Let there be Berries.

Perhaps you remember this early spring activity....

Mulching 350 blueberry bushes.


Well all that work had paid off handsomely. The bushes are bursting. There are so many berries the new, pliable branches can't even support them, so our high bush blueberries are pretty droopy.









There are mountains of berries to pick.DH diligently pruned all350 bushes with a Saws-All and then we mulched each bush with 6-8" of aged sawdust. Pruning and sawdust apparently make blueberries very happy.



He has put out the signs, the scale, the cash box, the pails and the pickers are picking.

I am a very spoiled woman. This man picks me fresh berries every morning.





This is a study of Bubba in the Blueberries. (Doesn't she look like a runway model posing for a fashion designer? I hope I have half her beauty at 80.)






I have this gracious lady to thank for the beautiful berries my husband shares with me every morning. Thank you Bub, for raising such a good man. (His dad was also in the patch with us but wouldn't stop grazing the berries long enough to pose for a picture. I am certain he had something to do with how well my husband turned out.)

C'est la Vie!!

Look who rode by our house today.






The Tour of Pennsylvania went right by our house. This is a race from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh. All the riders are young men between the ages of 18 and 24, some of who may go on to ride the Tour de France. It was so fun to see these guys up close and to watch them climb a hill, even a little one. Yesterday they climbed some very steep and long hills to get to Latrobe, and today they climbed a few more before they headed off to Pittsburgh. Their average speed is about 28-30 miles per hour. That's booking. My average speed is about 15-16 mph, of course I am an old lady, but still.

Enjoy!

I'm back

Well, we took a 2 week vacation and I didn't take one picture. Now that we are back it has taken us nearly 2 weeks to tame the yard and gardens again. And I will never believe the English gardening lady who wrote that you should always use garden compost to mulch your flower beds and not use shredded bark mulch. Well, that is all well and good if you never leave your garden and are there every day to keep up the weeding. However,when you return from a holiday and all the pumpkin and hay seeds are a foot tall in all your ornamental beds you feel like screaming. Note to self: order the mulch early next year so the mulching is done before the plants are as big as VW Bugs.

I think I need to talk to Al Gore, this is what it did in Pennsylvania on June 20th.
Hail the size of marbles, big marbles. Our blueberries look pretty bruised and the husband is worried about his crop. My peas got banged around but their shells protect them, blueberries are right out in the open without any protection. I will let you know how they taste.



Look what I found among the weeds of my veggie garden. A pitcher plant. They are relatively rare, blog plants which eat flies, I believe. I was amazed and a little concerned that the ground near the veggie beds is this wet.



There has been knitting...there are many new babies to cover so I have knit the Helena sweater from the new Knitty.



Yarn: Blue Sky Alpacas, Alpaca Silk, color Guava, 3 skeins
Needles: Size 5 and 2 Addi Turbos, 24" circs.
Size: 22" chest, Size 2
Modifications: I changed the edging around the front, made it a picot edge and used three buttons rather than the ties.

I also made a hat to match which I will add as soon as it is dry. I love this yarn but it has absolutely no body and I am not sure I am happy with the drappy nature of the bodice. Everyone I showed it to assures me it is fine but I would have knit a much firmer fabric.

This is going to a little girl I will rarely see and I would so love to see this on a little one. May have to remember this if there is ever a little girl grand baby. (My husband is praying for boys, not that he didn't adore his girls, but he thinks it would be nice not to be outnumbered.)

I am thrilled to show you some shots of a garden I designed and planted last spring for my friend Marie-Paul. She and her husband JT had just finished building a new home when their 12 year old son was diagnosed with a brain tumor. After 6 months of surgeries, radiation and chemotherapy, I wanted to give them something to brighten their lives. Marie-Paul is from Belgium and loves flowers and gardens and didn't want anything to do with typical foundation plantings. I think we came up with a nice solution and she seems to be very happy with the results.


Isn't her lavender hedge gorgeous? All the plants came back beautifully but one. This is amazing for our climate and the generally clay soil we have here in the mountains of western PA. We amended her soil with yards and yards of composted horse manure and I think the plants are very happy.




She would like to have an arbor at this end of the walk someday.

Another friend lost her son this spring. He was the same age as DD#1. They were good buddies in elementary school and graduated together. I wanted to do something special for her. When ever a female friend is going through chemotherapy I like to knit them a shawl so they can stay warm during their treatments. I thought she could use something warm to wrap up in this winter to remember her beautiful, strong son hugging her. So I knit her a pray shawl too.


Yarn: Jade Sapphire Cashmere
Pattern: My own design, I think it is the horseshoe lace from Barbara Walker, not sure which book.

DD#2 looks especially fetching, don't you think?


Doesn't every 20 year old need a cashmere shawl? I think I could have a full time job just keeping she and her sister in knitwear. Let's see, Fair Isle vest, Aran cabled sweater, hats, gloves, mittens, scarves and now shawls. Luckily they are both very thin and we all share the same color sense so I love knitting for them.


Have a great day and if you love gardening check out the Margaret Roach gardening blog I just discovered, awaytogarden.com. It is fantastic.

Garden Tour?

Everything is sooo beautiful in the garden right now I thought I would give you a little tour.

Welcome to the Garden (this isn't really the entrance to the garden but it looked so pretty I thought I would take some poetic license )

The allium are just starting to open. I love this plant, it is very dainty and delicate but creates an explosion of color that I love.


Down by the pool (excuse the cover) the hostas are just starting to unfurl. It is hard to tell but above them is a wonderful pagoda dogwood. My conscientious husband wraps this tree in wire ever year so that the deer do not nibble during the winter. In the summer with it's variegated leaves it looks just like a wedding cake.

