Half Over

Remember how the end of July meant that summer was half over? It doesn't feel that way when you are retired. The fine, warm...no hot, days and muggy nights seem to go on for ever. If the weatherman says it will rain tomorrow, that's ok. I can wait a day or two to do ...whatever. There doesn't seem to be an urgency to cram as much as I can into the sunny days. In fact, I'm

pretty tired of mosquitoes and mowing the lawn (eventho we had about 3 weeks of burnt brown lawn last week's rain has rallied the grass and it's time to mow again!)

The garden has finally started to produce...thanks to Jeff's faithful work in it! We had broccoli last night and it was the best I've ever eaten...although I may have over cooked it a bit. We had peppers and beans last week. The tomatoes are

getting bigger but none have started to ripen. Last evening Jeff thinned and transplanted carrots and beets. Where he gets the patience to do this I'll never know. I don't care about the beets (Jeff & Mom do) but I am looking forward to the carrots!

The watermelon in one of the corn

er boxes is started to produce fruit. That's a watermelon in the center of this photo (l). I'm hoping to do a photo record of it as it grows. There are several other...smaller...melons growing, too. We picked round zucchini last night too. The small one in front is the size we were suppose to pick it at but the rain boosted

the others past that point before we could. There is

one more on that plant that is even bigger. Hopefully that will be our seeds for next year.

Another good thing about the rain we've been getting is that it gives me plenty of time to knit.

This is a pin-stripe sweater I did for the shop. It's the 2nd time I successfully did the pin-stripes and I hope it lasts in the shop as long as the first one did (3 days.) That's means it will be gone when we stop there after Mom's MD appointment in Cooperstown! (Fingers crossed.) I also

did some cotton sun hats. The colors are bright and they look good. Hope some one will like them, too!

When Fanny and I were out this morning I was noticed how beautiful the Rose of Sharon is this year. My mother's brother-in-law/godfather, Frank Fiala, gave her a slip from the plant in his yard when my parents bought this house. That was 50 years ago! I consider this plant an antique and you can see from the photo why it's called a rose. The bud and the center of the blossom look like a rose. It has never looked better...full of blossoms! Jeff has it on his list of plants to get 'compost tea' and it really seems to like the extra attention.

I'm willing to share a root cutting from this plant if any of my Fiala cousins are interested.

Rain at last!

We finally got some of the rain we need...the TV weather man said we got about 2" in the last 24 hours but were still 4" behind. Jeff's been tilling between the rows and hoeing around the plants so we had no run off at all...all the rain was absorbed into the garden. We had a little damage...a couple of plants had been knocked down but Jeff put in more support poles around them this afternoon and everything looks good now.

Today was spent in the ER at St Luke's Hospital in Utica. Jeff got a phone call this morning that his sister was there after an accident. After checking up on Sherry in the ER, we retrieved her car from the scene and took it to her house. We let her dog Max out while Jeff filled the reservoir for her gutter garden and when we were ready to go back to the ER I scooped up Max and put him in his cage before he even knew what was happening. Sherry had warned me that it would not be an easy task but poor Max never knew what was happening until the cage door shut. Sherry wasn't hurt badly but will be sore for a few days. One of today's highlights was watching 3 huge Air Force planes drop out of the clouds on their way to land at Griffiss. It was so unusual...suddenly there they were, one by one lining up for their final approaches. Awesome. Wish my camera had been handy.

I did manage to get another sweater started while we were cooling our heels in the ER...that's why I never go out w/o a project OTN in my bag.

HOW THE GARDEN LOOKS

These are purple peppers... supposedly very hot! The stems are purple, the underside of the leaves...and the leaf veins and of course, the peppers are all purple. (Those little purple things are the peppers!) The entire plant is

about 12" high and the peppers are the size of your finger nail. There are 6 of these plants in different parts of the garden. I think they have a special name, but to me they are just the 'purple peppers'. Jeff ordered a lot of heirloom seeds by color this year, trying to make the garden look different and inviting to pollinators...but still no bees.

This is a photo of the garden taken through my bedroom window. This year, all our supports are PCV pipe held together with different plumbing joints (elbow's, 45's. T's, 4-ways) and hammered into the ground. (The guys in the plumbing department at Lowe's ask what we're building now every time we go in!) Nothing is glued together. Some of these pipes started out as the frame to the greenhouse we had over the gutter garden and the plastic covering the peas this spring and will be used this fall to extend the season for the peppers and tomatoes. The miniature apple tree(about 10' high) in the middle of the photo...with the hummingbird feeder in it...doesn't have any apples again this year. Last year we got 2 beautiful, perfect apples but the late frost got the blossoms this year. Our neighbor's trees are bare, too.

