Garden photos and treelace

After staring longingly at rhubarb pics at Sweet Domesticity,  I noticed her #garden365 photo challenge. This immediately appealed to me for a number of reasons:

1. I take a lot of garden pics. Maybe this will be a way to focus my efforts and (possibly?) make them less boring.

2. A daily photo means I need to take a walk in the garden every day. This affords me some quiet, restful time every day. This is a good goal for a new mother.

3. I have been looking for a reason to start using Instagram other than Mindy Kaling.

Each day, I use a one word prompt to take a pic outside. My favorite pic this week is of the trees in our backyard (#treelace!).

today's grey SKY #garden365

A photo posted by edud5 (@edud5) on Apr 9, 2015 at 5:00pm PDT

Cleaning out our cupboards

We are getting kitchen renos done in 2 weeks. This is excellent motivation to clean out the cupboards.

Personally, I am going to use this opportunity to find the perfect granola bar recipe. I made a batch of Pioneer Woman bars a month or two ago, and found they didn't stick together well. Our biggest need - to - empty cupboard is the baking one, which is full of granola bar worthy ingredients.

I managed to use over 7 cups of miscellaneous cupboardry while attempting to make some yesterday.  I roughly followed this recipe, but added in peanut butter (because I love it) and a banana (because I had it). They are ok. But not perfect.

Rhubarb sighted

I was ecstatic to see the first appearance of rhubarb today!

These plants were divided and replanted in a more spacious location, closer to the house, in spring of last year.

First seedlings

Butterfly weed.

The Wedding Maps

We have wedding maps.

 

Please disregard the wilted flowers.

I love maps. I could look at them for hours. So when planning our wedding for August 2012, I thought it would be neat to have our guests look at maps too, and contribute a few of their thoughts onto the map:

• Where they were born - green
• Where they live now - red
• A neat place they have been with the bride and the groom - blue
• Where they could go if they could go anywhere - yellow

I can verify that some of these dots have been misplaced.

I have been looking at these maps as I am trying to straighten things up lately. They have been hanging around our office for the last two years, constantly getting in the way, never getting hung on the wall. Because even though Europe, all of Canada, and a world view fit into a nice, rectangular frame shape, how to manage the map of Southern Ontario eluded me.

It's wacky shape is what you see hanging off the top of the picture frame on the top left (above). I know I should have been able to make it a more manageable shape, but I love Ontario - cutting any part out of it is painful, so I wanted to retain as much it as I could. After consulting with someone more artistic than I, I decided to laminate it and cut it out, to display all its irregularly-shaped wonder.

Off the to do list. Almost on the wall.

How not to make yogurt

1. Drink small coffee. You haven't drank a coffee in a couple of days, so enjoy it.

2. Put milk in Dutch oven. Snap a pic for your blog! Who cares if the Dutch oven is kind of dirty looking.

3. Start doing other stuff around your house. You should drink coffee more often!

4. When you are moving the 3rd load of dirty laundry downstairs,  notice your milk is boiling over, and that it is 20 degrees hotter than it was supposed to be. Turn it off. Curse quietly so your baby doesn't hear.

5. Know that you probably already messed up your yogurt but decide to keep going. Just in case.

6. Put Dutch oven in ice water bath. Check in between loads of laundry. When it only has a few degrees left to cool decide you won't forget about it if you only do ONE thing and come back to it.

7. Dust off your television screen. Then play with the baby. Then fold the blankets and organize the pillows on the couch. Then - crap. The yogurt.

8. Check on the milk cooling in the ice water bath and see that it has cooled 10 degrees cooler than it was supposed to.

9. You don't really have time to think about it. Let's just keep going with the yogurt. You are getting a lot done today.

10. Barely remember to add yogurt to the milk before you put it in the slightly warm oven. Don't measure, this obviously isn't going well anyways.

11. Check milky substance after the required 4 hours and confirm that you have not made yogurt, as you suspected. Toilet it.

The Kitchn has great instructions for how to actually make yogurt. And it isn't that hard.

Looking forward to rhubarb

I derive a lot of pleasure from seeing the first spring growth of perennials. When that perennial is edible, I am nearly obsessed.

