Bracelet undergoes reassignment, buds

So much cooler, windows open today.

After hours of torrential rain and flood warnings, though long-term we're in a drought, I got out briefly on the deck to show you a couple of things.

The little flower that came up right next to the gatepost turns out to be a coreopsis, tiny flowers with big color. There was one last year around here, so this may be its offspring.

And since it started raining again and I didn't want my phone wet, I quick took a couple of bud pictures 

The hibiscus is definitely going to pass last year's three blossom total 

And the zinnias will soon be ready to pick a couple for little bouquets. One there on the left may be red, always interesting to study daily. I planted only the dwarf ones this year, probably better for pots.

The potatoes are all going well, but too rainy to add their picture. All in all, pretty hopeful.

On the craft front, I declared the bracelet, if not done, as done as it's going to get, braided one end and it's now a handy scissor fob. 

I learned that perle cotton isn't good for this kind of project, too resistant to knotting, just slips away and tries to come undone. I've learned a lot one way and another. Still going, though. I'll try just embroidery floss.

Also still waiting for the antibiotics to arrive. Promised for Monday but who knows, holiday weekend. I need them in hand before I call the dentist about the tooth which has crumbled further, since I take them one hour before appointment. 

However nothing's really hurting, just some pressure, which might also be sinus reaction to the weather. So I'm trying to stay calm and occupied, and I'm starting another bracelet or something without the perle cotton and we'll see. 

I did some weaving this morning, always nice to have the loom ready to do a few inches.

 I've been amusing myself with puzzles online, mainly the math kind where the comments fill with furious arguments about the terms of the puzzle and how there's a better answer etc.  It's amazing how worked up nerds can get 

I'm pretty good at spotting puzzles that ask for logic rather than computation and usually know when there's not enough information to derive an answer. And the trick ones, like the one my teacher gave us and I've never forgotten from age 11.

We were doing mental arithmetic where she read out the question and we promptly  either shot up our hands or clasped our heads depending on aptitude.

It was a rapidfire addition which I'll improvise:

What's 3x6x4x8x2x8x5x6x0?    Some kids got the joke because she rattled out the number and dwelt on the zero. Some panicked after the first couple, some zoned out. It pays to listen to the end. 

While we're at it, how long is the 92nd Psalm? 

See end for answers if I remember to insert them 

Happy day everyone, unclasp your head if it applies, the world's full of puzzles. My nephew, the one I taught the macrame bracelet too, was a dab hand when younger at questions. What color is blue? How high is up? You know the sort of thing.

Answers:

Zero.  And a minute and a half. Sez Ted and Big Ursy and Pony and Ursula 

Hot weather prep and more purple, also a new idea

 Here's where we are 

I went out walking early this morning, to beat the heat, and met a few parents hauling kids to the school bus stop, in varying moods. You can tell who's a morning person.

And my neighbors' flowers are in the purple mode, just now. Maybe Mary's right and it's purple season.

The last one is my front yard with purple vetch, blossoms still closed because it was early.  It's supposed to be a weed, but I love the foliage and don't pull it till it's spent.

Then pre-heat cooking, two quiches. I figured it's no more work than making one, so why not make two, I had plenty of eggs.

I used dandelion greens, bought for the purpose, and the rest of the mixed salad greens. I'd frozen the dandelion greens, and did my  labor saving way of not-chopping them. 

Just take the bag out of the freezer and bang it about a bit on the counter. It shatters into little flakes. This works for other leafy greens too, chard, kale. 

Three cheeses: mozzarella, Parmesan and sharp cheddar. 

Note the trusty Corning pie dishes, I really like them for this recipe. It's crustfree, and the slices are fairly thin, so they make good cold food.  The dishes have served me well for I dunamany years.

A slice or two followed by fresh strawberries was lunch. Pretty good.

I continued with the band, no need for a picture again, and I find I've started to learn to stay calm, in a slow no-rush rhythm, and the weaving shows it.  I'm learning the nature of this yarn, new to me, too.  

Every yarn has a nature, even commercial yarns and especially homespun yarns, and you get the hang of how they work by experience, so this is all happening all the time I'm working.  Texture and feel are at play. Anni Albers would approve. See, Boud, I told you!

I found a great young YouTube weaver

and tiny house person who is so inventive, a skilled spinner and weaver. And she was surprisingly using a craft loom, cheapish, with a kind of heddle I'd never seen, to create beautiful woolen bookmarks you really want to feel.

The heddle is  a simple wood block with slots, alternating deep and shallow, to change the shed just as a thredded heddle does. Except you warp the loom and then just click the heddle on and all the threads drop into their assigned slots. No threading. I have to investigate this. Maybe make one.

 She responded in minutes to my question about source -- the heddle came with the loom. I saw a couple of similar items on Etsy. Hm.  No, no, not another loom. First I'll see if I can improvise something with what I have. 

Happy day everyone, new ideas always pouring in, how to choose, so many ideas, so little time..

Every day please

No ice is good news and food happens

 An older person's view of the weather forecast

No ice! This is big.

