Garden and spinning update!

 Gosh it's gotten cool here.  I harvested the last cucumber on the plants, and with no more flowers, that was the last for the season.  I ate it for lunch the next day.   There are still tomatoes on the vine, but they are all quite green.   We're supposed to have some warmer weather next week, so I'll leave them and hope they get a bit bigger.  There are tons of Hungarian yellow peppers, although I've no idea if they are hot or not.  There are Jalapeños left to harvest.  There are also a lot of them, however they are quite short.  The mystery pepper plant is all still green, but they are very long and slender, so I'm guessing some sort of hot chill pepper. I'll harvest them sometime soon.  Other than that, there are only herbs left to harvest; parsley, basil and soup celery.  I'm going to plant one bed with garlic this fall.   Seed garlic should be in the feed store in a couple of weeks.   

I got 100 g of lovely, deep pink roving from A.  I spun it into singles and then decided that I was going to spin up more singles to ply it, in a different colour, since this was hand dyed and I couldn't match it.   A gave me another 100g of the same fibres which I spun and dyed into a lovely soft grey.   I plied them together, deciding to make a matching hat and mittens.  I knit the mittens first, and then had to figure out how to make the hat fit the remaining bit of yarn.   Finally, after knitting and ripping out hats 5 times, I knit up a sample on a new toy, an old, but lovely working knitting machine.   I made a hat with just a few metres of yarn to spare!

The sky was quite moody on our last hike.   It looked like rain clouds, but it didn't rain and a surprising amount of sunshine broke through the clouds.  The river had a lot scummy stuff on it, which I've not noticed before.  It was a very hot summer though, so that could have been the reason.   There were a lot of dogs on the trails that day.   I generally don't mind them running off leash, as I've only had 1 incident with an aggressive dog.   However, a few owners have decided that they don't need to clean up after their pups, which sadly made for some areas where you had to watch where you stepped, rather than enjoy the scenery!

The Rudbekia or black eyed Susan's were pretty much past their peak blossoms.   The large field of them was showing a lot of spent flowers and not very many blooms.   On the home stretch of the trail, walking beside the river, I saw these pretty blooms.  They look like they should be Rudbeckia but their petals are short and roundish.  I looked it up though and it seems there is a related flower called the Brown eyed Susan and it looks like this!  Pretty enough and nice that it was blooming when it seemed like only the golden rod and a few Queen Anne's Lace stragglers were left.   

I gave away my LeClerc Fanny counterbalance loom to a friend.  She's been looking for one locally but nothing in easy access has been for sale.   The one that came through the guild went to another member.  Since I'd not used it since I strained my shoulder weaving a couple of years ago, I felt it was time to pass it on.   I got this loom with  requirement to pass on another loom.  I have given away a 36 in Mira jack loom, a tapestry loom, a 5 ft. triangle loom and a 15 inch new Dorothy.  I think I have payed it forward enough.   I gave all of these away without any requirements though, just to enjoy and use them.   When my friend picked up the loom, she dropped off a couple of knitting machines she had in her garage.  One which is a plastic bed and the other that she felt I'd enjoy more, was a metal machine.  I've been playing with it and it's quire enjoyable.  It's fast and has a fairly big learning curve like the sock machine.  Really it's just practice and being willing to take off the tangles and figure out what you did wrong.  I had a few of those.

Garden update and CSM trouble

 We've had 2 lovely summer days which were cool enough at night for good sleeping, and not hot, humid nor windy during the day.   It's been such a nice change from those crazy warm days.   It's been so hot that some days, it was too warm to fuss with weeding the garden.  While I normally water the garden beds mid afternoon, so the plants have time to dry properly to minimise the risk of powdery mildew, blight or other diseases, there was one evening I actually watered the garden beds because it had been so hot I didn't think the plants would survive the night without water.    We've had a bit of rain in between, so mostly I haven't had to water a lot this summer.   

Due to the blight issues last summer, I only planted a single tomato plant this year.   I'll hunt around at the market or see if there are local farmers selling their extras when I want to put them up.   Not my favourite way, but it gives the garden a break this year.   So the single tomato plant I chose was a sweet 100, a cherry tomato type that I plant for both use in salads and for just eating out of hand when I'm working in the garden.  While all the plants in that tray had little plant stakes declaring that they were all indeed Sweet 100, this one obviously was mislabelled.   These are not cherry tomatoes!  Nor do I have any idea what variety I might have here.  It's fruiting already though, so that's nice.

I planted more pepper plants than I usually do.   There wasn't a lot of variety choice this year, unless I wanted to spend half a day hunting through different garden centres.  The large one at the grocery store had minimal choices and they weren't looking all that happy.   I usually just go to the feed store up the road and get whatever they have unless it's something special that I really want.  So this year I planted Hungarian hot peppers, Jalapeños and one plant without a tag, in a tray with several different varieties.  I planted no sweet peppers because they are easy to find locally during the summer.

I have baby cucumbers too, from some old seed I found in a packet from a year or two ago.   It's some fancy variety I think, but since I couldn't find any cucumber seeds at the shop, I thought that it was worth the trial.  I had 4 seeds and 3 plants grew.    I also did zucchini that way, from seed in a packet that I seemed to have ripped off the variety.   I had 2 seeds and lucky me, I have two plants, one already flowering.     I planted onion sets but they need weeding desperately but I've held off due to the number of mosquitoes in the cooler evenings.

