Many paths, no destination

Well, at least none yet. Once that rainbow sweater was all done (except of course it's not all done because I have to reseam the arms. . .) I gleefully continued with other things.

Although I still have that lavender wool (about 75% spun up) hogging my wheel, a garden expansion required that I harvest all of the Japanese indigo I grew this summer. I'd tried once to dye with it, but it turned out a shade that didn't do it for me thanks to an equipment malfunction. This time?


I got blue. I can hardly wait to spin up "old blue jeans." The fiber is a Sheep Shed mill end, the kind with a bit of mohair in it. Should be fun to make and fun to use!

Mostly, it's been all summer work around here. Canning produce,


taking little ones out to do some fishing in the local lakes,


and doing the big honey harvest for the year. I may get some more in October, but 52 pounds was the haul this time. Not bad, not great, but maybe enough to see this honey-loving family through to next year.


Sarafina got her braces put on, and she's dealing with the not-fun parts of sore teeth and expanded hygiene requirements. My teeth moved quickly under my braces, so I'm hoping she'll have the same experience. Ellie is currently visiting grandparents out of town, and being celebrated in the ways only grandparents and aunts and uncles can do. I miss her and believe she's having a great time. Tor is reading more every day, and playing a lot with his little sister, who is currently sick. That's why she's leaning against my leg in the canning picture. She just feels rotten.

Ellie and I took a beginning crochet class. I can make at least one type of granny square and just need some practice and maybe I'll give a pattern a try after that. I'd like to make market bags as gifts, I think, and this seems a quick way to do it. No pictures -- maybe after I practice some more!

Through all of this, I am doing some knitting, though. From extreme left to right clockwise, a swatch in Mission Falls' Merino Superwas, for a baby due next month -- and a little bird tells me another one might be on the way in the neighborhood, so I'll have to get cracking on that, too -- then the Extremely Boring To Knit Yet Fun To Wear saddle shoulder sweater, up to the armpits. I'm actually having trouble figuring out how to make symmetrical armholes. That's when walking away seemed like a very good idea. Then another pair of Embossed Leaves socks, or at least the cuff, in Piedmont Yarn's kettle dyed sock yarn, then a quick hat in Brown Sheep's Bulky. I had actually finished the hat and realized that the decreases drew it above my ears -- a common hat experience for me -- and it's been picked out and set to go again.


I keep getting projects started and realizing that what I need is mindless knitting (hence the hat) for little bits of distracted time. But I do have to get that baby sweater moving, so perhaps it will draw the other projects along in its wake. Of course I promised Sarafina some wickedly complicated colorwork mittens for Christmas, and Cat has requested a Dale of Norway sweater, and I caved and bought the yarn, so who knows when anything will get finished?

Oh, Deary Me

Just realized I'm supposed to be part of a symposium on growing local food on Saturday. I suppose I can talk about how I got a whole pound and a half of snowpeas out of my garden. . . how's that for local (but possibly not very impressive)?


I think I'd feel better with a bit more preparation. So today after I grade, that's what I'll work on. Sheesh.

Generally, I'm really happy to speak in public, but I prefer to feel as though I have some clue about my subject.

Front Bands

One's picked up along the left of the Kauni cardigan and I'm noodling along on it.

There had been some discussion about whether or not I wanted a zip or buttons on this sweater, but I found some lovely pewter buttons with bees on them and thought it might be fun to have those, since they had a nice geometric feel to them, to go with the squares on the sweater.

Busy couple of days. I got to play with someone else's bees, and got dinner out of it -- thank you so much, Esperanza! Finally did some gardening, and I'm looking forward to finishing those bands. Slow, but I see progress on the horizon. So much to knit, so little time, such a messy house to do it in.

