Noise galore

All over the development today, men were up on cherry pickers, sawing away at foliage, chipping, grinding. It was windy so I sneezed on and off all day, what with wood dust and pollen and probably molds.

Billie the Pup was not amused by the wind and the noise 

They took down a massive overgrown evergreen close by, and my view is much improved.

This one was on a patio, not association property so maybe the owner arranged for it to go.  The house was a rental for many years and nobody really tended the patio, but a new owner is on it now, and evidently tackling it.

In other news, I more or less wove 8647 into my current band, on the left

a bit tricky, few available threads, but the spirit was there 

And here's my summer supply of cotton yarns for bandweaving. 

This will be great, now that I'm starting to develop some skills. Many more to go.

Happy day everyone, warm here today, I had to take off a layer, then the wind got up and I had to add a jacket.  Then I gave up and came in and wove.

Coda on HOA: Manager got back to me to confirm he'd got the docs and that he'd been stuck in traffic, arrived an hour late. Just as well I didn't wait.  

White rabbits, foxy stitchers

 

And celebrate Justice Jackson, new SCOTUS member and a minority in every sense. 

And that's my senator congratulating her. We urgently need more of her, because SCOTUS is cratering.

On to more hopeful things, from one aged knitter to an even more aged knitter

My knitting group yesterday was great fun again, and I learned a way to do an icord edging on a diagonal edge from S. who figured it out while we chatted. 

Chat ranged from comparing notes on Florida friends and relatives, family jokes, making jewelry from paperclips,  work dress codes and celebrating a newborn granddaughter of one member, Avery, age one week, and the expectation next Spring of another grandchild to another member.  

In the space of two weeks we've marked a death, my sister, a birth and a new pregnancy. Milestones and friends to mark them with. All while making beautiful things, socks, hat, sweater, baby cardi, shawl, and punch hook hanging. Doesn't get much better.

Earlier there was a racket of chainsaws down the street and I looked out to see a long dead tree finally being removed

Came home from knitting group and nothing left but sswdust on the ground.

There will be a 25' red maple in that spot soon, we're told.

And for people who love kaleidoscopes

I was asked by a crafter librarian for ideas for upcoming craft sessions where the project has to be learned and executed in a single session by adults often with great enthusiasm and little experience. 

I checked my old teaching notes and found a couple of ideas for easy miniature making, viz

The chair is made from plastic needlepoint canvas or heavy card, if you don't have balsa wood handy.

And you can fill the grocery bag with doughnuts, Cheerios, decorated with markers like chocolate, iced, glitter for sprinkles etc. 

The shaker boxes you paint or marker with designs. Silly fun for grown-ups. Also kids if they get a look in.

Happy day everyone, we're wet here, the remnants of Ian, but lucky it's only remnants. Enjoy your first day of October, however that got here so soon beats me.

A day of parts

Hot day, good for working indoors, on paper piecing, which you can witness at https://beautifulmetaphor.blogspot.com.

But there's more. I suddenly got a plan to make lemon curd. For putting in lemon curd tarts, which I'll make tomorrow.

I was wondering why it's been so long since I made lemon curd. So I  assembled the lemon juice, salt, sugar and egg yolks and butter. Ages since I separated eggs, and there was a bit of combat with bits of shell, but I triumphed. I had to bring the butter and eggs to room temperature. Interval while that happened. I'll bet any money lemon meringue pie happened when someone made lemon curd and had to use up the egg whites.  Where was I.

Then the recipes I checked all insisted, in bold type, italics, and various other ways of shouting in print, that you HAD to make it in a double boiler, not directly over heat.

Short interval while I figured out a substitute for the double boiler I don't have, since they all insisted, as one, that you couldn't use a metal bowl, or it would taste metallic. Oh. So I did find a nice pottery bowl which fitted over the big pan nicely.

Then I noted that after you assemble and mix all the items, that you set them over the boiling water, and here's why I haven't made it recently, you have to whisk it continually for 15 minutes.

