Take a Deep Breath...

This little one is looking for a home. The kitten will come with all shots and having been 'fixed'. Ready for delivery as soon as we're old enough to have the operation.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/32196762@N00/3706559441/in/photostream/

*chuckle* 

The tomatoes are making their slow progress towards ripening and turning red. Lots and lots of green 'maters on the vine, only a handful ready to pick. Patience, patience.... The garden is continuing to produce cucumbers, salad greens, wilting greens (I need to make a quiche with some of those this weekend!), squash and more hot peppers than we can shake a stick at. And we’ve *tried* shaking sticks at them!

 

Cantaloupe are not really developing all that much, about the size of my two fists pressed together. Lots of blooms, but only a few fruit; perhaps they will do better next year when I get them separated out sooner from the suspended cucumber trellis.

 

With any luck we will be hitting up some folks at the local Home Depot sometime in the next few weeks for installation advice on drip lines. Moving our taps to the garden sites and getting some drip set up on timers will go a long way toward making the maintenance on the overall garden easier. I do love spending time in the patches every morning and evening, but I would rather be weeding/harvesting/pruning than hand watering.

 

Already making plans for more peas and beans next year….*grin*

Going about updating some tags on my LJ to include a ‘16^th C Food’ section as I am starting to prep for another food workshop for early next year. I know, I know – it’s more than 6 months away: Why start prepping now?

 

Well there are a couple of reasons. 1) A few of the ‘drink’ selections I would like to make/share take at least a couple of months to ferment (*yippee* Honey Drinks!) 2) I have to test cook at least the more complicated sauces/tarts/etc. to see if they will be good choices for a ‘food newbie’ audience 3) I need to read/reread my source materials and redraft a handout/chapbook.

 

I have begun by going back to reading “Dining With William Shakespeare” by Madge Lorwin. Madge does an excellent job of mixing history and modern redactions in a format that is both engaging, easy to read and educational. I especially love her brief survey’s of historical wines and beer/ale, including period methods for ‘refreshing’ batches of each that had gone bad. This is a really lovely book and one that I recommend highly and since it is an older volume, you can probably pick it up pretty cheap.

 

I am already mentally listing the foods she has listed that I can prep in advance of the workshop and bring out as ‘taste samplers’ once I am there (pickled mushrooms and methgeline being high on the list).

 

Actually, I was thinking of trying to draft a bit of a ‘kitchen crew’ to work on specific areas of this workshop. Hubby has already said he would ‘sous chef’ for me prior to the event and help with set up. Anyone interested in being the ‘drink specialist’ and working up a few libations for folks to sample (i.e. small beer, mead, honeyed/spiced wines/ales, etc – most of these are actually commercially available if you don’t want to have to brew your own…)?

 

More as I continue to prep…

( Cut because I care, and you may not…*grin* )

What’s that you say? Hsifeng fell into a magic rabbit hole with no internet connection and couldn’t even send a smoke signal out to the rest of the world to describe her distress?

 

Well, that would be a lie. In actuality I have been scoping out the interwebz regularly but my overall contributions have slowed to a trickle since my digital camera went spastic on me. *picture is all wavy and warbled and the colors are just baaaad…* No money to fix this at present, and it has put a serious dent in my ‘garden documentation’ process. *le sigh*

 

Then again, who said photos made for better entries?

 

(Oh yeah, that was me…)

 

Also sad to report is the status of my non-garden projects, which is to say “non-existent”. Sewing, painting and whatnot have all been replaced with the first bout of non-historic textbook reading I have had in YEARS (*shakes fist in the air* “Damn you Bernard Cornwell!”), lots of friends popping into the oven of the Central Valley for visits (*waves at these braves souls* “We love seeing you guys!”), and general apathy for moving anywhere apace due to heat and stagnation.

 

But at least the garden is still going well! *grin*

 

Anyway! I’m back, no garden photos, but a number of….”Wow, that’s cool!” shots stolen from various auction houses – thank you Sotheby’s and Christie’s!

 

 

( Enjoy! )

Constance from Sweden put together a lovely little 'step-by-step' with visuals for creating a high necked smocked shirt. Then GottfriedKilianus was nice enought to translate the written portions from Swedish into English and post them on Flickr.

