Your Kids Will Remember

 When my kids were little, DH and I tried really hard to live on just his income so that I could be home with the kids.  Sometimes this didn't work, and I would take a job for a while. But often, the cost of child care took the vast majority of my paycheck, and when DH would be traveling for his job and I not only needed a day time babysitter, but a second (typically teenaged) babysitter to pick up my kids from the normal babysitter before 6:00 p.m. so I didn't get charged exorbitant late fees for not getting there on time we questioned the sustainability of that system for our family.

So, for the most part, after DD2 was born, I was a stay at home mom. Money was tight.  We were creative.

One thing we did, several Christmases running, was to make homemade gifts for the kids to give to their teachers, both at school and at Sunday School.  If the kids could participate in the making, they did.  This was, afterall, their gift to their teacher(s).  It was cheaper than buying a token gift, and we didn't even have to leave home to find the right thing. 

Cookie in a jar mixes were quite popular back then (late 1990s- early 2000s), and I found a lot of them by searching online and through borrowing recipe books from the local library.  My kids would choose a recipe or two for that year, we would make sure the ingredients were in our pantry, and then they would get to work reading recipes, measuring ingredients and packing them in the jars in the correct order.  Then they would hand-write labels for the jars with instructions on how to make the cookies.  We even had a catchy name we'd put on the labels:  Four Kids in the Kitchen.

Years later, when I would run into my kids' former teachers who had been recipients of these gifts, they would mention how much they had appreciated the jar mixes (which they could make any time, not have to eat right away at Christmas), and what a unique gift it had been--obviously something the child had put time into.

Fast forward to Christmas 2020.  DS1 and his family arrived to our (pre-quarantined so we could safely pull it off) family Christmas gathering at this little place here with a box full of jars.  Each jar had a printed label on it, signed by K3, Toad, and Rascal.  Together with their dad, those three grandkids had made cookie in a jar mixes for DH & I, DS2, DD1 & Honorary Son, and DD2.

It was a touching gift for me, who was happy to see that DS1 had drawn on that part of his childhood and passed the experience on to his own kids.  And my other kids all had fun reminiscing about when they were little, making the jar mixes themselves, and whose hands fit into the mouth of the jars therefore making them the designated tamper when the ingredients threatened to not fit.

Introducing: Faline

 Our fourth grandchild, and second granddaughter, was born in mid-November. For a variety of reasons, including deer hunting season, some complications DD1 had during labor, and after giving birth (which included sepsis and an emergency hospital stay only 6 days after being released from the hospital postpartum), and of course the craziness that is pre-Christmas, I am finally just now getting this post written.

When DD1 announced, in April, that she was approximately two months pregnant, we were ecstatic.  This daughter has always wanted to have a family of her own.  In her late teens, she was told that she has PCOS and might not be able to conceive/carry a baby to term.  So, nearly two years after she and Honorary Son were married, to be expecting a baby of their own was wonderful!  I had some trepidation about the viability of the pregnancy, given DD1's gynecological pronouncement some seven years earlier, but thankfully everything in that department developed normally, and DD1 is now the mother of a healthy baby girl.

Early on, when DH heard that there would be a new grandbaby with a due date of firearm deer hunting season, he insisted that no matter what DD1 and Honorary Son chose as a name, if it was a boy DH was going to call him Buck.

As you read above, baby is a girl, so Buck isn't happening here.  At least not this time around.  I, however, have chosen to give her the blog moniker of Faline, who in the movies is the name of Bambi's doe friend.  Interestingly enough, when I look up the origin of the name Faline, it means 'like a cat', which to me is hilarious as Honorary Son and DD1 have two cats all ready, whom they both spoil and adore.  So it's sort of ironic that in this space, I'm going to refer to their daughter as Faline.  So far, she's very cat-like in that when she isn't eating, she spends much of her time sleeping.

Anyway, Faline is growing well.  She looks very much like DD1 did as a newborn, and we are all absolutely in love with her.

Before Faline was born, DD1 asked me if I still had the baptism gown that DD1 herself had worn for her own baptism.  Being that my mom had made the gown, at my request when DS1 was a newborn, and I had used it for all four of my children to be baptized in, I of course had saved it.  I was thrilled at the idea of my granddaughter also being baptized in that gown.

As you can see, it's nothing fancy. Simple, white batiste fabric that is both gauzy and durable.  Pin-tucks on the front bodice, with a small ribbon bow and lace sewn on the hem.  There is also a plain white slip (also made of batiste) that goes underneath the gown. Traditional, for babies of either gender.  Being that it's been worn by babies in two generations, I guess it is now a family heirloom.

Yarn Along: December

 I am joining with Ginny for the final Yarn Along of 2020.  Can you believe we made it to December?!?

The baby sweater I was knitting last month is finished, with exception of blocking and sewing on the buttons.  I have some buttons that will work size-wise, but I'm not in love with them.  Which is why it's not totally completed yet.  I need to get out and do some button shopping.  Or online and do some button shopping ASAP, considering shipping is taking a while this year.

My orange hat I use for deer hunting had gotten stretched out and didn't fit well anymore, so I found some blaze orange yarn from Jimmy Beans and made myself a new one.  The yarn is wool, and I love how warm and cozy it keeps me, for the most part (40 mph wind gusts off the field being the exception to toasty warm ears).  The pattern I used was Christina which has mock cables made with yarn overs and k2tog or ssk.  I'm thinking the wind gust air leakage is because of the yarn overs; my only regret is that I didn't use a pattern with real cables.

