I thought about toning down the yellow, but these marigolds look just this bright when you walk by them. Blinding.

Today’s forecasted temperature: 92
Heat index: 103

This is the second week in a row where there’s been no water for the community garden because of a break in  the water line. It was fixed and then it wasn’t. I went to the garden last weekend to find water gushing from the ground, unfortunately none of it near our beds.

So we’ve been hauling water all week, mostly Evie, and we’re about to make another trip. Straw bales need a fair amount of moisture.

A garden update is coming, hopefully tomorrow.

Ruby Spice Summersweet is extra fragrant this year

(Clethra alnifolia)

Ten things to do instead of watching the boob-tube. I’m leaving knitting and spinning off the list because it’s like brushing your teeth, just do it. I still ended up with a bonus.

1. Grab your favorite alcoholic beverage and a book and head for the deck. You’ll remember it in December.
2. Figure out the intricacies of reward travel from different programs to be used on partner airlines, hotels and car rentals. Two hours slips away unnoticed. Who designs these things?
3. Worry about sending a partially deaf and disabled husband half-way across the country by himself.
4. Design a baby sweater. I can’t find just what I’m looking for so I’m taking elements from several patterns to knit another denim baby sweater.
5. Worry about why your cat hasn’t come home for 24 hours (he came home in 26).
6. Go out for ice cream. If you’re a masochist, weigh yourself afterward.
7. Do anything outside: pull weeds, go for a walk or bike ride. You’ll remember it in December.
8. Make a quiche with all those veggies and eggs in the fridge. Add eggs to the shopping list, put the veggies back.
9. Tackle the pile of paperwork on your desk; it’s boring but you’ll feel better afterward.
10. Go shopping online, fall is just around the corner.
11. Clean out your closet of everything that doesn’t fit. Give it away or store it so you can find the stuff that does fit. See #10.

Go visit Carole Knits to see more great lists.

Which of course I knew.

But hearing it spelled out by a vet whose integrity and competence I trust made me reluctantly agree to do the responsible thing.

Teddy was euthanized this morning.

The vet estimates he was about 5 years old. I’ve been feeding him for 18 months. How he survived before that I don’t know but the only thing he was afraid of was humans. Turns out he was right.

Sometimes being responsible sucks.

Here’s hoping for good news from the vet.  Stay tuned….

Ten things to bring on a camping trip.

1 – 10.  Hotel reservations.

Don’t get me wrong, we used to camp. Not well and always in a tent but we did it.

There was the time Gail and I were camping in Maine where it rained all week and an earthquake struck while I was using the camp bathroom. I think that was the trip when my arm was in a cast which made setting up the house size tent lots of fun. Of course I could be confusing it with our camping trip to Cape Cod, where it rained all week and Gail bought this ginormous shell lamp in Provincetown that took up half the car on the way home.

There was the camping trip to Lake of the Ozarks where Jack got a sinus infection the first night. We lasted one more night amid the humidity and bugs. The beef bourguignon I brought was tasty — doesn’t everybody bring gourmet meals on camping trips?

There was the camping trip in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area where the sun shone the first day while we portaged miles and miles through the wilderness, carrying 80-ton packs, fishing poles and a canoe. We stumbled over rocks, lost the trail a few times, got our feet wet and made it to our campsite in time to set up camp and build a fire to cook first-night steaks (”we don’t need no stinkin’ camp stove”).

We enjoyed a sunset skinny dip before crawling into the tent to fall asleep to the whine of mosquitoes, sleepily making plans to push on to the next campsite in the morning. Only to awaken in the middle of the night to falling temperatures, rising winds and thunderstorms which lasted most of the remaining five days.

It’s hard to keep toilet paper dry when the trees are dripping on you while you straddle the pit toilet, waving away the mosquitoes with one hand and holding your pants up out of the wet with the other.

I’m just sayin’.

The rotten weather (I’m sensing a theme here, aren’t you?) curtailed  our tour of the Boundary Waters and sent us home a day early from exhaustion, cold and the tedium of eating peanut butter and squeezable-grape-jelly sandwiches for dinner (see no camp stove and wet wood).

It’s a wonder we survived, especially after I dumped Jack, fully clothed, in the water because I couldn’t keep the canoe stable. Why he was trying to balance in a canoe that was pulled up on shore I don’t remember.

