that's a wrap!

 Still hot and dry.

The heat, though, means that the garden is still producing.  I'm getting a ton of tomatoes...and the flowers look great!

ageratum

celosia

cosmos

zinnias

Where there are flowers, there are insects.  

leaf-footed bug

katydid

milkweed bugs, adult

milkweed bug, juvenile

planthopper

Still spiders about...

orb weaver

...and butterflies!

silver checkspot butterfly

A lacewing larva, nearly hidden beneath a camouflaging pile of fluff.

A mantis, drawn by our many moths, has been hanging around by our front door.  I am not a fan.

Check out those formidable weapons!

Other creatures are still creeping, too.

fowler's toad

I'd been seeing caterpillars everywhere, but they vanished in the last week.  Just a few tussock caterpillars still hanging around.  

I've been trying to get into the fall spirit despite the high temps.  I'm baking more...

apple fritter bread

...and knitting again.

not quite half of a wrap

I haven't had too much free time, but I try to take 15 minutes at least a few times a week to work on a puzzle.  Here is my setup:

real drafting table covered in felt, so I don't have to hunch over a table that's parallel to the floor!

I've usually got a puzzle going at any given time.  I've got a lot to choose from!  I pick them up at thrift stores pretty regularly, and occasionally buy them new, if I see one that I really like.  

There are two rows of stacks on the floor, and the three stacks in the center are puzzles that I haven't gotten to yet.  These are next in line to be completed.  I finally got this mess organized and pulled out a ton to donate last week!  More will be on the chopping block...I really need to thin this down.

Pepita is doing well!  She's got a new cat-filled territory...

...the kitchen and the living room!  It's gone a lot smoother than expected.  No territory beefs.  If all goes well, she'll get a hallway and another room next week.  I think we'll be more excited, because we've been hassling with baby gates all over and we can finally get rid of them!  

She has just graduated to thirty minute daily walks...

Waiting to be released!

Puppies have developing joints, so you have to slo-o-o-owly extend their walking times, 5 minutes per month of age.  She'll be able to walk for a full hour by April, just in time for our long spring hikes!  We just have to work up to it.

In other news, I was reading about a really beautiful sea slug last week...and this week, I spotted a shirt at the thrift store that looked almost exactly like it!  Of course I had to buy it.

The sea slug (called a nudibranch) is a little more turquoise.  I am 100% knitting a sweater in these colors sometime.  

Cooler temps should be coming soon!  I can't wait.  Have a great week!  

 

mint to be

Because of my sore knee, then traveling, then torrential rain, we haven't gotten out for a hike in a while.  It felt so good to stretch our legs in the delightful 65 degree weather we've been having.  I know it's only so cool right now because of the rain, but it's certainly a hint of things to come.

The cooler temperatures have been wonderful.  Apartment windows:  open.

Skies:  blue.

Sunsets:  awesome.

Still lots of signs of summer.  The milkweed bugs are still incredibly active on the milkweeds.  They're pretty good to have around.  Milkweeds are invasive, and milkweed bugs feeding on them help end their life cycles.  They're also awfully pretty, don't you think?

The adults are on the left and the young nymphs, with tiny wings, are on the right.  They're easy to spot if you have a look in any field!

Skippers are still out and about.

Unlike the moths and butterflies in their family, different varieties of skippers can be really hard to distinguish.  Some websites recommend dissection and close examination of their genitalia, which are unique to specific species of skippers.  However, I decided to just let this one fly away.  ;) 

I'm still seeing lots of late-season flower activity.  I love these beauties, despite their destructive nature.  It's bindweed, a perennial that's incredibly invasive. 

I've grown a variety of their gentle domesticated cousins, the morning glory.  They are annuals, but reseed readily.  They were so out of control after the first year that I decided to pull up the roots to get rid of them, but it took years to get rid of every last one.  Bindweed, apparently, is even more tenacious.  They're pretty, at least!

For every sign of summer, there's another sign of fall.  Brilliant ripe red berries...

...and those that are not quite there yet.

The most exciting...seeing red-tipped leaves in the woods.  Red!!