We're using garden net on most of the trellis's this year and the beans and squash are doing quite well. Jeff saw a video online about using slings with the trellis's and we talked about putting a sling of pantyhose on the fruit as it gets big to take pressure off the stem so I sacrificed what was left of my navy blue pantyhose since I won't be needing them any longer. This butternut squash, one of several and the largest on that trellis,

is about 8" long. Without the sling, the squash hung down and covered the blossom you can see below it. Jeff planted several kinds of melons and squash...including watermelon...and I think using the slings will let them get bigger, and maybe riper, on the vine. It will keep the watermelon off the ground, too.

The hot, dry weather has been a real obstacle this year. We're on a well but Jeff has still been watering at least every other day. He tills between the rows and hoes around the plants...in fact, that's the plan for today. The soil is very fine with all the leaves and compost he's added and holds moisture very well but Jeff's not quite satisfied with the results. We've been harvesting seeds as some of the spring vegetables bolted. I collected broccoli flowers the other night and got too close to the mustard plants, being rewarded with a nice raised rash on my arm...that itches and burns like the dickens...but it got me relieved of my collecting duties. However, I can still knit!! I've got another size 2 pinstripe sweater about half finished and as soon as that's done I want to do a girl's sweater in Red Heart's new With Love in 'bluebell' that I'll use the ladybug buttons I got at JoAnn's on (Some of our old friends from camp drove down for lunch last week and Paula told me that's where I'd find them.) Photos to follow for both those sweaters. Family and friends have been stopping over to see the garden after hearing us talk about it and we're always willing to show them around. I'd say the gate's always open but we don't have a gate but you get the idea, huh?

p.s. got to say something about retirement: It's heaven! Too bad it's wasted on the elderly. There still aren't enough hours in a day to do all that I want to do but I'm doing so much more than just going to work and coming home!

The Shop...Cooper Country Crafts

This is a pic of part of the shop in Cooperstown, taken by Ellen Preckel, for an upcoming story in the Albany Times Union. You can see some of the wonderful hand-crafted items we carry. The pictures are cross-stitch, the pillows hand pieced quilting. Pottery, basketry, stain glass, hand sculptured gnomes...just some of what our 24 members produce. Stop in the next time you're in town...2 Doubleday Court, Cooperstown, next to Diastole Furniture, Essential Elements and the Batting Cage. We're open 7 days a week 10am-5pm. (Click on photo to enlarge.)

Heat Wave

I don't know why but these heat waves seem to spur tourist to buy hand-knit items in the shop in Cooperstown. I worked last Mon, July 9, and took 3 toddler sweaters down to restock my shelf coz 2 sweaters had sold over the Fourth. Since then, those 3 plus 2 other things have sold...including my pin-stripe sweater...leaving my space pretty empty. I've got another royal blue v-neck cardigan with base ball beads as buttons ready and a lavender sheep sweater...finished that one about 1:30am today! I immediately started a red bb cardigan but gave up and went to bed around 3am. Today I worked on that, getting one sleeve almost done. Should finish it tonight even if it takes until 3am again!. Found a white hat waiting for bb embroidery in a bag with yarn so I'll put that in my tote to take with me tomorrow. This is definitely a case of crying all the way to the bank....but this is induction weekend for the BB Hall of Fame and I don't want to miss any opportunities! (A lot of tourists are expected from Cincinnati coz one of the inductees, Barry Larkin, is a longtime 'star' there. My red sweater may find a home there instead of in Boston which sits better with this Yankee fan.)

Jeff tilled between the garden rows and hoed the rows yesterday in hope of rain. The tomato and pepper plants are forming fruit after the rain we got over the weekend. We need more rain but hopefully not a heavy beating rainfall.

Why I Got Another Dog

Remind me again why I got another dog. I had totally forgotten how difficult/much work it is to train a puppy and even tho Fanny is almost 9 months old, she is still a puppy...and is resisting being trained. She can be out doors running around and playing or laying in the sun chewing on something for a couple of hours and still pee and poop on the floor when she goes inside. It feels like we go 2 steps forward-3 steps backward some day. Today every time I walked into the living room or Mom's bedroom there was a 'package' waiting for me on the floor...and I thought I was keeping track of Fanny, too. Oh, well. I was ready to give her back to the shelter. Had to get dog food today and Jeff talked me into getting Fanny one of those big rawhide bones. She had a ball running back and forth with it to the bedroom (l) and then back to us in the tv room (r). Took her several hours but she finally chew off one of the end knots so I took it away for the evening. This is the longest any chew toy has lasted!

Got a royal blue baseball sweater started today while we were watching some of the Walking Dead marathon. Neither of us felt like being outside today and it was a beautiful day!

