The O-Zone

We used to make our own yogurt, years ago. Somehow we got out of the habit.

Knitting is finished and off the needles; all yarn ends have been woven in where they belong. All that’s left now is blocking which is a whole other project. Maybe tomorrow I’ll tackle that.

This was the most complicated pattern I’ve ever made but in actuality one of the easiest to follow on the chart because it was so complicated. Except for the outside border part which put me to sleep.

It should look spectacular once it’s all blocked.

This was our beet harvest, for the most part. We didn’t plant very much this time around. And we also ate some fresh in mid summer, roasted in the oven. Very delicious! Now the jars have to sit for a couple of months to become well and truly pickled. We can start eating them in January which will be here before we know it.

We can’t really tell what it is that they are harvesting but they have been super busy the last couple of weeks. Mishkin has a fit when he sees them on the porch and he chirps at them. They are unimpressed.

We hadn’t been seeing them by the house until late this summer, probably because the last people here had dogs. It could be bad news next year for our red currants as chipmunks totally adore those and will harvest them incredibly quick. We know they are just fancy mice, but we love these little guys and it’s much fun seeing them so close. They have already gotten tame as far as seeing us outside. At first they would run and hide and now they just take a quick look to see what we’re up to, and then resume their important work of storing seeds for the coming winter.

Winter storm predicted for today which is just absurd for October. Then we saw a pickup truck drive past our place, from up the road, all covered with snow. Shortly thereafter this happened.

See?

Didn’t stick down here. Right up the hill from us the trees are white and what we can see of the mountains is also snowy. Ye gads.

Mish has the right idea.

Remember the old story about the princess and the pea? Well, is he the princess or the pea? I know which one I’m voting for.

Just twenty-four left to knit, and then the top border which is the equivalent of another 39 rows, stitch count-wise.

We picked a bunch of things from the garden today.

We already roasted some earlier, so these are the remaining beets and I’ll make pickled beets out of them this week. A couple of the beets are huge!

The slender carrots are called sugar snax and they are very sweet. I think I’ll slice them up and steam them and then freeze them in small batches to be added to tofu scrambles. The larger carrots are nantes and they are delicious roasted with potatoes.

I’m making a cake and we can eat these for dessert this evening with cake and whipped cream. Dessert? I think it will just be dinner instead.

That is all the harvesting. There were some neat colors in the garden.

If the amount of fronds we have are any indication, next spring we should have more asparagus than we know what to do with.

Our two blueberry plants are still so tiny. It may be quite a few years before we see much of any production from them.

These plants did really well this year for what is basically the first year they actually grew. Next year we should be able to freeze some and make jam. I love this color on their leaves and it’s so interesting how dark purple their canes are.

This gooseberry plant has fall colors which look like the ripe fruit does.

Probably going to be a couple of years before we get any fruit from the peach tree, but it’s so amazing that the fall colors of the leaves is a peach color.

Somebody or something tried to climb the fence! And they had to be pretty strong to have bent the top of the wire this much. We are assuming a bear. The fencing near the ground also has some bending so they were pretty heavy, which lead us to think this was a black bear. They didn’t actually get into the garden. If the corn had grown properly I bet they would have tried harder. Probably black bears are any fonder of zuchinni than we are!

So that’s the end of gardening for the year. Next year will be better.

The end is starting to be in sight.

I’ve finished the center panel and now working on the inner border that surrounds the center panel.

Mishkin is amazed, apparently.

We had to do some other re-arranging to make it fit, but it worked. Yay!

Going to do some baking this afternoon.

I finished row 300 several days ago and have made a lot of progress since then. So, it looks like it won’t take quite as long to finish this project as I thought. It might even be done before the snow starts!

Fall is definitely here and the weather completely changed with very cool temperatures and lots of rain in the immediate forecast. The high mountains are getting snow but not around here yet. That may change overnight if it gets as cool in the lower elevations as predicted and it is still raining. Yesterday we saw some Larch trees beginning to turn high up on the mountainsides. It’s so beautiful when that happens to all the Larch trees and the Aspen groves join in.

It took longer to get the pattern set up on the computer than it is going to take to knit the shawl. Going through the pattern this first time I’m finding and fixing errors I made in making the pattern. Who knows, by the time I finish this first shawl I may have fixed all the problems.

It’s an amazingly fun pattern to knit.

Nothing to see is his most favorite view. No pesky deer or turkeys invading his world is always preferred.

He does look a little bemused by it all. No knitting was harmed and Mishkin went back to napping shortly after I took the picture.

The first real strong wind storm will take all the leaves off the branches.

Today has been a birdie morning here. In addition to the Flicker we just had a flock of adults and juvenile Western Bluebirds, Yellow-rump Warblers, a Junco, Ruby-crowned Kinglet, and a Downy Woodpecker all in the plum tree. The bluebirds, Junco, kinglet and warblers are all on their way south. It is very colorful.

I made this yesterday as the grocery store had some really pretty bananas. It isn’t going to last very long.

The weather has turned the corner into cooler temperatures and possible rain, with snow in the higher altitudes. It snowed overnight in the Cascades, so it’s just a matter of time before it smucks us. But in the meantime, a favorite time of year is here!

We picked some strawberries, a good double handful of Swiss chard, and some really pretty jalapeno peppers which are on the left side of the strawberries. The strawberries will be our afternoon snack, and the other vegetables went into a tofu scramble this morning, along with other vegetables from our garden. All together I used onion, bell pepper, potato, carrots, Swiss chard, jalapeno peppers, and tomatoes. So delicious! The purple jalapenos are neat! They look like miniature eggplants on the outside but are a very pretty green on the inside. We’ll definitely grow those again next year.

We had a beautiful, but fleeting, sunrise this morning. One second it was just clouds on the eastern horizon, and the next we had color! I grabbed the camera and darted outside, almost not in time to catch anything.

By the time I got out to where the Ash tree lives the color in the sky had already started to fade. And by the time I got back in the house, the color was almost gone.

The house felt so warm and cozy when I got inside; it was a balmy 40F outside, and it still hasn’t warmed up all that much yet. Today we’re getting our winter supply of heat in the form of three pallets of pellets for the heat stove. The time for regular use of the pellet stove is coming fast. Right now we just use it in the morning to take the chill off the house.

“Pogo” has a lot of answer for in terms of warping our brains.

The world famous knit model is hard at work, as usual.

Both are still really spotted but almost as big as their mom. One of the babies decided to have a little siesta in some tallish grass by the garden, but his sibling was bouncing around in the grass to the east of the garden and keeping this baby’s attention- he couldn’t even really settle in and relax with all that going on.

A moment later, he couldn’t stand it anymore and ran off to see why his twin was running races without him.

Nothing else going on around here. We are enjoying the nicest late summer/early fall weather we’ve ever seen around here. All the smoke from fires has cleared out, the sky is a brilliant blue and temperatures are in the 70’s. Fall colors are starting already. Some of the Rocky Mountain Maples are turning. Lovely.