I'm glad to see Wednesday because on Saturday DD is arriving for a very short stay before she toddles on up to The Clearing for a week of playing in their workshop learning how to use a lathe. I wish I was rich and could go learn that too, although I don't really have room for a lathe in the basement workshop and I don't think that drifts of sawdust in the house air would be any good for Durwood's breathing. Besides I get to drive along (in a separate car) when she goes up on Sunday so we can stop at Spin (yarn shop, open 10-3 on Sunday, I checked) in Sturgeon Bay and then I get to go on up to TC with her to show her around a bit, kind of drop her at summer camp, and then come home to my Durwood while she stays to make woodchips fly. Then she'll spend the next Saturday night with us on her way back home to Kentucky where she really lives, even though I always say she's coming home when she's coming here. Home is where the Mama is.
I think the cherry tomato(es) need another day or two to be at the peak of ripeness for Durwood's eating pleasure, and I'm excited to see two big white flowers on the gourd plant this morning. I might get a gourd! Yahoo!
The daisies and bee balm continue to look fantastic in the morning light, and I captured another bee on the spiderwort collecting pollen. I need to find out of that's a boy bee or a girl bee, just because I'd like to know.
I'm at the crown decreases on the Mosaic Practice Hat. I really like the way it looks. And I finished the Pool Fish at work on Monday but I want to make another one so I can figure out how to pick up stitches to knit the dorsal and pectoral fins on instead of having to sew them on. One bath or one dip in the wading pool and I suspect those fins will be flapping by a thread. It's not like it's stuffed with fiberfill so I can't run the threads through the middle to secure them, there's a ping pong ball in there so weaving in is limited. I'll work on it and report.
Last Friday night FW showed us one of the crowns she's knitting for her great-granddaughters who are visiting soon. It wasn't my size but don't you think LC needs one? I do, and with more jewels.
July 15--Duotone, Sun, Moon & Earth. The sun cast the shadow of the moon onto the Earth and day became night. Birds sought their nests, chickens went to roost, and one dog howled. Lana and her brother, Charlie, had set up their Goodwill telescope on top of the picnic table and Lana had a notebook leftover from Social Studies class to make notes in. The rest of the neighbor kids were too busy playing baseball or soccer or their parents had signed them up for all kinds of classes so they didn't have ten minutes of free time every day. Charlie said that they were lucky that their parents were old hippies who didn't give a crap about team sports and summer school. Mom and Dad let them build forts, conduct experiments and light fires and so far neither of them had been hurt. Well, not badly enough to need stitches or skin grafts.
Speaking of holy crap, do you realize that today's the middle of July ALREADY? I... I give up trying to figure this stuff out. I'm hungry, I hear yogurt and granola calling my name. Peace out. And groovy.
--Barbara
It's the middle of July (well, almost) so things are happening in the garden. I walked up to the bank this morning and noticed small red things on the raspberry bushes. Durwood made short work of them. He's dedicated like that.
There's a hornet that has been building a nest inside the patio umbrella all summer. I've knocked it down three times and every time they build it back, so later I'll be getting out the can of hornet spray and settling the matter once and for all.
The first reddening tomato is making progress and it has a pal. Durwood's being patient, not very patient, but patient.
I was sitting in the yard this afternoon when this little guy came and sat on the grass right by me. It stayed there for quite some time. I don't know what kind of butterfly it is but I'll be looking it up.
July 14--Winston Fraser, Candlelight. The flame stood tall and still, barely wavering, light in a soft circle around the base of the dark wood candle stick. Maeve inhaled and saw the flame flicker at her indrawn breath. "Len, we need to talk about this. It won't go away if we ignore it." She watched his eyes dart from side to side and the lines around his eyes deepen. "You do what you want. I don't care." His fingers pleated the tablecloth in small exact folds. She looked out the window at the line of bulldozers knocking down the row of buildings at the bottom of the street. "They're getting closer every day. Either we sell out and this beautiful old place disappears or we stand and fight the developers." He shrugged, a kind of twisting tic that lifted his right shoulder and dipped his head to the left. "You can't fight them, they're too strong, and they have all the money." The candlelight sparkled in her tears. "But this is our home."
