August!

Aug6

Summer is nearly over, heading into fall. Boy! This year is going fast. I have managed to get some of my List done this summer. I think I have the lace class for Lambtown ready and the Peg looms class as well. I am working on the fleece rug, that’s for Show and Tell. I bought this pound bag of clean skirting from a shepherd at Fiber Fusion in Washington this spring and am weaving a rug with my 22″ peg loom. I want to be able to take to show students in my class at Lambtown this fall. It’s very lush! Peg looms are so easy to weave and are a lot more versatile than you’d think. I’ve woven hats and bags and dog leashes to name a few. It’s not yet as long as I want it. I intend to full it some once it’s finished. Haven’t decided yet how to go about that.

Randy met another yarn lady from Trinity County today at the rest stop coming home from town. She expressed an interest in pin looms so I’m hoping she’ll join Pin Loom support Group.   Even tho she lives at the other end of the county it’ll be nice to have another ‘local’ person who weaves on pin looms!

 

The moles got into the garden and dug up one of my good winter squashes. Looks like one might survive but the other didn’t make it. I hope it stays out of the rest but am not holding my breath. The squashes are about the only thing that has done well this year. We got a late start because of the weather and being gone taking care of my sister. He did managed to get a pretty nice corn crop tho. The peas were doing okay until the hot weather. We only got a few bean plants but I have a two year supply canned up last year so that’s not going to be a problem! lol But I have to buy chard and kale, none of mine germinated this year. I think it was new seed so I’m not sure what the problem was.

The weather has been moderate here the last few weeks. We’ve had some days over 100 but also some under that number. In fact the forecast for this week is there and I’m looking forward to that. And my ‘lawn’ is blooming! It’s self heal and a few others. The bees love it and it is pretty. Actually my lawn is more plants than grass, tho there is quite a bit of that, too. We call it a meadow. In the spring it’s crocus and daffodils and then ox-eye daisies and red clover. Now the self heal and thyme is blooming. Bees love that, too. We have assorted Butterflies, different kind of bees and wasps, also other insects I can’t name, as well as hummingbirds and a bunch of other feathered neighbors. I am fond of the Stellar Jays. A lot of people think of them as noisy pests. I admit they are noisy but pretty and funny. They are smart birds.

 

Looking out the window, I see orange on my peach tree. I think its too early for them yet but I guess I’d better get out there and check. This might be the poor tree’s last crop. I can’t remember how old it is, they don’t live forever like apples, but it is getting old and has had a rough life the last few winters. I have a pretty nice crop on the little jam plums. I haven’t picked any, letting the jays have them this year since I inherited quite a bit of plum jam from Rosy. But I do look forward to the peaches. I’m wondering if I need to get a new tree already or if I can wait. This is some of last years crop.

Okay, I guess I’ve chatted on enough for this time. I hope you’re all safe and not too hot or too wet and not on fire at all!

    Back to playing with yarn! Happy weaving y’all!

 

 

It’s summer time…. July

Jul26

Hot last week, not quite as hot this week, repeat… We’ve been going to as much as 107 one week down to 89 the next and back again so far this month. Last heat spell was not quite as hot, which is a good thing. But mostly we stay indoors when it gets extreme. Mornings and evenings become time for outside tasks. The garden is pretty sketchy this summer, What with the last start and the extreme weather early on, it didn’t get planted on time and some things just don’t like the temps, I guess and aren’t doing well. But we are eating zucchini now at least! lol My chard and kale wee among those that didn’t like conditions so I’m having to buy my greens this year. But the black berries are starting to ripen.

Been getting some weaving done and working in the shop. I have two classes at Lambtown and have been getting stuff done for those.

Invited Cousin Dan down for dinner last night. Pizza. But just before he arrived the oven which was preheating, started smoking, and we discovered something under the bottom, was afire! Flames coming up though the vents. It got a little exciting for a bit, but Cuz enjoyed the fun, too. Turned out Katt has not been doing his job! A mouse had been stealing from his dry food bowel and, for some reason, storing it in the oven, just under the burners where it proved to be quite flammable. And it hadn’t been there long as I baked bread 5 or 6 days before and it was fine. But we got that out and we ended up baking the pizza in the Silver Fox Cabin oven. Good thing it was not rented this week! But we had a nice dinner and visit in the end so… all’s well that ends well, as the bard said.  A little excitement for the day, humm?

