Tag Archives: Family

 

Can't seem to get enough of one sort of thing done around here to have a post that makes sense, so here's everything I guess.

 

That was my first "pesto garden" harvest a while back. My Memmy gave me a still-in-the-box food processor that she never used (her old one is still kickin' and then somebody gave her this one for whatever reason and it just sat around). Anyway, what? Oh yeah. I chopped up those piles of goodness and smooshed them into a little bitty container and stuck them in the freezer.

And now I'm ready to do it all over again.



I just wish my 'maters were as fruitful (literally).



They got nice and big, but are just now really blossoming and I've had very little fruit so far.

Ah well. At least we've been finally getting a little rain here and there.



Our area was/is not in drought, but it still had been so dry for so long.

A nice thing:



Even though we are not allowed to keep chickens in our borough (and honestly? I don't have the energy or money for them at this point in my life anyway), we have plenty of local sources for fresh eggs, and my neighbor Linda surprised me with a dozen the other week. Of course, we had already devoured half of them before I managed to get a picture.

Now. Remember this?



I finally picked a paint color and put a better back on it:





Hooray! Now I love it again!

And speaking of loving things again... The mystery shawl from my last post? It got weird.



It's hard to explain -- no wait, let me rephrase this. It's actually very easy to explain, and at some length too, but I will not bore you. Basically, the design of the shawl in the second clue proved to be something that I feel does not benefit from a self striping yarn and is much better served by a solid, tweed, or very slightly variegated yarn instead.

Luckily, I had these already on hand.



The brown and tan is undyed alpaca from Ideuma Creek (the ball's worth was purchased at Rhinebeck and the two cakes were purchased online much later), and the white is Juniper Moon Farm cormo that I grabbed on sale a few months back. They are both so soft! And knitting up beautifully together.



Because the pattern name is "Rockefeller" and my yarns are now alpaca and wool, I have dubbed mine, "Wool-paca-feller." ... Isn't it sad that I amuse myself so.

Now some cute things:



A few years ago, my friend gave me the Little Miss figurine on the far left for no particular reason except that she was cute. After a while, I got the bright idea to affix her to my dashboard with a little adhesive square; sort of a fun little mascot for our trips. Fast forward a bit and the same friend sent me the pipe smoking bobble headed Pappy in the center, so I stuck him up there too, joking that the little figures were Mr. Ambry and me. This fabulous idea then sent me on a quest to find figures to represent the kids too.

A little while after that, my friend Michele sent us some wonderful baby gifts and just happened to stick that little Kewpie doll on the outside of the package, and I practically bolted out to the car to stick it in its place. All I needed were the boys and after several failed attempts to find the Blockheads from Gumby in an appropriate size, I settled on Mario and Luigi. Even though I am not a gamer, the boys love them, so that's that.

And now, every time we get in the car we have to smile at our little dashboard family up there. :)

Also cute was this terrified leaf friend that John found outside the other day:



Still with me?

I am going to attempt to pickle some things this week. I have dabbled in canning in the past, but not much, and I have never pickled, so this might prove to be horrible. Or not. We'll see.



I mixed coriander, allspice, cloves, turmeric, celery seed, yellow mustard seeds, bay leaves, cinnamon sticks, and mixed peppercorns in there and it smells quite delightful. I have a bunch of dill in the freezer and must grab some garlic, and then I can do half batches of each item in spice blend thinger and also in garlicky dill.

Believe it or not, I could keep talking indefinitely, but I have decided to cut myself off here. Cross your fingers for cooler weather so I can get up in the attic really soon and have a real project to share again!