It's In My Blood

Now, I'm a crafter. I don't mind admitting that because I come by it honestly. My sister's a crafter, my mother's a crafter, and her mother was a crafter.

The last couple years, my craft of choice has been knitting. I enjoy the magic of turning loops of string into useful and usually beautiful garments and household items. Crochet is good, too, but since it uses three times as much yarn as knitting does, I'll stick with the knitting. Beading and quilting are also quite entertaining, but "yarning" (as my daughter calls it) is my personal brand of heroin.

For the last couple of months, I've been scheming and planning an extended trip back home to the Pacific Northwest, not so much to see family and friends and avoid the nasty Texas summer weather (though those are all wonderful reasons in themselves), but mostly to attend the Sock Summit to be held in Portland, Oregon in early August.

Now most sane people, including my husband, question the desireability of attending a knitting convention unless you're a blue-haired member of AARP, much less a sock knitting convention, but I am looking forward to this with what is quickly becoming an unhealthy obsession. To be able to walk among my people, conversing fluently in knit-speak with other like-minded individuals, just makes me giggle.

Imagine my shock and surprise, therefore, when I noticed that one of the world's foremost knitting goddesses (with a wicked sense of humor to boot!) is coming to Austin on her latest book tour! The last time around she only got as close as Houston and I was unable to attend. No excuses now! I've already had hubby request the day off so that he can manage the munchkins that night.

The difficult part is that I've made it my intention to finish all current works-in-progress BEFORE I start any new projects. First, I was hoping to get out of this on a technicality, but my mother (the final moral judge in these kind of dilemas) says this includes ALL projects, not just knitting projects of which I've whittled down to two.

I have this custom sweater for my sister almost done. The pieces are blocked and ready to assemble. Since the first sleeve took me a year to finish, the second sleeve took another year to finish, and then the body of the sweater only took me six months to finish (once I figured out that staring at the yarn in my workbasket while reciting "oh yeah, I really need to finish that sweater", wasn't making any noticeable progress), I should have the sweater pieces assembled by the end of the year. Which is fine, really, since her birthday's in January, so it'll look like I had it planned all along.

My other project is a lace stole originally started back before the last Harry Potter book was released. I'm not showing a picture of that yet, since lace notoriously looks awful until it's been properly finished and blocked. This project, however, has a deadline (my niece's upcoming nuptials in October) which means that although I only have 20 rows left (out of about 800), I'll be knitting this on the flight and blocking it in our hotel room the evening before the wedding.

The only things I have standing between me and a raging case of startitis are:

a crocheted tiger with a knitted taekwondo jacket I'm designing

a beaded celtic knot magnet

a beaded basket

a quilted throw for my daughter (dated 2007) made from her great-grandmother's fabric scraps (one of a set of four - the other three were given as gifts in, yep, that's right, 2007)

a queen-size quilt for my mother-in-law for which my mother made about 24 quilt blocks a couple years ago for me to assemble (Sure would be nice to hand this off when we see her at the wedding in October)

a rag rug I plan to knit for my son's room as soon as I finish spiral cutting about twenty lumberjack-sized t-shirts I've saved for this project for, you've guessed it, a couple years

eleven sweaters to unravel for their luxury yarn

I realize that most people, when they see a pile of yarn like this, don't think "Gee, you need more yarn, don'tcha?"

But I'd like to think of myself as frugal (in the best sense of the word) and I don't mind one iota (or even two) taking the time to unravel an XXL cashmere sweater which I purchase for $1.25 when the same yarn would cost more than $100 in a yarn store. My family has one response to this kind of situation: "Duh!"

These yarn piles resulted recently from my attempt to re-sort my stash which quickly became a trip down memory lane when I was reacquainted with all those projects I was just about to start.

Once the above list of projects is done (I'm estimating around 2011), I'll be able to shop my stash like a yarn store since everything will be new to me! But that doesn't resolve my current dilema of:

What do I bring to show the Yarn Harlot? And what socks do I make to wear at the Sock Hop during the Summit?!

