Skip to main content

September Indian Summer

What a beautiful time of year: not too hot, in fact perfect for a sweater, especially in the morning!  And yet, there is still plenty of garden goodness to be had.  My boys are in school, and everyone has a little space and independence, including me.  I am always happy to discover another rose, a neighbor out walking dogs, a few leaves turning, a good book with just enough time to crack it open, and new yarn in my local yarn shop.  BFJ and I drove up to Boulder yesterday for some pictures, and I discovered a tin of my favorite tea - which I'd just recently run out of, in one of the culinary shops on Pearl Street.  Perfect timing.

Today, I'm making some Peach Preserves. It seems like everything is so readily available these days, at the store, on the internet.  Almost takes the fun out of finding things.  However, local, organic peaches - that are hopefully ripe, are not easy to come by.  I'm settling for local, ripe peaches this year.  This time around, I am really concentrating on the consistency of the preserves.  That's the tricky part for me, getting it just-right-minus-water-bathing-time.  I am hoping to find myself in possession of a couple of flats of berries this month, too.  Strawberries are one of my favorite things in the food world.  I enjoy that fresh strawberries are one of those things that still has a natural season.  Knowing something will be gone soon makes it a little more precious.  Too bad I have not had much luck growing them!  Something to work on for next year, maybe.


I've been trying to walk my youngest son to school most days.  In spite of the fact that I hate being cold, and morning is not really my thing, never mind exercising in it, I do enjoy being out in the morning light.  The first week of school, I took my camera with me to capture the wonderful little things here and there, which are easier to notice when one is walking, instead of speeding by in a car.


I am working on my List.  (Warning:  it includes dead mice.)  I'm a little more than a third of the way through; one of my goals is to finish the whole thing - something I have not managed to do in previous years.  My latest acquisitions are #15 - the Number 2015, #88 repetition, and #69 traffic sign:


Of course, I have been knitting!  More on that soon, but here's a quick picture:


Now, to finish another batch of peaches before they go soft.  Happy end-of-summer!  What are you doing to celebrate??

Comments

  1. Love your photo list. Two in one trap - amazing. I live in the Western US. Born on the coast and have lived in one of the four corner states for over 60 yrs. I went East a few years ago and wanted to take pictures of all the new things I saw. One thing was a gorgeous Scarlet Tanager but sadly it was dead. I took a picture of it anyway. The only reason I saw it was because it was holding still. I may never see another one. Thanks for sharing.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I love it when you post -- you're always so inspiring! Your photos are gorgeous, as always. And I love that you're finding so much joy in the little things. I'm hoping fall will be a little slower, with more time for little pleasures -- we'll see! XO

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

I love reading your comments! Please be sure to LEAVE YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS (if it isn't included in your profile) so that I may respond to you. Thank you!

Popular posts from this blog

reasons I knit

I haven't posted a lot of knitting on here in the last few years.  Not much to say about it but I still knit.   I knit because I love to create. I knit because I love sweaters. I knit because I grew up with a mom who is artistic beyond the acknowledgement she receives, and it's in my blood to do something creative. I knit because I love the good things God grows, like sheep and wool and muskox and cotton. I knit because I love colors. I knit because my boys wear what I knit. I knit because I like the rhythm. I knit because it has a beginning and an end, and they are achievable.  I knit because when my hands are busy, my mouth slows down, and it gives my brain a chance to make better decisions. I knit because I'm really, really good at it, and it's one of the few things that others acknowledge, and we all need that. I knit because I love to knit. I'm working on a colorful shawl in alpaca. 

modular knitting

On the plus side, modular knitting gives one interesting options for colorwork and color blocking.  Sometimes the dye process can give the yarn its own commentary, like this changing of scales. However, there are often many more ends to weave in.  This one is not too bad, but there's at least four ends on every row - 14 rows.  Still, interesting to try something new! Details on my Ravelry page , if you are interested!!  Have you tried modular knitting?  Thumbs up or down??

getting through winter

As classes of all sorts get scheduled, rescheduled and postponed due to weather, and with the short days with less light, I often find January and February to be a forced pause.  Years like this convince me that I should get good at reading rain gauges and keeping track of the temperature.  It seems like we've had an usual amount of snow.  That should be good for our snow pack and seasonal runoff to fill creeks, lakes, basins, but we'll see what the spring brings.  In the meantime, I have been trying to tick off indoor chores and projects, and working on garden things.   We have started a handful of seedlings:  basil, foxgloves, verbascum, lavender, rosemary, onions and something new to us, naranjilla .  We have varying levels of success.  The naranjilla did take a long time to germinate; I think we used 11 seeds, and we currently have five seedlings, some a couple weeks older than others!  We're still 12-14 weeks out from planting and I really had my hands full last year -