One of my sisters wants a black cowl, and I figured that if my eyes were going to be working in black it was going to be a yarn that of itself made me want to work with it despite the difficulty in seeing the stitches. Plus, this was my sister; I wanted to make her something really nice.

And so I bought the last two skeins of black Woolfolk that Purlescence likely will ever sell.

I finished all but the cast-off as the plane landed Friday–if I were going to stop at one skein, and it would have been a very nice if smallish cowl. Given the iffy lighting on the plane and the splittiness of the yarn, this was very tempting.

Tonight, though, I finished it the way I wanted it done, after using up as much of the second skein as possible. My father-in-law was in the middle of Facetime talking to our niece and I showed it off for her briefly–I was really proud of myself for persevering and doing it right: generously sized, thickly knit, and warm as well as soft against the northeastern chill.

And that yarn really, really is soft. A cousin got an earlier one-skein wonder out of Woolfolk and couldn’t believe it wasn’t cashmere? Nope, merino, plain and simple. Matter of fact, Deborah’s ecstatic reaction was why I bought more.

So.

I put it away, Dad continued his chat, and afterwards he asked me, What did you call that?

A cowl. Or sometimes, an infinity scarf because of its being round.

He grinned: Looks like a bib!

When we laughed, he added, Or a hoodie. (But not wanting to waste the opportunity for a good tease, he went back to) A bib! Like, y’know, you eat lobster with!

Me, laughing: Can I quote you?

Him: Sure!

Actually? Lobster would be a dish worthy of such a thing.

Lynn picked me up and we went to the new yarn shop in town, West 7th Wool, where I picked up a souvenir skein of Malabrigo Rios and she, some Findley. We had such a good time catching up.

Then tonight I went to go answer everybody and found my mail had somehow disappeared from the laptop and it just wasn’t coming back up in any way I could figure out. Huh. I handed it over to the resident geek, and as he handed it back a minute later he remarked, You haven’t used this in a long time.

Speechless.

…Still speechless.

I didn’t dare touch it as I waited for my father-in-law to come back in the room, and when he did, I told him that I certainly had used this mail on this machine in the last five years and there’s no way I had left it at such an old message. “She’s here,” as I handed him the laptop, opened to…

It was at a thank you note from his late wife for the chemo caps and there she was, wearing the light lavender one.

A silent, upwards, thank you, Mom, as he took in his beloved’s face again.

I forwarded him a copy.

Found  my laptop last night! After being dead for months, we had it set up with the new charger at the outlet just past my stash closet so that I would always always look there first.

Which is how it disappeared for two weeks.

A quick Cooper’s hawk report: one landed on the fence and watched me today like old times–warily, but it did.

I loved it for coming and as I felt that, he suddenly relaxed and fluffed out his feathers and took in the day, and a fine day it was. It was so cool seeing him so at ease.

But after finally getting him to come back I’ll be deserting him by not filling the feeder.

Richard mentioned that we should pack an umbrella.

There was this Californian moment of oh…! I remember those! (Haven’t used one in years)… (Running and checking the Ft. Worth weather report again. Ours, 79F, theirs, 99.) I remember the surprise from the first time we went there that the oranges and juice were so much sweeter in Texas for the heat.

We are off in the morning to take care of his dad. The house will be sat, the tomatoes ripening. If you don’t hear from me, the plan is also that Lynn there will be taking me to sightsee West 7th Wool yarn shop Saturday afternoon.

Sweet will be the times spent.

I think we can officially call it eighteen fruit trees now.

Last year’s volunteer fig seedling that I dug out on a whim from under a tomato plant got put in a small pot and paid only just enough attention to to keep it alive.

If that. But it wanted to survive. It didn’t grow much at all but no matter what I did or didn’t, it hung in there. It even added a third leaf when the weather started warming up again. It had demanded a chance, so I moved it to a #10 pot the end of this May.

Actually, some credit should go to the squirrels: they tried to stand on the flimsy #10 that I forget what had arrived in and dug holes and they’d pretty much knocked the fig half out of the pot. There wasn’t much root structure and I didn’t think it would make it but I couldn’t bear to just let it be destroyed for no reason–not when I didn’t even know yet…

I mentioned the large ceramic pot the other day that was given me by a friend moving away; there were two others as well (but they didn’t require the dolly.) One was this big, very lightweight, plastic gray one. I would never have bothered with the expense for a tree with no knowable payback and given that some fig varieties hit 40′ high in our climate I would never have planted it in the yard, but a free pot big enough for it to stay in, yeah, I can buy a bag of dirt and try and if it doesn’t work I’ll plant something else in there.