Good times.

I’d do it again.

No, really.

They must have Super 8’s in the Boundary Waters by now, don’t they?

In Tour de Fleece news, I’m still madly spinning, just not posting my progress. This is the 2-ounce bump of cormo from Strawberry Moon Fibers that I bought at Shepherd’s Harvest in Lake Elmo, MN in early May.

The spinning is rustic at best, veering from fingering to worsted weight and the plying is beginner’s stuff. Which actually fits the yarn or my plans for it just fine.

It wants to be a cowl and nothing fancy, just something to snuggle up with this winter on those cold walks. All those air pockets should make it  warm.

I spun it on the Guild’s Louet S10 and ended up with about 150 yards of 2-ply.

There’s more spinning to show, but as usual I find there aren’t enough hours to get everything done. I can spin or garden or knit or do paperwork or shop for shoes or take pictures or post to the blog or cook or read about weaving or process pictures or find my missing bra (never mind, found it) or think I’m having a heart attack, but it’s only indigestion or complain about the weather, but I can’t do it all (except for the complaining) in one day so I have to pick and choose. Hopefully more tomorrow…

~~

If you think you’ve had a bad week, see what Farmgirl Susan went through recently…her hunky farm guy got bit by a black widow spider, she tangled with a copperhead snake with nasty results and her beloved pet died, 1-2-3.

I guess I won’t complain about my single watermelon rotting in the garden.

That woman has guts.

~~

Sunday Supper

Actually I don’t know what supper will be, most likely something simple that doesn’t require slaving other a hot stove. I need to spend the day making pesto and some kind of dessert for the week and figure out what to do with a drawer of rhubarb and Swiss chard and an over abundance of potatoes.

But I can tell you about brunch. I wanted pancakes but we’re out of maple syrup (the horror!) so we ended up with breakfast burritos.

I heated up leftover brown rice, seasoned black beans and Cuban pulled pork from earlier this week. While that was reheating in the microwave I  scrambled eggs seasoned with onions and cumin, and served it all with cheese, lettuce, homegrown (just not mine) tomatoes and pico de gallo sauce. Make your own burritos rolled up in flour tortillas. There was strawberries and cantaloupe for fruit and Jack finished it off with orange scones; coffee for me (not fair, I know).

I still want pancakes. Sometimes the stomach wants what it wants.

So what are you having for Sunday supper?

The first of the Black Cherry tomatoes are ripening on the deck. We’re having grilled chicken salad for dinner tonight and tomatoes will be a star player.  Yum!

Teddy Update

Teddy has been cooperating reluctantly with entering the trap to eat his wet food. Last night he turned his back on the whole thing and pouted for an hour — it might have looked like he was sleeping but I can tell when a cat is pissed off.  There’s something about the angle of the ears that expresses disgust so eloquently.

I finally put a small amount of dry food near the door that he could eat while checking out the aroma of the wet stuff.  It also helped that I upgraded the bait to the expensive canned chicken in sauce that he craves. I’d say that I’m winning but with cats you never know.

Tonight the food gets moved further inside the trap. The evil plan progresses….

I’ve mentioned before that I’ve been feeding a stray cat for about 18 months. Teddy first showed up in the middle of winter, skinny and starving. Completely feral, no matter how hungry he was, I couldn’t approach him. In the past, I’ve chased away stray cats, fearful of disease spreading to our two house cats. But I was a sucker for a coal-black cat living outside in 10-degrees-below-zero temperatures. He became an adjunct to our household.

There’s been an adjustment period while the cats sorted out the pecking order. Teddy considers Cleo his harem (she’s spayed); she’s not convinced but there is a reluctant attraction.

Gus (neutered) didn’t roll over so easily and put up a brave effort to maintain dominance. After a few scrapes in which it was clear he didn’t have the cajones that Teddy does, he’s accepted his second-hand status with much resentment. Now, they each mostly pretend the other doesn’t exist.

There are boundaries. Teddy is only welcomed on one deck which I re-enforce by feeding him there.  I figure our cats have the right to parts of the outdoors where they don’t have to deal with his presence.

All three cats keep their triangulated distance but in the summer they’ll sleepily share an afternoon on a warm deck. The house cats keep one eye open to make sure Teddy doesn’t make an unexpected move while his eye is on the lookout for humans.