New Beginnings

That's going to be the theme of our Mother-Daughter meeting tomorrow. Thing 1 and I figured that since we had to have a theme, and "Themes are Stupid" wasn't an acceptable one for this group since they're a bunch of overachievers, we'd get people to talk about the new things they were doing. She was amenable to any of my crazy schemes as long as a) she didn't have to talk about her feelings and b) there was birthday cheesecake involved. I'd planned to make it tonight, but it's too late now.

I offered to gel-draw some Feegles across the cake, but she said this group wasn't into them and so I should save my efforts for her actual birth day. I think practice wouldn't be a bad idea, but I don't have either the gel or the time, so we'll go naked cheesecake. Snort.

As she's growing older (almost 14! Where did the time go??) we've been enjoying watching movies together. Recently, we watched and talked about "The Matrix" trilogy. I walked into the living room the next day and saw this:


It's Fred, immediately post-freeing by Morpheus and the gang -- you can still see his ports from the "battery fields." She cracks me up. Thank goodness for Magz toys. 1000 uses, one small box.


The baby apricot tree has put out little buds, and I'm thrilled to think of a future with Blenheims in it. New beginnings, indeed.



Today's garden pickings. The new beginnings out there are, obviously, the seeds and seedlings taking the place of the pulled things. Poor broccoli raab. Once such a nice, bitter, rare green, and today perhaps I pulled all of the remaining stems of it and composted them. [Even my sister had started leaving bundles of it, lovingly picked for her to take home, in the refrigerator "accidentally."] There wasn't enough garlic in the world to render it edible any more.

So in place of some of it went a dozen cippolini onions, with a backup band of "True Siberian" kale and some tat soi. They've both done well and been delicious, so while we're waiting for the tomatoes and peppers to grow very big and the outdoors to warm enough for them, they can be the cool weather's last hurrah. Even though garden books remind you to reseed replacement plants every two weeks -- and sometimes I dutifully note that in my calendar -- I have yet to do it, so there are these vegetative boom and bust cycles. I overplant, forget to provide succession plantings, eat everything, and have bare soil until the next round. Maybe the garden can qualify for its own stimulus package. Real California real estate.

It's to my credit that there are no new knitting beginnings because as a result of not casting on for either another pair of Embossed Leaf Socks or a baby blanket for a friend, I'm only one sleeve away from finishing the stash alpaca raglan for my boy. Maybe he'll still fit it next week, and maybe it will be cool enough to wear a few times.

Of course I have three new courses beginning next week also, plus this session's three courses to pack up, gradewise, and the first meeting of the community fruit exchange. I had planned to make a batch of marmalade tonight for timing purposes -- if I'm going to lead a group, I should probably have trod the ground at least once. But I'm not going to. There's enough work to do and enough going on that I can let it go for tonight. And anyhow, if I'm not going to bake a cheesecake at ohmyhowlateitis PM, I'm certainly not going to break out my new jam pan and start shredding zest. Sometimes it's time for a new beginning, and sometimes it's time to go to bed.

Come on, rain!

There's a storm forecast coming my way. In fact, one weather site uses the words "drenching rain" for tomorrow night.


Potentially 275 gallons of summer water for my garden. Whee!

Partial this, partial that

Nothing's really done. (Yes I could go on to a "meaningful" post about What It All Means and how patience and growth go hand in hand, but I'm cranky and sore. So there.)

I can't even finish a run -- I'm walking easily a third of each one, and plodding in between. I don't know why I bother, except if I keep doing it, I assume that "running" will return to my running.

Oh -- one thing that wasn't done is that the killer hens, here pictured (don't they look innocent?)

did not get a chance to off their sister chicken. They managed to de-flesh the back of her neck pretty horrifically, but just before I was deciding that I couldn't keep her in the isolation coop and was going to have to move her on to the crock pot, a friend told me about someone who wanted a pet chicken to hang with their solo hen. Yippee! One less death at my hands, and one less old hen to feed. Hooray for kind hearted folks.

I'm growing the world's smallest broccoli. In order to redeem these vegetables, I'm going to have to eat the leaves in stir fry and cut the stems up and use them to eat dip, or something. Too bad I haven't much of an appetite these days.


