Taking it Outside

As in cooking.  Somewhere recently, it may have been Farm School, I read about engaging children in food prep by taking it outside, where they can make messes to their heart’s content.  Saturday was a gorgeous September day, warm, sunny, but not too warm.  Mr. Guy and I went to the farmer’s market and I bought veggies to add to what I had in the garden so I could make a big batch of ratatouille to freeze.  I also got a big basket of tomatoes for blanching and freezing.  I set up camp outside with the grill and the hotplate we use for cooking when we don’t want to heat up the house — a sort of summer kitchen of the north.

Being outside was great and I got to toss peels and things right in the compost, brush seeds on the ground, and just make messes to my heart’s content.  I thought I would try grilling all the vegetables before mixing them for the ratatouille.  It seemed to me that it would give that nice grilled/roasted veggie flavor, and be less oily.   Conceptually sound, but on a charcoal grill, it isn’t really very efficient.  I also think I should have sliced the egg plant thicker, and not let it cook as long.  It tastes fine, however, and the lack of efficiency allowed me to work on a second sock that has been haunting me for several years.  I made the first one as a shop model, and when I got it back I stuffed it in a baket with the rest of the MegaBoots Stretch.

If I manage to make them the same size –I couldn’t even remember what size needle I used — they may make a Christmas present.  I no longer make one sock at a time, even for shop models.  The only way for me to avoid second sock syndrome is to work sequentially.  First make one cuff, then the second cuff, right on down to the toe.  I don’t enjoy the two socks on two circs technique, it’s too difficult for the spatially challenged.  I never know where I am.  I prefer to use my good old bamboo DPNs and work on one at a time.  I now have several sock special orders from a certain yarn winding kid, so when I finish these, I’ll have some smaller ones to work on.

MLE

Back to Winding My Own Yarn

Well my sister is tired, but getting better and better and I took them to the airport yesterday. My human ball winder got worried after breakfast yesterday. Did he have time to wind a few more balls before they left for the airport? He did.

The dark green koigu was especially entertaining to wind with the ball winder because it was already in a non center pull ball, so it bounced all over the room. Man, is that funny. Why don’t I do all my yarn that way? The mind of the 8 year old at work is a true delight. The night before they left, my sister and b-in-l had crashed, and we built a fire in the fire pit and sat and discussed important matters. What if we built a boat that responded to the frequency of the northern lights and would automatically follow them around on lakes and rivers? Can you have a bonfire if you take horses camping? Then the big idea was to get the laptop and the Lord of the Rings DVD and watch his favorite parts ‘by the flickering firelight’ — how could I refuse?

When I recover from the past three weeks, I do have some actual knitting content.

MLE

Visitors

I could pretend I’ve been on vacation, but I haven’t. I have a few lame garden photos to show: I finally got some eggplant.

Encouraged by Miss T., I made a blueberry pie, using the Vodka Crust recipe. It had a very short delicious life.

I have been doing some knitting and a have couple of new patterns, which I will be showing soon. Mostly, I’ve been planning for two big arrivals here in St. Paul. The first is my sister, who arrived with her family to spend the long weekend before heading to the Mayo Clinic, where she will be having many tests and major heart surgery on Friday. The other — the Republicans.

My 8 year-old nephew wound several skeins of yarn in the first day he was here. The tasteful child prefers merino, especially Koigu and Claudia, because they are ‘less sticky.’ He’ll be back with us during the first few days after surgery, so he is hoping I can dig out more stash for him to wind. Anyone who wants their skeins wound, come on down! And send your healing thoughts and energy my sister’s way, please.

The Republicans are another story. I work a block away from the Xcel center, and live across the river. I feel as though I live in a police state. There are helicopters buzzing around all the time, the Coast Guard are patrolling the Mississippi, and cops in riot gear are all over town. I don’t even want to go into all that. I’ll just leave you with a quote from that wild-eyed liberal Harry S. Truman:

Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear.

olympics are fun, but don’t forget

None of us are free until all of us are free.

Don’t forget.

Weed ‘em and Weep

Only if it is a sad book, of course.

I have finally hit on a means of encouraging myself in the never ending weeding required in my yard.

Audio books. I have always been a compulsive reader, nose buried in a book. As a child, my mother would call me from some other part of the house to see if I were doing the chore assigned to me. I’d answer, and without even laying eyes on me, she would respond - “Put down the book, and get to work.” At last, I can get to work and not put down the book.

