My-my-my-my Corona

Since I feel pretty secure with knitting and purling in the Portuguese style, I thought I'd try a stranded yarn project.  Something small - a pair of fingerless mittens.  I watched videos and bent two large paper clips to tension the yarn through, one on either side of my collar.  I'm afraid it was too much of a fiddly mess for me, and I ended up knitting the second mitten the traditional way.

But ouch, my fingers!  Thankfully, I discovered a product called a "Norwegian knitting thimble," which is a miniature metal coil that slides over your index finger.  It has two jutting coils that your yarn strands feed through, and thus your yarn is tensioned without smashing your fingers together too tightly.  Apparently this works for stranded knitting as well - one color of yarn in each coil.  I'll be excited to try this when my thimble arrives!

In other fiber news, Todd and I went to a quilt show this weekend.  I was interested in the color, detail, and design of the quilts...

...but mainly I was interested in the actual quilting.  I noticed that most people used a design called stippling, which is basically random squiggles across the fabric.  It's not a style that appeals to me, so I was glad to see many other designs implemented.

I even got to see a long-arm quilting machine in action.

One of these babies will set you back between $3500 and $5000!  You can program in an overall design and the machine will go to work, or you can grip the handles and quilt your own.  The idea of having so much space and freedom is really appealing, but the price tag is not.  For now, I'll stick to my cramped home machine.

We saw the full eclipse!  Here's the corona.

I didn't use a solar filter, just the iPhone.  I loved seeing the 360 degree sunset, then total darkness for almost 3 minutes!  A man near us in the parking lot where we waited had flown in from Denmark just for those 3 minutes.  He got in his car and headed back to Atlanta for his outgoing flight right after the sun came back out.  It just emphasized how special this experience really was!

Here at the house, we're still seeing swarms of hummingbirds.

Our red-tailed hawk continues to perch around the property, and thankfully he's grown out of his adolescent squawks!

Our average heat index has been between 95 and 100 degrees, and it's pretty unpleasant.  Even in Indiana, August is my least favorite month, and the last 2 weeks of August are always the worst.  My yearly ritual has begun.  "Look, the season must be advancing.  The sweet autumn clematis is in bloom."

"Nandina berries are taking on their blush."

"Beauty berries are in full color."

It's still tough, though.  At least we can enjoy the color...

...and take heart in the rapidly-shifting calendar pages, even if we can't feel an actual change.

And hey, we're always enjoy the antics of our indoor cats, even though most of those antics are relatively sedate.

Here's hoping for cooler days ahead.  Have a great week!

Berried Treasure

Finally, some rain!  It's been such a hot, dry summer.  I love all the mushrooms that pop up after only a few wet days.

This Tulip Tree Silkmoth has chosen a very smart place to wait out the rain! 

He looks just like a leaf there.

Beautiful tiny scales cover the wing surface. 

Love those antenna!

Rain storms bring weird, alien-like bits of fungus down from the trees, too. 

This little bee is waiting it out inside a flower blossom.

I don't know if it's the rain or the every-so-slightly lower temperatures, but many flowers are blooming again.

Very nice, but I'm absolutely dying for cooler temperatures.  In Indiana you start getting nice, crisp days in September, but South Carolina will still be in the 80s through the end of October!  August finds me feeling pretty antsy for fall, so I take my cues from nature that cooler weather must be on the way.

I examine leaves.  Do I see a bit of color here?!

Pine and fir trees no longer have immature green cones.  These are mature brown cones, another sign of fall.

Nandina berries have started to blush.

Beautyberries are a full, round green now.

Liriope plants, which only bloom in the fall, are starting to send up their spikes.

These signs are very encouraging to me, because they tell me that although it remains wiltingly hot and humid, fall must be coming. 

Speaking of taking cues from nature, we had a carpenter ant infestation this weekend.  I read that carpenter ants in a house mean that there's damaged/wet wood somewhere, so Todd got out the ladder and started to investigate.  He found that the frame to our kitchen greenhouse window was completely soft and spongy.  He also found a big ant nest full of eggs. 

The rot was starting to affect our wooden siding, so it was a real blessing that the carpenter ants "told us" we had a problem. 

I love studying my natural surroundings and becoming more in touch with the plant and animal life cycles.  No matter where we live, there will always be more to learn! 

Have a great week! 

Sleeping Beauties

We've had some pretty dramatic torrential rains lately.  Can you see how brown the pond is, with the sediment churned up by the storms?

But then the sun came out, and flowers started bursting into bloom.  First, the tiny white buds on our nandina bushes started to open.

Now, nandina are members of the bamboo family and, as such, spread like crazy.  They're considered a bit of a weed here, but I've found that if you keep a few in their place and carefully trimmed, they look quite nice.  I like the flowers, but I love the beautiful red berries in the winter.

Right next to the cluster of nandina bushes is the largest of our gardenias.  I tried to plant gardenias in Indiana but the winters were too harsh for them to thrive.  It's so strange to walk outside here and see 7 or 8 gardenia bushes much taller than I am!  They are drooping with blooms now and the smell is heavenly.

I've let them get a little out of control and they're pushing through railing and blocking stairs and walkways in the back yard.  After the blooms are spent, I'll give them a hard pruning.  Right now, though, I think it looks quite romantic!

After the hard rain, a carolina wren came to rest on our back deck.  Actually, they hang out there constantly, driving the cats crazy with their loud singing and tantalizing proximity.

Rest, clean, stretch, sing, and repeat!

Of course, I've been tracking the progress of our goslings.  The babies are getting a bit gangly...

...but the 'big boys' now have feathers!  Can you see the blue ones at the wings and the black ones at the tail?

 

They eat...a lot.

They rest...a lot.

Kind of reminds me of Borga, who spends the day resting and dreaming in daddy's beat-up chair in preparation for a night of panting adoringly by his feet.  Priorities!  :)

Have a great week!