Except for kale, the one vegetable that is making me smile. I made a kale soufflé the other day, even though when I was trolling around the internet for recipes the only reference to "kale soufflé recipe" I saw suggested that it would taste foul and therefore no one would wish for such a thing. Well, for a first time ever making one of these puffy marvels, it tasted great. But I love me some Lacinato kale.


Something's been digging in my unfinished garden. I just figured out what to do about it tonight, but I'll do it tomorrow, after another round of digging, no doubt. It may be too late to save the six cabbage transplants.


And instead of finishing any knitted project, I just have four in various stages of completion, being ripped out and redone, or languishing. This doesn't, of course, count any projects half done packed away (you know who you are, cotton throw and sock pairs).

Blue thing is a walking hat, oatmeal and red disappearing into the couch is a top down raglan for Thing 3, the Kauni is awaiting a day I feel strong enough to rip out three rows to redo -- I may never finish the neckline, never, I tell you, and the thing masquerading as a roll of toilet paper is the secret so far design that I have to consult with my buddy about tomorrow.


Humph. I'd like to finish something but that would mean, you know, knitting.

garden round up

When I was outside this morning, I noticed that the chickens had done some serious nibbling when they got out. Apparently the absence of turkeys (the back yard is blessedly quiet and less stinky without the big boys) has energized the two super escape chickens. They'd done some unauthorized kale and lettuce nibbling. I can tell the difference between them and cabbage looper caterpillar snacking because the hens tear the leaves off in pointy chunks.


The winter weeds are coming on in full force. Just in time for children looking for ways to earn Christmas present money! Terrific. And I pulled some spinach I missed the first time, because of the leaf miners. Ugh.


I'm a little worried about my smallest beehive. The bees might be crowded, because they're very visible from the entrance. No other hives are doing this. If it's crowding, I could add a super on top, but if I do, I'll damage any propolized weatherproofing they've done between the box sides and the top. Decisions, decisions.


I ripped back an entire "box" off of the cardigan, because I thought I'd only done one round of solid color where I needed two. After doing so, I'm not sure that I needed to. Oh well -- more time knitting this lovely project. Thing 3 can purl now, and Thing 2 has learned a k2tog decrease. I'm hoping to get my needles back from her hat soon. I think I'm more excited about her finishing something than she is!

Bee Season's Over

No, I haven't seen the movie yet. I liked the book, and bee magazines are featuring the beekeeper who trained the actors on the set in interviews. Looks to me like this lady is taking something of a final bow. Yesterday I did my final hive inspection of all three hives, and I'm hoping to get out to one final top-bar hive at a friend's if it's sunny for the next couple of days. It's time and past time. Friends are finishing their harvests all over, but I didn't pull any honey from these hives this fall.

Two of the hives were moved, and by moved, I mean cut from top bars and tied into frames, in June and July. This set them back a bit, in terms of production. I took honey then, but anything they've managed to put up in the last two-three months is theirs to keep. They have to eat something in the winter, even if we don't get serious weather out here. The third hive, the one in the picture, in fact, is a tiny swarm I caught late in the summer. I'm not completely convinced that they're going to make it over the winter, even if I feed them in December/January, which I plan to do. They might not be able to keep themselves warm enough, and I don't want to fuss with stacking them on their screen bottom on top of another hive. Just more hassle than I'm willing to undertake (sorry, ladies!), so they're on a sink-or-swim kind of trajectory.

I saw the queen in the lavender hive in the background of that picture. She was just. . . well, queening along. Beautiful, but I couldn't tell if there were eggs in the comb she was walking on or if it was a spotty brood pattern. I may requeen all the hives in the fall next year, just to know where I am with them. Or not. It may work out well without the added expense and hassle.

