Trillium Spring

It's a two post day--I've stored up, and I want to get these things up on the blog, so...

Last Monday, April 20th, was a gorgeous day. Days like that are uncommon in HumCo--at least this close to the coast. We get a lot of rain and grey in the Fall, Winter and early Spring and Summer is all fog and grey. It's all that wet that makes the redwoods big and the wildflowers bloom. Monday was and exception. Yes, yes--it was also 4-20, which is significant to some in the Emerald Triangle. Not to me: my thing this time of year is trilliums. the Western trillium (Trillium ovatum), which is also sometimes called the 'wake robin', is a lovely flower and it is peaking at this time of year. One place to see them blooming is Sequoia Park here in town; the park is not ten minutes from my house by car. When it rains, the trails are all mud. On dry days, though it is a lovely spot. Monday was bright, sunny and a clear 66 degrees F. My hubby and I took about and hour walk the park and this is what we saw...

We started out at the entrance--a nifty concrete pool and waterfall that incorporates an old redwood stump:














The light caught this orb weaver spider web perfectly:















My guy taking pictures of me taking pictures of him under the trees:



















A largish patch of trilliums under the trees:















Another dense patch of blooms:















Trilliums start out white and then gradually pinken and finally turn purple before they fade. Here are some closeups:



































































































We also made a stop to the turtle pond--a bit of algaw growth, but the turtles were taking a sunbath:















Nifty leaf filtered light on the water:















Looking straight up at the crowns of the redwoods--150 to 200 feet up, at least:















Thimbleberry flowers:















A waterfall in a grotto next to the path:




















The sun filters through the trunks as we come to the end of our walk:




















It's definitely days like this, experiences like this that make me happy I am here!

Mangelwurzel

Mangelwurzel. What a weird word. I had never seen it before meeting this odd veggie. I bought this great big log of a beet on April 14th at the Arcata co-op for $2.49. The description on the card had this picture and said this:

"Mangel Beets

From Wild Rose Farm, Blue Lake CA
These huge beets run between15 and 25lb, and at
$2.49/each, they provide about the most sustenance
for your dollar you’ll find anywhere! Mangel beets
(or more properly Mangelwurzel) come from Germany,
and were developed to feed livestock during the long
winters. They make great eating and are delicious in any
of your favorite beet recipes. They are also used in England
for sport – Mangelwurzel hurling competitions are an
annual occurrence in some small towns!"

OK. These things are the size of Presto logs, are pig and cow food and people fling them for fun. Plus, they are only $2.49. Not per pound, mind you--for the whole beet! How could I resist?? I chose the smallest of the three available--still huge, mind you--and paid for it. I got my beet log home and commenced to look up recipes on the internet. (where I found the facsimile of the store card--neato!). Well, there aren't a lot of recipes for mangelwurzel--just seed ads and livestock information. I guess bossy the cow food that gets flung about doesn't sound so appealing to most other people. Someone suggested boiling them, but I prefer my normal beets roasted, so I ran with that thought. I trussed my Beetlog up in foil and tossed it into the oven:















I wrapped it in foil and roasted it at 400 degrees F. for 4 hours. This is a picture of what it looked like post-roasting, plus a cross section.





























The next day I peeled it and cut it into chunks, which I used to make a salad as follows:

Mangel Beet Salad

Mangel beet cut into 1.5 inch chunks, about 2 cups
2 dozen oil cured black olives, pitted and chopped
1/2 an orange, peel and pith cut away, cut into sections
2 cups mixed spring greens
4 green onions chopped into 1/2 inch pieces
1 small bunch of chives chopped
cheese for garnish (grated parmesan or some other good quality firm cheese)

for the dressing, I used my avocado orange vinaigrette (i.e., I actually made this recipe up--yay, me!). This uses an avocado that is super ripe, but not dead--very very soft. Cut out any brown spots. Good for that forgotten avocado you don't want to waste.

