What's Growing in Mountain Brook?

We were all exhausted at the end of the day, but the garden tour was a success! We will have a debriefing session some time later this week so we can compare notes and make plans for next year.

The only picture I have is this one:

Thank goodness for Robin, my hostess. I had organized everything I needed ahead of time, from plates and napkins to lemonade and homemade zucchini bread, but I am entirely worthless when it comes to hostessing. It is not and never will be one of my talents. Robin sent me to the old herb garden to cut echinacea, grabbed some Mountain Brook Studio pottery for the floral arrangements, and set up the refreshments where people could partake on their way in and out of the greenhouse. She sat at a table outside and greeted people as they arrived, keeping track of all the administrative details and freeing me up to talk about the garden. During the quiet times, she crocheted potholders—a woman after my own heart.

The day started out cool and foggy, but by mid-morning it was a glorious 70 degrees and sunny. We had somewhere around 50 people come through. I was at the very south end of the route, so I expected that some of the attendees might not make it down that far. However, tickets were punched at each garden, and anyone who got all five punches could take the ticket back to the starting area and enter to win the gift basket.

The best part, for me, was getting to meet some of the new people who have moved into our community. I am enough of an old-timer now, having been here for 28 years next week, that I put people on my mental landscape map based on whose house they live in. One couple said, “Yes, we live in that yellow house just around the sharp curve,” and I said, “Oh, Earl and Evelyn’s house!” They are several owners removed from Earl and Evelyn, and the house used to be red, but they are part of the neighborhood now. The lavender hedges generated lots of comments, and I invited people to come back in the spring to get lavender seedlings.

The pigs were thrilled to have so many people admiring them. They love to be social and came running to the fence as soon as people entered the garden.

Our tour organizer, Sunnie, is an artist, and she had arranged for each of us to have an artist set up for plein air painting. I had two—one set up in the garden and one set up in the front yard by the apple orchard. (I got more than my 10,000 steps in yesterday, because the garden is on the rental property and the orchard and chickens are here by the house, so there was a lot of back and forth.) Gini Ogle was painting in the garden. She did two small oils, one of a tomato and one of the greenhouse with the lavender hedge. I purchased the greenhouse painting from her at the end of the day. I don’t have it yet because she took it back to her studio to put some finishing touches on it.

The husband went to one of his jobsites to strip forms yesterday but helped us clean up and put things away when he got home. He needed a new pair of boots and I hadn’t made anything for dinner, so we had date night with a stop at the Army-Navy store followed by a fabulous dinner at Blaine Creek (for you locals). I had the most amazing grilled salmon and finished up with a piece of cheesecake with caramel sauce. The food there never disappoints, although the husband noted that they could do three times the business if they could find enough wait staff. Everyone is shorthanded.

Now garden cleanup can begin in earnest. We ran into one of our farmer friends at Blaine Creek and he and the husband made arrangements for the husband to go over and get some straw bales soon. I think I am going to pull everything but the tomatoes and get to work on bringing in some loads of compost.

But first, some down time for me in Spokane this week. I can’t wait.

Fire Cider

I put anther eight gallon zip bags of ripe tomatoes into the freezer yesterday. They will become the next batch of salsa. My friend Marcie came over mid-morning and got a couple of five-gallon buckets’ worth of tomatoes to round out her salsa-making. We stood out in the cool rain and worked and talked for a bit. After the excessive heat and drought this summer, working in the rain in 60-degree temps felt heavenly. I was in no hurry to come inside.

[This has been a banner year for tomatoes. Some of it was the heat, for sure. I planted fewer plants this year than last, and we’re still going to exceed last year’s harvest by quite a bit. I also saved seed from my best-producing plants from last season, and I think that makes a difference.]

The garden is as ready as it is going to be. The garden tour starts this morning—you can stop by the Mountain Brook Library on Foothill Road and get tickets if you don’t have them yet—and runs until 4 pm. We got a few more showers overnight, but today is supposed to be pleasant and about 70 degrees. I’ve got lemonade and zucchini bread ready for the guests. I’ll try to get some photos, but I may just be too busy.

After I finished up in the garden, I came in and made a batch of fire cider. While I appreciate the availability of modern medical treatments, I also believe in the power of good ole’ homemade remedies, and I’ve been stocking the medicine cabinet with vitamins and other supplies. Fire cider is a new one to me, although I’ve seen some of the ingredients in other cold and flu remedies. You can Google “fire cider” and get tons of recipes. The one I used calls for onion, garlic, ginger root, horseradish root (dug from my garden), orange zest and fresh orange juice, cayenne pepper, and any other spices you want to add (I put in some allspice and whole cloves). Mix everything in a quart mason jar and cover with apple cider vinegar:

Now it goes into a cool, dark cabinet to steep for a month. To use, strain and mix with honey/hot water to taste. I’ve got enough ingredients to do a few more batches.

Even if it’s only palliative, for alleviating symptoms, I plan to use it. The mixture was fairly pungent as I was getting it ready and I have no doubt it’s going to be a powerful decongestant.

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The husband did another timber frame barn foundation and slab a few weeks ago. He told me that this barn came from the same company that did my friend Tera’s barn. The company sends a crew out from back east to put the frame together, and they made a video of the barn raising. It’s on Vimeo and I cannot figure out how to embed it here, but if you click on the link, it should go right to the video.

I am making my list of things I want to get in Spokane when I go this week. I asked our renter and his wife if they needed anything from Trader Joe’s and their five year-old (Marcie’s granddaughter) piped right up and said she needed some Scandinavian Swimmers. That was a new one to me. Apparently, they are the Trader Joe’s brand of Swedish Fish. They are now on the list, along with a couple of one-pound bars of Trader Joe’s dark chocolate (for me) and the usual haul of chocolate-covered espresso beans for the husband. Does anyone else need anything?

Washington state has reinstituted its mask mandate for all inside spaces. Nordstrom had told all the corporate employees that they would be back in their offices at least a few days a week starting in September, but when I talked to DD#2 yesterday, she said they had pushed that back to January 2022. She’ll continue working from home until then.

On Flathead Lake

Part of me wasn’t sure WS would rise to the challenge, but except for a couple of trips to the bathroom, a break for lunch (pizza) around noon, and a quick stretch in the afternoon, he spent all of Wednesday in the husband’s recliner watching videos (mostly Land Before Time). He even told the husband that should the husband ever get another recliner, WS would be happy to take his old one. That recliner is a bone of contention here. The girls and I would like to get the husband a new one, but he says the old one is broken in and comfortable. It’s also dirty and ratty and starting to fall apart.

[Before anyone has a hissy fit, no, I do not believe in a steady diet of TV-watching and inactivity for children. Once in a while, as a treat, however, that is what it is—a treat. Adults “treat” themselves all the time in the name of self-care. WS starts school on Monday, and he has worked very hard this summer. I thought he deserved the down time.]

I made one last batch of zucchini bread and did some other household tasks, occasionally sitting down to watch TV and discuss dinosaurs with WS. He is a wealth of information.

Yesterday, we headed out early to do errands and have lunch before our boat cruise at 1 pm. One of our stops was Joann Fabrics, where I told WS he could pick out some dinosaur-themed fabric for a T-shirt. I plan to use the Oliver + S School Bus shirt pattern, which has already been printed and taped together for tracing:

I’d love to be able to get it done in time for him to wear on the first day of school, but I doubt that will happen.

We had lunch at Chick-Fil-A—his choice, because he had never been there. I forgot that little boys can put away a lot of food. (You would think I would know better, being married to the husband.) I should have gotten him a regular meal, not the kids’ meal. I had cookies in my purse for dessert, though.