Last year we divided and relocated several rhubarb crowns from the "lower" area (down by the river) to the "upper" area (by our house). While I used to do a pretty good job of harvesting all available rhubarb, I am looking forward to 1. more rhubarb, and 2. not having to climb 20 stairs to get it.

Knowing the decision was going to be a fairly permanent one, I chose to plant the rhubarb in an area that needed some foliage, but that I had found to be unsuccessful for growing veggies in previous years. The area has good southern exposure, but sees some animal traffic. I am unsure whether the same animals that enjoy eating tomatoes will enjoy rhubarb, but I figure that if they didn't eat it down by the river, they weren't likely going to eat it near our house...unless they are different animals.

Last year, rhubarb started poking through the leaf cover in late April. I'm looking forward to seeing this year's crop, and how we did in the replanting. We didn't touch the rhubarb last year, as we divided it in the spring. Detailed instructions on division at this blog, which has BEAUTIFUL pics of budding rhubarb.

Beet shake

Beets! I bought some massive, beautiful beets a couple of weeks ago, which have been sitting in my fridge begging me to put in the time and roast them. So today I decided to try Chocolate Covered Katie's Pink Energizer Smoothie.

Delicious. Beautiful and alarming in colour. If I made it again I would reduce the amount of milk, to make a thicker smoothie. Looking forward to trying these this summer, with fresh garden beets.

Reading Ru

Just started reading Ru, by Kim Thuy. The book is most recently the winner of Canada Reads, but is also winner of the Governor General's Award for Fiction in its original French. Its list of accolades is long. Immediately it reminds me of the Autobiography of Red by Anne Carson, in its image-heavy,  prose poem style.

This is one of my favorite styles of writing to read. I find the vignettes more manageable than a conventional novel, in particular when I am reading in short spurts. While there is a narrative flow to Ru, you can read slightly ahead or behind your "place" without compromising the story; as a reader, I like having this extra amount of control over my reading experience. I dislike when I feel locked in to the author's story line, when I have to leave off at a logical spot in order to pick up the book and proceed. These days I don't always have the time to finish a chapter.

Thuy paints very poignant scenes, which, when reading, make me thankful that such moments were captured. I get pretty emotional about good writing, I'll admit. But to me, this is the kind of writing which makes you watch and observe the world around you more closely, realizing that we are constantly moving amid these notable moments.

What else I am reading this month:

• Improving Your Soil, Keith Reid
• Bed Timing, Marc Lewis and Isabela Granic
• Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems, Richard Ferber
• The No-Cry Sleep Solution, Elizabeth Pantley
• Canadian Gardener's Guide, Lorraine Johnson (ed)
• 500 Kitchen Ideas, from the editors of Country Living
• The Sewing Book, Alison Smith
• Blind Window, Sleeping Woman, Haruki Murakami

Favorite tree

Figs again

Groundwood Books has released a kids' title about figs, Rosario's Fig Tree. I'm into it!

I can tell, just from the trailer, that their character uses a different method of overwintering than I will employ (burying his fig tree rather than bringing the potted tree inside).

Their blog features a mystery vegetable anecdote by the author. Now I want to grow bottle gourds too.

Blooming aloe

This is the second year my aloe plant has bloomed. Based on what I have read, I suspect it is the sun room - my track record with other houseplants is quite poor. Aloes, however, are very robust.

Finished project - Flip style diaper

 I needed to increase our diaper stash and so made it a goal this week to finish at least one diaper. Although I have made a few different  diapers using both purchased patterns, those freely available online, and combinations thereof (I once made a Franken-diaper that pulled from as many sources as there were seams), I've come to settle on Arfy's freely available patterns and tutorials as top of the line.

This diaper is sewn using her Flip style pattern and tutorial. I find this style of cloth diaper easy to diaper with (less washing), and easiest to sew. Sewing waterproof legs is a talent. The less fabrics to interfere with this process, the better.

I made this diaper with a velcro closure, even though the reviews say that snap closures are pretty much the way to go (they don't wear over washings, a big deal in cloth diapering). I have made a few diapers with snaps already, and the application process is quite time consuming - hence the velcro. I just wanted a diaper today!

