One quick summer

Suddenly it's August 29. How did that happen? Many schools in Maine start classes this week; others wait until next Tuesday.

Either way, summer is as good as over.

I'm always sad to see summer end. I thought, when I was teaching, that the sadness was caused by my having to return to a hectic work schedule.

Now I realize I simply hate seeing summer end. We wait so long for our Maine summers, then they fly by in a flash.

It's been a busy summer for us. Our adoption of Sage has kept us on our toes. She's a puppy full of energy, so she loves to be on the move. She also loves attention, as you can see from this photo of my nephew, his wife, and Violet showering her with belly rubs.

 We celebrated our 46th wedding anniversary on August 15. I told Ken I'd love to have a lobster dinner at home, so that's what we did. He bought four lobsters, but we were full after one each, so the next day I made us lobster rolls.

Sage has claimed Ken's recliner. She hops into it the minute Ken vacates it. I'm surprised Ken allows her to use it at all, but he does.

Violet spent a weekend with us recently. We'd gone to a craft fair in the morning, and she spotted owl pillows. She decided we could make some quite easily, so that's what we did.

She sketched out the owls on paper, selected her fabrics from my stash, and cut out the pieces. I sewed them on my machine, then she stuffed them with polyfil. I got a kick out of her deciding the owls each needed a heart and a brain. She cut  out the "organs" with felt, I sewed them, then she stuffed them and placed them inside the owls.

Here's the first owl. You can't see his heart and brain, but they're there.

That evening a deer appeared at the edge of our woods. Violet was thrilled. I've told her of the many times we've seen deer on our property, but this was the first time one appeared when Violet was visiting us.

Here are the two completed owls in their official portrait. Violet says she'd like to make three more the next time she visits.

We also had a flock of wild turkeys in our back yard recently. We saw them only briefly, then they scampered into the woods.

I've been canning tomatoes, freezing tomatoes, and making roasted tomato sauce. This is a pan of roasted tomatoes, fresh from the oven. I slice the tomatoes in half, pour a little olive oil into the pans, add sliced onions, minced garlic cloves, fresh basil, fresh rosemary, salt and pepper, etc., and roast them in the oven at 450 for 1 1/2 hours.

I put the roasted tomatoes in the blender, then I sieve them with my chinois strainer.

Once the sauce is put into jars, I freeze it and use it in any recipe calling for tomato sauce. It's delicious.

I still have many tomatoes on the vines. It's been a banner year, despite our drought conditions. I tended to pamper the plants with a lot of watering throughout most of the summer, so that's probably when they produced so well.

So that's the summer of 2016.

Blueberrying

First one of my morning exercise friends mentioned that she'd been blueberrying at a new blueberry farm near my home.

Then my great-niece, Violet, mentioned to me during a brief visit with us that she'd never had a blueberry pie.

I decided I'd pick some blueberries and make Violet a pie when she visited us last week.

I was all set to pick the blueberries before Violet's visit. Then I got a grip on myself and realized I'd be a fool to do the blueberrying by myself, when  certain ten-year-old could help me.



So Violet and I went blueberrying one very warm and muggy morning last week.

I made the pie crusts before we left to go to the farm. That way, it was just a matter of rolling out the crusts, mixing the flour, sugar, shortening, and pinch of salt, and dumping in the fresh blueberries.

We had blueberry pie for dessert that evening. Violet declared the pie "awesome."

Best Ever Pie Crust (from allrecipes.com)

2 c. all-purpose flour
1 t. salt
1 c. shortening
1/2 c. water

Combine flour and salt. Cut shortening in until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Stir in water until mixture forms a ball. Divide dough in half. Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate four hours or over night.

Roll out dough on floured board. Don't over work it. Use as directed in pie recipe.

Maine Blueberry Pie (from Cooking Down East, by Marjorie Standish)

4 c. blueberries
1 c. sugar
2 T. flour
Dash of salt
1/4 t. nutmeg
1/4 t. cinnamon
1 T. butter

Line pie plate with pastry. Mix sugar and flour; spread about 1/4 of it on lower crust. Fill with blueberries. Sprinkle remainder of sugar/flour over them. Add salt; sprinkle with nutmeg and cinnamon. Dot with butter. Place top crust on pie, flute edges and cut slits. Bake at 425° for 40 minutes.

Sage

We've known we wanted to get another dog ever since we lost Molly, our beloved chocolate Lab, at age 13, on New Year's Eve this past year.

Actually getting the new dog, though, seemed to be a big step for us.

First we said we should wait until the weather was warmer.

Then we said we should start "looking around," but yet we didn't.

By mid-July I launched a serious conversation with Ken, asking if we were going to do this or not. He said yes, so I got to work.

I felt we should get a rescue dog this time, because rescue dogs need loving homes.

I registered us with both Maine Lab Rescue and New England Lab Rescue.

We went to one "meet and greet" at Maine Lab Rescue, but none of the puppies or adult dogs really caught our eyes.



About five days later, we heard back from New England Lab Rescue, offering us a suggested choice between two Labs, one a yellow Lab about one year old, the other a black Lab, six months old.

We both felt Sage was the one!

The transport van arrived at the Kittery welcoming center this past Saturday evening, and Sage became ours.

I was nervous about her disposition, but she was only too happy to have me ride in the back seat with her during the one-hour drive home. I rubbed her belly, scratched her ears, took numerous photos of her, and listened to her contented snoring as we neared our home.

 Sage went into her kennel (in our bedroom) like a good girl and slept soundly there all night.

