Textiles and Tea, peaches, rug in progress, stitching in progress

Yesterday's Textiles and Tea featured a cheerful, all the textile people are so happy, multi textile person who describes herself as a dabbler. More like a dazzler, with great output from dyeing to spinning,  award winning weaving, sashiko embroidery, knitting,  enameling, to a serious original study of the fiber from the American bison. Take a look

She's a popular teacher of weaving and spinning, too. 

Meanwhile back home, the rug is cut off the warping peg, one end now woven in while I watched Textiles and Tea.

And later I worked on the current stitching block

 While the cleaners were here yesterday, I read in the library, and went around the square to admire the new fountain, a circular garden with water. It's imaginative.

Then on the way home, I stopped by the farm, and bought plum tomatoes and peaches, wildly expensive hence the small haul.

 I had a great cheese and tomato sandwich for lunch, and the rest of the tomatoes will go to sauce.

I have a policy about fresh picked farm fruit -- if it's really good to eat, it's best just eaten. If not,  okay to cook it. I tried one peach, okay, sweet, but not memorable. I'll use the rest to make Mary Moon's Peach Thing.

I picked up my new reading glasses this morning, so that should help with the stitching. I forgot to put them on to write this, though.. new habit to get into.

Here's a quotation from Fresh Water for Flowers

Happy day, everyone! Hope you can see clearly today, in every sense.

Today's a new day

The week has reshaped itself suddenly. We are apparently in the path of what's left of Ida, with large amounts of rain tomorrow and Thursday, probably meaning flooding, since the waterways are still at capacity from  Henri. Tomorrow and Thursday are my worrying appointments. 

One called to postpone, the chimney dryer/ vent people. Till next week. The other, the routine doctor visit, I thought I'd better postpone because flooding possible. Next appointment December 21! I took it.

The reason the dryer vent appointment, required by township suddenly, and now by HOA, is a worry, is  that the dryer at the condo, the one that took me 18 months to find and install, is nonvented. 

So there's nothing to check the pressure of as in the vented ones. My fear is of a hassle from the HOA if they don't understand it's perfectly safe. 

I'm trying not to trigger a problem by bringing it up ahead of time. But I know what it's like to be defending against the HOA. On another issue where they sprang an impossible demand on me, I got the township to defend me! Which they gallantly did.

And another good thing: Gary Nextdoor says he will come over with me to help smooth it out if necessary. It's almost always easier when there's a man around at times like this. 

Even if there's no man present but you're known to have one in your life. I'm known to be widowed, and low income, it's open season. Much experience of this. And he offered, so that should help. He's a good peacemaker, too.

So, floods bad, help with dryer vent  folk and postponement good.

He's also going to help me lift and divide the compacted iris soon Another good.

Went to the farm for peaches and tomatoes and ran into a friend I haven't seen for many years, on the same mission. Huge good.

 We used to play music together, and our paths separated when she switched to baroque viola, which is different groups and teachers. So good to see JoLin again. It must be well over fifteen years, my caregiving having stopped my social life pretty much. But we knew each other despite masks.

And her low, measured voice still calms me. Such a brave woman, a refugee from the Red Guard in China, starting over with her father and brother, learning English, completely dignified. And defying her cultural norms, staying single by choice.

So seeing her was a gift.

And I thought this was a day for ice cream which I rarely eat, but you know, peaches.

I made chickpea fritter things, eggs, slightly mashed chickpeas, onions, parsley. Enough for tomorrow, too.

I checked Textiles Tuesday,  and the speaker was Joan Berner, with very little to show, no studio images, just chatting. Nice but not too visual. 

She's a weaver and nuno felter. This is felting by wet rolling silk fabric and roving for ages  to create fabric. You make clothing and wall art from nuno, and it's lovely. I added in here  some images from her website to do her more justice. 

She's a retired engineer, and the other serious nuno felter I know was a physicist before switching. There seem to be a lot of science folks in weaving, too. Must be the math.

So this was a much better day. 

Late summer, and tomatoes

Now that the roads are dry again, time to do a bit of postponed shopping.  Vital yogurt, scotch tape for paper pattern, and other such urgent needs. 

And, on the way home, braving the heat/ humidity package, a stop at the farm for tomatoes and peaches.

I deliberately didn't get them from Misfits, partly because I like to include local farmers in my budget, partly because there's no peach better than one picked fully ripe this morning a mile away, and in my lunch today.

The last picture explains the yogurt stop. Pinch of baharat on the peach, sprinkle of pure cane sugar on the plain yogurt. 

And Roma plum tomatoes, big this year, needed for a rare extravaganza of tomato lemon jam. It's wonderful, everyone who tastes it wants more, after being amazed at the ingredients. 

However, it's pretty labor intensive.

The tomatoes went through several chapters of my audio book, what with peeling, via boiling water, quartering, deseeding, dicing, boiling. 

The bowl of a dozen large tomatoes, became one bowl of dice for the jam, foreground, and one bowl of skins and seeds and innards for future soup use, background. Nothing at all wasted.

I had prepped and frozen the lemon ages ago, zested it and  saved the zest for other use.

This recipe uses pectin which I don't usually use, but happened to have some.

And my guesswork was spot on. I got exactly three cups of dice, just by pretty much guessing the need at the farm stand. Maybe I should buy a lottery ticket quick.

And here's the lovely result

If I like it, neighbors will get a share. It's great for breakfast, on toast. Or over ice cream. Or, nearer home, over plain yogurt. Or anything really. I expect it would be a good condiment with meat, but that's only a guess.

Meanwhile back at the leftovers in the freezer, the extra rice from the chicken dish, the rest of the canned diced tomatoes, and now a container of tomato innards. 

This looks like a soup is suggesting itself. Also as if it's high time I defrosted the freezer.

I used to have a massive chest freezer back in the day when I also had a massive vegetable garden, and a young son. In July I'd defrost, toss out of the back door, onto the grass, big chunks of ice, and young Handsome Son and the boy next door played summer snowball fights. Loads of fun, just chucking the ice about till it melted.

I don't think he would take me up on that offer now, a little more mature, perhaps. I'm not sure I am though.

Late July, Corn High

First corn from my local farm today, and since Handsome Son is expected for dinner, I thought it would be good to make a sort of corn thing with three ears of corn, off the cob, a job I hate doing, but anyway,  farm eggs, from another farm, cheese, sea salt and white pepper, and a bunch of thyme from my front yard.  

Added in a can of chickpeas for ballast.  I might have used tomatoes, but I don't get them till tomorrow, and well, I ate all of this week's..I might make a batch of hot biscuits to go with, though, come to think of it. And I'm serving steamed buttered green beans from yet another farm, courtesy of a friend.  Who also gave me another squash..yet another.

Nice glass of sangria, summer sort of wine, will accompany this Lucullan shebang.

Dessert will be build it yourself, fresh blueberries and peaches from the farm this morning, with vanilla yogurt.

Pot of English Breakfast tea, snarling as it comes out of the pot, will round off the proceedings. 

On one of these very hot and humid nights, it's very good to serve yourself a helping of frozen mango slices and frozen blueberries. They act like icecream and candy at the same time, perfect.My mangoes came from yet another friend, and I sliced and froze them right away.  The ones I didn't use to make mango preserve, that is.