs to the beach and hung out drinking beer in the sun. I wore my new sweater. All in all, a pretty excellent day. Some fun things are planned for the next few weeks too, I'm excited!

Autumn sunshine

Well I finally finished my Buttony Sweater- buttons, blocking, and THREE DAYS to dry all that heavy, wet wool but here she is, and my new haircut too!
I have so many projects I want to do, it will take me years to get through my queue. Good thing I started knitting before I'm 30, eh?

R was out of town for work this week, so Thursday I was girly and got a haircut (it's shorter than I've ever had it before, but it's cute) & splurged at the yarn shop. I bought 2 knitting magazines I've been wanting for a while (which added about 7 patterns to the to-knit list) and the yarn to make a snuggly winter dress. I've got a few gift knits to get through first though, even though I already finished the 3 older nephews' presents.

The rain took a break this weekend (it's gorgeous, but cold at night), so we worked in the garden, finally pulling up the tomatoes and other plants that won't overwinter. Now I have to figure out what to do with multiple pounds worth of green tomatoes. Some will ripen fine, but there are enough of them that I'll have to use some as they are- and we don't do fried green tomatoes.

I worked at North Bend HS on Friday, the first time I've been called there this year, and only the 2nd time ever. It's odd, I've become so comfortable at Marshfield (I'm there 3 days next week- field biology, hooray!), and I recognize/am recognized by a lot of students there, it seems strange to work at a new school. I did see several people from the gymnastics center though; I've only run into 2 at MHS (besides the cheerleaders who leave just as we're getting there).

I fixed my front tuck flip, by the way. The teacher says I need to work on my shoulder flexibility, as it's detrimental to my back bends and things. I've never had great flexibility there though- I can touch my shoulder blades, but rotationally- not so good. Kathryn (a dear friend who is a physical therapist) thinks my first 2 ribs are abnormally high, which could be part of it. I can't lie on the floor and stretch my arms out straight past my ears along the floor- they hover half an inch or more and won't go down flat.

My Mom drove down to California to visit my Aunt this weekend, they both seem to be doing fairly well. As of now, they don't think the cancer has spread beyond my Aunt's colon, so hooray! I'll keep sending positive thoughts to her; if you have the inclination, please do the same, and consider yourself in my happy thoughts as well. :)

A lot of not much

Well, we got through the busy weekend. It was nice to see our families (including my brother, sans entourage) even if it was really for only a few hours each. My Mom’s fundraiser went fairly well (this was the last year) and she bought my scarf. R’s Aunt was very pleasantly surprised when we walked in to the restaurant (the train was an hour late- we were supposed to be sitting there with her daughter [who also came from out of town] to astonish Auntie when she walked in), and the reception in honor of her ordination was very fascinating- we had no idea she was so groundbreaking, one of the first women pastors in the Lutheran church, and quite inspiring.

Family time was great, but being up there for such a short while is always frustrating. I wish we could spend more time with them, and I really wish we didn’t live so far away. The meeting with the girls was somewhat frustrating too, we came to the conclusion that we need to start the planning over, because this Feb/Mar/Apr now isn’t working. We need to find a better time-- probably next fall, which may remove Puerto Rico from our options (hurricanes). It also makes me more wary about spending money on a week-long girlfriend trip, since I want to go to Europe for several weeks about a year later. I wouldn’t mind doing a wine country & Catalina Island trip this fall and saving PR for a later girls’ trip. We’ll see what happens.

Gymnastics is going well, I am the only girl who can make it around the bar, and I managed to do a few front handsprings. I feel like we aren’t really building though, I thought that each day would serve as a foundation for skills needed in later classes, but so far only handstands and round-offs have, thing I could already do on my own. We’ve only been on the bars 1 day out of 6, which worries me that we’re going to newly rip our hands each time, since we aren’t building calluses. I think sometimes our teacher forgets from day to day what he wanted us to do and just makes it up. But there are still 16 more classes, so I’m sure we’ll get to do a lot, though I am missing next Wed to go to book club and discuss a book I really enjoy, Eat Pray, Love. Next semester R & I might take rock climbing together! I didn’t suggest it this term because I didn’t think he liked climbing, but apparently top-roped indoor walls are ok.

Also, we love The Office! We were excited to watch the new episodes this season, but then we realized that we still have another season of DVDs. I think we never got into it before partially due to poor TV reception, but mostly because the first few episodes are awkward and strange, but once you get to know the characters, it becomes hilarious!

