Dabbling in surgery

And the patient survived!

So far, so good, anyway.

About a week ago I decided to gather my courage and cut the more robust sweet potato vine, and its little sibling, from the sweet potato tuber itself.

I gathered my equipment: knife, rubbing alcohol to sterilize the knife, and a stiff drink of Minute Maid 100% pure orange juice (to bolster my resolve).

I wasn't sure just where to make the cut, but I thought back to Ken and his cutting of seed potatoes (Kennebecs) for his garden. The rule of thumb for that endeavor is to make sure each "chunk" has at least two eyes.

The portion I cut from the tuber has at least three eyes, so it should survive.

I dusted the severed portion with cinnamon to prevent fungus and promote stem growth.

Unbeknownst to the vine seedling, the spot for its planting had already been chosen. I decided to nestle it in a huge pot with a couple of tuberous begonias and some....I can't think of its name right now, but it'll come to me.

Here's the vine in its new home.

And here it is with the tuber section covered with soil.

The remainder of the sweet potato, with a couple of new vines sprouting, is back in the Mason jar. With luck, I'll be planting more sweet potato vines soon.

I check on the sweet potato vine several times a day. It seems to be flourishing. It's on the back deck with several other potted plants, and it looks healthy and happy.

Update: I just stepped onto the deck to take a photo of the sweet potato vine. I'll put it in my header.

(Still can't think of the name of the other plants in the pot, though.

P. S. Verbena! That's what it is. Verbena.

My Potter's Shawl

I was making steady progress on my Potter's Shawl until I hit the "attached edging" stage.

That's when it hit the fan, if you get my drift.

My sister was knitting the same shawl at the same time, so you'd think that if we put our two brains together, that would equal a good, solid one brain, and we'd have been able to figure out the instructions.

Interestingly, although we didn't share our interpretations of the directions with one another, the two of us made the same misinterpretation and gaily knit across 262 stitches without needing to. Not only did I knit across 262 stitches, but I had something over 320 stitches when I was done with that row!

Something was rotten in Denmark, for sure, but we couldn't figure out what it was.

I considered stuffing the pattern and yarn into a paper bag, hiding it in the back of a closet, and trying to forget it had ever existed.

Then I hit upon the idea of contacting the pattern designer.

I fired off an email to Jen Lucas but received no response. At least I thought I'd received no response, which surprised me because pattern designers are usually good about helping their customers out of a mess. (I did receive a response from her about a week later. She'd sent it the day I wrote to her for help, but somehow that message from her wandered around in cyberspace before finally finding its way to my mailbox.)

But thinking the designer would not be responding, I then went to Ravelry and found several members who'd knitted this exact shawl.

Not only had they knitted it, some mentioned that it was an "easy" pattern. That didn't make me feel any better about my thick-headedness.

I selected five or six Potter's Shawl knitters, emailed them, and stated my total confusion with the border of leaves.

Every single one replied, even replied promptly, and every single one offered insightful help. One even took the time to tell me how many stitches should be on my needle at the end of each of each 12-row repeat.

(Knitters are in a class of their own.)

The knitters explained to me that I was now to knit the attached edging perpendicular to the garter stitch body of the shawl. So that was the trick!

I won't say the edging has been a breeze for me, because I seem intent upon doing yarn-overs where they're not needed, and that results in taking out stitches carefully before starting again.

But I'm making progress. The leaf motif is repeated 42 times across the bottom edge of the shawl.

I've got maybe 10 more repeats to go.

But here's my next hurdle. See that little blob of yarn beside the shawl? That's the end of the skein. I've resigned myself to the fact that I'm going to run out of yarn.


Soon I'll be phoning local yarn shops to see if they carry this yarn. I don't even dare hope they'll have it in the same dye lot.

More progress!

It's such a beautiful morning here in Maine. It pains me to be in the house for even a few minutes, but I want to write this post and update you on two things.

First, the sweet potato vine. As you can see when you compare the first and second photos, taken less than a week apart, the vine is experiencing a major growth spurt. Maybe this would have happened anyway, but I've started using very warm water to fill the jar when I change the water daily. I suspect the potato likes this, because who doesn't enjoy nice, warm bath water?

I love the rich purplish-green of the leaves. My sweet potato vine last summer, a purchased one already potted, had pale yellow-green leaves, and I assumed this vine would be the same. Come to find out, the purplish-green leaves are also common for sweet potato vines.

I'm about to try something drastic. Supposedly I can break off one of those shoots (There are three good-sized ones, but only two are showing in this photo), put it in water, and watch roots develop within a few days. That, if it works, will give me two sweet potato vines, the main one and the newbie.

It's going to be painful for me to break off the shoot, because I'll fear I'm dooming it to sudden death. I'm a big girl, though, so I think I can do it.







And here's progress of another sort. This story will become a blog post of its own, a story of frustration and angst and Good Samaritans and, eventually, success (so far).

I hit a major problem when it was time to apply a knitted edging to the garter stitch body of my Potter's Shawl. It's safe to say I wasted at least four days trying to figure out where I was going wrong.

Stay tuned....

So, you sweet-potato-vine doubters...

What do you think of my sweet potato vine now? Huh? Huh? Huh?

This little fella was shy at first, true, but he has really taken off the past few days.














Not only has the first shoot grown noticeably each day this past week, but there are two or three new shoots emerging. And since it won't be warm enough here in Maine until late May to put the vine out on the back deck, I just might have a Mighty Potato Vine crawling across the deck by July.

So there.  Hope springs eternal.   (P.S. If you're still in doubt, take a moment to compare these photos with the ones I posted exactly ONE WEEK AGO!)

Things are looking up

Things are looking up in the weather, sweet potato vine, and knitting departments at Chez Davis.