More small projects I have been knitting are some dish cloths.  Many of my dish cloths in the kitchen seem to have bitten the dust in recent months, leaving me with less than a week's worth.  I dug out my bag of scrap cotton yarn (from making dish cloths in previous years) and have been piecing together color combinations.  The finished sage green one is the pattern Honeycomb dish cloth, and the one on the needles is Copycat dish cloth.  

I also began a pair of socks, intended as a Christmas present for Surprise, although I may end up finishing them next year and keeping them for myself.  Long story, possibly a future blog post, maybe not, we'll see how things turn out.  The pattern for those is Branching socks, the yarn is some Knit Picks Stroll Gradient yarn I've had for a while, the color is discontinued, but I think was called Star Dust.

Not a whole lot of reading has gone on since the last Yarn Along. I read two books, one of which was the one I picked to take to the deer stand with me (I typically bring a book out to help me sit still and quiet; it has to be a book small enough to fit into my hunting bag, and not have a crinkly or shiny cover).

The hunting book this season was Snow Country by Kristin Neva.  While the story line was kind of predictable, I did enjoy this book because it is set in an area of Michigan that I am very familiar with and it was fun to recognize real places in the fictionalized towns.

The other book was Among the Wicked by Linda Castillo.  I love her Kate Burkholder series of books and absolutely devoured this one.

Yarn Along: November

 It's Yarn Along time again.  I am joining with Ginny this afternoon to show off what I've been knitting and reading lately.

First, a big finish to this year's big project: my Hue Shift afghan!  It is totally and completely done.  I am loving it.

A second finish is the pair of short socks I cast on while on vacation in early October.  I really liked the colors in this yarn, but I'm not sure if I can handle the mismatched-ness.  I might be a little too Type A for that.

Once those two projects were finished, I began working on my Knitting For Christmas list.  First, a balaclava for K3 that she requested (reminding me of the one I'd made Toad in 2018, she told me she needed a 'warm hat' in blues).  And then I made one for Rascal, because K3 had told me that he could use one too.  

That brought me to the next item on the Christmas knits list: a baby sweater for the new grandbaby (who is due any day now).  I am making that in a nice pale yellow, as DD1 requested gender neutral colors for as much newborn to 9 months stuff as possible so that it's reusable for any future babies regardless of gender.  The pattern I'm using is called Viola and Sebastian (any She's the Man fans here? Both of my daughters love that movie.) and I am doing 'Sebastian'--the cabled pattern--in size 3-6 months.

In the photo, you can see my current read, another Ellie Alexander mystery titled A Crime of Passion Fruit.  I've only just started it, but expect to like it just as much as her other mysteries I've read.

Other books I read recently are Poisoning the Pecks of Grand Rapids by Tobin Buhk, which was interesting but not very captivating; and The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek by Kim Michele Richardson, which I absolutely loved and highly recommend.

K3 and I Foray Into Clothing Design

In August, DD1, DD2, K3 and I took a trip to Shipshewana.  My daughters and I like to go once every year or two, mainly as a quiet getaway and to do some shopping.  Our favorite places are the Amish grocery E&S Sales, Yoder's Meat, and Lolly's Fabrics.  We visit pretty much all the shops, and the flea market too, but those are our can't miss favorites.

This year, we invited K3 to go along.  The thought process was that now that she's 8, she might enjoy seeing all the horses and buggies, plus it would be a special girl trip that she didn't have to include her brothers in.  We also thought she would love digging through all the fat quarters of fabric in the wooden boat at Lolly's.

Yep, she loved it.  She did get a little bored waiting for her aunts and I to look at fabric (I was shopping for a few future gift projects), so I told her that if she wanted to pick out some fabric, I would make her a nightgown or something out of it.  Well, after that it was hard to drag her out of the store!

Turned out that she wanted a skirt, not a nightgown.  Which was fine, as I've made skirts and dresses in the past, when my girls were little.

Not only did she want a skirt, she wanted it made out of many fabrics, not just one.  The girl had an armload of fat quarters that she had chosen out of Lolly's boat.  Way, way, more fabric than it would take to make a skirt the size of an eight year old.  I talked her into paring her choices down to eight fabrics.  Which I let her take to the counter and pay for, and carry in her very own shopping bag.

She liked that very much.  

In late August, we sat down together and I asked her what kind of skirt she had in mind with all those eight different fabrics.  Vertical stripes? Horizontal tiers?

Patchwork.  That's what she wanted.  Squares sewn together patchwork style.

Okay, that I could do.  It would be loud, but heck, she's eight.

But wait, that's not all she had in mind! The squares couldn't be random.  I had to sew them together in rows that would make diagonal stripes when they were a skirt.

And, she wanted a high-low style.  Knee length in front, brushing the ground at her heels.

I sketched as she talked.  Mainly so that I made sure I understood what she envisioned.  It was apparent that she had given this custom skirt a lot of thought, and I wanted to get it right.

Once we had a design, I had to figure out how to bring it to reality.  This was the first time I've ever made clothing without using a pattern created by someone else. Took me most of a month (the garden was going hot and heavy, so I really didn't have a lot of time to contemplate skirt making), but finally the light bulb in my head went off, and I knew exactly how to do it.  All I needed to do, since this was going to be a skirt with a simple elastic waistband, was make two rectangles of fabric that were big enough to be loose fitting around her legs.  Then mark the center front at the correct length based on measurements I took of K3, as well as mark the center back to the right length, and connect those marks with a curved line (around the sides).  Sew the skirt together at the side seams, make and sew a waistband onto the skirt fabric, thread elastic through the waist, hem the skirt, and be done.  

