FRIDAY IS GRANDKID DAY AGAIN

SIL called yesterday to say that PG&E is cutting off power to their neighborhood from 8am to 5pm today. So of course we said they were welcome to stay here all day. For years one or the other parent would bring one or both children here every Friday for "Papa Day." But now that the girls are getting older and have more activities, there is still a "Papa Day" every week but not always on Friday. I have to go for a perm this afternoon and Gpa may take the girls to see Kit Kitteridge while their Daddy enjoys the peace and quiet.

Later: Kit Kitteridge is off the agenda because it is no longer playing at our local theater. Daddy and Gpa ended up spending the afternoon cutting down a small tree that was growing too close to the back garden wall and the girls helped. EAS is spending the night and she and Gpa are planning to see "Space Chimps" tomorrow morning.

EAS and I picked a bunch of swiss chard for dinner. I fixed it with garlic and served it over polenta. It was so much better than what we've been buying at the market.

More Apricot Content

This is an Apricot Upside-Down cake. It was supposed to be made in a cast iron skillet but none of my cast iron has been used in such a long time that it all needs to be cleaned up and seasoned again. So I used my square Pampered Chef dish and inverted it onto a small cookie sheet when it was done. Worked very well and we had it for dessert tonight. Really good! I used Blenheims from our own tree. We still have quite a few that are not yet ripe, so we'll probably be eating them for at least another week. Meanwhile, the older apricot tree now has some ripe fruit. I'm not sure what variety it is, possibly Moorpark. But the fruit is quite large, even though we didn't do any thinning. Very tasty as well, but of course not as good as the Blenheims.

I picked more lettuce a couple of days ago. We only planted about 2 square feet and we are getting more than we can use. The Arugula has started flowering but the leaves are still edible. I usually throw in a few Basil and spinach leaves for variety. After I wash them, I store them in a plastic box in the fridge and they keep fresh for several days. We always have clean greens for salads and sandwiches. I haven't tried using the Arugula flowers yet but I hear they are delicious on salads.


The grandcats stayed with us last weekend while their family vacationed in Napa. Luke quickly found a nest in my fabric shelves. He was so careful - didn't disturb anything, didn't even shed on the fabric. What a great cat! Meanwhile his brother Duke disappeared under the bed in the sewing room. He surfaced occasionally to hiss at us and presumably to eat and use the catbox, although we never saw him actually do either.

I've been working on Clue 3 of the Burger Queen Mystery quilt. This week it's 6" blocks, thirteen of them, so it's taking a while. At the same time, I'm still sewing four-patches and split 9-patches for the Orange Crush Mystery Quilt. Also working on the Ballerina baby quilt.

Friday was Pie Day

Our neighbor brought us a box of their Blenheim apricots so a pie had to be made. The recipe I used called for Minute tapioca, a cup of sugar and a bit of cinnamon and nutmeg. The crust is a plain one but made with lard instead of shortening. We switched because of the trans fat issue but now that I read the lard label, it also has hydrogenated fat in it. DH doesn't like crust made with butter and neither of us likes the taste of the reformulated shortening, so I'm not sure what to do at this point. Maybe I should just use whatever, figuring that we don't eat pies very often, so it shouldn't make much of a difference.


The box of apricots was still not empty, so I made this apricot salsa to put on the grilled chicken. It also has red sweet pepper, a hot pepper (Fresno from Mom's salsa garden), cilantro and lime juice. I also put in a little chopped red onion that I found in the fridge. I like the crunch it added.


These are the blocks I made for the Burger Queen Mystery quilt. The blue is my background fabric and the flowered is my focus fabric. I originally misunderstood the directions and made the block on the right side. I really didn't like it much so, when I found out my error, I did the one on the left. I liked it a lot better and I now have 5 twelve inch blocks and 5 nine inch blocks and am waiting for the next clue. I may use the other blocks on the back of the quilt. Or maybe in a scrap quilt.

I'm also working on a scrappy mystery quilt called Orange Crush. This one is now over, so I have all the clues printed out, although I am still working on Clue 1. That one involves making 150 4-patches and I'm doing those as "leaders and enders" while sewing other things. So Orange Crush may take a while.

Toasty Tuesday

We are having another hot spell. Yesterday and today the temps were in the upper 90's. Happily, though, it cools down quickly in the evenings. That's one advantage to living away from a city.

Our first tomato. Back in early April I bought four Roma tomato plants at Target and planted them in one of our raised beds. Within a month one of them had little tomatoes and I fully expected to have ripe tomatoes by mid-June. But every time I looked, they were still green. Then this evening I did a really good search and found this little darling. I didn't see any more, but the bushes are so thick and overgrown that there may very well be more. It is supposed to be an heirloom San Marzano but it doesn't look much like one to me.

Hard to believe that we only have one zucchini plant. These four join the other half dozen already in my fridge. The crookneck and eight ball plants are producing more slowly but are still giving us more than we can eat. I'm thinking of doing "all zucchini all the time" for dinner tomorrow night. I can stuff the bigger ones and make a casserole with the smaller ones and maybe even make a zucchini salad with the really young ones that are still on the plant.

I also picked a big batch of lettuce. It's a mix of several different kinds and has withstood the heat pretty well. Only the arugula and spinach have started going to seed. While I was working in that bed I found four beets, perfect size, so I pulled them too. Their tops are surprisingly free of insect damage, so I will probably cook them too.
The Kentucky Wonder beans have been racing to the top of the trellis and I was starting to get a little concerned about the lack of beans. But yesterday we spotted the first flowers so it shouldn't be long now.

Fabric Choices for the Burger Queen Mystery Quilt

The flowered fabric is my focus fabric and the other two are candidates for the background. I am leaning towards the blue but it may be too directional. I had originally picked a different focus fabric but I don't have three yards of that one.

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.

Not Dead, Just Resting

I really am still alive and kicking. I just didn't realize that it had been three months since my last post. There's been some knitting, quilting, gardening, reading, a lot of cooking and a bit of exercise. We've lost our last cat, Clementine. We've gone from winter to summer and I didn't write a thing about spring. Well, no use crying over what can't be changed. Best to just move along.


The garden is producing summer squash, lettuce, cucumbers and peppers. Lots of tomatoes, but none ripe yet. The green beans are racing up their trellising but haven't produced any blossoms and the Blenheim apricot is heavy with pale orange fruit, still rock-hard.













I haven't done any knitting on the Spring Surprice Shawl since I came home from SF in March, but have not given up on it. It's in a bag behind my chair just waiting for a time when I can give it my full attention. I have almost finished the Spiderman Laphgan. Didn't get it done in time for O's birthday, but will try for Christmas. However, I recently asked him if he still liked Spiderman and he replied that he liked Batman more. But I think it'll be okay on the day.

I frogged the green toe-up socks because I couldn't figure out the heel directions being as I am using a different number of stitches than it calls for. Also, they were a bit too small around; so I did a swatch and am knitting on 56 stitches instead of the 48 I was using. Also, I found some generic directions for the heel in the pattern and will use those when I get to that point again.


My current project of choice is the Goddess Mystery Anniversary Shawl. It's circular and I had some real difficulty getting started but, by the time I got to the end of Clue 1, things were going pretty well. I haven't started Clue 2 yet but it's 24 rows of 144 stitches, so it will almost certainly take longer. and Clue 3 comes out Saturday. That will start with 288 stitches. I probably should have tried the EZ Pi shawl first, but never got around to it.