So tonight I filled it up (which took more than one big bag), soaked the soil, scooped out the center, and went to go get that little fig tree.

In just those two months after staying tiny for a year and despite having been partly exposed to the air till I rescued it that rootball had grown to fill that much space that fast. It was highly gratifying–and it took some doing to get it out. Who knew? And the tree, still only a foot tall or so, had grown thicker and happier and leafier, which is why I’d finally decided I really really did want to see what it could do. It was my first thought when Sheryl said she needed to give away large pots.

All we can do is wait now to see if the variety is any good, or if it produces at the exact time my Black Jack is going whole hog. If the figs are no good (how can a fig not have at least some goodness) then no great loss, it’s just fun to find out what life has randomly offered us. I’m assuming it’s the offspring of my neighbor’s, which means it may even be another Black Jack.

But from what I’ve learned so far, we probably won’t have long to find out. And if I’d given it this much room at the beginning of the spring we’d probably be seeing fruit on it by now.

Visions of rolling them in butter, roasting them, drizzling with honey, and serving them hot out of the oven…

The idea behind using the very lightweight pot for it (although the soil certainly isn’t) is that if it does turn out we’ve got a good one but it duplicates what we have, it’ll be much easier to wheel it away on the dolly to hand it down to someone else and spread the joy.

Call it my inner squirrel.

I saw a flyby in the morning, which was cool, and this evening, Richard looked up at hearing a finch hit the window–just in time to see the pursuing hawk hit it, too.

But…but…! As I remembered the time I washed the windows and Coopernicus arrived right there a couple of feet away and examined closely: yes, there’s still something there, still in this particular space as always, okay, got it.

He would circle within an inch, absolutely amazing to watch, clearly knowing exactly where that plate of glass was.

The fact that today’s Cooper’s hawk flew back out of here was a relief. But also a reminder that that particular species is often found by biologists to have evidence of healed broken bones.

It dawned on me this afternoon.

The dolly had been in the garage. The male Cooper’s hawk has always liked to perch on it on the patio, but it hasn’t been there the last few months and I hadn’t even thought about it.

We used it a few days ago to wrestle a very large hand-me-down ceramic planter given to us by a friend who was moving back East, and as long as we had that thing out I’d left it in its old spot for now, a little wistful at the memories of seeing my favorite raptor on it.

And there you go. The hawk came back. So there it stays.

Meantime, when my folks had their hands full with small children, they were living in a very small house and four daughters in one bedroom was getting tight. They bought a lot in a new neighborhood starting to go up, and two of their old neighbors liked it enough that they came, too and so the three families settled into their bigger places still just a few houses away from each other.

One was Wendy’s family, and so she and I have known each other since we were born.

She lives in New Jersey these days, and she and her husband were briefly in town. They met up with us at the airport before their flight tonight and we were very glad for there being a Starbucks outside the security line where we could sit and catch up a bit. Tomorrow they’ll be in Philadelphia where her folks live now–at the same time two of my sisters will be in that town from out of state, and so they’ll get to see each other, too, and I’m so happy for them. I’d love to be able to thank Mr. and Mrs. B in person for being my backup parents all my growing up.

(Childhood memory: Wendy: You want to come over for dinner? Me, running across the street: Hey, Mom, what are we having for dinner? Okay, can I have dinner at the B’s? …I can’t tell you how many times I did that, even though my mom is a great cook.)

There’s nobody who knows you like the ones who have always known you.

I did a quick glance for the camera but it was across the room.

It had been awhile since I’d seen the Cooper’s hawks, not even during summer solstice when they’ve always shown up in years past, but one of them more than made up for it today. Those wide wings swooped right around the birdfeeder and near the window as the doves made a frantic run for it. I didn’t realize he’d caught one and as I stood to look over the philodendron to see if he was still in the yard I startled him into flying away with it.

Part of me wondered if it was Coopernicus’s offspring and doesn’t yet know that we like to people- and bird-watch each other? Still, I should have moved a little more slowly.

All I had to do was wonder if this were still Cooper’s territory to have them announce that yes, thank you, of course it is.

Fuji apples and Black Jack figs (which are a lot harder to get clamshells around.) The end of summer is going to be wonderful.

One stick in the dirt, one year, fifty figs. Sweet.

And the first of my tomatoes started turning color today. A raccoon apparently tried to get at it last night but stopped after starting to move one of those thorny stalks (see yesterday) that was in its way–and that was that.