I took apart my CSM (Circular Sock Machine) to clean it.  It took several hours getting the cylinder clean due to yarn fuzz.   Then I put it together wrong and had to put a call into my mentor to send her videos of what it was doing, which she diagnosed over the phone, told me how to fix it.   It took me 5 minutes to fix, since I just put something in the right place, but the wrong location, if that makes sense.   Anyway, everything on this machine, a Legare 400, needs to be set up at 6 o'clock to be in the correct location - crank hand, yarn carrier and making sure the ribber stop is also correctly places.   So I'm going to see how it works by making my daughter hiking socks for her birthday.   She liked the shorties I make for myself for the summer, but wants them just a little bit higher to fit in her hiking boots.

Winter walks, garden visitor and shawl update

Hawk, right side, middle of picture.

 Here is a photo of the hawk visiting our garden.  He sticks around for over an hour at a time and has a couple of spots he likes to hang out.   With his dedication and patience, we're now thinking it might be the hawk who got one of our chooks.   DH says he found that hen just inside the door of the chicken coop, so it's possible.   The poor girls have been stuck inside since then.   With the risk of a hawk attack so likely, I'm keeping them in the coop.   They aren't fond of the snow regardless.  They'll make a track to the feeders and sometimes to spots where they can sun themselves, and mainly they hangout in the open part of the barn, making a mess of things.

The photo was taken through a double pane window which I didn't think needed cleaning this fall.  I was wrong.  It does.  The hawk is fairly large, like a crow size or a tad larger.  His back is grey and his underside/tummy is white and brownish.  He has a greyish head, which makes it hard to see, but he scanned the area constantly from that perch and I watched him sit there for over an hour.  He's been back daily, sometimes multiple times a day.

We headed out for a walk today.  I needed my sunglasses when we left the house.   The skies were mainly white, with some patches of very pale blue.   The sunlight was reflecting on the snow so it was bright, despite the high clouds.   By the time we were halfway to the chosen trail, I no longer needed my sunglasses.  There was a light flurry as well.   Luckily, the winds and the real snow, didn't pick up until we got back home.   

The trail was white.   Enough people had been on the trails by the time we got there, that the fluffy snow we had over the past 2 days was partially packed and easy to walk on.  No slippery spots and no ice.  Just light fluffy snow and lots of foot prints.

The lake or pond is mainly frozen over.  I don't think the ice is really strong enough to walk on yet, but there were foot prints on it.  They were likely animal prints, but we didn't go close enough to the shore to find out.   We were on top of the hill when we took this photo.   There are some houses and a train track on the other side of the lake.   You can't see them once the trees are leafed out.  This time of year though, they are able to be seen, and I'm betting they have great views as well.

The sun came out briefly (sort of) just as we were near the end of the trail , which runs beside the river.   It's not actually as steep as the photo suggests, but a weird angle to capture that tiny bright spot, the sun and trying to get a bit of the river in as well.  I don't think I was horribly successful.

The winds only picked up after we got home, which was nice and now it's snowing the kind of big flakes which tend to suggest we'll get some accumulation.  

Shawl update:   I'm getting about 4 -6 rows a day done if I put some effort into knitting right now, due to the length of the shawl.  I'm pretty sure I'm going to make this the last repeat.   It's certainly big enough to be a useful shawl, and maybe useful enough to be worn like a sonntag or tied shawl.  It's small enough though that I could also use it as an under-shawl and wear my larger one over top of it for warmth.   I'm also trying to decide whether I'll put the suggested fringe on it or just crochet a simple edging around the sides of it.    I fear the fringe might get in the way of wearing it for warmth while doing things like baking at Westfield, although the fringe in the sample picture was very pretty.

October Colour

 

I had to leave the house at 7:50 am.  The sun was just rising.  I had to stop in the driveway to take this photo as the light and colours were spectacular.   While the mornings are late in coming, I'm really not looking forward to the time change.  I'm on the side of keeping one time zone and not switching back and forth.   Switching seems to cause more issues than not.

This was the view across the road two nights ago.  The light was perfect.  The leaf colour change this year have been odd to say the least.  We've been stuck in a no colour zone for ages.  There have been a few trees changing colour but mainly lots of dull green leaves.  Then a couple of days ago when I was locking up the chooks, the trees were still mainly green in our yard.  The next morning though, it was like every one of them had coloured overnight.  So amazing and beautiful, but definitely odd.

The one zucchini plant left was hit by powdery mildew a while ago.  It survived, albeit damaged with greying leaves.  However I went to pull it out the other day and not only is the plant still flowering, but there were 5 zucchini still growing.  One was starting to get too big, but these 4 are still perfect.   I'd though there were only a few leeks left, but this was a lovely surprise.

I saw this stump full of shelf fungi by a woodpile.   While the trees are finally coloured and the leaves are falling astoundingly quickly, there is still a lot of green in the grass and weeds.     This made a nice contrast.

Soon the world around will be white.  The skies will be grey, or watery, pale blue.  We'll get limited sunlight hours, so I'm enjoying the sun and colours while we still get them.

End of August update

The river on a late summer hike

 This morning had a bit of unexpected excitement.  When I put my glasses on when I woke up, I realised that they were broken!  They were fine when I took them off at bedtime.   Of course without my glasses I couldn't see what was wrong with them, although I did find the missing lens and knew that the frame was unattached at the earpiece thing.   Luckily hubby figured out that a tiny screw had fallen out and by disassembling an old pair of glasses, he was able to fix mine with the scavenged screw.  I was so happy to be able to see clearly again without old glasses or sneaking hubby's glasses, which worked okay in a pinch, although not perfect.

Yesterday I harvested some garden tomatoes.    They are finally starting to ripen.  I've eaten a cucumber and cherry tomatoes for lunch for half the summer, which was lovely.   I've gotten 1.25kg of blackberries in the freezer.   I could easily get another 1 or 2 pickings in,  but I'm not sure it's worth it.   This time of year the seedy berries sometimes get even seedier and they are smaller pickings, for the same amount of work.   I have more than enough for a good batch of jam.