All the cutting and stitching of the patchwork took a few more weeks of spare time, and I realized after it was together that I should have made a lining so that the underside of the patchwork with all it's seams wouldn't be visible on the low part.  To do a correct lining, I would have to take the elastic back out of the waist and make a second skirt, also sewn to the existing waistband.  Which I not only didn't want to do, but didn't have enough fabric left for.  So I cheated and sewed in a liner (of one color fabric) on just the inside back of the skirt where you might be able to see when it's being worn.

But the skirt is finally completed and ready for K3 to wear.

Rocky Mountain Getaway

 At the beginning of this month, DH and I went away for about a week, on a vacation that was supposed to happen in 2019.  We'd talked about it nearly two years ago, and DH was going to book it, but then he didn't (cuz he forgot, repeatedly, being during the period of time when his job ate his life. . . ) and when he finally looked into it summer 2019, the place we wanted to go had no vacancies for the time period we wanted to go in--Fall, (not ski season, not spring, not summer).

When he told me the trip wasn't happening last year, the news didn't go over well. Honestly, I was crushed.  I'd all ready been repeatedly crushed by DH's job eating his (and consequently, my) life in 2019.  It was really, really difficult to treat my destroyed dream of a much anticipated break our inability to go there as a minor blip in the road of life.

So, when DH checked into it late this Spring and found that there were openings for this Fall (thank you, Covid!! and people freaking out about Covid/travel!), we jumped at the chance.  Booked our room and our flight immediately, and put it on the calendar in big black non-erasable letters. And thanks to  the fact that because of Covid DH is working remotely for the next fairly indefinite future (at least until next summer, his employer says), having an uninterrupted week of vacation actually happened.  Hallelujah!

At a time when Michigan weather was turning grey and wet and chilly, it was absolutely revitalizing to jet off to Colorado with it's blue, blue, blue sunny skies. I cannot tell you how refreshed and energetic I felt after just a few days.  I think my batteries got fully recharged.

not clouds: white smoke from a distant wildfire

The main point of this trip was not to sight-see around the Rocky Mountains.  It was to return to one particular place we'd been back in 2016, when DH took me to Colorado the first time to show me some of the places he goes when he's on test trips (for work) at altitude.  Our destination was Breckenridge, and the plan was to HIKE.  Specifically, to hike the Peaks Trail that runs between Breckenridge and Frisco.  I wanted to hike that trail. All 8 miles of it.  In 2016, we'd done about a mile, then turned around and went back, due to storm clouds rolling in. This time, I wanted to hike the entire thing, no matter what.  I may have become a little fanatical about it.

I'll cut right to the chase and say that WE DID IT!!  We took a couple days of short hikes to acclimate to altitude, and worked into it.  The third day we were in Breckenridge, we packed a backpack with water, sandwich wraps for lunch, as well as a multitude of snacks containing both protein and carbs, and hit the trail at 9:00 a.m.  Face it, we're middle aged and both of us are overweight.  We wanted to have as many daylight hours as possible to hike this trail because we weren't going to stop until we reached the Frisco end of it.  Well, we anticipated that we'd make lots of rest stops, but we weren't going to call it a day until we'd reached the Frisco.

It wasn't nearly as bad as DH thought it would be, he later confessed to me.  The longest we'd hiked this year so far had been 4 miles, and that had been tough for him.  He'd kind of been dreading the Peaks Trail, but also kind of wanted to master it. We did do it the easy way, from Breck to Frisco, which has more downhill portions than if you hike it from Frisco to Breckenridge.  With rest stops, as well as a stop for lunch (ham, aged cheddar cheese, lettuce, red pepper and onion in a spinach wrap, YUM), the trail took us 5 hours and 10 minutes start to finish.

That was the longest one-day hike we did.  And we're not exactly sure what the true length of the trail is.  One sign says 8 miles, another says 10, along the way there are signs that say Breck 3mi Frisco 5mi as well as Breck 4mi Frisco 6mi. Interesting math out there in the wilderness. Whatever length it was, it was a very nice hike, with lots of changes of scenery, and I could easily add over a dozen more pictures that I took along the way.

The other days we did shorter hikes, basically whatever area struck our fancy.  We did some hiking just outside of town and basically on the ski hills of Breckenridge.  That was where we saw a collective total of 5 moose in one day, three of which were bulls, and two of whom wanted to walk on the trail we were currently on.  When you confront a moose on the trail, you backtrack and yield the trail to the moose!

moose, beside the trail we'd intended to follow

Seeing--and hearing, the bulls were bellowing--moose was exciting. I'll say that it makes your heart race when you come around a corner to find a moose only 10 yards away from you! I did not expect to have close encounters of the moose kind.

We also hiked to see a few waterfalls and lakes.  The first ones we thought would be easy, as the trail was rated 'moderate', the same as the Peaks Trail we'd mastered earlier in the week, and it was only 1.3 miles to the waterfall plus another 0.4 miles to the lake.

Um, it was not easy.  It wasn't even moderate in some (alot of) parts. I think it was miscategorized on our list of trails.  Or a sadist rated it as moderate.  It was the longest 1.7 miles I've hiked in my life.  In fact, the round trip (so, 3.4 miles?) took us only 40 minutes shorter than the 8+ miles of the Peaks Trail.  The terrain was interesting, and when was over, we were glad we'd hiked it. But truly, it was grueling. We thought about quitting a few times, and each time we met up with hikers older than us coming back from the end of the trail who told us seeing the lake would be worth it.  How could we quit when 70 & 80 year olds had made it to the lake??