While this is basically the same instructions that Rainillt (nice website update BTW!) offered in her first pleatwork embroidery handout, this simplified version with pictures will probably come in handy when trying to explain to folks how to get these projects started.*

Part 1:

Part 2:


*Certainly far easier than trying to explain Electra's version with the finger pressed pleats (although this method *is* very easy to demonstrate in person and actually avoids the step of having to run gather threads all together!).

"...watching conservatives mock liberals for being PC, is like watching the morbidly obese mock Weight Watchers for its system of points."

As someone who confronts her own 'whiteness' and the things that come with it on a regular basis, I gotta tell you that I loved this piece. Its strangely comforting to see that the view is equally cloudy on the 'other side' of the fence.

Becasue batocchio/digby says it better than I could...



"Honesty is the first chapter of the book of Wisdom." --Thomas Jefferson

"I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man." --Thomas Jefferson

"A great empire, like a great cake, is most easily diminished at the edges." -- Benjamin Franklin

"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both." -- Benjamin Franklin

"Because power corrupts, society's demands for moral authority and character increase as the importance of the position increases." -- John Adams

"Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence." -- John Adams

I have been gathering some information for both this years garden, and next years planting. Here it tis':

Pruning and Staking your tomatoes

Another source for this information with various trellis ideas based on tomatoe variety

Borage

Lilac, Blue Blossom

California Poppy

Lavender

Catnip

Scented Geranium

Large-flower phacelia

Tansy Phacelia

West. Verbena

Yesterday I went on an image collecting spree in the new Sotheby's catalogue. No, it wasn't paintings (not in the traditional sense anyway) I was after. Yesterdays catalogue was chock-full of lovely majolica pieces.  What is majolica you ask? Well, here are some lovely historical examples based on what I had just pilfered via the interwebz...

 

( Wherein I post images and droooooool….. )

 

The follow up to all this 'Majolica Dreaming' was my mother-in-law calling this morning to remind us that we could reach her on her trip to Italy via her cell phone. I had to refrain from asking her to take a spare bag and raid a local museum before heading back. *le sigh*

 

"...or are you just happy to see me?"

Just happened to be rummaging through some old posts on Togs-from-Bogs and ran into this lovely little item. Katrin has been working on hand-netting hairnets for a bit now (and lovely work she does!), but the research in the above linked memory had me giggling. See, all the boys (and many of the girls) in the German group I work with down in LA seem to have a fascination with gold hairnets. Many folks wear them, often to the exclusion of other hats.

 

Their hairnets are lovely, and often finely crafted. No real complaints there.

 

However, given the deduced cost for a fine gold hairnet in Katrin’s research (“…roughly one thousand hours of work…”) and the mind starts to boggle a bit at all this material wealth wandering around in a mercenary camp…

 

Then again, it won’t stop me from encouraging folks to make these in something other than gold (by hand). *grin* There are some nice directions to be found here - along with a lot of other fun sewing information!

Your Brain is 40% Female, 60% Male

You have a total boy brain Logical and detailed, you tend to look at the facts And while your emotions do sway you sometimes... You never like to get feelings too involved

Although, strangely, I have become more emotional as I get older....*hum*

Like 16th C German military reenactment?

 

Like geeking out with people all over the world who love it too?

 

Wanna have another way to while away the hours between sleep and death? *grin*

 

Then follow the muster drum!*

 

Photos galore, discussions of events world-wide, resources, vendors, comrades-in-arms: I’m “Briggita”, see you on the forums!

* Seriously, this website is buzzing with activity like you can’t believe…

Lordy, do I need to catch up on LJ reading! This weekend was spent with many of project, but with minimal computer time. Trust me, I have plans to catch up on everyone’s “doin’s” as soon as possible! *grin*

 

In the meantime, a couple of project with pictures today: You will probably be happy to see my eschew my normal mode of separating posts by subject (gosh, I know that the tags will track it all for me…but the OCD makes it hard to not make a separate entry for each specific project type…*rolls eyes*). Anywho, on to the gardening and blackpowder!

 

( “This is how I spent my weekend.” )

 

 

*chuckle* 

I just got SPAM'd by the White House syndicated feed of their blog. OK, not really, but is seemed that way. The update on my page should be giving me content as they post, but it appears that they either just posted a months worth of updates - or my filters went wonky on me and have been holding all these until now.

