an ent knits

yarn in the sun, originally uploaded by enting.

Still no computer. I’m starting to go (more) nuts. But I spent a couple hours this morning spinning up the rest of the wool/mohair locks I picked up at Maryland a year and a half ago, and then I plied them (after this picture was taken). *This* is why I (finally) have a ballwinder.

Oooh, other knitting-related tidbit–I saw the Mountain Goats [indie rock band] play last Saturday, and I _actually didn’t knit through the concert_. It was that good. (Also crowded, but really, really good.)

I signed up for continuing the One Local Summer challenge as the September Eat Local Challenge with Farm to Philly.  This is last week’s local meal: cornbread and a tofu stir-fry.

I adapted the cornbread recipe such that the only nonlocal ingredients were the salt, baking soda, and baking powder.  The approximate recipe is in the extended entry.  (The details on the tofu and bell pepper stuff are on flickr, if you’re interested.)

(more…)

lettuce, originally uploaded by enting.

My computer is completely nonfunctional (not accepting charge) for a little over a week now. I’m told that fixing it will cost hundreds of dollars that I don’t have. Otherwise, most of life is good, or at least not worse than last week…

One of the good bits was last weekend’s trip to NYC, during which I went to the Red Hook Community Farm with a few of my friends–it’s a really cute farm, topsoil placed on what looks like it used to be a parking lot. Nearly all of their produce was incredibly tempting–just about everything, that is, except for the watermelons that were full of rat holes. Ah, well. The lettuce and kale and peppers and pumpkins (et cetera) were all lovely.

Knitting-wise, I’ve been working on a Secret Group Project and the Peacock Feather Shawl, plus I started Icarus out of the yellow/orange/brown mohair blend that I dyed on dye-day.

The first picture was taken from the plane on Monday morning, the second is from my parents’ front yard, and the last two are from Chapin Orchard.

This week has been busy, and my computer’s broken, and I’ve spent my spare time on reading (Freddy and Fredericka is an excellent book) rather than much knitting, but I did finally spin on my wheel again last night.  That was a good thing.

As I said, I spent last week (Tuesday through early this morning) visiting my parents at their home in Burlington, VT.  Most of the week went more or less as planned–lounging around, running errands with my mom, picking raspberries and grapes and such, jamming (and chutneying) with my dad, generally hanging out with my parents and grandmother…  And then, on Saturday morning, we wound up taking my grandmother to the hospital because she was having trouble breathing.  As I understand it, she’s doing okay, considering, and should be out of the hospital soon (probably with some sort of home hospice arrangement), but that’s not exactly going to stop me from worrying.

I did still go to the Vermont Sheep & Wool for an hour or so–my mom chased my dad and me out of the hospital for a while–and I was very glad to run into a bunch of friends, even if I wasn’t exactly in the best of moods for socializing.  (I know I was trying to act more chipper than I felt, but if I seemed upset or unfriendly, or just spacey, well, now you know why.)

This is the fiber I bought while I was there:

One ounce (more or less) each of Icelandic lamb/angora bunny, Icelandic lamb, and Icelandic lamb/tussah, all from Frelsi Farm.  I’m finding the greys to be soothing (not to mention the soothing properties of all that softness), and I think these’ll go nicely with the grey shetland that I bought last spring.  (I also picked up a couple of colors of dye, but the other yarns & fibers that really caught my eye were either way out of my price range or small enough lots that I wasn’t sure they’d be useful.)

*Sigh*.  Well, I’m home again now, which means I’m back with a snuggly cat (my parents’ cat is not unfriendly, but she doesn’t like contact beyond head-scritching), but also means I don’t have live-in help assembling dinner.  (Mel will only eat dry cat food, which I’m not interested in sharing.)  Time to go work on some real food.

raspberries, originally uploaded by enting.

I’m on vacation again, this time visiting my parents. They’ve got lots of raspberry bushes in the backyard, which are about at the peak of the second crop of this season. Mmmm, raspberries. (I can’t share the actual raspberries, but I thought I’d share at least this picture.)

Time to go pick some more!