50th

I graduated from high school in 1964. That was 50 years ago.

I know! I know! It seems more like twenty years, tops, but it was, indeed, fifty years ago.

We've had two reunions since 1964: a 25th, which I attended, and a 40th, which I did not attend.

In April of this year, I said I would attend the 50th.

Then I began to get cold feet. My cold feet were due, mainly, to vanity: I figured I was the only one in my class who had aged and looked to be nearing 70.

Early in the week of the reunion, I told Ken I definitely did NOT want to attend. He tried to urge me to go; I said no, I was fine with not going.

By Friday I was having second thoughts and told Ken I would like to go after all.

The first photo shows all of us who attended. Before you express shock at the low turn-out, you should know there were ten (yes, 10) in my graduating class. One was killed in a car accident four years after graduation. Two or three of the graduates didn't attend the reunion. Three who didn't actually graduate but who attended most years of high school did attend.

So there were ten of us at the reunion, and our spouses.

The top photo is of all of us in attendance; the second is a photo of me with my good friend, John. I hadn't seen John since the 25th reunion.

The black and white photo shows us as kindergartners, I think, or maybe first-graders. Six of the ten who attended the reunion are in this photo; I can't identify everyone, so maybe there are more than six of us shown here.

My best friend Elaine. in the middle of this photo above, was my dearest friend from kindergarten to senior year. We phoned each other each night during elementary school to choose our outfits for the next day. We phoned each other every night during high school to try to solve overwhelming algebra, geometry, and calculus problems.We've kept in touch all these years, and Elaine still phones me when she comes to Maine.

I left our little reunion feeling really glad that I had attended after all. For one thing, it was great seeing everyone and catching up on their lives. Fifty years melted away just like that as we reminisced about our school years and our teachers. (For another, joy filled my heart when I noticed they have aged, too!)

Finished!

You'll recall, I'm sure, my unfortunate start with the Brynna cardigan. It was on July 1 and 2 that I spent my time unhappily untangling that first hank of yarn and winding it into a ball.

As I prepared the remaining hanks for my ball winder, I was much, much more careful to make sure all systems were "go" before my hand touched the ball winder.

It's now July 23 and Brynna is completed! She's even been soaked and blocked.

I'm pleased with the outcome. I'm not pleased with these photos, though, because I took them with a ceiling light on, and the artificial light gives the cardigan a pale yellowish-tan color. Brynna is actually a "natural," as you can see in the top photo of the tangled yarn.

I purchased a total of six hanks of Cascade Ultra Pima and used almost all of five hanks. The final photo below shows you how much of the fifth hank is left over. It and the sixth, full hank will  make a nice, soft baby sweater, I believe.

So that's that. On to my next knitting project, which is as yet undecided upon.

Gettin' there

Brynna is beginning to look a bit like a cardigan.

After the unfortunate beginning, when the first skein turned on me, requiring five solid hours of untangling, things have moved along more or less smoothly.

There was that one incident yesterday, when I discovered that in my zeal to finish this project before August 2, I'd knit WAY past the point where I was supposed to have added 93 stitches to the row.

Frustrating? You betcha. I had to ravel out something like 18 rows, add the 93 stitches, pick up my pride, dust it off, and continue on once again.

Today I decided to add a few more rows after lunch. What I didn't bother to do was look at my notes to see which row I should be knitting. I knit a pattern row when I should have knitted a plain knit row. %@#&%^$@#

But as you can see, the left side has a sleeve now, and the right front will have a sleeve before long, if the forces are with me.

After the sleeves are in, I'll then add a peplum-effect lace edging to the bottom, and finally a lace edging around the entire opening. In other words, there's still a lot of knitting to be done.

I'll get there eventually.

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.