The Elusion of Time

I was thinking this week how now that the grass is green (and tall!! DH had forgotten that the battery on the mower died last fall and that he needed to buy a new one before he could mow once the grass started growing again), and the trees also are green with unfurling leaves, and it stays light until after 9 p.m., that I don't wake up in the morning feeling this overwhelming need to rush rush rush in order to get my daily to-do list accomplished.  Not that I'm moving in slo-mo, but almost like the day is.  It feels like my day is so much longer, so much less harried. Almost like I have all the time in the world.

It is amazing what long hours of day light can do.  In the winter months, I feel so confined, so pressured, and in retrospect I think it has a lot to do with what I need to pack into the few hours of daylight each day.  We have electricity and lights, of course, but it isn't the same for me as working in natural light.  When it's dusky, I'm tired.  When the sun is up (even if it's obscured by clouds, like it is the majority of the winter months), I'm trying to not only do barn work as my job, but also the housework and outdoor work at home. And then, before DH is even home from work so we can have dinner, it's dusky and I'm tired again.  There stretches a long evening, several hours between dinner and bed time, that I try to accomplish things, but with lamps on and darkness out every window and in the corners, it always feels like there is just too much to do and not enough time.

Now, though, that we're well past the spring equinox, and daylight hours seriously outnumber the hours of darkness in each twenty-four we get, I have to remind myself that it's 9 p.m., time to quit working and relax a little before crawling into bed.  I'm not yawning at 5 p.m.  and longing for my bed by 8:00; no, I'm still bustling around at 8:00 happy as a clam in my endeavors.  It's almost like I elude time; like it can't find me, can't tie me down the way it does in the darker months.

It's a wonderful, freeing sense of being.

Wedding Day!

Last week was a whirlwind.  So much last minute stuff for DD1's wedding.  So much stress, mostly on the part of DD1, although it was kind of contagious. 

She worried about the weather forecast; which was cold and rainy for both Friday--the rehearsal with outdoor cookout for dinner, and Saturday--the wedding which was indoors but she didn't want to get wet walking from car to church and church to car and car to reception hall.

She worried about packing everything she would need for the rehearsal dinner, the wedding, and of course for her honeymoon.  Once she left this little place here, she wouldn't be coming back for eleven days. So it was important not to forget anything vital. Especially her brand new passport, since she and Honorary Son will be honeymooning in Cancun (our gift to them, courtesy of accumulated hotel points).

She worried if the road back to the family cabin, where the outdoor cookout for rehearsal dinner was to take place, would be navigable by car.  It has been a cold wet spring up there, and as of three weeks ago they still had snow on the ground.  Two weeks ago, the road was pretty much impassible without four wheel drive, and even with it there was a chance of sliding into the ditch in a few spots.

DH worried about that road also.  A week before the wedding, he hauled our tractor up there, and with the help of his mother and his brother-in-law, installed three culverts in that road; one in each of the worst spots (this road is approximately a mile long two-track).  In the more dry areas he graded the road, smoothing out ruts and filling in low spots that have been worsening over the last handful of years. Even with all that, he wasn't positive the road would be dry and firm enough for two wheel drive vehicles of low clearance.  Especially with rain in the forecast.

DD1 worried if she would have to carry a bouquet of fake flowers--which we'd made as her throwing bouquet for the bouquet toss, instead of the lilacs she so wanted to carry.  Lilacs are her favorite flower, and come to find out she'd chosen this particular date to get married because typically my lilac bushes are in full bloom at that time.  This year, however, they are behind schedule, still being very tiny and undeveloped the weekend before the wedding.

She worried about being sick the day of the wedding, as Honorary Son came down with a cold on Monday, and on Tuesday she herself was ill.

I worried about DH and K2 how they would get along (they have blatantly avoided each other all year) and what effect that might have on the reception, where alcohol most definitely would be consumed by both.

I worried about flowers as I daily checked those lilac blossoms and watched them reach full size on Wednesday and begin, slowly, to have a few bottom buds unfurl. How to transport them, how to keep them hydrated so as to not be a wilted mess on Saturday afternoon, and how I was going to trim, arrange, and secure them into the bouquet of DD1's dreams.