I cut more of them down and added extra around the tomatoes and the fig tree both, liking that the lesson seems to have been learned and wanting to reinforce it.

The leaves are nearly gone for the season and most of those 5-7′ flower stalks have dried. The hummingbirds love the blossoms, which is a large part of why I haven’t gotten rid of them, but those stalks (just the stalks) have these vicious jags of thorns everywhere and every summer I start thinking I should just rip out the lot of them entirely.

So how many years did it take me to figure out that the critters that raid my stuff wouldn’t like to touch those any more than I do? All those times that I carefully cut the stalks with clippers and tried to keep holding onto them in the jaws of the things as I carried them to the bin, ends swaying awkwardly, trying not to let them smack into me as I opened the lid and tried both to get them in and to cut them in half so they would fit in there–they always got me. Often in the face.

Hey…

So I challenged the squirrels and raccoons to a duel: En Gourd, villains!

(I’m still not sure those really are Sharlyn melons no matter what that seed packet said. So far the leaves and fruit look deeply suspiciously zucchini-y. But they’re not growing into baseballs overnight, so, that’s a good sign.)

The tomatoes have the spiky things too. And they are untouched. So far.

(Edited to add: Acanthus. Found the name.)

A shawl, an afghan, anything–tonight I want to knit a hug for every person in France.

The tech took about nineteen minutes, and I know that because I was just shy of finishing a second row when he came back with my ears.

I was at the audiologist’s, having my hearing aids cleaned, and apologized to the two women who came in and wanted to start a conversation about what I was knitting: I leaned way forward and watched their faces and still didn’t quite catch what they were saying. That though at least is one place where people get it when you can’t hear.

But I did get the question as to what the name of the pattern was.

Ostrich Plumes.

They were delighted, and one turned to the other and as she spoke her hands mimed wrapping a shawl tightly around her shoulders in great happiness at what clearly was a fond memory.

Which made me happy, and motivated to knit more.

She wanted to touch the yarn, and yes, sure!

Size 5 needles, 49″ wide by 21″ long so far–or so–you know how stretchy things lie at measuring–not bad for the first week.

(Ed. to add: unblocked, it looks right now like a knitted version of the cushy thing in the peach boxes to keep the fruit from bruising. I like that.)

We were fresh out of peaches…

Two weeks ago we asked at Andy’s when the Lorings would be in. Today we asked again as we came in–and I laughed when they said they were picking them tomorrow. We were one day too soon.

But hey, a reason to come back in the same week? Incentive to share Baby Crawfords? Cool. They were so good last year that I planted my own in January, with thanks to Andy for that variety. (The white one there is a Silver Logan.)

My friend Nina has wanted to make the drive down there with me for some time and just hasn’t been able to yet, so tonight I brought some over to her to give her a better idea of what I’d been talking about.

The great juice of summer dripping down everybody’s arms as the slices got passed around her loved ones: the way a peach is supposed to be.

One of my sisters wants a black cowl and for her that will definitely happen, though it does remind me of one time when I wanted to knit someone a black scarf. I picked out a soft camelhair yarn to push myself to be willing to work with that color.

Small black stitches are of course harder to see to work with than when I was a 20-something and I confess I never finished that particular project–but the person never knew anyway, so, hey.

Turns out it was just as hard for a camel to through the needles with my eyes.

Bigfoot came back tonight.

Now, in hindsight, there are a whole lot of better names I could have picked for that pattern, even if it amused me enough at the time to think it was actually a good idea. It was when someone told me, “Well, I can tell *you* have small feet” (and I do…) It’s been out there that way for nine years now and, um, oops. Sorry.

The longtime owner of the original brushed-kid-mohair shawl, the yarn dyed by Lisa Souza, told her sister (who delivered it since she lived closer) to tell me she loved it, she treasured it, but in our warm climate she simply never wore it–it made her too hot. She’d decided she was just finally going to ask would I mind? Was this okay? She was sure I could find the right person to re-gift it to and she really really loved it but it was a shame to have it just sit there.

(I couldn’t for the life of me have told you what I’d given her.)

Oh! Right! That one, the one that was actually in the book, dyed in Shade Garden colorway! Sure, I said, stroking its softness, although I might, y’know, actually keep it and wear it myself. Or not. We’ll see. Was it okay if I wore it?

That got me a laugh.

I’ll add a picture in the morning; we had a great visit and it’s late. (Ed. to add, there you go. And I would have given it to the sister who brought it back to me and let it stay in their family but she’s a redhead who does not wear purple.)