As the weather cools, I'm looking forward to more walks, more discoveries, and more beautiful sunsets.

Meanwhile, I've been stockpiling fabric and wishing for my sewing machine.  I might have to wait a while. The bad news is that the house deal fell through.  It's devastating.  Not only did I have my heart set on this particular house, but not moving in the near future means that my yarn, books, puzzles, craft supplies, fabric, and tools remain packed.  Doing a little online research, too, showed me that sewing in an apartment is frowned upon.  Cheaper sewing machines (like mine) tend to be loud, and mine sounds like a machine gun when I'm sewing.  Not to mention that I need a LOT of space and supplies to sew.  I need a sewing table, another small table for excess fabric and the quilt body, and another small table for ironing.  I need cutting boards, pins, rotary cutters, rulers...all of which are scattered in various boxes in various storage units.  So I wait, and buy fabric for "someday."  

I didn't realize how much I loved mint-colored fabric.  My first quilt had a lot of mint...

...and I continue to be drawn to it.  I just bought a quilt kit for this pattern:

I love this designer.  Check out this link to see some of her other patterns and fabric lines.  Swoon!  The fabric is called Vintage Holiday.  Reds, whites, and mint...what more could you want?

That is a true ice-blue mint, but I've also been drawn to a greener mint color and have noticed that my random fabric purchases lately have also dipped into this category...with red, of course.

I hate not being able to sew right now, but at least I can still knit.  Yes, most of my knitting supplies (including yarn) are still buried in storage, but I unearthed a few fingering-weight skeins and bought some cheap bamboo needles and stitch markers.

Nice fall colors!  I chose a really easy pattern since my cable needles and other tools are packed, a series of slipped stitches and stitches knit into the row below.  It looks like plain ribbing on the needles, but you can see the somewhat unusual pattern when the sock is worn.

It's nice for variegated yarn because it breaks up color "pooling" and allows you to see the individual strands.  It will look neater after the sock is blocked.  On to sock #2!

Have a great week! 

the castle is worth the hassle

We're in a bit of limbo as these mid-August days pass.  We are moving toward a house, but still in temporary housing while inspections and negotiations take place.  We are moving toward a big business expansion, but those plans are on hold until we get into a new, larger space.  So while planning, phone calls, and general settling in take time, we still do have more free time than we're used to. 

Thankfully, there are some amazing hiking trails here.  I found about 8 trails within 10 miles of our apartment, so we're out almost every day.  Yesterday's trail, Porter-West, is part of the Sycamore Land Trust.  A portion of the trail wound through the woods, but huge swatches of it were just mowed paths through overgrown meadows.  I love the sweet smell of meadow grass in the sun, and the sweet-spicy smell of wild honeysuckle and sweet peas.

Plenty of insects...

I've become pretty adept at spotting these bagworm moth cocoons.

We even found an old graveyard with inscriptions dating back to the mid-1700s!

It hasn't been all hiking, though.  We tried out Bloomington's famous Saturday farmers market!  It has been on top 10 lists for markets nationally and I could see why.  Live music, fresh produce, meat, cheese, honey, syrups, herbs, flowers...

...plus local bakeries set up booths for coffee, pastries and miscellaneous sweets.  Food trucks serve all sorts of international dishes.  Artists have booths at the far side of the market, selling pottery, handspun wool, jewelry, prints, etc.  I wish I would've gotten more pictures but I'll save that for next time!

For fun, we also decided to take a cardboard cat-castle building class for adults this week too.  The library provided the cardboard and the art supplies, and we chose a blueprint. 

Oh, and the library also provided the cats!

They waited patiently while we completed our creations...

...and then tried them out!

We had a great time.

We've got many more fun things planned over the next few weeks, but the best feeling of all would be the completion of the house stuff and a definitive move toward closing!  There are so many things that could go wrong right now.  We've got some pretty pricey inspection-driven requests for the sellers, and if they balk, it could be back to the drawing board for us.  A pretty dismal prospect.  So this week it's crossed fingers, prayers, and distracting activities.  Bring on the cat castles!

Have a great week!