A very interesting Japanese maple which I planted two years ago. I hope it takes off this summer and actually starts to look like a tree. It will be stunning someday, I just hope I live long enough to see it.


Everything looks too washed out. The colors of all the tulips and the forget-me-knots are very bright and pretty.

The lilacs are in full flower and smell so good, but my all time favorite for fragrance has to be the Daphne "Carol Mackie" I planted right outside the mudroom door.
The wisteria trees have also put on a spectacular show this year. They finally started to flower last year. They say it takes 7 years for a wisteria to bloom and this one has been in the garden for exactly 8 years. Last year it began with 7 panicles of flowers and this year it is covered.

And yes, this is still a knitting blog. And there is some actual knitting going on, it is a little boring at the moment. Nothing momentous to show you. I have started a simple cable ribbed cardigan for myself out of some fantastic RY Silk Wool DK I purchased in Alexandria, VA at Knit Happens while I was in DC. This stuff feels like buttah. I am not sure if I am worthy. I have the back, one front and one sleeve finished. But I have started on another project which is more important and so will have to put this aside for the time being. The new project is in cashmere so not much of a sacrifice but I really need to finish something soon, I think I qualify for a medical condition and startitis doesn't sound serious enough.


This is another reason I can't stop starting new projects. Sundara keeps sending me these wonderful packages. Every time I receive a new Seasons Yarn Club mailing I drop everything, even cashmere to play with the new kid on the block. I never knew I was this fickle. I have been married to the same man for 25 years, I have shown my stick-to-it-tiveness. But show me a pretty new yarn and I am dropping the old like a bag of rocks. Obviously a character flaw I should work on. Right after I start a new shawl. (Oh, it's Sundara's Aran Silky Merino in Charcoal over Blue Lagoon, 50% merino, 50% silk, yummy!)




And this is why I haven't written for a while. I was in Washington, DC attending a conference for Cooperative Extension and then we met with our congressmen. It was a glorious week and the final day on the Hill was magnificent. I even got to go to the National Botanical Garden. (Which doesn't compare with our own Phipps Botanical Gardens in Pittsburgh, but it was very nice and the weather was phenomenal.)

Our nation's capital... I am patriotic enough that this view always chokes me up, every time. And this was after touring the Botanical gardens for free, what a country.

A Mixed Bag

Under the heading, strange things seen while attending a funeral...

This public telephone sign is slowly being swallowed by the sycamore tree outside the tavern where we had the luncheon after my husband's uncle's funeral. (How's that for a run on sentence, like something you shouldn't do with grammar.) Weird huh? I thought so too.



Now instead of a sign saying "Public Phone", it says..." ic one". We were told people have been trying to buy the sign out of the tree but the tavern owner will not sell. I think he should sell tickets for viewing this anomaly of nature.



Here, finally, is the baby ensemble for your approval. My husband continues to say it looks like a clown outfit and I shouldn't give it to the intended newborn. I am still not sure. I think the accessories tone it down a bit, and it is for a baby who will probably only wear it once, if that often.


What's your judgment now, still too clown-like, cute, or throw it away and start again?




Just for the girls... a little front garden action. I will take some more pictures of the tulips tomorrow. They look really good this year. It has been a lovely spring in every sense of the word. Beautiful sunny days followed by wonderful cool nights. The flowers are just loving this as are the gardeners. The tulips look fantastic. And the forget-me-knots are starting to bloom, so pretty with the tulips.

A boy and his King Kong. He is very territorial about his Kong and will only share with someone who he knows will fill it back up with treats , that someone is me. Thus is true love earned.


It was a perfect day on Sunday and great friends came to help finish the mulching of the blueberry bushes. After the hard work was done Sasha tried out her fly fishing skills in our pond. She has been taking fly fishing lessons and tying flies lessons most of the late winter. Being a girl after my own heart, she showed up the boys and caught the first bluegill. However, also being a girl she didn't want any part of taking it off her line. That is what men are for right?


Isn't she the cutest angler, evah ?

Just a Little Off the Top Please

Another rite of spring around Touchstone Farm is the shearing of the sheep. Since we only have 1 old ewe any more it took about 20 minutes. Quite a change from the old days when it took most of a morning and there were little lambs everywhere bleating for their mommas. Here is our hairy, Hayleigh girl before her yearly do.




Not her best angle. She has had too many lambs to have any false modesty.



Almost done... Little pedicure action and Bob's your uncle (I may be listening to too many podcasts from the UK)...



One bare sheep.



It was 25 degrees this morning when the poor old girl got her haircut so I'm not sure she was as grateful as some years when it is 70 degrees and she can't wait to feel the air on her skin again.



On the knitting front I am plugging away on a tiny little cardigan for my friend's first grand-daughter. I thought it would be sooo cute in big stripes of hot pink and orange. And it was until I wound the second ball of Cotton Classic and realized it was a completely different dye lot, maybe even a different hot pink than I had used for the body. I have mountains of Cotton Classic which I often use for my kid designs. I was not about to buy more.



So I have come up with what I hope is an acceptable solution. Which I also hope to tie together with the matching hat and booties or socks. I should be done in a few days so will let you all in on it and you can give me your thoughts. I think it will work,but then I love bright colors on little ones, and the brighter the colors the better if the little ones are really little.





How does it strike you so far? Is it too much even for a tiny little girl? I don't want her to look like a clown. I think I am OK and that it has more of a We Sing in Sillyville flavor to it. Of course, I am spending vast amounts of time with 5 and 6 year olds so my senses may be muddled.