The bees are active still, on the days when it's not so cloudy and cool, they get a few good hours in. This plant has them all excited -- I don't know if it's something special, or if it's just that there isn't much blooming lately. Just stick your tongue right in, apparently. Yum:

Other things are about to bloom, like the sidewalk pumpkins! Go figure.

A final bit of bee housekeeping (after I counted frames of brood and honey and made certain that there were stores right next to the brood nests) was to stop the ants from getting in. The hives that are more ant-ridden are grouchier. No one needs ants in their houses. So I use Tree Tanglefoot, and make sticky barriers to keep the ants out, and have to stir the bands up every once in a while because the chickens kick up dirt when they bathe and make it much less sticky. Just one more thing that I bet the bees appreciate (when they're not getting stuck there themselves) and it makes me feel as though I'm doing what I can for them. Since I'm not a Super Beekeeper, I do what I can.

I'm apparently not a great citrus grower either, because something is making the tangerines split. Too much bath water? Too little? Wrong timing? Maybe they won't all split. I'd love to have a few off of this tree. It's Thing 3's special tree.

And as always, I'm swamped with work. When I'm done transcribing the last 20 rows of the mittens, I may try to knit again. But possibly not. I'm just in deep. The shorter days make me grateful for any time I spend outdoors, but also make me want to get my needles going again. I'll have to schedule it for me, I think.

More garden distractions

Not all of us find puttering in the garden equally compelling. Do you see the structures behind me, on the browning (some day to be a wheat-and-potato field) lawn? Do a youtube search for "parkour" and see what the middle Things have been designing out back --their own course!

A teensy patch of bush beans. These are still an experiment. In fact, a lot of this feels faintly experimental. I worry that the exposed soil really needs mulching, that the sand percolates water through it too quickly, that mulching is hard on tiny plantlets, that I will never figure out how to transplant tiny seedlings at a properly deep level, so they aren't flopping about like my children when asked to perform domestic labor, and that there's just too many things to keep straight for me to think I'm working the gardening thing the way I want to -- companion planting, soil amendments, whether or not to use preparation 500, planting by the phases of the moon, whether the otherworldly appearance of brussels sprouts justifies giving them any garden space if everyone here hates them (can you shred them for cole slaw?). . .

But it looks right pretty from the proper point of view.

Gardening, knitting and another show

Just when I think I've figured out this gardening thing (ha!) I get new surprises. Out among the apple trees out front, on which there are pinky-tipped sized apples, I noticed these while I was draining a bathtub. Yep, more pumpkins. Those seeds must really be out there biding their time. Add water, and poof! Even if it's not the season and it will be too cold for pumpkins to set, and who wants nearly-inedible pumpkins in Janurary, anyhow, up they come.

Not just among the apple trees, though, which was ground zero for the thrown pumpkin now almost a full year ago, I'm finding them still coming up among the mint. Remember, this is a strip along our sidewalk. It's not very big, and it's not very "gardeny." But that hasn't stopped the bigger baby pumpkins, nor, now that I looked today, more baby baby pumpkins! I have no idea what we'll do if they keep growing and growing and growing. I guess foot traffic on one side and parked cars on the other will keep them in check. Occasionally I imagine building an archway and training them up and over it, welcome to Bedlam Acres, or something. But really, it's just mostly interesting to watch.

In the "old dog/new tricks" category, I figured that I can't really knit from charts. Lace or colorwork. I apparently have to translate the chart into numbers in my head, and if I try to do it while looking at the chart, it adds a layer of complexity that messes up my knitting.

However, if I do that translation from the chart into a written list of numbers, I can knit like nobody's business. Okay, I can knit, period. So the chart for the second snail mitten in my-speak reads "Dk 3, 4, 1, 1, 1, 1, 7, 3, 7, 3. 1, 1, 1, 1, 4, 3" or something like that. I list the color of yarn first, in this case, dark, then just merrily go along from there. Weird to find out a little quirk-room in my head like that, but good since I think I can now take on more complicated patterns. Maybe I can finally finish Branching Out for Thing 1.