When the sign points up, you go UP!

It seemed like the trail was pretty much one unending trip up.  Up over big rocks, up through winding forest trail, up across a fallen log that was the bridge to get over a creek, up up up until you were above the tree line.  Then, you reached the waterfall.  And if you wanted to continue to the lake, you went up even more!  But the lake was quite a sight when we reached it.  Elevation there was over 12,000 feet.

Like our elders said, we were glad we'd soldiered on and made it to the far end of the trail.  

A much easier lake and waterfall hike followed the next day.  We first drove to the end of the road where you could park and walk along the top of a dam.  It was incredibly windy (and cold!) on the dam, so we quickly walked across that, then meandered down another trail that was a less direct path back to where we'd parked.  In our absence, a mama goat and her kid had decided that the parking area was a great place to lick for minerals.

So we had close encounters of the mountain goat kind that day.

We waited for access to our vehicle, then drove back down the road to another parking area, where you could walk down to the lower lake below the dam.  Some more hiking commenced as we explored that area and tried to figure out if there was a way to cross the lake to get to a trail we could see on the other side.

 

Without getting our feet wet, there wasn't.  And neither of us particularly cared for the idea of having wet feet.  So it was back to the car, and down the road in search of the head of the trail we wanted to explore on the other side of the lake.

We did find it; not a road but more of a trail marked for foot and orv traffic.  The sign had a picture of a Jeep on it, and as DH said, "we're driving a Jeep" (a crossover of a Jeep, but still a Jeep), so he turned off onto that path and drove until he came to a turnout for parking.  

From there, we followed the path on foot until we came to a large waterfall. It was a great place to sit and have some lunch, so we did.

I am really glad we were able to get away and go hiking in Colorado, even if it was a year later than we'd intended.  It was such a great trip, especially in light of all the craziness and unpredictability that has been 2020. I think that we are now mentally ready to handle whatever the remainder of this year brings our way.

Yarn Along: October

I am joining Ginny today for this month's Yarn Along. 

In the past month, I finished the Ephemeral Stream socks, and they are soon to be shipped for a surprise gift to a very good friend of DD2 who is an unofficial sister to my girls.  Apparently I forgot to take a picture of them. *sigh*

As soon as they were cast off (probably why I forgot the photographic evidence), I picked section 4 of my Hue Shift afghan back up.  It had been languishing most of the summer, and I determined I should work on it, and not cast on anything new until it was once and for all finished.

Well, I did finish section 4. And I did get all the sections laid out according to directions and mattress stitch them together.

doin' the stitchin'

So pretty!

The next thing to do was to pick up stitches and knit the black edging all around it, one side at a time.  I got about 10 rows (or half-way) through edge #1, and I had to set it down to go out of town.

Of course, I couldn't go out of town (which included airplane flights) without a portable knitting project. The afghan was now way too big to be portable.  So I had to cast on something new: socks!  

In August, I had broken down and bought more yarn because K3 has requested a balaclava like I made Toad two years ago, and she was very specific about the color scheme.  Whilst shopping for the right shade and weight of yarn, I fell in love with some pastel sock yarn with long color changes that begged me to make it into more shortie socks (shortie socks might be my new fav thing to wear around the house).  

What could be a more perfect travel project than a pair of short socks!  They knit up really quick, and take up hardly any room in my carry-on luggage.

The yarn is Knit Picks Chroma fingering in the colorway Pixie.  I am using my typical shortie sock formula of CO 64 stitches, K2P2 for 10 rows for the cuff, do 12 rows from the leg chart of my chosen pattern (this time, Basket Rib from the book Sockacular!), divide for the heel flap worked 32 rows on 32 stitches, turn the heel, pick up 17 stitches on each side for the gusset.then continue working the chart for foot and stockinette on the instep until desired length for size has been reached, then toe decrease every other round until only 24 stitches remain and graft the toe in kitchener stitch.

As you can see, I have started, and finished one sock as well as gotten nearly half of the second sock done.

That's the knitting report.  Not a whole lot of reading for this edition of the Yarn Along. I did start and finish Resistance Women by Jennifer Chiaverini, which I found very good.

Another Grandbaby Quilt

Had DD1's baby shower this past weekend, so I can now write about, and show pictures of, the quilt I created for my fourth grandbaby.  And this one is pink!  Yes, the girl/boy grandchild count is about to be tied up at two each.  :)  

I am one excited grandma!  DH is thrilled too, although now they definitely won't be using the baby name he thought up for this child who is due to arrive during deer season: Buck Hunter.  LOL.  Will have to save that idea for future grandson.

DD1 and Honorary Son are keeping mum as to what her name will be, so I guess we're going to have to wait another 6-8 weeks for her to get here before we find out what we'll be calling her. 

Like the quilts I made for DS1 & K2's kids, I wanted this one to have a variety of fabrics that had significance.  However, I wanted to patterning the be different for this next group (assuming DD1 will have more kids in the future), so I made what I thought was a slight, easy change.

This one has stars alternating with unpieced "solid" blocks.  Stars are not that difficult to sew, and they add some visual interest.  However, sewing thirty-one 6" stars and getting them all nice and square and not cutting points off, well, that was not so easy.  Also getting such little pieces of fabric for the points and not losing the print of the fabrics, well, also not so easy.  In the future I will be more mindful of the size of the prints in the stars. Smaller is better. Non-directional would be a good idea too.

Overall, though, I am pleased with how this quilt turned out.  DD1 loves it, and that's what's more important.

I see stars!

birds on the backing, and butterflies too

hand sewing the binding to the backing

(took four hours!)