It’s certainly fall around here now, crisp & sunny days punctuated with occasional bursts of rain. It’s nice to sit inside and watch a movie and knit during the rain, though I’ve gotten less done than I had hoped, especially since I end up doing extra projects that weren’t previously on my list- a starfish bib for my friend’s baby shower, and a hat supposed to be a Christmas gift for one of my nephews was commandeered by R (meaning I need to knit a new one for Isaac). I’m going to try to do NaKniSweMo, Buttony sweater, here I come! This weather is doing interesting things to the garden as well, the larger tomatoes are finally ripening; I hope they don’t split from all the moisture. We are getting a lot of sugar pumpkins, beans, and broccoli. I need to pull up some more beets to make salad: boil the beets until tender, throwing in the leaves for the last few minutes. Peel, slice, and throw the beets & tops together with gorgonzola, torn lettuce or spinach, & nuts, and dress it all with sweet vinaigrette, yum! You can also add fresh beans or whatever else sounds good.

I know this is already too long, but the weirdest thing happened yesterday, and must be mentioned. The dogs started freaking out at the window, as always if a cat or dog goes by. But then I heard shouting; there was a police car across the intersection, and several neighbors were standing in their yards watching two big black pit bulls. The pit bulls didn’t seem particularly aggressive at first glance, but apparently they had been roving the neighborhood for a while, harassing people and threatening dogs (luckily all were all safely inside houses or fenced yards). The cop was keeping his car between the dogs and himself, but at one point he crossed the street, and the dogs came at him. I couldn’t hear, so I don’t know the whole situation, but he waved his baton at the dogs and they kept coming, and he pulled out his gun. He was yelling at them, but they continued to advance, there was a big POP and he shot one of them! It fell down and crawled a bit, and then got up, bleeding from the mouth, and they both trotted off down the street. So. Bizarre.

Oh, and the internet is still being ridiculous and NOT WORKING during the day. Grr.

Hello, Autumn

Well, it’s been a while, but since I wrote last I’ve done a few things, here’s a summary: I FINALLY finished my sweater and started the striped scarf for the charity auction (for my father’s memorial scholarship). I brushed sand into the cracks between the new pathway’s pavers, did fall maintenance on the flower garden, and painted the bits of garage that still needed it. We harvested many tomatoes, lettuce, beets, basil beans, peas, and a pumpkin from our garden, and pears, apples & plums from a friend’s orchard.

On the Martha Stewart-ey front, I made batches of applesauce and one of oriental plum sauce (we ate some with homemade dim sum last night, it’s tasty), which we canned, and apple crisp. I'm currently working on pepper relish. We tried ratatouille (it’s excellent with chevre & fresh bread) from farmer’s market veg and found it to be an easy, hearty summer produce meal. Oh, and here’s my no-fail bruschetta- chop up fresh tomatoes & basil (from your garden or farmer’s market- too weak with store-bought), add cracked pepper, crushed garlic, olive oil, a splash of red wine vinegar, grated pecorino or parmesan, and sea salt. Serve on bread slathered with garlic butter & toasted (preferably grilled), mmm.

The evening before my last day, Kris and I went berry picking (was supposed to be mushrooms, but we didn’t get any) and attended Steph’s evening program for fun. The next day we had tea together as our afternoon break with huckleberry-topped cheesecake & Steph’s fancy china! Then I had one day off and the next I subbed for one of my favorite classes, and in the evening Kris & Steph & I went crabbing (we caught mostly red rocks, so we made sushi). R & I went to a bluegrass concert in the park with friends from his work. Just before Kris left town (sad) we did yoga, I really need to go more often. I’m also thinking of signing up for a gymnastics class. R went out on fire again last week, so the dogs and I tried to be productive, but mostly failed. I read a lot though.

I’m still looking for flights to Cabo for Christmas, but currently it’s prohibitively expensive (~$700 per person!). I’d really love to do an Espiritu Santo kayak/ snorkel/ camp trip too, but that would add a lot more to the trip total without changing flight costs, unfortunately. But at least there’s Puerto Rico- one of the many, many things I need to do on our weekend in Portland/Seattle in Oct is sit with the SMA girls and plan our trip, yay! It will be good just to see them again, I never see them anymore.