We got to the marina at the appointed time, presented our tickets, and boarded the boat. I suggested we sit on the upper deck near the wheelhouse:

Alas, I hadn’t factored in the southwesterly “breeze” as we headed south down the lake, so the first half of the trip was a bit windy. About 15 minutes into the trip, WS discovered that our neighbor Chelsey and her daughter, Anna—who we refer to as “Little Anna” so as not to confuse her with “Big Anna,” who has the catering business—were also on the cruise. I got to visit with Chelsey for a bit and the kids hung out together.

Despite the blue skies, we still have enough smoke and haze to obscure a good view of the mountains. This is looking north/northeast as we were on our way back to the marina.

Those are two distinct ranges. The Mission range is in the foreground. It’s the darker range that peters out toward the left side of the photo. Behind it is the Swan range, which are the mountains just to the east of our house. I know the landscape well enough that I could point out where our house would be if the picture were a bit clearer.

Montana is breathtakingly beautiful.

We got home in time for WS to watch another couple of episodes of Land Before Time before his mom showed up to get him.

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My plan for today was to touch up the garden before the tour, but it has been raining off and on all night, with more showers expected today. I’ll do what I can in between the raindrops. There are a few things that will have to wait until tomorrow morning. The husband will be here to help me fold up tarps and move tables and chairs. I dropped off the apron that I made for the gift basket and then realized I had forgotten to take a picture of it. Oh, well.

The garden tour will mark the end of gardening season, in a sense. I’ll still be bringing in tomatoes and the melons will be allowed to ripen, but I’ll finish digging up potatoes, trim back the lavender hedges, and pull up the cukes and zucchini plants. It’s time to start putting the garden to bed for the winter. I will not lie, though—I am looking forward to my overnight trip to Spokane next week. I need some time where the only person I have to cater to is me.

Salsa Day

I’ve avoided making salsa for years because 1) The husband eats so much of it that I have joked about getting it delivered in 55-gallon drums; and 2) I was never happy with how mine turned out. My friend Smokey stopped by last week and I asked for his advice. Smokey is the father of one of my neighbors and he moved here 10 years ago from California. (He is, however, one of those people who might as well have been born here, because he fits right in.) He comes over every so often to sit on the porch with me and shoot the breeze. Smokey is an excellent cook, gardener, and used to raise livestock. He gave me some ideas to get started and said I should just play around with the spices until I was happy with how it tasted.

After the husband left for work yesterday morning, I got down to business. I chopped onions and garlic. I roasted and chopped Hatch chili peppers. I pulled eight gallon bags of frozen tomatoes out of the freezer and plopped all the tomatoes from one bag into a bowl of warm water, which is a neat trick I picked up from Amy Dingmann of the Farmish Kind of Life podcast. The skins slipped right off.

I do not separate my tomatoes when I freeze them, so the bags are filled with whatever is ripe at the moment. I would say the total was about 1/3 paste tomatoes (Oregon Star, Amish, and Purple Russian), 1/3 Dirty Girl, which are small, but those plants produce abundantly, and 1/3 Cherokee Purple. After chopping them coarsely, I put everything together in my 16-quart stock pot and cooked it down for a bit. I added salt, pepper, some cumin, and a dash of lime juice. I did not add any cilantro—even though I love it and it’s growing out in the garden—because the other three people in my family think it tastes like soap.

[Insert sad face here.]

I tasted the mixture and was pleasantly surprised. I like using the different varieties of tomatoes. The Cherokee Purples, being an heirloom variety, have a nice bite to them, but that’s toned down by the paste tomatoes. The result was 12 quarts of salsa goodness:

It was actually 12-2/3 quarts, so I left the 2/3 of a quart in the fridge and the husband had it on his eggs this morning, as he does every morning. And he had salsa on the meat loaf I made for dinner last night. I wasn’t kidding about the 55-gallon drums.

I always process my tomato sauce and salsa in the pressure canner—salsa, especially, because it’s got onions and chilis in it and I just don’t want to worry. My water bath canner only holds 7 quarts and the All-American holds 14, so it doesn’t take any additional time to pressure can.

Salsa is fairly labor-intensive but also easy to make in large batches. I know I’ll have enough tomatoes to make at least three or four dozen quarts this year, and if I get that much done, I’ll be happy. The husband asked me how much salsa I buy in a year and if I could make our whole supply and I said, “We don’t have that many tomatoes.”

I might make the next batch a bit hotter. Susan gave me some NuMex hot pepper plants and they produced well.

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I have WS today and tomorrow. Elysian took a teaching position in town and is having teacher orientation this week. Being the indulgent neighborhood aunt, I told WS that if he wants to park himself in the husband’s recliner all day and watch TV, that is fine with me, although his mother may have a different idea. We have tickets for a boat cruise on Flathead Lake tomorrow afternoon, so we’ll make a day of it and do lunch, too. The weather is supposed to be nice, with temps in the mid-70s, although it will be colder on the lake.

I’ve got reservations for an overnight stay in Spokane next week. The hotels were all booked—kids are coming back to college—so I found a room in a quiet Airbnb not far from where DD#1 lived when she was in grad school there. It’ll be a quick trip but a much-needed one.

Us Versus the Wildlife

We’re getting ready for the garden tour on Saturday! I hope my local readers will join us!

There are five gardens featured in the upcoming garden tour "What's Growing in Mountain Brook? (Legally)", Saturday, August 28, 10:00 am to 4:00 pm. Each garden has unique surprises awaiting you, from magic to medicinal herbs to heavy production. There are many different ways to garden---discover some of the different things these Mountain Brook gardeners do. Also enjoy the plein air artists and the relaxing day outside. Tickets are $10 per person and are available at the Mountain Brook Library, from Board Members, or by calling (406) 314-8232. Pick up your map to the gardens at the Library on Garden Tour Day. Tours start at each garden 5 minutes after the hour and leave plenty of time to wander around, ask questions, and enjoy the garden. Your center for bathrooms and refreshments is the Mountain Brook Community Library.

The painter who will be in my garden is coming for a visit this afternoon so we can meet each other and she can see where she would like to set up her easel.

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We have begun the annual fall battle against hungry, marauding wildlife. I have come upon the husband, more than once, yelling at the deer to get out of the apples. Over the weekend, he put up an electric fence:

Will it keep a determined bear out?—maybe not. It will, however, dissaude the deer from getting in there and munching on anything they can reach. It’s an interesting setup; the control box is mounted on the garage, a wire is attached to the fence around the porta-potty and then from there around the trees, back to the other side of the fence and finally to the garage again to complete the circuit. I just have to remember not to walk into it on my way to the mailbox.

I will need to pick apples soon, in any case, as the Lodi, State Fair, and Red Wealthy are close to being ready.

I also bagged the clusters of grapes—the ones that were left, anyway, because this year, the birds did not wait for the grapes to ripen—with organza gift bags.

If this works, I will do it earlier next year. I think I will also refrain from pruning grapes next spring. A hard pruning did wonders for the one vine that was struggling, but the rest of them put out a lot of foliage and that was it. My grapes have made it clear that they do not want to pretend they are in Tuscany. They have no desire to grow in a neatly manicured fashion. They need an arbor of some sort to trail over. The husband has said he will look at what he can do, but that’s a ways down on the to-do list.

I’ve got seven gallon bags of frozen tomatoes ready for the first round of salsa-making today. I have at least that many tomatoes (possibly more) ripening in the laundry room. It looks like I planted my tomatoes over a nuclear waste site. (I am really good at growing tomatoes, for some odd reason, and my technique consists of sticking plants in the ground.) There will be more than enough for us. Some of my Oregon Star paste tomatoes—which I grew from seed that I saved from the biggest one last year—are huge. This one weighs 14.7 ounces. Once it ripens, it will provide seed for next year’s crop.

