This, that, and the other
Aug. 20th, 2012 11:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
magidThanks to Currentlee, I ended up with an ARC of The Paladin Prophecy (Mark Frost), which I enjoyed a whole lot. It's a total page-turner, starting out in somewhere like the herenow, and not long after taking a turn for the strange. Not surprising for a co-author of Twin Peaks, I suppose. My only gripe is that while some of the plot is resolved by the end of the book (some absolutely, some in surmises that are yet to be confirmed), there are many questions left open for book 2.... and since it's before the official publication date for the first book, I'm in for a long wait. (I do reread books, but usually not immediately after finishing them; I just didn't want to leave the story yet.).
I didn't arrange for anyone to water the plants on my porch when I was away at NHC, hoping that the intermittent rain would come at convenient times. It didn't, quite, so while everything else is fine (even the greens in the shortest containers), the tomato plants lost a lot of foliage. It didn't help that they outgrew the bamboo sticks I'd put in (bending over quite a lot, breaking some of the aforementioned sticks), and some birds found cherry tomatoes quite delectable. I won't be getting quite as many tomatoes as I'd hoped this year, alas. What I'd like to have by next year is a solar-powered water pump that would work with a rain barrel (or equivalent), ideally linked up with moisture sensors so I could get more water to the tomatoes and less to the chives, but if not, a daily timer (solar powered because (a) why not use available resources, and (b) I don't have an outdoor outlet). A barrel rather than a hose because the nearest water is my kitchen sink, which is not ideal to use for such a thing. I think I need to talk to more technically knowledgeable friends about this, since I have no clue how to assemble parts into something like this, nor even exactly what parts I'd need.
I made a big batch of fridge pickles for a friend's event last week, both dilly cucumber ones and spicy carrot ones. They were liked, but I made far more than were needed for the size of the gathering. So some went to my seudah shlishit hosts, and some were eaten by last-minute visitors on Shabbat evening and afternoon. I still have more.
I picked up a friend's farm share last Sunday, and still had some carrots left from the veggies I kept for myself. Yesterday I turned those into pickles as well, but canned ones, rather than fridge ones. A while back I'd made sweet carrot pickles with cinnamon, and since I had some sweet brine left over from pickling some crab apples, that was the direction I went. I also had a lemon hanging around, and for some reason that translated into slices of lemons in the four pint jars as well. I hope they end up as tasty as I imagine.
Today, I channeled Browngirl and fruitcaked. I riffed off Ozarque's recipe (wishing she were still able to post), changing a few things. I wanted it pareve, so I used vegetable oil instead of butter. I skipped the orange extract/juice because I didn't have either. I used all dark raisins, but light rum, and walnuts for the nuts, since that was what I had. Instead of candied fruit, I used some ginger, orange, and cocoa nibs left over from making liqueur, which tend to be somewhat dried, sweeter, and more alcoholic than fresh, which seemed close enough to candied (and because of the amount that came out of the jar, it was more like two cups of fruit than one). The recipe makes two cakes; both are now wrapped in rum-soaked cheesecloth and a layer of aluminum foil in a box, awaiting further basting. I hope they will be good once the rounds of basting are done.
Also for that event last week, I crocheted a white kippah with eight pomegranates around the edge in a variety of reds, pinks, and purples. I came up with the pattern for the pomegranates, and even so, was rather bored during the rows that had the color pattern. It made me realize again how little I use color patterns these days, instead of texture or other contrasts. Color patterns often require counting to get them spaced evenly, and the switching between colors results in tangles that need to be straightened out, often mid-project, which I find tedious. This time, I minimized that by 'hanging' each color at its pomegranate, rather than carrying all the colors through. This also had the advantage of having the white look solid, rather than with dark colors shadowing the background, which seems to happen more with white than with other colors.
The other two hats I made recently were mostly of double-stranded thin mercerized cotton (flaming rainbow riot and catch the foam), which took a while due to the size of the thread, but made a pleasingly solid fabric that stays where its put. Also, I was able to crochet the cotton even in the heat we had recently (though the last few days have been much more comfortable!), which I wasn't able to face with pretty much any other yarn, almost all of which is fuzzier, which seems to translate into warmer for my hands.
I didn't arrange for anyone to water the plants on my porch when I was away at NHC, hoping that the intermittent rain would come at convenient times. It didn't, quite, so while everything else is fine (even the greens in the shortest containers), the tomato plants lost a lot of foliage. It didn't help that they outgrew the bamboo sticks I'd put in (bending over quite a lot, breaking some of the aforementioned sticks), and some birds found cherry tomatoes quite delectable. I won't be getting quite as many tomatoes as I'd hoped this year, alas. What I'd like to have by next year is a solar-powered water pump that would work with a rain barrel (or equivalent), ideally linked up with moisture sensors so I could get more water to the tomatoes and less to the chives, but if not, a daily timer (solar powered because (a) why not use available resources, and (b) I don't have an outdoor outlet). A barrel rather than a hose because the nearest water is my kitchen sink, which is not ideal to use for such a thing. I think I need to talk to more technically knowledgeable friends about this, since I have no clue how to assemble parts into something like this, nor even exactly what parts I'd need.
I made a big batch of fridge pickles for a friend's event last week, both dilly cucumber ones and spicy carrot ones. They were liked, but I made far more than were needed for the size of the gathering. So some went to my seudah shlishit hosts, and some were eaten by last-minute visitors on Shabbat evening and afternoon. I still have more.
I picked up a friend's farm share last Sunday, and still had some carrots left from the veggies I kept for myself. Yesterday I turned those into pickles as well, but canned ones, rather than fridge ones. A while back I'd made sweet carrot pickles with cinnamon, and since I had some sweet brine left over from pickling some crab apples, that was the direction I went. I also had a lemon hanging around, and for some reason that translated into slices of lemons in the four pint jars as well. I hope they end up as tasty as I imagine.
Today, I channeled Browngirl and fruitcaked. I riffed off Ozarque's recipe (wishing she were still able to post), changing a few things. I wanted it pareve, so I used vegetable oil instead of butter. I skipped the orange extract/juice because I didn't have either. I used all dark raisins, but light rum, and walnuts for the nuts, since that was what I had. Instead of candied fruit, I used some ginger, orange, and cocoa nibs left over from making liqueur, which tend to be somewhat dried, sweeter, and more alcoholic than fresh, which seemed close enough to candied (and because of the amount that came out of the jar, it was more like two cups of fruit than one). The recipe makes two cakes; both are now wrapped in rum-soaked cheesecloth and a layer of aluminum foil in a box, awaiting further basting. I hope they will be good once the rounds of basting are done.
Also for that event last week, I crocheted a white kippah with eight pomegranates around the edge in a variety of reds, pinks, and purples. I came up with the pattern for the pomegranates, and even so, was rather bored during the rows that had the color pattern. It made me realize again how little I use color patterns these days, instead of texture or other contrasts. Color patterns often require counting to get them spaced evenly, and the switching between colors results in tangles that need to be straightened out, often mid-project, which I find tedious. This time, I minimized that by 'hanging' each color at its pomegranate, rather than carrying all the colors through. This also had the advantage of having the white look solid, rather than with dark colors shadowing the background, which seems to happen more with white than with other colors.
The other two hats I made recently were mostly of double-stranded thin mercerized cotton (flaming rainbow riot and catch the foam), which took a while due to the size of the thread, but made a pleasingly solid fabric that stays where its put. Also, I was able to crochet the cotton even in the heat we had recently (though the last few days have been much more comfortable!), which I wasn't able to face with pretty much any other yarn, almost all of which is fuzzier, which seems to translate into warmer for my hands.