Avocado dressing:
1/2 really ripe, super soft avocado
juice of 1/2 an orange
1 generous tsp. dijon mustard
1/4-1/3 cup really good virgin extra olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

mix salt with orange juice to dissolve. Add mustard and mix well. Scoop out avocado and mash then mix into juice. I use a latte whisk and mix the bejeezus out everything. Add olive oil and pepper and use the whisk to emulsify a bit. You could do this in a mini cuisinart, if you were so inclined.

Pour dressing over salad, toss, serve topped with grated cheese.















Pretty colors!
It was tasty stuff. The mangels tasted good--sweet, and rather like a cross between a beet and a yam. Would I cook with them again? Yes. This is good, because I have half of one left in the fridge.

For more info on mangelwurzel, wikipedia has the goods: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mangelwurzel

I leave you now with an extreme closeup of Gabriel, who has made it to age 25 (He hatched in April 1984, and I randomly designated 4/15--tax day--as his birthday. What a tough old bird, he is!!

Stupid Taxes and a Hippie Lawn

It's been a while since I posted, but I need to do something to calm down after doing my taxes. If anyone out there can explain to me how declaring student loan interest paid can cause my
California state taxes to actually go from a refund to money owed, I'd sure be grateful. More specifically, before declaring the money I paid in student loan interest, Turbotax said I was owed a refund of $67. After entering the interest, I OWED $203. WTF?? I owed the Feds, too, but less with the student loan stuff. It's all so arcane. Stupid taxes.

In another world, we have had enough nice weather that I have had a chance to assess the yard. I had my first run in with the overgrown lawn on March 31st. What do you get in Humboldt County winters? An out of control lawn, that's what. When it rains, the grass grows, and it rains a LOT here. Lately it seemed like it always rained on weekends which, of course, is when I had time to mow. We only have a push mower--very green, but not so useful for an out of control lawn. On a recent trip south I copped my mom's weed whacker, knowing she wouldn't need it while out of commision. I was making progress, but then I ran out of string. Crap. I, therefore, resorted to the push mower. I did OK, but ran out of metaphorical gas on the lawn corners. The result? A faux-hawk lawn. Or maybe more of a tonsured lawn.

Before half-assed but difficult mowing and after:




























Still, one of the trilliums I got at the Arcata Farmer's Market last summer is blooming. Pretty!

If you saw the lawn two weeks later, we are back to square one, and me out of weed whacker string. Still, Happy Spring, everyone! Everyone, that is, except the tax people...

Happy Post Pi Day!

Pi Day? What's that? Why it's 3-14!! I didn't make pies, though; I made cakes. Yarn cakes. I hauled out my umbrella swift and waded through the boxes in the garage and excavated my ball winder. Call it a keeping-up-with-the-joneses move. Now that I am going to a weekly knitting group at the rather posh LYS, I don't want to be showing up with ghetto hand wound balls of yarn. Also, it's a HECK of a lot faster to wind a skein of yarn that way and you have access to both ends of the skein.


















Knitter's tools: an umbrella swift on the left and a ball winder on the right
















A skein before winding and a center pull yarn cake after the swift and wider have been put to use.

I have been doing a fair bit of panic knitting, to try and keep stress at bay. My mom is in implode mode, and I need an emotional go-to to keep from spinning out. Obvious--KNITTING! (An aside--MAJOR kudos to my brother, husband and two dear friends down in the Southlands who have run interference with Mom. I am beyond deeply grateful. K, the scotch is on me!! Single malt, of course.)

So yesterday was a Flop Day--no obligations. I puttered with yarn. I prepped five projects-- the Five Alarm Bag, , most of the remaining of the skeins for Jiada, the skeins for the Peony Sweater, the Triad scarf, and The Be Sweet Slubby Shawl. It took maybe 45 minutes to make cakes where it would have taken ours to hand wind. They are so tidy looking!



















A nice Saturday bounty.

Another great stash action--this time with beads--was made, too. I recently unearthed my random stash of seed beads, much of which I have had since I was a kid. (always the pack rat, me) I am using a pre-beaded yarn for the Be Sweet shawl and I decided to bead up one of the other yarns, so I randomly seeded all my turquoise colored beads on it--some matte, some clear, but I think it will look quite fun, and it gets a lot of beads out of tubes and tupperwares and into actual USE. (a novel concept!)

