The Back Yard this Morning

 It is early in the growing season but some of our flowers are blooming and plants are thriving, especially after that good downpour of rain yesterday.

One of our earliest bloomers is spurge. This is what it looked like couple of weeks ago.

This is what it is looking like this morning.

We were given this dark red peony a few years back. It hasn't really bushed out but Skip did transplant an offshoot of it in another part of the garden. It is always our earliest peony to bloom. The transplanted one has two, nice buds on it - surprising that it is blooming so soon after transplanting as peonies can be stubborn to bloom.

We have a couple of areas with Siberian iris. This is the only one in bloom so far but there are lots of buds. The cool weather yesterday and today has put a pause on a lot of the progress.

The solomon seal spreads out so much and gets so tall, Skip likes to hold them back with cages so they don't encroach too much on neighbouring plants.

Just beyond them is our birdbath, solar powered water wiggler, and dicentra (bleeding heart).

Under the south-facing dining room window is a heuchera (coral bells) given to me about 15 years ago by a former colleague, Anne Marie. It doesn't really spread but is a reliable grower and bloomer every year.

These peonies are very bushy and have many buds. They'll bloom in a week or so and will be the softest, pale pink colour. We have another kind on the east side of the yard that have the most fragrant blooms.

Some milkweed is starting to grow beside the deck. Monarchs lay eggs on them and I use the leaves to feed the larvae all summer.

The echinacea will grow to about a metre in height. I have a photo of them almost at the height of the deck rail at our wedding here in 1998.

Skip loves bugle weed (ajuga ajuga). This bunch escaped the garden and has spread into the lawn. I mowed about half of it down, keeping the rest intact.

Another area where we allow milkweed to grow freely is around our gas meter. This is where I first discovered monarch butterfly larvae many years ago. We do have to pull out little milkweed plants as they pop up in other areas of the garden.

On the east side of the house and just outside the back door from the laundry room is my trusty clothesline. I love this thing and can get three loads of laundry on it at one time. On sunny days, the clothes dry as quickly as if they'd been put in the dryer. Skip and I both love the fresh smell.

We don't have a huge garden and it's not very aesthetically laid out, but we do have a lot of perennials and we're planting the veggies and flowers over the next couple of weeks. As Skip gets better and better he will be able to do more work out there.

It is so nice to be able to sit out now. Although we're in a suburban neighbourhood and can hear all the activities in the adjoining yards, it is our 'little piece of heaven' and know we are lucky to have a lot this wide (60-ish feet).

A Lot Has Been Going On

Last week we thought Skip would have to have reparative surgery on his skin graft and dreaded our trip into The Big City to see the surgeons. What looked horrible to us did not look horrible to them. In fact, they were quite pleased with how he was healing. The graft had pulled away a bit but the underlying skin was knitting together nicely. We both heaved a big sigh of relief and drove home in quite an elated frame of mind.

Our primary care physician had also contacted Community Care and had arranged for a nurse to start coming daily which has been happening for the past week. After this, Skip's 'wound' will be reassessed and the frequency of future visits will be determined. I cannot express how relieved I am to not be the primary care-giver for the surgical site. I'm happy helping him with anything else (dressing, getting into bed, planting his seedlings in the garden) but medical care is definitely not in my skill set.

Skip was also cleared to shower and climb the stairs and has been sleeping and napping in our bed again. This is great for both of us and we're both getting a lot more sleep as a result. Our days are pretty relaxed now so all is pointing to a good outcome. 

Skip and I  both will be fully vaccinated by early August and sooner if the 2nd injection is sooner. Add two weeks for maximum efficacy and mid-August should be safe for us to travel a bit within Ontario as long as we aren't having yet another surge. I have booked us a nice little Niagara getaway for early September - the week of Labour Day. Hopefully Skip will feel comfortable enough to ride in the car for a couple of hours, and there has been no big surge in COVID infections. 

I have been enjoying some retail therapy and ordered a nifty watch band for my new watch from a vendor on Etsy. Shipping was cheap but it took 23 days to come from central-west Toronto (30km)?