  It was pretty good.     Katt is heck on rubber snakes even if he does sleep though mouse raids.

My old peach tree has lost another branch so not going to have much of a crop from it this year, wither. it lost several last winter. It is reaching the end. I guess I’d better start looking for a replacement. I think I’ll try to find the same kind if I can find the name tag and identify it. it was a good producer for a long time in spite of spring weather, bloom time when it wants to rain or have a late freeze.

From August 2022.

Still missing Rosy. It just makes no sense that she should leave before me, being the youngest of us girls. I send her an email now and then but so far she hasn’t answered. It’s the pits.

  We were just goofing off,

 

July…

Jul3

Just returned from Black Sheep Gathering. Not horrible but  little disappointing profit wise. The peg looms are still having their day. sold out of 36″ and have 5 orders at home. He’s got orders and contractor work to do here, too, and is gone off this morning with Search & Rescue to find a lost person. He’s their tracker.

Katt was happy to see us. He escaped from the cage twice before we left. We gave up and let him stay outside. A neighbor came over and fed him. He did lose some weight having to share with the Jay who found his food bowl under the porch bench. Dc. Spencer was kind and did not charge me for having to cancel at the last minute. We’ll bring the cage in a few days before leaving next time so he’ll get used to it and not panic when he sees it coming out. I understand some cats will go in the travel cage on their own but I’ve never had one of those.

Brought a lot of canning jars home from Rosy’s stash. I can use some of them but a lot will likely go to the Farmers Market. Our garden is pretty meager this year. We did not get it going very promptly  this spring. Partly the weather and partly our schedule, and to be honest, partly because we kept putting stuff off.

So theoretically I have July, August and most of September to get ready for the fall shows. Have no classes at OFFF this year, I guess they didnt’ like my offerings. but have 3 at Lambtown! Hope I’m up to that! lol One is an all day weaving lace class. I think that’s going to be fun. I also promised several people that I’d try to get a book of pattern stitches for the looms done this summer. Don’t hold your breath but I really will try to get that done. I need an advisor as I tend to get right to the point and so my books are short and not very pretty.  There’s always a bunch of stuff before the books get around to the main topic. I guess that’s the part I need. Well, as I said, I’ll try.

Picked peas last evening when we got home.  There’s a nice ‘mess’. which we’ll have for dinner tonight. It’s going to be hot today and Very hot for the nest couple before it cools a little. However, Himself got hot last night and pulled the 2nd blanket off the bed. I woke about 3 am freezing! It only got down to 53 last night so I guess freezing is a bit of an exaggeration, but I was cold. I got up and closed my bedroom window but it didn’t help much. finally gave it up about 5:30 and got up.

I carried my camera along this trip but never thought to use it. Truck and trailer made it up and back with no surprises this time. I did get the kitchen cotton patchwork shirt finished and wore it in the booth. It was quite popular. I did weave those ends in first, tho!

We sold Rosy’s Schacht Matchless double treadle spinning wheel and her Duncan carder. The Duncan’s were at BSG and the buyer took it over to him and Mr. Duncan went over it and tightened everything up and put on a new belt. I thanked him later and he said he just wanted to make sure they kept working. A nice elderly couple. Is that PIC* coming from me?! lol

*I’m learning to speak text… this means Politically InCorrect.

That’s todays news, not very exciting but more exciting then the rest of my day which will start with vacuuming, I think, then unloading the trailer. I was hoping he’d  undertake that but I expect he’s going to be gone the rest of today looking for the lost guy.  But I hope your 4th is going to be fun, safe, and (however unlikely) cool!

