How I Spent My Day Off

     I had my annual ophthalmology exam yesterday at the clinic in Cooperstown and since I was going to have my eyes dilated, they suggested I bring a 'driver' so Jeff was drafted to be my chauffeur.  The total time I spent with the tech, the doctor and in the waiting room was about 1 hour and 15 minutes (not bad).  I have small cataracts on both eyes and many floaters.  I no longer can read the bottom line on the chart...but nothing changed that much since last year so no new glasses.  I did get a pair of those disposable sunglasses that they have rolled up in a basket by the receptionist.  And I really needed them yesterday!  It was a beautiful day and with Jeff driving we came home the scenic way! We drove through Cooperstown (stopping at the shop to restock), fighting our way through traffic to Lake Street and then north along Otsego Lake.  We had all the windows open and it was a beautiful ride along the lake.  If I had been driving, I would have turned onto Allens Lake Rd and gone to Richfield Springs but Jeff was at the wheel so we stayed on Rte 80, crossed Rte 20 and headed to Fort Plain.  The farms and the hills looked beautiful and the while the sun was bright there was a breeze and the air cooled off.  We went through Van Hornesville and Starkville, Fort Plain, turned west onto Rte 5S and then crossed under the Thruway and went through St. Johnsville and onto Rte 5.  We ended up having supper at McDonald's in Little Falls...and it was pretty good, too!  During supper we talked about how clean and neat...almost pretty...the houses and farms had been.  So far up the 'curb appeal' scale from Herkimer.  Even the small hamlets whose name signs we didn't see were better looking than our Main St.  It seems those people still have pride in their homes and property.  Jeff said maybe because it was theirs.

    Before going to Herkimer we stopped so Jeff could check the garden and I could release/rescue Fanny from the house.  It was almost 5pm and she had been alone inside since 1pm.  I was a little worried about what she had been up to but all I found was one Croc (an old one) and a night shirt on my bed. (She collects things to keep her company.) She had been good so we let her run outside for a few minutes and then she and I took Jeff back to his place.  We just got back home when Jeff called and asked if I had found something he left on top of the car.  I checked...nothing.  So Fanny and I re-traced our route and I found a young man walking on Main St asking those he met if Jeff's property was theirs.  I stopped and he gave it to me.  Jeff was surprised he got it back.

Hats, hats, hats!

   When we stopped at the shop to restock I realized I couldn't...didn't want to... list the hats in the display so I took a photo of it as reference.  Now I know what I need to knit this week. I did a flower hat...just the hat, not the flower... last night watching a BBC program on the history of the House of Windsor.  This afternoon it will be a white hat that will become a baseball.  The hats are mindless knitting, it's the details that take time and attention.  Friday will be Detail Day.   I'm suppose to work in the shop on Saturday, I should be able to get 6 hats done by then...but I better get started! 

Potatoes and Sweaters

Hey, that's my bone!

    Jeff...with help from Fanny...dug potatoes on Wednesday while I worked in Cooperstown.  He's been trying all season to get the pH in those boxes down...and he did...just not low enough for the red potatoes to really like.  The white and blue potatoes are good size, and some of the red ones, too, but they all could be bigger.  Oh, well, there's always next season. 

    This is the geranium that Joanie gave me in 2009!  Isn't it beautiful!  Couldn't resist taking a photo of it. It has lived longer than any other geranium I've ever heard of!
   I took a couple of apple hats and the 2 sweaters I finished to the shop with me Wednesday.  This (r) is a Flower Set.  They sold well last year and this spring but seem to have slowed down.  

   And, I finally got the pin-striping finished on this size 2 baseball sweater.  I thought I'd never finish!  Each pin-stripe is embroidered
by hand...I worked on them for 4 days!  I wish I had blue baseball buttons instead of the regular red ones.  Oh, well.  I make one Pin-Stripe Special a year...no matter what price I put on it, it takes too much time to finish it.  
   Jeff picked the first zucchini of the season and that will be for supper tonight,  Can't wait!  