A Little Hard Work

Last week after our garlic harvest, Jeff got out the tiller and re-tilled where the garlic had been...and pulled down what was left of the peas and tilled that area, too...and then decided to till between the rows like he did last year. It was as hard as blacktop...full of rocks and dry as cement! It took 2 days to get between all the rows tilled. The garden seemed to sigh with relief that 1st night and after being watered the plants started to bushed out! Jeff's been watering nearly everyday, alternating plain water and 'compost tea', and the garden is a lot bigger than others we've noticed around here. The tomatoes have finally started to grow (the plants at the greenhouses had flowers and small tomatoes on them a month ago so people who put them in their gardens have a head start on us...our tomatoes are from seed!) and the peppers have flowered and have started to form fruit. The accent boxes are doing very well with the squash and cu

cccumber vines growing up the net trellis. The gutter garden is ahead of the farm rows. There are tomatoes on those plants!! Jeff had tried rooting a sweet potato on the windowsill and got about half a dozen or so 'eyes' to root so he put together a potato bed and planted them in it.(r) Those leaves had roots about 12" long or more! Don't know how many sweet potatoes we'll end up with but even with only 1 potato from each plant we'll get several meals out of it! He put in a couple of rows of assorted white potatoes, too.

Yesterday Jeff showed me a BBQ Boys cooking site video online that was doing something called "Potato Bombs". You take a russet and core the center, stuff it with meat-cheese-etc, wrap a couple of strips of bacon around the potato, wrap the whole thing in foil and cook it over a fire or bbq. We tried it with Italian sausage,diced green peppers, sweet onion and pepper jack cheese. One potato

was really a meal all by itself but I had taken the sausage out of it's casing and mixed everything together before stuffing the potatoes and had some stuffing left

so we cooked sausage-pepper-onion burgers, too. It has been too hot to cook inside the last couple of days and I finally found something to cook over the fire that we would all eat!

Eventho it's been very hot, I've been able to knit and took a couple of sweaters to the shop when I worked down there Thursday. This is a size 9mo Blacksheep sweater (the black sheep is on the back) that usually sells quickly...we'll see this year.

I'm finally getting my pinstripe bb sweater the way I want it so I hope it will go down on Monday when I work again. Hope to finish another child's shrug, too. We've been displaying one with a child's sundress that another member makes and the display sold to one customer! Hope there are more customers like that!!

What Goes Boom...sort of...In The Night

This is what's left of a big old box elder that grew in our back yard. A couple of years ago part of the tree fell (r photo) but continued to grow, producing leaves every year. It was connected to the main trunk by a

strip of tree fiber about 6" thick. The 2 bleached branches in the center of the trunk fell last year but while they were still connected did not thrive and leaf.

Last night there was a large thud and since Fanny & I were the only ones awake

and the motion lights were not activated I did not go out to investigate. (Fanny was willing!)

This morning I checked the gutter gardens thinking the water box might have been pushed over by deer and found the large limb of the box elder down. It definitely is opening the back yard up to more sun! Our house was built in the 1940's fronting the old trolley line from Herkimer to Little Falls... the original builder/owner(...it was a do it yourself project) believed the state would put Rte 5 in the trolley right of way since that could be purchased as a 'lot' and was already cleared. He was only 2/10's of a mile off and our house sits backwards on the lot with the living room windows facing trees and brush...not a bad view! The bedrooms face the unimproved road to our neighbor's house. Luckily the tree trunk fell away from the house or the gutter gardens and the den would have been hit. Don't want to think how the 4-wheelers will react to the down trunk...trying to go under it or cross on to our land.

One Crazy Season...so far!

The air was heavy with the perfume of ...garlic last evening. We both had noticed that the garlic stalks were drying at ground level and falling over. After a quick check online to reassure us it was so, Jeff decided the garlic was ready to harvest. We ended up with 30 heads...that are now hanging to dry in the garage...different types and sizes from the elephant garlic Jeff couldn't resist buying at Hannaford's to some seed heads he bought at the local greenhouse to what my cousin Tom, the family king of garlic
sent us. There are still a few clumps growing in the gutter garden and the raised accent boxes so we figure w'll have enough for about a year.

Last week Jeff noticed that the greens in potato tub #1 had started to wilt. He tried tying them

up when he added more dirt to the tub but the green stalks were too heavy and were falling over and breaking. Today he decided to 'dig' up that tub. Actually, he just tipped it over onto a plastic tarp and uncovered a couple of dozen decent size potatoes and lots of earthworms! A fair harvest of potatoes from that tub and an excellent collection of worms for fishing.

Last evening I was surprised with a visit from Lisa, a very talent artist who with her husband

had volunteered to paint the library during our recent renovations. She had a special cake by Hannah...another talent artist who's confectionery creations are as good to eat as to look at. Hannah had made the book cake for the library's reopening party and she made me a garden! Looks too good to eat...almost! I know how delicious it will be when we cut into it. Right now it's in the freezer waiting until July 4th. That would be the 104th anniversary of my dad's birth and we always have cake for dessert...this year I won't have to bake it! Thank you, Lisa & Hannah! My goodness retirement definitely has it's rewards.