Category Archive: Life
STRAWBERRIES
It’s our annual strawberry day. This means we pick up the strawberries we plan to put up for the year. They are a full month early according to the grower. We ordered 25 half flats which is 200#. I’ve been getting 20 half flats (8# each) in the past, but we used them all, so decided since DH likes them so much to get a few extra. I think I was trying to kill us both. I washed them as we were ready to stem them.
Then we both stemmed them and I sliced them when we had a quantity. This is about 70# waiting to be bagged. I put them in the refrigerator and we had lunch of potato salad and a green salad. Then we went back to work.
Mid afternoon it was time for our dessert. This is cashew cream over the berries. Then back to work again
We bagged them with about 6 cups to the bag and ended up with 50 bags. So he can pull out one bag a week. They are all safely in the freezer and since we have some berries in the garden, we will be eating those and leave these until the garden ones are done. By then we will have forgotten how much work was in them.
All 25 boxes are now empty and the clean up is done. We are exhausted! We started on the berries at 10.30 this morning and took about an hour for lunch and animals, finishing at 7.30. I am so grateful someone else did the backbreaking work of picking them And that we’ll not be too stiff for Yoga tomorrow.
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A Reason to Launder
Here is the reason that I launder each quilt that I make before it leaves the house. I would hate to have recipient get a quilt and then have problems. These quilt squares were made from fabrics that were already squares which makes them difficult to preshrink, so that didn’t happen. 
They frayed more than a quarter inch in places. I’m not sure if this was because of the fabric shrinking or if they were just fabrics that fray a lot. I have made more than a hundred quilts and never had this happen.
So I pulled the fabric back under and hand sewed the various places that came apart. Next week sometime, I will go back over all the seams where the square meets the yellow as that is the place they pulled apart, using a several step zigzag. That should hold them. I just didn’t have time to do it today. (there was more work outside to be done)
As far as the blog is concerned, the quilt is finished, but I want to make absolutely certain no one else gets a bad surprise.
Churn dash revisited
It is quilted now and ready for binding. I’m really hoping to finish this tomorrow as well as transplant tomatoes and get some laundry done. Then there are meals to make for the weekend. Why do these other things get in the way? I guess it’s all a matter of priorities.
Gardening is work and exercise!
cabbage on the left and tomatoes on the right
Kale on the left and potatoes on the right
zucchini on the left and Swiss chard in the picking on the right. Don’t you love the rainbow colors? We are ready to plant a new crop of lettuce. These are a few of the prolific items growing in the hoop house.
Yesterday it went up over 100 degrees in here, so we put up the screen. This is about a month early for that.
It has been so dry this last month that the dark spot there is all the water left in our pond, which was full up to where you see the ring in the upper third.
weeds are just thrilled with this weather.
And now I will go wash all the greens including a mountain of Swiss chard that I picked today.
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Baby blanket
This is the start of another baby blanket. My cousin, Darlene, made it and I loved it so she shared the pattern with me. Thus I am making this one.
Pattern testing
I won’t be able to show you the quilt until September, but this is a part of a pattern I am testing. Or is it testing my skills? These still need a good pressing.
And just to make a bit more room, these 2 boxes of books which were consuming 2 book shelves are on their way out the door. There is no use storing cookbooks when one is mostly cooking by what pops into the head or sounds interesting on the internet. So the books will go to someone who will be happy to go through them and look at them. Now I can actually put all the other books in that room on shelves.
A package
![IMG_4609[1]](http://fiberadventures.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/IMG_46091-1024x768.jpg)
Beautiful, aren’t they? Two nights ago, I had no resistance left and shouldn’t have been looking at a sale page, but I did and this is the sock yarn that arrived today – enough for 9 new pair of socks. I am definitely doing the happy dance today. And yes, this really qualifies as a “want” not a “need”.
Mary was over today – she only gets to come once in a great while anymore because she is babysitting her new grandson while her daughter works. We had so much to catch up on as we knit and crocheted. And would you believe these wonderful yarns came right after she left?
Free socks #2
It’s been a busy day, since somehow gardens need to be watered and houses need to be cleaned. So with the bit of time in between other chores, these socks have been progressing
I’m really hoping that there is enough yarn to finish at least down to the toes. I weighed a pair of finished socks and weighed the yarn left to do these and it was touch and go. Time will tell.
A new quilt starts
These are the big pieces of the new Daffodil quilt. There are many small pieces that will fill in between the major pieces. Today I cut it out and barely started sewing as you can see.
On days when they forage the other side of the road and around the house, this is what they do 5 minutes before feeding time. They mill around and look through the sliding glass doors to let me know the time.