While today isn't exactly warm (only in the 50's), it is sunny, so that's a major step. According to our local meteorologists, the temperatures will rise this week and even hit 70. That will be wonderful.

My sweet potato vine is showing a major growth spurt. In addition, there's another little "spurt" visible just beneath the top growth.

With luck, I just might have a sweet potato vine or two going wild on the back deck this summer. (Note to self: Start growing your sweet potato vine in late February next year. Late April is ridiculously late to start one.)

By the way, isn't this cactus plant weird? It's a Euphorbia trigona. My sister-in-law Laurie gave it to me last fall after I commented on her Euphorbia trigona. Hers is at least a foot tall, probably more like 18 inches tall. I'd never seen anything like it. Laurie gave me the little baby Euphorbia that had poked out of the soil by its mother plant. When I brought it home to plant in soil, it was about 2 inches tall. Now it's 5 1/2" tall and has sprouted new little leaves at its top. These leaves will turn brown and fall off soon, then it will start the process all over again. I've read that the Euphorbia has never been known to blossom, so I won't bother get my hopes up. It's enjoying life on my kitchen windowsill.

My progress on the Potter's Shawl came to a screeching halt about two weeks ago when I came to the end of that one skein of yarn. My sister Roberta had also bought a skein of it, though, and she offered to sell hers to me. Saturday night I saw Roberta, with the promised skein, so I'm off and running again with the shawl. I'm about to start the leaf edging, however, and that could be my undoing. It sounds complicated, although other knitters on Ravelry who've made this shawl say the edging pattern is "easy to memorize." We shall see.

Meanwhile, since I need to have something on my needles at all times, I've been working on yet another pair of socks. I'll set them aside and get back to the shawl this evening.

And look at this colorful skein of sock yarn! I had to make an emergency trip to Mother of Purl yesterday for some 24" size 5 circular Knitter's Pride needles. Lo and behold, M of P was having a wonderful sale, making room for more summer yarns. I couldn't resist this skein of Viking of Norway Aurora sock yarn, regularly $19.95/skein, at 40% off. I left the yarn shop happy. I would have been even happier if Ken hadn't been waiting for me in the car, because I'd like to have done more browsing at the yarns on sale.

The English muffin loaf...sliced!

A reader (named Reeder, as it turns out) requested a photo of the English muffin loaf sliced, in order to show the muffin's texture.

Here it is.

And here's a second one.

English muffin loaf

Ken loves my English muffin loaf and much prefers it to traditional English muffins. I like it, too.

I've been making this recipe for years, like twenty-five or more.

I often make a double batch of four loaves because two loaves disappear too quickly in this house.

Stirring in the final cup or so of flour can be a task, because the dough is quite stiff at this point. Usually, in fact, I add less flour than the recipe calls for. I make sure the dough is quite "stiff," though.

After the dough is in the pans, I set them into my microwave, where I've just boiled a cup of water. The heat from the water, and the moisture, encourage the dough to rise promptly but not too quickly. Once the dough has risen, I pop the pans into the oven.

Here are this morning's four fresh loaves. Done and dusted.

P.S. I've recently started adding 1-2 tablespoons of chia seeds to the dough.

Slow progress and a bit of Canadian history

Actually, a bit of Canadian history and a report on my gardening endeavors.

I glanced at Ken's to-do list this morning and noticed, beneath the various upcoming meetings, this note: "H/F Explosion...."

I bet 95% of you have never heard of the "H/F Explosion."

The Great Halifax Explosion occurred on December 6, 1917, in Halifax Harbour, Nova Scotia.

I first learned of this catastrophe from my mother, who was a child growing up on a potato and dairy farm near Fredericton, New Brunswick, in 1917. Her father, my Grampy Haines, was working in a field that day, perhaps mending fences or doing some other farmer's daily chore, when he noticed his herd of cows suddenly stopped grazing and looked simultaneously to the east.

Grammy wouldn't learn for several days what had caught the attention of his cows. When the weekly newspaper arrived, Grampy and Grammy read of the massive Halifax Explosion, 300 miles from my grandparents' farm.

Isn't it amazing that the cows apparently heard the  explosion or, perhaps, felt the tremor (or both) when the massive explosion occurred?

A cargo ship loaded with explosives collided with another ship as it entered Halifax Harbour. The resulting fire aboard the cargo ship caused a huge explosion which killed approximately
2, 000 people, injured another 9,000, and caused incredible damage to the city of Halifax. If you visit Halifax today, you will find many reminders of the Halifax Explosion in the form of markers throughout the city.

I'm guessing, from Ken's note, that his friend Charlie either knows a lot about the Halifax Explosion or wants to learn more about it. I'll have to ask Ken what's what.

Shifting gears now: Maine's weather continues to drive me nuts. Sunshine is scarce; warm temperatures are almost unheard of and, until yesterday, the state was extremely dry from a lack of significant rain.

My optimism for  starting seedlings remains intact, though, as you can see from the seedlings and other plants sitting on our back deck this morning. They spent last night in the house, however, because nighttime temperatures continue to be in the 30's. The entire Northeast is experiencing this miserable weather, yet most of us, I suspect, remain optimistic that soon the weather will turn truly spring-like.

(I just checked with Ken. His friend Charlie has nothing to do with the H/F Explosion note. Our friend Jim wants to borrow Ken's book about the Halifax Explosion, so the note is a reminder to Ken to figure out where he has put said book.)

And now, how's my sweet potato vine doing, you ask? Well, I see progress. I wouldn't say it's growing by leaps and bounds exactly, although the website where I found the directions for starting it seemed to imply that it would. But it is starting to sprout little plants, so I remain cautiously optimistic. Maybe once spring arrives, it if ever does, the sweet potato vine will be ready to be planted and set on the back deck. I can always hope.