All our worries were for naught.  Not only did God hear our prayers, know our worries both spoken and unspoken, but He handed DD1 and Honorary Son a great gift.

The cabin road was dry and easily passable. The weather Friday was cool and overcast, but stayed dry.  DD1 only forgot one item, and she remembered in time for me to bring it up with me on Friday.  Both she and Honorary Son were over their colds by Thursday afternoon.  The lilacs were open enough Friday morning that I cut a great armful (in hope they would continue to open even after being separated from the bush), wrapped the stems in wet cloths, and transported them in a cooler so they wouldn't get crushed.  DH and K2 were passingly civil to each other, enough that no one caught on there has been family trouble for months and months. 

Saturday, Wedding Day, had beautiful clear blue skies, a very light breeze, and sunshine making the air feel warmer than the 54 degrees on the thermometer.  Very cheerful weather, and great for outdoor pictures.

Runaway bride?

No, hurrying down to the lake for pre-wedding pictures.

DD1 got to carry a huge bouquet of live flowers.  Thanks to having the heat on in our suite, and keeping the ends of the stems in a sinkful of water all night, the lilacs opened about halfway, which gave a lovely effect of different shades of purple and different textures in the bouquet. I had also cut eight tulips from my flowerbeds, four each of a vibrant solid purple and a white with purple markings, and incorporated those into the front of the bouquet.

Soaking the bouquet until the last minute.

The wedding service was amazing, and standing room only at the small quaint church that DHs great-grandparents had helped build; where his grandparents had gotten married, where his parents had gotten married, and where DH & I had gotten married.  The minister was Biblical without being turn-off preachy, kept everyone's wrapt attention, and helped the bride and groom through their jitters.  Literally; you could see DD1 shaking as she walked up the aisle and stopped at the front of the church, but by the time the minister got to the part where DH placed her hand in Honorary Son's she was rock steady.

Giving her away.

The reception hall was beautifully decorated, tasteful without being over the top (another of DH's worries as he'd feared this was going to be very foo-foo based on all the decorations Honorary Son's mother seemed to be accumulating for the wedding).  The food was delicious and plentiful.  The bar offerings seemed to suit everyone's taste, no matter how far apart their beverage styles.  The music was a wide variety designed by Honorary Son and DD1 to appeal to the very old as well as the twenty-something crowd. It ranged from jazz and Sinatra-style dinner music, to classic rock, to country, to polka, to current favorites, and even included the Limbo!

All the guests seemed to enjoy themselves.  Those who had to leave early in the night (because they were driving back home several hours), were genuinely regretful at having to go so soon.  Everyone I talked to raved about what a wonderful wedding, a wonderful party, we had put on.  And I honestly told them that it had been planned by DD1 and Honorary Son, I was merely a consultant and a laborer (and partial financier, but the grand total was no where near as expensive as people thought).

Simply elegant.

A Pickle With Eyes

DD2 finished her exams and came home from college last weekend.  It's hard to believe she's all ready done with her third year.  She is still very gung-ho on becoming a wildlife biologist, and has recently begun looking into possibilities for grad school.

Once home, she couldn't wait to see K3 and Toad, and to go walking in our woods.  A nice warm afternoon allowed her to do both, taking them to see if they could find frogs in the big puddle/small pond in the south end of our woods.

At first, it was hard for the kids to spot small creatures in the deeper water, so DD2 focused their attention on the small trench DH has dug across the woods road to help drain a very flooded area in late April.  In that shallower, easier to see through water, they were able to spot some small tadpoles, very tiny crayfish, mosquito larva, caddis fly houses and larva, and lots of freshwater snails in various sizes.

pointing out aquatic life

examining a small snail

picking up snails all by herself

Once they were able to identify small things in the shallow water, Toad and K3 wanted to see what they could find in the deeper parts.  A few water bugs, some more caddis flies, and then, they spotted a small frog!

DD2 was able to capture it, and demonstrated the proper technique for holding a frog (learned in college, a biologist hold is a bit different from how we always caught and held frogs).  That led to several minutes of examining and discussing the coloration and other aspects of this particular frog, which was a wood frog.  They even were able to see the tiny ear holes.

Now that they had found one frog, it didn't take long to see more.  Mostly wood frogs, but then, a larger frog was spotted.