Ready for Hibernation

I have always had what could be described as an obsessive, anal, and perfectionist kind of personality. And I'm okay with that. It serves me well a lot of times, though my husband has a difficult time understanding how I can focus down to the nth degree on one thing, like a knitting stitch or the paint inside the bathroom cabinets, while simultaneously ignoring other things, like the laundry or lunch for the kids.

Well, right now I'm obsessing about the quality of this family's food intake, so he doesn't mind so much. In fact, he's loving it. And the kids have definitely gotten on board as well since they've been scribbling down recipes from cooking shows they want to try and are arguing about which one of them will miss things like mac n cheese from a box less.

I was just pleased that during today's grocery shopping trip we didn't buy anything in a box except lasagna noodles (which don't come any other way). I'm not quite at the point where I'm focused enough to make my own fresh pasta. I'm there with the fresh bread for pizzas, sandwiches, and breakfast cinnamon rolls, but pasta? Not so much.

So here's a quick shot of my beautiful pantry. Small, but packed. Just the way I like it.

Creature Feature

This was the newest member of our family, our little spicebush swallowtail butterfly who was (re)born this afternoon. We missed the actual hatching, but did catch her soon enough to watch her wings dry.

Unfortunately, we only got to enjoy her about 75 minutes before we had to leave the house on some errands and by the time we returned, she was gone. She squeezed out of a small hole in her netting and is probably somewhere in the house right now, hungry and thirsty.

At first, I would have worried that our cat found and ate her, but upon checking, he hadn't moved an inch from the catnap he was in when we left.

So it seems she was too beautiful a creature to stand living with us. We would have let her go anyway, but it would have been nice if hubby got a chance to see her first. And, yes, I know she may have just been eaten by a bird two minutes after her release, but if that did happen, I wouldn't necessarily know about it and therefore wouldn't feel the wave of guilt I do now. How many people can boast that they've lost a butterfly?!

This lovely creature was the one my hubby found (during our errands) a few moments after he found a $20 bill stuck in the dirt. Crazy, I know.

What's really wacko is that yesterday I was a bit freaky about money and the going rate of plumbers when we noticed a water leak which the city utility crew tells us is about four inches away from their responsibility and therefore, our problem. This seemed to be just one more issue in a long line of problems that have come upon us in the last few weeks, and as of last night I was getting a bit discouraged. We were being so water-conscious by not watering our lawn, collecting rainwater for the garden, recycling our greywater to flush our toilets and water the landscaping that to have a leaky water heater and now a leaky water main in the space of a few weeks made it seem like we were swimming upstream again a hard current.

Luckily, Gaia guided hubby to stop my hand from dialing a plumber in the heat of the moment and instead allowed us to step back and survey the problem calmly. Technically, we have water, it's just that we're wasting some as long as it's on. So, since we're leaving in a couple days for a camping trip and don't really want to think about this right now, we're only turning on our water when we need to take showers, wash the dishes, or refill our water purifier. Otherwise, we turn off the water at the main. Problem solved (for now). When we're ready to call the plumber, we'll have already excavated the pipe the make it easy (and quick) for the plumber to fix it. Good plan.

Finding cash growing out of the dirt is just Gaia's way of reminding me that there will always be enough. No need to fret. Just plant the seeds, be grateful, and Gaia will provide.

p.s. The butterfly has been found! She's under tight security tonight and will bunk with us overnight for her release party tomorrow morning. Yeah!

Milking It for All Its Worth

Gaia answered again! I had wanted to find a local, inexpensive source for raw milk and it just showed up in my e-mailbox! Thank you, thank you, Gaia! We picked these up, direct from the farmer, the day after the cow was milked. Talk about fresh! AND for the same price I pay for organic milk at the store!

I had grand plans for these little beauties, but first, I wanted to sterilize everything in boiling water. I uttered one of those sentences you never thought you'd hear yourself say when I was on the phone with my mother explaining what I was doing that day. "Oh, right now, I'm sterilizing my ice cubes." She didn't know quite how to respond to that.

Pour the milk in, heat it up some, add some citric acid, heat it up some more, add some rennet, and bingo bango, look what happens!

