And Now I Am Wishing for Rain.

My Co-pilot in the Buggy

We have enjoyed a few days of nice weather in the last couple of weeks, along with some very hot weather.  Pretty typical for July in Ohio.  And of course the rain has let up.  I am now wishing every day for a nice soaking rain for my garden.  Again, fairly typical for July in Ohio.

My garden is not doing so well this year.  Everything was planted late, due to weather and travel, so much is behind where I think it usually is.  Something is decimating my corn.  I have lost about half of it now to something that is knocking the stalks down at night and chewing up the nowhere near ripe corn.  And my newly sprouted  lettuce and swiss chard seems to be under attack from bunnies.  The tomatoes are doing quite well however and I have a lot of green tomatoes on the vines.

The last two mornings when I have gone out to inspect the corn I have been amazed at the number of honeybees collecting pollen from the corn tassels.  Dozens of them.  It creates quite a loud buzzing just above one's head.


While I was out with the camera to photograph the bees, I was also able to get a quick shot  of a great blue heron flying over.  There are quite a few around, but you have to be in just the right place at the right time to get a photo.  They don't wait around.

In other nature news, this week Sam and I have seen some Monarch butterflies on our walks.  They used to be so plentiful, but now are rare it seems.  While picking blackberries at the pond 2 days ago, I spotted some milkweed on the back side of the dam and I was able to find 3 monarch caterpillars on two different plants, ranging in size from less than half an inch to well over an inch. 

 I did not have my camera, but went back yesterday to try to find them again.  Unfortunately, I was only able to find one and I think it was the smallest one because it was on the same leaf I had seen it on the day before.  It was no longer quite so small. however.  I hope the others were just being elusive and had not become dinner for a bird.


Last weekend Grover and I attended a 3 day agility trial.  We had a successful weekend, earning 2 Double Q's and 1 Jumper's Q for a total of 47 points.  We now need only 72 points for our MACH title.  We will be attending another 2 days of agility at the Dayton Dog Training Club this coming Saturday and Sunday.  Fingers crossed we earn some more points!

It has been too hot many days for me to spend much time in my studio, which has no air-conditioning, so I have not done as much as I would like.  I did finish weaving the two selvedge rugs and take them off the loom.  I just need to do the hems on them to call them finished.  I also warped my smaller loom for a couple of scarves in black and white tencel, which is a shiny rayon-type fiber that is nice to work with. 

 I also spun 2 bobbins of some prepared fiber I purchased last year at the Great Lakes Fiber Show,  It is a Merino wool Tencel blend and I am now plying the singles on the two bobbins together for a 2-ply yarn.  I really like how the singles look, but I am not sure if I will like the finished yarn as much since the colors will not be separate like they are in the singles.  I will likely weave with this yarn.

 I found this cute little sheep at an antique store in Oregon last month.  Isn't he cute?  He was only $10 and I am pretty sure he is handmade.  He's about 8"  long is is living on the antique cupboard in my studio.  I just love it.

 
I also ordered new countertops for my kitchen this past week, for which they are coming to measure in 2 days.  That means I need to clear off the countertops, so I have been purging and re-organizing some clutter and unused items in my kitchen.  It seems like a good time to do that.  I look forward to a new look in the kitchen as it has been 16 years since we put in the current cabinets and counters.  I am keeping my custom hickory cabinets, but exchanging laminate countertops for quartz in a totally different color scheme.  It is time for a new look.

Beautiful morning sky over the studio

 

A Respite From the Rain, But the Heat Has Arrived.

Grover posing atop Osage Orange log

The lights sticking up are at the end of the bridge

It does seem for now that the rain has stopped.  But first, it had one last hurrah the day after my last post.   We had a late afternoon downpour following another couple of days of rain.  The ground was just saturated and once the rain actually stopped, we watched as the creek continued to rise until our temporary bridge was completely submerged.  The water also knocked over the beams Sam had moved into place for construction of the new bridge  just a couple days before.  Fortunately, though several of the boards from the temporary bridge came loose and went zipping away with the current, I was able to retrieve and replace most of them once the water went back down the next day. 

