As the Spindle Turns . . .

All the things must be done before the weather changes. It was cool or "seasonable", whatever that means. 50s at night and 70s during the day, well, it was amazing. Because the powers that be like to lay blame, they are calling it the Texas heat dome. It hits here tomorrow. I set up at a show on Wednesday. I'm not taking chances. Pennsic items are all put away for the season. The merchandise totes have been opened and specific items pulled, just for this show. I only have an 8' x 8' spot. You cannot fit a 10' x 20' into that no matter how much you alter the space-time continuum. The repacked items are in the van. The gridwalls are in the van. Yes, the booth will be vertical. Additional items, such as notions are packed. The only thing left is to string an inkle loom. JoAnn's is probably in my future. Chrono needs to go there anyway.



I found gas for the mower and it started! More yard must be cleared of poison ivy things before I finish cutting. Chrono found cucumbers and a crookneck squash. She picked cherries today. Meanwhile, I hung the tomatoes in the front yard and tied close to invisible strings to prevent looters of the 4 legged variety. The weed pile keeps growing, but the mail carrier's path is clear. After I finish, they tell me we have an air quality alert. For those keeping track at home, despite the deer, we are up to 68 pounds of produce. That is low for us. Not a lot of tomatoes this year.



The next project for the loom will go with me to Pittsburgh Knit and Crochet. I am spinning a sparkly teal wool blend with angora and mohair. I might bring my knitting too. I didn't make any notes on Ravlery as to what I'm doing on the sweater. At least I found my password and login. Ravelry is very helpful for figuring out yardage for my patron's projects. I am sad I didn't get any greens going before the show. I am low on every color except orange. If you need orange, I can help.

I dried celery in the dehydrator overnight because last night was cool. I only have a four tray unit so things take time. I grabbed a new-to-me, but very old family heirloom blue quart jar to put the dried celery in. The dried celery is going to be great in winter chicken soups. I picked up my Grandma's bowls and canning jars while visiting WI. Grandma was born in 1892. I also have colored glass pyrex, maybe circa 1950s, a large gravy boat, real family-sized, in mint greens and coral pinks. I also got 6 blue Mason Jars, quart-sized. I'm still unpacking and washing things, but the bowls came in handy to process food from the garden.

This morning I sliced potatoes, and then blanched them (5 minutes) and into an ice-water bath in one of my new bowls. Since I now had dehydrator trays empty, the potatoes went into the food dehydrator. This is the first time trying to dry potatoes. The idea is to store them until I want scalloped potatoes or potatoes au gratin. After that, I picked more celery in the garden. Washing and chopping were next. I put the diced stems into the refridgerator and the leaves onto an extra dehydrator tray. It can sit on top the unit until space becomes available.

I needed beeswax lids for my new bowls. I popped up to the attic to snag some light-weight cotton fabric. Last year we ended up with a bit of honeycomb from the farmer's market. It was just right. I put parchment paper in the solar oven. I layered the fabrics with beeswax bits and coconut oil on top of the parchment paper. They sat all day in the sun. Now they are hanging on the clothesline. There was a touch of honey mixed in which will wash out in the next rain. Meanwhile, the weekend's heat can drip out any excess wax.

After that, I decided to freeze some chard for winter. I picked off any sad leaves. Then I selected good leaves from the outside growth, leaving at least three leaves so as not to kill the plant. Growers recommend weekly cutting to encourage new growth. Surprisingly, the deer did not eat any of my chard. We've convinced them everything in that section is rhubarb. This year's chard is a rainbow variety from Botanical Interests. It likes the Mandala garden. I got about a quart frozen. I reused the potato water. The ice bath was stored in the fridge. Stems were cooked 3 minutes and the leaves 2 minutes so as not to have sad leaves. I dried the excess moisture with a fan. It's really humid today.



Once Chrono got up and ready, we headed out to run errands. First, the bank, then coffee ground pickup, and then Farmer's Market. We took in our extra egg cartons for a farmer to reuse. Conover Farms had organic blueberries to supplement our own. But mostly, we picked up meat. Ground beef from 4Farms, lamb shank from Ross Farm, and ground pork from Kern's. Herbold Farm had early honey. Chrono is so allergic to peppers that she cannot eat late summer honey. So we have to get light colored early honey when we can find it. We also stocked up on fair trade cocoa from the Presbyterians. I am worried we won't have enough food this winter. Climate is playing havoc with everything. 90 dead in Nepal with 17,500 displaced people due to extreme monsoon! I am not really a true prepper; I don't have enough cash to be one. But I have nightmares. Probably because we do not have food security.