I also got my marmalade kidsilk haze in the mail and pick up the stitches for Belinda, which is now in go-mode. Last week, I finished the front of Jiada and started the back--BORING stockinette, but I can pick it up when I am at loose ends and need some yarn freecell to keep be occupied.

So, I have been busy. I have also knitted a lot. Clapotis is done and now needs blocking and tassels made. I am going to block and sew Zarah before I decided how to do the collar. The smoke ring is about 1/3 done, and has been going with me to work and knitting group. Belinda is also ready to go. So is Jiada. This may sound mundane, but productivity helps in the face of situational difficulty--meaning my mother. I have always said that a hobby is a comfort and I stand by that statement. Mine sure has comforted me!

So have another piece of pi(e) and a yarn cake on the side!!

New Year's Resolution Update

Well. It's March--two months since the New Year. Tomorrow is my birthday, which serves as a convenient reminder that we are two months into the New Year. This day seems as good as any, therefore to briefly revisit my New Year's resolutions.

On a personal front, I have lost the nasty five pounds that had crept up, which is good, but I still need to throw down with more exercise. I have gone running and walking recently, which is a good start. I won't dwell any more on it here.

As to my fiber habits, I need to re-resolve here and now to go back on the wagon, vis a vis: not buying any more yarn. I have been a bad bad girl. On the plus side, my needles have been busily a-clickin'.

My original resolutions, knitting-wise were:
1) Zarah
2) Jiada
3) Small first quarter projects (3--maybe 4)
4) Grant Avenue
5) Hisdal Peony
6) Da Vinci
7)New Shell? or some other project?

Here is where I currently am:
1) Zarah is reknit and ready to block and sew except for the collar. I really needed a break, but I will pick it up to work on soon.
2) Jiada is still fallow.
3) I have started a small first quarter project and it is proceeding apace as my lunchtime/weekly knitting circle project.
4) Grant Avenue is still in a box--can't deal with it right now.
5) Hisdal Peony is untouched.
6) Da Vinci is untouched as well
7) New Shell was shunted aside in favor of other lace weight mohair silk projects:
8) the Belinda wrap which is at the halfway point
9) Clapotis, which is 60-70% done and a STASH yarn project to boot. Yay me!
So, I have managed to work on two of my resolutions. I think of the above list the Peony sweater will be next. Once it is started it will be more autopilot. Now that I am in a weekly knitting group at North Coast Knittery (a lovely store when you are in the Humboldt Bay Area--check it out!!), I have motivation to have something ready to go at all times. I also have a project picked out for another bag of stash yarn--some Noro Cotton Kureyon, so I should be plenty busy for now.

On a sad note--R.I.P. to my IBM Thinkpad. The hard drive had sudden, complete cardiac arrest early last week. This post is being composed on my husband's ancient desktop (Windows '98, no less!). The Thinkpad was refurbished, and did me well for four years. It had been hiccuping, so out of a sense of impending doom, I actually backed up my 'My Documents' folder, so the loss was not total. I lost some game programs, and a few other pieces of software that will be irritating to replace, but nothing that CAN'T be replaced like pictures, notes, patterns and recipes. Let this be a lesson to all of you out there. Get yourself a big flash drive and back your systems up!! My husband warned me and fortunately, for once, I listened to him. I have a new refurbished Dell coming (yay, EBay.), which should do me for at least another four years, I hope.

It's a cold-ish day out (in the '40's) with the threat of showers--not bad, but not unreasonable to dig in with a fiber project. Have a great Sunday, everyone!

ARGH!

Make it STOP!!

In Like a Lion

Just in case anyone was wondering...

















...this just passed overhead. Thank goodness it came today and not yesterday when we were driving.

I feel as unsettled as the weather and can't seem to focus on anything--no knitting not movies, not chores. Oh, for a clear head!!