(mis)adventures of spindlerose

Gardening

I missed gardening while we lived in Alexandria. Some years I managed to plant a few annuals, but most years I admired our cherry tree in the spring and thought "I should do something out there" before I got distracted by work or wool. The simple differences between gardening in Zone 5 and Zone 7 overwhelmed me, and I did not want to put much money or effort into our tiny rented yard. Our new yard needs quite a bit of TLC. There are several things I want to do, but major improvements are 2 or 3 years in the future. We need to unpack (this year) and finish furnishing inside the house (next year) first. Eventually, I want to replace all of the yew and arborvitae with perennial borders, find a good spot for vegetables and herbs, and add borders along the sidewalk, driveway, and edges of our lot. Because of all the mature oak and evergreen trees, no place in our yard gets full sun. I promise not make any grand plans until I understand the conditions better.

In the short term, I can prune the overgrown shrubbery and pull up the baby oak trees the squirrels plant all over the lawn. I already have the tools and skills required for those tasks, and pruning and weeding are immensely satisfying. Today, the vigorous rhododendron met my hand pruners. I'm not sure what imp urged me outside to garden on a 90° day, but I can now look out of the office window and reach to the valve that controls the hose on the south side of the house. In comparing the before and after photos, I'm a little worried that I overdid it. I always feel that way, and I am usually thrilled by the results of my vigorous pruning the next time the shrub blooms.

Diving in

Today's NaBloPoMo question is "Do you like to dive into things or take your time getting acclimated?" For me, it depends on the context in which I'm answering the question. When swimming, I usually ease into the water slowly even though I am ultimately happier if I dive in. I remember fearlessly diving off of the high dive at the city pools when I was young. At some point around middle school, I lost that fearlessness.

When crafting and cooking, I dive in. When I get a new spindle, new fiber, or a new wheel, I start playing. Eventually, I settle in to sample and plan for a project, but I love those first moments of spinning for the joy of it. Unfortunately, the bins of fiber in the new wool room that I've spun a few grams of are evidence of this tendency. With knitting, I'm even worse. I quickly succumb to the shiny new projects and abandon them as soon as I hit a small roadblock, things get boring, or I've learned what that project had to teach. The huge collection of odd socks and nearly finished sweaters provides that evidence. For example, I started the Ruched Yoke Tee from the Spring 2011 Interweave Knits in late February. I knit furiously for just about a week; I was traveling and in love with the yarn and the pattern. I finished the yoke, reached the point that I needed to do a bit of math for bust darts, and have not picked it up since (unless you count putting all the yarn, magazine issue, my recent measurements, and the sweater in progress into one place as I packed to move).

Professionally, I am more inclined to take my time getting acclimated. When working with colleagues, partners, and customers, taking that time is important to building long term relationships. When I first started in my field, I frequently dove in and ended up with bad client relationships because I did not fully understand the problem I had been hired to solve, or—more importantly—the people for whom I was solving a problem. I also coded myself into corners because I did not properly plan large projects. When I am working on projects, this becomes procrastination more often than not. Today it took me most of the morning to get started on a project; once I started, I made good progress. Someday, I'll learn that just starting the work on big projects gets them done much more quickly than waiting until I have a large block of time to start and finish in one setting. Then again, if I have not learned that less by 41, I wonder if I ever will.

Paddling

D and I successfully re-lanuched the S.S. Daisy (who knew that the canoe had a name?) this morning. Draconian measures were required to breach the security protecting the vessel. The cables securing S.S. Daisy were quite cunningly hidden by the native flora. In addition, growth of the native flora (the tree it was locked to) provided tension on the cable which prevented access to the vessel. As reported yesterday, we needed a crowbar to remove the cable from the tree.

Unfortunately, there were many deaths during the initial launch.  The S.S. Daisy tipped several times and was flooded prior to emergency action by the crew to right the vessel.  During the flooding all of the animals (spiders, ants, etc.) on board were unfortunately lost at sea.  The ship's owners released a statement:  "We regret that lives were lost, however all paying passangers and crew were safe. However, we are not responsible for and can not account for any stowaways."

While out, we were spotted by a park ranger who chastised us for paddling without life vests (thankfully, he sent us home without issuing a ticket). We shopped this afternoon for personal flotation devices so that our next excursion will be legal.

Swimming

The gorgeous kitchen is not the only reason we bought our house. The view from the master bedroom and access to Lake Cochicuate target="new" played a big part in the decision. When I wake up in the morning, I feel like I'm in a tree house. On nice days, I roll a yoga mat out on the deck to greet the sun.

For swimming, we have steps that lead down to the water and plans to put in a dock to make swimming easier. We had a few friends over for a barbecue tonight and some of them braved the stairs and our unimproved lakeshore and went for a swim. After dinner, D braved the underbrush to rescue his family canoe. He took it out for a brief paddle and declared it lake-worthy.

I have plans for an early morning paddle and dip in the lake tomorrow.

