Good news, Lammas, and white rabbits

In case you want to know!

YouTube channel 

August is here. White rabbits 

It's Lammas, loaf Mass, celebrating the grain harvest, so my breakfast was a slice of wheat bread with home-made strawberry jam. Lammas acknowledged.

Here's the good news from NJ 

This is from my MOC Bonnie Watson Coleman's latest newsletter. John would be proud.

I made it to the pond this morning and created a couple of videos but did remember a still, and a selfie at the pond, proof of life, for blogistas.

This is the hat I made a while back, and I painted the shirt back when I was in my T-shirt painting period. It's my Aged International Spy outfit.

I spied fungi 

Meanwhile, Pink Rabbit, spurred on by certain blogistas and the appearance above of a white rabbit, hopped downstairs to press her claim on a pair of boots.  Ready to get all dramatic, see the Kleenex all ready to go.

She was rescued from a dumpster a while ago by Handsome Son who didn't want her but thought it was awful to toss a loved bunny. 

So I laundered and brushed and generally rehabbed her, and presented her with the bandana she demanded as soon as she looked presentable.

Now it's boots. I'm expecting picketing and Unfair to Pink Rabbit signs any minute.

Happy day everyone, do silly stuff, it's good for your head. Sez Ted and Big Ursy and Pony and Ursula.

Because 

 

Band weaving what else, and comic relief

I woke this morning thinking it's June, so white rabbits, and I get to thread a heddle, wheee. Takes all sorts.

And I did thread the heddle. But first I had to measure and count heddle sizes. They don't come marked with the ends per inch, EPI, nor the number of threads they'll hold.

So I finally got them all out and measured and counted and marked. This will save a lot of fumbling and cursing. I already know the frame loom sizing, but the others tend to get forgotten.

Then I picked the heddle that would work best, threaded it and mounted it on the narrow loom.

Then I studied the krokbragd pattern and made notes. Then I worked a bit of the band. Then I realized I didn't understand the color sequence. That's a whole other thing to keep in mind while navigating the three weaving sequences. Then I unwove.

Then I made more notes.  

Then I realized I need to know the line total for the pattern repeat, so made more calculations and notes 

And I'm about here.

There's such a pleasure in translating the physical weaving into ways I can understand and do it. The process is engrossing.  I don't worry so much about the product.

Then, as I was walking home,  beautiful day for walking and I'm so happy I can walk without pain, though a bit more wobbly than I used to be, I saw Gary's friend running down the path from my house. 

She came dashing at me and said, I ran into your house, wrong house! We all screamed laughing because this has happened so many times, neighbors, relatives, total strangers. So many people have parked,  then marched unerringly up the wrong path and burst into my house.

I've had quite a few encounters, reading or knitting peacefully on the sofa and suddenly there's someone in front of me clearly wondering what I'm doing here? Why is the house all different? Who are you anyway?

It's hard to get lonely when people keep showing up in the living room. Who says you have to get out to meet people? I can do it without moving.

They're all nice, quite flustered at the mistake and not sure how to handle my "Can I help you?"

Then V. and Gary left for a week in Florida. Another relative, soon to be the next door tenant, is holding the fort.  That will be peaceful.

Then later an unboxing 

My clamps to hold the frame loom, costing more than the loom, but useful for many purposes. The qr code takes you to a place to download printable labels. I don't have any need, but I don't see why you can't try it.

I was about to recycle the box when I realized it's very nice corrugated cardboard, useful to make little looms and other fancy stuff. 

The Woolery loves me -- they've sold me heddles, the lucet and now these clamps. I like the way they work and their well designed website. This matters.

Lovely day everyone! I hope you're blessed with comic neighbors, they're the best.

Next best is an Ayelet Waldman

I love her engaging, miss nothing writing, and this novel stretches over years in a Maine community with Manhattan and Oxford and Europe and Cambodia thrown in. Sorrow, parties, drama, fights of all kinds, talent and the lack of it, Maine steadfastness, it's a lot.

I do all the things so you don't have to!

Pride Month!

I'll reclaim this and clean it up if it's the last thing I do.

Chair yoga to wake with and national flag stew, white rabbits and Brigid

White rabbits and happy Brigid's Day. She seems to be the patron saint of just about anything you need. 

A bit of an overachiever, if you ask me.. started out as a pagan goddess, appropriated as a Catholic saint and protector of Ireland, put in charge of fiber and crafts, all sorts of jobs. That's like being First Lady and Secretary of State and Senator... Yes Hillary did all that.

Edith Holden on February 

If any of my fair maids came up this year, they're under there, a foot of snow. They can come up, bloom and fade, all under snow.  

Twenty minutes of chair yoga is more activity than you might think, but a great idea when you're stiff and chilly on a Sunday winter morning.

It's nicely paced with breathing included in the instructions, always a good thing.

