Misfits, bonus skirt and nature sightings

Misfits arrived yesterday, with an unexpected bonus. They had accidentally packed hake instead of the cod I'd ordered, so they refunded me. They can't charge for an item I didn't order, so I get bonus fish, which I expect I can use happily.

 Yesterday's walk yielded all kinds of bonuses, including the discovery of a mass of cherry tomato vines tossed into the trees. Does it count as foraging when you come home with a handful of cherry tomatoes from abandoned vines? 

And this little late-season baby blue jay shouting up a storm, not able to get loft to fly away when he saw me

I left quietly, because the parents were probably nearby wanting me to leave so they could feed the baby. He still had the yellow around the beak of a very young bird.

And on to a newly growing fungus, I'm guessing chicken of the woods. Those fallen trees are so rich.

Here's a garden specimen, huge and much redder in real life than seen here

And while I'm waiting for the heddle, I found myself making a pleated skirt, here the first fitting. 

And a closer view of the soft pleats, which I did by guesswork, and the waist fits,  surprisingly. I just made the tie which will thread through the waistband, then I need to hem it and I'll have definitely my last skirt of the summer. Well, after I make a side seam pocket, that is.

Happy bonus-filled day, everyone!

Fungus update, soup and paying respects

Another check on the chicken of the woods shows it's a bit past its prime, but definitely has a texture like chicken breast.

But I'm not biting.

Still flowers holding on

And the rabbit still guarding his territory

No mast at all this year, acorns, black walnuts, nothing. I wonder if the heatwave is the reason.

While I was scrabbling about searching for beechnuts among huge fallen leaves, bigger this year

I found a mysterious coin

I wondered if it was a long lost treasure, and once home set it against a new dime

Once cleaned with lemon juice and salt, it revealed itself as a 1970s copper dime, exciting. You can see the sandwich effect on the milling around the edge, copper core. Mounting excitement, checked on the value

So it seems that my thin dime is worth one thin dime. Ah.  Unless finding it in the woods constitutes the special circumstances they mention.

Then to lunch and the toaster oven, now in daily use. I found I had a small glass baking dish which will fit, and made parmesan potatoes. You need glass for this. Bed of shredded parm, roast the potatoes, let them sit five minutes, then break them apart and enjoy the best toasted cheese potatoes ever.

I also used up the frozen cherry tomatoes in soup with hot sausage and lentils.

Browned the sausage, hot Italian turkey sausage, with the onions and garlic

Then removed the sausage and continued. Added lentils too, then blended it, bit of milk to oppose the fairly acid flavor of the green tomatoes, then added the sausage back in

 

Sturdy, hearty, meal in a bowl soup.

While we're in the season, nearing Samhain

And respect, nearing the election, to people who do this in order to vote

The current audiobook is an old one I have somewhere in hardback, good old Margery Sharp, she of Cluny Brown

It's heavily abridged, leaving out some good parts and leaping ahead, with a rather poor reader, Hoopla cheaps out on audio buying. But, for now, not so bad.

And in book form, in case you were running out of Mma Ramotswe, there's a new one, quick and pleasant read.

This is why I waited for a pet free house to do puzzles, the current one being a whole lot more fun than the parrot in the jungle.

Happy day everyone, puzzle on. If your clocks just changed, try not to get confused. In the US we have the clock confusion yet to come.

C of the W, October, puzzle farewell

Yesterday's walk was a great October golden adventure, best October ever

Complete with a whole new highly colored explosion of chicken of the woods, same location but I think a new fungus, much bigger, many layers, appeared since the day before. The camera didn't pick up the brilliant orange colors 

Vintage stuff. Not a mast year this year, few acorns or nuts, but evidently a great bracket fungus year. I'd like to try Sally Pointer's acorn coffee but that may be for another year.

The flock of  yellow rump warblers is still around, plenty of insects in the warm damp weather. Despite sheer curtains, one hit the window but bounced off and kept going.

Meanwhile celebrate what's at hand. Today I'm off to offer the completed Parrot Puzzle to the library for its borrowing collection, and check out another one, preferably fully interlocking, no sneaky bits. No parrots either.

