A Visit from Miss V

We enjoyed a visit from our great-niece, Violet, at the beginning of the week.

She's been visiting us for sleepovers for several years, and we always  love it when she arrives.

She's almost ten now, so I suppose she'll soon enter the stage where she'd rather spend time with her friends than with her great aunt and great uncle.

Violet and I spent one morning in the Old Port section of Portland. We had fun browsing in the shops, checking out the waterfront, and eating lunch at Elevation Burger. We had every intention of following up our lunch with ice cream cones, but alas, we were too full.

At one of the shops in the Old Port we found a skirt that Violet loved, so it was soon on its way home with her. First, though, she decided to test its "twirl-ability" while we checked out the craft supplies and yarns at Michael's. The skirt passed the twirl-ability test.

Here Violet is explaining to me which yarns are her favorite colors. She's moved from the Purple and Pink Stage to the Teal Blue Stage, as you might have guessed.

Ken took Violet for a drive around our back yard in the Model T.

Violet was impressed when I explained to her that her Uncle Ken had built this car. He spent years, decades actually, collecting parts for the car, and after he retired, he finally had the time to put the auto together.

(I asked Ken where he got the fenders for the "T." He said he made them in a sheet metal class at So. Maine Voc Tech Institute, which is now Southern Maine Community College.)

It's always rather sad to part with Violet, but she has assured us she'll be back before long.

Good day for a drive in the Model A

Yesterday was a hot, humid day, so it was a perfect day for taking a ride in Ken's 1929 Model A.

We joined a few other Model A owners and proceeded toward Sebago Lake.

The lake was calm and the view was hazy, par for the course when the humidity is high.

After Sebago, we continued on to Long Lake in Naples. Here you see the Songo River Queen at the dock. Some day we need to take a cruise on this boat.

After a brief stop in Naples, we continued on to Bridgton

Here's Ken starting the car to continue on. As you can see, the dashboard doesn't resemble a modern auto's dashboard, not by a long shot.

Our destination was the Bridgton Historical Society, where the Model A owners were eager to view this early auto. It's a Model P. Bet you've never heard of a Model P! I hadn't either.

It was built in 1909 and owned by the Cook family in Bridgton. It arrived in Bridgton unassembled, in crates, by train. It was a build-it-yourself automobile, apparently. The parts were assembled at the train station, gas and oil were added, and "Old Betsey," as the Cooks called her was off and running.

What was really neat about this visit to the historical society to see Old Betsey is that Ken, who was born and brought up in Bridgton, knew the Cooks personally. When he was a little boy, he had already developed a fascination for antique autos, and he visited the Cooks often to view Old Betsey and learn all he could from Oliver Cook. (The Cooks consisted on two unmarried sisters, Margaret and Cara, and one unmarried brother, Oliver. Cara Cook was still living when I went to Bridgton to start my teaching career, and I remember seeing her drive another of the family's antique autos through town.)

Anyway, because Ken had known the Cooks and Old Betsey well,  many years ago, he ended up being the "docent" for this visit to the Bridgton Historical Society.

It was a good day. I felt a bit frazzled by the time we returned home, given the cramped interior of the Model A and the lack of an "air-cushioned ride," but I'm glad Ken got to share his knowledge of Old Betsey and her owners. I noticed the museum guide took copious notes while Ken was talking!

Disappointing

I've started another Multnomah shawl, a free pattern on Ravelry.

It's not the pattern that's disappointing, it's the yarn.

I bought a skein of "Uluru" by Knitting Fever while at a yarn shop in Cannon Beach, Oregon, last September.

I was attracted the lovely earth tones, the yardage (410 yds.), the fiber content (cotton, acrylic, polyester) and the price (around $16, if I remember correctly.)

I'm disappointed to discover the ball of yarn contains many knots. I've encountered four so far, and I'm not even half way through the skein. I just read several reviews of this yarn at Jimmy Bean's Wool website, and no one mentioned the knot problem. In fact, reviewers gave the yarn high ratings. I'm wondering what's up with the skein I bought.

I'll finish the shawl, see if the woven-in loose ends are glaringly obvious, and make a decision from there, I guess.

Meanwhile, if you knit, you might want to avoid Uluru yarns.

What to do with those tomato soup cans???

 

 This is what you do with them:

1. Empty them of the tomato soup, or the black olives, or the crushed pineapple, or whatever.

2. Wash and dry them.

3. Buy some acrylic paints at Walmart, 50¢ per bottle. Be sure to buy white, so you can tone down some of the colors, if you wish.

4. Buy a little bit of Plaster of Paris. You won't need much.

5. Mix together the paint, a dab of Plaster of Paris, and a dab of water.

6. Give the cans 2-3 coats of your homemade chalk paint. I used a foam brush.

7. Google "free vintage labels" and print the ones which appeal to you.

8. Glue the labels to the painted cans with good ol' Elmer's.

9. As a finishing touch, if you wish, spray the cans with an acrylic sealer. 

10. Pick some flowers.

11. Voila! Fresh flowers in pretty and inexpensive tin can "vases."

And then there is my other hydrangea...

Epic failure.

This hydrangea is about 7-8 years old, if I remember correctly.

It bloomed heavily the first few years we had it.

Last year, it hardly bloomed at all. I read that one should not cut back the brown shoots in the spring, which is exactly what I'd been doing, so this spring I resisted the urge to give it a manicure.

