machine keen

We've had some beautiful sunrises and sunsets lately...

...but still, I am DONE with summer.  I don't think we've had over 15 minutes of rain in the past 5 or 6 weeks, and September has been August-hot.  The forecast today is 92.  Tomorrow, 92.  Wednesday, 92.  It's pretty miserable, but I'm trying to console myself with assurances of the inevitable cool-down coming up.  I ordered a dump truck-load of compost last week...

...that I will use to improve existing flower beds and carve out some new beds along a walking path to the driveway - once the weather cools.  The weather has also brought about the early maturing (and in some cases, over-maturation) of the apples on our tree.  A friend came over last week with an apple picker and helped me gather them all up.  I think we got, from just one tree, between 30 - 50 pounds of apples!

There's just one thing to make when you have an overabundance of apples, and that's pie.  I've got a few recipes...the overindulgent one, which involves sauteeing the diced apples in half a stick of butter...the 'healthy' one that relies on the natural sweetness of the apples to carry the flavor...open face, rustic galette, crumb-topped...the list goes on.  But I'm really pleased with the new recipe I tried, which was Smitten Kitchen's Even More Perfect Apple Pie.  I used her extra-flaky crust recipe instead of my old standby and we were blown away by the result!  There are nearly FIVE POUNDS of apples in this one pie.  Needless to say, it was fairly tall.

But it baked up beautifully.

The only thing I might do differently is sautee the apples beforehand to soften them up.  Some of these still had a little 'bite' to them, and I prefer a totally mushy apple.  It was a great way to celebrate the season, even if it was 90 degrees when I baked it!

Other signs of the advancing season - the front of our house is wreathed in spider webs daily.  I usually sweep them off, but they're back the next day.  We also have quite a few katydids on our windows and siding.

It's a bit of a mystery.  They mainly eat leaves/grass, and only rarely small insects like aphids.  I can understand why spiders build their nests around our porch lights, but it's unlikely that the katydids are interested in the moths and other small insects that are drawn there.  I like seeing them, though, so I don't mind if they come around for a visit!

Claudia continues to bring minor drama to the front porch, too, with her vole deliveries.  Sometimes they are alive, and drag their lifeless legs behind them in an effort to escape her batting and teasing.

It's a little disconcerting.  Over a two-day period last week, she brought in FIVE voles, all alive, albeit briefly.  I appreciate her generosity, but I'd rather not see this portion of her meal!

In other news, I managed to finish the top of a table runner.  It's summer-themed, and uses some of my favorite fabric colors - turquoise, red, white, and navy.  Here's a picture of it, taken before I evened up the edges. 

It was a frustrating project, because I had to fight so much with my sewing machine to get nice 1/4" seams.  It struggled over more than two layers of fabric and distorted the join.  I finally broke down and bought a Janome 8200.  My old sewing machine had a few inches of "throat space," the space to the right of the needle where the quilt is pushed through while you work.  The new machine has 11", which was the maximum I could find with a mid-price machine.

It's got 250 stitch patterns (including an alphabet!), automatic thread-cutter, some kind of auto-feed, and a fancy computer screen.  I've slowly begun the arduous task of going through the manual and learning the details.  I haven't really quilted in almost 2 years, so I'm really excited to get going.  I think the cats are going to be upset to learn that their various nap spots are going to be utilized for a different purpose, though.

Have a great week!

room with a view

It's been so unrelentingly hot and dry that my garden, already prone to droop and sprawl by summer's end, has been looking especially sad.  I'm glad I put in some Cherry Brandy Rudbeckia.  I'm not normally a red flower person, preferring purple, pink, white, and green, but I couldn't resist this vibrant color.

My dahlias, too, are thriving.  I've never planted them before, but they are going to be a mainstay from now on.

Claudia is always with me when I'm working in the garden.

Not only does she deliver that weekly dead vole, but also provides wonderful company while I'm weeding.  She's a special girl!

