"Waiting for Tomatoes"

"Waitin' for Tomatoes"

Ha ha!  A finished object!  The picture is a bit blurry, but I was in a hurry.

These are a small pair of socks for my daughter - Charlene Schurch's Basket Weave Rib in a fine yarn from Knit Me Now Yarns (a Minnesota gal).  Colorway: "Spice"

Displaced Productiveness

I'm showing you all of my garden stuff because I am taking so long to finish one darn single knitted item.  These photos are a mere distraction.  I do have a basket full of almost completed items.  Hopefully, my next post will show the proof.

We've been able to actually eat from the garden.  Each homegrown meal has been tiny and only enough for one or two servings, but it feels like a victory that would rival the greatest epic battles of all time.  These are the little veggies that I managed to snag before the varmints got to them.  Cukes, tomatoes, carrots, onions, peppers and tiny zucchini.

I mean . . . really tiny zucchini.

And this?  See those peas?  They're from Cub Foods freezer section.  The rabbits ate every single plant just before they were ready to be picked.  Every single one.

I made the mistake of planting pickle cukes and big Straight Eights together and now I can't tell them apart.  But I picked them all anyway and made one single meager jar of refrigerator pickles.

Next stop . . . knitting.

I've waited for 40 years for this!!

It's my birthday today!!! My 40th, to be exact.  I'm feeling like it's going to turn out to be a great day. 

Here's what I found on our front porch early this morning.

A little gift from my folks.

Eine kleine Wollmeise in "Poison".  First down, many more skeins to go!

Thanks mom and dad! 

Thanks!

Thanks, ladies!  WPI is now in my official knitting vocabulary.  And yes, I suppose I still have to knit a @#$%ing swatch first.  grrr.

I forgot to show you this part of our Ely 4th of July.  They had kid games after the parade that were an absolute riot!  This was Tube Wrestling.  I don't think it needs any description or explanation.

Yup.  Again.  Self-explanatory.  Car smash.

Football throw (he got it in there!  Atta boy!)

And "Puttin' with a Paddle"

There was another game called "The Laughing Canoe" (I think that was the name)  A seriously punk looking dude sat in a canoe and you paid one ticket to sit facing him and trying to make him laugh.  If you succeeded in getting a smile or a snicker, you won a prize.

It's getting late and I have a bit of cookin' to do.  Night all!

I need some advice.

Hi knitters.


I just recently noticed on Ravelry that the patterns include (along with gauge) WPI or wraps per inch.  What is this?  I must know.  It sounds so much better/faster than knitting up a gauge.  Do I really need a special tool?  Couldn't I just use a needle?  What size? 


Please share your expertise with me!!

Yours truly,

Rani

My bad dream

I had a dream last night that I woke up to find it was early October and none of my tomatoes had ripened.  I was in such agony.  Really.  Depressed.  So that when I woke up and found it was mid-July and that there was still hope for many more garden tomato adventures, my eyes filled with tears. Literally.

How do I explain this one to my husband. 

K: Your crying because of your tomatoes?

R: I'm not crying.

K: Are you OK?  I mean . . . mentally?

R: I'm going outside to fondle my tomatoes. 

K: I'm getting worried about you.

So now I'm sitting down in the garden admiring all the tomato potential and . . . would you believe - knitting.  Life is good.  

You know what I'm thinking right now?  If you love your garden . . . I mean REALLY love. your. garden.   . . . it can almost take the place of your kids.  My oldest is off for the first time at sleep-over-I-can't-call-to-check-on-him-and-there-are-no-web-cams camp and let me just tell you that I really need some distractions right now.

So I have my camera and I am sitting here knitting and watching and listening.   Let me show you what's going on in this little busy corner of the world.

I had a little bird house here.  It's still there, but can you see what it has morphed into?  A paper wasp nest.  Isn't that cool!?  That is some industry right there.

Look at my babies.  Aren't they precious?  

And there are so many this year, I am just fine with sharing some with the chipmunks.

No garden is complete without the flowers to bring in the bees.  We must whore ourselves out somewhere.  The loose daisies?  The flirtatious phlox?

And now the sun is low and even the weeds (yes you heard me . . . weeds) are in on the action.

Oooohhhhhh YEEEEAaaaaaaah. . .

Now that's what I'm talkin' about.

What the #@!*

I saw this free pattern on Ravelry and had to knit these up.  My husband did a lot of head scratching over this project because neither of us golf nor do we have any family members that golf.  But they were just so funny, I couldn't resist.

They are either meant for a friend's husband who retired early, or my husband's best friend "Budman" who is a golfer.  

It's just that they're so ugly, I'm not sure what to do with them.  They look like Muppets sticking out of the bag.  Is there a grown man out there that would appreciate this?  

Not sure.

The Heart of Summer

I have so much to share with you.  First of all, this is the first year that my onions have ever bloomed.  Wanna know why?  These were actually leftovers . . . forgotten onions from last year.  Look at how beautiful they bloom!

Next, I want to show you where my little froggy friend has been living.  This is first class accommodations, people.  I hung this birdhouse a bit low - low enough for raccoons to reach, so no birds have nested here.  Instead, a little tree frog has been renting the pad.  Not bad for a green guy, huh?  Can you see him peeking out of the hole?

We got some beets this year.  Small and delicious.  I think I might pickle these little guys.  They weren't too hard to grow, either.  Just be sure to get them in early.  And plant double what you think you'll eat.  We only had enough for about three small meal sides.

I'm too embarrassed to show you my tomatoes.  I planted about 10 plants but now they have merged into one giant Little Shop of Horrors plant.  I think one of my kids went missing this afternoon when they got too close to the Amish Pastes.  Poor darling.

I have a nifty little knitting project that is full of FIRSTS for me.

This was yarn that was given to me by Imagine Knit who has her own delicious yarn shop on Etsy.  And she's a local Minnesota gal, so that makes it extra special.  "Spice" is the colorway.  It's my first time trying basket weave.  Technically, this is a basket weave rib from Charlene Schurch's Sensational Knitted Socks.

  And it's my first time doing a partridge heel.  It's not perfect.  My next one should be better.

And I'll leave you with what I've been having nightmares about lately.  It has to do with the Ely, MN 4th of July parade.  And if you don't like clowns, then let this be a warning to you.  Do not scroll down further.  You will have nightmares.

There is something very wrong with this.

Ely 4th - T-Shirt weather

We spent the 4th up in Ely, MN this year.  We wanted to make tie-dye shirts but our cabin has no running water and we're at the edge of the BWCA so laundering and rinsing dyes in the lake was not an option.  I found this idea on the Family Fun website.


We took an old honey squeeze bottle and filled it with a water/flour mix (the consistency of mustard).


The kids took turns squeezing the mixture onto their clean shirts. 

They had to dry in the sun for the day and that afternoon, we sprayed fabric paint onto the shirts.  We bought little blue and red squirt bottles of fabric paint from our local craft store.

Let them dry and pick off the dried flour paste and you're ready for the 4th of July parade!

Zup's grocery store threw groceries in lieu of candy.  We're set with black pepper and chili!  

A shot of the Crapola (granola "makes even weird people regular") float.  And yeah, they were throwing out big bags granola.


HAPPY 4th OF JULY!!!!

ps.  Let the flour dry THOROUGHLY or it won't come off easily.