The O-Zone

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.

First 100 rows are finished. Lots more to do but since I’m being really entertained, this is a good thing.

My knitting is being professionally modeled by Mish.

He’s a bug in a rug, one of his most favorite places for the second afternoon nap on the couch.

Nothing else is going on around here, other than watching flocks of migrating birds making their way south and stopping off at the bird bath for a drink, a bath, and a party.

Sailors take warning, but what about when you’re in the middle of mountains? It doesn’t mean anything good here, either!

We’ve been under a red flag warning for extreme fire danger for several days due to high temperatures of 100F and over, and strong winds. It’s a perfect recipe for forest fires if people are careless and/or stupid. What are the odds of people being careless or stupid? Just watch YouTube!

No new fires near us but there are quite a view in the vicinity and they are making their presence known by giving us smoke. We can tell the fires aren’t near because it doesn’t actually smell smoky outside, it just looks awful.

Unfortunately the camera on the phone sort of blocked out the sun so it isn’t visible in the picture. The smoke is not thick enough to completely erase the mountains to the east, but they are very foggy and indistinct looking.

So all the humans around here are walking on eggshells and keeping an eye out for fires. Tomorrow it’s supposed to be 20 degrees cooler and that will help a lot! Rain may come our way on Monday. That will help a lot too as long as it’s without lightning and winds.

We still have two hummingbirds hanging around. All the others have hit the highway south. Fall is almost upon us. Tomatoes are getting ripe and we’re enjoying feasting on them.

Not counting ripping rows back when I space out and make a mistake.

We have three fawns that we see every day, a pair of twins and a single. When they all get together in our front yard they demonstrate the scientific principal of kinetic energy as they bounce off each other, the ground, blades of grass, and the occasional (ha!) grasshopper. Obviously their mothers are friends. The babies also try to nurse off both does which doesn’t exactly work out the way they think it should. It’s quite funny.

Their moms drop them off in our yard. We are running a nursery!

They are such beautiful little guys!

This fawn has figured out his picture is being taken, so he’s posing nicely.

Their mom was in our driveway by the gate while the babies were kicking back for a quick rest break. Shortly thereafter their mom must have called them, and they both joined her for a quick drink of some milk, and then they all wandered off. They were joined by the other doe with her fawn so much fun will be had by all.

The drought has turned all the grass very dry and brittle. Fire danger is now very high. But on the bright side it’s not extreme fire danger! A few more days of over 100F degree temperatures will do the trick.

We will be harvesting all the sweet onions this weekend and I’ll be processing them for eating this next year. With any luck we’ve grown enough to last until the next year harvest is completed!

Tomatoes have turned white! Reading about why this happened, it appears it’s a combination of intense sunlight and high temperatures. We don’t know if they will still turn red, or stay white. Strange!

The grasshoppers are here in great numbers and we have two hen Wild Turkeys with eleven half-grown babies between them. One hen as eight and the other has three. Obviously the one with eight is a better mom when it comes to protecting her chicks, or she is just luckier. They move through the grass nibbling on seeds and catching grasshoppers and everybody is quietly talking excitedly about how cool it all is.

Never tried this before, so another experiment from the garden produce.

I have a mandoline slicer which can make little matchstick widths out of larger materials. A bit of research and a helpful link from my friend Antara, and lunch was soon to be served!

I match-sticked a whole zucchini, while my usual marinara sauce was cooking, then I sauteed the zucchini noodles in a little of olive oil which had been infused with some garlic and red pepper flakes, for four minutes.

Yumm. The verdict was “Well, if you have to grow zucchini I guess this is a good use for them.” Ringing endorsement. 😀

Also making bread today. First a batch of whole wheat bread out of the bread machine. Have to say the smells from a combination of lunch cooking along with baking bread was heady, to say the least.

First clean the baking pan from the bread machine thoroughly to make sure all the gluten from the whole wheat flour is out of picture.

Really it almost takes longer to get the ingredients together than it does to toss them into the baking pan from the bread machine.

Toss everything in the baking pan, in the order specified by the recipe. Then plug the machine in and press Start. In another two and half hours we’ll have another loaf of bread, plus more good smells from baking.

It’s very hot outside. Yesterday it hit 100F in the evening and stayed there for a couple of hours. Today is more of the same, and tomorrow, too, then it will cool off. The plants will be glad of the break from these high temperatures and so will the humans and various birds and mammals. It’s a good day to stay inside and do inside stuff, like cooking, reading, listening to music, playing on the computers.

Boring. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

These veggies from the garden ended up in a lasagna I made last night. And the zucchini plant has five new for me to pick. Very soon.

I may take them to the post office and add them to their collection of free fruits and vegetables. If I end up taking hundreds of zucchini to the post office, will they stop letting me in the door? Got to worry about things like that.