Garden Report: So far, so good

 My vegetable garden is off to a great start this summer.

I've picked a lot of kale. I love it in green salads. (The other night I used it in a spaghetti dish: Sauté some garlic and onions in olive oil, boil some chopped-up kale for a few minutes, remove kale from water and add it to the olive oil/onions/garlic, then add lemon juice; boil spaghetti in the kale water. Combine the sautéed garlic/onion/kale mixture and the drained spaghetti, sprinkle spaghetti with grated Parmesan cheese. Voila! A tasty dish.

I've already picked one green pepper, although it is quite early to harvest peppers in these parts. The past two years I've used the Epsom salt trick to get a better green pepper yield: Mix one tablespoon of Epsom salt in 32 oz. water. Spray pepper plants soon after setting seedlings in the ground, then spray again two weeks later.  This causes the plants to yield a lot more peppers. I think, if I remember correctly, it's the magnesium in the Epsom salt that is doing the trick. I chop and freeze most of our green peppers and use them throughout the winter.

I have two beds of garlic. This is my first year trying garlic, so I put one bed in my regular garden area and another in my flower garden. I'm not sure which area will yield the better crop, but time will tell.

The tomato plants, all 18 of them, are developing well. Ditto for the cucumbers and zucchini. I'm especially hopeful to have a good tomato crop this year, because last year's was a bust. I can tomatoes to use in various dishes all winter long. I guess I could purchase canned tomatoes just as easily, or even more easily, but home canned tomatoes have much, much better flavor than the store-bought ones. My friend Lynn has made this claim for years, and I thought she was imagining the difference. Then I purchased some canned tomatoes from the store this past winter. Yuck! There's no comparison.

And finally, to add a little anxiety to my gardening adventures, I spotted this critter looking longingly at  my garden early this morning. There's a second deer hiding in the bushes behind this one. I didn't realize that until I shooed the first one back into the woods. Here's hoping they'll stay out of my garden this summer.

No diamond ring for me

My hand-cranked yarn winder and I have, or at least I thought we had, a friendly relationship. I treat it well; it treats me well. Or at least it did treat me well.

On Tuesday afternoon, without so much as a hint that something was wrong, it turned on me. Boy, did it turn on me! I was blindsided.

The trouble began when I placed on it one of five skeins of Cascade Ultra Pima Cotton, a delicious yarn that I couldn't resist when Margaret and I visited The Ball and Skein in Kennebunkport a couple of weeks ago.

I've knitted with Cascade Ultra Pima before, to make two Chic Knits Brynna  sweaters. (I like the longer style of this sweater, with below-the-elbow sleeves and without those silly thingamajigs connecting the front openings.)

So I decided to knit another Brynna, this one in the "natural" colorway. I have two weddings to attend in August, so a new Brynna will be just the ticket to wear with a yet-to-be-determined dress.

Anyway, to get to the point. I put that first skein of Ultra Pima on the yarn winder, started cranking away, and suddenly all h-e-double-hockey-sticks broke loose. I don't know what happened. All I know is I was suddenly staring in disbelief at a huge pile of what looked to be spaghetti. Or spaghetti vomit, if you will.

I didn't panic. I calmly told myself I could untangle this mess by hand.

So at 3:30 p.m. I started untangling.

At 6:30 p.m. I decided to give myself a break.

The next morning, at 5:00 (because the dog wanted to get up at 5:00), I resumed untangling.

At 7:00 a.m. I finished the chore. Hallelujah.

Five hours to rescue one skein of 200 yards of yarn.

Ken marveled at my patience. He said he would've thrown the yarn vomit into the trash.

Apparently Ken wasn't raised to be frugal. I was. And at $10/skein, I wasn't about to throw away one skein of my delicious Cascade Ultra Pima.

I was hoping to find a diamond ring in the pile of yarn vomit, but alas....

Anyway, yesterday I cast on 99 stitches, and so far it's smooth sailing. (Note the correctly wound cake of yarn next to the hand-wound one. The second skein of Cascade Ultra Pima behaved as it should on the winder.)

I've been right here all along

Where've I been? Right here for the most part.

But we had a visitor for two weeks. My friend Margaret, from northern England, arrived June 6 for a two-week visit with us.