Last time I made blackberry jam, I pressed all the berries though a sieve with a wooden spoon. I've been looking for a Foley's food mill to make that job easier but they don't seem to be available any longer.  These are the metal cone mortar and pestle shaped ones.   The last time I saw one in a store a couple of years ago, I was very tempted to buy it as I've wanted one for years, but the price was really crazy high.   Amazon has one but it's fairly small  and almost $100.   I'm not sure I want to spend that much for a tool I'll only use a few times a year.

 Second choice is a grinder type food mill.   They are more reasonably priced.   When the kids were young, a friend and I would get together a couple of nights in the fall to freeze corn and make apple sauce.  It meant that we each had a freezer full with only a couple of hours of work and fun.    She had a food mill, which was old but really sturdy.  It ground up the apples in no time.   I'm hoping to find one as well built as that.  

I'm ticked at myself for not buying Plums when they were in the store.   Prune plums make spectacular jam.  If you chop them fine enough, you don't even have to peel them, as the peels will dissolve while cooking.   Maybe there will be some left at the market.

On a grey, damp day we went for a walk through the antique mall.   One booth had a few copper moulds in it.  One was $25 and another shopper and I commiserated over that being a ridiculous price for a jelly mould.   She would only pay $5 for one, and because I will pay a couple of dollars more if it's one I really like and don't have, I found these 3.  The strawberry one had some gunk on it, which the $25 one, the same strawberry mould didn't have.   I paid $8 for these and the gunk washed right off the mould with no scratching, discolouration or residue.  I was happy.   

canning and garden update

I wanted to make a batch of bread and butter pickles and some relish, but didn't have enough small cucumbers from my garden.    We went to the local "farm market", which is a shop which brings in local produce, rather than a farmers market because it's only open on Saturday morning, and the timing was wrong.   It was $8 for a small basket of pickling cucumbers and I'd need 4 baskets for the 2 recipes.  There was a half bushel for $30, which was less than the 4 baskets so of course being frugal, I got the half bushel.   

I made dill pickles.

I made cucumber relish

I made a second batch of dill pickles, these ones sliced into rounds instead of spears.

I made bread and butter pickles, my favourite!

I gave 3 lbs of cucumbers to my daughter so she could make pickles.

I still have enough pickles in the fridge to make another batch!

We have more pickles in the pantry than we can eat in a year!  I even started canning some in small jars as give aways!

Last week the blackberries started ripening. They don't all ripen at once, so it's not an onerous task.   If you leave 3 days between picking, or sometimes 4, then it's worth the effort.   This is including the fact that I neglected to weed out the nettles earlier in the season, and keep forgetting to wear long pants and sleeves, resulting in tingling legs and arms.   Anyway, I've got just over 1 kg of blackberries frozen, for use later in the season, when the weather cools down a bit for more comfortable processing.  There are still quite a lot of berries left on the brambles though, so I'm guessing several more pickings before I give up and leave the rest to go to seed.

I also pruned the tomatoes back to get rid of a lot of excess leaves and hopefully aid the fruit in ripening.   I'm not sure I cut away enough of the excess leaves though.  They are still pretty full. The plants have quite a lot of fruit on them, but it's all still very green, due to another summer of less than adequate sunshine.    I may have to buy some tomatoes just to make sure there are some canned in the pantry for the winter.   I use all of the 1/2 bushel that I put up when I have to buy them, but could easily use more.

I have herbs to dry, mainly oregano, basil and parsley this year, and potatoes to harvest.  The tomatoes are wait and see.   The cucumbers are still producing and I'm getting one or two pickling cucumbers a day, which I generally eat for lunch, along with whatever cherry tomatoes are ripe.  The zucchini is still producing, but they are just starting to get a bit of mildew on them, so they'll be done soon.   Peppers, hot Hungarian banana peppers are growing fast and furiously this year.   I will need to harvest soon and I'll likely have to pickle them for winter use too.   They are pretty delicious.  

A much needed update

 Along with crazy busy for the SCA event FOOL, Fruits of our Labours, that I've helped run for 16 years, my old computer decided to get crankier than normal.  After trying to work out its issues, I got it back up and running a bit.  Now though, thanks to a son who handed me a new computer for Mother's Day, I'm moving all my files over, and having to learn a new suite of apps, which work differently on this one.

The lilacs had just started blooming before the Victoria Day weekend and sadly, due to a huge amount of rain and then some ridiculously warm days, when I got home on Monday, they had turned brown and sad.  I missed them completely.    I was drinking my tea outside on Tuesday though, and I got to watch two baby birds fledging.  The parent birds were nearby and kept showing them what to do.  The one chick tried to go back into the nest, but the parent stopped them from entering.  Then suddenly they both took off.  I've been watching them on and off all week and they keep practicing short runs.   It took them the better part of the week.  I didn't see them yesterday so maybe they've moved on.

We spent a morning last weekend cleaning and seasoning cast iron at Westfield.   A lot of the cookware

was in desperate need of cleaning.  It had been sitting all winter and had been in use all last summer.   We scrubbed the inside and outside with steel wool.   Then we rinsed it well and set it on the huge gas stove to dry over the burner pilot lights.   Then we applied a thin layer of oil or shortening and they were baked in the oven to season.  That took over an hour, so while that was happening we went to 3 of the houses with cookstoves and learning how to apply blacking.  The blacking is a liquid with metal particles suspended, which when rubbed on and then heated, hardens on the stove top.  This protects the metal and makes it look less worn.  

