Yarn Along: 31 August

Joining Ginny again this week...

Do you take Yarn Along pictures of the same project for weeks on end just like me?  I really hope others are knitting as slow as I am.  This truly is the Summer 2011 Cowl because it is nearly the one and only thing I have knit through the summer.  Here's hoping that it will be done by summer's end.

My reading has varied a bit though.  I finished Rhythm of Family by Amanda and Stephen Soule this week and thoroughly enjoyed it.  Like others have said, there was not a lot that was new to me in the book, but the photography was beautiful and I appreciated the reminders I took from each of the authors.  


Now I am working my way through the bundles of peaches that we picked last week, trying to find just the right way to preserve them for the year.  Any ideas?

Blight!

Oh our tomatoes!  I think the gardener's heart in me might just be breaking. 

This year we built a large, very large by our standards, bed for these babies of ours and in the late spring, I faithfully transplanted all (or most) of our volunteers to their permanent {summer} home.  Because I have never grown tomatoes from seed before, I knew that this year would be experimental for me {and that there might be some casualties) but I never dreamed of this!

Nearly all of our tomato plants are dead!  Ack!  AND to add insult to injury, the hens are pecking away at the few that are indeed ripening!  It feels like such a sad climax to what has been an only mediocre season in our garden.

The late coming of spring, the extraordinary amount of rain, the hens, and my relative inexperience have ensured a pretty poor showing from the garden this year.  I suppose I have learned a few things (note the grumbling and arms crossed) and have made some mistakes that I won't make again (keep the hens out of the beds, for one).  Most importantly, though, it is another lesson in relinquishing control (for me).  Some years will be good; others won't.

Nature Study Monday: Coneflower

Do you have any of these growing around your home?

I planted Coneflowers early this spring and anxiously awaited their arrival throughout the summer.  Butterflies supposedly love the flower as much as we do, but I have not noticed many surrounding ours.  They, instead, flock to the nearby butterfly bush (which I only learned later is not a native plant and therefor not a host to many of our native butterflies).

Coneflowers (Echinacea) are native to eastern and central North America and do not mind some drought.  They like full sun but can handle some shade, and once they are established they live a long while and attract all kinds of good native species to your garden.

{this moment}

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

Amanda Soule

Yarn Along: 24 August

Joining Ginny again this week...

Is the weather cooling where you are?  It is here.  I have actually opened the knitting bag containing my hub's sweater to peek in.  No knitting yet, but it is coming...  The cowl though is filling out quite well and I just might meet that end of August deadline.  Still just a couple of rows a night, but they are adding up.

In reading news, The Egg and I has been retired for the moment in favor of some homeschooling reading.  The new school year is upon us and I don't really know what we are going to do with it.  Karen Andreola's words are giving me some comfort though.  And my copy of Amanda Soule's new book arrived last week.  The photographs are lovely as is the writing.

Making for a Birthday

Our littlest one recently turned two.  We had a small family celebration for him with a peach crumble pie and two little handmade gifts.

This third child of ours is so naturally balanced, so sure, and yet so open.  It was a wonder to watch him on this special day of his.  I imagine he feels himself a part of and inextricable from our larger whole and is comfortable with his place in the family.  I pray that the balance remains with him as he gets older.

Our eldest daughter made her littlest sibling a books about his very favorite thing in the whole wide world--TRUCKS.  And his Mama sewed up a little birthday crown that he absolutely refuses to wear so it had to be modeled by his older brother!

Nature Study Monday: Carpenter Bees

I am very interested in all the sorts of bees that we have humming about our yard over the past three months.  Documentaries like this one have me especially interested in the fate of our dear honeybees.  To fight the anxiety drummed up knowing just how dependent we are on our yellow and black friends I study those that are flying about my yard and dream of the hives that we will get next year.  And I am finding out so much more each day (thanks Julie for pointing out that this is actually a yellow jacket).

Carpenter bees, or at least the species that we have in our own backyard, are a great deal larger than honeybees.  As you may have guessed (or already know), they make their homes in wooden structures or decaying trees by boring holes and creating tunnels.  The bees, however, do not eat the wood, although they might use it to create divisions within their nest.  They are primarily solitary nesters although in some species some females and their daughters nest together.

They are good pollinators of open-faced flowers, like our bee balm, pictured above.