When she asked me last December if we were up for a houseguest for two solid weeks, I was apprehensive, to say the least. I've had overnight guests, and guests of a few days, but two weeks??

I wasn't sure I could handle it. Ken and I lead a rather quiet life, and I certainly enjoy my daily routines. I wasn't sure I'd be able to handle having all of that disrupted.

As it turned out, I needn't have worried. Margaret was a wonderful guest to have in one's home. She made no demands, was up for whatever we suggested, and truly appreciated her "trip of a lifetime," as she called it.

We took her to Bailey and Orr's Islands (in the top two photos).

To the Maine Fiber Frolic in Windsor. Margaret's a knitter, just as I am, so our day at the Fiber Frolic was a highlight of her stay for both of us.

To Perkins Cove in Ogunquit

To Nubble Lighthouse in York

To MANY yarn shops. In fact, I gave Margaret a spare tote for her trip home. Her suitcase was full of yarn, so the tote held the clothes she'd brought with her.

To Portland Head Light

For a ride in Ken's Model A

To Boston for a land tour AND a boat tour

 I taught her the tricky kitchener stitch for finishing off the toe of a sock. I was quite proud of myself for this, I must admit, since I've been knitting for only nine years; Margaret has knitted since she was five years old. She can still knit two socks to my one, though, so she's the more experienced and faster knitter.

We went to Camden for a day and enjoyed lobster rolls and clam chowder at Cappy's Chowder House.

We drove up to Bridgton, Ken's home town, to show her the beauty of Hio Ridge, then on to North Conway, NH, and into the White Mountains.

Here Margaret and I are on Cathedral Ledge, North Conway.

The final day of Margaret's visit came much too soon. Here Ken highlights for her on a Maine map the various places we visited during her stay.

We had few language difficulties. There was that one time when I was discussing "cowls" and didn't realize Margaret was discussing "owls" until we were well into the discussion. I segued to "owls" and the conversation was a success.

It was hard to say goodbye to Margaret. She cried; I cried. The two weeks went by much too quickly.

My love affair... with cast iron

I attended a lovely bridal shower recently. The
bride-to-be received everything a modern-day bride wants: beautiful linens, pretty china,.... But imagine my surprise when she unwrapped a cast-iron skillet!

I don't mean the gift was not wonderful, because it was. I mean I didn't suppose anyone would think, in this day and age, to give such a practical and useful gift.

I've been using my cast-iron skillets and a Dutch oven since I was married in 1970. The large skillet was a wedding gift, in fact. I don't remember where I got the other pieces. As I wrote in my last post, I'm now the proud owner of TWO Dutch ovens, so I feel especially rich.

The first thing a cast-iron cookware owner must do after bringing the new beauty home is SEASON it. It's critical to season cast iron. You can find directions for seasoning and explanations of why this is necessary on many websites. I used this site when I seasoned my "new" old Dutch oven last week, and I seasoned my old-old Dutch oven at the same time, for good measure. I rubbed canola oil over the pots, inside and out, placed them upside down in a 350°f oven, and let them season-away happily for one hour. Then I shut off the oven but left the pots inside to cool as the oven cooled. (My old Dutch oven hasn't aged a bit in the last 44 years. Wish I could say the same for the cook.)

Sources differ on how to keep your cast iron clean, but I follow the "no soap" and "no soaking" school of thought. Once the item has been used, I rinse it, shake salt in it, grab a paper towel, and remove all the food residue. I then rinse it again, dry it, and set it on my stove top to totally air dry. Cast iron pots with lids should be stored with the lid OFF. If moisture gets inside, rust will form. The rust isn't harmful, and it can easily be removed, but it looks as if the cast-iron treasure is being neglected. (If not using soap to clean the cast-iron bothers you, consider this: Ken and I have been married 44 years this summer and haven't died yet.)

Why use cast iron cookware? It heats evenly, it holds the heat unbelievably well, and this probably sounds crazy, but to me, the food tastes better after being cooked in cast iron. I remember my English department chairman, a lovely lady, telling me when I was a new bride that cast iron is healthier to cook with than stainless steel. I don't know if this is true or not, but it does make sense to me that the cast iron imparts a little much-needed iron to one's system, keeping the blood's iron at a healthy level.

So, the big question: What does one cook/bake in a cast-iron pot or skillet?

