Cherry Pickers

Good morning, my friends. And so it begins. The cherries are ready to become pie filling or else cherries in simple syrup. We'll start with pie filling today. Here's how we harvest cherries at the Three Cats Ranch. 

My job was to sit in the tractor seat and raise the bucket up and down. It can also be tipped up and down, giving Mike a level and flat surface on which to stand. It’s safer than using a ladder by a long shot.

After I while I hopped off the tractor and picked whatever I could reach from the ground. Together, we picked 16 pounds of cherries. It’s enough to do a batch of sweet cherry pie filling and two batches of cherries in simple syrup. There might be enough to do a skillet cherry crisp too. I’ll know when I measure and weigh out what I’ll need for the other projects. There are still cherries on the trees if I don’t have enough.

Before tackling the cherries, I quilted the sashings for Ruth’s Legacy. 

I might have kept going, but instead, I left it needle down in the border. Despite the cherry pie filling efforts, I believe I’ll have time to finish the quilting on this today.

Later in the afternoon, I made my way to the sewing room. There I found Smitty ready to help.

When he saw what I was working on, he called for Sadie to come help. He had bigger mice to fry.

She helped me sew together the fourth of five blocks for this final row. This one has a purple diagonal.

In the process of making the purple block, I was able to cut enough pieces to finish the final pink block as well. If there’s time I’ll sew this together today, and the hard part will be over. After that, I’ll just need to sew these final five blocks into a row, and then sew them to the bottom of the quilt.

To say I’ll be glad to have this finished would be a significant understatement. I might have to shoot off a couple of fireworks just to make the point.

So, it’s another busy day ahead. This will be the first canning of the season. I’m not expecting to do a lot of canning this year, but you never know. Sometimes I get more energetic than I thought possible. As for today, the cherry pie filling will be enough, and then I’m hoping to have plenty of time for sewing. 

And a Happy Fourth of July to everyone who celebrates. Be safe out there, okay?

Stuck in Neutral

Good morning, my friends. There as a change of plans yesterday. Shortly after my morning blog posted, Matthew called to say he'd barely slept the night before. And I'm sympathetic to that. We decided to do our walk on Monday. No worries. I could switch gears. Only...I seemed to be stuck in neutral because I made almost no forward progress during the day. 

There was a little progress to show on the Love Sampler. After stitching these two sections, I moved my hoop to the right. I'll pick it up there this morning, and then continue toward the bottom.

Our weather has been pretty gloomy this week, but there’s been no rain since last weekend. It seemed adviseable to give the flower pots some water. I noticed the volunteer snapdragons are coming back with a vengence.

It’s amazing how things can grow when the squirrels aren’t eating them down to little green nubs.

We’re seeing more and more cherry tomatoes too. No clue why they were so slow getting started. The plant is huge.

The Gracie Memorial Catnip Garden is doing a good job re-establishing itself. Smitty likes a little nibble now and then.

Okay, now here’s something interesting. This is the poppy barrel I’m trying to get re-established. See how the foliage on the left and right sides of the image are different?

I believe the foliage on the right will become a purple poppy. Back in 2020, I was able to get some to bloom, but none since. These seeds were some Mae saved from her own poppies. She and I have puzzled over this because they seem only to bloom as purple poppies once.

After that, they’ll change to the same color as their red neighbors on the left side of the image above. It occurs to me that the purple ones might be annuals? Maybe they don’t seed themselves? But that doesn’t really make sense because Mae and I are growing them from seeds. These botanical things are above my pay grade.

The Checkers dahlia is such an overachiever this year. I don’t think I’ve ever seen it produce so many flowers…and it’s early for dahlias too.

To it’s right, the Fuzzy Wuzzy dahlia has more work to do if it’s going to keep up.

This is the one I’m watching now. Bumble Rumble. We should be seeing some flowers from it by next week. There’s still one more dahlia…the Firefighter dahlia. It has some work to do to catch up with the others.

HEAR YE! HEAR YE! THE FIRST ZUCCHINIS HAVE MADE AN APPEARANCE! That is all. Please resume your regular activites.

Also, I noticed a flower forming on one of the sunflowers. There might be others, but it was hard to be sure.

In the bee garden, I noticed a new flower. My phone tells me this is Moricandia arvensis or “purple mistress” to you.

Here, I was able to get a better picture of the Checker Mallow. I posted a blurry photo last week. 

The garden is looking good. The corn is visible in photos now, and the green beans are doing great after the crow battles at their beginning. There are way more beans than I usually plant, but that’s okay. After having all the plants bitten off in our last garden, and after fighting tooth and beak and nail for these, I’ll take all the beans I can get. I believe I’ve earned them.

Also…what’s that thing about corn needing to be “knee high by the Fourth of July”? Well…we’re underachievers there. In our area, we can’t plant until the latter part of May, and most things had better be ready for harvest by mid-September. It’s a short growing season. This is an early ripening sweet corn. Hopefully, we’ll start seeing some more growth soon. And some sunshine would help.

Okay, by late afternoon I planted my butt in my sewing chair determined to do some quilting. I’d switched out my thread and was checking tension when I ran out of bobbin thread. Of course, I did.