Anyway, our internet is being a bit fussy- there was a week or so there when I couldn’t really get on at all, so I’ll try to update more often now. With luck I should have more time for fall projects and other things to crow about. ;)

día de los muertos (tiburón y pájaro)

Yeah that's right, I got to dissect a shark at work today (bird was a gift/threat from our campground cat, but the shark washed up on S. Cove). It was a little baby salmon shark, probably 2.5-3 feet long. There were no obvious injuries, and it had fish vertebrae in its stomach, so we don't know why it died. It was cool though, sharks are amazing!

This weekend we worked on the concrete path around the garage in the back yard. We used a mixer & poured cement into a mold which made it into individual bricks. I had the job of packing & smoothing the bricks, and I also did my share of lugging sand & gravel to the mixer. The bricks are a wide variety of shades, unfortunately, and we ran completely out of red coloring by the end, so I'm switching a few around every day to try to make it a bit more blended. I'll put up a picture soon. I know I promised that about my knitting too, so here you go, my 2 anemones (w/ and w/o crab)

and the latest progress on my super-slow sweater:


Tomorrow is my last program of the summer, I'm trying out my new animal tracks (CSI- creature sign investigation) program, but I kind of hope nobody shows up. We've been having pretty bad attendance since the holiday- school started again, and there are no kids at all in camp. Even our all-ages programs have been getting nearly no one, I had one lady on my last tidepool walk. It's sad that it's the end of the summer already, our volunteers have already taken off. Oh well, at least I'm already getting sub work lined up here & there for the next couple months.

The garden is doing well, still putting out occasional peas & lettuce, but now the tomatoes are ripening as well! I'm going to make a savory tart with some of the cherry tomatoes. I'll have to figure out something good to do with the pumpkins.

The tea party last week was awesome. I'll get photos from my coworker & write more about it later. Eh, I had a lot more to write, but I need to go to bed now!

How does your garden grow?

Well, I forgot to put up pictures the other day, so I will put them up now. Apparently the only things I have taken photos of this summer are the gardens, so that's what you get. :)
First we have our leafy greens: There is some kale & parsley in with a couple kinds of lettuce as well as beets & a few huge zucchini leaves. Our salad greens are by far the most successful thing we grow- thy don't ever get big like the ones in the store, but they are abundant, happy & tasty.

Next we have cherries! We planted the little tree 2 or 3 years ago, and this is the first year we'd gotten anything from it (as expected). We only got 5 cherries, but they were delicious! Also, I just really liked this photo.

Here is a photo of our entire veggie garden ( and Stitch). You can see the hops growing up the garage in the background. (The electrical inspector came by today & passed us for this preliminary wiring stage, so R is doing a good job so far, even if it frustrates him most of the time.) I always manage to take photos at the worst time for light- it's too bright, oh well.

Our front yard is also doing well now that it's finally summer: We have foxglove, lilies, California poppies, lavender, lamb's ear, and dusty miller in bloom visible in this photo. Our flower garden is finally starting to look lush & vibrant! I wish our lilacs & hydrangeas would grow though.

The last picture is a small bit of harvested veg, thinnings & some artichokes, but I thought it was a really neat composition photo.

Time to go pick things before they bolt, I hope all of you are doing well!

Summer time, and the livin's easy

Actually things are busy, as summers always are, but good. Work is going well, though I'm having to re-do my Sea Otter program entirely- it's just too long & not focused enough. It's good to be out on the beaches and trails again, though honestly I feel like as soon as I get back in the swing of things, my time will be up. At first our program numbers seemed low, but now I don't believe any fewer people are camping than before, high gas prices be damned.

It always feels like the weekends are never long enough, I want time to relax as well as do all the necessary chores, and do things like make jam or bread or cookies. I did make some tasty banana-zucchini bread though. I dislike working from 9-5:30-- it's not enough of a sleep-in to make a difference, and if I get up with R I don't have enough time to do much that is productive, plus my evenings seem so much shorter now. R is always working on so many big projects (shed, garage wiring, etc) I feel lazy. Often I don't even want to cook, garden, or knit when I get home, sit in the sun & drink beer or do nothing.

Today we re-did our little stream, which drains our gutters into what will eventually be a water garden. It was hot & dusty work, I hope the finished product eventually looks good. The whole N side of our back yard needs so much work, it's hard to even come up with ideas. I want a fire pit though! I'd like to make a little shady nook, since the fruit trees we planted 3 years ago section that area off, but we still need to replace the ever-more tilting wooden retaining wall with stone, so it's hard to plant trees there at this point. I wish I knew more about landscaping, we have a lovely blank slate to work with.

