Some Miracles!!

 Good Morning!

Bambi and Peter (Cottontail) are both grazing peacefully in the back yard as I type this.  Plenty of apples and clover for everyone!

My washer is not one of the miracles.  Still not working.  I called for service and someone will be out - but not until next Thursday!  Luckily we have sufficient underwear and other clothes to last us for an even longer period of time...hopefully it will not come to that.

Our little wren babies have finally fledged!  I watched one of them leave the nest - so cool!  Our afternoons on the patio are much quieter now - no chattering wren babies and no parents flying in with food.

Now for the miracles!!  Our winds the other night knocked over a few things in the garden.  When Fletch went out to make sure everything was ok, he noticed figs beginning to form on our fig tree!  Woo-Hoo!

If you click to enlarge, you will see the figs forming along the stem/trunk.  We had been worried because Figgy (the tree) is about half the size it is normally by now.  I'm so happy we will at least have some fruit.

The other plant that was knocked over was our hibiscus.  Fletch had counted 15 (15!!!) buds on it the day before the storm.  He had to stake the plant up, but look what appeared the next day:

What a deep, rich color!  As of yesterday a second bloom was fully open and a third partially open.  The plant is a wonder...yes, a miracle, this year.

OK, that's it for me today.  I'm late getting started and I have all of my usual Thursday reports to run and distribute.  Wishing you all a wonderful Thursday - enjoy!!

Unraveled Wednesday 8/9/23

 Good Morning!

The sun is up and the sky is blue.  So far the temperature is nice too.  That's a bonus for an August day.  It's Wednesday and time to link up with Kat and her Merry Band of Unravelers.  On Wednesdays we gather to talk about making and reading...two things very dear to my heart.

Jumping right in to the making...I have one finished sock!

The first Allsorts sock is finished and the second one has been started...no fear of second sock syndrome here!  This yarn is just fun - I love all the colors and the way it has striped up.  sock #2 will not be matchy-matchy, but that is fine with me as I am not really a matchy-matchy person.

Surprisingly I also managed a few rows on my Shakerag skirt!!

The key word is "few."  The above picture shows 10 rows completed.  Still a way to go before the lace portion is completed.  The biggest issue I have is trying to find a block of time to work on this.  Socks are easy to pick up and put down - a row is not that many stitches.  This..this is a lot of stitches in one row and I don't want to stop mid-row at any time since I'm in the lace pattern.  If work cooperates, I will try to put in some time on this today.  That is a big IF though...time will tell.  I do love the color I chose in Rowan's Creative Linen (colorway is "Oasis").  I will say that I am finding the yarn to be a little on the splitty side - I really need to pay attention when knitting this.

Moving on to reading...I finished The Bandit Queens and I'm glad to be finished with it.  A glossary would have helped - lots of Hindi words that I do not know.  I became tired of all the man-bashing and the violence.  Much of  it did not seem possible to me, but that is just my opinion.

I am now in the midst (about a third of the way through) of A Place in the World - Finding the Meaning of Home - by Frances Mayes.  I've read a number of her books - mostly her memoirs but also some of her fiction and I've enjoyed it all.  I love that she shares so many recipes.  The first section is about her place in North Carolina - lots of gardening information which was fun (except for the mention of copperheads in the midst of the jasmine!!).  I'm into the second section now which is about Bramasole - her place in Tuscany.  I'm thoroughly enjoying this book.

When I finish "A Place in the World" I have The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida waiting on my nightstand.  I was able to pick it up within 2 days of requesting it from my library!!  This is the next "Read with Us" book and I'm looking forward to it.

Fletch and I are part of the way into the 2nd Master & Commander book - "Post Captain."  We still have 14 or 5 hours of listening to go!!  Fletch is enjoying it more than me, but it is fine as background to my knitting after dinner.

