One Finish

I picked up the hand-dyed floss from Kim's yesterday - Bayberry by Gentle Arts. Last night I stitched the vines on the Quaker Pumpkin.

Today I remembered to put my name and date on it.

Then I mounted it on foam core with a bit of batting and popped it into a spare Mill Hill frame. The frame is burgundy but I think it looks fine with the pumpkin.

I do prefer my modification of making the vines green as opposed to brown in the original pattern. I"m also really liking using variegated floss. The brown stem floss was Wood Trail but it didn't have much variegation.

I'm ready for fall.

Katwijker Socks 3.0

Seven years ago I finished my first pair of Katwijker Frok socks. I wore them out. I knit another pair last year using Kroy sock yarn which made them pretty thick and great for cold winter days.

I decided to start another pair with some thinner yarn - Mary Maxim Step Softly yarn 75% superwash wool/ 25% nylon.

The yarn is quite nice to work with. I hope it holds up to wear as superwash isn't as strong as regular wool. I wanted a thinner pair so these should go well with jeans as the weather gets cooler and I start wearing closed shoes again.

Monarchs #29 and #30 eclosed this afternoon. I'll be releasing them a little later. The 34th larva pupated this afternoon as well. I have 2 very active larvae in the castle and 6 very young ones getting ready to go into the castle. We still have 3 or 4 weeks of this left to go this season.

I may tag them next year depending on what our summer schedule is.

We haven't done any travelling of significance this year except for a trip to an LPGA event in Grand Rapids MI (which go rained out the day we were there) by way of visiting my family en route in June and a weekend away to see the Tall Ships in Sarnia three weeks ago. We've more or less been 'grounded' due to medical issues but recently were cleared to travel as long as Skip can tolerate it. We have a few destinations in mind, it's just a matter of getting ourselves organized enough to plan the trip and head out.

Crochet Hook Roll

As a thank you to Jen4 for crafting my adorable donkey, I thought I'd make her a nice case for her crochet hooks.

I looked at a few online (like this) and came up with this design:

Yes, they are sheep buttons!

I made it so the needle size would be visible.

The snap on the right was to lift the top part so longish needles could be more easily extracted.

Hair elastics form the closures.

One of the pockets was left wider for scissors or a ruler or, in this case, a gift card.

It was the least I could do for such an awesome present she made me.

A New Visitor to our Yard

This morning I was out cleaning the Caterpillar Castle. A giant swallowtail butterfly flew in and fed on the butterfly bush. Unlike the monarch that rests to feed, the giant swallowtail's wings never stopped fluttering. It was hard to get a good shot with my sub-par camera.

If you look closely you'll see the dangly bit which I guess is the 'swallowtail' missing on the left hind wing.

It kept coming back to this flowering shrub. I think Skip should plant two of them next year.

We have had a few of what people are calling 'Japanese beetles' in the garden this year. I have been zapping them with our bug zapper.

The zappers are battery operated and are great for electrocuting undesirable insects in the garden and in the house. We've heard of other people having so many of the beetles in their gardens that most of the foliage has been consumed but we (thank goodness) haven't been plagued with that many.

A few days ago I collected 5 or 6 eggs on newly emerged milkweed in the garden. They started hatching two days ago. They're about 1/8" long at first and by the time they pupate (form the chrysalis) they will have grown 2000x in size and 3000x in weight.

As of today, I have 6 little larvae like the one pictured, 3 medium to large ones, 3 chrysalids, and I've released 26 adults. I've already bettered my tally from last year (25). I haven't found (or really looked for, for that matter) any eggs in the last couple of days. I did find a patch of fresh milkweed near a good place to park the car so will continue to pick some of that as long as I have hungry larvae.

On YouTube

Teresa Kogut released her weekly FlossTube episode yesterday. I knew she had received the Bee Kind model I stitched for her and I hoped she'd show it this week. And she did! Check it out at 22:27 on the video.

'Bee Kind' is incorporated in the alphabet.

 I like the honey dripping from the honey stick.

Something may be done to make the bee's wings show up better. Teresa is trying to decide whether to wait 'til spring to release it at Market in Nashville or release it right away. She's asked for input in the comments below her video (just click on the triangle on the right side below her YouTube window. Once she releases it, it will be available in her Etsy shop.

I was so excited to see my stitching on YouTube!!

I wonder what she'll send me to stitch next...

Monarch Release

Skip, Susan, David, and I attended the 10th annual monarch tagging and release event at the Garden Hill Museum. The only other time I attended was in 2014.

Don Davis was there with lots of monarchs to be tagged and released. He kept them in glassine envelopes in a cooler. He told Skip that over the day he'd be releasing a couple of hundred butterflies.

There is a particular place on the wing where the tag is affixed

If a monarch is spotted, the Monarch Watch website is contacted (MWTAG.ORG) and the serial number is listed. The organization then looks up where and who released the monarch and the person who released it is contacted and sent a certificate. There were several of Don's certificates on display but three of them were from butterflies that were spotted after last year's release at the same event.

This was recovered from a dead monarch in Michoacán, Mexico 7 months later

as was this one. The tag code is given as well.

This tag was spotted on a live monarch in Dallas TX only 7 weeks after Don released it in Garden Hill. Perhaps it was still making its way down to Mexico - to one of 7 or 8 known wintering spots.

Monarchs only travel in the daylight hours and can make 140km in one day.

