Now I just have to knit 98,454 more stitches
Friday April 14th 2023, 8:47 pm
Filed under: Garden,Knit,Knitting a Gift

Huh. Where had I put that other pot? But I wasn’t really paying attention to that distraction, so, whatever.

Which is why it wasn’t till this morning that I discovered the Anya apricot pot knocked clear upside down, where it had to have been for two nights and a day by then. That was the newest, fastest growing, most promising seedling, too, I lamented at myself while scooping everything back together newly out of range of raccoons–or the garden hose as I’d reached towards the amaryllises under the awning; I probably did it myself. That’s what I get for having the thing up on something (to thwart rabbits) but not up enough.

It actually looked quite good: curved but not broken. Bright green and ready for some sun time again. I debated whether it needed to be kept shaded while it readjusted–but didn’t, and that may have been a mistake.

Tonight? It might make it but when the leaf edges shrivel like that, experience says that one’s a goner. If it were older, but it’s not.

I’ve got a few seeds left and it looks like I’m going to need them. I have friends hoping for their own Anya seedlings and I’m down to two clear successes out of sixteen by this point and two maybes.

Knit stuff: I did a fair bit of swatching, washing the swatches, hairdryering, measuring, deciding, and lots of wanting to just get on with it.

The combination of variegated blues in merino over here would be a ton of fun and I had it all planned out.

But then I swatched that 64/36 cashmere/cotton. There was just nothing like that softness. Exquisite. The bit of cotton meant the shrinkage was about 10%, all vertical. And given who it’s to be for? It totally wins. Yeah, more (and more and more) plain practical white again, but happy anticipation can make up for a lot.

That is seriously nice stuff.



Finally
Friday April 07th 2023, 8:48 pm
Filed under: Garden

The first cherry blossom of the year.



Scoot, scoot, go that way
Wednesday April 05th 2023, 9:50 pm
Filed under: Garden

There were four of them at first. Quite docile. They were interested in the starter pots filled with composted lobster and crab shells where the seeds had never sprouted–but not the pots where they had–they were exploring every place in them where there was any indentation in the soil and twice, an abdomen throbbed downward into such a spot.

What on earth (literally) were they doing? There were no flowers there.

Well then it must not have been honeybees, he said.

I went back out and took pictures, this one being the clearest. I looked them up just to be sure. Classic worker bees from everything I could find.

At one point there were at least six, and since they were investigating right where the seedlings are that I’m tending to every day it seemed like this could escalate quickly.

Our elderly neighbors years ago had honeybees move into their compost pile, and after I saw them swarming one afternoon above the fence between our yards, the husband told me he was setting up an actual hive for them. We chatted about how my fruit trees would help feed them well.

Jim passed away and I haven’t asked his widow if that is still there.

I don’t want a break-off hive setting up camp…quite…there.

So I moved those two sets of starter pots several feet away. Nudge, nudge. I probably should have taken them farther but first I wanted to see if they would follow them.

They ran away from my approach but came back, looking for them. One persisted for an hour as the sun faded, zigzagging back and forth over where the one had been, then the other. It’s like the figure-8 dance they teach elementary school kids about had become a mobius strip that had broken. Straight lines back and forth where IS that thing it was just here guys I promise it was!

I tried to gently chase it in the right direction–they’re right over there!–but it wasn’t having it.

One of those sets was apricot kernels that had never sprouted; I think the other was tomatoes that didn’t, but the windstorms blew my markers away.

No loss there, others grew and I have definitely enough of both.

I’m delighted to have proof that the honeybees are still around.

But maybe not quite so close to the back door? (Just don’t burrow into the house, that’s all I really ask. Hopefully the 17-month-old house paint will discourage that?)



Take off their coats and stay awhile
Thursday March 30th 2023, 9:07 pm
Filed under: Garden

After much smashing of fingers I have finally figured out how to crack a recalcitrant apricot kernel: lay an arm of the nutcracker on a thick oven mitt and press down on the other one with a careful placement of the hands–ie so that it doesn’t come crashing down on your fingertips curled between. Let the mitt take that force.

So if anyone wants to try growing Anya apricot seeds this year and wants not to have to crack them open (or if you don’t care either way for that matter), tell me quick and I’ll save some out for you before I send a bunch out. These are the last I have and with the rains during blossoming, there may not be many or any for next year.



Springing up
Saturday March 18th 2023, 9:33 pm
Filed under: Food,Garden

You wait and wait and wait and then it all starts at once.

The fig tree sprouted not only leaves but six breba figs on its first day awake today: they are the spring fruit that precede the main August crop. I got one last year. Whether it’s the tree getting older or all the rain, it just delights me beyond reason that we won’t have to wait so long to taste a ripe fig again.

And then another Anya apricot went from this morning’s will it or won’t it sprout to–look at that! That makes three good ones and one dying out of 16 planted, but they’re not done yet. (Picture of three week old one, 3.5″ tall/4″ across as gauge swatch.)

