Salad!

Those containers of lettuce are really producing well. Today's harvest, lettuces and spinach and green beans, became tonight's dinner, with some added veggies from the farmer's market and a little chicken. I love being able to walk out onto the patio and pick fresh vegetables to feed my family!

In The Garden

Our garden is larger this year, and we're hoping for more of a harvest. Last year the squash vine borer got our zucchini, the heat got our lettuce, and I have no idea what happened to the tomatoes. We did get a lot of green beans, and the basil went crazy, but that was it.

This year we started earlier, and utilized lights to start seedlings indoors before the last frost. It helped to give our garden a good jump-start. I've been harvesting lettuce for weeks - we planted several varieties in pots instead of in the ground, so we could move it out of the worst of the heat to extend the season a bit. I've got Romaine, Grand Rapids, and Simpson, and I get 3 small side-salads for dinner at least 4x a week. I take the largest leaf from each plant, and they obligingly grow new ones for the next day or two.

Today I also harvested a few green onions and green beans. It's a small taste of what's to come, and I'm loving it. :)

Catching Up

So where was I? 3 months of silence. I really meant to keep you up to date... Best intentions, best laid plans, etc. Anyway, I've been spinning and knitting and weaving and even crocheting, and I haven't taken the time to tell you about any of it, have I?

So far in 2014 I've spun 7.5 POUNDS of fiber. Seriously. Look - I've been keeping track on Ravelry and also on Flickr. That's a lotta yarn. I've also knit a vest, finished knitting a sweater and started knitting another one, and started weaving some soft cotton napkins, random rainbows like the dishtowels I love to weave. Since the napkins were started this week, you get a picture:

When they're done, I plan to list them in my shop in pairs. I'll let you know when they're ready.

I also have TONS of the aforementioned yarn to photograph and list in the shop. Photograph - ah, there's the rub. My least favorite part - but it has to be done, otherwise you can't see the yummies.

What else? Well, we tripled the size of the vegetable garden this year. Mr. Debbie has gone all out - he put down black garden cloth, planted the veg, and mulched everything. My part was planting the seedlings indoors and nurturing the little guys under lights. We have a lovely crop of lettuce that we've already been harvesting for salads, and I'm hopeful for tomatoes, zucchini, spinach, and beans. We have some other things planted that I'm not so sure about, but only time will tell.

Hmmmm... Oh! I got a breadmaker for my birthday in mid-February, and I have been baking all our bread since then. Mr. Debbie is in heaven - he adores bread, and has declared that my bread is tastier than store-bread even the few times it's lasted long enough to get slightly stale toward the end. The smell of the bread baking is delightful.

And I bought a bicycle to ride back and forth to my Jazzercise classes. It's a 3 mile roundtrip, which is a nice addition to the Jazzercise workout. I worked out a route that only requires crossing 3 busy intersections, all at traffic lights. I haven't ridden a bike in years, I'm having so much fun! And of course I'm wearing a helmet, something we never did as kids.

So much to tell you... I'll try to be good and update more often. Promise!

First Harvest!

We are having so much more success this year with the garden than last year. Last year's poor plants cooked in their containers and gave us no fruit/veggies. So sad. This year the garden is looking fine and healthy.  We have the square garden plot (8'x8') and a bed along the wood fence.

The tomatoes, lettuce, beans, and zucchini are doing so well!

Aaaaaand, first harvest - lettuce and two types of bush beans:

Drying In The Breeze, With Cat

More Garden Weaving

The weather has been spectacular here lately (you won't hear me say that very often in the hot humid South!) It's been so nice to bring a loom outside and weave in the pleasant breeze.

Such A Lovely Day

Babies!!

Seeds

Chiot's Run's 5x5 Garden Challenge

Hello!

Here I am! Thanks to the dear friends who have emailed and asked for an update. Time passes much too quickly!
The summer is 2/3 gone, and that's a GOOD thing here in the South. It's too hot and humid to enjoy the outdoors - in fact, we rush from house to car to store to car to house, trying to limit our exposure to the heat index and get back into A/C as soon as possible. My family spends the summer longing for October. :)

Garden: Catastrophic failure. The plants COOKED inside the containers. When we watered (daily) we could feel the water coming out the bottom of the container was HOT, hotter than comfortable bathwater. The heat was built up and concentrated in the containers, and cooked the roots of our poor plants. Everything died without giving us more than a few measly peppers. We are planning a fall garden bed IN THE GROUND so it can maintain a constant dirt temperature. No pictures... too sad. :(

Knitting: I finished the Socktopus socks. They were a fun knit, with the sparkles and softness of the wool.

