Crochet success, pond walk, and third party Freecycle

Beautiful morning, and I was out early, walking, and feeling more energy. It's a particularly rugged allergy season and I have to take all kinds of drops and compresses and pills, to cope with terminally swollen itchy eyes and sneezing. I try to take as little as I can manage without, because it drags me down. It's a balance. 

Anyway today's better and I had a great walk without wanting to lie down on the way back.

There were many rings on the surface, turtles and frogs, also water striders. And you may detect a golf ball in the water.

When I was taking out the garbage I spotted this perfectly good stuff left there. Probably wouldn't fit on the truck, or maybe too expensive to move it.

So I put a picture on Freecycle as a drive by, giving location and explaining it's not mine. 

But chances are I'll get emails asking me various questions and requesting I hold it, and other things people think up. 

I'll disregard them, not get into an email exchange. I've done my bit and it's going to rain so I urged anyone interested to get over soon.

While I was in Freecycle I saw this wanted post 

Hm. Maybe the gilded look is spreading beyond Washington? Ew.

I have turned a corner with the crochet.

I now know what I'm doing. That broad bit at the bottom wraps around the back of the heel, and will be stitched. Now I'm working the sole of the foot.   

It wasn't only the stitch that was tough, but doing it with accommodations for what is now functionally a partly disabled hand. 

This work isn't pretty but it will work as a proof of concept and a template for a future project. I'm very pleased with what I've learned here.

And look what came in the mail. Comic relief.

This cracked me up. An exclusive club I don't qualify for! Could they be more oblivious of people's feelings? Medics certainly have a different way of seeing the world. I'm guessing it's my age range that's expected to be falling to bits.

Also my age range is probably why I'm getting many many offers to take the condo off my hands. For cash. Fast. Easy. Three texts and calls just today.

On the other hand, my doctor's office called this afternoon and announced that the recent blood work is normal. So there!

 In other good news: in NJ as of today it is illegal for stores to use variable pricing. That's where their surveillance shows your personal shopping information and charges different customers different prices for the same product.  So yay us. 

And, because of cyclobadstuff, I did check with Misfits about sourcing of produce and they tell me their records show no instances of involvement with the sus sources. So far so good. I'm still cooking what I can't peel though.

Today's reading, among other books, is this gripping story, historical fiction, of a young girl in a Venice orphanage, abandoned at birth by a young woman who couldn't keep her. 

The orphanage has a music program, and after flute, piano and voice, she turns out to be a violin prodigy who gets Vivaldi as her teacher.

It's very well written, understanding synaesthesia and its relationship to music and the drive of a child born to play. I'm liking this.

Happy day everyone, my new neighbor just showed up to borrow my stepladder, which just arrived back from Gary! Her (and his) granddaughter is available to help her hang drapes so she's seizing the day. 

Days of sunshine and good air, and learning

The weather is lovely, in the 80s, sunny, low humidity, perfect for crocheting on the deck.

I switched to a different design for crocheted socks, this one in regular crochet, because I thought the Tunisian second attempt looked clumsy. I left it on the hook in case I return to it, and got a smaller hook for the new attempt.

This one's a great design for flat crocheted socks. It looked so approachable and I was in the mood to learn something new. I doubted it would be easy, and found I was right. Easy for Leonardo, to quote the real Dylan.

The stitch is half double crochet, no, I didn't know what it was either. Not only that but the design started with the half double crochet foundation. Hm. It makes a very nice starting edge. They tell me.

So I spent quite a while last night and today attempting to make a 13 stitch start of the toe. I lost count of the number of starts I made, but the yarn is looking as worn out as I am. Finally, I'm getting there. It's easy, they said..

Doesn't look like much, but now I've started we'll see. It's the same yarn as the most recent socks I knitted. 

If my hands don't like this, I'm thinking of weaving socks. I can make a cardboard loom, no problem there. But the results might look a bit artisanal. Like those ancient garments archaeologists retrieve with screams of excitement from Scandinavian bogs.

It occurs to me that this could be a fabulous hoax, like Piltdown Man. New Jersey Sock. Around here there are occasional excavations of indigenous areas, right near here.

This was a major settlement of the Lenni Lenape, and it's not unusual to find clay lamps and arrowheads, things like that. 

What fun to weave a sock in natural color fiber, get it a bit muddy, and bury it ahead of the arrival of the University team.  Just sayin. 

