Drops

Trickle trickle little drops

Falling thru the air

Gentle wind she makes you fickle

Descend without a care

Tell me now your part in nature

From where did you depart?

Sea or lake or stream or ocean,

Renewal is your art.
 
~ "Drops" written on 6/7/2013 by jjphotoftw

So Very Soon!

Lol, is it wrong to be so excited about my tomatoes finally starting to ripen?  Cause that's what's happening!  I snuck out and took a peek to see how the big guys were faring and I saw a hint of red!  YIPPEE!!

Ok, I know it's silly, but really, stuff like this just puts a smile on my face.  Since I've mostly focused on growing herbs for the past 5+ years, the concept of growing produce is just cool.  Since I seem to be able to grow tomatoes AND finally managed not to kill my basil this year, I think I'm going to try cucumbers next summer.  That is if I can find baby cucumber plants... I don't start from seed because it takes too long and I don't have the space to let them grow inside before the frost stops.  Maybe I'll try growing from seed once I have a house, but I make no promises!

How Does My Garden Grow?

Well, I would have to say, pretty darn well! :D

All of my herbs are flourishing (even the BASIL!!!!) in all this sunshine and heat, although I do have to be careful about watering them every day so they don't get droopy and sad looking.  The only one I barely pay attention to is the basil.  It almost never needs to be watered and likes it that way thank you very much!  So, after 4 years of horrible basil death, I have finally been able to get 1, just one, measly plant to survive and do well.  But, I'll take it!  We used our first harvest of the herbs in some burgers and meatloaf this wek, so I think it's safe to say that my victory is complete...

Come to think of it, I've been able to harvest quite a lot from all of my lovely plants so far, with the exception of my tomatoes.  Don't get me wrong, they are doing just fine.  It's just that the cherries haven't quite ripened yet and the larger ones (I have no idea what they are called) are still in the growing stages and haven't even started turning anything resembling reddish in color.  

 

My cute cherry tomatoes just after a watering.  This plant has been producing so many flowers and then fruit, it's just amazing!  I think there are over 20 little guys developing right now and it just keeps growing!

These are my big fellas.  I have two plants of these and while there aren't as many of them in process, they look very healthy and started producing fruit much later than the cherry plant.  I have 3-4 clusters of 2-3 tomatoes each on these plants.

While it is getting late in the season for my lilies, I have been able to take some nice pictures of the two varieties I have.  I love this ivory one especially.  The other one, picture below, oddly enough matches a yarn I made for Tour de Fleece almost exactly.  Strange huh?

Speaking of Tour de Fleece, I was actually not so good about it this year.  I did make some nice yarns, but I kind of got bored and moved on to other things for the last two weeks of the tour.  I'm ok with that and I did get some nice yarn spun up in the first couple weeks, so while I wasn't a real competitor, I did participate and I think the two weeks has really helped my spinning skills.  I even learned to long draw during the tour, which is one of the methods of drafting fiber that I had never done before.  

Long draw basically means allowing the wheel and the twist you are putting into the yarn to draft out the fibers for you rather than strictly controlling the supply of fiber by using both hands and pinching the fiber at the point where the twist comes into it.  Long draw generally makes less dense yarns because there is more air trapped in between then fibers.  It's still not easy for me, but I CAN do it with some concentration now, so I've very happy about that.  The video below is a good demo of what long draw or woolen spinning looks like.  As an added bonus, the music is pretty good too :)

And finally, the hyper rose has slowed down pushing out its usual riot of pink flowers.  So, the whole plant looks pretty boring right now.  But, I did see a few new flowers and buds poking out, so maybe we're in store for yet another set of blooms.

POL-IN-ATE... POL-IN-AAAAATE!

The hyper rose has begun its invasion.  This lone flower is just the beginning.  Soon, so very soon, their takeover shall be complete!  

Ok, I need to stop watching so much Dr. Who; I'm getting all melodramatic and assuming things will take over the world...  like the Daleks or Cybermen.  On that note, I highly recommend checking out all the great episodes of Dr. Who available on Netflix streaming.  They certainly have entertained this household lately :)  

In other news, yes, our insane rose bush is back and its first blooms of the season are stronger than ever. More pics to come when they are in full force and once again threatening to take over the world...  and somehow I have managed to combine gardening and sci-fi into one bizarre blog post.  Go me!