Although I have knitted to audio books, I never thought of using them in this way. I generally enjoy being alone with my thoughts while walking or weeding. These thoughts must not be all that interesting, though, since I have studiously avoiding their company as my weeds flourished, in spite of mulch. The other morning, I kept thinking, well, one more chapter.  I’ll just do the leeks.

Some of my weeding was for naught, however, since a wretched varmint has devoured my broccoli and some of the brussels sprouts.

I’m trying out Librivox, free downloads of books in the public domain, read by volunteers. Miss BlackSheep warned me that the volunteer readers could be spotty. My first download is The Moonstone, by Wilkie Collins. I have always meant to read it, so it seemed worth a shot. Some of the readers are quite good. Some bring out the 4th grade prig in me.  You know, the smarty little girl that enjoyed reading aloud, but lost patience with other students who struggled a bit, or didn’t notice the punctuation in time. One reader has a very heavy foreign accent, and mispronounces many words, which is really hard to follow. For these chapters, I ended up going to the Gutenberg Project to read them as an ebook. (After the weeding.)

I really did enjoy The Moonstone.  It was originally published in serial form back in the late 1860’s, so it worked fine to listen to it in fits and starts.

I received a lovely pile of yarn for my birthday from some friends who just came back from Oaxaca, Mexico.  The met the spinner and dyer of the yarn, too, which is all done with natural dyes.

My non-fiber friend was so taken with it all she wants to skip learning to knit and move right to spinning!

MLE

Sacerdotal Honors

The wedding was wonderful. Great fun. Here’s a picture of the wedding party’s footwear:

as well as the footwear of yours truly, the official, now known as the Reverend Lou.

Yes, I wrote and officiated the wedding ceremony. It was such an honor, when my niece and her fiance asked me I got a little teary-eyed. My little niece, who once snuggled up to me in bed and asked me to promise that we would always sleep together, wherever we go. That didn’t extend to the wedding night, in case you are wondering.

Much much knitting, but requests for some, which is always nice, too. Returned home to piles of weeds and finally harvestable beets, broccoli and a few golden cherry tomatoes. Let the weeding begin!

Home for a Bit

On the road again, unexpectedly. My sister in Texas called last week. She needed an emergency medical procedure and her husband and son were off camping out of state and unreachable. She was sobbing into the phone as she told me. What are big sisters for, anyway? I whipped out my frequent flyer miles and off I went. That, in itself, was a miracle. It is harder and harder to use them these days, but there I was, on a direct flight only a few hours after the phone call. Without going into medical detail, she had heart surgery as a teen and this current issue may be related to that. It is really frustrating that no one knows at the moment. More tests, probably major surgery. It was frightening for her, and I was grateful to be able to be there. It was frightening for me, too, but I think that when you are supposed to be the supporter, you can’t break down. I had to wait to get home to do that.

My BiL and nephew were reached and came home as soon as they could, so I got to spend a couple of days with my favorite 8 year old. I did have a knitting project (or 4) along, but ended up making socks for him. Apparently, Camo Boy was asked recently if he even had camo socks. He told the woman, “No, my aunt hasn’t made me any yet.” how can that be refused? I used Pagewood Farms Yukon, because he also loves bamboo. I didn’t have my camera along, so no photos, but the socks were pronounced perfect. Then, he hatched a plot where I could get a part time job at the newish LYS, Yarnivore. Just in the winter, of course. So we went to Yarnivore, where he charmed the pants off the owner, selected more bamboo sock yarn in “spring camo,” but failed to snag a new job for me. “I’m kind of shy about things like that.” Oh well, I guess I’ll have to keep the day job.

I thought I would get more knitting done, but it is hard to knit and watch you tube videos with an 8-year old. It has to be full participation. Watch this part. This is really funny. I paused this ’cause you weren’t looking. I now have quite a few items book marked on my laptop. Lego Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Brick, Crazy Frog, Batthumb, and Thumb Wars. I gained major points when I told him I had seen Thumb Wars when it first came out at some goofy short films fest. Note: it is easier to search for Thumb Wars when you don’t spell it thom.

Back home and trying to prepare for my next family adventure. At least I get to look at this:

For the Americanskis in the audience, have a lovely Independence Day weekend.