I do tend to pull the tomatoes as soon as they have any pink on them and let them ripen inside. Less temptation for the ground squirrels.

The husband is enjoying Minnesota Midget melons with his breakfast and I’m waiting for a few more watermelons to ripen. The peas look good, but unless it warms up a bit more in September, I doubt I’ll get a second crop. We did cover everything last night because of a frost warning. The temperature was 35 degrees when I woke up, so that was probably a good call.

I am about ready for gardening season to be over. As soon as the tomatoes are done, so will I be. All that’s left will be cleanup and the application of some chicken and pig manure.

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I am trying to work through the rest of the material I had set aside for summer T-shirts. Frost warnings notwithstanding, we could still be in the 80s for much of September. Once the fabric is cut, the T-shirt takes about half an hour to assemble—save for the hems—so I’ve been making them here and there as I have time. After the shirts are all made, I’ll have a marathon coverstitching session and do all the hems.

I’m also making a pile of stuff that needs altering, mostly hems. I have one top, in particular, that I would wear more often except that I don’t like the length of the sleeves. They aren’t really short sleeves but they aren’t really elbow-length sleeves, either. It occurred to me the other day that it will take me 20 minutes to shorten and hem the sleeves to a better length on the coverstitch machine.

And then I’ll get started on making some long-sleeve tops and hoodies for cooler weather.

Life Without a Dog

Thank you all for the kind words about Lila. I will not lie; it has been a tough couple of days. I am used to having her here with me in the house and it is disconcerting to be entirely alone.

The last few days have been cool and rainy. The only thing happening in the garden right now is that the tomatoes continue to ripen. I cleaned the house, made half a dozen pillowcases, finished some rolled hem napkins, and cut out another Kensington skirt—black ponte this time—and a couple more T-shirts.

I was talking about fabrics with a friend of mine who also makes her own T-shirts. We agreed that we can’t quite understand why Joann Fabrics has such ugly garment fabrics. Truly, some of them are really hideous. Joanns has a line of knits—the 98% cotton/2% spandex ones—that are carried under the Pop! label and intended to be for juvenile apparel. Naturally, they are heavy on dinosaurs, cute forest animals, and bright colors, as they should be. My biggest gripe with that line is the scale of the prints. Kids’ clothes, especially baby clothes, are tiny. The prints should be scaled down accordingly, but they aren’t. Some of the motifs are way too big for small pieces of clothing.

And someone thought this was appropriate for a line of juvenile fabric:

It’s cute—this middle-aged woman bought some to make a T-shirt out of—but it’s not what I would consider a “juvenile” print. Also, the scale is too big for small clothing. Those greenhouses are 4” across. The print will look fine in an adult garment, but it’s going to look weird in a T-shirt for a young child.

I get it—this is Joann Fabrics we’re talking about. And I am aware that they’ll try to squeeze as much revenue out of a design as possible, so they’ll often have the same design available in cotton, fleece, flannel, and knits. That doesn’t leave much consideration for the appropriateness of the design for the fabric. A design that looks good as a fleece blanket might not look good on a kids’ T-shirt. Still, I wonder how one gets to be a fabric designer for them, because I am tempted to apply for the position. Because wouldn’t it be better to design fabrics that are attractive and of the correct scale and sell out of them instead of having a whole bunch of leftover ugly fabric that has to go on clearance or be sold as scrap?

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Our church conference had its annual meeting yesterday. We were hoping to have it in person this year, but out of an abundance of caution, the Board decided to have it online, instead. I was planning to fringe a finished prayer shawl during the meeting. However, I could not find the fourth skein of yarn in that colorway (Lion Brand Homespun). I make the shawl with three skeins and use the fourth for fringe. The missing skein might be in the bin of yarn at church. I grabbed another batch of yarn from my stash and cast on for another shawl. The meeting lasted several hours and I got a good chunk of work done.

[I again wonder how meeting attendees can sit for three or four hours with nothing to work on. Is it just me that has trouble?]

One of our discussion questions during the meeting was whether or not we should meet in person or online. The churches in our conference are geographically spread out, unlike conferences back east where you can swing a cat and hit a dozen Mennonite churches within a small radius. Ours is the congregation furthest east, in Kalispell, and there is a congregation in Anchorage. Meeting locations vary, depending on who is willing to host them, but it’s a 12-hour drive from here to Boise or Portland. We also have winter driving conditions to contend with. (I did comment, though, that I’ve made to the trip to the February meeting in Portland twice in a snowstorm, because if you live here, you just learn to drive in it.) Ultimately, the vote was 2/3 in favor of hybrid meetings, where those who want to gather in person can, and those who want to join in online can do so as well.

I am 100% in favor of in-person meetings. I hate Zoom, for all that I get a lot of knitting done. Part of that is my fondness for road trips and part of that is a desire to see my friends in person. I can’t get to Seattle for a while yet, but I am planning to squeeze an overnight trip to Spokane into the schedule here before too long. The rain has eased fire concerns enough that I am comfortable venturing further afield.

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I had a good conversation with the quilt store owner yesterday about classes and students. One of the issues with Thursday’s night’s class was a lack of preparation. One lady hadn’t received the supply list. (I do bring leftover fabrics and supplies in case that happens, but I don’t want students to rely on me to provide things.) Several students wanted to shop for supplies when they got there, despite the fact that I was very specific in the supply list—down to suggesting a suitable brand of thread—so they could buy before class. A couple of people walked in and announced that they had never taken the machine out of the box/closet and had no idea how to thread it. Another student wasn’t interested in rolled hems on woven fabrics and wanted to jump right to lettuce edges.

It’s going to take some time and ongoing “training” to get students used to taking classes, but I pointed out that if the store is going to continue to attract nationally-known teachers—Krista Moser will be there in a few weeks—those teachers are going to expect students to come to class ready to learn. I suggested that the store make something available, either on the website or as a handout when registering, that gives tips for “getting the most out of a class.” I offered to write it up. The handout would include things like becoming familiar with the machine before class (and bringing the manual), having the correct supplies, and not expecting the teacher to tailor a group class specifically to individual students.

This isn’t going to happen overnight, and there will always be students in a class who come less than prepared, for whatever reason. For these serger classes, though, I am going to insist that if someone has never used a serger—or never used the serger they want to bring to class—that they either take a mastery class, first, or make arrangements for a private class ahead of time. You could get away with coming to a sewing class with a new-to-you sewing machine, but sergers are a whole ‘nother beast entirely.

A Good Dog

The house is very quiet this morning. Out of habit, I came downstairs and walked over to open the kitchen door to let Lila out, except that Lila isn’t here. We lost her yesterday to a sudden and unexpected medical emergency.

The day started out normally, but midmorning, I heard an odd noise on the porch. I went out to find Lila lying down, breathing hard. She struggled to her feet and managed to get inside, where she flopped down on her pouf. I called the husband, then the vet, then our renter, who came over and lifted her up—dog bed and all—and put her into the back of my car. The vet took her in immediately and said she would call me as soon as she knew something.

That took most of the day. By late afternoon, they had determined that Lila had a tumor on her heart and that it was causing bleeding into the sac around the heart and into her chest. She was in a bad way. We had had no absolutely no warning as Lila hadn’t been behaving any differently than a 13 year-old dog would. The vet gave us the option of bringing her home but said she might not survive the trip and that it would be more compassionate to have her euthanized there. We agreed. The husband went to the vet’s office to be with her and bring her home.

She was such a good dog, one of the best we have ever had.

RIP, Lila. You will be missed.