It's raining again.  There are 16 bags of triple mix, 3 bags of manure and a bale of straw waiting for me to finish up the third raised bed.  We've put a thick layer of sticks, small limbs and other wood stuff from our scrap pile in the bottom.  Then a layer of composting straw was put on top of that and it was mixed with some older manure from the chicken pen.   We didn't have any green stuff, grass clippings etc, so this will have to do.   Now I need to layer on the triple mix to top it off.   The straw will go to mulch the tops of the beds once they are planted. I need to also top up the planters because they need a bit of new soil or compost each year and as well, the chooks have been having fun digging through them and they aren't very neat.

My garden is going in late this year.   Usually it's mainly in by now, but with the weather and the new bed, it's delayed, not only because of the new bed, but because instead of getting some of my seeds locally, I had my daughter pick up some specialty seeds from a seed nursery closer to her.  I'm trying the self pollinating zucchini and cucumbers this year, as well as a new variety of green beens which is supposed to have a longer season.  My son in law has grown some extra grape tomato plants and a couple of unique slicing styles.  I'm only planting Roma tomatoes.  I couldn't find Amish plum tomatoes, so I ended up with a generic Roma tomato with a short season.  Hopefully these will ripen up earlier than last year's tomatoes.

While I missed the lilacs, the poppies are strong this year and looking lovely.

Nothing on the loom except some mug rugs from a warping demo.   A couple of pairs of summer socks knitted on the CSM, and a shawl, almost finished from hand spun yarn.   Photos to come!

A quick garden update

The weather at the beginning of the month was full of surprises.  We had days with promise, of bulbs starting to show buds and leaf buds swelling - and then poof the weather changed and my poetic almost spring post was out of date.   Then it got crazy busy and then my computer updated, 3 times in a week and a half.  So instead, it's a current post, which isn't poetic in the least.

The daffodils are blooming.   There are these bi-coloured ones in the back garden and yellow ones up front.   These bloom a few days earlier despite the front gardens getting a lot more sun and wind protection.   The little blue scilla are always a welcome sight.  They are true blue and so pretty.   I've always hoped they'd naturalize into the grass, but hubby likes his riding lawn mower and the grass grows so quickly in the spring, that they never really have a chance to do so.

Yesterday  I noticed that the Hyacinths have started blooming as well.  Today was too windy for me to try to photograph bugs, but my 2 loads of laundry out on the line dried in a flash.  Because it was so breezy, it was soft and lovely as well.  

This was the big bumble bee that was flitting around all the hyacinths.   He was amazingly large.   I was a bit disappointed as it was still coolish at the time, and breezy, so I couldn't have a cup of tea outside to enjoy the scent of the hyacinths.   

Today I checked the two new gooseberries I planted last year and both survived the weird winter.  I was only really worried about one, as it had a harder time establishing itself last summer.  It had some leaf fall and didn't really grow over the months after it was planted.  However, both plants have green buds and tiny leaves, so hurray!  

I went out looking for replacement copper moulds.  I was thrilled to find some, although the prices were really high.  There were 2 fairly small ones, a lobster and a fish, that were heavy and lined with a silver coloured metal.   They were $20 each, which although they were probably older and more durable than the ones I collect, were way outside my self-imposed mould budget.

There were a couple of other moulds, also priced at $20 or higher, but they were either too large, or not pretty.  I've only seen one not pretty mould, and it was yesterday - plain and round .  

 I found this lovely tiered jelly mould though for $12.  And while that's the top end of my budget,  I usually walk away from those.  We no longer have real thrift stores in town, so I have to drive to cities to find the cheap ones.  I figured the time and gas expenditures probably make up for the extra cost.  Plus it's so pretty and fun!    So I found a new one, but not any replacements for the damaged moulds.  I guess I can keep looking.   

 

The fun stuff and not so fun

 

At our last Weavers Guild meeting we had a guest speaker.  Cat Haggert came to speak to us about processing flax.  After a brief introduction on how to grow flax, she showed us how to use her processing tools.  These were modern tools that were made by a fairly local gentleman who makes and repairs spinning wheels.   Cat also showed us how to process flax using easily available tools - an ice scraper and a dollar store pocket comb.  Of course these are only useful for small amounts but they did the trick.   These are some of our guilds results.   The top 2 small stricks of flax were processed by me and the bottom two were Iva's and Ashley's, who gave them to me to spin up.   It was a fun program.  Cat is incredibly knowledgeable and an excellent speaker.   

These are a few of the socks I've made this month.   I finally found the right tension for this yarn.   I've one more pair to make and I have all the Xmas socks done for my kids and their spouses. I was having issues with sizing in that they were coming out too small or odd.  One pair was even different sizes between socks, which were done in one shot.

  One day I read an online post from one of the prolific sock makers/teachers.  He said the weights should be changed up for different weights of yarn.  His thoughts were 1 weight for super fine or laceweight yarn, 2 for normal sock yarn and 3 for bulky sock yarn.  A single weight is 580g.   Adding the second is 1159g, and with the third weight it weights 1589g. The next piece of information he gave was that the spaces between stitches while you're knitting on the sock machine should be about the size of the yarn.  

I removed a weight while knitting up my regular sized sock yarn and all of a sudden, everything was good.  My sizing was spot on and as a bonus, there were also fewer dropped stitches.  The dropped stitches though could also be me reminding myself to pay more attention to needle latches and toe V hook weight placement too.

I asked for some info before trying out my ribber.  I was directed to search for videos.  I've been watching SockTV - yes it really is a thing, which was one of the suggestions.  However while this summer has been the summer of ribbing, it's all about different ribbing patterns.  As a hand knitter of socks, I already know I can do any ribbing patter that my stitch count will allow -and subsequently, how many stitch combos the ribber will accommodate.   What I didn't have information for was how to set up the ribber to get started.  Luckily there is a gal out in Vancouver who has put together a whole bunch of very beginner videos on sock machines. She had one on how to get the ribber set up her machine.   Happily I have the same machine that she used for her demo, so I don't have to work it out on a different machine.