Getting Ready to Play in the Dirt

It is officially the time of year that I need to start thinking about what I want to plant in our little garden.  We can't do too much because we don't have a whole heck of a lot of real estate since we currently reside in a first floor apartment however, we are fortunate enough to have two reasonably large planting areas at our disposal.  We don't get a lot of sun, so most of our garden is filled with very forgiving hosta and a rather large, mutant rose bush that will most likely end up taking over the world.  For the past few years, in between the mutant rose and all our other easy going perennials, I have been planting herbs in pots to spruce up our summer culinary options. 

This year I was happy to discover that our oregano, sage, strawberries and chives have all come back.  To supplement this merry band of survivors, I went to Ferjulian's, our local greenhouse, and picked up some dill, rosemary, thyme, another type of oregano, three tomatoes from my mom and two basil plants.  

Sigh.... basil and I do not seem to get along.  I have killed it every year for at least three summers and it's starting to affect my conscience.  So, I'm going to give it another go this year... I think I know what I've been doing wrong.  I think.  Keep your fingers crossed and we'll see how this turns out.  Sadly, I believe my past failure with this herb stems from the fact that the signs of over watering and under watering are the same: things turn yellow.  My basil has always turned yellow.  Then I would panic and water it... so I'm thinking I just drowned the poor things every year :(  My suspicions have be confirmed at least partially by the stake in the pots saying "Loves sun and heat" and "Don't overwater."  We'll see how this goes.  I am diligently water everything except the basil and so far so good.  Hopefully I will get these babies in this ground this week, and won't have to worry about them relying on me quite so much.

Work In Progress Wednesday: Crochet Water Lily

This week I'm actually working on a whole mess of projects.  Most recently I've been crocheting quite a bit, working on a rather large project and also working on the monthly aquares for the 2011 crochet along block a month afghan.  Today's WIP is a water lily/lotus I decided to make because it was just so darn cute!  It's turning out pretty well, but I still have more than half of it left to go.  I'll make sure to post a picture of it when it's done. 

The pattern I am using is the Lotus Kyusu Cozy by Hilary Robbeloth and the flower itself is only part of the pattern.  The whole pattern is meant to be a cozy for those little Japanese side-handle tea pots.

Tour de Fleece Update - Day 15 - Drooling Over Merino

Not too much to report here.  I haven't had much time to spin for the last few days, but I did manage to mostly finish the second bobbin of my beautiful red merino today.  Hopefully I will be able to get the last bobbin done tomorrow and then will be able to ply up my first non-Navajo plied three ply yarn as well.  Very excited.

I also managed to get another repeat done on my Mystery Summer Wrap today, but that is about it since I had a really big to do list for the day.  Oh well, there's always tomorrow!

In other news, my cherry tomato crop is officially insane!  In the past few days, I've harvested 20+ little tomato-lings.  So, in an effort to use up said produce, I actually cooked today (Brian, try not to keel over when you read that).  I just have so many of the little fruits and I felt like pasta, so I made myself a small amount of tomato sauce.  Well, it was actually more like a tomato compote because it was so think in the end, but it was extremely yummy.

I will make sure to share my basic recipe in the next few days.  I don't really do the measuring thing, so everything will be a guestimate.  Well, I'm off to retrieve laundry and attempt to find my bed under all the stuff that needs folding.  Ta!

$2.00 Worth of Endless Entertainment and other Farmer's Market Adventures

I never would have thought that picking up a little can of cat grass at the Farmer's Market at Longfellow's Wayside Inn last weekend would provide my husband and I with so much entertainment...  As you can see, Molly REALLY likes her cat grass!  Actually, she gets so into eating it that she picks the whole container up, noms for a bit and then drops it on the floor.  This of course leaves a lovely little pile of dirt for me to clean up and that's kind of hard to do when you are giggling :-)

So, I bought this cute little plant from a couple of tweens who were selling inexpensive pet treats at their little stand at the farmers market.  Their set up was so cute I had to take a picture of it (see below).  While the market was fairly small I was ok with that since I didn't have a lot of time to wander.

Here are a few pictures of the the stands I visited while I was at the market.