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I managed to pull it together enough to go ahead with my serger class on rolled hems last night. I had seven students, four of whom were students from my first class. I’ve taught enough classes to have a sense of what the class is going to be like before it even starts—while the students are getting set up—and I decided to lower expectations right from the outset. I had planned for rolled hems on both woven and knit fabrics, but I told the students that if all we mastered were rolled hems on woven fabrics, they would be 90% of the way there.

I had seven students with seven different sergers: A Brother, a Huskylock, two Babylocks (different models), two Berninas (different models), and a Necchi. I had brought my Juki. A couple of the students either had never used a serger or never used the serger they had brought to class. Having that many different machines in one class is a challenge, and one that requires me to think on my feet. I was able to get everyone’s machine up and running save one, and—oh, the irony—it was the Necchi. We got the machine threaded and making a good serger stitch, but in order to make a rolled hem, you have to disengage the stitch finger. On most machines, that is done by moving a lever from one position to another. We could not figure out how to disengage the stitch finger on that machine. There was a lever but another piece of the machinery was preventing it from moving. That student didn’t have the manual with her and I could not find a copy online. She was very gracious about it and said she would go home and try to figure out how to do it on her own now that she understood the basic concept.

Several of the students were able to finish the edges of a set of napkins. (We all cheered when someone held up the first completed napkin.) A few more were able to get a good rolled hem by the end of the class and planned to do their napkins at home. Toward the end of the class, I took some time to explain the difference between rolled hems on wovens and rolled hems (lettuce edges) on knits and how to switch from one to the other.

Overall, I was pleased with the way the class went. The students must have been pleased, too, because they started asking what the next class would be even before last night’s class ended. I need to look at my calendar and talk to the owner and class coordinator, but I suspect the next class is going to be a draft-your-own T-shirt class. (I wore one of my me-made T-shirts to class.) That one probably will be on a Saturday as it’s going to have to be a longer class.

The mama hen wasted no time in getting the chick out to the chicken yard yesterday. I checked the rest of the eggs and they were infertile, so one chick is all we have right now.

Dave is a Dad

When I went into the coop Monday afternoon to do chicken chores, I thought I heard a faint peep coming from one of the nesting boxes. None of the broody hens would volunteer any further information, however. I figured that if there were a chick, I’d find out about it eventually.

On Tuesday, I could hear peeping as soon as I opened the coop door. Sure enough, the broody Buff Orpington hen had a chick with her:

She has been sitting on four or five eggs (and a golf ball), and of all the hens, she has acted the broodiest. That is not surprising as the Buffs are the only reliable broody hens I’ve ever had.

She’s still setting, which makes me think that perhaps another egg might hatch. In the meantime, I put some food and water in with her, and she gratefully hoovered it down.

I had to institute a rule this year that I am the only person allowed to be in charge of broody hens. One of us—the one who has never gestated a mini-me, let alone two—does not have the patience required to allow broody hens to set. He thinks that if a hen gets off the nest to get some food and a drink of water, it has abandoned its eggs and he should collect them. The hen hasn’t abandoned its eggs. It was hungry and thirsty. But I know this is killing him. A few days ago, he came in from the coop and said, “Did you know there are like three dozen eggs out there?”

Yes, yes I do. I know how exactly how many eggs are out there. I know which eggs I should bring in. I know which eggs I should leave because a hen is setting on them. I know precisely how long the hens have been parked on top of eggs. Everything is under control.

This chick has a dark spot on its head, which bodes well that it is probably a pullet. Thank goodness. We certainly don’t need any more roosters here.

I’ve still got a broody Barred Rock, who took over for a broody Leghorn (yeah, I didn’t think that would last), and a broody Light Brahma. The Barred Rock looks fairly committed. We’ll find out.

Dave is thus far unimpressed by his accomplishment.

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We went from 92 with a hot, dry wind on Monday afternoon to 55 with a cool breeze and showers on Tuesday afternoon. I’m sure you know which I prefer. If it weren’t for the fact that I still have to get tomatoes in and processed, I’d be fine with the cooler weather from here on out. At least digging potatoes will be more pleasant now that temps have moderated.

I really need to get started on the fall wardrobe, though. Serger class is tonight, and once that is over, I can get back to making a few key pieces. I also pulled some fabric to make a few more items for the sale next month. Tomorrow is supposed to be dry and cool and will be a garden work day. Saturday is supposed to be cool and rainy. I have a Zoom conference to attend in the morning, but the afternoon may end up being a marathon cutting session.

Just Like Kevin Bacon

The Mennonites have this thing called The Mennonite Game, which can be summed up thusly: Put two Mennonites in a room together, and within 10 minutes, they will have figured out how they are related.

I’ve seen it in action and it’s fascinating. Having come to the Mennonites from another denomination, I can’t lay claim to being related to many of them, but I like to play a version of the game every so often.

Back in 1993, when we were getting ready to move to Montana, my grandmother pulled out one of her church periodicals and pointed to a blurb about the Missouri Synod Lutheran church in Kalispell. “Promise me that you will go to this church when you get there,” she said. Being the dutiful granddaughter, I did as my grandmother asked. The church had a wonderful moms’ group run by a lady named Nancy, who became one of my other “moms” (I have several). Nancy and her husband are DD#2’s godparents.

The church in Kalispell grew enough that they decided to start another, smaller church, out in our fire district, pastored by the former minister of the town church. By that time, I had already started attending the Mennonite church, but I knew several people who attended the Church at Creston, as it is called, and Nancy and her husband were among them.

I attended a memorial service yesterday at the Church at Creston. Our fire department’s former assistant chief, Bob, died in June. He and his wife were members there. Being at that memorial service was a weird intersection of two very different parts of my life. I went in with my friend, Pat, and her husband, a retired member of our fire department. We all go to the Mennonite church. After the service, the three of us were standing in line for food when I spotted Nancy. Nancy and her husband had been good friends with Bob and his wife. She came over and I said, “I need to introduce you to someone.” I motioned Pat over and introduced her to Nancy and said, “Nancy’s granddaughter goes to Bethel College.” (Bethel is a Mennonite college in Kansas and obviously doesn’t limit itself to Mennonite students.) Pat said, “Our son graduated from Bethel!”

A few minutes later, we were all seated at a table with the former pastor of the church in town—who is now retired from pastoring the Church at Creston—and he and his wife asked me how the girls were doing. I said that DD#1 was married and living in Alaska and I added, half-jokingly, “She married a good Lutheran boy—he graduated from St. Olaf.” The gentleman sitting next to me—who is the pastor of the Missouri Synod church in Whitefish—said, “I graduated from St. Olaf!” We also talked a bit about the ELCA church where I play piano for Lent and Advent.

[Our DSIL’s mother’s maiden name is the same as the name of the pastor of the Whitefish church, but I didn’t think to ask if they were somehow related. I’ll have to check into that.]

Despite the sadness of the occasion, it was wonderful to sit and catch up with people I hadn’t seen in many years. And I am reminded again just how small the world really is, if you’re willing to make an effort to find out.

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It is a blessedly cool 58 degrees outside and we are waiting for the rain to arrive. I took my first batch of dried cherries out of the dehydrator yesterday and started a second batch. (That’s a half-gallon Mason jar, so it’s more than it appears.)

I also cut up some zucchini and dried that, too. I’ll either throw it into soups this winter or rehydrate it for chicken treats.

I finished another apron, the one with the cute chef fabric.

The reverse is the same black and white gingham as the pocket on the front. I use a lot of polka dot prints, but I am developing a fondness for gingham.

A Tree Falls—Again

The husband went out yesterday morning to let the pigs out, and when he came back, he said, “There is a tree hanging over the path to the garden, so watch when you go out there.”