Now I should probably go fold those sheets I laundered the other day before it's time to put them back on the beds.
--Barbara
Yes, I did 5 loads of laundry yesterday. I admit that two of the loads where sheets but still... that seems like a lot of dirty clothes for two little old people. But now it's done, the sheets aren't folded and there's one more basket of clothes clothes to be folded but I'm calling it done, like laundry's ever done, but done enough.
I spent some of yesterday staring slack-jawed at a computer game while half-listening to an audiobook. I cast on and almost finished a bath fish for a pool toy, and I had to go back to the grocery because the milk was turning, not curdled or sour YET, but close enough that my morning Cheerios tasted off. Ack. I did make the meatloaf for supper, tried a new recipe with Ritz cracker crumbs, dried minced onions, grated cheddar cheese, a little catsup, eggs, and A-1. Tasty. I let Durwood convince me to add a little water to make it goopier and I think that might have been a mistake as it didn't hold together very well when I sliced it, but we managed to choke it down. Okay, we inhaled it. It's called the Rempel Family Meatloaf on all-recipes.com. It calls for a packet of onion soup mix, that's way too salty for me, but one of the reviewers/commenters said that she substituted 2.5 Tablespoons of dried minced onion and it worked fine. So that's what I did too. I didn't make the rhubarb cobbler, I just ran out of energy.
July 13--Larry Couzens, Fire. Sheryl was dreaming of fire, the smoke and flames in her dream were so real that she woke up coughing. Her eyes burned when she opened them. Her room was full of smoke and she saw the flicker of flames in the crack under the door. She fell out of bed and was happy to be in the clearer air near the floor. She crawled to the corner by the dresser where she piled her clothes at the end of the day, glad that she hadn't walked the four steps to put them down the laundry chute. She wriggled into the the clothes on the floor because the smoke was too thick to stand up in. Too bad her purse was downstairs along with her keys. Her phone was in her purse. What a night to choose to forget to plug it into the charger in the bedroom. Now if she could only find the window and get out. It wasn't too far to the ground.
Hey, it's my DD's birthday! Happy Birthday to my best baby girl. I love you and can't wait to see you on Saturday.
--Barbara, aka Mom
It's Saturday and I don't think there's much I have to do. There are things I want to do and I'm going to do them but it's the HAVE-TOs that get me down so I'm keeping them to a minimum today.
I'm back. See? You didn't even know I was gone, did you? I went to the bank, the birdseed store for finch seed, the library where I ran into an old Tae Kwon Do pal to chat with, the bookstore for... nevermind, to Fleet Farm for different birdseed (it was on sale), to Kwik Trip for bananas, donuts, and lottery tickets that I'm sure are big winners, and to the grocery where they were sold out of the sockeye salmon I wanted but I've got some reserved for pickup tomorrow. I'll bet you didn't know you can put fish on Reserve like you do a book at the library. I didn't either. I'll find out tomorrow how well that works. But who could pass up wild-caught sockeye salmon for only ten bucks a pound? Maybe I can learn to cook it on the grill. I've never fixed fish on the grill and I'd like to try it, not planked though, I don't think I want to eat fish that's cooked on a piece of cedar. I think it'd taste kind of gin-y and I'm not a gin fan. (rambling? who me?)
I finished dropping the stitches of the Rapid City beaded scarf at knitting last night. It needs to be blocked but I think I like it. Dropping all those stitches was a royal pain.
The red day lilies are going gangbusters and Dad's roses are winding up their initial blooming without one Japanese beetle in sight.
Remember these? I ran all over the west side last weekend to find one for LC to play with. It will be nice to have that rattling popping sound around here again.