Blackberry update -  2 kg of berries are in the freezer, waiting for me to make jam!   There are more on the brambles, but the weather has cooled dramatically and now they're starting to get smaller and seedier.  I may call it done for harvesting them.  

Tomato update -  The tomatoes in the garden are finally ripening.   I've managed to can 5 jars of the plum tomatoes.  They are really nice fruit, but ack, having them ripen this late and slowly is frustrating. I've no idea how many more will ripen in time to be used.

Threes - the oil light on the truck came on...  The lawn tractor will only run for 10 minutes at a time and periodically, the new battery dies...  The sole of my only pair of running shoes has detached from the shoe...  I hope that's it for now.   While I'm sure we can replace the shoes, a new truck and lawn tractor aren't in this year's budget :(

 

Preserving the harvest

 

The weather this August has been cool, wet and very grey.  Many people are saying how many plants in their gardens are slow to ripen.  My tomatoes are definitely on a slow pace to ripen.  So slow that I worry they may not ripen at all this year.   There were no Amish Paste Tomato plants in the garden centres this year, so I had to settle with the only Roma style tomato plant that I could find which was San Marzano which has a longer time to ripen.  Next year I may break down and start my own tomato plants, to get the ones I know will work in my garden and climate.

Because all the tomatoes are still green, I ended up buying 1/2 bushel of tomatoes at the market.   There were few to choose from because even the farmers are having issues with slow ripening this year. They were still not quite ripe enough, but luckily I was away all day after purchasing them.   I ducked out of the house until the evening on Saturday so when I started canning on Sunday, they were just starting to be perfect.   I got over half of them done, in 2 canning pot batches, and a third on Sunday finished them off.   I have 20 pint/500 ml jars in the pantry.  My hot water bath canner will do 7, 500 ml jars at a time.  If I can get at least two more batches done, there should be enough for the winter.  

The blackberries are also ripening this year.   The past few years  I haven't had enough berries to harvest, but this year the patch has finally matured enough.  They are late though and with the weather, I'm only able to harvest every 2 or 3 days.  However I already have 785 g of berries and there are still many more unripe berries on the brambles.   I'm washing them and tossing them in the freezer.  My plans are that when or if I get enough berries, I will let them thaw and push them through a sieve to remove the seeds.  Then I'll make seedless blackberry jam.  With the batch of apricot jam I made earlier, while not having a great variety, there will be more than enough jam and 2 of my favourite kinds.

Summery projects

 I'm waiting for a parcel.   It's my birthday present and is supposed to arrive next week.   I just got the tracking number so the estimated delivery date is probably correct.   However, once in a while when I order things, they come early.  My fingers are crossed that this is one of those times.  We're also taking a family trip to Dundurn Castle.  I've been before but it was a number of years ago.  This time we'll be taking my daughter and her husband, so it will be fun.  I bought the tickets online.   I got a barcode for a ticket.   I used to be able to save my ticket stubs as memorabilia.   Barcodes just don't evoke the same memories.

I used an old sheet to fit the bodice pattern of Sew Liberty's Hinterland dress.   Then I found this piece of fabric which was enough to cut out the dress for a wearable mockup.  I've no idea why I purchased this, except that I remember it being crazy cheap on sale.  It's nice enough but not normally my style.  I do however, have a similar fabric but in blue stripes which I do like.   Once I know of any other changes need to be made to the pattern, I'll use the fabric I really like to make a second dress.

The Hinterland has been pretty easy to fit and assemble.  One of the hints was to use masking tape to mark the right side of the fabric.  Usually I use tailor's chalk, but it hasn't stopped the occasional  mistake.  But with the masking tape, I've had no issues at all.  It's now my new go to for making sure I have the right sides of the fabric marked.  Because it's green low tack painters tape, it hasn't left any residue yet.

My old but really nice Pfaff sewing machine is being cranky.  I haven't been able to get the tension set properly.   It probably needs a tune up, but since I have several old black Singers and an old Kenmore which all work well right now, I'm just using one of those instead.  This is mainly because I need some new socks, so that means a trip to the yarn store.

I found a skein and a half of this Paton's Lace yarn.  It's acrylic and a little fuzzy, so it acts a bit like mohair, getting caught up on itself.   I made a scarf on the floor loom a while ago, and had no problems.  This one though, I put on the rigid heddle loom and had to fuss about a bit to figure out how to weave it without having to unstick the shed every throw of the shuttle.   I found it needed a lot of tension and very easy beating, just gently placing the weft rather than pushing it down.   It's much faster now and I'm enjoying weaving it.

The rippenkopper cotton/hemp tea towels are still on the table loom.  I'm still not enjoying the 3/1 twill and having to use a stick shuttle..  But if I can weave them off, I have a fun tea towel project to do next.  I'm not sure I have allowed enough loom waste to do them on the floor loom, but that would be even easier.

The weather has been either hot and dry, or cool and wet.   Our pond almost dried up because we had no rain for so long.   Then it rained, and rained and rained.  The pond almost overflowed!   When conditions get hot and dry during the summer, our grass goes dormant.  It may look like it's dying, but it's just turned off until it rains.   And rain it has.   We even had a whole day of steady rain.  We couldn't remember when we last had a rain like this.  So after days of rain on and off,  the grass is green and the garden has gone wild with growth.