One cool, free app on my watch called 'Pillow' monitors my sleep patterns. The sensor on the back of the watch (worn while in bed) monitors my heart rate and movements through the night. Then it gives an analysis of the type and quality of sleep I've had. For example, the orange bars showed two times in the night I had to help Skip back into bed after a bathroom visit.

Then it analyzes and rates the kind of sleep I got. All in the normal or high range. For a woman my age, I am a good sleeper judging from what my GP says and many of my friends experience. I think not being a worrier or one who frets unnecessarily, helps me a lot in this area.

The other night, I couldn't fall asleep right away and came downstairs and watched TV for a couple of hours. When I checked the readout the next day, my watch classified those two hours as sleep time where I had light and REM sleep. So I guess I was relaxed enough watching TV that it simulated actual sleeping time. 

The app clearly states that it is not a medical device but I find it interesting. 

I also ordered this book to knit some cute animals. It was shipped from Belgium and arrived in less than a week. I have all of the crocodile parts knit. I just need to stuff and attach them.

I also ordered this chart from Cherry Lane Designs on Etsy. It calls for Floba fabric but I don't know what count so I haven't been able to order it from Kim yet. Hopefully the pattern will arrive soon and I can get all the materials ready to start it. I'd like to have it done for 2021 Canada Day.

I finished my paint by number faux Tom Thomson painting. It will fit perfectly in a 20" x 16" frame. When we are permitted to do non-essential shopping, I'll hit the big box craft store and pick one up.

I do need to do a check that the numbers aren't showing through any of the parts.

It was nice enough on Monday to sit outside for my morning stitcher's chat. David (a long-time friend) kindly helped me get the chairs and umbrella out there last week. The back of our house faces south, so as the sun comes around, I move the chair around the table to stay shaded, so I can sit out there all day if I like. The natural light is great for stitching.

I've made quite a bit of progress on my Wm Morris piece. 

I also need to order the fabric to do the companion piece - the other bird in the design.

We are glad for the rain today - our lawn and gardens so needed a good soaking. But tomorrow it will be sunny and and cool so we can get more planting done.

Leftover Rice

Skip and I ordered takeout Thai food this evening from a local Hakka eatery.  It was a nice treat for a Friday night. I hadn’t had Pad Thai since COVID started and Skip enjoyed a Garlic Beef dish. The mango salad, fried egg rolls, and cold egg rolls were delicious. An added bonus is enough leftovers for another meal. Also included was steamed rice which I set aside to make rice pudding.

I used this recipe for the rice pudding. I did not measure out the rice, I just threw it all in the pot with an equal amount of milk and a bit of salt. Then followed the recipe, adding a splash of vanilla, and the rest of the milk, sugar, beaten egg, and sugar.

Yum!

I use this recipe if I’m making rice pudding from scratch using Arborio rice.

1/3 c Arborio rice

1 c water

2 c milk

Splash of vanilla

Dash of salt

3 Tbsp sugar

1/4 c raisins (optional)

Cook the rice in the water until boiling. Turn down to med-low until water is all absorbed, stirring occasionally. Add the milk, vanilla, salt, and sugar and bring to just boiling. Add raisins if desired and turn down to simmer until the mixture is creamy stirring frequently. 

It will become thicker as it cools.

Serve with a bit of milk or cream and a dash of cinnamon.

I haven’t done much crafting. Yesterday, while waiting for Skip’s surgery to finish, I stitched one flower

on the Wm Morris piece - the one on the bottom. I was having a bit of trouble concentrating so did not get much done.

I stitched two more elements of my Steady Thread SAL. Begonias on bottom left and Cosmos on centre right on bottom left.

Flower #20 was released today. It's an outer border element so will save to modify for one on the interior that I don't particularly like.

The next morning...

This is my second attempt to publish this post. I tried last night and got a notification from Blogger that it has been "determined that it violates our guidelines and deleted the post". I emailed back stating that I did compose and tried to post on a different device (my iPad) and perhaps this might have caused the malware concern.

I got another email this morning that the post has been re-evaluated and has been reinstated. 

So I guess rice pudding recipes and stitching updates aren't a malware concern after all.