Several chapters of my current audiobook. My whole upper body was whining by the time it thickened and I whisked in the butter. I'd had a mason jar boiling quietly away, sterilizing, to receive the curd.

And finally I got it done, and this is the entire amount:

The texture,after cooling in the fridge a while was fine, just right for spreading.

So I tasted it, thinking this better be worth it.

Whereupon there was a blast of trumpets in my mouth, and I remembered exactly why this is worth all those pesky assemblings and separatings, and whiskings and cursings, and holding your aching ribs.

No, neighbors are not getting any of this. Handsome Son will get lemon curd tarts and tea when he visits Saturday. But it is totally a five star, reserve edition, curd.

In fact, it's not bad.

In other news, the family across the street suddenly felled a 40 foot tree, no idea why, perfectly healthy.

This is what's left.  All hands to the pump. One man doing most of the work, the others issuing commands.

I noticed this when I went out to check on the situation with the condenser pipe of my central air conditioner. In a climate like NJ with hot and very humid summers, not cooling below 75f even overnight, it's vital that the moisture wrung out of the house get safely away. Hence the pipe sticking out of the exterior wall.

It is usual to install this pipe above grade, for obvious reasons. However the builders of this development buried mine. So every spring I go and riddle it out, removing debris, or the condensation would back up and come through the living room ceiling. This has happened to neighbors who didn't know about unblocking it.

We also have a very high water table all year round, and our torrential rains have raised it more. I found the pipe under several inches of water. Oh.

Sooooo, I dug  and bailed, and chucked mud around until I'd reduced the water level to where the pipe began to flow nicely, and removed debris.

It's pretty tricky digging below ground level, quite tiring. But it's done for now. I notice the hole is filling up again. So the bailing may become a feature of life around here. I did have a picture, but I thought it'd be repulsive in the same post as the lemon curd..

And, not being very quick on these things, it occurs to me that it's not surprising my ribs are tired, what with piecing and whisking and digging. Hadn't added it all up till now.

It's nine pm. I'm taking the rest of the day off.

Honesty harvest

So the seasons being all mixed up this year, pansies still blooming which are usually gone early May, daylilies bang on schedule, Rose of Sharon two months ahead, honesty likewise, I thought I'd check the potatoes and the honesty.

Potatoes not ready, late this year, honesty ready to harvest for lovely addition to everlasting flowers, and for replanting the seeds.

,

I love gently rubbing the seedpods to expose that silver disc, and the seeds embedded in it.

So that's today's gardening in the short time I can be out in the heat.

Also happy to announce the departure, as of yesterday,  of a huge and ugly dead limb on my wild cherry, courtesy of next door neighbor, on condition I kept the rest of the tree. He hates to cut, but wanted to help me.

Original plan was to have yet another friend,  in the tree business,  fell the whole thing and just leave the suckers coming up from the roots. Then his sister, who's a neighboring friend, would have the wood for lovely cherry fires.

But his sick wife and desperate home situation made it impossible. This was the fallback. And now I can see it, it's better than removing the whole trunk. It won't fall on me now that fifteen foot dead bit is gone.

I've been nervous for ages in case this came down on me, having had a near thing with the previous branch after a storm. This gnarly dead old branch reached right across the patio.

Now it's cherry firewood for another neighbor, husband of the sister of the tree feller (both senses), if you follow me,  helped with the cutting and hauling away. Same fireplace, different route to it.

It looks a whole lot better now. And I set up shepherds' crooks for birdfeeders so they won't suffer from the departure of that limb.

I also note that squirrels have been totally unable to turn the feeder round two full turns to get it off the crook. And the split ring keeps it locked. They still feed but nobody gets to snaffle the entire feeder and drag it away so I have to search for it under the trees.

Then last night Handsome Son took us to the local Fourth of July fireworks, postponed because of wild storms last weekend. Lovely evening, great display, including some unofficial ones going off at a local business. Surround sound effects.

This has been a nice, if hot, weekend.