Sam finally gave up waiting for the forecast to call for 3 or 4 dry days and he mowed hay a week ago.  It was promptly rained upon and he decided to just let it lie.  The weeds had pretty well taken over and it was way past prime time for quality hay.  This was the first time in 20 years of haymaking that we have lost a field of hay to rain. 

I have been trying to keep ahead of the weeds in the garden.  I do not use any herbicides or pesticides in my garden and therefore, I have weeds and bugs.  I am not convinced that Round up is not harmful to use in your garden and I don't use pesticides because it is detrimental to helpful insects, such as pollinators.  Things are doing well.  The corn is about waist high, we have lots of little green tomatoes and peppers, there are flowers on the cucumber and pumpkin vines and we have been eating lettuce and arugula.  I have been harvesting kale to put into my homemade dog food as well.  I planted Swiss chard for that same purpose, but I think there is a bunny who likes Swiss Chard out there.  I caught sight of it scurrying away one day.  So I planted more chard, hoping it will do better this time.  I plan to harvest some basil today and make pesto for dinner tonight.

We did our annual alpaca shearing on Sunday.  One alpaca.  Setting up and then cleaning up took longer than the actual shearing.  I remember the years we would spend days shearing and how ecstatic we were when we got down to that last one.  In those days, that was really cause for celebration.  It was hot, dirty, itchy, smelly work and never have we finished as late as we did this year.  Once shorn, I put Truffels the alpaca  into the same pasture and barn area as Apples the pony.  They are getting acclimated to each other and I will try to get a photo of them together soon.

This morning, as Grover and I went for our "morning mile" walk, we discovered that a large tree had fallen across the road overnight.  It was an osage orange tree, of which we have probably dozens that were planted many many years ago as a natural fenceline along the road.  They are a very slow growing tree with very hard yellow wood.  You can see the rich yellow color in the photo to the left.  The wood really is that yellow.  It makes wonderful firewood as it is incredibly dense and will burn slowly all night long. I am pretty sure the tree fell due to the excessive amounts of rain saturating the soil around its roots.  Sam and our township trustee and neighbor, Larry, cut it up.  Most of it will be used for firewood, but Sam kept the butt log to saw up on his sawmill and see if he can make something with the wood.  I requested a cutting board.  He said it would last forever.




The osage orange also makes a very good yellow dye for wool and alpaca.  I have used it before so I collected a gallon bag full of the chainsaw chips to use.  I will put the chips in an old pantyhose leg and use that like a tea bag in water to make the dye.  








 


Maybe I will use it to dye some of this 
fleece I washed the other day. There is nothing like a hot sunny day to get a fleece to dry quickly.

 Before it got so hot, I did get some things done in my studio.  I had both my looms "dressed" and in the same place at the same time.  Pendleton selvedge rugs on my rug loom and some cotton/linen kitchen towels on the smaller loom.  

The towels are now off the loom and finished.  I have another project planned for that loom, but it will have to wait for cooler weather as I have no air-conditioning in my studio.  The only cool time of day right now is early morning and I have to choose between outdoor work and studio work and since the outdoor work seems more important than the fun of studio work, I tend to do it first.





Here's another view of my studio.  One I just love.  The boys seem to enjoy being out there with me as much as I enjoy their presence.

Grover and I are going to have a new adventure this coming weekend.  We are going to go "Dock Diving".  At least I hope we are.  Grover loves to dive off the creek bank and the pond bank, but I am not sure what he will think about leaping into water he can see through.  But Dock Diving is coming to a town near us this weekend and I signed us up to try it out.  And I have only ever seen it on TV, so it will be fun to be there and see it in real life.  Hopefully a friend or two will show up and can video our attempts for posterity!

The weekend after that, Grover and I will be doing 3 days of agility in Niles (Youngstown), Ohio again.  We have not been to a trial since the first weekend in June, before our trip to Oregon.  We need to try to accumulate some points toward our MACH.   Next time I post, I should have an update on that.  Wish us luck!