 

This year…

Jun17

Is it just me or is this year even stranger than the last few? Weather wise it’s more than halfway thought June. 40 years ago the last frost date for our area was June 1, a few years back it jumped back a month to May 1. Yesterday and tonight we have frost warnings, all the frost sensitive plants are already in the garden! I can only hope they have exaggerated this warning. But it is cold this morning. Well, I am getting old, 46 is a long way from freezing but I was almost thinking of building a fire this morning! lol Instead I just bundled up in housecoat, afghan, and a warm purring cat on my lap! After a couple cups of coffee I was warmed up a bit so managed to get dressed and make breakfast which warmed up the kitchen, too. Sour dough French toast & applesauce. It was good. Himself drowns his in syrup, of course. I like a little real maple syrup now and then but rarely buy it because he does, too, and I hate it when his plate comes back to the kitchen with a pool of expensive syrup on it, so he gets the cheap stuff. He doesn’t care, he just likes a lot of sweet. My applesauce I make with apples and a bit of water and it’s plenty sweet. But now I need to make bread again!

Yesterday I got the patchwork yoke assembled. Today I have to full it in the washer and hope it does not shrink too much! It’s kitchen cotton so that hope is slim. It’s the first time I’ve used that for this project. It’s a little on the heavy side, too. It may not work so I’m not sure what will happen then. I hope it does, I’ve got these two shirts that I bought a few years ago for this purpose and they as still waiting. It’s not that I don’t have plenty of demo woven 7″ squares I could use. It’s just one of those things I’ve been putting off.  I wove these squares out of Rosy’s stash while I was up there. Something to do in the evening while she slept. So probably not a rational choice for this project, but it’s done now. I’ll let you know how/if it works!

Our fellow residence was back this morning for an easy breakfast of pumpkin seeds. These Stellar Jays have been nesting in the trees and bushes at this cabin since before we bought it from Randy’s dad who bought it from his grandparents. Their line may even go back to the gold mining days of yore! We enjoy watching the young ones grow up. I can’t tell one from another but I know they are mostly ‘our’ babies. Some people don’t like them, say they are noisy and chase off other birds but there was a pair of new comers, Robins, the other day trying to chase the jays off!  And if the grackles are nesting around the yard or garden, you’d better watch your head and they will try to run everybody off, no matter species! lol And the jays have personality & like crows and ravens are quite smart. We don’t have crows here and we try to discourage the ravens who only come around in the spring when there are nests to rob. Yeah, everybody has to eat, but they can forage in someone else’s yard.

Randy is cleaning the cabin this morning, brought me a pile of sheets and towels. The young men who just rented for the weekend had a great day fishing in the lake on Saturday morning and headed to Whiskeytown Sat afternoon to try there and nearly had a disaster.  A hot rodding boater nearly ran them down in their kayaks. He swerved at the last minute just barely missing one but his bow wake swamped them and he kept going. I call that hit and run! They lost equipment, including  the drivers car keys, into the lake. We were concerned when they didn’t come back that night but got a message later that they were okay but stranded. They came back up Sunday afternoon, we offered them another night as it was not their fault they missed one but they declined as they both have jobs but said they’d be back. Our cabin guests usually say what an interesting time they’ve had here but  it is not usually as “exciting” as that! They’d better stay with Trinity Lake, now that it has water again!

Well, it’s nearly 9:30 am so I guess I’d better get started on my Monday.  I seem to be blogging more now that I don’t have Rosy to email with. I still find myself wondering when she’ll be back from her “trip”. It’s weird. But my other sis and my daughter have been emailing and I do enjoy hearing from them.

It’s warming up a bit out there but the wind is blowing again. It’s cold enough that Katt has come back in. He usually spends most of the day out and only comes in to snack and at dinner time. So it’s not just us old ones who think it is cold for June!

      

Hope you’re staying warm. But not too warm!

Hazel

 

It’s June already

Jun8

Well, this month didn’t start out well, with sis dying on the 7th. Ten days before her 78th birthday. The day she shares with my son’s 56th. Well, life does not go as it ought, does it?

But we went to Fiber Fusion in Monroe, Washington, and did well. I taught two classes and had 15 students altogether, all of them quite enthused about learning to weave and learning more about weaving on their square looms. Marion, who is vendor chair, took time off from her busy days to take both! Thank you Marion, I’m glad you found the time for some fun in all your hard work for us!!