{this moment}

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

Amanda Soule

Quilted

I put Harvey's garden-inspired quilt across his bed to stay a few days ago and, I have to say, I am pretty proud of myself.  The quilt is far from perfect (quilting in the ditch is something that takes practice evidently), but this four year old's little eyes don't notice any of the imperfections.  He lit up so when I gave it to him that I felt truly awed and, at the same time, anxious in anticipation for the time when he won't want these handmades any more.

I started the quilt in May when the weather here in Northern New Jersey began to warm and all I could think about was what was growing then, what would be growing soon, and what might be growing after that.  So the garden was on my mind when I dipped into the greens, browns, and yellows in the fabric stash.

I used a very simple pattern found here and paced myself throughout the summer.  Like knitting, quilting takes time, patience, and the ability to undo and redo (not a strength of mine).  In the end, and despite its flaws, it is a little piece of our summer and of our garden that is keeping our son snuggley at night.

Yarn Along: 17 August

Joining Ginny again this week for her yarn along...

I almost used the same picture for the third week in a row as the knitting (especially the knitting) and reading have not changed that much.  I still have hopes of finishing my mom's cowl by the end of the month which means that the project is going to start coming with me (that is if I ever leave the house!).

The Egg and I is providing some closing hours entertainment--I do actually laugh out loud with this one which is just so refreshing.  I have slowed a bit though as my homeschooling reading is picking up.  I am going to start teaching our 5 year old in the fall using a loose interpretation of the Charlotte Mason approach and I am getting the jitters about it.  For those of who who have homeschooled using this method, do you have any experience with Living Books Curriculum?  Last minute, I am considering a curriculum purchase.

The Summer Rains

On this very rainy Monday, we~

~biked around the block to move our muscles and our minds

~played a whole lot together

~puzzled, painted and drew

How about your Monday?  What it rainy too?

Nature Study Monday: Tiger Swallowtail

These beautiful butterflies flit about our butterfly bush in the early morning and each time I see one I pause and watch until the moment passes, and up and away it goes.

The Tiger Swallowtail, like the Eastern Black Swallowtail, has a long tail on the end of each wing (hence the name).  The Tiger Swallowtail can be found throughout most parts of the United States and Canada and is native to North America.

Tiger Swallowtails lay their eggs, one per leaf, on Sweet Bay Magnolia and Tulip poplar trees.  Once the caterpillar hatches from the egg, it eats its shell and then begins to munch on the host tree's leaves.  It changes color as it sheds it skin, from brown to light green to dark brown again (just before it pupates).

These yellow beauties prefer the nectar of coneflowers and Petunia and especially love shades of red and pink.  I have found ours (like the one pictured above) drinking the nectar from purple butterfly bush flowers as well.

What kinds of butterflies are flying about in your life?

{this moment}

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

Amanda Soule

Home Cooking

I grew up in Texas.  I don't live there any more.  Aside from very close friends and family, the thing I miss the most about it is the food.  The saucy sizzle that permeates nearly all "Texas" dishes is just something that I have not found anywhere else.  Other places that I have lived like San Francisco and New York City and North Carolina sport some yummy food (and I am certain that someone from any one of these places--or from anywhere else for that matter--could write this post about the food coming out of their home), but my taste buds are still loyal to the Lone Star State.

I have learned not to try to get Mexican on the east coast.  I leave the establishment so sad and homesick and totally unsatisfied.  There is one chain restaurant, On the Border, which I frequent in desperation but even its food is vastly inferior to its On the Border cousins in Texas.

Over the years I have started making more of the food out of my home state.  Typically I am a recipe user, but the funny thing about making this food for me is that recipes were totally irrelevant.  I added and subtracted and remembered and enhanced to turn our meals into something that said home to me and from me to my kids.  

On the table this week:

: fajitas with sauteed Cubano and red peppers and onions

: black beans

: jalapeno poppers

: guacamole

: slow-cooked pork ribs

What foods remind you of home?

Yarn Along: 10 August

Joining Ginny again this week for her yarn along...

Oh August, how much I love you.  The reading and the knitting so far this month have been very neat, very planned, very to the point--all things that August just is not.  This month is just a little messier than its predecessor, a little sweatier, and just a little more fun.  I don't know if it is because my birthday falls during this eighth month of the year, but I just love everything.about.August.  There is not much that is predictable about it for us {and I like that} and I look forward to what is {my knitting and reading}.