That Part Goes On Like This...Doesn't It?

The Welcome Committee:  Sunny and Max (l-r)

      We finally went to Utica today to Jeff's sister's house.  Sherry had asked for some help from Jeff with yard work.  She and her next door neighbor want to alter the fence between the houses and the weeds, etc on Sherry's side of the fence had to be taken care of first.  Of course, today probably wasn't the best day to do yard work...the temperature was over 85 and who knows what the humidity was!...but it was the day we got there.  We would have made it there sooner but the trailer needed a new hitch and that took longer than Jeff anticipated.  In fact, he took it off and put it on 3 times this morning alone before everything fell into place!  (He even checked with a YouTube video to make sure he was doing it right!  Directions do not seem to come in English with a hitch kit.) We came home with a full trailer load, too.  Jeff's been bringing tools, etc back from Sherry's garage every time we take the trailer to Utica and today was no exception.  And we made it home just as it started to rain!
   Fanny got to play with her canine cousins, Max and Sunny and got some rawhide treats from her aunt Sherry, too.  Max is a miniature Schnauzer the same age as Fanny, and Sunny...short for Sunshine...is a miniature Schnauzer-Cocker Spaniel mix a year younger.  Max and Fanny get along a lot better than Sunny and Fanny but they all co-exist pretty well. 
   

    My Lemon Picchu is 
finished with a sunflower button and ready to go to the shop on Wednesday.  I've got a white one about half done...maybe I'll get lucky and finish it tonight.  I've still got to finish the PinStripe Sweater, too!  And I sold 4 hats yesterday so I have to replace them!  I got an Apple hat done while at Sherry's today and there's a Flower Hat in the project bag so maybe...just maybe I'll be able to replace them.  Remember, the Baseball Hall of Fame is holding it's Annual Induction Weekend next weekend, July 25-26, and that means many, many people will be in town.  If you're one of them, be sure to visit the shop, too:  Cooper Country at 2 Double Day Court, adjacent to Double Day Field.  We're open 10am-5pm, 7 days a week.

More Garden Updates

    This is the first blossom on the melons ... a cantaloupe, Jeff says.  Another plant also has a blossom.  Whether or not they'll actually form and ripen into a melon remains to be seen.  No sign of a watermelon.

   I started out the season by planting pre-seeded 
flower strips (that had been a gift) in the tops of the corner boxes. The directions said to water them often but they all
rotten from too much rain except one...it's suppose to be Painted Daisy's and has quite a few flower buds but the yellow is the only one that's opened so far.  Hope the others open soon so I can get another photo.

  Jeff started to pick some of the veggies today ...these are flat Italian
beans...and started one of his monster soups for tomorrow's supper.  Besides the beans, there
are greens and peppers
from the garden in the soup.  There was too much greens for us so he took some to the friends who
gave me this HP computer.  And Jeff said if he goes to his sister's house tomorrow to trim some of her yard, he'll bring her some of the beans.  That's one of the problems with a garden our size...everything ripens at the same time so you really need friends you can share with.  I did sausage, potatoes and peppers for supper and the sweet Italian peppers from the garden tasted so good!  You can really tell the difference between home grown and store
bought.   Jeff even took some of the peppers home with him to cook for himself!  I overdid it with the greens last week...and my MD agrees.  She's increased my daily dose of Warfarin in an effort to get my INF back into range.  I'll eat the soup tomorrow and then lay off the greens for while until I get my INF checked again.  Maybe greens 3 or 4 days a week isn't the way to go.  At least not the 3 or 4 days before a blood test!
   The strawberries are still blossoming and baring fruit but we haven't gotten any yet.  The critters and birds keep beating us to them!  They got most of the blackberries, too!
 