These are slicing tomato plants that my son in law started for me.  I don't think we've ever had fruit starting so early in the season.  The cherry tomatoes or maybe grape tomatoes are also fruiting already.   I've been harvesting zucchini already.  I staggered planting the green beans to hopefully have a continuous harvest.  However with the rain and heat, the second planting has almost caught up with the first.   I have space for a 3rd row of beans.   The potatoes I forgot to dig up last fall, have survived the winter and are growing like crazy too.   So yay for that! 

We found a fly strip that works.  It's a sticky paper, but it's not gloppy, doesn't drip and actually catches the flies.  Since we live in a rural area, there are flies.  There are so many fewer in the house this summer because of this new fly strip.   That makes me happy.

 

On gardens, and spinning and some bits and pieces

DH has been in his happy place lately.   Finally his wood supplier, dropped off 2 small dump truck loads of logs.   The loads were definitely smaller than normal, but were maple and a size which was easy to slice up.  Then he got a call that they were in the area, and did he want a 3rd load of Locust wood.   He said sure.  Locust wood is very hard, but slices and splits easily.  Because it's so hard, it takes longer to dry.  However it burns really well and for a long time when it's mixed with other hardwoods.    It took him only a couple of days to have it all sliced and ready to be split.   He does enjoy doing the wood, which is nice since we use it for heat.   

I've been seeing this little guy in the garden for weeks now.   He was just barely a handful when I first saw him.   He's still around.   We had a couple of larger rabbits around for a couple of years now, but I haven't seen a large bunny since last autumn.    This guy though is all over our garden.   He's in the front, the back, and this picture is from in the fenced off garden. The last time I had bunnies in there, I was planting on the ground and my whole crop of kohlrabi had bites out of them.  Not a single one was harvestable.  However with the beds now being so high, my veggies are safe from bunnies at least.  I put in some of the solar lights, some sticks,  some really tacky dollar store spinning decorations, and a lot of straw mulch to try to protect the plants from other hungry garden pests.   So far it's kept the robins and grackles away from my young, just sprouted seedlings.   

We finally had some rain too, so I've not had to water the garden for days.  It's been cool though, so many of the plants have just stalled.   Nothing has grown much over the past couple of weeks except the lettuce and kale.   They love this weather.   I've been harvesting fresh salad every 3 days.   I planted a green leaf lettuce, red romaine, buttercrunch lettuce and kale.   It makes for a lovely salad.  In other garden news, something ate my pumpkin seeds before they sprouted, so they've been replanted.  It's been so cold though, that they haven't sprouted yet either.  

I wish I could say I've woven lots of things.   I've done a bit of spinning.   I thought I was spinning superwash for a pair of socks, but nope, just regular Blue Faced Leicester, so while it's nice yarn, not what I was looking for.  I do have some superwash merino that I can card up for socks though.   I have been weaving off the project on my table loom.  It's a bit sucky because it's a 1/3 twill and the sett is such that I need to use a stick shuttle because the boat shuttle falls though.   Since I'm alternating the twill, there are always 3 shots in a row that I can't used the boat shuttle.   The stick shuttle is slow.   I'm a lot faster with it because I usually use a stick shuttle with the rigid heddle loom, but I'd planned to use the boat shuttle, so it's taking a lot longer than I'd anticipated.

I started dressing the rigid heddle loom with a scarf.  I'm not sure why but I definitely chose the wrong reed, so will have to pull out the yarn from the reed, change it out and rethread the whole thing. Maybe this is why I don't weave nearly so much during the nice weather.

I've been doing lots of research on Circular Sock Machines.   They are expensive.   I don't want to make a mistake.   I may have a line on a functional antique one, but I'm getting impatient waiting, although it's really not that long a wait.  It would still be faster than waiting for a new one and at least I could afford it  more or less, and have a larger fund for yarn available.  New csms cost thousands of dollars, plus they are either coming from the other side of the world, so take weeks to get here, or come from closer, but have months long wait lists.   I'm still hoping for the antique one though.   Hubby thinks the antique one would be best, or if I need to get a new one, to get one from the US, with a long wait list, but more accessible parts.  Plus there is the whole political issues locally with people having had bad experiences with the ones from the other side of the world.   I don't want to get involved in that stuff. 

I was at the Marr shop at Westfield Heritage Village.  Because the day started off very slow, I didn't bother to untie the great wheel.   That was a bad decision though as it turned out really busy.  As well, a lady from Maryland I think, came by.   They were visiting for a few days.  She brought her drop spindle and some flax that she'd grown in her garden.  It was lovely stuff.

I had to make Dion kitty some kitty kickers so he'd leave my baby wombat stuffy alone.   We're both happy now.   I did make baked donuts, filled with jam.  They were delicious.  We ate half of them before I found some ants on them.   I thought they'd be safe in the glass cake stand.  It has a domed cover and keeps baked goods fresh for days.   Obviously not safe from marauding ants though.   I'll also have to replace the sugar as they're in the bin too.   Everything at risk will now go into the cupboards for the summer and not on the counters.    They don't seem to find the ant traps inviting so I'm not sure what options I have other than putting things out of reach and wiping down the counters every time I see an ant.

 

 

Great Blue Heron surprise, and garden stuff

 One of the trails we like is a circle trail, in that you start, and walk the whole trail and end up back at the entrance.  However half of the trail is fairly open.  It's a nice enough walk, but not nearly as nice as the rest of the trail which meanders beside the river.   This time of year that part of the trail feels like you're walking through the happy part of a fairy tale.   The trees reach across the path creating a green arbour in places.  Huge swaths of wild flowers flank the sides of the trails.  Right now it's Queen Anne's Lace and Dame's Rocket, with just a pop here and there of Buttercups.  It's stunningly beautiful.

It's just on the edge of a fairly populated area, so it's amazing that there is quite a lot of wildlife which wanders through the trail too.   Of course there are song birds.  There were young robins looking for treats and hopping ahead of us as they weren't quite confident at flying yet.   There were squirrels and chipmunks and a big old raccoon wandered across the trail in front of us, down to the river, without a care in the world.