Since I really enjoyed Emilie's recent photos, tomorrow I'll share some of my own, but here is a picture of my Brother's family:

Picture post!

First of all- I got my phone back. I was really worried because the battery was low, and the guy didn't call back that evening. I even called the phone just so I knew it hadn't gone dead. Then the guy called (at 7:30) the next morning, and we had our phone by noon! The first thing he said (after introducing himself) was "Don't leave your phone laying around, people will do things to it!" Sure enough! He found the gem just before he spotted my phone, so figured it was fate & glued it on. Then he added some leather around the antenna (because the dogs had chewed it). It's Pimp my Phone, I suppose. But it was very awesome of him to pick it up and get it back to me. So send good thoughts to Bruce!

Next up, we have Stitch & Lilo, before and after the haircuts which were the cause of the whole lost phone debacle. We love it when they are so fluffy and furry, but they probably appreciate having shorter hair in the summer, especially since they hate being brushed, and their hair tends to mat when it's so long.
So now they have quite short hair, but they are so soft!

Now, gardeny goodness! This is a shot of all 3 beds, and in the background you can see the hops on the garage. The green water walls hold peppers, eggplants & basil, the red ones are all tomatoes. The mini-bed holds tomatoes, a pepper, a zucchini, and 2 hills of pumpkins, which I just planted. The big bed adjacent to it is mostly still small sprouts and salad greens as well as zucchinis, and peas & tomatoes on either end, carrots interspersed w/ the tomatoes. The big bed further on still needs to be pulled, bolting celery, onions & parsley from last year. It also has a lot of salad-type sprouts, broccoli, some baby cucumbers, and just-planted beans & spinach & beets. I also planted some potatoes today in trash bags, we'll see how they do. Dinner last night was a salad made of garden lettuce & arugula & strawberries (and non-garden pecans, blue cheese, & vinagrette), yum!

And last, and certainly least, we have my latest craft project- The "It's 11pm and I Suck at Sewing, So Let's Make a Skirt" Skirt! I patterned this after another drawstring skirt I have that fits very well (on the loose side) but I must not have allowed enough for the seaming, because the end result is fairly tight. Unfortunately, I also forgot the "wash the material before you use it" rule, and it is flannel, so likely to shrink even more. Perhaps this should be my inspiration to get back in shape- exercise every day until the skirt fits better!

For those without a garden, I apologize in advance for the jealousy-inducing photo....

Today was gorgeous, though windy, which meant R's crabbing expedition didn't happen. So instead we went for a nice walk through the neighborhood and then down on the marsh trail along the dike, with lovely views over the bay. The dogs were very happy, until afterwards when we had to spend 30 min puling burrs out of their fur.

Since then, I made the grapefruit/lemon sorbet, set up a pea trellis, planted some basil & cosmos & puttered around. OH, and picked strawberries! Both our June-bearing & ever-bearing varieties are fruiting like crazy lately. Those pictured here are just from today's picking, with tomatoes for reference (tomatoes not from the garden- yet!).

Anyway, found out 2 new bits of information today:
1) The baby shower was today. I wasn't even notified out of courtesy. Granted I wouldn't have been able to go, but they didn't even invite my MOM! I guess my brother has always been attracted to dysfunction, and now that he finally has it, he doesn't need us 'normies' around anymore.
2) I'm starting at the park July 1, scheduled to work Tu-Sat 9-5:30, crappy hours, since we only have one car, but it's amazing I got Sunday off. I strongly suspect I won't be doing much naturalist work at all though, likely all cleaning bathrooms/fee booth/pulling weeds type stuff. Hooray, glad I have 2 bachelor's degrees.

Hey, June.

I'd like to take a moment to thank my peeps and homies, all you fabulous people who read this blog & even leave comments, I love you! And I love that I can keep connected to my friends through here, that you take the time to read even though my life can be boooring, and I don't do myspace or facebook. ;) HUGS TO YOU! I talked to my buddy Lee on the phone the other night for the first time in probably 2 years, which is ridiculous. I don't mean to loose contact, I'm sorry you guys!

