I see you!

Yup, I see you, for sure.

You're my first cucumber of the 2015 gardening season, and I can practically taste you already. You're beautiful and precious and I can't wait to consume you.

This delightful little morsel will join my tossed salad ingredients in a day or two.

And if I'm feeling especially generous, I'll even put some slices of it into Ken's salad, too.

Unfortunately, I spotted something else while taking a look at Ken's potato patch this morning.

Dreaded deer tracks. We had heavy downpours yesterday, so the unplanted portion of Ken's garden was a tad soupy. That made it just right for deer tracks to linger.

The deer sashayed into Ken's garden patch from the woods, meandered over to his potato plants and took a sniff, then wandered out of the garden.

Today I frantically applied my special, homemade deer deterrent to both Ken's potato patch and my larger garden:

2 eggs
2-3 cups water
2/3 cup dry milk powder (I refuse to use fresh milk on deer deterrent)

A little vegetable oil.

The above I whirr in the blender until they're thoroughly emulsified. Then I add a tablespoon of liquid  dish soap. (The first time I made this concoction a few years ago, I added the soap to the blender. That was stupid! It took me considerable time to sop up the soap bubbles from my kitchen counter.)

I put this mixture into a spray bottle, let it sit at room temperature for a day or two so it can acquire a really disgusting odor, and spray it in my garden.

So far, so good. Fingers crossed. Knock on wood.

But that cucumber! Isn't it a beauty?

Rascally Knubbelchen

I came across a photo on Ravelry of a Knubbelchen and thought, "That's it! That's what I'll make for little Phoebe and Luke!" Phoebe, age 2 1/2, and Luke, age 8 months, are our close friends' grandchildren. They would be arriving by plane from Washington, DC, on Sunday, June 14. Ken and I would be at the airport to deliver a car to the four passengers (Grammy, Mom, Phoebe, and Luke), and we would help with installing child safety seats in the extra car. I thought it would be fun to give Phoebe and Luke each a little, hand knitted Knubbelchen for their ride to their grandparents' house.

Best laid plans....

I started the first Knubbelchen on Tuesday, June 9, naively thinking I'd knit the little guy in a jiffy, then make the second one just as quickly.

Wrong. Although the pattern is well-written and simple enough, these little rascals are far from "quick."

I finished Knubbelchen #1 this morning, June 19. Phoebe and Luke have been in Maine for five full days.

While I think the little Knubbelchen is quite cute, he wasn't all that fun to knit. Fingering weight yarn. Size 2 needles. Get the picture?

What's worse, I didn't realize until after this Knubbelchen moved into our home that he and his  kind have a reputation for being quite mischievous.

I can believe it. First I found him in one of my new baskets, then he was on the mantel.

Minutes later he was snuggled on the floor with Molly.

It wasn't long before I spotted him on the deck, hiding in some potted geraniums.

Then he was checking out the basil. (Perhaps he enjoys the scent of basil as much as I do.)

This hiding spot gave me the biggest chuckle. He's in the tuberous begonia/sweet potato vine pot, and he thinks no one can see him.

I suspect this naughty Knubbelchen is here to stay. I suspect, also, that it will be quite awhile before Phoebe and Luke have their own Knubbelchen! Easy to knit, yes; quick to knit, no.

Fiber Frolic 2015

Ken and I went to the Maine Fiber Frolic in Windsor, Maine, near Augusta, a couple of Sundays ago.

It didn't disappoint. In fact, I came home with 8 new skeins of yarn which I absolutely did not need.

(I've got enough yarn in my stash to keep my needles a-flying for at least two lifetimes.)

This was only our second year to attend the Frolic. In fact, I hadn't even heard of it until last year and, come to find out, this year was its fifteenth year. Why it's such a well-kept secret, I don't know.

Somehow the two-day event is well-attended, though, even if my photos here don't seem to indicate that it was.

The fair has not only booths with vendors selling local, handspun yarns, knitting supplies, etc., but also sheep, alpacas, llamas, and rabbits.

One booth selling handwoven baskets was obviously doing a good business, because I saw the baskets being carried by attendees all over the fair grounds. In fact, in my second photo here, you can see a lady holding her newly-purchases basket in her hand as she admires the llamas.

Handmade earrings, handmade pottery (especially yarn bowls), beads,...you name it. Everything a knitter or spinner or weaver could dream of was there.

Now I'm looking forward to Maine Fiber Frolic 2016.

By all means, make yourself right at home!

Yesterday morning I was doing the several-times-weekly task of dead-heading my hanging petunias on the front porch.

I'd last done the dead-heading on Saturday, and at that time I noticed a few twigs in one of the pots. I wondered where the twigs had come from, then I promptly forgot about them.

So yesterday was dead-heading day again. I'd finished with five of the hanging baskets and moved on to the sixth and final one.

I lifted it down from its hook and got a surprise: A beautifully-constructed bird's nest.

While the owner of this nest was, perhaps, a bit forward in claiming a nesting spot in one of my flower baskets, I can't help but be excited and pleased.

Watering the petunias in the basket will be tricky, but I think it can be done. If all else fails, I'll simply abandon the watering and let the mother and her babies enjoy their home. I know there will be babies, or one, at least, because I went back to the nest less than an hour later and found one newly-laid robin's egg nestled in it.

I hope this story has a happy ending. I say that because, several summers ago, a robin built a nest in my ficus tree, which sits on the front porch all summer but spends the rest of the year in my front hallway.

That mother robin laid three eggs. I watched the nest carefully, eager to see the babies when they arrived. Then I checked one morning and was devastated at the sight of dead baby birds scattered on the porch floor. A predator had gotten to them in the night.

The new robin's nest is much more inaccessible. At least I think it is. I hope it is.

Meanwhile, that first robin's nest, the one in the ficus tree, is still there. It's such a masterpiece of construction that I won't even think of removing it.