Can you see the frog?

Spying on them was a green frog.  Literally, as DD2 identified it as a northern green frog (lithobates clamitans melanota).

Despite many attempts to catch it, they were unable to get a close look at the green frog.  It jumped out of reach, into water that was too deep to wade into, and proceeded to float there, observing them.

It was the size of a dill pickle and that's what they decided it looked like: a pickle with eyes.

pickle with eyes

They can't wait to come back over and go to the woods again.   They want to see how much the tadpoles have grown, and try to catch that pickle frog.  :0)

Another Long Awaited House project

Two summers ago, we finally stained our front porch and back deck.  12+ years after moving in, and a long time later than we'd intended to get around to that project.  Once done, DH wondered why in the world we'd waited so long (a question I'd been silently asking for years).

Last summer, we talked about another, somewhat related, house project.  Since this one involves being able to get to the base of the house, most of which is covered up by my perennials in the non-frozen months of the year, we decided it was more of a late fall or early spring project.  Either after the plants had been killed by frost, or before they got growing, so as to minimize stepping on and damaging them.

Well, fall came and went.  I have to admit, that it was a rather frustrating time, because DH got very few things from his "while I'm off work for hunting" list done.  Part of that was having K3 and Toad living with us for a large portion of November. Part of it was that DH ended up not having three consecutive weeks off of work like he'd planned (too many important things going on at work that he had to oversee).  And I think part of it was that he just felt like sitting and doing not much of anything rather than tackling these action items on his to-do list.

As the snow melted, and the ground thawed this spring, I took kind of an assertive stance on this one particular project. Mainly because I was just plain tired of things at home taking a back seat to crap at work that constantly came up and kept him busy.  But also because this was a simple enough project that after a little instruction, I could complete it without him. I would just need the pick up truck, and the use of some of his power tools.

That kind of spurred him into action, me talking about using his tools--I had learned to use most of them when we were building the house at this little place here, so he knew I would actually go through with this project with or without him. The tools would not keep me from it. Within a couple weeks of me first mentioning it (and only a few reminders), he decided that the time was right for tackling this one.

What was the project?  Installing lattice to hide the concrete foundation (and the visible cellar roof) under our wrap around front porch.  Mostly a beautification thing (which is why it wasn't priority when we built the house), but also functional as it will hopefully keep critters (raccoons, skunks,cats, naughty wandering chickens. . .) out from under the porch.  Also, on the south side of the house where the ground slopes, it creates an enclosed storage area that could potentially hold the grandkids outdoor toys in the winter.

First came measuring. Then came figuring materials. Then came the purchase: 8 sheets of wooden lattice and a gallon of stain.  Nothing that broke the bank.

Next was the selecting and ripping of four 2 x 6's from the pile of salvage lumber next to the barn.  That gave us eight 2 x 3's to use to attach the bottom of the lattice (the top would be attached to the fascia board on the front porch).  It was interesting to compare the outsides of these old boards to the freshly cut surface and see that while they looked not too impressive, really they are still very solid boards.

outer edge

cut edge

The Before pictures

North half of the front

South half of the front

South side

Installing the lattice went so amazingly quick, it was really hard to not say "Why has it taken so many years to actually do this??"  I'm pretty sure we did the entire length of the front and the south sides (19.5' plus 17', and 16') in less than an hour.  That included cutting angled pieces to enclose the sides of the front steps.

After that, it was up to me.  DH isn't fond of painting, nor staining.  Artwork is my specialty (along with cooking, gardening, animal care, etc.  You could say I have a lot of specialties. . .) 

I did the staining in three sessions; north front, south front, and the south side.  The weather was warm enough that I could wear a tank top each time, which allowed me to get a little bit of a tan, so my arms won't look so glaringly white when I'm wearing my (sleeveless) mother-of-the-bride dress at DD1's wedding this weekend. 

Mayhem supervising while I stain 

I love the way the house looks with the lattice.  There is a little fill dirt to be brought in on the south side to raise the grade to the bottom of the lattice there and I will most likely use that area as a new flower bed; several of my perennials are in need of thinning, so a new flower bed would be a welcome addition.  