Six Months In

 It has been six months (tomorrow) since DH began working at home, about 10 days ahead of the Governor's orders that closed down the state.  Six months later, a lot of industry is back up and running, but not all of it. Large businesses, they're doing okay. 

Truthfully, there hasn't been much easing of restrictions over the summer.  Michiganders still can't go wherever and whenever with whomever they want.  Restaurants are still at 50% capacity, or less--if they are even open.    Small businesses, no.  They're not okay. Many, many small businesses have not reopened, because they just can't make a profit at such restricted capacity, and some have closed down for good.

DH has, occasionally, gone into work for a morning, or an afternoon, rarely a full day, when certain program issues arise that just cannot be done without actually laying hands on. But there has been no job-related travel.  He was told, earlier this month, that his company does not plan to go back to normal in-person operations until next year.  Next year in the summer.  More than 12 months after initially sending their engineers home to work remotely.  Our temporary at home office set up for him is going to need some revamping to make it that long; a better chair and a second, larger monitor for his computer are two things we're going to have to get ahold of somehow.

We made it--whew! just barely, our savings and tax refund and stimulus checks depleted--through the months of him working full time on only 80% of his pay.  Just recently, full pay was reinstated, although that held back 20% is still yet to be reimbursed.  With careful attention to expenditures, and using a lot of our reserves, we have been able to make 100% of our normal payments to the mortgage, truck loan, etc, so have not had any harm to our credit rating.  What a blessing; there are many not so fortunate. (And some, despite making more in unemployment than they ever did on the job, who still have managed to not meet their obligations, but that's a whole different rant that I won't get into. It's a passionate topic with this lady who adjusted to live on 20% less while watching others live on sometimes 100% more!)

It hasn't been all bad.  In fact, overall, DH has done more at home this summer than I think he'd accomplished in the last 3 years combined.  His job is now more often the 40-50 hours a week a salaried person expects than the 60-70+ hours a week it had been for several years running.  He's more relaxed, and taking an interest again in home improvement projects we'd talked about years ago.  It's so nice to get caught up on maintenance things and we even have been working on a big project the last several weeks.  That project will get it's own blog post once it's finished, hopefully yet this month.

I'll be brutally honest and say that at the beginning of March, when he and I took our 4 day getaway, things were not well between us.  He was exhausted with work.  I was exhausted with trying to do both my household and his household stuff, for years, plus my own work.  We wanted to be on the same team, we knew we were on the same team, but it really felt like we weren't on the same team, or the same planet, at all.  Six months later, we're a good team.  We're a functional team, and a team with good rapport.  

So, I guess, a pandemic is sort of what our marriage needed.

Yarn Along: September

 I am (finally) joining Ginny for this month's Yarn Along. Lots going on at this little place here, but again, not much knitting.  Perhaps later in the month as the garden winds down. . .

Sock #2 of the Ephemeral Stream socks is coming along.  I am through the heel gusset and onto the foot.  Not long now; perhaps in the coming week I will be grafting the toe and finishing this pair of socks.

If I can keep myself from casting on another project right away--I have three in mind and yarn on hand for all of them--I will complete my Hue Shift Afghan once the sock is done. I think I managed to knit one complete square on the afghan in the past month.  

While my knitting languished, lately my reading has picked up. Mainly because I can read a few minutes while eating my breakfast or lunch, but I can't very well knit and eat.  Anyway, I was able to get five books read in a month!

After the Storm by Linda Castillo, another of her Kate Burkholder novels and another absorbing read.

Fudge and Jury by Ellie Alexander, a quick reading mystery.

Somewhere Safe With Somebody Good, by Jan Karon, a large Mitford novel.

The Last Runaway by Tracy Chevalier, fairly quick read.

The Body in Griffith Park by Jennifer Kincheloe, one that I enjoyed very much and plan to seek out more from this author.

Currently I am about a third of the way through The Forgotten Seamstress by Liz Trenow.  It's interesting but I'm not super caught up in the storyline. Maybe that will change as I read further.

Since the libraries here in Michigan are, as far as I know, still closed to patrons actually entering the building and browsing the bookshelves, my local library has started a neat service.  It's called a Grab Bag, and you fill out a short questionnaire about the sorts of things you are interested in, then the librarians chose 5 books from what's on hand at that branch to make up a bag of books for you to read.  The Chevalier, Kincheloe, and Threnow books are from my first Grab Bag.  I'd have to say, so far, the librarians did a really good job of picking some books for me! Included in my five, but not yet read are also a book on making quilts with (fabric) jelly rolls and another mystery.

Food, Food, and More Food!

 That sums up my August so far.  A great (busy) August it has been, with 10 days yet to go! Who can complain about too much food?

My big batch of broilers for the year were processed on August 1st.  My normal processor retired last year (without telling me!), and I was scrambling for a while to find a new one, as the other local processor I've used in the past told me on June 16th that they were booked solid until September with a 6-page waiting list.  Not good news when you have a brooder full of chicks that need to be processed in early August.

What at first seemed like a horrible predicament to be in--31 birds to be processed and looking like I might have to do it all by myself--turned out just fine, as I found an awesome processor only a 45 minute drive away that is a) cheaper than the local processor that wasn't available until sometime in September; b) very pleasant to deal with both dropping off and picking up birds; c) has an impressively clean and well run small facility.  Guess who will be doing all my poultry processing from now on!

Anyway, August first found me cutting and wrapping eleven chickens for the freezer, as well as bagging 12 whole for the freezer (roast chicken dinner, mmm), and handing over 8 to DH to deliver to a work friend of his who had asked me to raise some for him.