So far work is quiet today.  I need to TRY to do some laundry.  Yesterday I managed 2 loads and then the washer stopped working.  This is the new washer just bought in January!!  I'm going to fool with it again to see if I can get it to work...if not, a service call will be made.  Ugh!

Have a great Wednesday and be sure to check out Kat's blog to see what everyone is up to making and reading!

Tiny Needle Tuesday 8/8/23

 Good Morning!

The air feels somewhat fresher this morning.  We had a major storm warning last night.  There was wind.  Also thunder and lightening.  But we did not get all that much rain.  Nothing measurable in the rain gauge.  My brother and SIL in Delaware had a lot of rain though.  Just depends on where you are I guess.

I slept in this morning and am on the groggy side, but let's talk TNT or Tiny Needle Tuesday.  A few more things were added to the Sampler Aux Bouquets.  A couple of new motifs and some more letters in the alphabet that was started a bit back.

I stitched the vase at the bottom yesterday afternoon and that was a PITA.  It was so humid that the linen and the floss were both sticking to my fingers.  LOL  Here's an overall shot of where the sampler is as of today.

Still an enormous amount to be stitched.  Luckily this is still fun.

I had mentioned that Colin sent me a cross stitch kit from Guadalupe National Park.  This is what he sent:

And here is my start:

LOL - not much!  The kit came with 18 count Aida cloth which I am unable to stitch on, so I dug into my stash and found a piece of 36 count white linen.  I am stitching over 2 threads, so it will end up being the same size as the kit.  I am using the threads provided in the kit - they are all DMC threads, so if I run out, that will not be a problem.  Hopefully I'll have a bit more progress to show on this one next week.

Well, time for me to get motivated.  I want/need to do some chores this morning (cleaning bathrooms and getting bath rugs and towels washed) before we go grocery shopping.  First, however, I definitely need more coffee.

Wishing you all a lovely Tuesday - enjoy!

Weekending 8/7/23

Good Morning,

How are you?  I'm doing well.  It is mild this morning, but humid.  We had a bit of rain overnight and I believe more is expected today.  The garden will be happy.

Another week has started.  Mine started off annoyingly with an email at 5:30 this a.m. from one of my bosses asking me to call him as soon as I got his email.  (I have not yet called him.)  Turns out his flight this a.m. was cancelled and all flights to PHL on Delta were cancelled.  Oh well...he booked himself to fly into Baltimore instead.  Just hoping this is not a portent of how the week is going to go....

I hope your weekend was a good one.  Mine was great!  Plenty of time for knitting and stitching and reading.  Saturday morning started off with a meet up with Dee for coffee, stitching and a whole lot of chatting.  It was great.  When we split up, Dee headed off to meet up with Steve - they had plans for the afternoon.  I decided to check out the Home Goods nearby.  I love Home Goods and I had not been in one in quite some time.  This particular one was a bit too crowded for my taste, so I did not stay long, but they are ready for Fall:

Lots and lots of Halloween decor and let me tell you, folks were buying!

Because of wandering around Home Goods (also Marshalls - no luck) and then heading to a grocery store for a couple of items I got home a little later than usual.  I spent the balance of the afternoon prepping for dinner and then Fletch and I sat on the patio to watch the birds and sip our beverages.  We had a goldfinch appear!

A little blurry zooming with my phone, but do you see him on the green fence post?  Just a brilliant shade of yellow.

Sunday was filled with a lot of cooking which you all know I love!  I made biscuits and sausage gravy to go with fried eggs for breakfast.  Once that was done I started prepping some things for home made pizza.  I roasted some eggplant, a pint of cherry tomatoes and sauteed a bunch of mushrooms.  Yum!  

Then I decided to make a peach crostata because our peaches were very (very!) ripe.

It certainly looks rustic, no?  I used this recipe and although tasty, the pasty was a real bee-otch to work with.  Next time I will use my own pastry recipe.  Holy moly the peaches are so good this year!