It's been too miserably hot to work outside much, but last night's much-needed rain provided a great excuse to get my fingers in the dirt.  I wasn't alone...this horned passalus beetle was quite busy, too, on his little errands.

This type of beetle is known as the 'bess beetle,' which comes from the French word baiser, or to kiss. They rub their wings against their abdomen to make a kissing-like sound, although I don't think I would classify it as such.  Still, it's interesting to hear a beetle making any kind of sound, and they're fun to watch.  They can pull 50 times their own body weight! 

Lots of bees around too.

I've probably mentioned that our fields weren't maintained by previous owners and are absolutely overrun with weeds.  It's a huge pain, but sometimes you do find something interesting.  I recognized the closed flowers on several bushy plants as moonflowers.  They only open at night and have an amazing fragrance.  Another benefit?  These funky seed pods.

I think they're absolutely gorgeous.  I'm going to bring some into the house for my fall decorating!  So far, I've basically dropped the ball on seasonal decorating, mainly because we've been so busy and most of my supplies are still crammed into a storage unit somewhere.  I've managed some dried hydrangeas in a basket...

...but nothing else.  I'm excited to add these pods!

Some other interior excitement...WE HAVE SET UP OUR DINING ROOM TABLE (although Todd is currently utilizing it for a paperwork station).  We've been without one for over FOUR MONTHS.  We've got flooring down and just need to put up the trim to complete the room.  We love it!  Here is the "before" from previous owner...a dark, tiny room with a low ceiling, one tiny window.

Here it is now, in its trim-less glory:

We completely demolished the old room and rebuilt it with a much higher ceiling, made the room slightly wider, added big glass doors at one end to bring in more light, widened the kitchen doorway for the same reason, and doubled the room length.  The little room at the end is a mud room, and the door you see leads into the garage.  We added those so that we could walk directly from the garage into the house, and Todd could access his office without having to go outside (unlike before).  We still have work to do, but are excited about these changes!

Otherwise, I've been doing a little baking, mainly from our "ugly" apple tree.

They make delicious desserts, though!

I still have my junky sewing machine so I haven't been doing much quilting, but I'm putting together a few small things.

It's nice to work on these small projects, and I always have good company.

Have a great week! 

green-eyed lady

Last week, we took some time out to go to a hot air balloon festival in town.

The balloons were nice...

But I loved the pyrotechnic skydivers at the end.  Three of them jumped from their plane, shooting hand-held fireworks as they fell.  They wore glowing red suits to add to the drama.

We had a great time! 

Back at home, we've seen the usual wildlife around...ahem.

The only new face (which happens to contain a pair of startlingly green eyes!) has been this praying mantis, who hung out on the front porch for a few days before I had to mercy-kill her (?) after she'd gotten into a scrape with something that broke her "back" and side set of wings.

The deer have been taking full advantage of the apples that are falling from our drought-stressed tree.

I wasn't sure if the apples were still good because they look a bit odd, sort of misshapen and discolored, but a visiting friend assured me that they were fine.  I peeled one and was surprised to find firm, healthy flesh beneath the peel.  Part of the discoloration is from a fungus.  See these pretty black dots, and the less-attractive splotches?

They are the distastefully-named flyspeck and sooty blotch - fungal diseases.  The fungus lives on the surface of the peel and does not penetrate, so the apples are perfectly fine to eat.  I was surprised at how crisp and tart they tasted, and I couldn't help making a sinfully rich roasted apple blondie this weekend.  I can't wait to make a pie, but I insist on waiting until the temperature drops into at least the 70s.  It just doesn't feel right to make apple pie when the temperature is pushing 90!

Speaking of black dots, I've been on the hunt for a new set of dishes.  I'd found an Australian potter who made speckled dishes that reminded me of bird eggs and vanilla bean ice cream.  The dish edges were a bit wide for my taste, but I love the speckles.  But cost?  $30 per dish.  Considering that we wanted a place setting for 8, that would add up pretty quickly, to the tune of well over $1000, including shipping.

