Hot, Wet, Hot, Wet
July 31, 2009 at 1:09 am | In Chickens, Cookery, Family, Gardening, Housekeeping (or Lack Thereof), Uncategorized | 3 Comments
Seems everyone is having weather woes, and here in New Jersey it’s been torrential rains, revolting humidity, and freak tornadoes and storms. We were lucky to have just one tree down in our yard (and not a beloved tree), but many of our neighbors had full mature trees uprooted. It’s been quite spectacular driving around and seeing it all. The upside of our fallen tree is that it has become, of course, a piece of playground equipment for us! We’ve all had so much fun walking up and down it that we want to make a little obstacle course for the kids. Every time the kids play in our yard like this (hitting sticks against a tree, for example) and they look a bit grubby I feel like they are Appalachian kids and we now have an Appalachian playground.
Our corn got knocked down again yesterday. It must be very frustrating being a corn farmer! Paul thinks that their corn grows closer together so it doesn’t tip over so easily as ours. I’m hoping we’ll be able to eat some corn soon. In the meantime we just picked a bunch of lovely tomatoes. (and update: for dinner I cooked a couple with basil, garlic, zucchini, and had it with pasta.)
The day’s haul:
The brown hens are all laying now, which means we are getting maximum egg output: 9 eggs a day! (two of those eggs go to my friend who actually owns two of the brown hens). As I’ve mentioned the comets’ eggs are small and dark brown, but they are getting larger. Today two of their eggs were the size of the black hens’!
Last night I stepped outside and felt something wet on my shirt. My immediate reaction was, “SLUG!” and then I thought “that’s a stupid thing to think-how would a slug get up on your shirt? why not think just wet spot from hand washing or a booger from a kid (which is also gross, but more likely)?” I looked down and apparently my instincts were spot on because it was a teeny tiny slug.
Nothing has made me feel quite so old-fashioned/housewifey/homesteady as this: this week we began line drying our clothes. I’ve wanted to for a while since I read constantly about how the electric clothes dryer really uses so much electricity. I couldn’t figure out a good place for a clothesline, though. A broken fan belt of the dryer force me into action. With two wet loads of mildewing laundry I had to go out to Home Depot and buy a clothespole (and my request for one seemed to cause a lot of confusion-is it really such an odd thing??). I was delighted with the results. The clothes dried way faster than I would have thought and I got three loads dried and folded before we had yet another storm that made everything soggy and wet and knocked the pole over. With pole repaired I headed out again today. It’s definitely not a speedy process but there was something inantely soothing about hanging each piece of clothing (and strategically arranging the underwear on the inside lines so no one sees it, as well as distributing the weight evenly) just so. I have to say I’m enjoying it.
Went to the beach yesterday:
Tonight Pippin was barking and barking and it turns out it was at this lovely large Toad:
Great summer days!
Seersucker Dress
June 4, 2009 at 8:36 pm | In Sewing, Uncategorized | 5 Comments
I finished a dress for Tabitha!! I’m so proud of this one. I think it really came out nicely. The story behind this garment is that I bought this fabric and pattern when Clark was a baby with the intention of making him the romper. Well, I never did, but happily I knew the fabric would be nice on Tabitha as well and I could make the dress version of it. This pattern, by the way, is a “Kwik Sew.” Kwik, my ass! I suppose an accomplished sewer would have no trouble with this rather simple looking dress (it has a facing inside), but I found the instructions and pictures confusing. Many thanks to Mom for helping me 1. decipher the pattern 2. adjust my thread tension so my thread would quit breaking and 3. advise me to stop sewing tiny seams and start using a bigger seam allowance. This pattern calls for matching bloomers to be made but when I laid out my pieces I discovered that I had 1 yard of fabric–just right when I was going to make a romper for a baby, but not enough for the dress style for an 18 month old. That’s ok, I bought some solid pants to wear under it, it will look cute with jeans, and I may cobble together those matching bloomers after all.
The ruffle is what pleases me most. It started out as about a four foot long piece of fabric, got folded in half lengthwise and then gathering stitches were sewed the whole length. Then I tediously squinched it all up and fussed with it until it was even.
I used snaps rather than buttons for the back because I am not accomplished at buttonholes and I didn’t want to mess up my finished product.
I love the color on her and she was delighted to try it on right away. (That is why she just has a diaper on so it looks a bit funny. I feel like I need to explain that the style is meant to swoop up in the back like that, when worn with something underneath it’s adorable.)
The Bluebird of Happiness
May 5, 2009 at 3:23 am | In Gardening, Uncategorized | 2 Comments
I’ve mentioned before how happy I am that we have bluebirds living in our yard. Last year they nested in a tree, this year we’ve put up two bluebird houses, and at least one is occupied. Bluebird apparently love to have poles to perch upon. We’ve often seen them on our new garden fence, and they especially love to alight on this tetherball pole. This picture is taken from the kitchen window (through the glass) and is as close as I can zoom. We’ve had a lot of rain so this little birdie is quite damp.