My Joanie O Geranium

   This is the geranium that came home from camp with me in the fall of 2009.  Our neighbor up there, Joanie, always 
gave me the biggest geranium she had at the end of the season rather than let it die.  This one winters in our living room getting watered once a month.  In late May it moves onto the deck...as far as I can move it alone!  You can see in the photo that it's got over a dozen flower buds ready to open.  I have never heard of a geranium living so long! It is an annual, after all!  Jeff gives it a shot of compost tea once or twice a season and that's all the fertilizer it gets.  I'll get another photo of it when it's in full bloom. (One fall it was so bushy a mouse was hiding in it when I brought it inside and we scared each other when it jumped out and found itself in the den!  I quickly shooed it out the door before it got any ideas about spending the winter with us.)
   Don't know if I'll go with Jeff to his sister's tomorrow or stay home and knit.  I'm working on a 
size 9-months baby's surplice cardigan called Picchu.

My Lemon Picchu needing a button.  Any suggestions?

It's suppose to be done in 5 pieces and sewn together but I changed it and did it in 3 pieces with just the sleeves sewn in because I hate sewing so! I'm using Red Heart's acrylic in lemon and since it calls for only 1 button I  think I'll look for something cute. I think the next one may be done in one piece with just the underarm of the sleeve needing to be sewn.

My PinStripe in Progress

  I've also got to finish embroidering the pinstripes on my yearly Pinstripe Cardigan.  It took just 2 days to knit the size 2 sweater but so far I've spent 4 days on the embroidery!  I'm scheduled to work in Cooperstown next Wednesday and I'd like both sweaters to be ready to take down.  The Baseball Hall of Fame's Induction Weekend is July 25-26 and the more I have on display the more better! 

(We stayed home today...my Imprezza got new brakes both front and back...and had that great soup for supper.  Fanny dined on one of the soup bones and totally enjoyed herself!  update 6:30pm, 7/17/2015) 

The Garden is Flowering!

     Yesterday Jeff watered and fertilized the garden and of course, it rained about an hour after he finished.  This morning the plants that had tight flower buds yesterday...like the squash in the top photo, had opened...like the zucchini in the lower photo.  Jeff was surprised and excited!  We should have quite a few zucchini and butternut squash...both favorite of ours!  The corn has started to 'silk', too.  I can't wait until the ears are big enough to pick!

 And the green beans...in this case...the purple beans...are  starting to fill out.  Jeff thinks in another week or so we'll be picking beans, peas and peppers.

There's still nothing to report on the melons.  Jeff thinks the pH is still too high for them.
   Last week Jeff put a 2nd water filter on the house system and moved the outside faucet to the other side of the house closer to the garden.  This change means the water for the garden comes directly from the well without going thru any of the filters.  Since the garden sometime uses the majority of the well water it should extend the lives of the filters...both charcoal whole system filters and the Berky that we use for drinking water.  It also adds sulfur to the garden...which helps to lower the pH...without having to add too much powdered sulfur.  We'll see what it does for the veggies.
   I had my monthly INR today and my number was down a little...just out of range...so I'm waiting for a phone call with my MD's instructions (probably stop eating greens).  The nurse suggested I have a test for Lyme's, too, since I pick ticks off the dog occasionally. We both think I was bitten by a tick on my left forearm (halo mark), I'm tired all the time and my joints ache worse now than they do in the winter.  She was going to talk to the MD and let me know.  Jeff's in the same shape as I am and he's out in the garden more than me!  Ticks are a natural hazard out here in the little woods that have to be coped with and I'm doing the best I can.  Fanny gets a treatment every 30 days and I spray the chairs, rugs and beds every week.  Now if Bambi and her relatives would find another area to live in that might help, too.
   I've been hearing noises at night, Jeff's found footprints in the garden and Fanny's been hesitant to go out alone or stay out very long even if Jeff's with her.  Today we may have found out why.  A cat...a nice size black and white cat...was sitting in front of the garage when we came home.  It wasn't too friendly...ran into the brush.  Jeff couldn't get close enough to see if it had a collar.  There are plenty of chippies and mice around for it to catch and it can get into the garage if it wants to so we'll just wait and see if it stays around.  I don't think Fanny will track it but she might chase it if she sees it.  I don't need a cat...right now.  
    