We also need to make a door frame and install the final piece of lattice on the open east side under the porch, but those can wait until after the wedding.  I will probably also apply a second coat of stain this fall--after the flowers die back for the winter--to darken the color a little bit. The natural color of the lattice was lighter than the color of the wood on the porch railings and spindles, so they don't quite match yet.

Overall, though, I think the addition of the lattice has made a huge difference.  The house looks so much more polished and less never-quite-finished-the-job.  If there's one thing that drives me crazy, it's unfinished projects.

Wedding Crafting

DD1's wedding is nearly here.  We are in the final countdown.  Most everything is ready.  This past weekend found us doing numerous crafty things for the big day.

She had decided, a while ago, to go with silk flowers for the bouquets (with one exception, Mother Nature permitting), the boutonnieres and the corsages.  What we ended up doing, after perusing all of the local silk flower offerings, was ordering bouquets online, and then cutting them apart and separating into their individual components. When we did that, we found that our six bouquets actually had enough  pieces to make six bouquets (five bridesmaids plus one bride), eleven boutonnieres and seven wrist corsages!  Boy, did we feel like we hit the frugal jackpot with that!  Originally we'd thought we would have to either buy more silk flowers for all the boutonnieres and corsages, or go with real ones ordered ready-made from a florist at extra cost.  But when we looked at our piles of blooms, buds, compound flowers, greenery, and what we dubbed 'texture thingies', it became evident that with some creativity, we had more than enough ingredients for lovely bouquets and all our 'worn' flower needs too.

Over the course of several hours, plus a pair of tin snips--for cutting through the wire stems, a hot glue gun, some ribbon, some elastic lace, a few needles and thread, we concocted beautiful wedding flowers.

.

A variety of boutonnieres.

Each category of man (groom, fathers, grandfathers, groomsmen, ushers) has a different style

Wrist corsages.

Again, different styles for different women.

Once we had all the corsages, etc, made, we put them into labeled Ziploc bags for ease of transporting, and to keep them sorted by intended owner (groomsmen, groom, grandparents A, grandparents B, etc).  Hopefully being packaged this way will make it easier getting them to the right people at the church on wedding day.

I also made a flower crown for K3, who will be the flower girl.  All it took was a $3 sprig of fake dogwood blossoms from Walmart, scotch tape, and ribbon.

Flower girl adornment.

Another crafty and frugal project this past weekend was to make candied violets to decorate the wedding cake with.  Now, the whole issue of wedding cake was kind of a negative thing for quite a while, as the venue where DD1 and Honorary Son's reception is being held does not allow you to bring in any outside food or drink.  It all must be obtained through them, or from a licensed facility such as a bakery, etc.  Which meant that I was not going to be able to make a wedding cake this time around (I made DS1 and K2's wedding cake in 2015).  The thought of paying through the nose for buying a wedding cake someone else had made did not sit well with DD1, or, honestly, with DH or I.  Luckily, we were able to come up with a solution that everyone liked:  have an ice cream buffet in place of serving cake to the guests.  

Neither DD1 nor Honorary Son are huge cake fans anyway, so when they asked their venue about foregoing cake and having ice cream served instead, I jumped on that idea.  pointing out that if they had just a small token cake for the traditional cake cutting (and feeding to each other), the only people consuming cake would be the bride and groom.  We asked if they could then bring in that token cake from anywhere.  As in NOT a health department approved commercial bakery. In other words, the Wedding Cake would be just to look at, and for the bride and groom to cut into while the photographer took pictures, and they and only they would eat a small slice.  No guests would be allowed to so much as lick the icing, let alone put cake into their mouths.

Surprisingly, the venue totally went for that idea.  And so we planned that just a very small cake would be made in my kitchen and put on display at the reception.

Now, even a small, token cake needs to look nice. And being small, there wasn't going to be much room to get fancy with frosting swirls or colored frosting roses and such.  So, I asked DD1 what she thought about using candied violets to dress up her cake (and also hide any frosting imperfections).  I believed that the wild violets should be in bloom in time for her wedding, plus purple is her favorite color.

She loved the idea.  And that is how I found myself snipping the first violet blooms of the year this past Saturday.

A handful of violets.

36, to be exact.