I finished knitting Victoria's hat and the baby apple hat. I'll take pictures of the pompom hat later; here's a basically identical apple hat that I knitted a year ago. I've started doing a similar apple hat for Eli's birthday, but adult-sized and green with ribbing rather than a rolled brim. I bought yarn to make the Global Warming sweater, a wool-cotton blend from a brand that uses Peruvian fibers & donates money back to their community. I also started a baby onesie, based roughly on a Lion Brand pattern, but in ribbing and in some old hand-me-down acrylic I need to get rid of. It's the same blue variegated stuff I made the cabled coffee sleeve out of, so it should be good for a baby boy. (It's so weird that my bro is having a baby, and that he's got 3 stepsons! One or 2 of them might come visit me this summer for a bit while the household is adjusting to the new member).

I worked 4 days last week, (2 of the days were teaching Spanish, and 2 more this week) but still managed to get stuff done besides knitting and reading another 2 books. We planted more tomatoes (we have 19 plants now, insanity!) and did some other things around the yard. Now if only the weather can stop being schizophrenic and decide to be summer for real....
R peeled lemons to make limoncello (we threw in 2 grapefruits for fun) and I used the juice to make a pie, key-lime style. We also have the ice cream maker ready for some citrus sorbet/gelato, but it's too cold out for ice cream! I felted a sweater I bought years ago that has always been too big, it turned out really well. I also finally made my candied grapefruit peel (it took ridiculously excessive amounts of sugar), which will be great for making panforte and lebkuchen/ pfefferkuchen (I should get Vicky's recipe). We made a Thai-style roast chicken, which was really tasty, but the flavor didn't penetrate much into the meat, which was sad. Oh and we washed the car, woo.

We went out to dinner for our anniversary to the best restaurant in the area, Porta in N. Bend. It is authentically Italian (meaning not Olive-Garden-ey Italian, the chef used to work at Genoa in Portland) which inspired R to make up some fresh pasta later in the week. We had a butter-pepper-garlic sauce with pecorino, fresh basil, and prosciutto, YUM. Last night I made a bacon-shallot-cream sauce with peas, also YUM, and I made a loaf of French bread to go with it. This week we are going to try to reproduce the dish I had at Porta, a spinach & ricotta rotolo, one of the best things I've ever eaten. I was looking for inspiration for our fresh pasta and found the recipe for rotolo in my pasta book, it was meant to be!!

R brewed an Oktoberfest last night, he's only done pseudo-Oktoberfests before, because the beer is a lager & needs to be at a certain temperature, but I think he's going to put this one in the keg fridge to make a real lager. I need to go make some dog cookies with the spent grain now and get the kitchen cleaned up. The fun never stops here! And honestly, I think I sound a lot more productive than I really am!

Productivity

I feel like I've been lazy lately, but it turns out I've actually gotten a lot done. I finished Victoria's beanie (except for the pompom, which I am still waiting to hear back from her on poof size) and started an apple hat for my bro's soon-to-be-born baby (and a blanket too, but it might be a Christmas present instead, since it's very warm and fuzzy). I made mango chutney, canned a couple jars of it, and then made chicken curry samosa things to eat with it, super-yum! I also worked a few days, found out more about both my summer job at the parks (only July & Aug this year, unfortunately) and the potential Spanish teaching gig (looking quite possible).

I went through my closet and pulled out a bunch of clothes I don't wear anymore to give to Goodwill. I planted chives and cosmos in the front, and we put some new peppers & eggplants in wall-o-waters in the back. One cool thing was making my own knitting needles from a pair of chopsticks, and a double pointed set made from a dowel. Both sets size 7s, made using several gauges of sandpaper to create tips and smooth the wood/bamboo, and then rubbed with mineral oil (while I was at it, I also oiled all the bamboo cutting boards and cooking utensils). There were more useful things (besides the everyday stuff) but I can't remember them now.

I also finished reading the book club book for June, Three Cups of Tea, which was very good and inspiring. Though it's very disheartening that a man so brave, doing so much good in the world by trying to educate poor children in rural areas of Pakistan & Afghanistan gets hate mail from ignorant jingoistic bastards in the US. Bah.
I love reading; I don't know if I've mentioned it before. I tend to go through book voraciously, often finishing in a day or 2. Between reading and knitting, I guess I spend a lot of time sitting- but at least I'm not watching stupid things on tv. I guess I should be sure to go to yoga tomorrow and take the dogs out more often, I'm sure they would appreciate that.