Ice Chain
December 7, 2008 at 2:23 pm | In Funky Photos, Uncategorized | 2 Comments
It snowed last night, making everything look festive and lovely. The rain chain is now an ice chain. I’m feeling festive and going to bake my first batch of Christmas cookies today.
Tutu Cute!
May 14, 2008 at 12:10 pm | In Uncategorized | 4 Comments
(Right off I’ll say that I have no good pictures of this project because I was very foolish. )So I had this great idea to make a tutu for Clark’s friend’s birthday–what 3 year old girl who loves ballerinas wouldn’t love having her own sparkly dress up tutu, I thought. And how hard could it be?
Well, harder than I thought. Here’s what I had to make this creation: many yards of pink and white tulle, bright pink satin ribbon, pale pink satin blanket binding, some bright pink flowers with an adhesive back, and a bunch of fake pink and white roses. I had in mind that I would cute apart the fake flowers to get petals and glue them on to the various layers, which I did do and the affect was just what I wanted. I was just completely unclear on how to do the top, though. I looked around online (I was not prepared to spend $30 for an e-pattern, especially when I thought it should be easy and saw many cute ones on Etsy that I figured someone not unlike me had made) and consulted with friends, my mom, and the lady at the Wal-Mart fabric counter and finally just decided i would sew the layers of tulle onto elastic. Then I would sew that into the binding or onto the ribbon. Have you ever tried to sew tulle? It’s like sewing air. Meringue-y air. I had six layers and just kept over and over trying to count them to see how many I had in my hand before approaching the needle of the machine and then I’d be counting all over again and one of the layers would have drifted off. I did finally got the layers sewed onto the elastic and though my mom had said “Just stretch the elastic as you sew and then when you’re done it all cinches up”, I found the not to the case and so I sort of bunched as I went along. This was really the first time I’d sewed onto elastic so I was unaware that it looks like total crap as far as stitchery goes. Then I sewed it onto the bright pink ribbon and again, sewing elastic to something made the stitching total crap. So then I sewed another layer of ribbon on top of it creating a sort of double edged look, which was nice and had nice stitching. I adhered the flower decorations evenly spaced along the waistband. By the way, it was just too much for me to figure out how to make it like a true skirt, so I was going for more like a cocktail apron. I hot glued on the flower petals and voila! a frothy creation.
The next morning I asked my son to try it on, having taken no measurements of any kind. Apparently I am a terrible estimator of size because it was enormous. But no matter because the birthday girl tried it on it was big enough to wrap the sash around and tie it in the front and she was very happy with it and looked adorable.
I’m going to make another one, having learned from the first one, and this one will be layers of blue and purple tulle with matching flower petals.
My lilacs call me out
April 26, 2008 at 2:57 am | In Gardening, Uncategorized | 2 Comments
So my lilacs are blooming today and I am forced to take back the things I said about them earlier. True, they are not a gorgeous lavendar color, however, the scent is incredible and you can smell them from pretty far away. They just perfume the whole yard and when you do walk up to them and stand with your head amongst the branches and inhale, well, that’s just about perfect.
Fresh From the Oven: Yeast Breads
December 29, 2007 at 5:47 pm | In Cookery, Recipes, Uncategorized | 1 Comment
After the delicious success of our Christmas breakfast I thought, “Why don’t I bake yeast breads more often?” My mom used to bake bread and it was always such a treat fresh from the oven with butter and honey on it. When I left my job to stay at home I thought I’d bake bread all the time, but then felt there was never a good time. It seemed too complicated to figure out a time to do it that didn’t involve Clark needing my attention. (In retrospect I look back on that daily nap and think, “What the hell? I could have done SO much with that time”) But now I resolve to bake homemade breads more often, and with that in mind I made “Honey Oat Pan Rolls” for our dinner the other night. And you know what? It worked out just fine with the baby and the boy. He is of an age where he likes to help bake and I gave him his own piece of dough. Plus he had new Christmas toys to occupy him while I mixed up the dough initially. The rolls were really quite simple and well worth it. The recipe called for 1/2 c oatmeal, which I did not have (we’ve been going through oatmeal like crazy for breakfast), so I substituted Hodgson Mills Mulitgrain Cereal–which is a ground milled cereal of oats, soy, and flax. The texture of the rolls was very nice and the flavor was really good-the combination of honey and whole wheat flour really shone through. The leftover rolls the next day were a bit dry, though.
P.S. In the picture you can see a wonderful Christmas present I received–a salt pig! I’ve wanted one for a while for easily adding kosher salt to my cooking and it’s really great already. Plus, now my 2 1/2 year old has the phrase “salt pig” in his vocabulary, which is pretty funny.
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