 

The trip went well except for a couple small adventures. Every trip needs at least one of those, right? On the way up there was a loud crash-bang and we were showered with glass! I thought we’d been shot at! Randy pulled off the freeway and we discovered that a tiedown strap had broken and the buckle had hit the back window of the truck. It took out the whole drivers side slider. So we ended up with a garbage bag and some cardboard as a back window for the rest of the trip. And sometime during the return trip the brakes started malfunctioning. They worked, but not like he thought they should but we made it home safely and when he took it in to the shop yesterday they found the problem and fixed it. On the way home he ordered the new window, so we ought to be back in working order before Black Sheep Gathering the end of this month.  The only other thing of note was that when we left Monroe it was 63degrees and raining. when we got to Coffee Creek it was 99 and bright sunlight! But we’re adjusting!

We stopped at sis’s on the way home. I promised to help BIL with Rosy’s stuff. Started cleaning out her pantry. Rosy was a adventurous cook and there are products and seasonings that he will never use, some even I had never heard of. I brought some home  and some will be offered to his neighbor who has been cooking for him now and then but what David doesn’t want will be offered to the food pantry. And I picked up a fleece that I want to get ready to try to sell at BSG. There are a LOT of fleeces, Rosy was a Spinner. I loved that as I got a lot of very nice yarn. She knit and wove some but spinning was her first love. She was generous with her yarn, too. Her wheel is a Schacht Matchless double treadle and she has all the accessories to go with it. She has even more things to go with it than I guessed! And she has an Ashford traditional as well. We’ll have to pick up the wheel on our way up to Albany as the trailer was full on the way home. I still need to deal with her clothes, too. I’m putting that off. So if any of you are interested in these wheels and are going to be close enough to pick them up at one of the shows, let me know. I’ll figure out a price meantime.

Since we got home we’ve also been working on the getting the garden in. It’s late this year. but it is what it is. Or will be. and yesterday a doe got in the yarn (somebody left a gate open) and ate off my prized and babied tomatoes so all I have left of this is a stalk with one leaf each. Not a happy camper! They may come back but very late. I started these from special seed and we took them along on the trip to make sure they got enough light and water. They were doing fine so I put them out in the yard in a partly sunny spot to harden off. Very not happy! But I got a lot of other things planted today. And pulled my kale. I just planted it this spring, had not gotten one cutting and it has gone to seed. It was a new variety but should not have done that, so I guess I’ll go back to my old one, if I can remember what kind that was.  I don’t think I saved any seed but maybe there’s a couple volunteers out there, I’ll look this evening once it cools off.

Okay, enough of The History of Our World Part I. I hope your summer is starting out better than ours and will continue in a happy state!

The yard got a bit overgrown while we were gone. It’s  not a traditional Lawn yard, anyway, it’s our meadow but still usually a bit neater than this! But everything is blooming and happy so I guess that’s okay.

 

On the right is where our houseplants spend the summer. Usually safe from marauding herbivores.

  

 

2024… so far.

May14

“Cheer up, look for the bright side, they told me, things could be worse. So I cheered up, looked for the bright side… and things got worse”.

   

My baby Sister died May 7, 2024.  I was able to spend her last month with her but that did not make it easier. My sister and best friend, we emailed daily, sometimes several times. She ignored my advice on important subjects and I ignored hers but we enjoyed sharing none the less. She was a spinner with a huge stash of fleeces and yarn. I have her handspun now and will treasure using it. Her wheel I’ll sell, I hardly spin anymore and have my own anyway. She was also artistic and the best cook in the family. She loved animals and her little dog, Evie, will live with Rex and miss Rosy as the rest of us do. Our brother John is making the urns for her ashes, I know she’d be pleased with that gift.

and 

So now we have to move on. That means Fiber Shows. Fiber Fusion in Monroe, Washington is the first one this year. Two classes, Weaving a dishcloth, a beginning class,  and on Sunday it’s Beyond Plain Weave, but the link does not seem to work for me today. I’m sure you can find it if you are going to be in the area. Our next one at the end of May-first of June is Black Sheep Gathering in Albany, Oregon. I don’t have a class there this year. Then we get the summer off before OFFF and Lambtown in the fall. I’ll have classes listed at both of them & some new projects. The summer means, of course, garden and canning so not really a summer off!

