ants and grasshoppers

Some of us are ants, and some are grasshoppers.  I for one, must be an ant.  Each day I am busy preparing something from the garden for winter storage.  This week it is beans and broccoli...but the tomatoes are starting to blush, and soon I will begin working on them.  I am very thankful for such a bountiful harvest this year.  The yield has been more than I could hope for.  However, the routine of freezing and canning is starting to get boring.  Besides, it leaves little time for fiber arts.  So here is a sink full of beans that see when I close my eyes to go to sleep. 

And here is what happens after a few hours of slicing and packing and canning.

 

Oh yes, I worked on the "cheater" socks while the beans were being pressurized...I finally tried some of the self-patterning yarn everyone has been talking about.  What fun, one can simply knit away and watch the magic!  I purchased this yarn from the Mannings, and should have brought more while I was there.  I am surely going to make another pair, just cannot decide whether or not I really like them.  When they are all finished, I look at them and think they came from the Walmart or something.

These socks will be something to stash away for winter as well.  After all, the moral of the story is "it is best to prepare for the days of necessity".  Thinking of snowy days during the dog days of July is oxymoron-ish, but planning ahead is wise.  I heard from our coal distributor, who is urging us to purchase early, and without a discount this year!  According to him, he has never seen the market like this before.  As a matter of fact, he announced that come October, all bets are off, he cannot even guarantee that he will have any coal to sell after that!  And so, we shall start packing away the coal now, rather than waiting for the cooler months.

Many thanks to Jeanne, who emailed me with suggestions on how to adjust the other sock pattern to continue the eyelet pattern on the heel flap.  After fiddling around for sometime, I was able to adjust my stitches correctly, now must decide if I want to rip back to the cuff and start over again!

So dance away grasshoppers, as for me, back to work!

errr?

Has anyone knit the socks from the cover of the current issue of SpinOff? I started these while on a short vacation, and I do admit that I worked on them while we were driving, so maybe it is just me, but somewhere, somehow, they did not work up quite right. The cuffs knit up just fine, and the eyelet pattern is fun to do. It is worked over 4 rows, so it is easy enough to remember. I think I took a wrong turn when I was working the heel flap, where the pattern keeps one eyelet pattern on each side of the heel. This confused me because while working the cuff, I was working the pattern in the round, and while on the heel flap, the pattern is worked back and forth on the two needles. In the pattern, it simply states to work the 5sts at the beginning and the end of the row, as established for the eyelet mock cable ribbing, and I did not take into account the fact that I would be working ONE of the eyelet patterns on the WRONG side of the sock. So, I wound up with a correct pattern down one side of the sock, with the other side looking like a screw up. If anyone knows how to work this sock correctly, let me know, because I still have one more to make. I will keep them for myself and use them as knock around socks, but since I am just starting the second one, I would love to know what it was that I did wrong, so I don't make the same mistake.



This is what five lbs. of broccoli looks like. Every other day, I take my basket out to the garden and pick and wash and freeze and pack it up. I am very happy with the harvest so far. I grew Calabrese, and a assortment of early, mid and late growers. I have found nary a cabbage worm, thanks to my wasps. A few years ago, I read about how the paper wasp is a good predator for the garden. I set up inverted coffee cans around the garden, about 4-5 feet off the ground, and found the wasps eagerly took up residence in them. When I saw one fly off with a green cabbage worm one day, I was sold! I keep an organic garden. I really, really like the idea of letting the wasps control the cabbage worms. So each spring, I set up many coffee cans in the greenhouse. The wasps always find the greenhouse early, I think they know it is warmer in there. So, once they are set up, and I know where the broccoli or Brassica bed will be, I transfer the cans out into the garden, and viola! Instant pest control.

Fini tricoter les chaussettes de lacet

I have finished knitting these lace socks from the Folk Socks book. I enjoyed working on them, but was a bit disappointed at the finished size. They seem larger than I would like. I wonder if this is because I used wool instead of linen? At any rate, the pattern is fun to work, and I am happy with the way that targhee feels. The socks are very soft, and will do nicely as a pair of bed socks. They will be a gift for someone very special to me.

The river is taking on its summertime lazy flow feeling these days. The air is still, and you can be sure to see the blue heron, or cedar waxwing or the kingfisher whenever you glance out over the hillside. The blueberries are just starting to turn blue, the peas are in, and the tomatoes are green and growing. Corn is knee high, (by the fourth of July) as it should be. And I am going fishing. See ya in a week or so...

oh, yes, and note to self-
next year when trellising peas, be sure to place netting far enough apart so that the tendrils do not intertwine! Be sure to trellis rows on different sides of the netting...and most importantly-

DO NOT TRELLIS WHERE YOU CANNOT REACH...DUH..
the freezer bags await-