The Wayside Inn had a table featuring lots of homemade baked items.  I picked up some blueberry scones, a single serving apple pie (which was way more than one serving) and some corn rolls which were made with corm meal that was ground at the inn's Grist Mill just a little down the road.  The Grist Mill has been in operation since 1929 and is a beautiful place to take pictures.  People commonly get wedding photos taken there if they get married at the Martha Mary Chapel across the street.  Click here to see an online tour of historic Sudbury.  You can even print out the tour and follow it by "foot, horse, or coach." :-)

My day would not be complete with out seeing some baby alpaca. Soooo cute!  Plus they are from a very local farm called Twillingate where is the future I could arrange to purchase a whole alpaca blanket (fleece) to process and spin.  So much potential!

I got a nice handmade memo basket for my dad for father's day from the people at this stand.  I filled it up with a bunch of locally grown veggies, a sampling of the herbs from our garden and other various items I bought at the farmer's market. 

I think the best find of the day was this HUGE cherry tomato plant I got from a farmer based in Bolton.  It was only $16 which is think is a steal!  What was great was that there were already little red tomatoes all over it that were ready to be picked so we could enjoy them right away.  Since putting it out in our garden the plant has produced a bunch more, so I'm really happy.

Well, that's about it.  I would highly recommend checking out the Wayside Inn Farmer's Market if you are local.  The market is running every Saturday this summer from 10am-2:30pm through October 2nd.  I definately plan on going back every few weeks to see what is new and get some more of those delicious corn rolls. 

Since it isn't so big you may want to plan to do some other things in the area as well such walking the Tour of Historic Sudbury I mentioned above, walking the Garden in the Woods in Framingham, or rent a kayak or canoe and navigate the Concord River from the South Bridge Boat House in Concord.  There are lots of things to do in the area, so you can really make a day of the trip if you are coming from far away and do a little bit of planning.

I've been a very bad blogger

Yes, real life has gotten in the way of blogging again, sigh....  That's alright, a bit of down time usually re-energizes me a bit.  And now I have some cool stuff to share and I should have more on the way shortly.

I haven't had much to show for my knitting lately as much of it is for gifts and I'm also toning the projects down a bit after trying to do way too much in May.  My spinning has been going well though.  I finished up my first ever plied yarn and I adore it.  I even have started making a couple projects with it, so once I finish those up, I'll share those as well.  The roving I used was Louet Northern Lights wool in the Cactus Flower colorway.  You can see some photos of the spindle, singles and plying process by checking out my blog posts here and here. 

This past weekend I tried my hand at spinning soy silk mixed with wool.  That's didn't go quite as well.  The length of the fibers is just so long I couldn't figure out how to pull them apart to spin without cutting the roving.  Once I did that, I did pretty well drafting from the fold and got some thinner singles than ever before.   Unfortunately, the fun ended there.  Once I got to the end of some of the strands they didn't just twist themselves neatly into the single, instead they stuck out in all sorts of weird directions.  I'll try to take a picture of this later.  Needless to say I put that down for a few days and have yet to pick it up again. 

Some other good news I can share is that in a little over a week I will be the proud owner of a my very own spinning wheel!  I am totally excited and can't wait to share pictures of her and name her.  Yes... she needs a name and yes... she's a girl.  Those two things I know. Her name I won't figure out until I start spinning.  My goal is to practice spinning on her and be good enough in a couple weeks to start making yarn for a hooded sweater I want to wear this fall.  It only calls for 3200 yard of yarn.  That'll be done in no time right?  **cough cough**  You can see a picture of the sweater here.  I want to make mine out of a dark natural colored wool, so I ordered a small amount of Jacob and Coopworth to try out before committing to probably 4 lbs of any one fiber.

Other than all of that, since the last time I posted we had a cookout, helped put in the sailboat in for the summer, and harvested our first strawberry from our garden.  Not too shabby for one week.  We got some nice pictures and video of putting the boat in and sailing around the harbor that I'll share later on in the week. For now I'll leave you with a shot of Brian playing cameraman with our Flip.

Day Off Shenanigans

What, you ask, is this monstrosity?  Well, it is officially my solution to setting the twist in my first hand spun yarn which involves 2 hangers, a small basket and a large craft punch.  Hey, it's what I had on hand, so don't ask! 