Bacon and eggs, of course. Bacon, eggs, and homefries. Omelets. Back in our camping days, when Ken and I took a trip each summer to Prince Edward Island or Nova Scotia, Quebec, or Vermont,...or even from Maine to British Columbia a couple of times, the Dutch oven went along with us for delicious early-morning breakfasts over an open fire. I feel nostalgic just mentioning this memory.

When I make chicken cacciatore, I absolutely must make it in my Dutch oven. As I said before, food cooked in a cast-iron pot tastes better. I make spaghetti sauce in it, too.

Recently I discovered the recipe for possibly the best bread on earth, the Crusty Bread. I bake it in my Dutch oven, 1/2 hour with the cover on, 15 minutes with the cover off. It's an artisan bread that will make your dinner guests swoon and beg for more. (If by chance you have any bread left over, it makes delicious toast the next day. Don't plan on having any left over, though.) I wrote a post about this bread a few months ago. If you're interested, it's here somewhere and worth the search.

So that's the story of my love affair with cast iron. I'm hope the new bride joining our family this summer will enjoy her cast-iron skillet as much as I enjoy mine. I think she will.

Score! (Part Deux)

I started this post a week ago but was rudely interrupted when I happened to stop to check my e-mailbox. Lo and behold, my mailbox was empty. Nothing. Nada. Zero. Zilch. Not even mail in the trash. Not.a.single.piece.of.email.

I couldn't imagine where my emails, received and sent, had gone, when they had been there only moments before I'd started this blog post.

I ran frantically to my iPad: no mail; I ran frantically to my iPhone: no mail. I hollered to Ken, who was upstairs at his computer in his study, and asked him if he was having a problem with his mail. Surely, I thought, this must be a temporary glitch at iCloud. It would be over soon, and I'd be able to check my mail. Breathe deeply. Breathe deeply.

Ken said his email was fine. I explained that my email had suddenly, totally disappeared.

There was a bit of silence from Ken. Then he confessed he'd begun the process of emptying my old computer (iMac '08) so he could claim it as his own, replacing his iMac '06. You see, I just got a brand new computer (iMac '14) and he gets my hand-me-down.

It seems Ken had forgotten one teensy detail about emptying out my old computer:  WI-FI WAS ON!

If the computers, my iPad, my iPhone are connected to WiFi simultaneously, what major changes made to one..., are made to ALL. Hence my email was gone because Ken had not only put it into the trash on iMac '08, he'd EMPTIED THE TRASH.

I tried to remain calm and think this through.

Then I remembered: I'd purchased a new external hard drive, a cute little item not much larger than a pack of cigarettes, called "My Passport for Mac," just two days before purchasing my new computer.

I'd never had to retrieve anything from an external hard drive  before, but I figured I'd best learn to do so because this was a golden moment, if ever there was one.

I clicked the Time Machine icon at the top of my computer screen, found "Enter Time Machine," wondered if I dared step through this door into another dimension...but did so, and voila! There was a duplicate of the contents of my computer's internal hard drive. Phew.

I loaded the contents of the external hard drive into iMac '14, including my e-mail posts, and I was back in business. Best $139 I ever spent, that My Passport for Mac.

Moral of story: If you don't have your computer backed up with an external hard drive, you just might be playing with fire. (Or your spouse might be upstairs wiping your computer clean.)

(In fact, I was at the Apple Store just days before this incident, having a guy at the Genius Bar remove some junk from my computer, when the lady sitting next to me with an iMac was told grim news: Her hard drive had crashed and there was no way to retrieve what was on it. She hadn't back up any of it, unfortunately.)

But all of this isn't actually the topic of this post. Guess I got a little side-tracked.

Top photo: A scarf I completed last week. It's the Cat's Paw Scarf, free pattern on Ravelry. Double-click on that photo so you can totally enjoy what I'm about to point out. I didn't notice this until I'd finished the knitting, bound it off, soaked it in Eucalan, and blocked it: There's a major mistake in my knitting! It sticks out like a sore thumb, now that I've noticed it. Do you see it? Of course you do. I purled an entire row that I was supposed to knit.

I toyed with the idea of raveling back to the mistake and redoing it, but then I said, "Naw." I'll call it a  "design feature" and hope the person who receives it as a gift doesn't notice it.