I still have a lot to do though, I wanted to make grapefruit sorbet with the grapefruits our friend gave us (grown on his family's property in California) and make candied peels from the ones we've already eaten. We need to buy some everclear to mix with vodka & make limoncello. I also need to get big Eli's apple hat started (birthday present) and find yarn to make myself another sweater.

So hooray for getting things done!

Heat Wave

You know you live in a mild climate when people begin to freak out when the mercury rises above 80°F. People compare what their thermometers read ("It was already 75 when I left for work at 7am!" "Yesterday afternoon it said 85° in the shade!") Of course the "official" weather station for this area is at the airport, at a windy, often foggy spit on the bay, meaning our temps are recorded as 68 when they are closer to 86. The kids in the middle school yesterday were very restless and hot, making themselves fans, some of the boys pulling their shirts up to their shoulders to cool off after recess- at least my room was on the back of the building and stayed fairly cool until the afternoon. This weather is so bizarre- we get heat like this about once a summer, and it's only May!

It seems as though we went directly from winter to summer, with no real spring in which to plant our garden. All the starts I planted the other weekend burned to a crisp in this heat, even with regular watering and the protection of a row cover. My flower seeds in the front are likely the same situation. We are probably going to have to purchase a bunch more nursery starts, since seeds and little homemade sprouts aren't going to make it. At least the tomatoes are happy. The parsley, beets, kale & broccoli we had overwinter is now bolting like crazy.

We grilled the other night, made grilled potatoes (so good- cut a potato in half, zap it for a few minutes, and finish cooking it on the grill, serve with sour cream and lots of salt & pepper) and buffalo burgers, the only meat burgers I will eat (if they are made with chip crumbs and bbq sauce, & cheddar & bleu cheese, with a thick slab of tomato on top). MMM summer food. Now if only we had fresh tomatoes from our vines for bruschetta and zucchinis to grill too.

This weather makes me feel like we should spend every minute outside, but really then it's too hot (I got sunburned a few days ago), and there are yellowjackets trying to make nests everywhere (we're at war with them, we found a non-poison spray that works very well). It also makes me feel like we should be somewhere else- it's so atypical for our area, it doesn't feel natural that the heat is here rather than somewhere hot. I feel ridiculous knitting a cashmere-ey sweater, even if it is short sleeved. I should be working on a little bamboo tank (like Honeymoon) or something, but I've only got like an inch left to go on Tempting.

Maybe I can convince the hubby to go out to the beach this evening with the dogs, or go with my Mom when she comes tomorrow. Too bad the water is perpetually 55°, swimming would be fun, but frigid. I do hope my nephew can come down this summer and learn to surf with me though.

Fun in the sun

It is so gorgeous out today! It is definitely one of those summer-preview kind of days, sunny and warm with a bit of a breeze- it even smelled summery, though I can't explain what I mean by that. I constructed a shade tent for the dogs and they sat with me in the back yard while I knitted.

I've temporarily put the sweater on hold so I can make my mom's (long overdue) gift, which I won't explain here in case she sees it. But I will say that I am moving smoothly now that I have the text version of the cable chart! I also need to construct the planter box for her Mother's Day gift, of which she has already been informed. My seedling sprouts are far too tiny for it, but luckily plants are on sale at Fred Meyer right now. I planted some other seedlings yesterday, lettuce, spinach, chard, and bok choy- I hope they do well. I will need to put up the row-cover tonight to protect them from the continuing mini-heat wave.

We made awesome sandwiches for dinner last night- the hubby brought home nice crusty wheat ciabatta bread from a local bakery, so we pulled out a can of local (Chuck's Seafood) albacore packed in olive oil, which we mixed with chopped kalamata olives & some brine and layered with sun-dried tomatoes, fresh tomatoes, pecorino cheese, & cracked pepper & oregano, all covered in a drizzle of olive oil (hubby's had prosciutto as well). This is our version of pane cunzatu, which we had in Western Sicily; the original has anchovies rather than tuna. It's the best sandwich ever, slightly toasted to warm everything up. MMMM!


Off to get more things done in this lovely weather! Maybe I'll plant the peas....

.
PS- this looks like the coolest yarn shop ever and I will make sure to go the next time I'm in Portland. Too bad I used to live 5 blocks away from there, before the store existed (also before I knew how to knit). So many fabulous places moved in to the neighborhood shortly after I moved out, it's kind of sad.