Gardening, knitting and another show

Just when I think I've figured out this gardening thing (ha!) I get new surprises. Out among the apple trees out front, on which there are pinky-tipped sized apples, I noticed these while I was draining a bathtub. Yep, more pumpkins. Those seeds must really be out there biding their time. Add water, and poof! Even if it's not the season and it will be too cold for pumpkins to set, and who wants nearly-inedible pumpkins in Janurary, anyhow, up they come.

Not just among the apple trees, though, which was ground zero for the thrown pumpkin now almost a full year ago, I'm finding them still coming up among the mint. Remember, this is a strip along our sidewalk. It's not very big, and it's not very "gardeny." But that hasn't stopped the bigger baby pumpkins, nor, now that I looked today, more baby baby pumpkins! I have no idea what we'll do if they keep growing and growing and growing. I guess foot traffic on one side and parked cars on the other will keep them in check. Occasionally I imagine building an archway and training them up and over it, welcome to Bedlam Acres, or something. But really, it's just mostly interesting to watch.

In the "old dog/new tricks" category, I figured that I can't really knit from charts. Lace or colorwork. I apparently have to translate the chart into numbers in my head, and if I try to do it while looking at the chart, it adds a layer of complexity that messes up my knitting.

However, if I do that translation from the chart into a written list of numbers, I can knit like nobody's business. Okay, I can knit, period. So the chart for the second snail mitten in my-speak reads "Dk 3, 4, 1, 1, 1, 1, 7, 3, 7, 3. 1, 1, 1, 1, 4, 3" or something like that. I list the color of yarn first, in this case, dark, then just merrily go along from there. Weird to find out a little quirk-room in my head like that, but good since I think I can now take on more complicated patterns. Maybe I can finally finish Branching Out for Thing 1.

And finally, last night we went back to the Fillmore (without Thing 1) to see another show.

We're pretty sure we made the right call. The crowd was young and bizarrely (to me) tall. During the opening bands -- why oh why were there two? -- they weren't too riled up. It struck me while watching the first bands that it's kind of sweet that in a world with The Clash and The Rolling Stones and U2 and many other bands in it, boys (and it's almost always boys, another thought stream entirely) still want to pick up guitars and drum sticks and just shout out whatever's inside of them. Hit me like that quote from some writer about the nerve of writing poetry, that we stand on the shoulders of giants. Even though "Don't start a band" is fine advice, there are plenty of folks who just won't take it.

The speed Irish punky stuff brought out the mosh in many of the kids, though. Eric and an unidentified big guy, there with his 16 year old daughter, set up kind of a wall, so the surging, slamming boys were kept away from our bit of the front. Therefore, I got to leap up and down and wave my arms with the best of them, to the point that I was sweating in my boots, without actual injury. And that was a pretty big deal! Eric took well-deserved credit for introducing the band to me and Thing 1, and I'm so glad he did. They were a hoot. Big fun, and now that our Week o'Concerts is over, it's back to real life and maybe I'll get that mitten done.

We went, I danced, we got the t-shirt

Thing 1 had her first concert and first club experience last night. She and I took public transit into the city -- which was a complete blast, so much nicer than trying to drive -- and met up with Eric, who drove in. Public transit, which is wonderful at 6:00 pm, is less fun really tired and still sick at 11:00! I actually fell asleep in the car, which almost never happens.

We went to see one of our favorite bands, Gaelic Storm. Lovely, happy, fast Irish speed music. I prefer a punkier edge to my Irish, which is why the grownups are heading right back out on Monday for Flogging Molly. But for my thirteen year old daughter's first time out, they were just right. The Fillmore is a lovely venue, although she admitted that a lot of the music history was lost on her, and the crowd was just about perfect.

I tried not to do a lot of thinking about the symbolism of the outing, and it really felt more like just another lovely activity that she can now participate in, like playing cribbage. Maybe because she was there with her parents, and we were glad for her company. She was so lovely there, leaning on the stage. Sometimes I think the pressures of growing up make her feel as though the upsides are thin on the ground. But this helped her see some of the privileges of aging, also. I'm sure I'll be less sanguine should she develop a hard-core taste in clubbing, but who knows? I didn't, her namesake aunt did, and we are all still around.

It was a long night, though.

I think the fact that she slept in her concert shirt is a good sign. As is this smile.

Meanwhile, to distract you from the utter lack of knitting content, pictures! The garden is actually growing. I look out at what looked like bare dirt not long ago and notice that the green haze is now obviously plants.

"Freckles" romaine. I love colored, ruffly, spotted lettuces and have seeds for about 15 varieties. My salads, while utter overkill, are pretty. Thinking about the painstaking transplanting I've been doing, I think about what kind of confidence and belief it would take to drive a tractor and plant seeds by the fieldful and just believe they'll make it.

Equally difficult to believe that teensy little ruffled leaves of kale will grow enough to feed us soon. But they will.


Here's last spring's kale still coming on strong. I think it's going to seed soon, so I'll try to eat a bit more this week.

Beauty Therapy

Nope, no spa treatments here. Just a day spent in the unbelievably gorgeous Capay Valley at a harvest festival. An organic farm located there has a big thank you day for their CSA subscribers, and it's open to everyone. I think it's possibly a fundraiser for them, too.

What it was for me was a chance to be surrounded by beauty, and I feel as though I've been breathing more oxygenated air or something.


The bigger kids got to run through the very well-appointed kids area without supervision for an hour or so, which had to be a kick for them. We kept running into old friends -- our midwife! My sister's midwife! Yet another one of the homeschoolers! Someone who looks familiar, but we can't place them! Thing 4 was all about the animals.


I would have preferred, in the main, a quiet day to just wander around the farm, but then I would have missed the contra dancing.


What incredible, delightful fun.

Dance like no one is watching

Another quiet solo run this morning -- just two miles, but a nice pace and good head time. Then I came home and jury-rigged these from a standard scone recipie:



These are Meyer Lemon Blueberry Vanilla Yogurt Scones with Lemon Honey spread. Notice the tiny fingers on the side? I had to do a hockey-player block to get that picture. A wee tweak of the leavening to deal with the increased acidity, and voila! A new recipe and the last of the farmer's market blueberries are all eaten up.

Then my day began unfolding in the usual way -- sweeping, cleaning up, taking the recycling out, and there was one more wet load of laundry to hang up. I noticed yesterday that when I hang laundry, I find myself smiling for no reason. I just like doing it.

And this morning? I was wearing my mp3 player -- often something I do while sweeping or cleaning, and the combination of hanging laundry and "Jive Talking" just got me going. I danced with tank tops; I danced with pajama bottoms. I danced with cloth napkins, I just danced and danced and danced. I assume no neighbors were watching, but if they were, I hope it gave them a huge smile -- I miss dancing, and if doing it around my laundry line is the way to get some, then I'm all for it.

Nothing like the smell of fresh laundry, too.