Rainy Morning

Sue and I walked in the rain this morning, although it didn't rain hard. Mostly it spit on us the entire way, and we were just grateful not to be in a downpour. The sky was dark, and it was raining hard an hour earlier.

Along the way, we saw the first of the red-winged blackbirds. They are frequent visitors to the Fanno Creek Trail, but only just now returning to the area. Sue has the sharpest eyes when it comes to birds.

 (Image credit: By Walter Siegmund )

Also, we passed by a field of lupine. We saw these on a walk last year, but I didn't have my camera with me. When we passed by the next time, they were all bloomed out.

A few days ago, I showed you a pink Hawthorne. Today, we saw a white one.

The wild roses are starting to bloom as well. The rain had them looking a little bedraggled.

Before leaving this morning, I was able to finish quite a bit of stitching on the Gingerbread Square block.

Just the southeast corner remains now. I couldn't fit the last of it in the hoop, but in one more rehooping, I think I'll have it all...or maybe I just need a bigger hoop.

Yesterday morning, I checked in on things in the greenhouse. The new echinacea seeds arrived, and I wanted to plant them. As you might guess, that meant the original ones finally decided to germinate. I've circled the one on the left because it still has the seed attached to its little leaves, and so it's hard to differentiate from the pebbles in the soil.

Despite showing themselves, I'm going to plant their new cousins. These will be different colors. I love the names: Cheyenne Spirit and Pow Wow Wild Berry. Not sure why they've been given names suggestive of our indigenous peoples, but there you go. 

The Cheyenne Spirit will look like this.

The Pow Wow Wild Berry will look like this:

Pretty, huh? You can see why I'm so insistent about having some in the garden. They are perennials if you can get them growing, and the bees will love them.

Also, I replanted one of the Cherry Rose sunflowers that hasn't yet germinated.

If it decides to grow, it will look like this: 

The only other seed that hasn't germinated is the Red Sun Sunflower, and so I replanted one of those.

When it grows, it looks like this:

As for the rest of the sunflowers, they're ready to be planted in the ground. The next spate of sunny days, that's what I'll be doing.

After finishing up in the greenhouse, I took a walk around the house. The chive blossoms are beginning to open. Can chive blossom vinegar be far behind?

Also, cherries are beginning to appear on the cherry trees. The raccoons will be happy about that.

Another of the rhododendrons is starting to open.

And the iris are heading up. They're probably still at least a week away from opening.

With my outdoor responsibilities completed, I went back to work quilting the Sweet Tweets table runner. I needed to finish up the border around one of the sections.

And then I moved to the one at the opposite end. I've drawn lines down the center and also for the binding seam allowance. I want my leaves to stay within the part of the border that will show and these lines help keep me on the straight and narrow.

Here's how it looks from the back. I still wish I'd remembered to switch out that bobbin thread to pink, but oh well.

When I had both ends finished, I took a picture of the full back.

Then I started on the flowered sections. I'm letting the fabric do the talking here, outlining the major elements and stippling in between as I move from one to another.

I was able to finish one section, and that's where I left it.

It's late in the day as I'm writing this, and I've made no more progress. I'm still hoping to get it finished before the weekend is out.

In yesterday's post, I promised to report back on my recipe test of these Lemon Cheesecake Mousse desserts. Oh. My. Gosh. These were absolutely delicious. They're like the best lemon cheesecake, but light and smooth like a mousse.

I barely had enough Redi-Whip left in the can to garnish these two, and I used some fresh mint leaves from the garden. Another suggested garnish from the recipe was fresh blueberries, which would be very nice. You can see that they have a little graham cracker crust in the bottom of the ramekins. I made just half the recipe (which served 10-12). I served them up in 7 oz. ramekins, and my yield was four...a more tolerable number of desserts to split between two people. We ate these last night. We'll have the other two tonight. And, yes, I have replenished my stock of Redi-Whip. You can find the recipe for these right here. They weren't difficult, although they did make a remarkable number of dirty bowls.