Today's Haggard Hawks is a nine letter word starting HE, ending AT. I guessed hempcheat, one who escapes hanging, which is far too niche, turns out it's much more common, oh well. You try it  

And here's to knitters

Happy day everyone, enjoy whichever season your hemisphere is in.  

Short life of fungi, also muffins

Yesterday I went to get more pictures of the chicken of the woods which had been exploding on all sides of the fallen logs, and found it has a very short life.

Wonderful October day

Where there had been big brackets, only a couple of shriveled little bits remained.

A short and vivid life. I also noticed a downed tree trunk from a couple of seasons ago showing what I think is damage from Sandy. 

That twisting happened to a lot of mature trees from the force of the storm, bringing them down all around us. Think Ian, only over my house.

The short and merry life meme can't be said of the endless jigsaw puzzle about the parrot. After about three months of occasionally managing to get a piece in, I'm here

I may have to apply for an extension of my lease on life to finish it. But I'm less convinced that there are pieces missing now that the choices are fewer and the discoveries easier. I puzzle while my tea's brewing. It may take a vat of tea to get there.

And as a change of pace, I marked out the lines for overstitching around edges of the upcycled vest.*  The lines are done in ink which disappears in heat, so if they don't disappear with handling, ironing will do it.

And since the pumpkin walnut bread was so great, completely displacing banana bread as a go-to, I thought I'd make it again, but ended up changing it.

It became pumpkin cranberry muffins, same batter, higher oven temp, shorter baking. Handsome Son is visiting tomorrow, so he'll have a selection of paneer cookies, the last one, pumpkin walnut bread and pumpkin cranberry muffins.  I don't think he comes for the food, but it doesn't hurt.

Rain today,  and I still haven't put on the heating, mild October despite recent light frosts.

Happy day everyone, enjoy your stitching and knitting and cooking and puzzling and walking, or just sitting peacefully on the sofa not bothering anyone.

*New readers: this is made from an upcycled pair of jeans, and lined with sari fabric. I'm a hand stitcher. Anyway this is a way to stabilize the lining at the same time as echoing the sashiko stitching on the back, as well as the running stitches on the original pockets.

Vote. It's important for Ukraine as well as many other causes, that we keep the House and Senate.

Textiles and Tea, fungi. Misfits and snowdrops

Textiles and Tea this week featured Deborah Chandler who helped found WARP, Weave a Real Peace, and wrote a classic book for beginning weavers. 

She's in Guatemala where she now lives permanently, her signal was weak and intermittent, so I just managed these pictures, with enough information for you to follow up if you would like to, both WARP and her book well worth checking.

Then Misfits box arrived on yet a different day. They're so flexible with delivery that I just order when I need to now rather than on a regular day.

And the chickpeas will be today's lunch, a chickpea stew recipe from Spain on a Fork, involving what you see here

Almonds and the last of the garlic are in the bowl. First I need to make a vegetable stock from the bag of trimmings in the freezer.

Then this little box arrived

The tiny bags of tiny snowdrop bulbs to plant, probably today, as my sister's tiny memorial. They're wildly expensive, hence the small number. 

The one person who would have cracked up laughing at the tiny miniature memorial is the person in whose honor I'm doing it.  So that's a bonus.

On yesterday's walk I saw this fungus, newly emerged, wasn't there two days ago, spectacular color couldn't miss it. 

I guessed it was Chicken of the Woods, an edible fungus supposedly with a chicken-like texture, though I didn't test it. It's a form of bracket fungus, from the growth pattern.

When I came to check my little beginner books at home I found they were a fat lot of use. The Chatto one supposedly for beginners, assumes you already know the botanical name before you check, no common names or help

The little Golden Book not much better

A good picture and a different version of the name.

Finally a site about wild food came through with the common name 

I wonder if the others were terrified of liability if they gave the common name and someone ate a wrong one and disaster ensued.  I know fungus people are very careful about descriptions for safety reasons.  However this one's pretty unmistakable, pretty much no look-alikes.

Anyway I'll visit this one again to see if it develops. 

And I'll leave you with this peaceful corner of a neighboring garden

Happy day everyone, may all your memorials be tiny and powerful.