And lunch was a quick stew which reminded me of some national flag. With garlic toast.

I'm reading a mystery where Queen Liz the Two is the detective. There's a series, and this one's at Sandringham, near the Norfolk coast.  

I just got through all the Ruth Galloways set on the same coast, I seem to be in a geographical rut.  This one's really good, funny and fast moving. 

And I completely missed a great online presentation on kilims, through having fallen asleep just before it began. So, sorry, you have no textiles to marvel at today.

Happy day everyone, do what you can, nap if you must. All good.

White Rabbits, and gardener's larceny

Yesterday's walk took me round the neighborhood on sidewalks, everywhere else mud because of rain. Some highway lanes were closed for flooding overnight, even.

So I noticed a little stand of spearmint near a dumpster enclosure, not someone's yard, and a piece jumped into my pocket, a stowaway. 

You see where I pinched off a bit of leaf to sniff and confirm its identity before picking a sprig. And the celery in the background pushing up new growth.

How can it be June already? Pride Month. June 14th is also a day of protest and the Pope saying Mass by video link in Chicago, at the White Sox stadium. 

Maybe I'll celebrate at the Preserve with pictures as a counter move. I need to do something, still considering. Maybe that's the day to donate to the local food pantry. Summer, when school's out along with lunch programs, can be a hungry time. A good time to help the people T is hurting.

The sun's back today, after yesterday's rain then sun then rain all day.  The patio seedlings are liking it.

Happy day everyone. If you have a countermove to the T parade plans, please share. If I played the tuba I could do a Benny Hill march around the neighborhood. You have to take fun where you can find it or what's the point.

 

White Rabbits! May day!

 Happy May, with white rabbits. Or brown ones.

I'm in the middle of a very happy time. Walking without pain, Handsome Son preparing to phase out what has been a very successful stay. Visit yesterday from local friend, screaming laughing,drinking tea, eating store bought cookies, a couple of hours. Furniture restored to pre surgery arrangement. Lovely weather. Misfits today, with a new supply of tofu for crisp sticks.  Physical therapy this afternoon. It's all good. And later I'm going to winnow sewing supplies for my rez friends.

A

Meanwhile Gary came skidding in,  in search of Pam, nonstick spray, which I don't use. Went across the street to K to ask her, then I saw them both go next door to another neighbor. Then Gary was back, maybe parchment paper? I supplied him with a sheet and he promised me a cinnamon roll, the reason he needed the nonstick item. All good!  I'm guessing a heat 'n eat thing, he not being a baker. He has a new stove, so testing, maybe.

And he delivered it, cinnamon roll, not stove,  to my sofa shortly after 

Later he brought in the Misfits box 

I got a taste for cereal after seeing Handsome Son enjoying his, so I added Heritage flakes -- various grains including ancient ones -- and muesli to my box. Tofu for crisp sticks with dipping sauce, strawberries and blueberries to go with yogurt and cereal, shredded carrot to save my energy, gala apples because they're a staple, spring mix salad because it's spring. 

Nice outlook here, easy nutritious meals. I have fish in the freezer for when I feel like cooking it.

Happy day everyone, later it's PT, and meanwhile I'm resting and doing a few desultory exercises.

Do something desultory today, it's May.

White Rabbits, Happy St David's Day

 Let's breathe today and enjoy a little.

Edith Holden's Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady.

The daffodil and the leek are Welsh symbols for the day, dating back centuries. I'm a multiBrit by birth, grandparents from all four nations. English Irish Scottish Welsh. In alphabetical order, in case you wondered. So I get to celebrate everything. Just sayin.

For a lovely cheering few minutes, join Ant White on YouTube as he builds a hedgehog house

Here's the concrete bunny for White Rabbits

 

And another old friend, both seen on today's walk

I'm trying, I'm trying.

Cheese is the answer to a lot of questions.

White rabbits, St Brigid, and useful info

Here's information on getting health information when CDC is muzzled

This is today's psa!

White rabbits, and Happy St Brigid's Day. Among other things she's the patron saint of snakes, appropriate in the Year of the Snake.

And here's Edith Holden 

And here's the second proofing of the cinnamon raisin bread.

Steve the YouTuber used two loaf pans clipped together to make a PMDO -- poor man's dutch oven! 

I don't have two,  so after breaking the dough and restirring it, I rolled the dough into my one loaf pan, and improvised the top with tinfoil. I don't have his glass mixing bowl, but my ancient Tupperware worked okay. And I don't have plastic wrap, which he used for the overnight proofing, but tinfoil worked okay. And I didn't have bread flour, so I used golden whole wheat.  Aside from all that, exactly the same!

Here's the result, chewy, dense and really good 

Making good food is part of resisting -- keeping up your health and spirits. 

So, happy day, everyone, do that and enjoy what you can. If we let the bad guys get us down, they will have won.