And finally, last night we went back to the Fillmore (without Thing 1) to see another show.

We're pretty sure we made the right call. The crowd was young and bizarrely (to me) tall. During the opening bands -- why oh why were there two? -- they weren't too riled up. It struck me while watching the first bands that it's kind of sweet that in a world with The Clash and The Rolling Stones and U2 and many other bands in it, boys (and it's almost always boys, another thought stream entirely) still want to pick up guitars and drum sticks and just shout out whatever's inside of them. Hit me like that quote from some writer about the nerve of writing poetry, that we stand on the shoulders of giants. Even though "Don't start a band" is fine advice, there are plenty of folks who just won't take it.

The speed Irish punky stuff brought out the mosh in many of the kids, though. Eric and an unidentified big guy, there with his 16 year old daughter, set up kind of a wall, so the surging, slamming boys were kept away from our bit of the front. Therefore, I got to leap up and down and wave my arms with the best of them, to the point that I was sweating in my boots, without actual injury. And that was a pretty big deal! Eric took well-deserved credit for introducing the band to me and Thing 1, and I'm so glad he did. They were a hoot. Big fun, and now that our Week o'Concerts is over, it's back to real life and maybe I'll get that mitten done.

We went, I danced, we got the t-shirt

Thing 1 had her first concert and first club experience last night. She and I took public transit into the city -- which was a complete blast, so much nicer than trying to drive -- and met up with Eric, who drove in. Public transit, which is wonderful at 6:00 pm, is less fun really tired and still sick at 11:00! I actually fell asleep in the car, which almost never happens.

We went to see one of our favorite bands, Gaelic Storm. Lovely, happy, fast Irish speed music. I prefer a punkier edge to my Irish, which is why the grownups are heading right back out on Monday for Flogging Molly. But for my thirteen year old daughter's first time out, they were just right. The Fillmore is a lovely venue, although she admitted that a lot of the music history was lost on her, and the crowd was just about perfect.

I tried not to do a lot of thinking about the symbolism of the outing, and it really felt more like just another lovely activity that she can now participate in, like playing cribbage. Maybe because she was there with her parents, and we were glad for her company. She was so lovely there, leaning on the stage. Sometimes I think the pressures of growing up make her feel as though the upsides are thin on the ground. But this helped her see some of the privileges of aging, also. I'm sure I'll be less sanguine should she develop a hard-core taste in clubbing, but who knows? I didn't, her namesake aunt did, and we are all still around.

It was a long night, though.

I think the fact that she slept in her concert shirt is a good sign. As is this smile.

Meanwhile, to distract you from the utter lack of knitting content, pictures! The garden is actually growing. I look out at what looked like bare dirt not long ago and notice that the green haze is now obviously plants.

"Freckles" romaine. I love colored, ruffly, spotted lettuces and have seeds for about 15 varieties. My salads, while utter overkill, are pretty. Thinking about the painstaking transplanting I've been doing, I think about what kind of confidence and belief it would take to drive a tractor and plant seeds by the fieldful and just believe they'll make it.

Equally difficult to believe that teensy little ruffled leaves of kale will grow enough to feed us soon. But they will.


Here's last spring's kale still coming on strong. I think it's going to seed soon, so I'll try to eat a bit more this week.

Unintended Consequences

My efforts to reduce our water use have continued. I didn't expect that the plants out front would put on a late-summer burst, but they really like this bath water allotment. I think there's even two more pumpkin plants sneaking in near the mints, in the sidewalk.


They probably won't have enough time to make new pumpkins. But they're a nice example of surprise outcomes of behaviors, in this case, pumpkin throwing last year. The apple blossoms are turning into baby apples, and who knows if they will ripen up?


I just keep siphoning and watering and trying not to wonder what I'll do when it's rainy and we still have bathwater to deal with.