So there you have it: two days worth of activities from the Three Cats Ranch. Tomorrow I'll begin sorting fabrics for the class I'm taking next week, and I need to print off some pictures as well. I'll say more about that tomorrow. We're expecting more rain, and so it'll be good sewing weather.

Butterflies and Bees

This morning I tried walking on my treadmill and had to stop when my knee was bothering me too much. It isn't bothering me just to walk around. For some reason, the treadmill overtaxed it and it was giving me grief. I'm learning to accept this about myself...that my knee is going to hurt for the rest of my life, and I'll just have to make adjustments when necessary. I've never injured it, although I do have a diagnosis of two meniscal tears. The tears are age-related, however, and so there's really no effective treatment. Oh well. Truly, it's not a big deal. I just have to make adjustments and change my plans when necessary.

Today I went out into the garden earlier than usual to feed the birds and water the annuals. I took my camera along just in case. There were lots of little things to see in the garden today. As I was walking back to the house with the empty bird feeders, I noticed this strawberry the squirrels missed.

Since I'm the only person around here who can eat strawberries, I grabbed it up and popped it into my mouth. These are Hood strawberries, the very best and sweetest available in Oregon. Yum.

As I went around the corner of the house, I noticed that the purple hydrangea is in full bloom now. Next time I take its picture, I'll stand back and give you a look at the whole thing. I was distracted by the weeds today and stood there a while pulling up anything within easy reach.

The annuals require that I water from two separate spigots. One has become overgrown with raspberries, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. Today I noticed the first ripe raspberry. Since all seeded berries are off limits for the other human resident of the Three Cats Ranch, I snatched that one off the vine and popped it into my mouth too. A little tart, but I suffered happily.

Growing beside the raspberries are two butterfly bushes. This purple one blooms in the spring. The yellow one will bloom later in the summer. They are difficult to photograph because of their conical shape (I guess). They don't pose well, and so I'm rarely happy with the pictures I've taken of them.

Butterfly bushes are considered a noxious weed and an invasive species in Oregon. They are no longer sold in nurseries. We purchased these from a nursery, on sale at the time, probably at the end of their nursery heyday. I can't say I've ever noticed them taking root anywhere else on the property, and so I'm not sure why they've been classified as an invasive species. Ours have become so overgrown and ugly that we'll probably take them out in a couple of years. Mike will have to retire first, however. They'll never make it to the top of the priority list while he's holding down a full-time job. Less than two years now.

I'm most excited watching the sunflowers right now. I have 15 plants of six different varieties and almost all of them are now sporting flower heads. I'm thinking they'll open up within the next two weeks, and so I'm watching them very carefully. These are planted in the open spaces of the culinary herb garden.

I noticed the lavender is covered with bees of all kinds. 

And I stood for quite a while waiting for this little butterfly to light long enough in one spot for me to take its picture. I've learned that with bees and butterflies, I must wait for the bug to come to me. Chasing them around will only result in frustration. I stood back quite a ways to get this one.

I've identified it as pieris rapae, commonly known as the small cabbage white butterfly. 

Sadly, the largest of our two cherry trees has a bad case of leaf spot. We're blaming the days of soaking rain followed by weeks of hot weather. It's hard to see in this picture, but the center leaves are turning yellow and dropping off along with the unripe cherries. Our tree guy was out to take a look at it the other day. On the bright side, we won't lose this well-established tree, but it's going to look worse before it looks better.

The daylilies, on the other hand, are looking marvelous. They're having their best year ever.

As long as I was looking at the cherry trees, I looked at the plum tree too. I looked for a long time before spotting the first plum. I only saw about half a dozen. These are about the size of a ping pong ball. It rained during the time it was flowering and so I suspect it didn't get well pollinated. That's disappointing because we've been gone the past two years when the plums ripened. I was hoping for a good crop this year. Oh well.

And finally, the first cherry tomatoes have appeared. These are sungold cherry tomatoes...so sweet. I'm looking forward to eating them.

So I think I've used all the time I can use if I'm truly going to get those paper-pieced tulips finished today. Better get going.

Link-ups Galore

If I don't have time for any other blogging today, at least I have some time to join in the parties. There are lots of parties going on in Blogville this week.