They were then painted carefully with whipped egg white, and coated in granulated sugar.  Easy peasy.

Candied violets!

Once sugared, I spread them on a small baking sheet covered in wax paper, and let them dry at room temperature for 48 hours. Tucked into an airtight container, they are now ready to go on the cake the morning of the wedding, when it gets its final coat of frosting.

Candied violets after 24 hours of drying.

Other than finishing the hem on my dress (it needed shortening), I now wait for Mother Nature's cooperation to make the final crafted item for DD1's big day.  We have a silk bouquet for her (and for tossing), but she really wants to carry a large bouquet of real lilacs, her favorite flower.  I do believe her wish will come to pass;  the buds on my lilac bushes are growing by leaps and bounds and look like they will open just in time for the wedding.  I have pruning shears and ribbon ready, with plans to cut branches of lilacs right before I travel up north on the day of rehearsal.  On the morning of the wedding, I will trim and tie (with ribbon) the branches into a bouquet for DD1 to carry down the aisle.

Lilac buds today.

I think they will be open at the end of the week.

The wedding will be 200 miles north of here, in the same church where DH & I got married, DH's parents got married, his maternal grandparents got married, and that his maternal great-grandfather helped build from field stone

Yarn Along, May: Little Socks

Happy May, everyone!  Its time to join Ginny for the monthly Yarn Along! 

April turned out to be full of finished projects, making it look like I spent many more days knitting than I actually did.  In actuality, completing my Deflect socks really early in the month led to several very quick projects, and I ended the month with three pair of socks and a dish cloth finished, as well as a second dish cloth on the needles.

Every time Toad came over while my Deflect socks were on the needles, he would ask when I was going to knit him some socks.  Which, in Grandma Code, meant that my very next project must be socks for Toad!  So, as soon as I finished grafting the toe on my second Deflect sock, I immediately began pattern hunting for socks to fit a three-and-three-quarter-year old boy!

I found one for fingering weight yarn, which is what I typically knit socks in.  But, when I went to my stash, thinking I had a skein of red yarn--because Toad's current favorite color is red, these socks must be knit in red yarn, Grandma Code requires it--I was dismayed to find that my one and only skein of red yarn is hand wash only.  Knowing the (shudder) laundry washing procedure at Toad's house (brutal compared to the way I have always sorted and washed clothing with care and longevity of the fabric in mind), any yarn I made his socks from had to be able to withstand both the washer and the dryer on the roughest/highest setting.  No special care.  I certainly didn't want to make him some red socks just to have them felted or shrunk or shredded in the wash.

I did have another skein, actually nearly two full skeins, of a different red yarn.  The same yarn I had knit him a sweater with last spring.  The only problem: it was worsted weight, not fingering.  But then I remembered that I all ready have a pattern for children's socks that calls for worsted weight yarn!  A pattern I'd been bummed to find out didn't use fingering, but I'd saved anyway thinking someday I might be able to figure out the adjustments to use it with the smaller yarn.

Let me tell you, these socks knit up sooooo fast using worsted yarn! Like in an afternoon if I'd been able to sit down and devote an entire afternoon to knitting. As it was, it took me three days per sock, knitting roughly an hour a day.

Of course, since they were so fun and quick to knit, I started thinking that I probably should knit K3 a pair of socks also.  Because what kid wants to see their sibling get something special from Grandma if they don't also get a present?  Besides, K3 had a birthday coming up much, much sooner than Toad did.

So, since the last Yarn Along, I not only finished my pair of Deflect socks (for me), I also knit a pair of red socks (using the Rye pattern from Tin Can Knits), and a pair of blue socks--because this girl loves blue-- for K3.  I thought I might be a little short on the blue yarn for K3s socks, it just didn't quite look like what I estimated socks in her size would need, so I decided to do a contrast heel and toe for hers, using some leftover pink worsted I had forgotten I had.

Its a good thing I did, because wouldn't you know I did run out of the blue yarn about an inch before the toe on the second sock.  So, one of her socks has a much larger amount of pink than the other, but I don't think she cares.

In addition to the knitting (and a million other things unrelated to knitting, I managed to read two books in April  Lost Connections by Johann Hari and The Road Home by Beverly Lewis.  I enjoyed both of them.