Of course, I had to go look:

It’s a skinny grand fir, but you can see it leaning from bottom right to top left in the pic.

I walked to the other side and got a reverse angle shot. These trees tend to rot at the bottom and then shear off in the slightest breeze.

The fir got hung up in this mountain maple, which is another tree I dislike. They aren’t “trees” so much as they are a collection of branches sticking up from the ground. About their only use is for cushioning the fall of bigger trees. This maple kept the fir from taking out our little bridge.

[Krause Creek runs near our house. Many years ago, before the creek was diverted (in the 70s, maybe?) Krause Creek actually ran through our property. The old creek bed is still visible. The bridge in the picture goes over that old creek bed.]

I positioned myself in a safe spot and watched the proceedings. The husband cut the tree at the base, first, to see where it would go. It was pretty well hung up in that maple, so it didn’t do much except cantilever up and down. He worked back and forth from either end and got most of it cut up.

And then he surgically dissected what was left of the fir from within the maple. I commented that I wouldn’t be too busted up to see that maple disappear if that made his job easier, but it’s fire season and we don’t want to add to the existing brush. He said we could re-evaluate this fall when we’re cleaning up the property.

It was hot and windy yesterday. Today is “supposed” to be the last hot day—not as hot as yesterday, though—before we get rain and cooler temps tomorrow. Let’s hope. I am going to get done what I can while it’s cool this morning. I’ve got to get my serger class handout written up, too. The cooler weather coming up is going to make it much easier to finish the garden cleanup for the garden tour.

I am still figuring out the finer points of the dehydrator, like exactly how long it takes to dry cherries, but I can tell that it’s going to be a useful piece of equipment.

The Last Couple of Miles of Summer

What a difference between last Sunday—when we were shivering outside at our church service/picnic—and today, when the high is supposed to hit 92. We are forecast to get showers on Tuesday (yay!) with a high of 65, and then it’s only going to be in the 70s for the rest of the week. Hallelujah. Between the heat and the fires and the tourists, this summer has felt like an absolute marathon.

Someone dropped a box of cherries off at our house. Thank you, whoever you are! Neither of us eats a lot of fresh cherries, but they were beautiful and I wanted to do something with them:

I washed and pitted them, cut them in half, then put them in my new dehydrator. They are about halfway through the drying cycle. Dried cherries will be great in cookies and trail mix.

I tidied the house Friday. I won’t say I “cleaned” the house, because most of it needs to be torn apart, vacuumed and washed down to get rid of the dust and ash. There is no point doing that until later in the fall, but I did clean the bathrooms and pick up and organize my sewing area. I recently joined the Mountain Brook Craft Co-Op, which is loosely affiliated with our Mountain Brook Ladies’ Club (many of the same people), and I am hoping to sell some of the stuff I’ve made at the co-op sale in September. I had to be juried in, but it’s a good fit because I think most of what they sell at the sale are sewn items. I’ve got quite a bit of inventory already. If I have some time between now and the sale, though, I’d like to make a few more items. In order to do that, my workflow is going to have to be very streamlined. I’m anticipating a couple of days of marathon cutting followed by assembly-line sewing and serging. If I don’t get stuff done before this sale, then it will get bumped to later this winter for next year’s sale.

I need to figure out what is going on with one of my Juki sergers. I have two of the same model, an MO-654DE, but the second one needs adjusting. I have the first one set up for wovens and the second one for knits. The second one does fine with knits but it refuses to make a proper rolled hem on a woven fabric even when the settings are identical on both machines. It also is much noisier than the other machine and has been that way since I bought it. Unfortunately, there is a fail-safe that doesn’t allow the machine to run when the door is open, and if the door is closed, I can’t see where the noise is coming from.

[I wish I could make three-thread rolled hems on my industrial Juki. It’s a five-thread machine that can be converted to a three-thread machine, but it doesn’t have a way to do rolled hems. Industrial machines specifically for making rolled hems and only rolled hems do exist, but I don’t plan on buying one.]

We had our last Handi-Quilter Ruler Club last Tuesday. Many of us wanted to continue into the fall but we want to do something different so we’re switching to the Amanda Murphy Lollipop templates. This ruler club also comes with a pre-printed panel for practicing quilting with each of the Lollipop rulers. This club doesn’t start until October, which is great because I have no idea how I would shoehorn anything else into September.

The husband found the YouTube channel for Engels Coach Shop in Joliet, Montana, and we’ve been watching some of the videos. (The husband just did a shop foundation for someone who collects old carriages.) The videos are very well done. We watched one where the wheelwright was making the cover to one of the carriages. In part of the video, he was sewing on an industrial machine. It took me a few minutes of stopping and starting the video, but I finally figured out that he is sewing on a Singer 12W, which was the old Wheeler and Wilson 12. The giveaway was the foot style—his machine has the same kind of presser foot as the Singer 9W I’ve been working on, which was the old Wheeler and Wilson D9. (My 9W is almost back together except for the tension assembly.) I am not sure if he was making the tops with oilskin or thin leather, but the machine handled it beautifully. I had a few moments of serious machine envy there.

I had to go to town yesterday morning. While I was at Hobby Lobby, I ran into one of my students from my June serger class. She is also signed up for this week’s class—along with another repeat student—and asked if I could show her which needles to get. I found her the ones she needed and we chatted for a few minutes.

In the few minutes I’ve found here and there to sew, Vittorio has been churning out apron ties. The next apron is going to be out of this very cute chef fabric remnant:

One of the drawbacks of the remnant rack is that by the time a fabric ends up there, the likelihood of it being sold out altogether is pretty high. Sometimes I can order more online, or find it at a nearby store (“nearby” being defined as Missoula or Spokane), but sometimes what I get is all that’s available.

Potatoes and Beans

I started digging potatoes yesterday morning:

We have a good crop this year. I dug out some Yukon Golds the size of softballs. Yukon Gold and Classic Russet make up the bulk of what we eat, but there are also some Butter Reds and a few Purple Vikings in there, too. I’ll dig them all and then sort into burlap bags for storage. The Yukon Golds need to be eaten first as they don’t store well long-term.

That area of the garden is between the raspberries and the lavender hedge, and it’s going to be where I put the strawberries next year. That way, all the berries will be in the same area of the garden. The husband dumped a load of compost in that spot last fall and the potatoes were mulched with straw, so by the time the straw breaks down over the winter, the soil should be well amended.

Our friend Anna, who has a catering business, ordered green beans for me from one of her local suppliers. I didn’t grow any this year, but they will be on the list for next year. She dropped off 10 pounds of beans for me the other night and those turned into 16 pints of French-style green beans yesterday. Elysian had gotten me a green bean cutter for my birthday and I wanted to try it out:

I am on the fence. This is a sturdy little gadget—cast iron—but it needs to be clamped to something. I can’t clamp it to either my countertop or the kitchen table, so I used the wooden stand that came with my apple peeler. I had to put the stand on top of a book, though, to get the cutter high enough off the table. It was not the most stable of arrangements. Also, you can’t do more than one or two beans at a time or the cutter jams. It was slow going.

I did the first five pounds and processed them, and while the first batch was processing, I did the other five pounds. My big pressure canner holds 19 pints; I could have done all 16 pints at once, but it worked well to do them in two batches. They only have to process for 20 minutes, so I wasn’t waiting forever between batches. (Dry beans, in contrast, have to process for 90 minutes, and the canner takes a long time to cool down enough to open.) I was taking the second batch out of the canner and making spaghetti for dinner just as the husband was pulling in to the driveway. Sixteen pints are ready for the pantry:

I may still take my friend Marcie up on her offer to get green beans from her garden, but I probably won’t french those unless I can rig up a better system. I saw that another blogger had clamped her slicer to a wooden barstool and attached a bowl beneath it with a bungee cord, so I might try that. Also, according to the Cuisinart website, I should be able to slice beans horizontally using the food processor—and my new one is here and ready to use—so that’s another possibility.