July 11--Carr Clifton, Redwood National Park, CA. This must be how five-year-olds feel, thought Martha as she walked through the redwoods. She had done the usual tourist things when she arrived. First she had leaned way back to see the treetops and said, "Man, those are some tall trees." Then she walked into the forest a bit before picking one of the smaller trees to try to put her arms around. She couldn't do it, couldn't reach even halfway around.
That's when my brain clicked off and no more words would come. Kinda ticked me off but there you go. Sometimes words come and sometimes they stay away in droves.
--Barbara
Not for any big reason, the BIG reason's coming next weekend when DD comes to spend one night on her way to a week at The Clearing, but still I'm glad this week is over. Durwood hasn't felt the best and worrying is tiring. Mom was a big worry-wart and I swore I wouldn't turn into her but I think I did, only I keep things inside instead of inflicting them on my daughter. Mostly.
I found some cool tiny things outside to show you today. The first thing I noticed was a fern frond just uncurling with a stem long enough to not be lost in the other unfurled fronds. They remind me of violin heads.
Then when I was looking at the spiderwort I saw a bee buzzing from flower to flower filling its pollen sacs and this time I managed to get a picture of it. Not a great picture but a picture.
And there was one big thing. The rhubarb leaves are so enormous that a friend who came over to pick a few bay leaves said, "those are big enough to make garments from!" Yeah, they kind of are. I see rhubarb crisp or cobbler in our future, and probably some chopped and in the freezer in pie- or bread-size portions
I forgot to take a picture of my glazed but unfired yarn bowl last night. It was amazing to discover that three of the glazes that were pretty much the same color of brick red will be totally different once they're fired. Mine is going to be dark red-brown with a greenish cast to the glaze and in the corners. One of the others will be gold and another will be dark green with speckles. It was great fun seeing how everyone painted their bowls. A few of us non-artistic types just brushed on colored glaze but the ones who could used paints to make designs and pictures, even stencils and sponge painting. I can't wait to see them all fired and in one place. One of the knitters, PH, brought a poster covered with mosaic knitting swatches she used when she taught a class at a local, now-closed yarn shop and gave it to me. Look how cool! She said if I didn't want it she was going to throw it away. No, no! I want it.
I think the Red-Tailed Hawks have moved on. I heard their call in the distance to the west a couple mornings ago but haven't seen or heard them since and I saw a chipmunk scamper across the patio the other morning so I figure the hawks have gone. Boo.
July 10--Parish Kohanim. "It signifies the juxtaposition of the Industrial Revolution and the Computer Age," Gerard said in a low voice. They stood in the quiet gallery considering a large canvas. "It reminds me of a mandarin fish," said Melissa, "the blues and greens with a hint of orange... yep, a mandarin fish." He looked harder at the canvas. "I see a nut and bolt, a pocket watch, and computer cables. How are you getting an obscure fish out of that?" She waved her hand to encompass the large canvas. "I told you, the colors remind me of the fish." He turned to walk away, shaking his head. "You and people like you are the reason our culture is declining." She followed him into the next gallery. "Wait a minute, I didn't say I hated it and I'm here looking at art. No one said there's only one way to look at a painting." She touched his harm. He shook off her hand. "Oh, come on, Ger. You see a struggle of technologies, I see a fish. Who's to say that one of us is right and the other is wrong? The artist?" She folded her arms across her chest and tapped her foot. "What if those were the only colors of paint he had that day and those things were what was in his desk drawer? Not everything is thought out and planned to the nth degree. Some things are made using what's around and holding still." He threw up his hands and stalked away. "Why do I even try?"
Jerk. Hey, I started a new notebook last night. I get about 6 months of nightly prompts per composition-type notebook. Sometimes the words even go together. Time to shower and make something of my day.
--Barbara
I think the cherry tomato(es) need another day or two to be at the peak of ripeness for Durwood's eating pleasure, and I'm excited to see two big white flowers on the gourd plant this morning. I might get a gourd! Yahoo!
The daisies and bee balm continue to look fantastic in the morning light, and I captured another bee on the spiderwort collecting pollen. I need to find out of that's a boy bee or a girl bee, just because I'd like to know.