The one whose first leaves snagged in the kernel coating got some of its relentlessly tiny true leaves blown off in the windstorm a few days ago before I snatched it inside, too late. That did it. It’s toast. So to see this new one coming up so green and so fast was a relief; I have local friends hoping for a seedling but I have to make sure they’ll grow first and at half a day old these leaves are as big as that other one’s ever were. Yay!

And hey, Afton? We finally finally started that batch of chocolate. Esmeraldas from Ecuador. Dandelion definitely does it better than I do but hey. Basically, I woke up grumpy after a long insomniac night and then figured out the best way to make it better to everybody.

Homemade chocolate is where bad tempering is okay just the same.



Between a rock and a wet place
Monday March 13th 2023, 10:03 pm
Filed under: Garden,History,Life

The phone rang at dinnertime.

It was a reverse-911 call from the county warning of the incoming storm and pleading for residents to stay home and stay put if you’re not in an evacuation zone. And don’t drive through water in the roadway!

We are staying home and staying put. It’s supposed to start pouring any minute, strong winds, the works, and then another atmospheric river is expected next week. You know the “Drove my Chevy to the levy but the levy was dry” line? The levy wishes. They are dropping boulders from helicopters at this point to be able to reach it.

And yet all was quiet here so far. So I took a moment to photograph the biggest Anya seedling: I love its formation, it’s such an elegant little bundle of hope, and its leaves have really grown. It just makes me so happy.

There was enough air movement to twirl its skirts a little.

The flowering pear is at that glorious moment of full bloom mixed with the incoming leaves; it had waited all winter for this.

The start of the storm keeps being pushed back–11:00 pm, they think now. Edit, nope, 1:00 am.

That pear tree was a staked newly planted whip when we moved here. Hey, little apricot? You’ve got this.



Petal power
Sunday March 12th 2023, 10:08 pm
Filed under: Garden,History,Politics

One of the companies affected by the bank failure: Etsy. 95 million buyers, 7.5 million sellers, per the Washington Post. The Feds have declared that tomorrow all depositors are to have access to their funds after all, at no cost to taxpayers. Such a relief.

And to change the subject: the one peach that needs a pollinator is going to do just fine this year, rain willing. I love how similar and yet how different the flowers are. The Indian Free, with the darker pink interior, produces peaches with a dark red center.

Colourmart.com’s silk ribbon leaped onto my needles.



Look at the flip side
Thursday March 09th 2023, 10:12 pm
Filed under: Family,Food,Garden

Four peach trees just starting to burst into bloom in sync with each other, which never happens. Just as the deluge begins. Hey honeybees, work fast for me, willya?

So, confronted with a bag of thawed cranberries from Michelle’s freezer, I reacted as one does: I baked. I used her Miyoki cultured vegan butter and skipped the baking soda in the recipe, although it probably is the one thing that needed it if anything does but given my antipathy to it nothing does, so, anyway, so I did that. I squeezed out nearly a quarter cup of Meyer lemon juice (glad to pick and use up two off that tree, so many dozens more to go) and shorted the unsweetened oat milk accordingly. (The dairy allergy thing.) I added a tablespoon of Penzey’s powdered lemon peel rather than grating the ones off the tree because Meyers may have the best lemon juice but the white pith is very bitter.

That’s my excuse for that laziness.

So those were the changes I made to the cranberry lemon cake recipe. I made 24 cupcakes out of it. 350F, 25 minutes was just right, and that brown sugar on the bottom and cranberries on top of it was heavenly.

I can only imagine how much better with real butter and buttermilk these could be, but they were very good as is and that time will come all too soon. It’s great to have her home.

 

 



Hunkering down
Wednesday March 08th 2023, 11:17 pm
Filed under: Family,Garden

Massive rain is coming, with tomorrow alone expected to be 10% of a normal annual amount (we’re already at over twice that total.) So after a quick visit with Richard’s sister who’s in town to fill in on some childcare, he and I ran to Michelle’s apartment and between the three of us got it very nearly empty tonight.

The first of the Anya apricot seedlings, at 16 days old in this morning’s bright sun. Soak it in while you can, little one.

 



If you squint
Tuesday February 28th 2023, 10:03 pm
Filed under: Garden,Knit

But isn’t that like the chick hatching out of the egg? he asked me yesterday.

I dunno but I did it anyway, but no, I think it’s fine.

The one in the lower foreground? Half an initial leaf was caught on one side of the skin of the kernel, which hadn’t quite broken open all the way down as the seed had expanded, and half was caught tight wrapped into the opposite side, and it had stayed like that for two days. It needed to get up out of that inadvertent shade into the sunlight so it could grow.

So I got my smallest sewing needle and pierced that brown covering open, taking a tiny speck of greened kernel with it while setting it free. Oops.

Within an hour you could see that tiny hint of a plant recovering, and today it’s playing catch up to its week-old sibling.

