Friday, June 26, 2009

The goings-on around here...

Let's start with this...

While I noted yesterday that there has been no significant knitting or spinning on which to report, and that is true (though I am still making slow progress on both my Plath cardi and my June charity hat...slow mainly because I have hardly touched them :::sigh:::), my giant Noro granny square is coming along nicely. It's been my default project of late. Granny square crocheting is so ridiculously mindless and relaxing for me. I'm just about at the end of my second ball of Silk Garden, and the square is about 14". I love looking at it. Because of the length of the color sections, and the fact that I was taught to turn the square over every time you start a new round (though I seem to remember someone else telling me that isn't necessary? I dunno...), it seems to me to almost have a subtle log cabin-esque look* to it since the same colors double back on themselves at the turns.

So that's been my big fiber accomplishment of late. My latest gardening accomplishment is this...

...my radish harvest! Radishes love moisture, and after all that rain we got a couple weeks ago, these buggers just plumped up like crazy. I've learned from past experience that if you leave them in the ground too long, they will split, and the ones that don't split get all woody, at which point they are not tasty. So I pulled almost all of the radishes earlier this week, a little more than two dozen. 

Honestly, we are not huge radish eaters here, so I'm not sure why I insist on planting them. Mostly, I like to look at them. LOL And they're easy to grow. And I have a fond memory from childhood of my family and I having come home from vacation one summer and my dad going out to the garden and pulling a bunch of radishes that had grown while we were gone. There's a picture somewhere of me holding that bunch of radishes...for whatever reason, that is a happy memory for me.

The flowers continue to bloom and look pretty, though they're doing that mostly on their own. I can hardly claim them as my accomplishment...

I am really loving the coral bells, now that they're blooming this year! They are so pretty and delicate! And I noticed yesterday that the other two clumps of them that were not previously flowering have begun to do so, so I guess they are coral bells too, after all! Good to know.

Can you stand another lily picture?

Well, tough luck if you can't, LOL, because I'm showing you one anyway! My lily corner is just bursting with dozens of these beautiful, orange blooms. I need to get out there and take a picture at some time other than when the full sun is on them, though. 

Last but not least, we enjoyed a visit from the grandson yesterday...

...I suppose he counts as my accomplishment once removed since I did give birth to his daddy! LOL He was so funny...he kept trying to figure out how he could put the balls into this sprinkler toy without getting his hair wet. He does not like to get his hair wet, he informed me several times. :}

Then he moved to the water guns. Look at that determination. See that precision. Hear that grandma shriek, "Noooooo! Not at my camera!!!" Thankfully, this gun doesn't have a very long range. Whew! ;)

*For those of you not into quilting, the Log Cabin pattern is a traditional quilt block pattern that plays light and dark colors off one another in various ways, depending on which Log Cabin variation you are following. The first Mason-Dixon knitting book has a pattern for a knitted version, which has always fascinated me, but I'm not sure I could do that much garter stitch without wanting to poke my eyes out. As for quilting in general, I am also fascinated by that craft. I have done a little quilting, and I wish I could bring myself to do more, but I don't seem to have the patience for it at this point in life. Maybe later down the road I'll try again. Interestingly, the main character in the book I just finished reading, The Girl Who Stopped Swimming, is a quilter. And I have enjoyed the first several of Jennifer Chiaverini's Elm Creek Quilt novels. If you can't do it, might as well read about it! ;)

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