Sunday afternoon we went back to Colin & Mailing's house.  I checked the mail (mostly trash) and watered the house plants (no picture, but the yellow orchid is still in full bloom!).  Fletch did a bunch of weed wacking and trimming of plants overgrowing the sidewalk and other areas.  When we got home we indulged in a piece of the peach crostata and then sat on the patio.

Our wren family has been busy!  The parents feed the youngsters non-stop and I think they are getting ready to fledge.  If you look closely at the video, you will see a baby poking it's head out of the house...then a parent comes in, the baby opens his/her mouth wide, and the parent puts a worm or something in the open mouth.  They are noisy creatures!!

And that's it for me!  I hope your Monday is a good one filled with whatever you love to do.

Friday Produce

 Hello My Friends,

Welcome to Friday.  I'm so glad it's here.  The week has been gorgeous (weather-wise) but it has felt very long.  Work once again has been crazy busy (summers have never been crazy busy before - weird).  I've a couple of conference calls (10 a.m. and 1 p.m.) and hopefully after the last of them I can move into full weekending mode!

We had a surprise call from Colin yesterday (surprise because we usually talk on the weekends, so this was a nice change).  They are back from the Bahamas where they had a wonderful time.  They stayed in a remote area where there was not much to do (other than kayaking, snorkling, swimming, eating conch salad and feeding stingrays, etc., etc.) and he said it was wonderful to have 6 days together with absolutely nothing they had to do.  Sounds good to me!

While Fletch was talking with him, I wandered around the yard.  I picked some more apples!

Last night I tried one of them (the tiny one, top center) and it was not good.  Boo-Hoo.  It had just about no flavor whatsoever.  We will try another one or two and hope that they will be better.

That bowl, by the way is gorgeous.  I should take a picture of it empty.  My SIL bought it for me.  The potter used a doily and pressed it into the clay when it was still damp, so the inside of the bowl is patterned with the doily.  So pretty!

Continuing my walk around the yard, I went into the garden and discovered the jalapenos are finally producing!

Also, the yellow squash has finally gotten to a size worth picking!

This particular brand is named "Smooth Criminal" - LOL.  Fletch got the seeds from his brother in Virginia.

On the menu tonight is green bean casserole using beans from the garden.  Fletch is going to grill lamb chops.  Yum!!

I failed to get a picture, but Fletch finally picked the first cherry tomatoes!  There were 6 and we munched them right down at lunch yesterday.

Garden bounty!  Nothing better.  Wishing you all a wonderful, bountiful weekend!

Unraveled Wednesday 8/2/23

 Good Morning All,

It is a gorgeous 56 degree morning out there (at least in Eastern PA) and the sun is up (later each morning).

Last night after dinner and after I had cleaned up the kitchen, I took a bit of time with my glass of wine to sit on the patio and enjoy the evening.  The air almost had a chill to it!  There was some bird chatter, but it was mostly quiet.  I was looking at the apple tree.  Our apples are on the small size this year (like our peppers and tomatoes).  The deer don't seem to mind and several apples dropped from the tree while I sat there for 15 minutes.  I decided I'd best pick a few before they rot on the tree...or get infested with anything...or the deer get them.  Many are already insect damaged and some looked rotten on the bottom, but I managed to get a few:

Aren't they pretty?  Red delicious (Fletcher's favorite).  Fletch bought the tree at K-Mart (of all places) when Colin was a toddler.  It was just a sapling, but grew nicely and then started producing apples.  For years we gathered them up in the Fall and made applesauce.  So Good.  Back then, the apples were bigger.  Now it would take an awful lot of these to make just one jar of applesauce, so I'm not planning to do that.  But apple pancakes are not out of the question and Fletch enjoys just munching on one of "his" apples.

That brings us to this morning - the first Wednesday in August and time to check in with Kat and her Merry Band of Unravelers to talk making and reading.  The making in my case is knitting...at least a little bit.  I really did have such grand plans for the last week, but alas not much happened.