Spinning: Oh, goodness - I can't show it all to you, we don't have time or bandwidth for that. Since last I posted, I've participated once again in the Tour de Fleece and spun 18 skeins of yarn in 3 weeks, a total of 5100 yards of plied yarn (much of it thin 3-ply yarns) in 21 days. That was a concentrated spinning effort, but I still spin/ply an average of a,000 yards a week. This morning I plied a 730 yard skein of 2-ply laceweight polwarth/bamboo. Monday I navajo/chain plied a 440 yard commissioned skein of sock yarn. Spinning is one of the great joys of my life. :)

Weaving: I've woven several scarves in rayon boucle and tencel (one is in the Etsy shop right now), an Overshot runner, and a set of placemats in twill and huck lace for an exchange with some dear friends in Canada.

Personal: After nearly 8 months of retirement, I still love it. :) Today is my dear husband's birthday - he is the joy of my life and my best friend. And our move to Montana grows ever closer. Life (and God who gives it) = GOOD.

Garden, now with Bee!

Leigh came looking for zucchini flowers and I hadn't posted a picture, so this is for you, Leigh:

And look, a Bee! There were several of these guys flying around, welcome pollinators. How exciting!!

My eggplant is flowering, too - I hope the Bees make their way over there as well.

Garden, Week 1 - and some Handspun

It's been 1 week (and a day, don't judge me) since I took pictures of the Garden. Everything is growing well - and so far, we've been faithful to water every day. Hmmm... there might be a correlation between the two. :)

 Cucumbers:

Eggplant:

Onions:

Peppers:

Tomatoes:

Zucchini babies!

 And corn babies!

I'm sure we'll make lots of mistakes with our first vegetable garden, but they will be learning opportunities for next time.

I've finished some handspun in this past week, too - one of my rainbow commission skeins is done, and I've spun two skeins of falkland wool, one in lovely blue/green/purple singles and one in 2-ply apricot/peach tones.

The first skein of Black Magic Woman fingering weight yarn sold already in the shop, so I'm starting another one. I'll be spinning up numerous skeins of BMW - Susan Pandorf used it for one of her Lord Of The Rings: Two Towers patterns (Eleventy Seven - a lace scarf in black metallic handspun), and in cooperation with Josette at Enchanted Knoll Farm, I'm making as many skeins available as I can. (If you're interested in a skein, let me know, and I'll spin it especially for you.)

We had a lovely family gathering on Easter Sunday. My brother is getting married May 28th, and he asked me to sing in the wedding. I'm so pleased! I'm happy about the marriage, and so glad to be a part of the ceremony. A little nervous, too - I used to sing solos in church, but haven't sung in a public setting in 7-8 years. Time to start rehearsing in the shower! :)

Can't CONTAIN my Excitement!

Yesterday my husband brought home plants and seeds and started our container veggie garden. I am so happy!

Vegetable gardening is one of the many things in my life that falls victim to my tendency toward perfectionism - "if I can't do it perfectly, it's not worth doing at all." Which of course is self-defeating, but governs many of my actions nonetheless.

DH finally took the bull by the horns and just DID it. And because I wasn't the initiator, I can enjoy it without being critical of myself. Of course, we're first-timers and will make lots of mistakes, but if we get a few veggies out of the venture, and learn a few things, it will all be worth it. I ordered a compost bin this morning, and I've started saving veggie peels, eggshells, and coffee grounds.

Here are some pictures of my babies -

Cucumbers:

Eggplant (note the invader ALREADY munching on the plant's center - he's dead now):

 Onions:

Peppers:

Tomatoes:

Zucchini (seeds):

The containers lining the edges of the patio, in full sun:

And for color, on the front patio, Petunias:

In fiber news, I've spun 3.59 miles of yarn this year. (I added a widget in my sidebar keeping track.)  I'm aiming for 15 miles by Dec. 31st - just a fun goal I've set for myself. Now that I'm RETIRED, I have so much more time to spin and weave, and it's such a joy to have the time to dig into my fiber bins and choose bags of lovely soft color to spin.

I just finished this one, 700 yds of fingering weight 2-ply, from Enchanted Knoll Farm's "Black Magic Woman" batts. I love spinning this sparkly, silky stuff.

On the wheel right now, some lovely rainbow fiber for a customer. Bright color for spring!