She likes to be with her new people as much as possible. If I'm working in the kitchen, she's napping on a scatter rug nearby.

If I'm on the sofa, she's at the other end of the sofa or, much to Ken's frustration, in his recliner.

Sage is already housebroken, which is a blessing! She hasn't been well trained, though, so we're working on that. She has mastered "sit," mastered it in a matter of minutes, in fact. Now we're working on not jumping up on people.

I read that since dogs greet one another by touching noses, dogs try to do the same with humans. Our noses are much higher up, though, so dogs instinctively try to jump up to touch the nose.

Cute explanation, but an aggravating habit, so we must convince Sage there's no future in her jumping up on us or on guests.

One of the best things about having a dog again, beyond the love a dog gives and receives, is that I have a walking partner again. It feels so good to go for a walk while holding a leash in my hands

More hat knitting

I'm still in recovery from the trauma of knitting my Potter's Shawl, so I've been restricting myself to knitting only small projects. My theory is that a small project, while I'm in recovery, will prevent me from going off the deep end.

I enjoy knitting hats off and on during the year to donate to various organizations as winter approaches.

I noticed on Knitting Paradise last week that Yelena Chen had released a new hat pattern, "Casey," and it was on sale for $1.99 for a limited time.

I snatched it up.

I've knitted three or four of Yelena's earlier hat patterns and love their designs.

This one just might be my favorite. Isn't the band attractive?

The top photo is the first one I made. I used a skein of KnitPicks yarn that I found at Goodwill last week for $1.

While at the Cashmere Goat in Camden, Violet helped me choose this deep turquoise yarn. It's a skein of Berroco Vintage worsted. What a beautiful yarn: wool, acrylic and nylon. There's enough yarn in one skein to knit two Casey hats.

(Violet chose this turquoise yarn because, at age 10, she's now in her "Turquoise Stage," which should not be confused with her Pink and Purple Stage, which lasted from age 3 to age 9. I much prefer her Turquoise Stage.)

I'm now knitting Casey #3.

P.S. Yesterday I did an inventory of my yarn stash. It's stored in three tubs here in my study. I did a similar inventory about four years ago, and my goal at that time was to reduce the stash by at least 50% over the next few years.

Major fail. That's all I can say. MAJOR fail.

I

My euphorbia

The last time, which was the first time, I shared a photo of my euphorbia trigona, it looked like this.

It was a mere baby when I brought it home from my brother and sister-in-law's last fall. This photo was taken in late May.

This is Euphie today. She's going a little wild in the summer sun. I keep her on our kitchen bow window, but I move her into the living room for her photo shoots.

This is an "aerial view" of Euphie. As you can see, she has gone from being two-sided to being three-sided.

She's unusual, all right. In the second photo, it looks as if she might be producing some baby euphorbias about half way up her stem. I'll be keeping an eye on those protuberances to see what becomes of them.

I've never owned such an usual plant. I'm more the spider plant-African violet-Christmas cactus type, so this is quite a departure for me.

I just checked eBay and found Euphorbias ranging in price from $9 to $150. I like to think mine is of the $150 pedigree.

Apparently the milky-white juice of the euphorbia is highly irritating to the skin. I've never had the pleasure of finding that out first hand, and I hope I never do.

That's what's happening in Jean's Garden Center today.

Just what you've been waiting for...

I'm sure you've been wondering how my sweet potato vines are doing. (I'm kidding, but here's the update anyway.)

Well, they seem very happy out on our back deck. This hot, humid weather the past couple of days has caused them to go a bit wild, in fact.

The vine in this first photo is at the far right in  the pot.

I was concerned that it seemed to be attracting aphids a week or so ago. Then I read that a simple recipe, sprayed on the plant, deters aphids, so I set to work mixing up a batch:
Cut up an onion, add a squashed garlic clove or two, add a few cups of water, and let this "brew" in the sun for a few days.

What you'll have once the brewing is sufficient is an extremely strong-smelling onion/garlic mixture.

I strained out the onion and garlic pieces, poured the liquid into a spray bottle, and gave the top sweet potato vine a good dose of it.

The rest is history, at least for now. Not an aphid in sight, and I check several times a day. I think I sent the aphids packing.

In this second photo is the "sibling" to the vine at the top. It's doing extremely well, also, and is even trying to make friends with the coleus plants in the pot to the left of it.                            

For some reason I couldn't seem to control myself when I passed by the sweet potatoes at the supermarket about three weeks ago. Before I knew it, one potato had found its way into my shopping cart, and it came home with me. It has been sprouting fast and furiously, as you can see in the bottom photo. It's interesting that this sweet potato is sending out so many sprouts, whereas the first sweet potato had all it could do to produce three measly sprouts. There are, in fact, eleven sprouts on this latest potato, and it might not even be done sprouting yet.

My plan is to have ONE sweet potato vine growing in the house this winter. I've already bought a new plant stand for it. What I'll do with the ten others, I don't know. I don't think I could bear to kill them.

On Mt. Battie's summit

It was a perfect day to be on top of Mt. Battie in Camden Hills State Park last Wednesday.

The view from the summit is quite spectacular.

That's the village of Camden down below and Penobscot Bay in the distance. Just minutes earlier we were sitting outdoors at a restaurant on that harbor.

While having lunch, we mentioned to our waitress that we'd be driving to the top of Mt. Battie after we ate. She said she has hiked mountains up and down the East Coast, and to her the best view of all is from Maiden's Cliff Trail, on the other side of this lookout.



We'll have to check that out some time,... on a cool autumn day, perhaps.