If you don’t try, you won’t know.

I was hoping to unbox my new LEM dehydrator and get it up and running yesterday, too, but I didn’t get to it. I have an American Harvester dehydrator which works fine for a lot of foods, but it’s round (a weird shape for drying things) and has no temperature control. I find it hard to dry herbs in that dehydrator without them getting cooked to a crisp. Susan has a LEM dehydrator and raves about it. She loves the stainless steel trays. I will be curious to see how it does with herbs. I would like to start drying more of mine for tea, especially as I was able to expand my patch of chocolate mint this year.

I’ve got to check the apples today. Lodi is an early pie variety and I suspect these may be earlier than usual this year. We’ll find out.

My Apron Apron

I found a yard of this fabric on the remnant rack and fell in love. It was destined to become an apron:

I made it up in a basic chef’s apron pattern. The back is Robin Pickens’ “Thatched” fabric in the same acid green that is in the print. I added a large pocket because I need large pockets in my aprons.

[Did I ever tell you the story of butt-dialing 911 a few months ago? I was working in the greenhouse and bent over to get something and all of a sudden, my phone—in my apron pocket—started making a screeching alarm sound. Somehow, I had managed to depress the right combination of buttons and soon found myself chatting with a dispatcher. It was a slow day in dispatch and we had a nice conversation. She assured me that I wasn’t the first person to have done that.]

I love that this print is on a dark background. I need aprons that can stand up to some dirt.

Field testing my T-shirts is giving me lots of valuable information about what fabrics I like. Right now, the Laguna Cotton is edging out the Joann Fabrics cotton/spandex fabric. The Laguna Cotton has 5% spandex to the Joanns 2% spandex, and I am finding that the extra spandex makes a difference. I wore one of my Joann shirts yesterday, and while it fit well, the fabric recovery is not as good as the Laguna Cotton. By the end of the day, it had stretched out a bit more than I like. However, it is still a useful and comfortable top.

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Round 2 of bean canning was 15 pints of black beans, the La Preferida brand that Teri suggested:

I will be doing green beans later this week.

I am looking at my schedule for September and October and panicking only slightly, LOL. I am not sure how the days got filled, but fall is going to be almost as busy as the summer. At least it won’t be as hot (I hope).

Today’s schedule includes cutting the grass for one last time—we stop cutting in July because it gets hot and dry and the “grass” goes dormant, but usually in August, the crop of weeds that makes up part of our lawn needs to be topped off. Because we’re under stage 2 fire restrictions and not supposed to be using internal combustion engines outside after 1 pm, I need to get the cutting done this morning. And our last Ruler Club class is at the quilt store this afternoon.

Cold Feels Good

We planned an outside service and church picnic for yesterday morning. Our pastor said that if he had known it would bring rain, he would have scheduled it earlier in the summer. We were under a pavilion at the local fish hatchery, so we stayed dry, but it was in the 50s for most of the morning. And this will only make sense to people who don’t do well in the heat, but it felt wonderful to be cold enough that I had to put on warm clothes.

[Hardy folks, we Montanans. We picnic in all kinds of weather.]

The rain will help the garden, but we also had some thunderstorms. We’ll have to see if there are lightning strike fires that flare up this week when it gets back into the 90s again. Ugh.

I got a giggle out of this yesterday morning:

The husband had set up some sawhorses with lumber on top earlier in the week. I called him over to show him and said that the turkeys were grateful for the rain shelter he had built for them. He said if he had known, he would have thrown a tarp over it, too.

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Saturday morning was overcast and blissfully cool, so I spent the whole morning out in the garden. The first order of business was to cut out all the spent raspberry canes. I usually do this in the spring, but there is no reason it can’t be done in the fall. I am trying to beat back the raspberry patch to a manageable size and get the thorny variety out of there in favor of the thornless one. Fortunately, the thornless one is more vigorous and it has taken over much of the patch.

I also need to evict some ground squirrels:

I wasn’t planning on digging up potatoes yet, but I am not going to leave them for the rodents to snack on. I may have to camp out there with the .22 for a few days.

I hope the cucumber vines are close to being done producing. I think I’ve hauled in almost two hundred pounds of cukes this summer. Half of what I brought in on Saturday turned into these:

They are curry pickle slices, which is a recipe from one of my canning books. I tasted some before I canned them and they were pretty good. We’ll see how they taste after a month.

The gooseberries are ripe and I got enough to make a pie for the husband. His grandmother used to make gooseberry pies when he was growing up. I don’t know that mine is as good, but I was happy to use the fruit. I also pruned out some of the branches, similar to what I did with the currants.

I transplanted another row of lettuce seedlings. The first row bolted and is about to go to seed, which I will let it do so that lettuce comes up in that spot again next spring. And I have tiny seedlings coming up in a second tray in the greenhouse. This may be the year that I finally master succession planting.

Right now, the garden is at that stage of cleanup where it looks worse than when I started, but if I can get the canes piled up in an appropriate spot and do a bit of raking, it should look nice for the garden tour.

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With all of that gardening and kitchen work on Saturday and the picnic yesterday, I did not have time to sew much besides the straps for a couple of aprons. I offered to make a garden-themed apron for the raffle gift basket for the garden tour. That fabric was pulled from the stash and is waiting to be cut out.

The cool weather made me realize, though, that I need to get started on some long-sleeve tops for the fall.

Making All the Things

I said to the husband over dinner last night that I feel like I haven’t gotten as much accomplished this summer as I wanted to. Always one for putting things into the proper perspective, he responded with, “The summer isn’t over yet. We still have several weeks to go.”

No slacking around here, trust me.

And truly, I have gotten a lot done this summer. This is just me wrestling with the guilt of spending so much time sewing instead of gardening. I did scale back the garden quite a bit this year because of the need to kill weeds, and it was way too hot for me to work out there most days. Despite that, I kept up with the mowing and weeding. The pantry will be full this winter. I don’t have anything to feel guilty about.

Today is supposed to be pleasantly cooler, and tomorrow and Monday may be downright chilly and wet, with temps in the 60s and a 70% chance of rain. I’ve even seen warnings to backcountry hikers that they may encounter snow above 7000 feet. It gets hot again next week, unfortunately, but this will be a nice respite. It still won’t be enough to make a dent in the fires, though.

I canned 14 pints of white beans yesterday.

These are some that I grew myself. The husband asked me if I was planning to enter these in the fair. (No.) I also found the La Preferida brand of pinto beans and black beans that Teri recommended. (Thank you!) The next batch of beans will be black beans, I think.

Today is a garden work day. I’m going to cut back the spent raspberry canes, transplant some lettuce seedlings, and harvest herbs.

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I finished the dark green Kensington skirt, which was a ridiculously fast and easy project that pairs perfectly with this Liz Claiborne top:

The skirt fits me like a second skin and is very comfortable to wear. No mods will be required to the pattern, although I’d like to figure out a different way to do the yoke. The pattern calls for 1” wide elastic and I did change that to 1-1/2” wide elastic. I am not convinced that the skirt even needs the elastic, however, as that ponte holds it shape well and I am curvy enough to hold it up. It almost has the feel of a scuba knit. All in all, not bad for an $8 remnant and a couple of hours of sewing. The black version is on deck.

[If Joann Fabrics ever does away with the remnant rack, I will be one sad puppy.]

DD#2 noted that I am going to have to find places to wear all of these clothes. I told her that I might be able to sport a different outfit to church every Sunday for a year.