MLE

Not About Knitting - Last Night in St. Paul

I don’t think it matters who you plan to vote for in November, what happened last night in St. Paul, Minnesota will be in the history books forever. Yesterday, I took a stroll to return some library books mid-aftertoon, and decided to walk the next block to the Excel center and check out the crowd waiting for the Obama rally. I chatted with a young woman on the way over. She appeared to be originally Southeast Asian, perhaps Cambodian or Lao. She told me she had been an Americorps volunteer, that her brother and sister- in -law rushed to get their citizenship in time to vote in this election. She talked about reading Caroline Kennedy’s op-ed piece in the NYT, and that it gave her goose bumps. I thought how interesting it was, that Kennedy was dead many years before this woman was born, or her family came to the US, but his legacy mattered to her.

At the X, the diversity of the crowd that was forming was inspiring. It was evident to me that this was much more than a political rally. It was still a workday, so there were lots of students and retirees, but the number and variety of families surprised me. There were many African American moms and dads with kids in tow to witness this moment, to carry with them proof that while racism is not dead, it is not the end, either. There were many white, Asian and Latino families, too. There were young white men in St. Paul Wild hockey sweaters. I saw an older white couple, and heard the woman say to the man “I don’t care. This is the coolest thing I have ever done!” I thought she was right. It didn’t matter if I had to stand on line for a while, how could I miss this moment?

I live very close, so I went home, ate some supper, and my husband and I went back. By now, the length of the line was staggering, nearly two miles long, but we figured at least we would be in the company of thousands of like-minded persons. We walked and walked to find the end of the line, and then saw one of my closest friends. Her husband didn’t want to stand around for that long, so dropped her off and she was on her own, chatting with a young man who turned out to be from her home state of Indiana. (We ditched, but we were almost at the end, really.)

It was a regular party, I tell you. We had no idea if we would even get in. It didn’t feel like 2 hours on the cement. (But my legs know that this morning.) The waitress from a restaurant we frequent was in line in front of us, so we got to know her a bit. There was a young man in a Bob Marley t-shirt I started talking to because he was by himself. He was an immigrant from Somalia via Kenya. He can’t vote in this election, but wanted to be there, just the same. We talked about the history of racism in the US. He told me he was too young to know of it first hand, but has heard the stories, of course. He looked at me with a bit of grin – “So, do you now believe that miracles can happen?” I do, I surely do. That in this crazy world, in spite of the racism and fear that surrounds us, a black American is now the nominee of the Democratic party surely seems like a miracle. I felt so proud to be there last night. It’s been a while since I felt proud to be American. I have been ashamed of late of what some have done in the name of this country. Last night, I cried tears of joy and hope for my country. I thought of my parents and my immigrant grandparents and the great stretch of history that brought us to that historic moment I was witness to. Yes, we can.

MLE

Signs of Spring

There are certain signs of spring in my yard:

The beautiful and fragrant Prairiefire Crabapples

The Virgiania Bluebell(Mertensia) that has spread wildly this year. I love love love real blue flowers, not what they call blue in garden catalogues, but turns out to be purple. Johnson’s Blue Geranium?
Purple. So disappointing.

The second of many batches of handwashed sweaters, drying outdoors to put away in the cedar chest until the fall. Except for a few, because it is 44 degrees F. this morning. Welcome to May in Minnesota. My condolences to all those folks in Hugo, MN who lost their homes in the tornado Sunday evening. I drive through there several times a week on my way to Holley’s barn. I am not looking forward to seeing the aftermath in person.

The Law

Are you having one of those days where you are uncertain of just what is right and what is wrong? Do you need some guidance, friend? Well I have some for you. I was recently honored to attend Grandparents/Special Person Day at my adoptive grandson’s school. (He adopted us to be his grandparents, never mind that I am younger than his mother!)

We sat through the musical assembly. Let me tell you. If you have not heard the first movement of Dvorak’s New World Symphony played by the beginner 5^th grade band, you are, uh, well, lucky. I could not even look at my husband. I had to bite my thumb to keep from laughing out loud. Oh my goodness. The piece I had been really dreading was “When the Saints Go Marching In” by the 4^th grade recorder band. When what should have actually called “When the Saints Go Strolling Very Slowly In” finally came on, I must say, it paled in comparison. I didn’t even snicker.

Then on to the classrooms. Civics was the lesson of the month in the second grade, and my little guy and his buddies had to write something about Law. Your guidance for the day.

Peace Out.