The Shakerag Skirt is now on a longer needle but only 2 rows were knit.  However, it is much easier to knit now (thank you Kym and Kat).  My plan was to start Hitch on the Move using "Wish You Were Beer" and "Weathervane" yarn.  The yarn has been caked, but that's as far as that went.  The purple cowl came out of the project bag.  I looked at it and then stuffed it right back in the bag.  LOL

That leaves the Allsorts socks.  At least some progress was made on sock #1.  I have 10 rows until the heel flap, so not too shabby.

(And now I want to get some allsorts licorice)

I do like the way this yarn is knitting up.  The stripes are fun and the colors are keeping me interested (when I have time to knit that is).

Reading this past week was nothing to brag about either.  I did finish the awful beach read and then promptly started another!  I just thought I wanted something mindless to read.  They were both mindless alright.  But now I'm about halfway through The Bandit Queens by Parini Shroff and am enjoying it.  It is a little different than what I thought it would be (not sure what that was) and there are a lot of characters (with names that are not John or Nancy) and at times I'm having difficulty keeping them all straight.

I'm in queue at my library for a number of books and received notice late yesterday that one is available to pick up, so I will head there this morning.  I've got a few other errands to run as well (I've run out of one floss color for the big sampler and getting low on a few others), so my morning will be busy with non-work things.  Of course, days like this - filled with errands - means not as much time for knitting or stitching.  Oh well, it's not a race of a contest.  I will get to things when I get to them.

Hope everyone has a wonderful Wednesday - Enjoy!!

Tiny Needle Tuesday 8/1/23

 Hello Everyone,

It's August!!  I'm excited.  Because, you know, I love Fall and now Fall seems pretty close.  Not trying to wish away my life, just admitting what I really like.

Yesterday Fletch picked more (more!!) cucumbers.  Three large ones.  The cuke plants are producing like zucchini.  We had wandered over to Rob's last night to drop off cake for him and Eva, but only Merlin (the Great Dane) came to the door.  We left cake for them on their porch and wandered back home.  I texted Rob to let him know about the cake and asked if they could use any cucumbers.  Fortunately his cuke plants are still at the point where they are deciding whether to produce or not.  He will get the three Fletch just picked later today.  

Just a few minutes ago, while I was fixing my first cup of coffee, a magnificent buck strolled across the back at the edge of our woods.  He looked so regal!  He didn't linger and I can't be sure how many points he was sporting - at least 6, maybe 8.  Gorgeous!  The bucks don't come down into the yard for apples...they leave those for the does and the fawns.

The first of August and a Tuesday - time for a TNT update.  A little progress was made on the Sampler aux Bouquets:

Remember you may click to make it big!

The interior of the heart has been finished, a flittering blue butterfly was added and an enclosed rose at the bottom was also added.  For some reason it makes me think of a cameo.  There is still an awful lot left to stitch on this piece - I don't think I am quite halfway finished yet!

And yet, I have another piece ready to start!  Colin sent me a cross stitch kit from Guadalupe National Park.  It is a Cactus Sampler - a triptych of cacti:  a Prickly Pear, an Ocotillo and a Claret Cup.  The kit came with Aida cloth which I don't stitch on (my eyes make the holes jump), but I found some linen in my stash which I think will work.  I need to iron it and double check the size, but I'm hoping to maybe start this new piece this afternoon.

If it doesn't get too hot (I don't think it is supposesd to today), we have more weeding to do in the front bed around the lilac.  There is a ton of poison ivy too.  I've never had poison ivy (despite trying to get it as a kid - wacky, I know), but Fletch only has to look at the leaves and he breaks out in a rash, so I guess that part is up to me.  Even though I seem to be immune to it, I will don gloves and be cautious.

Meanwhile though, I need to wake up and get moving!  I've got a dentist appointment (routine cleaning appointment) at 8:30.  Happy August Everyone!