Think of the professors who could claim credit and write papers. The number of doctoral dissertations I'd enable. The angry debates in academia. The carbon dating, the applications for a share of the precious fiber.

I might just look into it.

Meanwhile, to more serious things, here's a composition 

And the resulting little bouquet 

And a study in time passing. The Angel Eye hibiscus with one blossom ready to open, one open and the empty saucers from spent blossoms.

Happy day everyone.  

There's a lot of nice people and things and skills around, despite the crushing weight of living in this crumbling democracy. Not on my watch though, still writing and making official comments and generally doing my bit.

One great victory -- the major bank, Citizens Bank, which my condo banks with, and which has been supporting ICE via Core Civic and the Geo Group,their partners in crime, has decided to sever the connection. 

This is after a couple of large NJ cities removed their substantial accounts and more were in the process.  Starve them out, is the way to go. 

Victory Lap!

Still the flag I'll go down fighting for.  We'll clean it up and fly it with pride again.

Quiet Saturday with interludes

Lovely weather for walking, and checking on the downed tree I reported, which has been neatened more than cut up but it's good for the earth anyway.

And another try, different yarn, at the Tunisian crochet socks, testing using the yarn with each hand to see if that works.

So far so good. I now have an idea how to do the heel, too, a bit of a mystery before. 

I was on the deck a while watching birds bobbing about. The thistle now has multiple flowerheads so I'm hopeful that pollinators are at work and later birds will peck the seeds. Anyway that's the plan.

Another visit from my across the street neighbor, I think she's filling the Gary vacuum but less irruptively.  She's being very helpful with driving, too. And we complain about Gary!

Among other things she wanted to show me some of the artwork her daughter did long ago in preschool. Preschool! Take a look.

They learned about famous artists and copied some works. I have huge reservations about giving children the idea that copying famous works is the same as making art. But L definitely had a good eye.

Clockwise from top, OKeefe, Leonardo, Degas, Matisse.  

I had yet another epiphany, this one a bit late. I got a hip kit of handy tools last year to help with the hip surgery, and now think it's a good idea to check what's in it anyway, even if you aren't having surgery. You don't actually have to qualify with a joint replacement. 

I realized this in the last couple of days when a friend was asking for tips before her knee surgery. She's in the UK, lives alone and up to now she's only got the date. No prep advice yet,  though it's soon. She will stay with her son and partner for a couple of days after surgery, but then she'll be managing alone.

So several people suggested handy tools, grabber, dressing stick etc.  That's when I realized I could have used some of the hipkit tools years ago. Such as the long handled shoehorn which has a hook at the other end that I use to open and close curtains. The sock tool. The long handled bath brush. Just sayin. Check them out, you might be surprised. You don't have to apply to use tools. 

Happy day everyone, my neighbor brought watermelon, just a slice, plenty for me. I must put her on the baking list when it gets cool and I retrieve my mojo.

Goodbye and hello, composing a compote

Today after took a walk, I did a load of laundry, watered the flowers, admired the hibiscus 

packed the latest parcel to send to the Knitting Ministry, and various other things, then made a large quiche.

It finally dawned on me that I could use a large glass pan instead of pie plates. Eight helpings here. One has gone already, for lunch, really nice touch from the cheeses.

The cheeses are grated Parmesan, sharp cheddar and crumbled blue cheese. Seasoned with kosher salt, white fresh -ground pepper, ground flaxseed and turmeric.  The greens are a spring mix of arugula and spinach, with red onions, steamed first, plus parsley. So it's like a daily supply of a few items.

Yesterday I had another epiphany. You can macerate fruit mixes even if you don't make them into a crumble. Clever me.

I was planning to stew apples and blueberries anyway but I thought I'd do the extra step a la Rose Levy Beranbaum, the GOAT baker who has written volumes on everything baking. Anyway I learned from her about macerating fruit to amp up the flavor. As follows.

First I prepped and put the fruit in a big bowl, tossed with some, not much, sugar, the fruit is sweet, a teaspoon of cornstarch, diced and minced fresh ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, lemon juice, turmeric. 

Then you leave it alone and read your mystery story for at least an hour.

Then drain the liquid you now have, into a saucepan, over lowish heat, swirling not stirring, to keep it from burning, till you've reduced it to about half the volume. 

The smell at this point is practical intoxicating, then you add it into the fruit, mix then return everything  to the pan, cook it gently till fairly tender, then let it cool.  

Then turn it out into a dish looking like red jewels and tasting amazing. 