New Camera and Other Things

Looking down the garden over the potatoes. 

That's corn in front of the greenhouse...with the hole in the roof!

    June was exceptionally good to me in Cooperstown this year so I decided to spend a little money and buy a new camera.  Monday morning I went to Kmart to see what they had in the store. (Walmart doesn't carry Kodak digital cameras). They didn't have the model I wanted in stock so when I got home I went online and ordered a Kodak PIXPRO FZ151...regularly priced at $129.99 but on sale for $79.99 with free shipping!...from the Kmart website.  It arrived this morning and I immediately screwed up the date/time mode but managed to take these 2 photos of the garden.  It's a little heavier than the other Kodak digital I had but feels good in my hand.  I didn't have too much trouble downloading the photos, either.  I haven't figured out the memory card bit...after 3 photos the camera told me the memory was full!!  I can't put the disc that came with the camera in this pc coz this HP doesn't read discs...that's why Len gave it to me.  (It's a rebuilt/used pc that he bought to watch dvd's on and when he found out it won't read a disc he decided not to keep it and gave it to me!)  I'll have Jeff take the disc home and play it on his pc and then explain everything to me. (Jeff keeps saying that after working at the library for nearly 15 years I should have more computer savvy than I do. But I always say we were told to not to try to fix a machine ourselves but to call the Techs.  He's my Tech now.) My tech just asked me if I had put in a memory chip...oops, I had forgotten it...and suddenly the camera has lots of memory space.  But he is going to try to transfer the info from the disc that came with the camera to a stick.  6:12pm, 7/9/15
    The potato tops have started to limp up and die back...a sign that it's almost time to harvest them!  Jeff checked the white potatoes and he found one about 2 1/2" long near the surface.  The reds and blues he found were much smaller...but the greens weren't limp yet.  We're keeping our fingers crossed that we'll get a good crop.  One of the zucchini plants died...there were 6...so we're still hoping for some of them to produce fruit. And there are a lot of banana peppers!!!
   Lunch break is over.  Time to get back to the knitting! 

Happy 4th!

      Another July 4th rolled around and we celebrated...just not as wildly as we did in the past!  No boat ride to watch the fireworks and no bonfire to sit around afterwards.  Instead I invited Jeff's sister and my cousin to dinner and cooked too much.  Sherry stayed home with a sinus headache...the rain got to her...but Ed came over and the 3 of us had a good time.  We even watched the fireworks from NYC in the comfort of our TV room...with dry, soft chairs and no mosquitoes!   And the leftovers were enjoyed for supper tonight after Jeff spent the day putting another filter on the water system and moving the outside faucet and I spent the day in the shop in Cooperstown.  
   After supper Jeff and I walked down to Wally's house and tried to get Fanny to go with us.  She's tried to go past the fence on her own but has always been stopped by one of us so we thought she'd be excited to walk past it with us.  But no, it didn't work that way.  She went about 5 feet beyond the fence and that was as far as she was going.  She watched us go down to Wally's and go up on his deck before turning around and going home!  She was a little upset when we came back home and carried on for a few minutes...almost telling us off!  I guess she really knows the meaning of 'stay in the yard'.
   I had sent several baby hats and a couple of sweaters to the shop with Steve last week so they'd be available for the weekend (things don't sell well from the project bag next to my chair in the TV room) and I was surprised this morning to see what had sold.  I had plenty of hats to fill in my display but I've got to get busy and make some more sweaters.  I tried to start one tonight but I'm too tired and I'm making too many mistakes.  I think I'll try to do my  one-and-only pin-stripe sweater of the season this week.  The sweater is easy...just a solid white, v-neck, raglan from the neck down cardigan.  What makes it special are the pin-stripes that are embroidered over the whole thing.  What a pain they are to do, too!  All the ends that have to be worked in...uck!  BUT...Induction Weekend for the Baseball Hall of Fame is July 25-26 and that sweater usually sells then.  Any famous Yankees or Mets being inducted?