First up:

The first of this week's archive categories is "Flying Geese". I'm sharing the True Hope quilt that I made for my cousin Rebecca. It was inspired by a quote from Shakespeare: "True hope is swift and flies with swallow's wings."

You can read the blog post I wrote when I finished this quilt right here.

The second category is "Flowers". Well, I have just the right quilt for this, and it's been a long time since I showed this quilt on my blog. Thanks for the opportunity, Val. It's the Checkerboard Flowers quilt, a favorite of Blogvillians:

This quilt was entered in the first International Quilt Festival of Ireland. You can read the post from many moons ago when this quilt was finished right here.

So I'm trying not to get tipsy from all the drinking I'm doing at these parties...nah, you know I'm kidding don't you? I'm not really trying. The next party is:

When I attend a party, I bring dessert:

You can read the post where I bake up this yummy peachy goodness right here.

And after all that partying, I think it's time to relax with a good book right here:

For this month's challenge, I worked with the fancy stitches on my sewing machine to make this "Red Sunflower" quilt.

From this book:

And you can read the post I wrote about the process of making the quilt right here.

So, that's all the partying I'm up for. Time's awastin', although to quote the famous Sigmund Freud, "Time spent with cats [and all of you] is never wasted." Nevertheless, the tomatoes are calling to me: Come and fulfill our life-long dreams of becoming salsa! When the tomato calls, one answers.

Happy Happy, Joy Joy!

It's a better way to start a blog post than yesterday's weary title, don't you think? The day got off on the right foot when I got an early start on my salsa.

It looks so pretty when I start to cook it down. I ended up with a yield of five pints for today's efforts, plus a little bonus that went straight into the refrigerator.

Five pints will take us most of the way through the year, but I'd like to make a little more for sharing. If you're interested, I posted the recipe I use a couple of years ago, and you can see how I do it right here. I was having trouble remembering if I used the ribs and seeds from the jalapenos. The answer is, I did not. It still has a nice little kick.

This being Wednesday, I'm linking this post to:

While that was cooking down this morning I went out and picked enough tomatoes for a batch of pasta sauce. These aren't quite ripe, but I don't want to can them until next week anyway.

After reading this article from our local newspaper a couple of days ago, I've started picking them on the green side. Our weather has been quite warm the past several days, although it seems to have cooled off some. Nevertheless, my tomatoes are grown in a greenhouse, and it's been plenty hot in there. The article served to confirm my suspicions about some of the tomatoes closest to the wall of the greenhouse. It actually gets warm enough near the wall to give the tomatoes sunscald. But the part of the article that interested me most was this:

Slow-ripening fruit – Temperatures above 85 degrees can slow the ripening of tomatoes, which ripen quickest at 70 degrees to 75 degrees. Wait for cooler weather to allow for vine-ripening to occur. Fruit just showing color changes can be picked and stored at room temperature to ripen.

I've complained many times about our short growing season here. The only way I've found to get tomatoes to ripen at all is to grow them in the greenhouse. This temperature issue was completely new to me. Indeed, I've started picking any that are reasonably beyond the completely-green stage, and they do ripen in the house quite nicely.

You might note that the first of the Super San Marzanoes are coming on as well. Those are the elongated ones. They are bred for their few seeds and lots of meat, which makes them an excellent sauce tomato. I'm not picky about my tomatoes, since I'm always happy with whatever I get. But I do like this particular variety for sauce since I'm peeling and seeding them. Usually, I just leave everything in the salsa, but for the pasta sauce, I want the meaty part of the tomato.

While I was out watering this morning, I checked on the plums too. They're getting close.

It's beginning to look as though I'll get all of my canning done before we leave on our trip on August 31st. In years gone by, we've done our traveling in the spring, which saves on this end-of-August gnashing of teeth waiting for things to ripen. (And I'll just say that at my age, my teeth can't take it.) We might have to switch back to late spring traveling in the future.

As for the rest of the day, I have a little housework to do, but I'm going to continue on with Joseph's Quilt. I have three sides of the outer border left, and I'm hoping to get it finished today or tomorrow.