So I fiddled with that for a while, cleaned and oiled the machine, checked the bobbin tension on my Towa gauge, reloaded the bobbin, checked the top tensionvagain, and then took the first stitches on this new daisy motif. After approximately 4 stitches, the top thread broke. Oy. By that time I’d pretty well scraped the bottom of the motivation barrel. Nevertheless, I quilted from the left side to the right. The motif is doable, and I think it’ll work for this part of the quilt.

Here’s a peek at the back.

The motif is to stitch two daisy petals, then a little loop for the flower center, then stitch more petals around that loop. Then off to the next one. The sashings of this quilt vary in size because the pieced blocks vary in size, and so I’m filling in some of the spaces with more flowers or more loops to cover the space.

When I’d stitched from left to right one time, I called it quits and left it needle down for the next horizontal sashing. 

My goal today will be to finish all the interior sashings. I’ll save the border for tomorrow.

There was no more progress made on the Stair Steps. I’ll keep plugging away at it until I’ve finished the final two blocks…maybe today…maybe not. My sanity is important to me. 

Also, today is the day we’ve chosen to harvest our cherry crop. I’m honestly not sure how much is out there. We have two trees: a Black Tartarian and a Bing. The Black Tartarian is always more productive, but there are some cherries on the Bing too. My plan is to can some of them in simple syrup. I use those to make my mother’s cherry cobbler…possibly my favorite dessert for my whole live-long life. Also, I’ll make some sweet cherry pie filling. Up until a couple of years ago, I always thought pie filling had to be made from tart cherries. Then I found a recipe for sweet cherry pie filling. I actually think I like it better. 

So all of that to say that I’m looking at a weekend of canning. Sewing might have to take a back seat for a few days as I deal with the cherries. 

Heartbreak Cake

Good morning, my friends. It was a mixed bag of a day. Some things went as expected, and others...not so much. It was time to fill the bird feeders. In summer, that seems to be my most important job. While I was out, I marveled at the flowers on the purple hydrangea.

When I've been outside the past couple of days, I've noted with alarm a few cherry pits lying on the ground. After seeing a crow fly off with one a few days ago, I suspect crows are the culprits. It doesn't matter, though. I took a good look at the cherries and tasted one. Tomorrow we harvest. I'd say today, except that I'm meeting up with Matthew for a walk in downtown Portland today. 

After we walk, I'll be taking some quilts for donation to the Ronald McDonald House. If you're unfamiliar with the mission of the Ronald McDonald network of houses, they provide housing for families whose children are undergoing medical treatment at local hospitals. I'm not sure how far their network reaches. Here, in Portland, there are two homes (affiliated with our two children's hospitals), but I believe there are others nationwide. I was happy to learn they'll take donation quilts, and I'm glad to be able to pass some of mine along.

Okay, so let's just talk about this cake, shall we? For one thing, I was calling it a "Dandelion cake" in yesterday's post. It's actually a "Daffodil cake." It was a way to use up the remaining egg whites I'd collected over the past several months. It all whipped up beautifully. When I took it from the oven, it appeared ready. As the recipe suggested, I touched it lightly on top and it sprang back. So, okay. I inverted it onto some coffee cups to cool. Then, I got involved with the laundry. When I returned to the kitchen about 15 minutes later, this is what I saw:

Oy...sometimes the "Martha" is with you, and sometimes it isn't. It had broken into two pieces and fallen out of the pan. In retrospect, I believe it was underbaked. Oh well. 

Desperate times call for desperate measures. I carefully removed it from the pan and stuck the two pieces together on a cake plate.

When I added the glaze, it wasn't beautiful, but it appeared edible.

We each had a piece for dessert, and it was actually downright tasty. Mike said it was similar to the “Sunshine cake” his grandmother made for him when he was growing up.

If you’re like me, you’ve probably only made angelfood cake from a box. (And the boxed versions are just fine…no reason not to use them.) When they’re made from scratch, my understanding is that they’re made with egg whites, sugar, cake flour, and cream of tartar. This one also used one egg yolk for every two egg whites, which made it a little more dense than a regular angelfood cake. Mike said it was that extra density that made it more like a Sunshine cake.

So, okay, despite the problems I had with it, I’d like to try this again. And nobody died in the process, so I’m calling it a rousing success all around. Next time, I’ll allow it to bake longer and watch for a darker brown top with cracks. Mine was nicely browned, but there were no cracks. It sprang back when I touched it lightly, but I’m still thinking underbaking was my problem. I’ll try it again sometime when I’m trying to get rid of more egg whites.

Okay, so I shrugged off my disappointment over the cake and went to work on the quilting. All nine pieced blocks are quilted now.

There may not be time for sewing today, but when I can get back to it, I’ll switch out my thread to this King Tut variegated thread…

And go to work on the borders and sashings. I know the motif I want to do, but I need to figure out what direction (literally) to take it. Probably, I’ll spend at least two more days on this before it’s ready for binding.