Scoop out the curds, heat up the remaining whey really hot, ball up the curds, dunk them in the whey, and it starts acting like cheese!

So, in less than an hour, we turned a gallon of milk into four creamy little balls of mozzarella. Here they are getting chilled in their sterlized ice bath.

We tried to make ricotta from the leftover whey, but screwed it up. We will be trying again and next time, we'll know a little bit more about what not to do. We would have tried for cream cheese and butter from the other gallon, but the kids drank it all.

Backyard Update

First question we continually get is "How are the chickens?" The answer? Peachy. They're all growing up marvelously and one has even stopped peeping like a chick and has started clucking like (we hope) a hen. I've got my eye on one in particular that keeps doing what I take to be aggressive things. Hopefully she's just a really butch hen and not an adolescent cock trying to macho himself onto a dinner platter.

Here's a group shot of our blue oregano, cilantro, carrots, and the broccoli behemoths. We got one crop of radishes (which I had planted between the broccoli plants) before the broccoli shaded them out. I've since moved them to the watermelon bed since that'll be bare earth for another couple weeks/months.

The cucumbers, peas, beans, and butternut squash are doing great. I'm planning on getting up their growing supports in the next week or two. This little lettuce plant is a volunteer from last year's garden which is a good thing since all the lettuce seeds I planted where I wanted them have failed to grow. Nothing. I think ants or some other crawly thing is eating them. I have no proof for this theory, but that's my final answer. (For now.)

The corn is growing fast. This year we expanded to include sweet corn in addition to the popcorn we also had last year. My son thinks it's the coolest thing in the world to eat popcorn he grew himself.

You can also see the Mammoth Russian Sunflowers creeping along the fence. We had these last year and we all loved them. I left most of the plants for the birds, but did keep one or two for ourselves.

This strawberry is now in my daughter's tummy. She proclaimed it "the perfect strawberry." Can't beat that, right?

Next year I'm going to make this an herb pot and attempt to grow strawberries in one of the beds. Hopefully that way we'll have more than one or two berries ripe simultaneously.

We planted these jasmine plants last year to someday cover the chainlink fence and create an arbor over to the other side. We weren't sure if we did a sufficient job protecting them from the winter frost (it didn't help that they are intertwined into a metal fence which got dang cold), but they're growing like crazy with lots of buds, so we must have done something right.

Looky what I noticed for the first time today!! The broccoli is beginning to bud! Such excitement!

These radishes, on the other hand, are having issues. The one on the left looks okay. The one in the middle is a bit sad and chewed on, but saveable, I hope. The one on the right (if you can even see it), has had all its greenery chewed away. Poor thing. Again, I'm blaming the ants. I've seen them all over the plants and haven't been able to figure out what they're doing.

Being the ever-observant gardener, I didn't even notice the actual fruits on this tomato plant until I took this photo to show off the blossom! Such a dork!

You want to know what I love best about my garden? The daily serenade I get from this little guy (gal?). The sounds this mockingbird dreams up are awesome. I thank him verbally every day (yes, I talk to birds, so shoot me) and he thinks it's pretty cool to sit in his tree, watching me do my thing, and singing his little heart out. It seems we have this mutual crush thing going and I, for one, LOVE IT!

Internal Spring Cleaning Begins

After spending the last couple of weeks focused on blogging about outside pursuits, starting today, I'm beginning a new project that's focused on the inside. MY insides, actually.

As today's full moon begins to wane, this is the time to focus on those things we want less of. At our monthly moon circles, this is when we ask Gaia's help in dealing with frustration, impatience, shortness of temper, a perceived lack of money, etc. All those things we want less of. This day, therefore, seemed the perfect day to start on this new physical and emotional project of mine where I'll be doing a month-long detox program to reset my body and get rid of a lot of things I want a lot less of.

Rather than interfere with this blog and its intentions, I have another blog that will be tracking my progress as I complete this Internal Spring Cleaning. You're more than welcome to check in there, if you're interested!

Happy Birthday, My Not-So-Little Girl

Twelve years ago today we welcomed our first bundle of joy into our world. Miss N has grown into quite a remarkable young lady during her dozen years on this planet. She is, in a word, amazing.

