These tiny, fragrant flowers are blooming on a plant start that I got from mother years ago. Do any of you know what it is?
Monthly Archives: June 2015
Green baby blanket
Finished at 30″ square, just waiting for the right baby. I used most of a pound of Caron’s baby yarn.
Today was a cleaning day. All the floors on the main floor are clean and tomorrow will be woodwork. It would be so nice if these things would just stay clean. But even if there weren’t people and pets living here, there would be dust. I am thankful that I have these to clean, some don’t.
Table runner progress
Progress is being made and next week, the plan is to finish the checkerboard around this table runner, put plain red borders around that and maybe, maybe, even quilt it. I think I’ll put the quilt like this on hold for now, because I have another quilt that must get done by the end of the month.
Vet and Vitamix
Lacey has been coming into heat about every 4 months. Again, no pups in there. So in July, she gets special medicine to keep her from coming into heat so soon. The vet says her uterus doesn’t have time to get in shape between breedings. But I’m willing to bet, if the male had been a mutt, things would have been different.
Today, I was thrilled to get this new Vitamix, courtesy of our Fed Ex man. I can’t remember when I purchased my last one, but it has been heavily used for many years. I use it several times most days. It has started smoking and sometimes it just quits. So we ordered a new one and waited 3 long weeks. I will probably have the old one serviced as a secondary one for things like dog food, and other such that I don’t want in my good blender. I love the fact that this has a bit stronger motor and larger blades. I will initiate it tomorrow morning with our smoothies.
One of the food items that I enjoy making is a “cheezy” sauce. I use about 3# potatoes and a pound of carrots, well cooked plus liquid. Then I add 2 T of nutritional yeast, some garlic and onion powder and salt. We love this sauce over many foods, even potatoes. If you just want gravy, omit the carrots. Once you make it, you will find ways to change it to suit what you need. So yummy that I challenge you to try it.
Sloooooooow day
Today was slow. We finished cleaning the last 20# of strawberries. I took my daughter grocery shopping as she just moved into a new place. She wanted to go to several places, which took more time. I came home and we had a large salad for lunch and then rested for awhile. We don’t have air conditioning and I think the heat slows us down.
When it cooled off, we fertilized the tomatoes and what other plants are still alive in the hoop house. It hasn’t done well, which I think is partly because we have had temperature issues and partly because with my knee issue, it has been semi-neglected. I am just really happy we have a Sunday market that I can purchase products to fill in the gaps. The tomatoes, however, are happy and have lots of little green tomatoes on them. We should have a good crop. The potatoes have died back, so I should go looking underground and see what is there. We only planted about 20 feet for an early harvest. The rest we planted outside and I am hoping they are doing better.
When one can’t get it all done, it’s best to just be thankful for what one can do. There’s always next year, right?
STRAWBERRIES
We bought 100# of strawberries this morning – that’s 20 of these half flats and yes we’re a bit nuts. However, it is Bill’s favorite fruit, so we like to have the good, local, organic ones available.
This is a very large bowl and held 50# of the washed berries.
Berries are stemmed and cut, ready for freezer bags.
This is the last 20# After 6 hours of processing berries, we ran out of steam. There is still jam and syrup to make, but we may just put these in freezer bags tomorrow and do the jam when it’s cooler. And by next summer, we will have forgotten how tiring the job was and do it again. These berries are so much tastier than store berries.
Picnic progress
I’ve decided to do the table runner first. I can see that can be done in a reasonable amount of time. I may still be working on the quilt throughout the summer. Here are some of the blocks. There is at least another watermelon and another soda that need to be embroidered to finish this. Then there is an entire border of the red/white squares.
It is a nice, warm day in the 70s and I received this photo this morning of my two grandsons, ages 9 and 11. It just seems to young to don all this apparel.
Green baby blanket
We have been in the car enough this week, that I’m just past the half way point on this afghan. I have also been working many hours on the picnic quilt, but I don’t have a lot of progress to show other than the individual blocks.
With the warmer weather, we have somewhat slowed down and enjoyed being outside more.
In case you are interested in quality meat, we have found this to be a good place to get our chicken (we are vegan, but our dogs aren’t) They carry a variety of meat and it is delivered to a central area near you. The prices are good.
Watermelon
I’ve spent nearly the entire day in the studio. And I made progress!. The drumsticks and slices of pie are done and one watermelon is finished. I’m hoping to get to the other 6 tomorrow – but one never really knows what tomorrow will bring.
And here is the second block I also put together today. This quilt is just taking a long of time and work, but it will be so worth it as I am also learning much about my embroidery machine.
A picnic block done.
It was exciting to me to finally get enough done to be able to put a block together.
In addition, there are more sodas and more drumsticks done, with more to do.
On a hot day, a cool lunch is terrific. We had a salad in a wrap, with chips and hummus, plus slightly pickled beets and hummus dressing. For the dressing, I put some of the hummus in with vinegar of choice and shake good. Be sure to refrigerate after using. ( I did chop the tomato, but when I make salads for several days, I leave the tomato whole until time to eat the salad)