Not a Lot of Stitching

This past week has been quite busy. Skip had outpatient surgery last Thursday which should have been in-patient surgery. Because of COVID elective surgeries (i.e. in hospital with general anaesthetic) have been postponed indefinitely. When they're back up and running, there will be a backlog lasting months. Long story shot, post op care has been quite demanding and when I've had time to relax I haven't felt like stitching. 

All that being said, I do a little bit here and there on my Strawberry Thief and have most of the bottom left corner completed. I do so love the green, blues and red against the navy linen.

I completed the tube of my first helix afterthought heel sock and am almost half done the second. The dotted line indicates approximately where I will remove a row of stitching on one half of the sock, pick up the freed stitches above and below and knit an afterthought heel. 

Like I did on this sock. Between the red and dark grey I removed the light grey row on the back of the tube. The light grey heel was knit basically like I would knit a toe and grafted the end of the heel closed.

It's not a difficult technique and is great for socks that have a definite stripe pattern that you don't want to interrupt on the instep.

Today I learned how to install a new, raised toilet seat. I ordered two of them online on Saturday and they arrived today. Of course the one wrench I needed (9/16)" was absent from both wrench sets we have but I did find a little wrench that came with something or other that we assembled. It's just one of those stamped out of metal but it did the trick. I then took a Sharpie and wrote 9/16 on it and put it with the other wrenches. 

The instructions for assembly were really poor so I watched a YouTube video and was able to complete the task more confidently and successfully. As long as there is a good instructional YouTube video, I'm fine installing, fixing, and learning new things. Google is also my friend for most other queries - especially for learning how to do stuff with my new Apple Watch 6. 

Speaking of that, I ordered a protective cover for it and managed not to scratch the watch before the cover arrived and got installed. 

You can hardly tell it's on there.

And it doesn't really add much bulk overall.

I've been experimenting with different photos for the face of the watch - all done via my iPhone. I also downloaded a cool app called Pillow that monitors my sleep and the different stages - REM, light sleep, and deep sleep. I also figured out how to turn the watch display off for nighttime when we're in bed as Skip hates any light in the room. It's called 'theatre mode'.

Everything functions normally but the watch face stays dark and the watch is silenced until you push in the side button.

I have a lime green band on order and look forward to its arrival.

Socks, A Thief, and A New Obsession

I finished the Poems socks. Or should I say, my generic sock pattern using Poems sock yarn.

They're definitely not identical twins.

I could have tried to make them the same but it would have meant pulling a lot of yarn from the ball to find the spot in the brownish colour where I started the first sock. Instead, I just started the second sock where the first one ended.

Then there was the surprise join on the leg of the second sock (on left) where the yellow interrupted the smooth gradation of the green. Then the colour sequence was reversed. Really glad I didn't bother trying to make them the same.

Progress continues to be made on my Strawberry Thief piece. I fixed the mistake from a couple of days ago and am getting the rest of the elements finished to the spot where I have decided to stop. 

I will probably make it into a pillow and stitch the other bird on the chart facing the other direction.

OR I could stitch the second bird and finish the pillow with one on each side. 

On one of the Facebook knitting groups I follow, someone posted pics of a sock knit in a helix manner - as a two-colour spiral rather than a round of one and a round of the other yarn. What is the difference, you ask? If knitting a round of each there is a definite 'jog' in the striping when going from colour to colour. 

With helical knitting the one yarn follows the other like a spiral so there is no distinct place where one colour starts and one colour ends, except right at the beginning and end. And those spots can be hidden by ribbing or slipping the first stitch of the second colour.

As usual, I watched a good YouTube video and was amazed at how easy it was to start and execute helical knitting.

I started the ribbing of the sock with the remnant of the Poems sock yarn and raided my sock yarn stash for a contrasting ball of yarn and came up with some fingering weight KnitPicks Chroma yarn in a now-discontinued colourway called Lollipop (I also have a second complete ball of this stuff).

So here are the two balls of yarn, both with really long colour gradients.

And my progress thus far.

I much prefer a ribbed leg but the full effect of the striping is better with stocking stitch. When I get to the heel, I'll do an afterthought heel so as to not discontinue the striping on the front of the sock. 

This pattern would also be great for using up ends of sock yarn.