After that, the vast majority of my food-related hours have been devoted to vegetables, as the garden is doing amazing this year!  Best year ever.  Literally.  In 17 years of living here, this is the most productive garden I've ever had.  

The wild blackberries out in/near the woods were also prolific this year.  I managed to gather enough for a batch of blackberry jam for the first time in a long time.  I canned some in 4 ounce jars to give away as gifts; it seems like most people can't use up a regular size jar in a suitable period of time (unless they have kids that don't mind seeds in the jam).

I planted both bush beans and pole beans this year, partially as a precaution against crop failure (ahem, last year), and partially because I love the bean mix at Annie's Heirloom Seeds (a mix that of course I cannot find on their website today as I look for the exact seed offering to link to).  The bush beans started producing much earlier than the pole beans, as you can see in the above picture.  And just when we're about tired of the colorful blend, the pole beans (I always go with Kentucky Wonder pole, as that is what my grandma grew) start coming on to finish out the season.

Backtracking a little bit, the cucumbers really started before the beans.  They were hot and heavy for about a month, and now are almost done.  We're down to what I call the "ugly pickles"; the funky twisted or asymmetrical little cukes that the vines produce late in the season. That's okay, there are about three dozen quarts of dill pickles down in the cellar from this year's garden.

Currently it's tomatoes, tomatoes, tomatoes!  The cherry tomatoes were the early winners, and they've been our daily snack for weeks now.  It's hard to resist popping a few in your mouth as you are working in the garden, or passing by the ever present bowl of them on the kitchen counter.

Now my canning tomatoes are getting in on the action.  Just this week alone, I've canned 33 pints of tomatoes.  One more batch through the canner and I'll have met my quota for the year.  Then those lovely round maters will become salsa. I do have to confess that we've already enjoyed them as freshly made pico twice (this week!) and as margherita pizza (also this week, with basil from the garden).

The tomatoes I plant for making sauce and paste out of are just now ripening.  I've made 3 pints of sauce this week, all using Federle tomatoes (seen in the picture with the cherry tomatoes).  I love this variety, found at Seed Savers Exchange.  I also plant Amish Paste, but have had more consistent results through the years with the Federle.

It's been a great year for sweet corn.  We've eaten a lot of that this month too.  Mine is nearly finished now; I'm not sure if there's even enough out there to bother canning.  I might just treat the whole family (kids and grandkids) to one more meal of freshly picked corn and use up what's left on the stalks rather than going through the process to can it and only ending up with a few pints. Then again, if I can it, it will be as cream corn, which is an occasional treat here, so a few pints is enough for a year.

So far, I haven't mentioned zucchini.  Yes, I have zucchini too.  My track record with zucchini is either it all dies and I get only a couple of zucchini, or it all lives and I get way too many zucchini.  There is no such thing here as zucchini in moderation.

This year, it all lived.  Not only did it all live, but somehow I planted double what I intended!  I thought I had one row with four plants.  Turns out I had two rows--in separate sections of the garden--with four plants each!  Good thing that chickens love zucchini.  Any that have gotten away from me and become too big to be palatable went straight to the chickens. They magically turn zucchini into eggs. I'm so tired of zucchini; although I'm planning to try a new recipe this weekend: butterscotch zucchini blondies.  LOL.  I definitely prefer zucchini as a baked good than as a veggie.

Yarn Along: August

I'm hoping to link up with Ginny at Small Things for this month's Yarn Along.  I'm off by a day, as today is Thursday, but so far, so is she.    

The past month has been super busy, so busy that I haven't written a single post since the July Yarn Along.  Much time has been spent between the garden (weeding, watering, harvesting) and the kitchen (cooking, canning, freezing).  I have managed to get a bit of knitting in most evenings, after dark and before going to sleep.

Little progress has been made on the final section of my Hue Shift afghan.  I think I have done not quite 2 squares in the past month.

    

Where I have lacked attention to my afghan, I've showered on a new knitting project. Which, of course, is a pair of socks.  (I bet nobody who knows me ever saw that coming. . .)  I've completed sock 1 of the Ephemeral Stream pattern, which is a free pattern by verybusymonkey, who is a favorite (sock) designer of mine.  Her patterns are so easy to follow, while giving you a finished project that looks really complex.

I also finished reading the book I talked about in last month's Yarn Along, and am about 2/3 of the way through The Edge of Eternity by Ken Follett.  This is the third book of his Century Trilogy, and I am enjoying it just as much as the previous two.

Yarn Along: July

If it's not too late, I'm going to link up with Ginny's Yarn Along for this month.

What a month it's been so far. . . That's another post for (hopefully) another day sometime soon.

For now, a quick update on what I've been knitting and reading since the June Yarn Along.

I finished the socks I was making for DD1's birthday, and apparently forgot to photograph them.  They have all ready been gifted, and looking back through my pictures since June 1st, I can't find a photo of the finished product. Oh well.  She likes them, that's what matters most.

After finishing the socks, I went back to working on my Hue Shift afghan, casting on for the fourth and final section. It's going slowly, because I have been way too busy with gardening, and chickens and family to knit much at all.  In fact, it sat untouched for two weeks before I picked it up again and spent barely a half hour on it before setting it aside.  Sooner or later, I will finish it.  I think if things go well, maybe even this month.

The library finally reopened three weeks ago, for curbside pickup of materials ordered online.  So I did manage to read a book; Tending Roses by Lisa Wingate.  Although I've liked every other book I've read by this author, I found this one somewhat annoying in the resolutions of problems in the story-line, and almost returned it to the library without finishing it.