Then *BLAMO!* Welcome to the Age of Presidential Internet Connectivity!*

 

Poked around on some of the connection links listed in the first post that came up and found these shots of the President and the First Lady. They make me happy…

 

She wears his jacket when it’s cold.

 

He clearly loves to be in contact with her.

 

Just regular parents.

 

They seem like a very nice family, all the time.  

For those that don't know me well, I don't sit on either side of the political fence. But I do respect how well this Administration is attempting to communicate with the nation (and the world) that they are willing to work hard for the things that they love.

 

 

*BTW – This is not a slam on the White House blog, it just amuses me.
 

For those in the *central* Central Valley of CA who are interested in using converted raisin sweat boxes as planting beds, the following contact information is for you!

 

UC Master Gardner Pete Susvoe sells these boxes from his home in Sanger. Pete’s contact number is 559-846-7565 If you live nearby, you may be able to arrange for him to drop off the boxes. Otherwise you will need to arrange to pick them up at his location. The UC Master Gardeners also have three of these boxes for sale at ‘the Garden of the Sun’ here in Fresno. Their contact phone number is 456 4151.

 

I believe both sources sell the boxes for $6-$8/each.

No, this is not a reference to Easter eggs lost in the back of my yard and ‘gone native’ with local bacteria. This is a reference to a Spring ritual that I have had every year at this house; It comes with living in an older district in my town, and with having “crazy-cat-lady” neighbors.

The fuzzy Easter eggs I am referring to are kittens.

 

Every year in early March, I notice that one or more of the local ‘mama kitties’ has become….well…rounder. Gravid. Basketball-like. Pregnant. This means at some point within the next month or so I will be on the hunt.

 

It usually starts with a *mew mew mew* sound from somewhere in the immediate proximity of our house. For a long time, the old garage was a preferred spawning ground, but with it torn down and Kallie living upstairs, the most recent batches have been found in the driveway side yard.

 

Not this year though.

 

This year mama kitty figured out that the garden is fenced off from the backyard – so no dogs. It also has nice shady trees in the North corner, an overhang with access to the houses crawlspace/basement and water via the upstairs kitchen sink ‘vent pipe’…

 

Pretty much kitty heaven!

 

Until this morning, when my dog Fritz followed me into the garden while I was watering and found mama’s nest in a matter of seconds; thankfully, no kittens where harmed in the process – but they may hate dogs for awhile and will certainly hate the sound of Fritz barking. *chuckle*

 

So, along with snapping pictures of the garden this morning, I got one of mama kitty. She wasn’t in her ‘nest’ when Fritz visited, and I counted at least five little black/dark grey kittens at that point. By the time I got the camera out, she was back and the ‘fuzzy Easter eggs’ are almost impossible to see against her own black fur.

 

But they are certainly audible….*mew mew mew*

Mama Kitty

 

I won’t be surprised if she moves them at this point, but finding them the second time is always easier!

 

*grin*

EDIT: Mama was away when I got home from work/school...


A pile of fuzzy Easter eggs...Looks like three black ones and one grey/white one...

After a long ‘dry spell’ in writing (*insert pun-drum roll here*), I am finally back with a garden update for April. There has been work going on, believe me; I have just been bad at documenting it! Earlier this month we secured a free truck-bed worth of wood chippings and continued to procure various other garden building bits like lumber and addtional hay-bales for mulch. tristinmorgan andsaoirse42 came by for a few hours and helped plant the remainder of this seasons 'first seeds' (see list at bottom of post) and also took care of dog and garden for hubby and I on a weekend we headed out of town and the temperatures headed into the 90's - YIKES!

 

Also in the last month, we have prepped the raisin sweat boxes that were purchased from Jerry after the March UC Master Gardner class. The transformation of these boxes into working lettuce beds was accomplished by drilling holes in their bottoms for drainage and then lining them with perforated heavy black plastic. A layer of hay went in the bottom of each box; followed by a mixture of top soil, mulch and potting soil and a dash of blood meal thrown in for good measure. We currently have five of these boxes set up, with three more ‘waiting in the wings’ as potential berry growing stations.