 

Dishcloth and more… and beyond plain.

  And a new loom! Peg, Jr.

Well, I guess that’s all for now. This morning I am canning Rhubarb, something I have not done before, and putting pins in Fine Sett looms. And will try to get a walk in at some point. The sun is shinning and it’s a beautifully warm day here in Coffee Creek. I hope your day is bright as well.

 

Another January about gone…

Jan29

February coming up. That’s Spring in some places. In other places it means winter is underway. Strange how the world works. Just random thoughts generated by the weather these days. We’re having another sunny day. We didn’t even have have a fire last night. I slept great! When he stokes the fire for the night he doesn’t want to get up to a dead fire so I roast all night with the covers kicked off while he’s bundled up to the neck. Go figger. Ah well, they do say opposites attract. I think that must of been the case with us.

But Cat thinks they are soulmates and loves it!

But on other subjects, we’re threatened with heavy rain this week leading to lowering snow levels on Friday. Sun’s shining today, tho. We took a ride up the road  so Randy could check on a customers place for them, all’s well there. Coffee Creek is roaring along nicely, raising the lake level daily. Well, I haven’t been up that way recently but it’s probably getting a little help from Trinity river. But so far they are not sending it elsewhere so the possibility is there that we might have a lake once again this summer! That’ll be good for everyone here as well as visitors. Which are also good for everyone here!

But I guess we ought to talk about Weaving. We have a couple new looms in the works, not ready for debut yet. But I can show you one. I call it Peg, Jr. I’m think of offering a class at one of the fairs using the peg loom and thought it might be fun for parent and kid so we came up with this one with just 7 pegs. Kind of like straw weaving but with a base.

I had him shorten the pegs since this photo & wove a long 3 pin belt which I then rolled up and stitched in place… a pin cushion! And a scarf in the making.

Anything else? Well, I’m thinking it’s about time to get the coles started. I did buy a new seed tray and a bag of potting soil. Now I just have to find space for it. The biggy. I guess maybe the xmas cactuses will have to move next door. And I have a lot of pumpkins in storage that need to be used pretty soon. Can’t seem to find much to use them for. We don’t need a regular supply of pies and we tried pumpkin soup and, while it was not bad, it didn’t really inspire more.

But Valentines day is coming up. That’s always fun! Mug Rugs!

So that’s it for the end of January. I hope you all got the year off to a beautiful start.

An ideal life!

 

 

Since we’ve no place to go…

Jan6

LET IT SNOW, LET IT SNOW, LET IT SNOW!!!

Cat wanted to go out and see but 15 min was enough!

He went out again but it was getting heavier.

So now he’s enjoying the view from comfort! Me, too!

Got bread rising & crossing my fingers that the power stays on at least until I get it baked. We went through the last loaf faster that I planned.

Hope you are all enjoying whatever weather you’re blessed with today!!

I’ll add a little ps here: I’ve been trying to get my blog editor on my tablet all day and if this works… it’ll be the first time! So crossing my fingers… I’ll give it one more try. Snow, by the way,  has quit.

Hollyhock… Looking to next summer.

Dec22

I have seed for back and white hollyhocks & maybe some red ones. If you are interested send me an email and I’ll send you some. There’s a limited amount of the black, enough white to seed a couple acres, probably! and the red ones were quite prolific, too, I just can’t remember if I harvested seed from them. I’ll have to go check my stock and it’s too cold today to leave my warm fire side. If you like red as well just say so and I’ll see what, if anything, I can find.

I don’t seem to have a picture of the white one, but it was just white. I have a picture of the red one but it’s not a close up. That one grew in the middle of the veg garden, he liked it as it was always busy with bees. I guess it was a clump rather than a single plant.