The fabric is from Diaper Sewing Supplies. I was sucked in by the soulful eyes of the puppies. I probably wouldn't have sewn my own diapers at all if not for those eyes.

Overflow

Completed project: simple - yet - effective shawl

I blocked another piece this week. I finished the simple - yet - effective shawl a couple of years ago, but finally got around to blocking it this week.

The idea of alternating two Noro Kureyon colourways was not mine, I saw it on Ravelry. This for me is variegation at its best: I keep knitting (and knitting) because I am always looking forward to seeing how the colours juxtapose.

Bircher muesli

I love bircher muesli.

I bumped into these Blueberry Pie Oats and learned that the process of soaking oats overnight is called bircher muesli. While the Blueberry Pie Oats recipe is a little divergent from the origins of bircher muesli, the basics are there: soak rolled oats in something overnight, with fruit involved somehow.

I first encountered this way of making oats in the What to Expect book. Their recipe calls for soaking half a cup oats with raisins and apricots in half a cup orange juice and half a cup vanilla yogurt. While I more or less stuck to that recipe, I switched to plain yogurt so it was less sweet.

This became the only thing I really wanted to eat for what seemed like weeks on end. In my first trimester I craved things in 5 minute bursts. Once the burst was over I was nauseous, sometimes just thinking about the food I had moments before craved. But these oats really did it for me (it didn't hurt that I could always eat first thing in the morning). I also liked the convenience of making it the night before, and that I could bring it to work in a handy Mason jar.

So the fact that there is whole world of bircher muesli out there for me to explore? Makes my day.

William Dam Seeds - Trip

While I read catalogues from several different seed companies, William Dam in Dundas is the only seed company I visit. Friday was seed day!

William Dam is where I buy most of my vegetable and flower seeds. I like that they've maintained the family business feel, I appreciate their commitment to organic and heirloom gardening, and the fact they have a cat at their storefront. I also love their selection of green crops, which help with soil improvement. You grow the crop, you mow it if necessary, you turn it into the soil. Bam. Your soil is better. 

Although I needed to restrain myself from buying flowers and vegetables, green crops are a worthwhile investment. This fourth summer at the house, I am ready to do some serious renovation of the planting beds. Buckwheat is a fast growing cover that suppresses weeds, and the 50/50 peas oats mix is supposed to be a good nitrogen fixer. I have plans to use both in various sections of the garden throughout the season.

Although calling a three-dollar packet of seeds a "splurge" I must impress that I have many, many seeds already, and almost ten types of tomato seeds. So my splurge was actually for my father's garden: a crossed heirloom tomato that keeps the great heirloom taste, while providing more disease resistance. William Dam has several new "heirloom marriages" this year, and while I will still grow traditional heirlooms I would like to give these a try as well.

While it is by no means exclusive to William Dam, I also picked up some diatomaceous earth for snail control. We have many, many snails. We will see how effective this treatment is.

Completed-ish project: Kernel

My to - do list this week was threatened by an unexpected trip to William Dam Seeds. I am an over - informer,  especially for things about which i am passionate; I already spend hours looking at seed catalogues, so when I actually get to visit a seed shop that is literally all I want to do. Look at seed catalogues. 

But on my to do list was the blocking of this scarf (Kernel from Knitty), which I finished years ago. Lace knitting generally requires blocking to take its full effect, as blocking stretches out the stitches to show the pattern properly. Before blocking, this scarf was a waste of lace. This is why lace is a magical knit: the blocking transforms it completely.

Consider me impressed that I managed to sew a new thing on my to - do list AND finish a WIP in one week - or at least, it is finished - ish. While blocking I found a hole in it that needs to be patched up.

Triangle

From the to - do list: wetbag

Used this tutorial to make a small wetbag today. Needed something to carry soiled diapers and inserts in. I made it much smaller than the tutorial called for, as mine is specifically for a diaper bag.

This took me about half an hour, including a lot of fiddling with the zipper foot. I lack confidence in my zipper sewing abilities.

The PUL is from Diaper Sewing Supplies. I love it. I love so many of their fabrics. Must use up PUL so I can buy more PUL.