I’ve also got a couple of aprons moving through the assembly line. I went back to Vittorio, my beloved Necchi BF, to make those. It took me a couple of minutes to get used to sewing on a sewing machine again instead of a serger or coverstitch. The difference is noticeable.

Marcie's Mystery Squash

I stopped in to visit my friend Marcie and her husband yesterday morning. We wandered around their garden for a bit and looked at what they had planted. Everyone I know seems to be drowning in cucumbers this year. Marcie was canning relish when I got there.

Their corn looks like mine, and I heard from another friend that hers didn’t do well this year, either. And yet some people have really nice looking patches of corn. I wonder what’s going on.

Tom and Marcie have some very interesting winter squash. This one is the size of a Hubbard but it’s not blue.

Marcie thinks it’s some kind of Japanese pumpkin. (Kabocha, maybe?) She said I could try one when they ripen.

Our watermelons are getting ripe, and the cantaloupe aren’t far behind:

Our cucumber plants show no sign of slowing down. I think I might make some pickles this weekend. I’ve also had navy beans soaking and those need to get canned this morning. Green beans are on the schedule for some time next week. Elysian gifted me a green bean frencher that she picked up at a thrift store and I want to try it out.

Every day, I get a few more tomatoes. It won’t be long before I’ll be bringing them in in five-gallon buckets.

I broke down and bought a spiralizer a few weeks ago. I had a handheld one from Pampered Chef, but it was hard to use. The OXO spiralizer I got comes with three blades and it’s sturdier than I expected considering it’s all plastic. I am having fun spiralizing zucchini. The other day I did a couple of sweet potatoes and roasted them.

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After I stopped at Marcie’s yesterday, I went to the church. We were supposed to have our monthly Mennonite Women meeting/sewing, but Pat, Elaine, and I were the only ones there. It’s getting harder and harder for our older members to make it, and several of them are finding it difficult to quilt because of arthritis. The three of us quilted and visited for a bit. We’re doing “prairie quilting” on the current top, which is bigger stitches with a single strand of crochet cotton instead of quilting thread. I am reasonably good at prairie quilting. It’s like quilting with training wheels.

I’m not sure if our group will keep meeting or not. We’ll have to talk about it.

I came home and did chicken chores. I’ve given up trying to collect eggs. It’s hot and the hens are not laying as much. Also, four or five of them have decided to park themselves on piles of eggs and act broody. The other day I went out there and three hens were crammed into the same nesting box. I have to take a deep breath and remind myself that their brains are the size of peas.

Later in the afternoon, I cut the Kensington skirt out of the dark green ponte knit and put it together. It just needs the elastic band put in, and then I can see how it fits and whether the pattern needs tweaking or not.

This book arrived yesterday:

Part of the reason I bought the book was because it includes a pattern for a knot top dress (the one on the cover) and I wanted to analyze the construction. The book is intended to be a beginner’s guide to sewing with knits, so it includes great basic information, from choosing fabrics to tips and tricks on sewing with knits. The designs are simple enough to allow for good fitting refinements, but Tilly includes lots of ideas for customizing them. My only quibble with the book—and it’s minor, certainly—is that the focus is more on sewing knits with a sewing machine than with a serger. I understand the rationale; sergers (and especially coverstitch machines) are still considered specialty machines by a lot of sewists. Still, I found myself looking at her assembly instructions and having to think through how I would do them on a serger instead of a sewing machine.

I bought the book for the knot top dress, but there is a simple turtleneck dress that has moved to the top of the list. The red Liverpool knit will work perfectly for that pattern. I’ll pair it with some tights to wear to church.

I’ve always been interested in fashion but 1) I have never had a need for it, because the chickens don’t care what I wear; and 2) I find it hard to spend money for clothing that fits badly and is poorly made. Now that I can make things that fit me and come in bright colors instead of muddy earth tones, I want to make ALL THE THINGS.

RIP Cuisinart

My 31-year-old Cuisinart food processor—a wedding present from my MIL—gave up the ghost yesterday. I went to turn it on and . . . nothing. I plugged it into a different outlet. Still nothing. I was able to save the recipe by using a smaller backup Cuisinart machine, but that one isn’t as nice as my main machine. My MIL was very serious about her kitchen appliances, so she bought me the (in 1990) top-of-the-line professional 14-cup model with all the accessories. It has seen me through many a canning season.

The husband thinks the switch went bad. He also thinks that he can take the switch from the smaller machine and transplant it to the larger one, but I know he doesn’t have time to do that right now. And it’s canning season and I need a food processor. I ordered myself a replacement machine. I think that after 31 years, I probably deserve one. I got a similar 14-cup model so that I can continue to use my collection of blades.

And if the husband can resurrect the old machine by fixing the switch, then I’ll still have a backup machine just in case, because we all know that the new machine probably won’t last 31 years.

Two is one and one is none.

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I wore one of my me-made T-shirts to town yesterday. A young woman in one of the stores told me that she liked my shirt, and I was able to say, “Thank you—I made it myself.” It is such a relief to be able to put on a piece of clothing that fits without constantly having to be tugging at it and readjusting it.

I was joking with the husband the other day that my fashion aesthetic during the summer can best be described as “Polish housewife.” It would be more accurate to say “Slovak housewife,” but Polish housewife is more familiar imagery, I think. I wear knee-length denim skirts in the summer because they are cooler than pants. Combine that with a top, the ubiquitous apron, and a pair of muck boots and I am quite the picture. My hair is long enough—and it has been hot enough—that I have been wearing it up most of the time, although it’s not covered with a babushka. My grandmother always used to tell me that I reminded her of her mother. The only thing I don’t have that Grandma Gargus had is geese. She was a braver woman than I. I have my hands full with those goofy roosters.

When I separated Baby and Dave, I put three pullets and the juvenile rooster in with Baby. We noticed a few days ago that there were even more hens in with Baby. They must have flown over the fencing or snuck in when the door was open. Maybe Dave isn’t quite the studmuffin that he thinks he is.

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Peas 2.0 have sprouted!

I didn’t think it would take long in this heat. Now I just need to keep them watered.

Plans are coming together for our community garden tour at the end of the month. I am one of five gardeners on the tour. My friend Robin is going to be my “host.” Her job will be to manage the logistics of people coming to the garden, which will free me up to talk about plants, chickens, and pigs. I’m a bit sad that attendees will see so much black plastic (I do grow things, really!), but that’s part of the food production process here, too. Next year’s garden will be much nicer without the wood sorrel and the quackgrass.

And today should be the last day of 90+ degree heat. Let’s hope. The weekend is looking particularly pleasant with forecast highs in the 70s and even some rain. I am planning to spend several hours in the garden on Saturday doing some cleanup work.

I scored another one-yard chunk of ponte knit fabric off the remnant rack yesterday, this time in dark green. I think I am going to use the dark green for the first iteration of the Kensington skirt just in case the pattern needs some tweaking.

Pantry Organization Day

I spent yesterday morning in the basement, moving and organizing all our canned food stocks. The older stuff needs to come to the front of the shelves, and I pull anything past its expiration date. I’ll keep my home-canned food for two years—three if I only have one or two of jars left of something—but beyond that, even if it is safe to eat, the flavor and color degrade.

[I don’t worry too much about botulism poisoning. I trust my sterile technique/canning abilities, and botulism toxin is heat labile, so I always make sure to boil whatever comes out of jars for at least five minutes. And for all that I freelance when cooking and rarely follow recipes, I adhere to canning recipes down to the letter.]