I finished up with all the spinning a little over a week ago, but just hadn't gotten to the part where I put the whole skein in hot water for a half an hour, then shock it in cold before smacking it around a bit and hanging the whole thing up to dry.  I woke up (kinda early for a day off) and decided I really should just get the deed done.  

So, currently this is the lovely view from our patio and it will remain so for at least the next day.  Truly, I am high maintenance, lol.

Spring CAL - Daffodils and Tiny Whales

So, I'm doing my first ever crochet along (CAL) and I'm so very excited!  The two projects included in the Spring CAL are Tiny Whale and Daffodils by June Gilbank of PlanetJune.com.  She designs absolutely amazing amigurumi animals and sells those patterns along with the accessories to make them (such as eyes, noses and a stuffing tool for filling up tiny body parts).  I also read her blog and follow her on twitter and believe me, she does a lot!

The CAL started on April 19th and will run until the end of May.  So if you want to try one or both of these lovely crochet patterns out there is plenty of time left.  To join the CAL you need to have a Ravelry.com account (which is free) and then you can introduce yourself and post on the Spring CAL Message Board to chat and share photos with the rest of us. 

June was even nice enough to make us a CAL button for those of us with a bit of a blog addiction.  Isn't it cute?

I decided to start with the daffodils because... well, we don't have any and the concept of pretty spring flowers appealed to me.  I was very fortunate in that I had most of the colors for this project already.  Back in December I had picked up a couple skeins of yellow and cream Cascade 220 Wool and my mom had gotten me a heathery orange of the same yarn the previous summer.  All I had to do was head out and pick up some green for the stems.  Easy peasy! 

After winding up the cream and orange yarns, I didn't really get started on the crochet tonight until around 11pm and it took me a few tries to learn and recreate the magic circle method of starting the project.  After a few bumps in the road things started going a bit more smoothly. So, here is the first part of my first daffodil.  One petal.  It's not much, but I already know I'm going to loooooove making these.

Snow when I'm free to enjoy it!

Since I have today off, I thought I would get some nice pictures of the falling snow.  I don't normally get many opportunities to do this because the snow fall at night or while I'm at work, so I was fortunate today.

I didn't exactly select the correct footwear for this cold and wet expedition, did I?

I didn't really go far though.  Just down the sidewalk to the playground and back, but I was able to do some neat things using a fast shutter speed like stopping snowflakes in midair in the picture below.

Then I true Jo form, I took a snowy self-portrait.  At least you can see my face in this years, last year was just a picture of my ponytail with snowflakes on it.  Consider this one an upgrade!

New Blog Design Completed

So, apparently the first time is the charm on blog redesigns for me.  Other then following a few suggestions from followers (thank you all some much for your input!) and making appropriate changes to the blog, I've decided to stick with the grapevine theme.  I had looked at a few different background as inspiration for the design and thought about trying them out, but this one really spoke to me, so I went for it.  Once I had chosen the background, I perused my abundance of photos, found a good candidate and started playing around in Photoshop.

The image I picked was a great shot I took at Ferjulian's, a local seasonal market in my town, (see above).  The owner is very nice and on several occasions has just let me wander around with my eye glued to my camera.  

Last night, when I layered the text of the blog title over over the image, it all fell into place.  The font, the colors, everything!  I just love it when a plan comes together.  So all I had to do after that was add all my widgets back.  It's too bad that they all disappear when you change templates.  Oh well, it could be worse, there is only one I can't figure out, my current Ravelry projects, but I'll fix that soon enough.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy the change as much as I do.  Please feel free to make comments or suggestions.  As I said, I'm open to change ;-)

If you are a fan of watersports.... beware!

Darth Coco called me up on Saturday morning with a clear plan in mind. We would meet behind the Concord Visitor Center at 1pm, rent a canoe and paddle our way from the south bridge to the north bridge about 1.5 miles down the river. After that, we would head to Cambridge for a late lunch at a trattoria named Gran Gusto (which has phenomenal food by the way). The plan had merit and it was good, so we set off with high hopes for our perfectly planned day.


