New Toys
We had a spinning guild meeting not too long ago. Window shopping at our vendors left me wanting a support spindle in a bad way. I searched around etsy and artfire for a little bit before finding Pumpkin Hill Farm’s Russian spindles. They had a beautiful padauk spindle made locally.
Now I just have to learn how to use it. Supported spindles rely heavily on long draw, which has never been my forte. I also have to get my muscles used to the new potion.
Invaders
I seem to have something eating my piper nigrum (black pepper) plant. I have little white/sandy looking dots all over the back of the leaves and stem and it seems that there is something chewing on the leaves. I’m not sure what pest I have on my hands but I think I will give it a cool shower and then spray it with some neem oil. (click pictures to get to bigger versions)
Peckham’s Greenhouse
One of the bike routes I do when visiting RI goes by Peckham’s Greenhouse I finally decided to go check them out. They have a huge selection of house plants in their many greenhouses. I’m sure during the summer their collection of outdoor plants is impressive as well.
I also stopped at the Island Garden Shop. THey had a lovely greenhosue filled with indoor plants and a nice slection of pots. I was actually looking for some pots so this worked out well. I picked out some Rosso’s International pots. These are made of bamboo and other plant bits and will start to break down after 3 years of indoor use. I liked the colors and I liked the price. I figure that I get sick of my pots after a few years anyway so this would be an interesting way to get some turnover in my planter collection.
October Storm
We really didn’t get much snow, but with all the leaves on the trees I lost power for five days. I actually went off to Rhode Island once I found out I had no school this week.
We just lost some junk brush trees on our property line… that darned walnut tree that throws walnuts on our cars is still standing.
Our new doggie Na’vi
We used him to keep us warm, but now he thinks he belongs on the couch.
Process Knitter
My birthday is tomorrow and I’ve been thinking of my grandmother a lot. She past away almost two years ago, but I miss having her around for my birthday. She is the woman who taught me how to knit. She was a columnist who worked from home; as such she was often tasked with watching my brother and I on snow days and school vacations. She taught me to knit and purl and I would turn out trapezoid shaped strips as I churned out knits and purls in whatever random combination I wanted. I was never very good at having the right number of stitches on the needles, and my knitting was filled with accidental increases. My grandma could never be considered a good teacher. She never encouraged or taught me how to knit a useful object, and she always ripped out my knitting when she saw how many accidental increases there were. I think she is the reason that I’m a process knitter. From the very beginning I knit for the sake of knitting, not with the intention of making a hat or a scarf. She never taught me to cast on or bind off, so knitting was mostly an activity at grandmas house. I didn’t touch needles once I was old enough to stay home alone. It wasn’t until I was living on my own for the first time that I picked up the pointy sticks again. I had just started my first job after college and couldn’t afford Christmas presents. I picked up some needles and yarn at a big box store and cranked out feather and fan scarves for everyone that year. I needed to teach myself how to cast on, yarn over and decrease, but the knits and purls came right back to me.
I still think of my grandma every time I knit. She learned to knit because she was a child of the Great Depression. Her knitting was always more utilitarian then mine, and I’m not sure she ever got the same joy out of it that I get. She would crank out intarsia sweaters for everyone. The kid’s sweaters wear knit out of practical acrylic, and the adults got basic wool. I still have and use the afghan she made for me when I went away for college.
Still Alive
I have finished most of my fall planting. In an effort to remember what I planted this year I drummed up a quick diagram with the fall plantings in red, the summer is left in blue.
Blue Curled Scotch Kale
Ragged Jack Kale
Neon Lights Swiss Chard
I found garlic at a local shop, so these aren’t links to the exact source.
Chesnok
German Red
German White
Carrot Pickles
I made some firecracker pickles from a Good Eats recipe.
Because these are refridgerator pickles and will be stored with the rings on I tested out these awesome Lid Lables from Marnie MacLeans blog.
I must be pretty efficent at packing my jars because I had enough pickle juice left to make extra… I’m glad I got the two pound bag instead of the one pound bag.
Who needs a wooly winder?
It’s cheaper to be obsessive about moving the sliding hook. (That, and I couldn’t get a wooly winder for this wheel even if I wanted to.)
This is Frabjous Fibers merino in Hespera. Its been spinning very nicely for me. I was leaning toward knitting something a bit lacy with this, but I think the yarn will be kind of stripey. I’m considering trying to fight the stripe by dividing up the other half of the roving length wise a few times. That way the colors will (allegedly) be less likely to line up. I think the orange and pink will contrast too much against the blue and green that it won’t matter what I do. I should know better and stick to solids for lacey projects.
Hot! Hot! Hot!
I went outside yesterday to put a bucket of water out for the bees only to find a big beard on the solid bottomed hive. The hive with a screened bottom had nothing.
I pulled some bars out and put a window screen across.
Then I propped the screen up with one of the top bars (some mulch and grass stuck to the propolis) Hopefully this will make them a bit more comfortable today. It should be much cooler after tonight.