And the one in the middle. The one that had sprouted into gale-force winds, noped out and turned brown and stopped growing? I called its bluff. It was still alive. And now (click to embiggen) it’s grown leaves and is coming around, too.  To life!

Three up, five to go from that batch.

Meantime, knitting happened. Bison/silk 50/50, bought from Ron and Theresa at thebuffalowoolco.com before they found themselves no longer a yarn dyeing company but a bison sock company.

Their best are the bison/silk ones.

 

 



Go play springtime for me, willya?
Saturday February 25th 2023, 10:15 pm
Filed under: Garden

Here’s the apricot that sprouted Monday despite the cold.

Tuesday, there was this second one that was about to uncurl and stretch upwards.

I had the tray out in the sunlight, but also during that ferocious windstorm. The new growth filled out a little more but stopped growing upwards. No green. The next day it started turning brown. But, but, I didn’t want it to! I haven’t entirely given up on it yet. Cue Star Trek’s McCoy: “He’s dead, Jim.”

Prove it, buddy.

I’ll give it a few more days.

Meantime, when I brought the tray inside a little over three hours ago this third one had the tiniest wispiest colorless fragment of what might have been nothing at all, really; I wasn’t sure there was any there there.

And now there is, and it’s even got some green to it.

Maybe I’ll cut up the coir tray and keep that one inside under the skylight for its first full day of coming up.



Planted Feb. 6
Monday February 20th 2023, 9:31 pm
Filed under: Garden

Oh no I forgot! I dashed for the back door, hoping it hadn’t gotten too cold yet for the night. I try to find that balance between warmth inside and the sun that keeps the kernels from molding during their long wait.

And then found myself exclaiming softly in surprise, YAY!!!

There was no sign of sprouting this morning. All of this came up while I was busy doing other things: just nature, going about its day, too, bringing life into life. You offer potential and hopes to dirt and sun and the glory comes to itself, as old as the planet, as new as the day.

The Anya apricot offspring grow so wildly differently but clearly this is going to be one of the tall vigorous ones.

I’ve got a couple of friends here waiting for one. It took exactly two weeks from planting. My first batch in 2020 took three months and had two survivors, mine and Ruth and Lise’s; I’ve learned a bit these past three years.

This is just the most happy-making thing! Go. Plant a seed. Tomato, apricot kernel, butternut squash, anything, don’t worry about the other seeds in the packet, just get one going. It’s worth it.

Well maybe not brussels sprouts so much. But you know what I mean.



One way to get a project done
Saturday February 18th 2023, 10:43 pm
Filed under: Family,Garden,Knitting a Gift,Life,Mango tree

With all the microclimates around here, no matter what the weather sites say, after a really cold night you wait for the frost on the awning roof to start dripping down before you uncover the mango tree in the morning. That, and, somehow I just didn’t want to go out there this morning. But it had to be done. Be careful.

The top frost layer still had a bit of crispy crunchy glittery to it and I could feel the last ice crystals breaking as I pulled it off the lower layer.

Which was dry and felt cool rather than cold. Those old incandescent Christmas lights underneath are still doing their job.

But the top layer was heavy with liquid in whatever form, and I was putting my whole body into dragging it away from the mango to where it could dry out.

Which is why (and I know better, I’ve done this before) I was at the wrong angle with arms and legs opposite the direction I was leaning in when my foot caught a dip in the ground.

As I told Richard, my instant thought was Don’tfalldon’tfalldon’tfall as I tried to right myself in time.

And then you fell, he said, reasonably.

My back bounced off that vertical piece of the raised bed. But it wasn’t my head!

Ice. Immediately.

He was right, and I did, and I was a lot better off for it.

Mostly.

After dinner I said, I don’t see how I could have broken it.

Is the pain more localized now? he asked.

I wiggled my foot a bit. Actually, no, more diffuse, which makes more sense anyway because it was a twist not a smack.

Broken bones localize.

Yeah. Um, yay.

I found my old ankle brace but it’s still tough getting around. Elevate. Which means the UFO 1×1-stitch-switching intarsia hat that is a joy to give but a pain to make is now almost done. Yay!

Looks like four more nights of frost warnings coming up and then hopefully we’ll be done with that till, I dunno, maybe Thanksgiving?



New kids in the blocks
Wednesday February 15th 2023, 9:39 pm
Filed under: Garden

Promises, promises….

If anyone else wants to try their hand at sprouting some seeds from some super-good super-rare Anya apricot kernels this year, I have a few still hibernating in the fridge to share.

Apricot roots are finicky and commercially they’re typically grafted onto peach rootstock, but I don’t yet know how nor have I tried; so far, it’s survive or die and some have grown really well. Some, not so much.

I’m waiting for my baby trees to show me how they did after the three weeks we had of steady rain and I’m really hoping to pick my first apricots this year (and the critters will NOT chocolate box them!) But we’ll see.



Spring fever
Friday February 10th 2023, 11:50 am
Filed under: Garden

The August Pride peach, while the Baby Crawford next to it is trying to play catch up.