I made enough tomato sauce last year that we still have plenty for this year. And of course, we have a bumper crop of tomatoes coming on. I will make salsa, instead, and probably dehydrate the paste tomatoes. Our friend Anna, who has a plant-based catering business, sometimes buys produce from me. She may take some tomatoes. She’s very flexible and plans her menus around what she can get locally. We’ve chatted a bit about next year’s production. I’ll put in more than I usually plant so I can keep her supplied. I am familiar with her menu items and know what kinds of things she typically uses.

I have lots of stock—beef, ham, and chicken—on hand. The one thing I need more of is beans, like red beans and black beans. I’ll plan to do a couple of batches of each this month.

One of the local grocery stores usually has a case sale in September, and I use that opportunity to stock up on brown sugar and canned goods I don’t can myself (the husband is fond of pineapple).

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Yesterday afternoon, I tied myself to the coverstitch machine and I hemmed the half-dozen T-shirts I made last week. I also traced the pattern for the Kensington skirt (it’s only two pieces!):

I am a devoted member of #TeamTrace. It takes a few extra minutes, but the advantages are that I don’t have to cut up the original tissue pattern, I can grade between sizes if necessary, and my traced patterns are a lot sturdier. I use Pellon Easy Pattern and buy it by the bolt when Joanns has a big sale.

I think I may take a day soon and have a marathon cutting session of the rest of the T-shirts and some long-sleeve tops for this fall. I am going to want to get back to making quilts eventually, so it will help production if the tops are cut out and ready to assemble.

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Our whole community is on tenterhooks because of the big fire down in Finley Point, not because it threatens us—it doesn’t—but because we’re all keenly aware that “there but for the grace of God go I.” Something similar could happen here. I’ve been getting calls and texts from neighbors asking me what I know about various fires. I monitor the scanner and any fire calls for our department get sent as alerts to my phone. There are fire maps on the internet, but it takes some drilling down to figure out exactly what the maps are showing, and that’s causing a fair bit of confusion. One of the maps had a fire symbol in our neighborhood, but it turned out to be just a smoke investigation. No fire was ever found, but the map didn’t reflect that information. Another map showed a wildland fire that our fire department responded to back in May, but there was nothing to explain that the fire had long since been extinguished. And while social media is great for keeping people informed, some of this information gets passed around as gospel and people panic.

I’ve got a bag packed and know what I need to grab should we have to get out of here in a hurry. It’s nothing I haven’t done every fire season for 27 years.

We’re up in the 90s again today and tomorrow and then the heat finally breaks. What an awful summer.

Rain, Glorious Rain!

This was the most beautiful sight I’ve seen all summer:

A storm rolled in around 4:30 yesterday afternoon. I’d been watching the radar for over an hour as the system came up from Missoula. It wasn’t moving very quickly, which meant that we got a drenching rain for quite a while. One rainstorm isn’t enough to put out the fires—we’d need a week of rain like this to make a dent—but every little bit helps. The temps cooled a bit, too. The high today is supposed to be 83 with the possibility of more rain, followed by three days back up into the 90s. We’re not out of the woods yet, and unfortunately, this may give people a false sense of security. We still have the entire month of August to get through, and that traditionally has been our fire season.

Those poor people down in Finley Point—the reports are that upwards of 20 homes were destroyed in that wildfire after it jumped the highway. It has been confirmed that it was caused by humans, but the investigation is ongoing.

I can’t access the video to embed it here, but if you go to the NBC Montana Facebook page, there is a six-minute video taken by one of their reporters from a boat on Flathead Lake showing the utter devastation of that fire. It’s hard to watch if you know the area.

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I’m going to take advantage of the cooler weather to get some things done around the house today. A thorough deep clean will be on the schedule this fall because of all the ash and dust that has floated in this summer. I need to organize the pantry and rotate what’s left of last year’s stock to the front of all the shelves. Canning season is going to begin in earnest shortly.

DD#2 sent me the link to this very nice article about the Amish store in St. Ignatius. This is the one I visit whenever I go to Missoula.

I’ve also got half a dozen T-shirts made that still need their hems done, and today would be a good day to assembly-line them through the coverstitch machine. Then I could actually wear them.

Some of lavender hedges I put in more recently—within the past couple of years—bloomed this year. I transplant little seedlings and have no idea what color the flowers will be until the plants get bigger. Twenty years or so ago, I put in about 40 different varieties of lavenders spanning the entire spectrum of colors, so it’s always a surprise. My favorites are the deep, dark purples and the very light pink/white ones. This one is especially pretty:

The bees like them, too.

Breaking the Back of Summer

July went out with a bang. Yesterday was brutal. We got up to 100 degrees here and it was even hotter than that down in Kalispell. The wind started blowing around lunchtime, with stiff, hot breezes well into the wee hours of the morning. It only went down to 72 overnight instead of the 50s. (I usually open the doors and windows when I get up to let the cool air in, then close them back up to keep things cool, but I can’t get the house cooled off this morning.) A new wildfire started south of us in the mountains on the east side of Flathead Lake, prompting immediate evacuations. Firefighters were able to jump on it quickly and get it out, thankfully, and people were returning home by nightfall. To top it all off, dispatch was having problems with outgoing communications to rural fire departments. I thought for sure we were going to get some big, devastating event. It just felt like that kind of a day to me.

ETA: The winds shifted overnight and blew this fire away from the first evacuation zone and toward Flathead Lake. More evacuations were ordered for that area and now we’re hearing that upwards of 20 homes may have been lost. The highway is closed. Pray for rain.

While we were baking in the heat, Spokane got hammered with heavy thunderstorms that caused downed trees and power lines and flash floods. We’re supposed to get some of that same weather starting tonight. Until then, we’re back up into the 90s again today.

The heat totally saps my energy. I don’t want to sew. It’s cool in the living room, but I don’t even want to sit and do handwork or read a book. Cooking is out of the question. Mostly I wander around muttering about how much I want it to snow.

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I organized all my knit fabric on Friday. One bin was set aside for scraps, which I’ll take with me to classes so that students can play around with the different types of knits. Another bin has larger chunks of leftovers that could be used for small projects, like baby items and headbands. I put half the fabric in one pile for winter tops, and the other half in a pile for a few more short-sleeve T-shirts. I’ve decided my next iteration of that Liz knot top is going to be in black rayon spandex—possibly both long- and short-sleeve versions—because a simple black top is so useful.

If the quilt store owner decides she wants to carry some knits, I am going to suggest she bring in some of the Robert Kaufman fabrics. I am such a Kaufman Fabrics fangirl. I have a huge stash of Kona and I am becoming very fond of their Laguna Cotton, a 95% cotton/5% spandex blend. It is my favorite for nice, basic T-shirts. Not only does it come in wonderful saturated solids, there are tons of great prints, too. On the rare occasions when I can find RTW shirts that do fit me, the selection is usually limited to muddy earth tones and ugly prints.

These are some of the prints that arrived this week, all cotton/spandex blends:

I ordered from Fabric.com. They don’t do remnants, so If what you order is close to the end of the bolt and less than a yard, they send you the extra at no charge with a note on the package saying, “Jackpot!” The pink and green circle print was a jackpot cut and included an extra half a yard. I like the red tree print, but it might lean too orange for me. There was a green colorway of that print, too, but it was only available in the quilting cotton.

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I picked the first tomato on Friday, which has to be a record. The second batch of peas is planted—we’ll see if they produce anything. I have more lettuce to transplant to the garden, but I am waiting to do that until it cools off (and rains) this week. The raspberries are just about done, so I’ll need to get in there and prune out those canes.

The track loader arrived on Friday, so the husband spent yesterday using it to clean up the area where he dug the water line. (The cab of the loader has air conditioning.) I think that is going to be a very useful purchase, much like the forklift.