Quick-minded (when she chooses to be), thoughtful of her younger brother (when she's made to be), but most importantly, a loving and loved member of our family. She's the first to laugh, the last to cry, and has a deep, burning need to be in the middle of the action.

We love you, Miss N, and wish you the most wonderful of days as you continue on this glorious journey of life. We're grateful for every day we get to experience with you!

Never a Dull Moment

Let me introduce you to some of our newest friends.

We were just settling down to dinner when we realized that the sirens and flashing lights didn't continue down the road like they normally do. It seems that our next door neighbor's nativity set (which they still had in their backyard to provide warm shelter for some of their cats) caught on fire and burned a ten foot hole in their fence. Craziness, right?!

Well, the police came by to get the neighbor's telephone numbers (since, of course, they weren't home at the time) then a minute later, a fireman stopped by to ask if they could borrow some dishsoap. O . . . kaaay. Strange request, but we obliged. It seems they use soap to cut the surface tension of the water to ensure the pile of yuck doesn't ignite again, but they carry their soap in a 500 gallon tank which would be a bit, shall we say, excessive.

They came back with an empty bottle a couple minutes later while we were comforting our neighbor who had just come home to a fire truck and police cars in front of her home. They apologized for using it all and offered to buy us a replacement bottle, but we told them repeatedly that wasn't necessary.

While we were carrying over a couple fence panels (we just happened to have lying around for a future fence project we have planned) to cover the big gaping hole in their backyard fence, it seems the firemen were driving the rather large fire truck to the corner convenience store. Two minutes later they're coming back to our house, with a new bottle of dishsoap for us. Unfortunately, it wasn't a brand we could use (since we use our greywater to water our landscaping), but the sentiment was very kind. At the very least, our son got to go inside the fire truck and listen to their communication radio thingamajig, so he was happy.

I just hope he didn't offend our neighbors, the police, or the firemen when he repeatedly referred to the burned object as the "Jesus Set".

Because Nine Isn't Enough

Here is one of three new "pets" we have in our household. Thanks to our homeschool science co-op (and in addition to our dog, cat, five chickens, and two tadpoles), we are now the soon-to-be-proud parents of a polyphemus moth, a luna moth, and a spicebush swallowtail butterfly.

Of course, they're not very exciting now, but just wait a couple weeks. They're going to be awesome.

And the best part?! Unlike the two American Bullfrog tadpoles we got a couple weeks ago, we'll be able to release these once we're done with them. Hopefully the kids won't be watching if the newly-airborne creatures fly over the chicken coop and get eaten.

We're just crossing our fingers that these babies hatch before we are forced to take them with us on an upcoming camping trip. I wouldn't want to miss their emergence, but I also don't want to babysit them at a campground!

Recent Scores

I just couldn't resist showing off our latest gifts from Gaia.

In preparation for my upcoming juice feast, we bought a case of organic apples for 89 cents a pound! For ORGANIC produce! And no, that's not a typo. That's not just organic, that's orgasmic!

Today, I spent most of my "free time" (whatever that is) making a beef stew and a fresh boule. While that was cooking, my son was willing to try the juices we were making if he got to operate the juicer. Fine by me! Both of the kids were excited to see and taste my hot pink juice with neon green foam. They've been interested a lot in different foods lately, so I'm trying to maximize their exposure to different things. Extending their life six days at a time!

This not-so-little treasure is a maitake mushroom (aka Hen of the Woods - don't ask me why). Sliced and sauted in garlic butter, it was wonderful in a bunch of chicken cilantro quesadillas.

This mushroom was a reminder from Gaia for me to relax. I realize how nutzo that sounds, but I don't care. I had been wanting to change some of our eating habits for a while, but I was getting discouraged by the high cost of good, healthy food. Like most families, we're on a tight budget, so I do everything I can to shop frugally. I don't like eating out of a box, but cost and convenience was determining a lot of our recent food purchases. I was having a very difficult time accepting that we couldn't afford to eat well. "Yes, I realize I'm slowly poisoning myself and my children, but . . ." Why? What reason is good enough to finish that statement? I just couldn't do it.