Okay, and then it was time to get back to the Stair Steps project. Sadie visited briefly. When she saw what I was working on, she claimed she had an appointment for a pawdicure and needed to rush off. Hmph. I’ll bet if I look at her calendar, I’ll find she was free to help all along. Cats. What’re ya gonna do?

Well. Despite no help whatsoever from kitties, I manage to get two more blocks done. This one has a pink diagonal line.

This one had a yellow diagonal. (It’s kind of hard to see the yellow in this photo. You’ll have to take my word for it.)

And that pretty well took me to the end of my day. Three blocks down, two to go. The next two will have a purple and a pink diagonal, respectively. When all the blocks are made, I’ll sew them to the rest of the quilt, and I’ll have myself a finished quilt top.

My day will be enjoyable but busy…busy mainly because I hate getting into traffic. There’s no reason to think traffic will be bad, but I’m getting to a place where I hate traffic so much that it seems bad if there’s even one other car on the road. And since I’ll be traveling north on Interstate 5, it’s going to be hard to avoid other cars…on the road…the same road I’m on…getting in my way…bothering me…the nerve of some people. Nevertheless, a walk with my kiddo is going to be a great way to spend the day. We’ll probably get lunch, and then I’ll drop off my donation quilts before I head for home.

Days like today can be tiring, and so I have a feeling I won’t be doing any sewing today. No doubt I’ll have some pictures to show you for tomorrow’s post. The weekend approaches, and the 250th anniversary of our country. We have no plans for the Fourth. Do you? 

Overcoming Inertia

Good morning, my friends. My day was a little mixed up yesterday. There was a pedicure scheduled around lunch time, and so the hours I could work with came both before and after. The garden got a good hoeing, and there was some time after that to work on my quilting. I quilted two more blocks on Ruth's Legacy, and then finished the third after I got home.

It’s going pretty well, and I’m happy with that filler motif I’m using. Here’s a little peek at the back.

Now, I’ve turned the quilt upside-down, and I’ll start quilting the top (and final) row of blocks today. With those finished, I’ll be ready to start on the borders and sashings tomorrow.

This being July 1st, it's time to choose a goal for July's 

It's tempting to go with Ruth's Legacy, but I'm going to challenge myself with the next quilt in line for quilting. That means my July goal will be to quilt and bind the Shop Hop 3.0 quilt.

The spa where I get my pedicures is a part of a larger hotel complex. It has beautiful grounds and gardens. As I walked in, I took a few pictures. My phone tells me these next three are all hydrangeas.

It also says this next one is a rose. The flower looks like a rose, but the foliage doesn’t. Also…no thorns.

However, it has rose hips the size of cherry tomatoes.

Okay, so back at home again, I went back to my quilting, and then I forced myself into the sewing room to work on the Stair Steps project. I might have had some kitty help, but Sadie purrfurred to spend her afternoon in her catio.

I needed to cut some more scrappy pieces for the first of five blocks. When they were cut and laid out, they looked like this. Some of you with sharp eyes might notice there’s an extra pair in the lower right corner.

With the cutting finished, I could sew it all together. That’s one down, four to go. 

When it was sewn together, it was time to stop. I’ll start on another one today. The next one will have a pink diagonal row. 

When I got home from my pedicure, I started a new recipe in my slow cooker for Bourbon Barbecue Chicken Tacos. It needed four hours to cook. It was super easy. I mixed up what amounts to a barbecue sauce in the slow cooker, and then added two boneless, skinless chicken breasts. It cooked for four hours, and then I used two forks to shred the chicken. Earlier, I’d made a salsa from corn, red onion, red bell pepper, and some other seasonings. This turned out great. We liked it a lot. The “salsa” has the zest and juice of two limes, and it was a very nice accompaniment with the chicken.

I made the recipe as written. It contains three tablespoons of bourbon. If you don’t want that alcohol, you can substitute apple juice or chicken broth. I doubt you’d taste the difference. We each started with two tacos, but then we each had one more. Now, there’s enough for another meal. It’s easy enough to do in the RV…always a bonus.

Okay, so today will be sort of a regular day. I’ll continue on with my quilting and my sewing. I’m also going to use up six more egg whites making a “Dandelion cake.” Basically, it’s an angelfood cake with an orange glaze. Mike’s mother and his grandmother made a cake called a “Sunshine cake.” It was a favorite of Mike’s. I tried a few times to replicate it earlier in our marriage. Then, after Mike’s mom passed away, I ended up with her recipe box. It contained his grandmother’s recipe for Sunshine cake. Only, the recipe was written so weirdly that I never actually tried to make it. One of the phrases that comes to mind was to cook some sugar in water “until it hairs.” Huh? I think I know what she meant, but it still discouraged me from ever attempting it. 

This recipe popped up when I Googled things to do with the egg whites I was hoarding. It occurred to me that it might be a good stand-in for the Sunshine cake. Mike will have to be the judge of that. And maybe enough time has passed that he won’t remember what the original Sunshine cake tasted like. In any case, it will be fun to give it a try, and I’ll be happy to use up the rest of the eggs whites.

All right then. Time to get going. Busy day ahead. Hopefully, I can end the day with another block for the Stair Steps quilt. Two blocks would be a bonus.