Pies and Lettuce

I came home from town Tuesday afternoon and started to feel kind of punky. I immediately began dosing myself with vitamins, ibuprofen, and hot tea. If I am vigilant, I often can get ahead of whatever might be trying to take me out. I woke up yesterday morning still not feeling 100%, but I wasn’t any worse, either. My naturopath’s office changed my in-person visit to a phone visit so I didn’t have to drive there. (It’s an hour each way.) My doctor is happy with my bloodwork and with my assessment of how I am feeling, winter viruses notwithstanding.

By lunchtime, I felt almost back to normal. I made four pies for the gift festival today—two butterscotch and two chocolate shoo-fly. This is one of the shoo-fly pies:

I am not much of a baker. I don’t enjoy it and it is not where I like to put my creative energies. I am competent enough to provide pies when needed, but that’s it. I am much better at these kinds of pies than fruit pies, too, so I leave the fruit pies to other people.

I also revamped my lettuce-growing operation yesterday. Last winter, I did a system using small plastic totes from the home improvement store. The husband cut holes in the lid into which I dropped 3” net pots. The lettuce grew in rooting plugs inside the net pots. The totes were filled with water and growing medium.

That system worked well except that a) the totes were very heavy when filled with water and b) we could only get six pots in each tote lid. When I bought the grow light shelf after Christmas, I thought I might try 2” net pots in shallower trays. That worked—sort of—and then I switched to growing lettuce in the greenhouse and the garden over the summer.

I tried the indoor system again this month. The lettuce just doesn’t grow well in the shallower trays.

If you Google “Kratky system", you’ll get lots of information on growing lettuce in canning jars. The 3” net pots fit perfectly inside pint canning jars, but I don’t want a big system. (I haven’t eliminated that as a possibility just yet, however.) I messed around with the 2” net pots and a bunch of half-pint jars and discovered that the 2” net pots fit in those jars with the rings on. I have lots of rings, some of which need to be retired from canning.

I moved the currently-filled 2” net pots from the shallow trays to the jars.

We’ll see how this system does. Hopefully, the jars are big enough to allow the lettuce to grow but not so big that the setup gets unwieldy. If this doesn’t work, I’ll switch over to the 3” net pots in pint jars.

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This week’s Craft Industry Alliance newsletter included a summary of the results of the Premier Needle Arts annual quilter’s survey:

According to the data collected, the average quilter is a woman in her 60s who is retired and has a household income of $65k+. 17.5% of average quilters have full-time jobs. (Please do not begin sentences with numerals!) The average quilter today is comfortable with technology, has been quilting for over 10 years, and starts 10-12 quilt projects each year, mostly lap quilts or queen-sized quilts, in a traditional style. The average quilter spends more than six hours per week working on quilting projects.

As far as shopping trends go:

Three main factors determine where the average quilter shops. First is product availability. Then, the convenience of the location. If they’re shopping in person, they prefer to visit a brick-and-mortar shop that is 30 minutes or less drive from their home. The third determining factor when it comes to shopping is fabric choices and, according to the data collected, product availability is more important than price.

Are you listening, Joann Fabrics? Quilters do not want to be forced to buy two-yard minimums online. And I would hardly call a store that is only open six hours a day “convenient.”

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I am scheduled to work a morning shift today at the gift festival, which I will do if they will let me. I’ll take my pies to the church and find out. We also have the annual shareholder’s meeting for the craft co-op this afternoon.

I am not inclined to sew this week, although I did hem a pink French terry pullover and the gray sparkle Renee pants the other day. My schedule this month is such that I thought this might happen. Taking a break isn’t a bad idea.