Garden Update and a Knitting blurb

I think I figured out why I've not been sleeping. I think I'm subconciously worried that I won't reach my goal of having the garden completed before the weather turns. I've been lucky the last four nights as I've not had any insomnia at all.

We've made so much progress this week and have finally hit that point where even small jobs out there make such a huge visable difference. It's even getting to the point where I think Don can visualize where I'm headed with it. lol I was lucky enough to score the 2nd of September off, giving me a full 3 days off in a row. Unheard of! I'm fully planning on spending it out in the garden as much as possible. That will of course insure that it will rain the whole weekend....but I really hope not! It's suppose to rain this week some and then clear back up. We really need the rain, so I'm not grumbling about it one bit. I just hope it stops long enough for me to get the rest of the garden done. ;)

Ok...so let's start with the "Garden Workers". Any time we are out in the garden area there are two family memebers that HAVE to be there with us. Salem spends the time moving around and making sure we're not messing his area up too much. In this picture I caught him taking a break under the plum tree in the "Little Dog Yard". I guess even he needs a break every once in a while.




Mowgli is the support crew. He is usually "tilling" up some area....or holding down some area....or just generally lending his moral support. I'm just so happy to see him feeling better now. He's finally eating again....and how! I'm buying a special canned food that he gets twice a day and it's helping him put his weight back on and is making him want to eat again, so he's also eating his dry food every day too. He's still pretty bony and definately not up to weight yet...but this picture shows he's starting to fill out again.

Don helped me build the strawberry bed today and we moved quite a bit of dirt as well. I finished off moving the last of the pile tonight as there wasn't that much left and I really really wanted it gone. That pile of "soil" has been there for two years! It feels so good to have it gone! Just clearing that area and installing the strawberry bed made a world of difference. I took these pictures after soaking the area down really well. It's been so long since we had any actual rain fall that the dirt was just basically dust. You can also see the long pea/bean bed that I installed last week.

The watering combined with the fact that it was late afternoon and the sun was going down is why the pictures look so dark. From here you can see that most of the work has been done in the back area of the garden so far. I'm slowly working my way to the front. lol. Part of this is caused by the blistering heat lately....and part of it is because of a burn ban that has been in effect for quite awhile meaning I can't burn the brush that's stacked up front. The other reason is that I won't know where the third bed will be placed until I install the second square bed....and move that apple bin with the sifter on top of it. ;) It's all a progression. Oh! and just incase anyone cares...the wire over the beds is to prevent Salem from getting any ideas, if you know what I mean. lol

Well the only other news is in the knitting department. The second Self Striping sock is in the gusset faze. The heels been turned and the gusset started. It's moving a bit quicker now that I've got point protectors to help me keep from dropping stitches. Hopefully there will be a FO post soon!

That is truely all for tonight! I'm off to play with some fiber before I go to bed. VBG!

Tomatoes!!!

I realized the other day that I did not post any pictures of my tomatoes yet. As they are one of the TWO veggies planted this year .....I've got to post some pics! This is an Early Girl variety and has tomatoes all over it.






Cherry Tomatoes.....most of these don't even make it into the house.....yum!










Ok...in the very top left hand side you can see the yellow pear tomatoe turning, well...yellow. These don't make it in the house either.....eventhough they are just outside the door. lol. Usually they get harvested and eaten on the way to to the car. As you can tell the Cherry Tomatoes are trying to crowd them out....unsucessfully.












And here's the Brandywine that I tried this year. I don't think I'll try these again....not because they aren't good. They are. When I remember that they do not turn a bright red when ripe....more of a muted color. lol

Dyeing Project Pictures

I decided to break todays post up into separate posts as there are several pictures I want to post and I want to make sure they all upload ok. It would really upset me to get to the end and have the upload time out or something and then lose the whole post. lol

This first picture is of the Purple 2.0 that I was dying up for Melissa's slippers. The picture is showing the pink hues more than the purple or the blues. It also looks brighter than it is in reality. So.....Basically this is what it doesn't really look like! How intelligent. lmao. I've really got to figure out how to make the colors show correctly soon. Ok, so I'm not quite done pulling this out into pencil roving and rolling it into balls yet, but I had to take the pics so I could post and it's getting late in the evening. This is blended approximately 80% wool and 20% American Eskimo and I discovered that having the drum carder re-clothed and the extra brush put on it will be EXTREMELY beneficial if I am going to card any more fine fluffy fibers on it. VBG. Lets just say that it was very interesting. It worked out....all's well...but we won't be repeating that on the drum carder!

Here is the Berry Blue Kool-Aid all ready to be fluffed and carded. It's not my favorite color blue, but I think I'm going to ply it with another color and see what I get. Sometimes experimenting with this stuff leads to some very nice results. Besides, if I don't like it done, I can either gift it to someone who likes it or overdye it and change the color. Easy Peasy!






Obviously I don't have to tell you what color this is. For some reason the lighter colors show nicely and nearly true...it's just the darker ones that do not photograph well. I'm not a big "yellow" person either...but this will blend up nicely and again...if I don't like it when done....see the above. lol I think it came out nicely considering the dyebath resembled a pot of urine! Ugg...it was really hard to put clean white wool into that pot! lmao






Ok here's a weird one. This is Moss Green. Yes, this one split also. Originally I didn't like the colors...but....it's growing on me. Yes, much like moss. ;) It's hard to explain. Usually when you get a color called "Moss Green" it's this solid blended muted color. Well if you've ever picked up a handful of moss, real moss (especially up here in the PNW) you will see that there are a wide variety of colors in the moss. Some brown, some yellow some greens....and there are several greens there. Well when this one split, it split into true moss colors and I'm quite impressed by that. (I don't know why....I'm weird that way!) It's such an earthy blend that I've become quite taken with it and am seriously thinking of blending in some browns too. I'll hold off on that project for awhile but really this one is intriguing me.

Ok so there are my colors to play with for awhile. I will be dying some wool in a Grape Kool aid mix as a special request for some one soon. As usual I will post that too. Well on to the Garden Post