Smoky Days

We haven't seen the sun for days now. The air is hazy with smoke from the fires west of us and sometimes we can actually smell it. The Indians fire has been burning since early June and the Basins fire is one that started last Saturday with the dry lightning storms that hit California. The news says that over 800 fires were ignited that day. Both of the fires that are affecting us are in the Santa Lucia mountains west of King City and south of Monterey. Not that far from here as the crow flies.

However, the garden continues to grow well and is providing more and more of our veggies. Tonight we had zucchini, crookneck squash, cucumbers and lettuce for the salad as well as a lemon for the fish. The lettuce was a mix of red and green leaf lettuce, arugula, frisee, spinach and basil leaves. The spinach is sort of lying flat instead of standing up as you would expect, probably because of the warm weather. But it was good anyway. I was afraid the arugula and frisee would be too bitter but not at all. We also had chard that I bought at Farmers Market on Wednesday but I think our first chard will be ready to harvest in a week or so.

I used the greenhouse sink to wash the lettuce, then poured the waste water into the basins around the squash. It made me feel really good to not let all that water go down the drain. I still haven't gotten the shadecloth up in the greenhouse but today was fairly cool. On a sunny summer day, it is unbearably hot in there without the shadecloth.

This morning husband brought in a Blenheim apricot. It was fairly hard and slightly green on one side, so I wasn't tempted to eat it. After dinner he asked me about it, so I rinsed it off and cut it in quarters figuring I would let him learn for himself by tasting it. Before I handed the pieces to him I popped one into my mouth and all I could say was "Oh, my gosh!" It was the best-tasting apricot I've eaten this year, green spot and all. Absolute heaven.

On the sewing front, I finished quilting the first piece of flannel for the doll bathrobe. I still have to do another piece but it's pretty boring work so I decided to do other things for a while. I finished the basket liner I've been working on and mended my reusable Target bag. Tomorrow I have some mending to do and probably some pants to shorten for Mom. She will need to try them on tomorrow morning. Then I should make the block of the month for the Pinnacle Quilt Guild and not leave it until the last minute. Then maybe I'll get back to the doll clothes.

I'm on the sixth row of clue 2 in the Anniversary shawl. So far the pattern is really easy and I'm working on 144 stitches per round, so the 24 rows should go pretty quickly. I will need to increase to 288 stitches at the end of this clue and, at that point, I should be able to do it all on one circular instead of the two I'm currently using. I may need to order a longer cable though.