But, and you knew there was a "but," it's not all beer and skittles. One day, I was getting ready to put the siphoning hose into the bathroom window, and decided that, given my family's history of graceful physical exploits, I could just throw the end of the hose through the open part of the window. It took quite a few tries, but I finally made contact. (Click for a nice closer view of the result.)


Since then, I've been meaning to fix it. It involves measuring the pane, getting frosted or colored glass, then sitting in a second-story window while scraping out glazing and paint, removing the remaining glass, and restoring it (or hauling out the ladder to do the same activities while standing), and I haven't done it. Nighttime visits to the bathroom have been livened up by the fresh air, and occasionally an insect flies through, but it hasn't been so bad. I even use the opening as a convenient place to pass the hose through when draining the tub.

Apparently, Thing 2 finds the crisp outdoor air pretty compelling also. She tells me that when she's atop the throne, she puts her hand out the window to "feel the air."

That works quite well most of the time. Yesterday, we were having a fine time making cookies (no-egg butter cookies with jam centers) to bring to our neighbors for the debate. I was grading papers, and other than prepping the flaxseed egg substitute and refereeing the occasional dispute, my job was pretty minimal. Then I heard it from the bathroom: "Waaaaaa! Mama!! I cut myself!"

Since I'm a veteran, I looked up from the computer and said, "Really? Can you bring it here?"

"Noooo! It's baaad!!!"

When this kid says it's bad, I go. So I walked into the bathroom to see her holding a bunch of tissue to the back of her left hand. Moving that aside, she showed me a laceration that gapped open if she moved her pinky finger. "Let's go," I said. But then, I looked at my watch. Ten of five -- maybe, maybe we could get to the doctor's office.

They just told me to go to the local emergency room. We've been there before. I don't know why they don't suture in-house, except maybe they wanted to go home. When I was 19, I got my stitches at my trusty pediatrician's office.

And how, how did this child open up the back of her hand? Well, as I said, she apparently enjoys putting her hand outside while she's in there. Most of the time, that works fine. Yesterday, however, unknown (or unnoticed) by her, the window was open a little bit. And while her hand was sticking through it, suddenly, as old Victorian double-hung windows are prone to do, it fell shut. We're fortunate that she didn't completely lose a finger, as I imagine the cut glass guillotining down on her tender flesh.

Two pleasant hours and two full vials of numbing medication later, she's three stitches enhanced.


She's also owed ice cream, because in our house, injections=ice cream. Not how we'd planned to spend our evening, but it's not what I had in mind when I started saving water, either.

P.S. In the "You will completely not believe this" category, Thing 3 just came screaming up from the basement. The kind of "Ow, ow, ow" yell that seems to bypass my ears and plug directly in to my brain stem. He was dancing and screaming, so I ruled out "perforated bare foot with nail" which is one of my worst fears, but he was grabbing at his pants. I got them off, and thought he was pointing at his thigh. Then he was able to speak, and said, "Something was crawling in my pants!" and I saw it -- a sting right on the family jewels. After I shook his pants out, she walked across the floor -- one of our bees. Why she was in his pants is a mystery. Poor boy. Never, ever dull at my house, I tell you.

Another one down

My fellow urban farmer, Esperanza, came over today to help me end the life of our second rooster.

He was gorgeous.



It wasnt a whole lot of fun, and I really appreciated her help. I don't feel badly, apologies to my old, years-of-vegetarianism self, but I suppose when I enjoy killing a chicken, that's the time to go back to not eating meat. We discovered, as we dressed his body, that he had an impressive pair of, well, balls. This was one serious rooster. I'm going to do a search for recipes for old roosters -- this isn't a bird to fry or roast. I'm thinking very assertive spices and lots of moist cooking.

It wasn't all slaughter here today. We talked about food, and growing gardens, and what kinds of things our families were eating and why, and the funny names that homebirthers in the area give their children (can you say "Pterodactyl" as a middle name? I kid you not), and how we dealt with insect pests and could you use a garden clipper to cut the head off of a turkey?

Good times.