So, I went to bed trying to think of ways I could get good, healthy food cheaper. The very next morning, another lovely Gaia-goddess I know stopped by with a couple bags of free organic produce (including the maitake). Talk about attracting what you need! Then later that same afternoon, I found the apples at a store I usually don't shop at because it's too expensive. Go figure.

Thanks for the guidance, Gaia. Message received.

Change Is In the Air

I'm not sure if it's just because I've been hit with what I hope is more allergies, or if, despite my strong denials, I am officially Sick, but today was definitely a strange day.

I've been feeling a change coming. I'm not sure exactly what it will entail, but I know and trust it will be for the better (as all change ultimately is).

As Jack Sparrow says, "Interesting. Very interesting."

Stay tuned.

Yummy

This was my dinner tonight, all juiced up into a lovely quart of liquid goodness. There were carrots, celery, spinach, kale, cilantro, ginger, and apples.

In a word, yummy.

This was my first liquid meal in preparation for a full mooncycle of juicy detoxification and internal Spring Cleaning I will be starting at next Thursday's Full Moon.

Great stuff for both me and my compost pile!

The Cold Frame Has Been Put On Ice

indefinitely.

I was getting ready to post a grand treatise on cold frames and how great this one was going to be, but alas, Gaia and the wind storm last night had other plans.

The project will continue as soon as we find another free door or window. The size of the finished structure depends on the size of the glass, so everything's on hold right now.

Any good uses for the broken safety glass? All I can think of is 1) use at the bottom of containers to allow better drainage for plants and 2) save for later when we're making mosaic stepping stones.

No One Likes a Crusty Mound

We're now on the second year with this garden and yet with all the compost we've added to the soil, we still end up with an unpenetrable clay crust over all the beds after any rain. True, we haven't gotten much rain this year since we are in the middle of an "exceptional" drought, but still, this crust is making it very difficult for some of the seedlings to break through and survive. It's twice as difficult to water the melons which were planted in little mounds since the water runs downhill to water the weeds rather than the parched seeds.

My mother has been talking for years about the ease of burying water bottles, milk jugs, even five-gallon buckets with soaker hoses attached to make watering easier for the gardener and more productive for the plants by getting water to their roots where, of course, they need it most. I figured my crusty mound dilema and the necessity to reseed my melon beds was my chance to play around with this idea. And, in the interest of science, I decided to try three different container styles (along with a bed with no containers as our control) to rate their relative effectiveness.

First I gorilla-taped the cap to a one-gallon milk jug and cut around three sides of the bottom to create a type of flap. I figured this may help in reducing the amount of evaporation or keep dirt out of the bottle, but now I'm not sure how much good it's doing. I drilled holes manually with a threaded hook every couple inches around the entire bottle. This was buried so the dirt on the top of the mound was level with the top of the bottle.

My second container choice was a desperate attempt at finding some use, any use for a large styrofoam cup. (Of course, I've been stockpiling all our other styrofoam garbage for a future trip to Cycled Plastics.) I fully expect it to be the first one to get brittle and collapse, but I thought it would be useful to at least try. As they say, you never know what may spark another, better idea. I used the same manual method of making holes, which was easy enough, but I really didn't like all the itty bitty pieces of styrofoam this created. Next time (if there is a next time), I think I might try to heat the screw tip to see if melted holes create less of a mess.

Thirdly, I used a two-liter bottle which I cut in half for two reasons. One, because I wanted to test a container that wasn't so deep in the ground to see if it made any difference, and two, this way (if it worked) I could use each bottle for two mounds. Waste not, want not, right? Similar set up as the other ones, but the plastic was too hard to make holes manually, so I brought the drill out for this one. Much easier that way.

So here's the finished bed with the control bed on the left, which I reseeded at the same time. When the containers were watered from the inside, there was a lot of dirt settling around the edges, but I reformed the mounds and everything seems to be okay.

I'll still water the seeds manually until their roots grow, but I'm looking forward to seeing if these different watering containers make any difference as the season progresses. I'll keep you updated.