Lately I've been cooking good meals but not photogenic ones. Ground turkey with cannellini beans, that kind of good stuff, and my food designer never turned up, again, so you didn't get the benefit.

Yesterday I did make something to show you, very simple, not up to anything elaborate at the moment, a tired time of year.

Broccoli/tomato sauce with penne and a lot of Serrano peppers diced in, big grind of long red pepper.  Enough for three meals, always a plus, that I can heat and eat.

This probably has an Italian name, penne primavera or something. 

Yesterday saw a bit of free cycling, lights which I've had around for ages, wrong size for outside, my original intent, wouldn't charge adequately indoors, my backup plan, too late for a return for refund, my backup backup plan. 

So they went to the first of a horde of requesters, within a couple of hours of posting. Even without pictures, sometimes the site won't, though when that happens I offer to email them.

And, the Izzy dolls moving right along, I did send for a different shade of possible face-colored yarn, and this arrived

Looking like clay or something, and at first I didn't realize what it was, since the package was so shrunken you couldn't read the words. I did find "yarn" and all became clear. Vacuum packed! After I managed to find a way in without cutting the yarn, it sprang to life

 

Made in Turkey, like a lot of yarns. It seems to be a  thriving Turkish industry.

Happy day, everyone, whatever mysterious packages it holds for you. Like the surprise big Izzy, the result of picking up the wrong, too big, needles, but what's a manufacturing glitch between friends?

Food, aboriginal art, and fog

Yesterday's promised tornadoes and huge hail didn't materialize here, just rain. But I think I need to cover my seedlings for shade today, because

I live in the middle of that red bit. Meanwhile overnight there was fog.

I live in that grey bit. And, this really cracked me up, in case we didn't know what fog looked like, the weather service posted this picture of it

So that made it all perfectly clear..

Yesterday when I got home in pouring rain from my knitting group, my Misfits box had arrived. No picture of it on the step on account of rain.

This morning, great timing, Krista Tippett had a guest on her podcast, a psychologist and nutritionist with the reminder that we are indeed what we eat. 

She discussed how the brain takes on nutrition before the rest of the body, needs a lot of it and can not function with a poor diet. All pretty self evident but worth revisiting. 

She's written a book on it, and it Tippett herself has a podcast on spiritual issues,  well worth tracking down, thoughtful and balanced. I used to catch her on radio years ago, lost track and now thank Chris for reminding me of her.

But eating well is not just attending to needs. It's also such a pleasure. It can be seen as a spiritual duty, too, if you're inclined to that interpretation. Me, I think it's fun.

And here's a piece of aboriginal art which speaks to me so profoundly, that I hope you take the meaning I get from it, too.

Very serious around here today! Happy day everyone, eat well, feel fine.

Weather, tea, butter

This sounds like a spartan approach to posting, or maybe my Brit roots are showing.

Anyway the local weather people have been all excited and losing their cool, firing off loud alarms on my phone, all over social media, and getting all carried away. None of the severe things happened here.

And then when the forecast is warm, they have to drag in the bad news. Otherwise there's no drama. I mean, who's going to pay them to forecast a few lovely mild days?

Meanwhile, packages began to arrive. My tea, a real luxury, came,  new supplier, and they included a couple of samples, too.

This is the tea I'm coming to the end of

It's fine, just thought I'd keep looking anyway.

And, separately, the butter aka heavy cream powder. Along with my regular whole milk powder.

So I was having pasta for dinner with roast chicken, and suddenly thought Alfredo! The sauce, that is, which I make by just tossing butter and shredded parmesan into the pasta.

So I thought ah, first experiment with the butter powder, I'll mix with a drop of water to a paste, stir in the parmesan, then dress the pasta with that and see if I like it. Bottom line, I did. Nice buttery taste.

I tried the idea of mixing in some turmeric, to get a golden buttery color, and here's a comparison with my Vermont butter. The taste is comparable, too. Turmeric doesn't have a pronounced flavor, so it just gave color and didn't change the taste.

So, that worked nicely. Tomorrow I'll see about making butter. I like the idea of just making the amount I need. Similarly to using milk powder. I never run out of milk, and make small amounts as needed. I keep the powder in the freezer.

And art happened today, here in the mail

Complete with stamp celebrating ny namesake's jubilee, whatever number she's up to now.

Textiles and Tea was Alice Schlein,  a nice lady, well known among weavers, not very visual, more technical talk which escaped me. 

But for Joanne here's some napkins, she loves making towels and napkins from her samples.

And here are her current looms

Forthcoming attraction: I haven't had a Saturday movie night for ages, but finally found something when I get to the library to pick it up

This is not the HBO streamed fictional series, about which I have heard various opinions, but it's outside my budget anyway. 

This one is a PBS production, a doc of the age. I'm hoping for genuine old footage, too. We'll see.

In between all these activities, I've been signing up a storm and trying to get more sigs, to force Justice  Thomas to recuse himself from any January 6 cases. Also to resign, though that's a tougher one. Common Cause and MoveOn are very active. 

Onward! The Emmet Till Anti Lynching law is finally a federal statute. Great shame it took so long, but anyway it's done. Signed today.

And Ukraine still needs our help and support however we can give it.