OMG, Sun!

[altivo]

In spite of the forecast, the sun came out this afternoon. First time we've really seen daylight in what seems like a week, and with another storm system coming in tonight, may be the last time in another week.

Gary and I went on a shopping trip this afternoon, mostly for groceries but he needed printer paper and some other supplies. We had lunch at Chili's, which was OK but I can't help feeling it isn't quite as good as it was a few years ago. At least they've lowered the volume of the music so you can hear each other talking without having to shout.

I made real chili for supper, with black and pinto beans, tomatoes, lots of hot stuff, and kernel corn added. I generally use ground turkey in it, and we like it that way. The chili powder, cumin, and hot peppers overpower any meat that is used in any case.

We also had home made cornbread, and a salad that included ripe pears from our tree. I was a bit surprised this year, since we have only one pear tree left. This is the third year it has bloomed, and I was aware of three pears. Gary found six last week when he went looking after the hard freeze. It's a Beurre Bosc, those brown colored pears with a long conical top and sandpapery skin. They seemed pretty hard, so I left them sitting in a basket. Today I noticed that a couple of them were getting soft and oozing sticky juice from the stems, so I sliced them up for salad. Sprinkled with crumbles of gorgonzola cheese, and mixed greens added, they were delicious but incredibly sweet. I like pears, but there's some limit to my tolerance of sugar. ;p

I expected Tess to be grumpy after being stuck in the arena pen for so many days, but she was in a pretty good mood. I guess she likes the new hay. Other than that, I was spinning today, yarn from our own sheep. I have a lot of wool stored up and decided I need to do something with it.

Tomorrow the big loom gets a warp again. That means I have to put away a bunch of bits and pieces from fursuit construction that are in the way of using it. About time I did that anyway.

Comments

[chibiabos.livejournal.com]

I am such a wimp when it comes to anything spicy. :/

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Well, I'm not really talking about loading it with habaneros or anything like that. Spicy food is good though. If you didn't grow up with it, you have to get used to it a little at a time.

[chibiabos.livejournal.com]

My sister can guzzle habanero sauce like water. I am intolerant even to "moderate" amounts of pepper. :/ My throat burns easily.

[mondhasen.livejournal.com]

Sun's out here today, after an on/off day and blustery, wild night. Glad I baked yesterday, in spite of poor results. Looks like an out-of-the-house day today.

Our fruit trees never took hold, and I'm down to one "supposed to have been an apricot but turned out it was a peach" tree. Took years to produce fruit, the buds always succumbing to late frosts. Bittersweet's encroached on it now.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

I suppose the ocean moderates your climate a bit, but I wouldn't expect peaches or apricots to do real well there. They are pretty precarious here too. Plums and cherries are possible, though not always easy.

Apples and pears, on the other hoof, should be well adapted to New England winters. We had a lot of trouble with deer chewing ours up before they could get started. That and there's a black walnut tree very close that I really don't want to remove, but supposedly black walnut roots inhibit the growth of other plants. I started out with six apples, two pears, and two cherries. Of those trees planted ten years ago, only one survives and it bore fruit for the first time this year. We've stubbornly replaced dead trees again and again, and the current living tree count is four apples and a pear. All of them produced at least some fruit this year. Two of the apples were quite prolific.

Commercial orchards (there are many around here) know something I don't know, evidently.

[mondhasen.livejournal.com]

*sigh* I wouldn't spray for insects. I bought some nasty malathion and ended up dropping it off at a 'hazmat day' pickup. My apple trees finally gave it up.

I have a wild apple tree from a drop out in the front of the house. Last year it produced some little crabby-apples, but this year it picked up some leaf curl after it bloomed, and slowly withered as the year went on.

As I've told myself for 23 years here "Maybe next year!" :o)

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Malathion is really nasty, but you don't need stuff like that I'm sure. There are less persistent things that can be used, as well as some natural controls for the really bad insects.

[fiddlergrl.livejournal.com]

Do you ever sell any of the yarn you spin? I've been on a huge knitting kick lately, and I was just thinking about how neat it would be to work with pure undyed wool when I read your post. And given a choice between buying wool from a yarn shop or buying it from Fuzzy Bear Farm where I've actually met some of the sheep, well, it's no contest!

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Hi! Actually, no, I've never sold any of my handspun yarn. I do sell whole fleeces, though, and cheaply. Maybe you need to take up spinning? It's rather akin to juggling when you come right down to it.

The problem with selling handspun is that there's so much time in it you can never really ask a reasonable price. What I usually do is make things out of the yarn and give them as gifts to justify the time I put into them.

I've also not been that confident of my spinning ability until recently. I can now say the quality of my work holds up fairly well, but it has taken me 20 years to get there. ;p

[fiddlergrl.livejournal.com]

Fair enough! I've thought about trying my hand at spinning, though it's a project that may have to wait until Ted and I have a house with more room so I could set up a spinning wheel. (I'm more interested in learning how to use a spinning wheel than drop spindle spinning.) When I'm there, I'll keep whole fleece in mind!

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Two comments on that. Spinning wheels do not have to be large. My Ashford Joy folds up into a back-pack sized carrying case but spins as well as a full sized Saxony once you learn how to use it. Yes, a Saxony style wheel, the ones you see in fairy tale movies, can be pretty large, but upright or chair wheels are much smaller. You can go smaller still, with a Indian style charkha, designed to spin cotton but capable of spinning nearly anything. I have one of those that folds up into a box the size of an ordinary hardcover book.

Second, don't ignore the drop spindle. I thought the wheel would be easier but had to go back and learn the drop spindle anyway in the end. Spinning on the drop spindle and the charkha are what finally improved my spinning abilities to where I am winning blue ribbons in the shows.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

One more note about drop spindles. I have a friend who is a Presbyterian minister and works at the regional offices in Chicago. She rides the train from Woodstock to Chicago and back several times a week. And she spins with a drop spindle on the train. Currently president of our spinning guild, Barb is one of our most productive members as well. You can get a lot done with a drop spindle.

Unlike a spinning wheel, you could use it on your road trips, ;D

Feel free to check out our spinning group montly newsletters and discussions if you like.

http://groups.google.com/group/hollow-tree-spinners

[cabcat.livejournal.com]

*slavers and realises he was drooling on your floor and quickly mops it up* I'd love to try that chilli, I haven't had a good chilli for ages...if ever. :)

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Kitty, you have to show up sooner. It's all gone now.

Chili is one of the easiest things to make, you know. Even down under you should have no trouble getting the ingredients. Here in America people quibble over whether it should have beans in it, or tomatoes. I don't argue, I just put everything in. (Well, except that sometimes I go vegetarian and leave out the meat, which makes the Texans scream. I love that.) Ground beef or turkey (or whatever you have,) chopped onions, diced tomatoes (canned are fine,) black beans, pinto beans, red beans, prepared chili powder (don't skimp, or you can make your own from hot peppers and cumin,) and a hint of chocolate in the form of cocoa powder. I sometimes add a little crushed garlic or some grated carrot, but those are really non-traditional. Dried red peppers can be added to heat it up. I like it served with some macaroni, shredded cheddar, raw onion rings, and sour cream, which is called "Cincinnati style" here in the US and therefore makes all the southwesterners point fingers and yell about broken traditions. ;p

[cabcat.livejournal.com]

*keeps drooling* Stop stop, I can't take it anymore *dashes off to make some chilli* Although I'm not too keen on the raw onion rings and sour cream :)

[altivo.livejournal.com]

You use the sweet onions, not the hot burny ones. Those get cooked with the chili. ;p

Who ever heard of a cat that didn't like sour cream, though? Even I can't resist it.