After the slathering on sun screen, bathroom break and asking the local patriot in the visitor's center for directions, we walked down Main St. to the South Bridge Boat House. They rent canoes, kayaks (both single and double) and even off river cruises. However, traveling by canoe was not meant to be. All the canoes were taken by a group of boy scouts who arrived just before us (grrr). Rather than admit defeat, we decided to wait for one...


That didn't last long. We caved after about 15 minutes and rented two single kayaks instead. Patience is not exactly one of our best traits when we're together. We started down the river, trying to get used to the rhythm of paddling which neither of us had done probably in years. I believe we started off on the Sudbury river although I'm sure it turned into the Concord River at some point and maybe even the Assabet depending on how far we went. I know we went under several bridges, both for traffic and foot only.


The river, while busy with other small watercraft, was serene and we both felt we could have easily settled in and taken a nap. The other great thing was that despite how much we paddled and how far we went from the boathouse, we set the pace and I honestly could have continued on for quite a bit before feeling I needed to turn around. talk about a nice way to enjoy a beautiful day and get some good exercise!


So, Darth Coco and I have decided that we really enjoy kayaking. I probably drove her insane by constantly saying how awesome the trip was and how we so need to go again and SOON! So, consider yourselves warned! We will be on the waterways of Concord again. Will you be prepared if you happen to meet us there?

Apples, apples everywhere....

...and not a bite to eat! Well, ok, I lied. There was tons to eat, including this amazing apple cider donut (my favorite of all time).

This past Saturday a group of our friends including 6 adults (in physical age only), a three year old and a very cute Redbone Coonhound met at Shelburne Farm in Acton, MA for our Annual Apple Day. Unfortunately, a few of our friends weren't able to be there with us due to things like living in other states and illness, but the spirit of Apple Day was present nonetheless. We just hope they can make it next year.

The day was one of those that seems like it's going to be freezing, yet somehow you end up warm. After looking at the llama, sheep and goats and grabbing a donut, we began our trek into the orchard.

It actually took us a little while to find some good apples because many of the trees were picked clean on the portion that we could reach without a ladder. The main reason for this was that the farm was keeping certain areas of the orchard closed off so other pickers would be able to find fruit later on in the season.

We were looking primarily for Macs and Cortlands, which have turned out to be great choices for both pie baking and applesauce making over the years. After a little bit of hunting, however we did find some nice examples of appley goodness within reach and even discovered that our mini-person (blame Brian for that name) could fit under all the trees and get to all the apples we couldn't reach without breaking the branches. Luke, you definitely earned your keep on Saturday! I swear he personally filled the last 1/2 a bag himself while the rest of us just watched.

Katie the Coonhound also helped out by keeping us apprised of all the other people around us, not to mention the other dogs who came out with their respective family members. Isn't she beautiful? I always get such great pictures of her when she finds her way into my viewfinder.

After returning to the farm stand for our well earned cider and ice cream we headed back to Erin & Joel's to begin phase II of Apple Day: The Apple Peeling/Coring/Dicing Extravaganza. This process used to take ages, especially back in the day when we first started the tradition. For many years grossly overestimated how many apples we needed to make pies for each of the households and applesauce as well. So, the prep process seemed endless... especially since we did all the work by hand, but over time we gradually got better and then this year we were spot on.

We ended up getting only one bushel, which turned out to be the perfect amount to provide for all the folks present this year. We also have made the process less tedious by investing in a few apple peeler, corer/slicers. Of the two we used, mine (of course) was made of failure. Tara's, however, worked like a charm and the three of us girls had all the apples set to go in an hour or two. Edit: Correction! Mine is no longer full of fail. The cutting blade was just was set out far enough. Now that the adjustment has been made, mine works perfectly! Ha! Ok, well, except for the handle that keeps falling off...

We still have to cut the peeled apples after they go through the machine, but really this is so easy, its almost not like work at all.

At the end of the day, we would up with four pies (thanks go to Heather's mom for the recipe), a nice sized cauldron full of yummy tart applesauce we split up and 9 cups of apple butter (a newcomer to our usual recipe list). Mmmmmm... apple butter... It turns out that apple butter is really just applesauce that has been pureed and made thicker by boiling it down. You can find the recipe we used here at Cooking Light.

I'm Alive! I swear....