I found an acceptable knock-off online.  Same speckles, delightfully uneven plate and bowl edges, and a much happier price tag of around $200.

The speckles are more subdued, but I'm pretty happy with the set nonetheless!

I picked up my knitting needles again recently.  It seems like I've knitted a thousand pairs of gloves, but when it came time to unpack my hand knits, there were just a couple of ill-fitting pairs.  I'd lost one of my very favorite gloves, so decided to knit a new pair.

I started with a nice tweedy green.

However, after an hour of knitting, my hands ached.  I have tiny hands and have to knit socks and gloves on size 0 needles, which are basically the width of toothpicks.  Knitting with such tiny needles necessitates a very forgiving yarn, and I've discovered that cotton and tweed do not fall into that category.  The yarn has to contain nylon, which makes it more spring-y and easier to handle.  I ended up frogging this cuff and re-knitting in a wool-nylon blend.

Huge difference!  Regrettably, I bought a TON of nylon-free 100% wool fingering weight yarn skeins over the years when Knitpicks had sales.  Those skeins are still fine for hats or other small projects, needles size 1 and 2, but definitely hands-off for gloves...no pun intended!

I'm in the process of buying a new sewing machine, so hopefully I'll be able to start quilting again soon.  I'm excited to unpack the rest of my craft stuff in the next 2 - 3 weeks so I can really get creative again. 

Have a great week! 

vole toes and coyote woes

It's been a beautiful September.

We're still getting used to living in the country.  Last night, around 2 a.m....

...we were jerked from sleep by the sounds of a howling, snarling pack of coyotes, right beside our open bedroom window!  Cats and quilts went flying as I groped for my glasses and stumbled to the front door, just in time to see the last pair of hind legs disappearing into the dark.  We'll definitely need to shore up the animal barn this spring to prevent predator incursion, but one place they're definitely not getting into is the former horse barn.

After gutting, trenching, leveling, graveling, concreting, wiring, insulating, and office-building, we've gone from this...

...to this!

Okay, it's still a jumble.  We've moved one storage unit here, and we have 5 more.  Shelves must go up and everything has to be sorted.  But our little office is up and running.  Huge victory! 

Claudia had a victory this week, too.  Not only did she win over Todd, who is oddly unwilling to fawn over her every time he crosses the porch...

...but she's kept up her streak of providing one short-tailed vole every week.  She drops it on the doorstep, meowing loudly to let us know of her generosity...

...moves it around a few times so that we really, truly understand the enormity of what she's done...

...and finally, when we're properly grateful, she gulps it down in a few quick bites.

Between the voles and her regular cat food, she's becoming quite sleek!

I'm having a lot of trouble with my cheapo sewing machine and am actually in negotiations with someone to buy a super fancy (used) model, so I'm not working on any quilts right now.  I did decide that the chair cover I made last week looked too sloppy...

...so I decided to remake it into quilted cushions with tied sashes.  Simple design...

The end result is still a bit sloppy...

...but it's incredibly comfortable...and has the cat "paw of approval." :)

I also made a teeny tiny quilted pincushion.  I'd felt like a bit of a hoarder, saving tiny 1" - 3" scraps just because because they were too cute to toss...

...but this pincushion incorporates 1" scraps, finishing out at about 3.5".  It was a very satisfying project! 

Other fun projects this week:  making pesto out of basil and tomato, gifted by a friend...

...and a slow start to shoring up the garden for winter by cutting back dead or old growth.

We'll have a dump truck full of a compost/soil mixture delivered in the next 2 weeks, and I'll be amending the clay soil in the 2 new beds, as well as laying out a new fire pit/garden area at the side of the house.  It's going to look so much better!  Right now, my view is a lot of bare dirt:  the french drain that we put in recently, plus the electrical cord trench out to the barn.  Oh, and this:

I guess I don't mind that last view too much.  Have a great week!