A Day in the Woodsy Woods

Hiking, taking breaks to eat homemade muffins, and perfect weather? Yes please!

He insists on being in front. He likes to lead. I have a sneaking suspicion that this is his favorite place (the woods, but yeah, being in front too).

Another break, and deciding this is the perfect spot to build a fort. For Carroll, the monster from “Where The Wild Things Are”, of course. Ayden especially ALWAYS has monsters on his mind while in the woods.

And he gets to play the part of Max, The King, Carroll’s best bud. Here he is with a woodland scepter and crown. He takes this job seriously.

Fort/shelter building!

“Max” and “Douglas” in front of the fort.

It turned out seriously cool. Isaac kept saying “this is the best day ever!” and hugging Rob. We left it for Carroll and any other homeless monsters to find, marked it on the state park map so we can find it again next time we are there, and went on our way. All this hard work had to be rewarded with root beer floats!

On Running

Over the last year or so, I’ve come to like running. I’m getting good at it, and am able to go longer distances than I ever thought my lazy butt would ever be able to run. So much, in fact, that I signed up last March (!) for a half marathon, thinking that I’d be totally ready by October.

I trained, not as well or as much as I should have, but I did it! And it was kind of painful toward the end

The real issue is that I’m still sore. This picture was taken three weeks ago, and I haven’t ran more than 3.6 miles at a time since then. My legs and hips are so sore! What to do? More yoga? Push through it? I’m at a loss here, and it sucks. I want to be running again!

Any suggestions are welcome!

(Mostly) out of the yarn bag

My knitting needles have been busy in the last month or so. Here are a few projects being finished up in these parts….

Pescovegetarian Hat, found on ravelry.

To go with the Pescovegetarian Mittens, pattern also found on ravelry. Both are made from Cascade Eco+.

Next three images are not wooly, but were made for a new baby in these parts. I’ve yet to meet him, but the gift made it before he was born, so hopefully these are getting some use.

First two were iron on’s, and I made a stencil for the anchor. It turned out super cute!

Also for the little guy. This pattern will be used again! It’s the coffee cardigan pattern.

And a couple photos of this last one. It took forever, I have seriously knitted whole sweaters faster than this scarf, but it may be my most favorite knitted item ever. I’ll wear this forever, I love it so much.

Love love love! It’s the clapotis scarf from knitty.

That is it for now! On deck are another baby sweater, with stripes this time, and an Icelandic sweater for me. Happy knitting!

And seriously, I can’t believe I’m outside in a tank in that first picture. It’s gotten chilly!

Late Fall Garden

The little huts are still going strong. They don’t like the heavy winds, but the greens inside are frost free and abundant!

 

It’s been cold. We’ve gotten below freezing a number of times now. The above photo is from last Friday, all of the grass is covered in frost.

The last of the tomatoes. I will miss them.

Baby Kale. So yummy.

Bringing oregano and sage inside to dry for the winter.

Chard and arugula. We’re still eating salads regularly.

Lots of Romaine too. I bet we are still getting greens in December.

We’ve been poaching leaves from public spaces. They are used for mulch. All of the garlic has been planted, most of it is under the leaf pile there. 74 cloves in that bed alone!

One of the best things about the late fall garden, though, is that it isn’t nearly as much work as it is in the spring and summer. It still hasn’t been put to bed, and we could always use more mulch, but taking an afternoon off to enjoy a couple seasonal brews in the chill is always nice!

Quickly Cooling

The September weather has led to some crazy evenings around here. Bringing plants inside, harvesting as quickly as possible before a frost, and covering up the baby greens. One night was spent building little greenhouse covers for the beds.

A trip to Lowes (and another the next day), a few hours, and some clever thinking on Rob’s part, and we will now be able to grow greens well into November (we hope). There are now six of these out back, and they are all filled with greens, radishes, beans, chard, and kale. Here’s hoping for a mild fall!

The Return of the Yarn

Whoa! That was a much longer blog vacation than I meant it to be, whoops. I’m going to try to post at least once a week from here on out.

 

Anyways, Autumn has come, which means yarn is again becoming a part of my daily life. I have a lot of pregnant friends, my hands are getting cold in the morning (and afternoon sometimes!) and I gave my nephew my couch blanket, so I need something new to cover up my cold legs while I’m knitting! And the sweater to-make list is always calling. Here are a few that are done and a few that are in the plans for the next few months……

 

For my friend Jerid. I’m guessing he’ll get a lot of laughs off of this one.

This little cardigan for at least one baby, probably a few. One is finished.

This blanket for me, and maybe for one of the babes too.

 

Hats and mittens, sweaters and other wooly things will be posted soon!

 

late august already?

This is always a busy month. There are birthdays and weddings, summer is coming to an end, and school/work starts up again. This year we also had the little guys come stay for a week.

The garden is doing fantastically, considering we had an incredibly hot and humid July, and pretty much no rain for weeks. I’ve been keeping busy in the kitchen.

Tomatoes: I’ve been making salsa, pasta sauce, oven roasting, and dehydrating them. And eating them on everything, at every meal.

Zucchini: A lot of muffins have been consumed, especially when the boys were here. I gave Isaac a baking lesson one night. His favorite part was putting seven chocolate chips in each cup. The zukes are also getting shredded and frozen (for muffin goodness all winter long!) and I’ve been putting them into tarts (like this one from smitten kitchen, so yummy), and dicing up to throw onto tacos.

Eggplants: I have to admit, I’m pretty stumped on this one. I put them in stirfry and we occasionally grill slices, but there are like fifteen of them out there and I need to come up with something good, and fast. Help!

Beans: The spotted dragon beans are finally producing, and they are going crazy. Along with the other bed of purple ones. I picked eight (!) pounds yesterday morning, and canned nine jars of them. Hopefully they turn out good!

Cabbage: Picked, shredded, and into the crock. 27 pounds will make a lot of kraut, I am assuming.

The deep freezer is pretty much full already, which means I have to get out the pressure cooker and swallow my fears of it once again. Yikes.

In other news, the nights are cooling down quickly, and Buchner (the turtle) will have to make the journey back into the house soon. I don’t think he’s going to be to happy about the move, and I know I’m not looking forward to setting his tank back up. Anyone want to guess how big the pleico has grown this summer? I’m scared to think about it!

Have a great weekend!!

over the weekend

-We picked possibly the largest tomato I’ve ever seen, the green one up there. 1.5 lbs!

-There was a lot of running, including a very cool twilight run on Friday night. Rob went a lot further than I did. (Almost 11 miles!)

-Lots of zucchini muffins were made. Yummy, chocolatey zucchini muffins. I used this recipe, with some modifications. I replaced half of the oil with applesauce, and only baked them 25 minutes. More will be made today, thanks to the crazy huge zucchini plant we have growing.

-We waxed the car, cleaned the garage, enjoyed the (somewhat) cooler weather, and prepped the place for our little visitors this week!

-Watched Star Wars Episodes I and II. Revenge of the Sith is on deck for tonight

Hope you had a great weekend!

This little blog will mostly consist of gardening adventures, but I will be talking about my other interests too.