Tour de Fleece pictures

At the beginning of this week, both of these spindles were nearly empty. Now, the maple one has a good sized cop. If D doesn't distract me with a lot more unpacking, I should be able to finish spinning these singles this weekend. As you can see, I found the storage bobbins with the rest of the singles from this braid of fiber (BFL from someone who is no longer dyeing). Close comparison confirmed that I did spin a bit thinner last night than most of the singles, but I should be able to balance out the grist variations in plying. I need to accept that this is what happens when it takes me several years to spin 4 ounces of fiber.

My wheels are lonely. The Matchless is in the big box on the left. I think the mother of all, flyer, and other assorted bits for the Saxony are in the smaller box in front of it. Sometime tomorrow, I will get both wheels up and spinning. If D goes to the airport tomorrow, I will have a few hours to play.

Finally, some spinning

I finally had a chance to watch a stage of the Tour de France and do some Tour de Fleece spinning today. For some reason, I was a little fumble fingered with the spindle; there were a lot of breaks and drops. I think I was spinning thinner than I have been with this fiber, but I did not have a reference sample in the case with my spindles and fiber. I'm not sure I can even locate the storage bobbins holding the rest of the singles. I guess I'll be doing some excavation in the studio tomorrow.

Cat antics

I think the kitties are finally settling into the new place. I snapped these two (admittedly crummy) iPhone photos this morning. Eliza is on the left; I think she was trying to figure out how to catch the birds she could hear but not see. Toni is on the left; she was sound asleep and started a twitchy dream right after I took the picture.

 

First new kitchen adventure

Or how I burned my dinner.

The new kitchen has a fancy glass electric cooktop. The last time I used an electric stove was 8 years ago when we lived at MIT, and I pretty much never cooked in the tiny kitchen on the really awful toy stove after I ruined a third tea kettle. I kept boiling them dry while wondering why my dinner wasn't cooking because I always turned on the wrong burner. Electric kettle and good friends with real kitchens saved me from myself.

It is going to take a while for me to adjust to this cooktop. The contols are backwards—the button I want to use to make a burner hotter makes it cooler, the one that should make it cooler makes it hotter. It takes a long time for this cooktop to get hot. Boiling water for pasta is an exercise in patience. Getting a pan hot enough to sauté takes twice as long (at least tht's what it felt like to me) as on a gas burner.

After waiting what felt like 5 minutes for my skillet to get hot, I sauteed some chicken breast for chicken cacciatore. It was nicely browned and perfectly cooked. My problems started when I forgot that electric burners STAY hot for a long time after you turn them down. I burned the tomato sauce I added to the pan, and my perfectly cooked chicken pieces ended up a little dry. It was still edible, barely. D's chickenless dinner was perfect since I just heated his sauce gently over low heat. The question is will I remember this lesson the next time I make a pan sauce?

Tour de Fleece 2011

I am a couple of days late starting my Tour de Fleece spinning. I plead moving and unpacking insanity. I really meant to spend a few minutes spinning on a spindle Saturday and Sunday, but I didn't.

My goals for this year:

Finish pink BFL on a spindle

Finish pink and purple polworth on a spindle

Finish green Abbybatts on the Schacht-Reeves

Finish blue alpaca blend on the Joy

Pick something else from my personal fiber club bin to spin

My excuse for not spinning is that D is an unpacking slave driver. But, the kitchen is fully unpacked and everything has a temporary home. I need to do some serious cabinet rearranging, but we did not take the time to adjust shelf heights as we upacked. To a large extent, we put everything where it would fit and not where I want it long term.

We have also unpacked as many books as we could into the tiny library. Before I get to spend time spinning tonight, we need to do a quick organization pass in the office so D has someplace to work for a few hours tonight and I have someplace to work tomorrow.

First home improvement project

I moved with the cats last Tuesday. I thought about keeping them confined to a single room for a few days. D pointed out that they had been cooped up for the movers all day Monday and in the car all day Tuesday, so it would be ok to let them roam the whole house. That turned out to be a bad decision. By Wednesday afternoon, I thought I had found all the really good hiding places and blocked access to the unsafe ones. Sometime Wednesday night, Eliza vanished. She managed to find a basement access point to the subfloor under the laundry room. It turned out to be one of those I can get in but not out access points. There is a cat sized opening above the pipe indicated in the photo.

Friday night, we looked into every corner and concluded that this was the one place she might be that we could not see into. When we heard little meeps and meows from that space after D called her name, we left some very stinky food on top of the pipe. It disappeared. After the movers left on Saturday, we did some minor demolition in the garage and found another access to the same space; this one does not require a blind leap down 3 feet. We left more food at that opening, and it disappeared while we were out having dinner. D decided to camp in the garage to try and coax her out of hiding (since she was still mad at me for forcing her to spend a day in a cage in the car). He had been asleep for less than 45 minutes when he woke up to "meep" and a snuggling cat. He immediately put her into kitty prison (in the master suite with her sister) and rewarded her for coming out of hiding with more stinky food.

This morning, we built the door between the finished and unfinished parts of the basement. In a week or so, we will paint it and do a better job mounting the hinges. As soon as we unpack enough to get rid of the box obstacle course, we will let the cats roam the whole house again. With no access to dangerous places.