We had walked to the end of the river side trail, and turned back to walk to the entrance, thus avoiding the
other half of the trail.  We were close to the riverbank when there was a bit of noise coming from the few ducks on the water.   This great blue heron landed right in front of us.   They are very large birds and usually fairly timid.  This guy though, let us snap some photos and watch him for a few minutes.  Eventually, it was either the ducks, who were still making a bit of a fuss, or maybe he tired of us watching him, or the very noisy, loud kids who were just tromping into the area scared him off.  Regardless, it was a lovely treat to be quite that close to a blue heron.  They are majestic birds, although the noise they make doesn't quite match their looks -  GRAWK!

The garden is almost all planted.   There is some space for a second planting of beans and some space that I left for succession planting of greens.   However, they aren't always successful with the way our summers have been so hot, so I'm second guessing myself now and thinking that maybe I should plant something else in that spot.

My spinach and arugula went weird this year.  I'm guessing it's the late frosts we had.  Both of them went to seed before they were even large enough to eat.   I've replanted the pots though.   In one I've put some summer savory, since the chooks scratched through my last patch and in the other some catnip.  It used to grow wild, but there was none around last summer.   Everything has been watered, fed and what's large enough to have a straw mulch, has been covered.   If I can find a replacement pepper plant for that tiny pepper that hasn't grown since Easter, then I'll replace it.   It feels good to have most of the work done.  Now it's just watering, feeding and weeding if necessary until harvest.... yay!

Down Time and Relaxing

 The SCA event FOOL was last week.  It's always tiring, and having put so much into it before hand, the week after is my time to recharge.  It really felt like I did nothing all week.  I got my camping laundry done and put away.  Luckily it was sunny and dry, so the linen tunics dried quickly on the line.   I finished up another crochet hat and started another.  I think I'm getting the hang of keeping my rows even now.    I planted a few seeds, weeded the blueberries, or at least started weeding them.  One evening it was warm and still.  I enjoyed my tea outside while the smell of the lilacs wafted through the air.   It was lovely.

I found the mistake on the loom before I went camping, so took the time to fix it when I got home.  I had to re-thread a quarter of the heddles because despite counting each bout twice as I threaded it, I missed a thread.  Now to just finish tying it on.  I'm hoping that weaving the 3 towels won't take that long.  This is because there is currently a fly strip hanging over my loom.  All of a sudden there have been a lot of flies outside, which means flies inside. 

I've been doing a lot of research on circular sock machines.   I really do think that I need one of these amazing machines. I've no idea what kind that I want though.   New?  Old?  If new, which one because there are advantages to all the different ones, and different price points as well.  One way or the other it's a huge investment, and one I'll only make once, so I really want to make the right decision the first time.  

 I read a couple of trashy novels in my down time.  I went walking out on some trails and just my usual trail in the back yard. I'm getting caught up on my Historical Food Challenge group bi-weekly cooking tasks as well.

 I also found out today that I've taken an extraordinary number of photos this month.   This is one of our favourite trails.  It isn't long, but has lots of side trails that you can use to make every time feel different.  There used to be a picnic table at this spot, where we would eat our lunch.   It's been moved, and we were a bit sad because it was lovely to eat look at this view.

I puttered in the garden.  I filled the last of the large planters and totes with dirt and compost, and top dressed the new raised bed.   I planted 2 types of cucumbers,  another zucchinni and some carrots.  The one tomato that got frost bitten was replaced with savory.  In a small planter bag, I put some nasturtiums.    This year the only flowers are marigolds for both bug repellent use, and for dyes, nasturtiums because they're edible flowers and a single hanging basket with pink geraniums.  The two jalapeno peppers are doing well, but the serrano pepper is still as small as it was the second week after Easter.  I'm hoping that it's putting out roots.   It's been under a cloche, so at least the day temperatures have been warm and the tiny pepper plant has been protected.   With the summery blast we're getting this week, I'm hoping it helps it get growing.

Our apple tree was loaded with flowers.   I'm not sure what effect the late frosts had on it.   They were light frosts and hopefully at least some of them got pollinated.   The other tree only had 3 flowers this year and I don't know if that is enough to give us an actual apple harvest this year.    This tree looks a little wild now because I wasn't able to get out to prune it this winter.   I'd love to have enough even just to make a single pie or apple crisp.

Hmmm... I guess I accomplished more than I realized last week.  Regardless, it was a lovely, relaxing week, which was very nice. 
 

Circular Sock Machine Luuvvvvvv....

 I'm totally in love with one of these.   I went to a "crank in" on Saturday and saw vintage and modern circular sock machines in action.  I got to try a couple as well.  People showed me how they made heels, i-cord, started socks, how to fix skipped stitches more.   There was a machine from 1896 still making socks!    I was so busy talking with people that I forgot to take any photos at all.  

Now the issue is finding one of these that is within my budget.  I've been toying with the idea of getting a circular sock knitting machine for years, but never found anyone who actually had one, that could show me how they worked.   I was thrilled when a friend suggested  that I come to the event, which was local.   This confirmed in my mind that a machine like this is for me!   

This is a page from the catalogue from the Canadian company Creelman which made sock knitters from 1872 - until 1926. 

I wandered around the yard this morning and the zucchini plant which was started too early was flowering.   I don't know if it ever got warm enough for the bees to be out and about today.  I was thrilled though that there was both a female flower and a male flower at the same time.  