BTW - the green 'caterpillers' all over the place are the shedding pollen pods of the trees that edge the North side of the garden.

 

The advantages to the boxes are portability (sort of – they are damn heavy when full!) which allows us to figure out where the best location for them is in the garden/yard and the ability to easily ‘copper tape’ them to prevent snails from feasting on our young lettuce sprouts. The bad news is, the top soil I got to mix with our potting soil as filler on these seems to be mostly clay. Hard. As. A. Rock: Once water hits it that is. And really, why would you want to put water on your garden?

 

Oh…wait…

 

However, the beds actually seem to be doing OK – so we’ll wait and see before we scream and gnash our teeth. *chuckle*

 

The main garden is coming along. Hubby has some fence work to get done, but the hay is keeping about 95% of the weeds/grass out. Except for the damn Bermuda grass. I have words that I could use to describe my hatred for this creeping, crawling, tunneling little weed. However, I know we have some delicate ladies in the audience, and so I will refrain.

 

Don’t laugh. I actually *do* know some delicate ladies. Really. Pinky swear.

 

The next ‘big’ step is going to be getting the sprouted seeds into the ground. Right now I am up in the air about this a bit, but I think we are going to be launching the ‘Squash-Sub-Garden-Project’ in the back of our (thankfully) huge yard. Why a separate location for the squash? See my list of varieties below the cut at the bottom of this message. That many squash will take over my current garden space in a matter of months. So, we’re going to do a ‘traditional’ (non-Ruth Stout) garden patch at the back of the yard and just let the squash and zucchini go *mad* back there.

 

“Watch out! That wild Crookneck is coming right at us!”

Sucessful squash planting doesn't even begin to describe these monsters:

 

So, next Saturday there are plans to hit Home Depot and rent the necessary rototiller while picking up the other ‘sub-garden’ supplies; like wire fencing to keep Tonda’s beasts…er…puppies…out when they visit – They are diggers. Nuff said…

 

I knowtristinmorgan andsaoirse42 will be busy at the farm next weekend, but I hope to co-optbedpimp and sirduckie for some work if I can. *grin*

 

The list below the cut gives you information on what is currently being grown. Once you see the list, you’ll understand the cut.

( Clip, clip, clip... )

OK, having had a blast on this shirt I am finishing up for the hubby, I find myself seriously considering working on a new chemise project for myself. It's an illness. *head desk*

So, what project am I thinking of embarking on? ( This one. )
There must be something in the water this month...*chuckle*

 Working multiple projects at the same time seems to lead to prevent boredome and create a lot of project progress, but not much in the way of updating my journal! Despite the long silences, I have been working consistently on the following items;

 
“Museum of Bath” style shirt for hubby

Sock patterning (forthe_fin)

Bandoleer stringers for hubby & self

Mending (general gear up-keep)

Gardening (I really need to post an update on this – we have *lots* of seedlings now!)

 

I don’t have photos and info on all these projects online yet, but I did snap some shots of the patterning and the work done on the MoB shirt this weekend.

 

( So here you go! )

Hubby spent the weekend cooking amazing food (filet minon au pouvre and chocolate ganache torte...*yum*) and keeping us all entertained (Gluckhaus after dinner was both cut-throat and fun!) while I was burrowed in with these projects. He *is* fabulous and totally deserves a flash new shirt, even if he's right about it being a little too nice for a regular soldier. He declared a half-dozen times, "You're trying to make an officer out of me!"  Now why would I do that to someone I love?!? *giggle*

The visit with the_fin  and M was a blast - he's got a nice girl there! We did a lot of BSing and just generally enjoyed each others company. the_fin  shared some new music from Idiot Stare that is going to keep our feet tapping for some time to come (when is the rest of the record coming out!?!). M was a lot of fun, great to chat with and didn't blanch when the three 'Ren Geeks' started going off about faire and reenactment. *chuckle* Now that takes tolerance! 

After our company left, the weekend ended with some gun cleaning ("I love the smell of blackpowder in the morning - HooRaa!"), TV catch-up and a nice cuddle. We missed the presence of shadowd1  who was waylaid by a bad back, but we are hoping to catch up with her soon!

I wish I had another two days off! *grin*