I've just had lots going on lately, so there hasn't been much time to post or take any pictures. Buuuuut, I am working on some new projects as you can see in my current projects list on the side of the blog. So, I should have some finished object posts soon for you.

Also, I've got some neat things I'm doing in the next couple of weeks that will be really great subjects for photography. One of them is a Photography for Knitters workshop I'm going to with my friend Tara this weekend. The workshop is being put on by Gale Zucker who is a professional photographer and produces a blog called She Shoots Sheep Shots. I'm very excited about the workshop because I have a hard time taking nice final pictures of my completed projects before I send them off to whomever they are for. So, lots on neat images should come from that especially since she asked us to bring our own finished projects or works in progress to shoot!

Then, next weekend I have Annual Apple Day with a bunch of my friends. This is always a great time to break out the camera and enjoy the fall together. We gather at a local orchard, pick a bunch of apples, then head to one of our places to make pies, make applesauce and make dinner. We basically spend the whole day together and it is one of those traditions that I think is really hard to beat. I'm guessing we've been having Apple Day for at least 5 years now, although it could be more (feel free to chime in guys).

Then on Sunday I'm going to an A*Muse Addicts get together at Ink About It, the stamping store my mom and I frequent for classes and supplies. A*Muse is an awesome company that makes the cutest stamps eva! Check their stuff out at their website. So, a group of about 20 of us are getting together and each bringing a shoebox project with enough supplies for everyone to make the project. So, when I'm all done, I'll have 20 little projects to photograph. Neat huh?

So anyway, more to come and thanks for being patient through my lack of posting.

The rain finally stopped long enough...

...for me to finally get some nice pictures of some flora. I took these at the Mass Horticultural Society Elm Bank Car Show on June 28th. I have gone to this show with my Mom, Dad, and Brian for the past few years to celebrate Father's Day with my Dad, who is a 1960' Oldsmobile nut.
















My Dad owns several Oldsmobiles including at 1935 F35 5 passenger Coupe Street Rod with some mighty interesting extras. You can see all the Olds cars he has ever owned at his site www.teds-olds.com
















Dad has bought and sold several since he got into his 1960's Oldsmobile habit back when I was in high school. I can't ever seem to keep track of them all, but the ones that stick for me are the first one he worked on (with a little bit of my help), which was the white 1963 Oldsmobile Starfire Holiday Coupe and the first one he let me drive, the 1965 Cutlass Holiday Coupe (my baby).
















I LOOOOOOOOVED the Cutlass and frequently give Dad lots of grief over him having sold it. To this day I have the sign he had made for the Cutlass when he brought it to shows and a mug from Zazzle (I think) with its lovely visage. You may laugh that I'm so attached to a car, especially since I am not really a car person, but Dad trusted me to drive this car and it was the first antique car I had ever driven. I was so petrified that I would run it into something. One time I followed him over to a car show (I believe the first day I drove it) and he decided to floor it in his car so I would have room and could open up the Cutlass to see what she had in her. I just didn't dare. I just kept driving at my sedate pace down 109, enjoying the ride.
















Wow, that was a tangent.... anyway, back to the Elm Bank Car Show. Now, I know it's odd that I took pictures of flowers at a car show, but I was so happy there was sun out and I could take pictures that I couldn't force myself to focus on the cars. After we feasted on our Father's Day picnic (kind of a Loranz family tradition even though it wasn't the actual day), I focused on taking as many pics of the gardens on the grounds as possible. I mean, who knew when we would next see sun, or at least have a non-rain filled day, so I took advantage of the natural beauty that was the backdrop to all the old cars with their own man-made beauty.

A rose by any other name....

So, yeah. I can't come up with something witty to say after that title. Deal! This is basically my excuse to post some cool pictures I took of the plants in our side garden.















I swear that the rose bush we planted a few years ago is plotting to take over the world. It started out tiny, and in three years has spread to cover half of this garden.















Now it is just starting the attempt to climb the siding of the building. I think we need to get a trellis soon so the landlord doesn't yell. Although, compared to what this garden used to look like before we moved in, they shouldn't be complaining. The rose bush is so big now that there is no way we could move it if/when we get a house. /cry




















This is a closeup of one of our many lilies which are just starting to come out now. I'll post some pics of them once their blooms deign to make an appearence.