The extra step of macerating the fruit is so worth it, since you're working anyway. Now I have many desserts in the wings. A spoonful of plain yogurt on top, or  atop, as the ditzy recipe writers in women's magazines like to say, perfect. Poifect.

Now that the ministry parcel is ready to go, I feel free to think what next to make. 

Still too hot and stuffy upstairs to get on with the warp weighted loom and I'm wondering about a different location now. TBD.

Maybe the next thing is the Tunisian crochet socks, made with a better yarn. 

While I'm considering that, I think I'll take a pot of tea out to the deck and just sit. Yes, that's a plan.

Happy day everyone, when all else fails, including your legs, just sit.

Watercolors and Misfits

Summer is when watercolor painting appeals, and I do tiny to small landscapes, just playtime, not expecting much. I might assemble the month's output into books. 

I did get a new set of watercolors because I liked the physical layout but the colors are a bit meh, so I added in the old better quality tubes which had hardened. I cut off the metal and I'm using the pigment like pan colors. I'll replace some of the pans with this better pigment.

Recently I scored another set of storage drawers at the dumpster, which stacks nicely on the other one I found at the dumpster, and with useful deeper drawers.

Art materials and crafting tools can go here. 

Enough of this frivolity, I had fasting blood work early this morning, friend drove me there, not one of my better times. 

The techie needed a couple of tries to get anything. Tiny thready veins. I was already feeling a bit loopy from hunger. Then home again to egg and toast, the last slice of bread before the Misfits delivery. Talk about just-in-time inventory.

The driver friend plans to give me echinacea from her overgrown front yard across the street. I think I'd rather have planting than the patio idea, after thinking about it. Better grow than pave over more land. In September we'll do it.

And a Misfits rental van again showed up, not the usual authentic pink Misfits van, but the driver was, I think, Ronaldo, and the food, in two boxes, why, was  fine. As is Ronaldo.

Cans for the food pantry, added to what's already set aside for them. Olives, cream cheese and honey wheat bread for  great afternoon tea sandwiches. These are the best olives. Very Downton Abbey. I leave the crusts on though. That's how I got curly hair.

Yogurt because it's a staple, and will go with the blueberries and Envy apples. I will stew the fruit with that brown sugar because my faith in raw produce is on hold for now. I'm also finding I really like cooked fruit if it's chilled. I thought I didn't like it when I had it growing up, because it was a hot dessert. 

Potatoes to roast, with chicken breasts which I'll pound and bread, with Cajun seasoning. Beautiful free range eggs and block cheese for more quiches with leafy greens I already have. Many bananas for banana bread and smoothies.

Life in the food lane I'm glad I can afford decent food.

Happy day everyone, enjoy what you can when you can. Paint silly pictures. Here goes nothing.

Clean air and walking while the walking's good

Today's bouquet, more susans, daisies, zinnias 

That sounds like the cast of a southern novel.

Good time to walk to the pond, after a few days of not managing because of weather.

There were frogs leaping everywhere, and the hot, then wet, weather has brought on the invasive phragmites grass, ready to choke the waterway. See it there, advancing on the water?

And all the way home I could hear this Carolina wren shouting jerkee jerkee jerkee wheeee 

There were dragonflies, mostly darners, who stay dead still, posing, right up to when I lift my phone, then outta here, so you need to take my word for them.

Today's reading is 

I must say Max Daniels' readers have presented me with a variety of reading, all good. This one's a murder mystery, clean summer fun.

It's a Sydney, Oz, based narrator writing in first person about a Boston based cast of characters with an on-site adviser who becomes a character in the novel the Boston narrator character is writing on an  Australian literary scholarship. With me so far? Hang in.

Real locations, main characters meet in the reading room of the famous library, hear a scream, later established as a murder happening, and they form a detection gang. 

So far, so interesting. Definitely recommended as a layered work with sliding effects thrown in.

In other breaking news, I'm thinking of ditching the current Tunisian sock, which is developing into a scratchy fabric, but looking for other yarn to keep on with the concept.

It has to be easy care, for the recipients, so I may steal back some yarn from the weighted warp experiment, and substitute other yarn.

The weighted warp is still going to happen. I can't let Penelope down. Or the Scandinavian women who wove the linen sails for Viking ships this way. 

Thus enabling the men to invade my ancestral land, rape and pillage and generally act like really bad visitors, but nevermind.

Happy day everyone, live now not thousands of years ago.