Garden 2011

I have finally started getting things together in the garden.  We had a rough start this year, but things are actually going pretty well now.

We started out pretty much where we ended last year:

 

It was actually kind of funny with the rain.  I was waiting for a three day window of no rain.  A day with no rain to do the rototilling and a couple days prior with no rain so that the soil could drain a little.  One day, I was finished studying at around 7 pm ... I figured it had not rained that day or the day before AND I had an hour before the sun went down ... SCORE!   :)

In the back left-hand corner, there was a nice little surprise left from last year.  I had planted two artichoke plants the year prior.  One of them did pretty well, while the other really did nothing.  Surprisingly enough, the one that did pretty poorly came back... with a vengeance 

It was a little sad though ... the one that did well the year before put out a couple leave, but ended up dying. :(

I had started a lot of plants this year.  About 30 tomatoes plants of different varieties.  Several zuccini, cucumber, a couple different winter squash varieties, 30 bean plants each of two different varieties.

It FINALLY got warm enough to put it all out.  Within 2 days, EVERY SINGLE PLANT had been eaten by either slugs or (in the case of the beans) rabbits.  I was NOT happy.

I went ahead and bought some tomatoe and squash plants from a nursury (grrrr) and got them in.  We also put in three new artichoke plants.  The rabbits/slugs left the tomatoes alone, but did in a few of the others.  All in all, we ended up with all the tomatoes, one winter squash, one zucc, one summer squash that was supposed to be a zucc, but is something else, one lemon cuc.  Not fantastic, but should be enough to enjoy for the summer.

The middle bed houses most of the tomotoes in the back and the unknown (but tasty) summer squash in the front. The right bed has the winter squash and lemon cucumber at the back, a chocolate pepper, hot pepper and zuccini in the middle and a few more tomatoes in the mid-front.  The section without cover are some potatoes that sprouted in the kitchen... heh.

The left hand bed has the beans and a section of weed still waiting to be removed... :P

A few more pics:

Side view

New artichoke plant

Unknown summer squash

Winter squash, lemon tomatoes, zucchini 

First tomato plants

Yellow beans

View from the back

Hard to see, but asparagus fans

Potatoes

Unknown summer squash

Unknown summer squash and what was left of the first cherry tomato harvest

Proto-zucchini bread

Spinning world goes round and round...

Not too long ego, I decided I wanted to graduate from a drop spindle to a spinning wheel.

I was on Craigslist and found a walking wheel for only $15 dollars! Of COURSE I had to get it.

Unfortunately, there was no spindle, it needs some leather replaced and I decided I REALLY wanted a treadle.

I mentioned this on Facebook and ... SURPRISE... someone has just what I wanted for sale.  So now I have two!

I played around a little and then a friend wanted some silk spun up.  1/2 pound of silk later...

The picture shows about 1/4 of the total yield.  This is a little heavier than lace weight.  It really was  a joy to spin. 
I used tinker toys to make a niddy-noddy. It is kind of cool, since you can spin it to put tension on the yarn.  I steamed it and then let it dry under tension to se the twist.  .

Once set, the hank (1 of 4) was ready to send off to its new home  :)

After that was done, I started spinning up some of wool I had.  It is absolutely lovely.  I do not want to spin up too much until I have a client who wants it or a project in mind.





I then picked up some (non-white) alpaca roving at a local store.

The color on the bottom one did not come out true. It is a lovely grey mix.  The dark chocolate is pretty true.  I started spinning that up into some light lace weight (about 20 wpi), some of which I plied up to make some ply to do some glittens. 

  

Single strand

Double ply.  Color (again) not very true.

New Camera's are FUN...

As a lot of people know, I have decided to invest in a really good camera. Even two days in, it has been worth it. That is not to say my pictures are great, but I certainly am remembering the fun of being able to play with aperture, shutter-speed, etc. Just some samples from the last (first?) couple of days.

The girls:

The cats:

The Tree's:

The yard:

FINALLY! It is ready...

...ready to use... Task 2 - BRING IT ON! :)

It was quite the chore. I really thought it would never be working. We got it all over here, only to end up in a month long decision making process as to where it was going to be set-up.

We finally picked the spot... we were going to have it run parallel to the house. We hired the electrician to come put in the wiring. After some back and forth, it was decided that it was ok to install a plug on the pumps.

So... pool in general area, pump has a plug... 220V installed... check. We decided to try the pump. It was a good thing we did... it did not take long to realize that the system was busted. It was the water pouring out of the bottom of the heater that was the dead give-away.

Apparently, the heater needs the tube to actually be ATTACHED in order for it to work right.  It did not take us (the royal 'us') to fix that and get it all put back together... gave it a day to make sure it was all hooked up, gave it a test and, voila!... everything seemed to be ready to go.

We decided to change the orientation of the pool because the way it ended up was a lot more level. It would have taken a lot of work to even it out the other way.

We got it filled... it took about a day and a half with one hose, but it was full! Unfortunately, it was also sinking into the ground in a way that was, shall we say... not good. Apparently, the mass of the weight sits on the OUTSIDE of the feet. We then spent a day or so draining the pool... *sigh*.

Once it was drained, we dug out around each of the feet, installed 2x8 planks for the feet to sit on. Once that was done, it was just a matter of getting it filled again and turning on the system. We had a bit of a problem the first day with the heater. There is a little dial inside the heater that sets the pressure at which the heater turns off if the pressure drops. For some reason, it was set all the way open, so there was not enough pressure to allow it to turn on. Once I figured that out, it was just a matter of waiting a few days for the water to get warm enough to be able to swim.

I have been swimming since Sunday and it is wonderful. I started out with about 10 minutes. The next day, I was able to swim for 15. Yesterday, I turned up the current a bit and swam for 30 minutes. Today, I was up to 35. Tomorrow, I am going for the grand total of 45. We will see how that goes. :)

It makes me feel so much better to be exercising again.  I only hope I do not disappoint myself and stop.  Going to work on that.

Reminds me "Why"

People ask me how I can do what I do for a  living... I think they only see the death.

Which is why it is nice to every once in a while to see the other side of it all:

"This patient is a 9-year old girl.  She was having trouble reading her schoolwork.  She is now literally the top student in her class!  Thanks for the great tissue."

I love my job.