I assumed I'd see a plant bedazzled with dozens of blossoms this summer.

Wrong.

The plant had two blossoms until the hail storm a couple of weeks ago. Wouldn't you know it, the hail managed to sever the stem of one of those two blossoms, leaving me with a grand total of 1 (one) blossom!

Recently I read that hydrangeas love coffee grounds, so my morning ritual now is to take the used grounds out to the plant and dump them there.

We shall see.

Meanwhile, if any of you gardeners (and by "any" I mean, of course, Linda in Seattle. You know who you are) have suggestions for getting this plant to blossom, I'd love to hear them.

Thank you!

Just as I'd imagined it!

Almost two years ago as I was driving home from exercise class one morning I came across a hydrangea bush in full, heavy bloom.

I thought to myself, "A bouquet of white hydrangeas in a white pitcher would be really beautiful."

I turned onto a side road as I continued home and came upon, of all things, a white pitcher and bowl with a "Free" sign at the end of someone's driveway. I couldn't believe it! Someone, apparently, had been listening to my musings just a few minutes earlier.

I turned the car around and went back to claim the pitcher and bowl, both in excellent condition.

Now all I needed was a white hydrangea bush.

Later that fall, Ken and I went to a plant nursery to use a gift certificate we'd been given. We chose, of course, a white hydrangea, a "Pinky Winky" by name.

This August our Pinky Winky is in full, luxurious bloom, so I've cut a few blossoms and placed them in my (free) white pitcher.

They sit on my kitchen windowsill where I can admire them often throughout the day. I couldn't resist  snapping this photo of them as the sun was going low in the West yesterday afternoon. I like how only the blossoms are in the sun.

Now I'm thinking that winning the Maine State Lottery would be really beautiful....

Gardening and hail

I love going out to the front of the garage each morning to check out the new day's selection of morning glory blossoms. This is today's offering.

I came across this somewhere on the internet a few days ago. I don't remember where I found it, but it might have been Facebook. Anyway, invented spelling rises to a whole new level here. You've got to admit, or at least I do, that I can decipher each word quite well. The Bail Pepr threw me at first, but then I remembered that a Southerner would probably pronounce "bell" as "bail."

My garden has been producing "bail peprs" at a steady rate. I'm also getting "zookeene,"  kale, "maters," and cukes daily now.

This is my second year at trying to grow garlic. This batch is a tad better than last year's, but not by much. My dream is to have ALL the bulbs the same size as that one in the upper left of the photo. I'll prepare a better bed for the garlic cloves when I plant next year's crop at the end of this month.

We had a heavy thunderstorm this past week and, with it, some hail. This is not prize-winning hail, not the golf-ball size nuggets that some Maine towns got, but for that I'm grateful. This puny hail still managed to slice holes in many cucumber leaves and put dings in many green tomatoes, I mean "maters."

The owl hats are multiplying. I've now made an infant-sized, child-sized, and medium adult-sized. I think I'll set the pattern aside now and start a new knitting project. I'm itching to knit a shawl or scarf of some kind.

Whooooo'll get this hat?

Here's a quick and easy knit, an owl hat.

The pattern, Chouette, is by Ekaterina Blanchard of Katytricot, and it's available on Ravelry for $5.

I enjoy reading the blog Knitionary, written by a lady in California whose knitting is lovely.( I'm as intrigued by the dinner parties she throws, though, as I am by her knitting.

I can't imagine having the time, interest, or energy to put together the amazing dinner do's that she seems to host every couple of weeks. Her decorations, table settings, etc., are always impeccable.)

Anyway, getting back to my original topic, Knitionary shared recently the owl hat she had knitted, and I had to knit one, too. In fact, I'm now putting the finishing touches on my second owl hat. The one in the photo is toddler size; the second one is child size. The pattern also offers adult small and adult medium sizes.

For knitting both owls I used two strands of yarn held together, the first a worsted and a DK, the second two worsted. The directions are well written, and the project really is quick and easy. You can't beat that!

From blocking a shawl to freezing basil

This morning as I watered the plants on the back deck, I noticed the pot of basil was getting a bit out of hand.

I love basil. Love, love, love it. Can't get enough of its fragrance.

I didn't want this healthy batch of fresh basil to go to waste, since we can't consume all of it daily, even if we added it to everything from breakfast cereal to end-of-evening popcorn.

So I decided to cut it back and freeze some for winter use.

I pulled all the leaves off the stems and threw the stems into the compost bucket.

Next I washed and spun the leaves in the salad spinner.

Out came my food processor, which I seem to use about twice a year, tops.

After assembling it (and for once I remembered how to do it correctly at the first attempt), I put in the basil leaves, added a little olive oil, and let 'er spin for just a couple of seconds.

The most challenging step came next: Finding the ice cube trays. We replaced our fridge last December, and the new one has its own ice cube maker. I knew I'd saved the trays from the old fridge, but where had I put them?????

Ken got into the act at this point and helped me search.

Ah-ha! In the pantry, just where they should be.

I put the processed basil, not too thoroughly chopped, into the...uh...five little ice cube compartments.

Yes, that's all I got for my efforts: five measly cubes of basil. But I'll freeze them in the ice cube tray, then pop them out into a freezer bag, and use them in various recipes this winter.

(My hands smell like fresh basil. Wonderful fragrance!)