This summer I’ve noticed he’s a little less cautious around me. I can now put his food bowls down within two feet before he’ll back off. There’s hissing involved but no move to attack.  I respect the damage his claws and teeth could do so I wouldn’t dream of trying to touch him.

Overall Teddy’s made himself as much at home as I expect he’ll ever be.

So that’s where it stood until this week. Teddy has been looking a little ragged around the edges. His formerly sleek fur is matted in spots and he has constant drainage from his eyes, a sign that something isn’t right. He needs checking by a vet.

Last summer I tried trapping him without any success. I was timid and afraid to let him go hungry.  This time, realizing that life doesn’t always have a happy ending, I’ve decided to be more aggressive. So a humane trap was purchased, assembled and added to the feeding area on the deck.

For now, the door is braced open and food is placed partially inside. Every day this week I’ll move it further into the cage. Teddy can eat it and then leave the cage. But that’s the only food he’ll get.

I started this morning by placing a small amount of dry food outside the cage and his favorite wet food far enough inside that he would have to put his front paws in the cage to eat it. The dry food got gobbled up, he sniffed the wet food and came to sit by the kitchen door waiting for me to make things right.

There was a 2-hour battle of wills. He flopped on the deck, feigning sleep. He rubbed against the door. He went back and checked the empty dry food bowl. He peered in the cage. He curled up in a ball, with the tip of his tail beating time on the deck. He watched me through the door to see if I was coming to feed him.

He waited.

It was a draw. He left without eating the food, but I didn’t cave like last year.

Tonight there won’t be any dry food until he eats the wet food. The same thing tomorrow, only the wet food will be further inside the cage. By next week I hope  we’ve made enough progress so that he’ll go all the way into the cage to eat, at which point I’ll remove the door brace.

Success this time depends upon me keeping my big girl panties hitched up.

Stay tuned for the battle.

(The quality of all the pictures is off because they were taken through the kitchen door; a camera makes Teddy disappear quicker than a dollar bill in a yarn shop.)

Here are 10 things I like about where I live, sort of a mini-travelogue to Middle Earth. Go see what others have to say about where they live.

1. Spring is beautiful here. The Bradford pear, red buds, dogwoods, and magnolia trees all go crazy in April/May and it’s colorful and hopeful.
2. There are four distinct seasons and none of them are extreme. Sure we get heat and humidity in the summer but not for months and months (like Florida) and winter’s snow (with the exception of last year) usually melts after a few days.
3. I live in a small town near a big city, so I have the best of both situations. Unfortunately our small town has caught the growth bug so it may not last.
4. I like that I have pleasant neighbors living on either side, not a minor thing when you live in a town home. And a good friend “across the creek” who shares my gardening chores.
5. We get terrific thunderstorms. I like thunder and lightning – as long as I’m high and dry in my living room. The occasional tornado scare adds a little thrill to the summer. Not so little for those who are in their path, but we’ve only come close once. Knock on wood.
6. Commuting is generally easy. Traffic jams happen because of construction or accidents, generally not because our roads are overloaded. With the exception of the main road in my town — see #4 above.
7. The history here is more Civil War than Revolutionary War. The local college has graves for Civil War soldiers and battles took place all around our area. It’s different from where I grew up.
8. I like that I’ve got a great circle of knitting and spinning buds. Like minds.
9. I like that I have options when it comes to yarn shops (how could I forget that one?) within 50 miles, including the Yarn Barn in Lawrence, KS.
10. It’s in the middle of the country so plane rides to the coasts don’t take all that long. Important when your family is scattered all over.

And that’s the best list I can think of.

Short and sweet today, I’m a little under the weather and need to go take a nap.

I’ve managed to spin everyday and it’s been delightful. Partly because the fiber is bright and cheerful and partly because a friend loaned me her Louet Victoria. Now I have two wheels in the house (the other is a Louet S10 from the Guild) so I’ve been comparing their action side by side.  I’m spinning some worsted weight coopworth on the S10 and it’s doing a good job with it. The Victoria is producing the closest thing to frog hair that I can manage. Pics in a day or two. In the meantime, have a good weekend and drink a glass of lemonade margarita for me!