There are 3 cool nights this week, one with a risk of frost, so I'll have to cover the plants in hopes of keeping them safe. I should have waited to plant my seedlings, but they were starting to outgrow their little pots again, and I didn't want to have to re-pot them again.   I'd planted one tomato which I'd already put in a new container and was obviously not happy.  I found a bunch of plastic cloches that I'd used with success before and planted everything in the planters.   The only two which haven't fared well are the cucumber seedling which got pecked by a grackle, and the Serrano chile pepper which wasn't doing well in it's little pot either.   But there is a new leaf on it, so my fingers are crossed that it will survive.   My son-in-law gave me the seedlings, and they are varieties which are harder to find around here.

My son kept adding solar lights to the garden for days.  There are solar sunflowers, solar tulips, solar dandelions, solar wheat stalks, some strings of lights like in the gazebo, and a whole bunch of firefly lights like these, all around the garden.  The firefly lights are nearly invisible during the day but the rest sort of stand out.  But at night, the whole back garden is lit up in one crazy way.  A little tacky, maybe, but also so pretty and fun.

More odd sock yarn dye lots

 These are the newest socks on the needles.  I was rather surprised when I wound the skein into a ball/cake and found a large band of gold nestled in at the halfway mark.  I didn't think too much about it though as the white bands were fairly large too.  That is until the second sock and I started knitting it.  I kept knitting the gold and realized that I'd have a a rather massive gold stripe, probably enough to have gold down past the heel turn.   I debated this, because I really don't like to have a yarn join in my socks, if I don't need to.  However, I cut the yarn and wound off the rest of the gold to a point just before it switche colours.  The resulting ball of gold yarn fits in my palm, so that I can just barely touch my fingers around it.  That is a large section of gold!   I could have ripped it out and maybe had enough to match the stripes, but I wasn't sure, so I left it in and kept knitting.   It's nice sock yarn to knit with.  The colours are interesting blends.  This is my third pair of socks with this yarn.  The first was speckled and pretty, but a bit plain.  The second had two totally different coloured socks as there were no repeats that I could find in the yarn.   This one is pretty bizarre too.  However, that it knits nicely and slides off the needles effortlessly makes it lovely to knit with.  Plus, I don't really mind the odd colour combos and dye jobs.   It does make it interesting to knit.  If it were a different colour than the gold, I would probably just left it as is, and not wound it off.

I made a raised pork pie for supper.  It was pretty good. I wasn't fond of the hot water crust pastry, so will try a different recipe next time.   The filling was good though.  Next time I'll make a gelatin gravy to add to it, as a moistener.   I'll also make them smaller.   This one took over 2 hours to bake!  

It's been a good year in the garden for cucumbers!  I've eaten one for lunch for the past couple of weeks.  Plus we've been harvesting English cucumbers as well, which are more supper oriented.   I missed a couple of the small ones, and they are huge.  This could be a problem, as cucumbers often die off once they've set a fruit that matures enough to reproduce.   The tomatoes are just starting to ripen.   The plants are loaded this year.   If they ripen enough to harvest, I won't have to purchase many for my canning marathon.  The Lemon Boy plant that my son in law gave me is particularly delicious!  It has bright yellow tomatoes that are nicely tomato flavoured but not overly acidy.   He also gave me a green cherry tomato plant.  Those are interesting because they have a strong tomato flavour, but figuring out when they're ripe enough to harvest is interesting.  I can't tell by colour, so I'm having to do a gentle squeeze on the fruit to see if they're soft enough.   

 

One of those weeks...

 Gooseberries and a few black currants are topped and tailed.  I've popped them in the freezer for now.   I didn't weigh them yet.   However, I'm fairly certain that with what I have from last year, combined with this haul, there will be enough for a batch of gooseberry jam.  

There are more berries on the bush and I might get around to getting them.   I pick the berries just before they are ripe.   The first couple of years here I waited until they were ready to pick and they were eaten before I could get to them.  It seemed like there was a full bush one afternoon and by the next morning the bush was fully stripped of berries.    So vexing!

This year I've left the red currants for the birds.  I got the first harvest of the white currants, but today I realized that the birds had eaten the rest of them.  So much for that.  The black currants are just ripening.   There are raspberries beginning to turn red.  The blackberries flowered a bit early and some of them already have fruit, albeit very green fruit yet.  There should be blueberries in a week or two.   If I get around to picking them, the wild black raspberries may give a good harvest too as there are a lot of volunteer brambles this year.

My sweeties truck spent a bit of time in the shop getting fixed.   Then my car needed a routine

servicing.   I didn't want to wait at the dealership while it was getting an oil change.  They do manage to fit simple tasks like an oil change in, but I've waited 2 hours for it to get done and really didn't want to risk that happening.   As well, they are a bit laissez-faire about sanitizing.  The iffy mask wearing and the wiping down of things with a few squirts of cleaner on a dirty rag icked me out. So I had my sweetie pick me up and while I waited, we went for a walk along the river.   It was so nice.  The weather was perfect.  There was enough breeze to keep the mosquitos away too. 

 I'm switching the servicing of my car to my sweeties mechanic, as the rather rude call after I got home, demanding that I fill out a survey and give them the score they wanted, before I knew the questions that would be asked, really turned me off.   

The dishwasher died.   It's been faultless for over 10 years but the electronics have gone screwy.   Sadly, we don't think it's worth fixing.   I've discovered it's a joyless task looking for new appliances.   Half of them have delivery dates for the fall.  A bunch more just aren't in stock, with no timeline as to when they'll be back in stock.     I can't seem to get curbside pick up set up.  Nope, I don't want you to install it for some stupidly outrageous price when I have people who can do that living here.  Argh.   I want to just stash my dishes, press a button and come back later when they're clean.   I don't want to wait until September or October to be able to do this!

The the clothes washer started making weird squealing noises.    It's never ending...