What's on your agenda for the day?

Thursday's News and a Winner!

Weirdly, when I checked my blog this morning (thanks to a hint from Dana), I discovered that yesterday's blog post hadn't posted. I'm pretty sure I published it, but somehow it magically reverted to draft form and then didn't publish. Oh well. The ways of cyberspace will always confound me. But that won't stop progress because it's time to announce a winner!

Thanks to all who played along in the July NewFO Challenge. It's time to pick the winner of the red and blue Shoo Fly lapel pin. There were 25 participants this month, and Mr. Random has spoken. I generated a number and came up with:

#16--Pattilou in UT

Pattilou, I've sent you an email, so check your inbox.

No worries if you didn't win because we'll be right back here on August 31st to play again. And this being August, I figure you've all had your share of sun by now. Next month, we'll be playing for the Sunbonnet Sue lapel pin.

Yesterday I did a lot of running around, but I did manage to get started on the quilting for Joseph's Quilt. This quilt has 13 blocks, and I'm just quilting them randomly. I started in the center with a sort of zig zag pattern on this block:

and then, I was able to get the next block marked. I've seen this design on other quilts, and I really like it.

This seems like a good time to try it out. It's not a difficult design, but I can see myself getting confused on what direction I'm going. I decided to short-circuit the process by marking it ahead of time. You can't see it, but I have some marks in the half square triangles as well. Still, I could change my mind before I quilt them.

I'm using this pretty variegated thread. It has all the colors in the quilt, and so it seemed like a good choice.

Also yesterday, I tried out a new recipe that I found in the June/July 2014 issue of Cook's Country called Fire and Ice. If you're like me, you've got ripe tomatoes coming on the vine, and this was a good use for them. (I don't have them in enough quantity to do any canning yet, and so I'm looking for ways to use these early birds.) This is the image from the Cook's Country magazine (since I neglected to take a picture of my own salad).

This was so tasty and refreshing. I served it up with my version of grilled cheese sandwiches that include slices of apples grilled along with the cheese. The original recipe made a ton of salad, and so I cut the amounts in half...which also means you can double it if you want more. Also, I used my chive blossom vinegar, always a good choice in salad dressing. The original recipe had me peeling the cucumber, but I wanted the color from the English cucumber. It sat for about five hours in my refrigerator, and so the skin was nice and soft by the time we ate it. Here's the recipe the way I made it:

                      

Fire and Ice Salad

Adapted from the original recipe by Cristin Walsh

Serves 4     

1/4 Cup White Wine Vinegar (I used Chive Blossom Vinegar)

1/2 Tablespoon Sugar

1 Teaspoon Salt

1/2 Teaspoon Dry Mustard

1/4 Teaspoon Celery Salt

Pinch Red Pepper Flakes

Pinch Pepper

1 Pound Tomatoes -- cored and cut into 1/2-inch-thick wedges

1 English Cucumber -- sliced 1/4-inch thick

1/2 Green Bell Pepper -- stemmed, seeded, and sliced thin

1/2 Red Onion -- sliced thin

Whisk vinegar, sugar, salt, mustard, celery salt, pepper flakes, and pepper together in large bowl. Add tomatoes, cucumbers, bell pepper, and onion, and toss to combine. Refrigerate salad for at least 1 hour or up to 24 hours. Serve.

Notes: It's important to refrigerate the dressed salad for at least 1 hour before serving so the tomatoes and cucumbers can release their juices and balance the dressing, as well as absorb the flavor. In fact, it can sit for up to 24 hours, chilled, with no further dilution of flavor.

Recipe may be doubled.

So there you go. The kids are coming over for dinner in a couple of weeks, and I think I'll put this salad on the menu when they come.

Today I have another day of running around. I need to drop off my quilts at our local Sleep Country for entry into the Oregon State Fair. Then, this afternoon I'm seeing the doctor who did a fusion on my neck about ten years ago. Ever since returning to swimming, my neck has been giving me grief. I don't know if he has any ideas about how I can get some relief (beyond stopping swimming), but I figured I'd check in with him anyway. 

And that's my day. What's going on in your world today?