Currently I am reading Hill Women: Finding Family and a Way Forward in the Appalachian Mountains by Cassie Chambers and really enjoying it. 

A Loss

Last week, someone meaningful to me passed away.  Not from Covid-19 (oh, how I'm so tired of that being the assumed cause of death for anyone in the last three months!!), but from the COPD that she had been challenged with for the last almost 20 years.  I may have mentioned her here a time or two as my 'dressage fairy godmother'.

Which is sort of true, but also at times so misleading, as she was quite a taskmaster who made me earn every single thing I gained from her.  She was a perfectionist, that's true, and yet she also was tender-hearted and wished to help others. But you had to qualify!

This post is in her honor. She never married or had children, and is survived by a small family belonging to her brother.  They are one part of her legacy. The other part, from whom her family members are totally separate, is the dressage world and those she touched via her importing and breeding of Holsteiner horses and those that were fortunate enough to have been her students.

Although I knew her for a long time (we met in March 1990), I was her last student.  And how honored I am to be able to say that.  Certainly not her best student, as I know my inconsistency in taking lessons and prioritizing my riding often frustrated her to no end.  But, I did have a family to raise, and a husband, all of  whom  had to come first before my horse(s), and there were times when I was out of the saddle for months at a time trying to juggle things.

It took many years for me to 'qualify' to be her student.  My first lesson with her wasn't until 2001!  She was pretty particular in who she would teach.  No children, and no beginners, for sure.  She preferred students who were devoted to the art of dressage and would take weekly lessons, if not even more often.  As the demands of her farm and her declining health took her out of the saddle, kept her home instead of away teaching clinics-- therefore out of the spotlight-- and eventually kept her from being able to teach regularly, other students moved on.  If I can be brutally honest, that's probably why I, with my on-again off-again riding pattern, even got a chance to take lessons.  First and foremost, she loved to teach.  And there I was, waiting my opportunity to learn.

Out of the saddle, through the years as a barn employee, I learned volumes from her on horse care, various aspects of farm maintainence and management, and horse psychology.  It was a valuable education in itself; one that has opened many doors for me at many other horse farms through the years. 

In the saddle, I learned not just riding theory, but also tons about the physics and mechanics of both the rider's and horse's bodies, and how best to unite them for the greatest results.  I also increased in compassion, as she had been a student of Chuck Grant (for you non-horse and/or non-dressage people, Chuck Grant is known as the Father of American Dressage, being one of the first in the US to train and show in the discipline) and when it came to training horses embodied his mantra of "Ask often, expect little or nothing and reward generously."  She instilled in me patience with my horse, and immediate and generous praise for the littlest attempt at doing what I was (trying to) ask the horse to do.  Because riders, as you know, it's always you that needs fixing first and a horse should never be punished for their unfavorable response to a confusing or incorrect aid.

I wish I had been able to watch her ride more, but in my earliest days of knowing her, when she was still riding and training horses, I was a worker bee, just a stable hand with a million tasks to achieve, and no time to stand around gawking when she was riding in the outdoor arena.  And if she was in the indoor arena, you better not disturb her, even if the world was coming to an end.  Any long-time employee of hers was equipped to deal with Armageddon without interrupting her ride.

The very few times I was able to actually watch her ride, ironically it was on my own horse.  During lessons when I was just so uncoordinated and fumbling and confusing my horse to the point where she would say "How about I get on?"

Now, if your trainer asks to ride your horse, you sure as heck say YES because this is going to be one huge learning opportunity for you, plus your horse gets some high level training that you're apparently not capable of giving right then.  

Every single time she mounted my horse, as soon as she settled into the saddle, you could immediately see the horse's demeanor change.  Not just it's attitude; the horse's body also changed.  Somehow, just by the contact in the saddle, the horse was transformed by her.  I always wished that I could have the same effect.

Many years later, I do.  People now see me sit a horse and are awed in much the same way I was awed.  My seat, my body, now has the feel that tells a horse "okay, listen up, this is what we're going to do!" and the horse is willing and obedient in a relaxed way.

What a legacy she gave me!  

She was brilliant.  Even when her health declined to the point she was housebound and could no longer make it to the arena to give me lessons, I would describe to her an issue I was having under saddle: what I did, what the horse did and felt like, and she most of the time could dissect the problem and tell me the cure. Without even seeing me ride!  

When it came time for me to move on to other trainers, and I wasn't sure how to know who was a good one and who was one not so aligned with the classical training I sought, she gave me some words of wisdom:

Take what you know to be true, and examine new teachers in light of those truths.

In other words, look at how they ride, look at how their students ride, look at how those horses they are riding react, and the proof will be in the pudding.  If you don't like what you see, if what you hear goes against what your foundation is, that trainer will not be the one for you.

While my mentor, my dressage fairy godmother, may no longer be here on earth, just a phone call or short drive away, she will always be with me.  She lives on in my riding.  Imbued with her wisdom of experience, I am also knowledgeable.  My task is to take that wisdom and knowledge, and use if for the good of every horse I encounter, as well as pass along that wisdom to another generation of riders.  

Yarn Along: June

I'm once again joining Ginny for this month's Yarn Along.

First, I'll confess that I have not read one single book.  I've read almost 200 pages of a book (The Nourishing Homestead: One Back-To-The-Land Family's Plan for Cultivating Soil, Skills, and Spirit) but I really haven't been reading hardly at all and am quite a ways from actually finishing the book.  There's been a whole lot more outdoor work going on lately.  Plus, the library is still closed!