I headed back out to the garden as it started to cool down around 6 pm. I picked more cukes and some tomatoes. A Caprese salad is in my future, fresh tomato, basil, olive oil, and mozzarella chunks. I may make another batch of bread n butter pickles if we can afford vinegar and sugar. Cash shortages are responsible for lack of stored food. (WW was about $200 short of breaking even. It affects my ability to pay bills.) I have had many people explain that I should just pop over to my local thrift store and buy a pressure cooker. These people are funny. Your store may carry these but mine does not. And yes, I do visit thrift stores when I travel. No, no one had a pressure cooker, or the wooden bread bowl that everyone in NJ owns, nor . . . Our stores are sad, which is why I was delighted my sister let me have Grandma's kitchenware.

I finished off the day by drying/curing potato onions on the window screens. I planted carrot seed in the empty places. The campstove is cooking dyer's coreopsis outside. Wool will be dyed for hat-making this evening. Dinner was made last night. Mango Chicken Salad, from here https://www.strongertogether.coop/recipes/mango-avocado-pasta-salad



The weather will be brutal until Sunday night. Temperatures will be in the 90s or above. We've no AC.

It was another long day. Sometimes things are good, sometimes not. It has been five days at the therapy home. What I discovered today was no one showed John where to stow his bathroom stuff. No one took him to brush his teeth for a whole week. He's not allowed to be mobile so how else is it going to happen? There is one assistant nurse who treats John like an imbecil. And the pharmacy screwed up his meds one day this week with one pill too many. Welcome to week one. We had a staff meeting to go over what our goals are. They are aware of our lack of resources. I think they wished we had a larger support network. They tried to decide "is it better to do rehab here or go home and do it at a SNFF center there?" So far, I feel I am the only one with homework other than the social worker who will see what BC/BS can offer.

They are working on what I consider things my husband has always done. You mean you can change his habits? I don't mind but my dad would say "They're pissing into the wind." I don't think a lifetime of disorganization or anti-OCD is going to change soon. But memory and cognition skills have gone downhill so I hope they can help. Meanwhile, his left leg needs to be strengthened. It's buckling, bad column support. Other skills like endurance will get better. We need that before traveling home. It would help if they had the same schedule everyday. They don't. They've been plagued with missing therapists. Other roomies complained of shortages in food, bedding, and dishes. I think they are short staffed.

I recieved my care package from home and also sent three hats home to be blocked along with yarn for Jen's custom hats. Found the closest gas station for the Jeep. It has no gage and hasn't been filled since July. I needn't have worried, it had a half a tank. Got to "the home" in time for the meeting. John dealt with Iowa and has more to do tomorrow. It wore him out trying to explain. At least two recruiters called. One tried to play fifty questions instead of reading the resume. Add in flash cards for word retrieval, explaining to OT what duties a software engineer performs, and eventually a 45 minute session with PT. I have one tired husband.

I managed a walk to a farm stand near " the home". Finally reasonably priced food! $8 bought a weeks worth of groceries instead of pissing away $50 for two days of food at Whole Foods. I made a lovely chicken soup with fresh veggies. And colorful too! Blue potatoes, yellow corn, orange carrots, green beans and organic chicken from New Seasons. I looked over the pantry and found I had ingredients enough to treat myself to chocolate cake. It finally smells good in here.

The first scarf is done but farmers markets need to be registered for a year in advance. Several have already closed for the season. Most want you to have raised your own wool. They seem to run about $50 for a 10 x 10 spot. McMinneville has a Public Market. Haven't checked it out yet. It's a bit far. Beaverton's farmers market looks to be the best.

Tomorrow is another day. I hope one of the hardware stores has foam for needle felting.

The giant box of 5/2 cotton came in. Ball winding has commenced. New colors going up on ursulasyarn.etsy.com. Photography is the hold up at the moment. Too bright! Pictures of really dark colors aren't turning out well. Black and quarry and Deep Purple, very dark. I'm also working on stash reduction of vintage fabrics on UrsulasAlcove.etsy.com. The boxes of fabric in the attic gotta go. I need room for fleece. I've been picking and carding, and felting. And somewhere in the recent past I did a bit of dyeing. I finished a herringbone shawl. Well, not finished, but off the loom at any rate. So I've started a shawl that's been waiting for me a long time. It's a dusty blue and cream. I needed to get back to weaving. It feels good. Loom is in the attic and with the heat, well it wasn't happening. For the next couple of days, the heat is back. I'll manage a bit of work in the morning when its cool. Trying real hard not to panic. I've got Worldcon in downtown Chicago coming up, immediately followed by A Fair in the Park. I don't have nearly enough product made.