Collage

Fabric, thread, button, and hand stitching

Sowing update

Over the weekend I sowed the following indoors. A little late, but better than never:

Cucumber, mideast prolific
Lemon cucumber (from friend Ben F)
Watermelon, blacktail mountain (from friend Ben F)
Zucchini, dark star
Acorn squash, mesa queen hybrid (from friend Sarah B)
Butternut squash (seeds saved from CSA squash)
Crookneck summer squash
Brussels sprouts

Nasturtium, Alaska mix
Nasturtium, Moonlight
Giant sunflower
Echinacea

Next Trading Post May 1st

Please join us for the next Laurel Street Trading Post on Saturday, May 1st from 2-4pm. I have been telling people that there will be a May pole, but now I am not sure if I will be able to pull this off. Any suggestions for a pole?

Another Trading Post!

Some of the things traded at last week's Trading Post:
applesauce cake
nut butter
root vegetables
bread machine
peach pie
basil/kale/aloe seedlings
eggs
kombucha babies
fish sauce
mung bean sprouts
ceramic pots
limoncello

Worms

Our worm bin is thriving! Lots of little guys, too, so it seems like they are reproducing. I bought a pound of worms last August for $25, not a bad investment.

Quilt update

I have been working on my first quilt since December. I am so close to finishing the top piece (let it be done now!) but that means I am really only about half way done with the whole thing. Once the top design is all stitched together, the actual quilting has to be completed, sandwiching the batting (fluffy stuff inside the quilt) between the top and bottom pieces. Since I had preshunk all of the material for the top, it was recommended that I do the same for the batting. Otherwise bad things happen the first time you wash the quilt all put together.
This whole quilt thing has been a huge experiment, just trying to figure it out as I go. So this is me trying to wash and shrink the batting in the bathtub.

Did you know that a full-sized piece of batting soaked with water weighs like a million pounds? Fact.

Rolling the batting in a towel.

Best Sunday afternoon ever

Building beds

These pictures are kind of old, but I like seeing the before and after. We actually have a second bed up now, too, behind that giant rock by the fence. More on that to come soon...

Rain Barrel, please!

I made a rain barrel! I found this 55 gallon food-grade plastic barrel on craigslist and James kindly picked it up. It cost $25, and while you can probably find a lot of these out there for free, I thought this wasn't unreasonable. Plus, it came with the spigot. The guy we bought it from had intended on converting it to a rain barrel but never got around to it. So.... I drilled two 3/4inch holes, one at the base and one at the top. I screwed the spigot into the hole at the bottom, and then popped some vinyl hosing into the hole at the top. This is for overflow water, which is diverted into the bushes a few feet away from the house. (Already this is an improvement upon the old situation, where water from the gutter landed directly at the base of the house. )


I did have to take off almost 2 feet of the existing downspout, but it cut relatively easily with scissors. I could not find one of those accordion style flexible spout attachments, but I did find a $2 alternative. Here is a slightly fancier version of what I got. Basically it is a tube of flexible plastic, and normally you would unroll the 8-foot tube onto your lawn, kind of like a Slip N Slide. The bottom 5 feet have holes punched in the plastic, so rain water disperses along your lawn. (Why you would need to do this during a rain storm, I am unclear). But it was very useful for this purpose, as I cut off the majority of it and used it to funnel water into the barrel.

Yup, just pouring water onto the concrete. I was so excited to have this complete that I allowed it to fill up before raising it on cinder blocks. This was a bad idea. It is definitely necessary to have it propped up on something, because it is impossible to get the watering can underneath the spout when it is one inch off the ground (unless you are going to use a hose, which is not my plan). And when this bad boy is full, it weights almost 500 pounds! So there was no way we were going to be able to pick it up and move it. Hence, the emptying of 55 gallons out sadly onto the concrete. I told myself it didn't matter, because if it hadn't been filled up the rain water would have gone to the same place anyways, but it did feel really wrong. Also, it took about 45 minutes to drain entirely! I was impressed. For those that are interested, it takes about 3 hours of good rain to fill entirely. Not bad!

Studies in Snow

snow shoes on
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snow shoes off
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