The Run Around

It was a day for errands yesterday, but no grocery shopping. We saved that miserable task for this morning. Of course, the day started with slow-stitching. There were quite a few blocks to finish quilting this time around. I've done all the blocks on this side, and now I'll head back in the other direction (opposite the way the arrow is pointing), quilting the border.

I've completed all the blocks on the east side of the quilt now. Here's an image I've shared before. All the blocks inside the pink line were finished before. Since then, I've added everything inside the green line.

When that was finished, I spent a little time on Chicken Buffet before it was time to head out. That meant kitties had to come inside early. Smitty was so disgusted by this turn of events that he decided to spread himself out in the doorway, blocking entry and exit.

We had lunch at a restaurant with outdoor seating, and then stopped at the local extension service to have the gauge for my pressure canner calibrated. I love the extension service. They provide so many services to the local community, and it's mostly free. She also gave me some helpful handouts about pressure canning. I've done it only once before, and so I have to relearn what I learned one time many years ago. 

On the way back, we stopped off at a local produce market where I picked up a bunch of dill heads. I'll use these when I have enough beans to make Dilled Green Beans. The beans should be ready very soon, but I'm still worried I might have jumped the gun with the dill heads a little bit. For now, they're sitting in a bucket of water in the laundry room, and they're making the room smell like dill.

Mike picked up a couple of things at the hardware store, and then we headed for home. Once there, I finished up my quilting for the day. Yesterday's blocks were Chicken Italiano,

Chicken Cacciatore (this is another of my favorites in this quilt),

and Chicken Soup.

And speaking of soup, we had the Roasted Beet Soup with Creme Fraiche I made a couple of nights ago. It was a nice light dinner after a rather filling lunch. The soup is pretty easy to make. The recipe will tell you to use creme fraiche or sour cream as a "garnish." I had a little container of plain nonfat yogurt open, and so I used that. If you want to get fancy, you can glop a spoonful into a sandwich bag, squeeze it down to the corner, then snip off the corner and voila! A cheap piping tool. (This is kind of a fun dish for Valentine's Day.)

Also, we had our crusty bread slices with Beet Green Pesto. There's enough pesto leftover to make the fettucine dish I want to try.

It was nice outside after dinner, and so I took a little walk around. The one sunflower that survived the squirrel attack has opened now. I'm not sure why it bloomed asymmetrically, but I blame the squirrels. I blame them for everything now. Seams not straight? Blame the squirrels. Coffee got cold? Blame the squirrels. Constipation?...oh, never mind.

The flower pots have been very pretty this year. Each year I experiment with which flowers to use, and this year's choices have been very pretty. They have marguerite daisies, volunteer snapdragons, verbena, and lentana. In front there are some volunteer gerbera daisies that were planted a couple of years ago. I'm not sure why they decided to make an appearance, but we're happy with whatever decides to grow. Oh yes, and we're also growing a cat in one of the pots.

Here's a close-up of the lentana. Isn't this pretty?

And the verbena. Love it.

Checking the greenhouse, we'd better start eating this lettuce. There are several items on this week's menu that will use it.

Also, I was very happy to find a couple of ripening tomatoes that hadn't been affected by the blossom-end rot. The night before, I'd found at least a dozen that were affected. I picked them all off and threw them out, but I was worried about the crop until I found these. 

The echinacea is just about finished for the year, but it has bloomed and bloomed and bloomed. I picked up some seeds for Black-eyed Susans the other day. Next spring, I'll start those in little pots and plant some near the echinacea. They're kind of the same shape, and so they should be a nice addition.

Okay, and I had to stop for this guy. It isn't often you find a perfect dandelion with no seeds missing. I love that military "brat" groups (and I am one) have adopted this as their representative image.

A little to its right, one of the two sunflowers in the herb garden is blooming. This is the teddy bear sunflower. It's about five inches across.

The mint is blooming. The bees love this.

When I reached the mint, these two were waiting. They wanted to join the party, but we don't let them out this late in the day.

The weeds are blooming right now. Here's the thing: we have 7 acres of property, most of it in weedy grass. Since we're on a well, we don't have enough water to maintain the field. What grows there grows. It's a lot of property for two old people to care for, and so we only maintain the house (of course) and an area around the perimeter about 20 feet wide. The rest is au naturale. By August, the grass has stopped growing, and it's turning brown, and so Mike doesn't really need to mow past about mid-July. So the grass stays short, but the weeds still grow and bloom. To see a picture right now, you'd see a field of blooming dandelions and other stuff. Here are a couple of examples:

You might recall we had to replace our wisteria this year. It's putting out new tendrils now, and this one is starting to climb the pole. There's another growing around the other side.

Also, the clematis is finished blooming now, but it's looking good. It likes this new location better. I'm still grieving for the deep blue. Next year we'll get another, I hope.

And that took me back to the place where I started. There are about three cherry tomatoes just minutes from being ready to pick. Lots more green ones are coming along.

So there you go. Thus ends a run-around day at the Three Cats Ranch. Grocery shopping ahead. Fortunately, the list is short today, and I can get back to my quilting. On a less happy note, we have to take Mike's car into downtown Portland today and leave it overnight for windshield repair. Bummer. I hope we don't get into traffic, which makes me cranky. The days have been busy getting errands taken care of. I'm looking forward to fewer appointments and more time at home.