8.28 garden report

Despite getting put in late, those things that I did put in have done well. We've had acorn squash, and zucchini (and zucchini and zucchini). We have a zillion green tomatoes (and have had for weeks now), and I've had about a dozen ripe ones. I need to see about better support for the tomatoes next year (this year's consisted of "inadequate" and "none"), but it doesn't seem to have harmed them in terms of inducing mildew or rot.

J has made up his mind that next year I need additional garden boxes to isolate the squash and tomatoes from the other parts of the garden. I have agreed that this is probably a sound idea. They do tend to take over.

I'm about ready to take the squashes out. The weather has not been conducive to further production (cool nights, cloudy skies) and they are being overtaken by powdery mildew. I think some nice fall veg should go in next.

After July in June (hotter dryer weather than usual), and August in July (hot, muggy and thunderstorms on a frequent basis), we now seem to be having September in August (continued thunderstorms every third day, but cool clear nights). Are we going to have snow before Halloween this year?

8.25 spring skein

This is the second and final skein of the spring-colored yarn. Predominately white, with a large swathe of blue, and smaller bits of yellow, green and purple, this has always figured in my mind as "the spring fiber". The purple was a real shocker when I first noticed it as that strip was turned to the inside of the top and not visible in the package. Eventually I'll get to figuring out what the yardage and grist is on these and be able to think about what sort of end use the skeins will get put to.

8.23 speckled asiatic lily

Last year was the first for the grab bag of asiatic lilies to bloom, and this one struck me as being lightly speckled. This year, as you can see, it is heavily speckled, and I really like it.

I'm not sure what causes the changes from year to year. This year, it rather looks like one of those paintings done by flinging paint at the canvas from across the room. I confess to liking the effect better when produced by nature.

8.21 wild raspberry

This was the first try at spinning the Wild Raspberry from Sweet Grass Wool*. Spun short draw and way too overspun for my purposes, this shows the colors nicely, but completely overwhelmed the spring of the Targhee fiber. Anyone need a skein of very firm yarn?

* In linking to SGW, I notice that they have changed their colorways (boo - I like the wild raspberry and it isn't there any more) and expanded their line of available tops (yea, more colors to choose from, not that I need any more fiber any time soon).

8.21 Let me explain...

No, there is too much.
Let me sum up:
K has been to babysit her cousin, B, and is back again.
S and I went to pick her up and spent a day or two around DC.
K, S, my sister and Cousin B went up in the Washington Monument.
I declined the treat, having done this before and feeling that once was sufficient.
I spent the time knitting outside the Monument and trying to identify languages.
Over the course of 45 minutes, I was sure of 11 different languages and only heard two words of English.
I pulled some muscles and am still trying to get them to loosen up.
S is in sailing camp this week.
I got a call yesterday that he'd been hit in the head by the boom.
The pulley on the boom split his left eyebrow.
9 stitches later, he still has a headache but no concussion or any further side effects.
I've gotten quite a bit of spinning and knitting done, but nothing is finished.
Pictures to follow.
My internship this summer has gone well enough that I've been asked to extend for another three months with the promise that I'll be allowed to move into still further fun stuff. I've accepted, but I'm taking a week off first.
I start my fall class on 1 Sept and K and S start school on 3 Sept. Much buying of shoes and school supplies needs to happen first.

Now that I have the synopsis out of the way, I may be able to get back to posting on a regular basis. I'm only 1550 posts behind on my blog reading.

8.7 gold daylily

The daylilies have been going to town. Last year I put in some of the dinner plate daylilies and they have started blooming. I need to find where I put my stack of labels to remember which is which.

8.6 tom turkey

Unlike our visitors earlier this year, Tom was strutting and displaying this time. There are advantages to having guests home during the day - they bring evidence of still further visitors I wouldn't have known about.