The other two photos are of my great finds at Montsweag Flea Market, along with the table cloth which I wrote about earlier. The pitcher, a Watt Ware, was a mere $10. I collect Watt Ware but seldom find a bargain like this. A price tag of $50 or more, in fact, would not be unusual.

The cast iron Dutch oven, the one on the left, is my other Montsweag treasure. As you can see, I now have two cast iron Dutch ovens. I feel rich, I tell you. I've had my old one at least 40 years, and I absolutely love it.

Soon I plan to write a post about cooking with cast iron, so I won't say any more about this now. Stay tuned, though.

Score!

Ken and I had been waiting for the Montsweag Flea Market to open for this season. Since it opens Mother's Day Weekend, we decided we'd be there, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, on that Saturday.

But it rained that day. We didn't want to  browse in the rain, and we knew vendors wouldn't want to display their goods in the rain. We waited patiently for Sunday, Mother's Day itself. Although I've always said that Saturday's vendors have more interesting items than Sunday's, I was proven wrong this time.

Score #1: Beautiful hand-crocheted table cloth, large-table size, with only a few minor repairs needed. It was badly stained, so because I wasn't sure the stains could be removed, I talked the vendor down to $10 from $15. Once I got it home, I soaked it in OxyClean for an hour and it's now stain free!

I assured the vendor she had just sold the tablecloth to someone who would treasure it, and I wasn't kidding.

Anyone who knows me well knows I love needlework masterpieces. I appreciate the time and talent that goes into making something such as this.

I do a lot of needlework myself, but I've never made anything as grand as this. I have a great deal of respect for the creator of this work of art.

It now graces our dining room table, and I admire it several times a day.

I scored two other treasures at Montsweag that day: a cast-iron Dutch oven and a Watt Ware pitcher, $10 and $8 respectively.

Since I haven't taken photos of them yet, I'll save them for another post.

After leaving Montsweag with our treasures carefully tucked into the trunk of the car, we drove a short distance up the coast to Wiscasset.

We had lunch at Sarah's, a favorite spot when we're in the area.

We also checked out the growing line at Red's Eats across the street from Sarah's. That's Red's in this photo. It's a great place to go for a lobster roll, if you don't mind standing in a long line before being served.

We also drove down a side street in Wiscasset and spotted a mansion we'd never noticed before. I did a little googling of "Wiscasset mansions" when we got home and learned this is Castle Tucker, built in 1807. It's open for tours, so we'll no doubt check it out some time this summer.

So although we didn't visit Montsweag and Wiscasset on Saturday, we certainly found Sunday to be just as enjoyable.

Spring cleaning

I've said this before, and it's the truth: I was a much better housekeeper when I was working full time and barely had time to do anything other than lesson plans. Still, somehow, I managed to discipline myself to keep the house in neat order.

Now I'm retired, and have all the time in the world,…and my housework doesn't get done on a regular basis.

Oh, I scurry around and do some marathon cleaning just before company arrives, sure. But the twice-a-week, every-Thursday-and-Saturday-without-fail cleaning that I gave my house while being a teacher?

Nope. No way. Too many other things catch my interest, I guess. I finally have time to do the things I've always wanted to do, and cleaning house apparently isn't one of them.

Also, "back in the day," I was religious about starting my spring cleaning immediately after my school's February vacation and making darned sure the cleaning was completed by my school's April vacation. Year after year I followed this routine. I liked to have the spring cleaning completed before May arrived. May can be beautiful in Maine, and I like to spend my time outdoors if possible, not inside cleaning.

This year I started a little half-hearted spring cleaning in March. I wish I'd kept at it, because now Maine's glorious May weather has arrived,

and washing woodwork and windows, rearranging the pantry, taking down curtains and washing them,…simply don't appeal to me.

I'll get 'er done, I guess, one way or another. But I really want to be outside, weeding flower beds, removing last fall's leaves tangled in flower stalks, carrying garden decorations from over the garage to the flower garden.

(This morning I did manage to get this quilt washed and ready to put away. It's the last quilt I made, and it's entirely quilted by hand. I kept it in my quilt cupboard for years; then, this past fall, I asked myself what I'm saving it for?

We might as well enjoy it while we're still able to appreciate the work that goes into a handmade quilt. It certainly kept us warm on those cold nights this past winter.)

Maybe tomorrow I'll wash the bedroom curtains. Or maybe I won't.