Road Trip 2008 Day 1

We left Sunday on our long awaited Road Trip 2008 - California to Missouri for the Husband's All-School Reunion which is being held during Labor Day weekend.







The temperatures that day in central Nevada were hovering around 100 degrees so we were really looking forward to a dip in the pool when we finally arrived at the Comfort Inn in Elko, NV. It has been over 15 years since I've worn a swimsuit and I don't think I would have been brave enough to do it now if the pool had been outdoors. Somehow an indoor pool seems more private.






We chose Elko so that we could have dinner at the Nevada Dinner House, which is a Basque restaurant that we had heard good things about. Absolutely super meal! Husband had steak and I had lamb chops, both covered with thin slices of deep-fried garlic. I don't know how they do it but the garlic was mild and sweet, no hint of sharpness or heat. The meal was served family-style, as is customary at Basque restaurants. First a bowl of home-made chicken noodle soup, then a salad with the house dressing, then the meat with a green bean dish and a big platter of crisp french fries. We couldn't resist the flan for dessert. All in all, one of the best meals we've had for a very long time.

And so to bed.

Ingenious Ideas, Part 1

When I was getting things ready for Mystery Stole 4 I realized that, once again, I was going to have to talk the Husband or one of the grandchildren into lending a pair of arms so that I could wind the skeins into balls. But then I ran across this link to instructions for making a yarn swift from Tinker Toy pieces.

It took about 5 minutes to build and it actually works! Thanks, Crafting Jen. You just saved me a lot of money.

It turned a skein of Knit Picks Shadow (Oregon Coast colorway) into a ball of ready-to-knit yarn in a little over 5 minutes.

I was afraid that if I pulled too hard the yarn would stretch so, instead of allowing it to turn due to my pulling, I put the whole thing on the floor and gave it a boost with my foot whenever it slowed down.

Later on I found a photo showing this apparatus with the yarn winding around an empty toilet paper roll. No instructions on how to accomplish this, but I'm going to see if I can figure it out with the next skein. Probably tomorrow, if the grandchildren come over. I may need their help.

Bringing in the Corn

Nine ears harvested this afternoon and served at dinner; they were quite tasty, with all kernels present (unlike most of the local corn we've tried this summer) although one had immature kernels. We have no experience growing corn and have found it really hard to tell when an ear is ready to pick.

The Husband's corn patch is at the north end of our garden area. It topped out at about 8 1/2 feet tall. I almost tried to discourage him from trying corn because I thought it needed a lot more space than we have. I'm sure glad I kept my mouth shut!

He is already making plans for next year: He is going to dig up some of the lawn closer to the house and plant yellow corn, which should be ready earlier than the white he planted this year. When we get back from our road trip, he is going to use this year's corn patch to plant a winter crop of fava beans. We can eat the beans next spring, then he will plow the plants under to enrich the soil and then he wants to plant melons. Variety yet to be decided.





This is a photo of the immature corn that we picked about 10 days ago. It looked good with the kernels all well-formed, but they were tiny, with nothing to them and not sweet at all.

Gma and the Blue Jay

My Mom, who has been staying with us since March, enjoys sitting on the patio on sunny mornings. A blue jay, I believe it's a Western Jay, spends a lot of time in our backyard; he used to chase our elderly cats (both gone now) and even occasionally attacks the dog!

Mom keeps a jar of unsalted peanuts stashed in her walker bag and, when Jay appears, she puts a few on a towel in her lap. She doesn't want to give him very many at a time but, if he doesn't think it's enough, he perches on the chair and screeches at her.

Fritters on Friday

Thanks to "Carolyn in Ohio" from the Stashbusters Mystery Quilt Yahoo group, I have a new recipe for Zucchini Fritters. I had never eaten fritters but, I've got to tell you, these are really good! KAS did the video; she and her sister anxiously counted the fritters and were a little upset that I didn't get the 20 specified in the recipe. I guess I made them a little bigger than they were supposed to be.



The results were better than hoped for. The girls wolfed them down and even my Mom, who rarely asks for seconds, had a second helping of these.

Green Beans for Dinner

This was our green bean planting on July 7. The plants were racing towards the top of the trellis but there was no sign of any beans. Every day I would go out and search with no results. When they made it to the top and there were still no blossoms, I was beginning to think that maybe I should be topping them. But then, one day last week, there were a few blossoms, then more; finally, last weekend, there were some itty-bitty beans.





Yesterday I deemed them large enough to pick and found these magnificent seven. We put them in the fridge to wait for enough more to make a meal. And today I did a really thorough search and did find enough for a small serving for each of us. I steamed them for a few minutes and they were tender and yummy. If past experience is anything to go by, we should have more than we can use in another couple of weeks.



The Week 4 clue in the Burger Queen Mystery Quilt was published yesterday. This time it's 3" blocks - lots of them! I have been reading one of Judy Martin's scrap quilt books and she uses her bias square ruler to make half-square triangles. I bought one years ago but have never actually used it for a quilt, just played around with it a little. So I decided to try it to make all these 1.5" hst's. I don't think it saves any time but it does make them easier to handle. The easiest thing would be to use the Easy Angle ruler and sew the triangles together but I don't think my elderly hands could manage such tiny pieces. I probably should learn to paper piece!

SPIDERMAN LAPGHAN COMPLETED

I started the Spiderman Lapghan in March and finally finished it this afternoon. The first couple of months were pretty tough – I was having a lot of hand pain and crocheting was more painful than knitting, but at that point I still hoped to have it finished by my grandson's birthday in late April. Once I realized that each round was getting bigger (and taking longer) I slowed down because there was no chance of finishing it that quickly. Since then, I only picked it up occasionally, mostly when I needed something mindless. The final step was to reverse single crochet around the outer edge. I really worked at it but could not get it right. So I finally settled for a slip stitch all around and I think it looks pretty good. I'm not entirely happy with the way the webs look but they'll do. I may enter it in the County Fair this fall and give it to DGS after that.

While it was in progress, I usually kept the afghan in a bag next to my chair. But one night I wanted to see how it looked spread out, so I put it on the bed in my sewing room. The next morning I found Leo curled up on it. That gave me the idea of making a small version for him using the leftover yarn. That solves the problem of royal blue and red acrylic yarn added to my stash.