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Tuesday, October 27, 2009
I have to laugh when I look at past posts where I remark on the passing of time, and here it's been a month and a half since my last post. I think about writing a post and because of the amount of time that has passed, on the one hand it seems that there's nothing to talk about, and on the other hand it seems that so much has happened that it's difficult to know where to begin! The garden. Looking so much worse for the wear. I've finally harvested the corn, and what we managed to salvage from corn ear worms (please, if you've got a good tip on an organic way to manage these from taking over your crop, I'm all ears! No pun intended, of course.), we were surprised at how yummy it was! The sweet corn we grew was an heirloom variety, "Sweet Country Gentleman", I think it was called, and I should have taken a picture of an ear . . . it's what's called "shoe peg corn", as the kernels are all haphazard, rather than arranged in rows. Surprisingly, though, it's not any more difficult to eat than the row-types. Very tasty and there are quite a few bags of kernels frozen for later eating. The strawberry popcorn . . . well, the jury's still out on whether or not we'll get any. Still drying. I was very happy, though . . . I covered zucchini, yellow crookneck squash, tomatoes, and pickling cukes, and have been enjoying them fresh until this week. Now I think most of them are finally done. Still have kale, fresh herbs, broccoli side shoots, lettuce, turnips, swiss chard, collards, carrots, and Asian greens thriving away in the ground . . . although the deer are definitely back with a vengeance. I don't mind so much now that I've managed to reap as much as I have over the gardening season, but the ground is really wet and their hoofprints really compress my garden beds! One of our most thrilling successes this year was the growing of dry beans. I've never lived in a zone that would allow me to grow these (at least as an adult), and I planted without any expectations. But I've been crazy-happy over all the dry beans we've harvested! (Once again a demonstration of how easily I am amused.) Soldier beans, Hidatsa Shield Figure beans, Orca or Yin-Yang beans, Canadian Wild Goose beans, Ireland Creek Annie beans, and Nez Perce beans. Beans of one kind or another were definitely successful this year, and you can be sure I'll be planting more dry beans next year. Green beans? We'll see how our over-plentiful supply of frozen, canned, and salted beans holds out over winter. We may only grow a couple of plants for some fresh eating next summer. We definitely had a "glut". Other than the ever-entrancing garden report, what other news do I have? We had our first visitors from B.C. as we celebrated our journey over here and our one year anniversary of arriving in Nova Scotia. Much celebrating over all of it: the reminiscing of our adventure in moving here and all that we've done (and all the houses we've rented and our house search saga) over this past year, and finally being settled in a house and community we love and having the space to host company . . . family we haven't seen in a whole year! We love it here, and are gearing up to host another two-week round of company. (This is fun, as we get to tour around and show off some things we've enjoyed over the past year, as well as see new stuff . . . plus, it's lobster season, so you KNOW we have to treat to an evening of messiness and lots of butter. Still can't get over the access to seafood, having been an "Interior" girl most of my life.) Then there was Thanksgiving and a fabulous birthday, celebrated pirate-style with a souped-up freezer box as pirate ship, complete with shower curtain sail and a mermaid at the prow. Unfortunately, we didn't take a good photo of the ship itself. There was the bedroom that was repainted. Quite a process. Removal of old wallpaper to reveal dark peach paint beneath. Priming, painting, trim painting . . . It's still not completely done, as there are pictures to hang and furniture to buy in which to store all the "stuff", but so far it's the first room to be done by us. Colors picked by the two who enjoy it. From this: 
To This: 
In knitting news, I've been ever-neglectful of the camera, but I've finished: bunny slippers for a birthday (and I wised up and sewed leather heel/toe patches on the bottoms so I don't need to knit new slippers in 2 months. What is with wood floors? They ravage slipper bottoms in short order, let me tell you!); 2 new pairs of gauntlet mitts for winter, the top section (sleeves and upper body) of my winter cardigan (it needs to be blocked and have the sleeve seams sewn up and then I can pick up along the bottom edge to knit down for the lower section), and most of another pair of bunny slippers. Anything else? I can't remember. I now realize we're getting into the thick of holiday knitting season, so I guess I'd better get cracking! Here's a very poor photo of some bunnies being worn with new jammies (which are pushing ears down to resemble puppies . . . oh, well). 
Oh, and something else that happened: our first egg. Finally. Hard to split four ways, though, so we're anxiously awaiting at least one more! 
And now I've managed to come down with a doozy of a cold, so I think I'll hunker down today and just knit and sip some tea. Warm wishes of comfy knitting for you! |
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THE WOOLLEN EARTH, General Delivery, Summerville, NS B0N 2K0 Canada Phone: (902) 633-2727 Email: |