It's pretty remarkable that three of his monarchs from last year's event were spotted out of 200 or so that he released. 

There was an aquarium literally crawling with monarch larvae and another container with a couple of dozen pupae (chrysalises) attached to the top.

Don was also recognized in the Guinness Book of Records in 1988 for one of his released monarchs having travelled over the greatest distance at that time. To the right of the blue graphic is the tag that was recovered.

Skip got a shot of Susan and me looking at Don's display.

There was one other species on display. These are the larvae from the tomato worm. There were black ones

and big, fat green ones. And boy! do they ever eat a lot.

After a couple of weeks in the larval stage, they make chrysalises underground and then emerge as a large Sphinx moth.

 One of the young attendees had a giant swallowtail on his hand for quite a while. It really didn't seem to want to fly away. When I looked closer I noted it was missing one of its dangly swallowtails and it looked quite faded. It has probably been around for a while.

There were some beautiful echinacea plants in the garden. These were almost a coral colour.

There were also several pots of tropical milkweed on display. This is the kind of milkweed we see in south Texas.

It was a fun outing. Now that I know it's definitely an annual event I can be on the lookout for future ones.

Yardsauce and Butterfly Garden

I've been watching The Real Housewives of Cross Stitch, Priscilla and Chelsea on FlossTube (YouTube). They recently posted a tutorial to make "Yardsauce", a roasted tomato sauce that is easy to make and keeps great in the freezer for future meals.

Our tomatoes are starting to pile up so last night I made a batch of Yardsauce. Priscilla also has a blog post with the recipe. OMG, it is so easy to make and it makes the house smell SO GOOD!

Basically you throw all the ingredients in a pan (I lined it with aluminum foil for easy cleanup). You don't even need to peel the tomatoes - just dig out the stem part. Any kinds of tomatoes will do. Roast it on 425F for 45 min. to 1 hour until all the juices from the tomatoes are released. Did I mention how wonderful the house smelled whilst this was cooking? Let it cool, then puree in the blender or food processor and package for freezing. It's the easiest thing ever! It took about 5 minutes to prep, 5 min to blend after roasting and 5 min. to package.

The only modification to the recipe was to add some dried basil as I didn't have a whole lot of fresh, plus some fresh minced garlic and dried oregano. I have some oregano in the garden but was too lazy to go out to pick it and chop it.

I also threw in the few green tomatoes that had fallen off the plants - what the heck - why not? I got 4 containers (regular Bulk Barn sized) filled from this batch.

I the past, Skip and I have painstakingly skinned the tomatoes before processing them in the mill we have. It's very time-consuming and messy. This way of processing the tomatoes is SO MUCH EASIER! And it's all ready to use - already roasted and seasoned. There will be some spaghetti squash and spiral-cut zucchini in our future.

I released another monarch adult yesterday. That's 22 so far that I've released. There are 2 that will eclose today. I have 6 eggs that I retrieved from little milkweed shoots two days ago and two of them are going to hatch today.

It's been really fun to observe all the activity in the garden. Skip's giant (State Fair) zinnias are real attractors to butterflies and bees. This morning, a painted lady was nectaring for quite a while.

It wasn't until I was cropping this photo that I noticed the bee tucked inside.

The butterfly bush (buddleia) is also a big draw.

It's not a very tall plant but there are several branches full of blossoms which the insects really seem to like.

The bees really love the golden rod (pictured) and Joe Pye Weed.

Tomorrow Skip and I and a couple of friends are venturing to Garden Hill (north of Port Hope) for the annual monarch butterfly tagging and release event. We attended in 2014. It really inspired me to step up my annual monarch project and gave me lots of helpful ideas for raising them. This article appeared last year in the Northumberland News. There was a tribute to Ron Parrott who is pictured in my 2014 blog. He passed away about a month before last year's monarch release.

If you're interested, here's the info on tomorrow's event.

Maybe I'll see you there!

Platero

I have become quite fond of donkeys. Skip and I used to visit and feed a donkey on a nearby farm and I have visited 3 donkey sanctuaries - the Donkey Sanctuary of Canada in Guelph, the PrimRose Donkey Sanctuary near Roseneath and the Donkey Sanctuary Bonaire off the coast of Venezuela.

A couple of my Tuesday night friends are avid crocheters. Jen4 is a real whiz and can whip up almost anything without a pattern. When she learned I loved donkeys she decided she would make me one. Her first effort, according to her husband, looked like a moose. So she went back to the drawing board. Last week I showed her a photo of one I'd seen in an amigurumi book.

She showed up this week with a finished one! And he's gorgeous! I'd already named him Platero when I saw the photo of it she sent me on the weekend.

Isn't he just the cutest?

In university Spanish class I studied a story by Juan Ramón Ramírez called "Platero y Yo" about a sweet, little donkey in Spain.

According to Wikipedia: 

 “Platero ("silvery") is described in the lyric prose of the book as a "small donkey, a soft, hairy donkey: so soft to the touch that he might be said to be made of cotton, with no bones. Only the jet mirrors of his eyes are hard like two black crystal scarabs."

The little donkey remains a symbol of tenderness, purity and naiveté, and is used by the author as a means of reflection about the simple joys of life, memories, and various characters and their ways of life.” 

 As soon as I saw its photo on the weekend, I knew I needed to name him Platero.

He's very photogenic.

I'm amazed at what Jen4 can do with some yarn and a crochet hook.

Thank you so much, Jen, for making me such a cute donkey!