Each sweltering night, I look forward to my one (or two) rounds of knitting (or purling) my mom's Christmas cowl.  I am slowly but surely finishing this one.  I hope to have it off the needles by the end of the month and I am enjoying it while it is on them.

And after those couple rounds of knitting (in between a whole lot of this), I read a chapter of The Egg and I.  This reading is so light and funny--just what I need and want in this moment, this month in time.

I am really looking forward to reading more knitting and reading adventures this week!

Harvesting

There is so much coming from the garden right now.  We have:

     :edamame: pulled the plants along with the beans out of the ground.  Can't wait to serve                             them with some sea salt tomorrow

     :Cubanelle peppers: think I might be the only one in the house who likes them.  More for me!

     :tomatoes: a garden visitor got to our first one before we did!

     :jalapenos: these I have to share.  Jalapeno poppers.  Yum!!!

   :cucumbers: slicing and pickling.  Now I just need to get my courage up for some canning.  Does it make you nervous too?

and so much more...  Life is good.

                        

Nature Study Monday: Toadstool

On a long hike through the woods of the Berkshires this weekend, we saw a whole handful of these funny little creatures.  Have you ever seen a toadstool in person?  For me, they are the stuff of fairy tales and not for the average hiker.  But there they were, in all of their magic, right in the middle of our trail, one after the other.  A classic case of the more you notice, the more you notice.  I wonder how many times I have passed mushrooms like these on walks in the woods...

Amanita muscaria, the scientific name for toadstools, are found in coniferous forests throughout the Northern hemisphere.  They have both poisonous and hallucinogenic properties.  Both humans and animals have been known to seek them out for the latter.  

For me, it is magic enough just to spot this small in a romp through the woods.  What a wonder this world is to behold...

{this moment}

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

Amanda Soule

Camping with Kids

I have always wanted to, but found some excuse as to why it could happen.  Too hot.  Too cold. Too tired.  Too much.  Enough with these excuses, I say!

We took the plunge into the kid camping waters over the weekend, and it was... just perfect.  Not perfect in the perfect sense.  There were some unexpected elements like a (blaring) outdoor movie after dark and more blaring music following that.  Not exactly the camping experience that I remember from yesteryear.  Oh, and then there were the portable satellite dishes for campfire t.v. viewing.  

But perfect in every other sense.  Clear night skies, a babbling brook, s'mores, and fresh water swimming, fire sticks, and fire chats, and time together outside without the pull of the garden, or the house, or a myriad of other things. 

This camping thing, we can do it.  We really can.

Saving Seeds

Seeds have always been such a mystery to me--I mean, where and how do they materialize?  I remember looking inside a not yet bloomed sunflower last year for the seeds it supposedly had.  Yeah, as I suspected, no seeds.  These seed thingys, I thought, are for someone else to hold, behold, and plant.  Not for me.

But this spring, I bought some of these thingys to plant in my own garden, to plant from seed.  Our first go together indoors was not so great.  My seed trays that I faithfully brought in and out of doors each day (until I stopped remembering) didn't like my forgetful ways or the the cold spring we had this year.  Direct seeding, though, worked!  What fun it was for us to put a little pellet, or flake, or tiny ball in the ground and watch it turn into carrots, peas, spinach, and lettuce.

Seed saving is the next logical step for me on this path, but back to one of the original questions--where and how do these seeds materialize?  Lo and behold, and again with nature's unpredictable predictability, there they were hanging off one of our dill plants, which had evidently gone to seed.  Wow!

What a truly cool world.

Nature Study Monday: Honeybee

If last year was the year of the garden, and this year is the year of the chickens, next year will most certainly be the year of the honeybee.  We don't have a hive yet (that I know of), but these buzzers are humming all over our flowers (and yours too, I hope).

I have a lot to learn about our endangered friends before they move into our backyard.  I do know that our food crops are dependent on them and that all of us need to everything we can to keep them safe, healthy, and happy.  This documentary helped give me a better understanding of how essential honeybees are to our planet.

Honeybees have fuzzy bodies and shiny abdomens accompanied by thin wings.  They live in colonies of up to 25000.  Females can sting only once, and males cannot sting at all.  They are generally calm and not aggressive.