I have, however, done a fair amount of knitting. I finished section 3 of my Hue Shift afghan.

This is so much fun to knit up, I had to literally remove my yarn, pattern, and needles to a different floor of the house to keep myself from immediately casting on the final section, section four.

Instead, I cast on for a pair of socks for DD1's upcoming July birthday.  She prefers shortie socks, so that is what I am making. I'm winging it again as far as a pattern goes, using the shifting rib chart from Socktacular for one repeat on the leg (after 12 rows of K2, P2 for the cuff), then an eye of partridge heel flap, shifting rib on the top of foot for as many repeats as I need for size and an easy rounded toe.

The yarn is some Knit Picks Chroma fingering in the Carnival colorway.  I was intending to make the socks match, but several dozen yards into the ball of yarn, it had been spliced, so even if I did measure out to the same color to cast on for the second sock, the color changes aren't going to be the same. Bummer.  I'm nearly to the heel turn on the second sock, and honestly I'm still not sure I like the big splotch of orange and muddy yellow at the top of the sock.  Might just rip this one out and start where the red turns to purple or the purple turns to blue, and then use the orange and blah yellow in the toe to finish if necessary. Somewhere that they're less in-your-face.  We'll see.  Because other than that color change, I really love the colors in this yarn.

How has the past month been for you?  Reading much?  Knitting anything?

Planning Ahead For Grilling

Do you use a charcoal grill?  Do you know how many bags of charcoal you go through in the average year?  Do you know the best time to buy charcoal in your area?

For us, several years ago, when we went back to using a (small, for just DH and I) charcoal grill when our gas grill finally bit the dust after almost 20 years, I figured out that we averaged 7-8 bags of charcoal in a 12 month period.

Around us, charcoal always goes on sale right before Memorial Day weekend.  And pretty much doesn't go on sale again until the same time next year.

So, it has become my habit to stock up on a year's supply of charcoal when it goes on sale in late May.

Last week, the cheapest price I could find was $23.99 for a twin pack of two 20 pound bags.  Counting on it being on sale this week (and because we still have most of the 8th bag I had bought in May 2019), I didn't buy any.

This week, that same charcoal is on sale for $16.99 per twin pack.  I stocked up.  We now have four twin packs (8 bags) of charcoal.

My year's worth of charcoal cost me $28 less than if I bought it willy nilly throughout the next 12 months, whenever we had an empty bag.  We've got room to store the charcoal, so why not use that $28 for something else (I confess, I ordered a new saddle pad for Camaro) and take advantage of the lowest price of the year?

How about you?  Need some charcoal?  What's the current sale price in your area?

My Camaro

Late last summer, I said goodbye to The California Horse and within two weeks I bought a horse of my own.  I blogged about it here, and since then I haven't talked about him much, hadn't even given him an official name for his blog persona. From now on, he shall be called Camaro.  Partly because I referred to him, when I bought him, as my little sports car of an Arabian.  And partly because I'd dreamed that, when I 'retired' from active motherhood, I would trade my kid-hauler Suburban for a real Camaro.  I talked about that here, but it never happened.  I'm still driving the trusty rusty Suburban--currently closing in on 265k miles, and I doubt a motorized Camaro is in my near future.  So, my four legged sports car gets that as his name here.

For the sake of brevity, I'll say that I had a big mental adjustment to my new horse and new boarding barn.  I'm the only dressage rider there.  And almost the oldest rider, period.  I do love the barn owner; she's a friend of mine that I met over five years ago and have kept in contact with despite her leaving the barn where we met (and buying her own facility--YAY) and me riding warmbloods mostly while she rides a lot of Arabs and Quarter Horses.  However, when The California Horse went home, I was separated from all my great older (three of them in their sixties) dressage barn friends who had become my support system through all the family drama of 2017, 2018 and half of 2019 (hardly any of which made it to be discussed here on the blog.  Rough time.)  It was kind of like moving to a new home and I had to learn a new neighborhood, new people, and make new friends.  Traumatic in it's own way.

I rode Camaro a bit in the Fall, and had intended to do quite a lot of riding over the winter.  Which didn't pan out.  My allergies/asthma flared up as winter started, thankfully not as bad as they had been the previous winter, but still enough that I just didn't have the stamina to both clean 11 stalls and work my horse 5 days a week.  Turned out well, though, as it gave Camaro a chance to lose the muscles he'd had, some of which were wrong for a dressage horse (ahem, underneck muscle), and it gave us time to build some trust between us via short groundwork sessions and the occasional ride.

This Spring, we are back on track for getting a good regular riding program going, he is building muscles in the right areas (yay, over the back and through the topline!), and his 'spooking issue' he had with his previous owner has pretty much disappeared (trusting me rather than worrying about bogeymen in the arena).  I'm very pleased with the direction in which we are moving.  He seems to enjoy our sessions together, and I know that great things are in our future.

Getting decent pictures of him is difficult.  He seems to understand what my phone camera is.  Selfies haven't worked so far, as you can see by the terrible one below. He kept bumping my arm just as I was taking our picture, and this one is my favorite horrible one.  He looks like he has the head of a moose (he doesn't, his is a petite shapely Arabian head)  with a pom pom for a forelock (he actually has a forelock that reaches his eyes) and my head just somehow doesn't attach naturally to my neck (I assure you, in real life my neck isn't crooked or have the texture of dryer hose).

Even when I try to be sly and take a picture of him out in his paddock, he's on to me. Like here, where he dropped his head into the water trough and watched me with his eyes just level with the rim.

Apparently this is what he thinks of my efforts to get pictures of him.