New house, old harvest Yarn and fiber for sale.

We are all moved into a nice two bedroom house in a quiet neighborhood of a large city.  It was a very long process involving lots of sorting, cleaning, moving things, and of course, lots of stress.  Hopefully this situation will be a good one, and so far, it mostly is.

There are lots of new shops and markets to discover.  A middle eastern grocery sells Halal chicken and extremely large bags of rice.

25 lbs of jasmine rice

 I might have to turn this into a tote bag.

There are two Russian grocery stores nearby.  At the smaller store, a very nice Russian lady with limited English has conversations with me about the need for each of us to practice our new languages.  She also helped us find the very best non-expensive kolbasa in the meat case.  I LOVE being able to find affordable Russian food again and hope to be able to discover new recipes while practicing my Russian.  They also have extremely large bags of flour.

How could I pass up 50 lbs of flour?

You can see a theme here.  Now that we have a whole house, why not start buying goods in bulk?  The local doughnut shop sells food-grade buckets.  We have a small chest freezer.  I am very much looking forward to a winter of plenty.

We are taking this opportunity to go out more, explore new shops, take walks...this is already becoming fun.  I don't know how long we can keep up eating 2-3 dozen doughnuts a week, though...

Because we moved again during harvest season, I have had to improvise food storage methods.

Sunflowers and onions hanging.  The sunflowers weren't ready when I cut them, so they are drying near a dehumidifier in the basement.

Carrots, green tomatoes, sugar beets, and rutabaga.

More green tomatoes, and Amish pie pumpkin, and some winter squash.

 Dried and canned goods

More dried goods and spice cabinet

Before and after the move, I have also been saucing apples, dehydrating apples, canning tomato sauce, sorting dried beans, and soon I will start making a molasses-type syrup from the sugar beets.

 I processed 60+ lbs of drops apples

 Glorious apple peeler and slicer.  I don't know what I would do without it.

 Just two batches of unsweetened applesauce.

Kidney and yin-yang dried beans.

The backyard is one giant retaining wall project, but after that is over, Jon and I will be making a small garden space.  I get to really think planting over and practice some French intensive space-saving methods.

I will also be selling yarn, fiber, and knit things on ebay.  Some are made by me, some are from a farm back home.  I am very happy to sell things outside of ebay, too.  I have lots of boxes to go though, but please comment here or send me a message if you're looking for something specific.  I can also knit custom items.  There will be niddy noddies and antique carders listed, too.  My ebay page is located here. *Page is now active and has several items listed.

Grocery shopping

I have a love/hate relationship with grocery shopping.  I love food, but I moving through a crowded store and how much money I spend.  Usually, I save over 25% with the store card/coupons, but it is always more than I expect, even with a carefully planned list.  I see something really great on sale, know the perfect recipe for it, then I need to go get the other ingredients to go with it!  I'm really glad now that this is happening with vegetables and not pre-packaged foods.  I didn't buy one processed thing.  There was an epiphany moment when I picked up a bag of frozen meatballs and realized...I could very easily make those myself.  I started to head for the bread crumbs, and then I did a mental face-palm: I can make those, too...

 Just remembered that I forgot to get some diced tomatoes...oh well, they aren't in season so I should find something else!

We have been surviving on things like pasta and beef stew recently.  I can stretch out a pot of beef stew to last 3 or 4 days.  I've stopped buying lunch meat and just cook meat and slice it up myself.  Our fridge is FULL of vegetables, and that makes me very happy.  I even got a 4 lb bag of peanuts, so I will try to make my own peanut butter again.  Shelling 4 lbs of peanuts isn't the most fun thing, but its better than surfing the internet for a few hours like I should not be doing.

The menu for dinners this week include:
Kale and Chorizo Soup
Tilapia, brown rice, and a spinach salad
Borscht
Pasta with homemade meatballs (made with homemade bread crumbs)

In other news, I am making Jon a sweater.  I had been putting that off...knitting a sweater for a boyfriend or even fiance would bring up issues of 'commitment', because sweaters take so long to do.  The sweater I made for myself took 2 years!  So now that we're married, its sweater time.  Jon also picked out the most complicated sweater I've ever seen in my life:

http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/an-aran-for-frederick

I'm on my second attempt already, after having a twist in the circle.  I'm on row 24 now and it takes me about half an hour to do a row.  No kidding.  Did I mention that I spun 1400 yards of wool/llama/our angora fiber to make this thing out of?  I told Jon to expect it done in about 2 years.  He's not allowed to change sizes.

Update on projects.

Summer is going by far too quickly!  I've been running back and forth quite a bit for appointments, seeing friends before they move away (JenJen!), and finishing things like the rabbit hutch and thank you notes from the wedding.

Yeah, JenJen and I are pretty much awesome.

The hutch is done, except for shingles, which we will make.  These pictures were taken before the roof was put on.

 It is a beautiful, luxury home!  Jon did such an amazing job, and I was glad to help him when I could.  The rabbits love it, too.

And here the first cucumber of the season, next to a bowl of the most amazing lettuce, all from the garden.  I've been getting a ton of greens and not much else, so the cucumber was a big treat.  The lemon cucumbers are coming along nicely, I've planted some more greens, the new beans have sprouted, there are little green cherry tomatoes, and the zucchini and summer squash have large blossoms.  Jon made me some tomato stakes, and I learned that I am terrible at tying tomatoes.  I never got assigned that job at the farm I worked on, beyond clipping tomatoes in greenhouses.  I will post pictures later how funny it looks.  Did I mention that I used orange yarn?

I finished the baby sling and one onesie.  Pictures should follow in the next post.  The sling is great!  I might want to add some padding for the shoulder, though.  The onsie is adorable in the blueberry fabric!  I finished two more skeins of yarn and made a little change purse from 12 yards of scrap silk yarn leftover from the yarn I used to make a glasses case for Jon.

Day 1 of morning protein and yerba mate shake instead of coffee

This morning's recipe:
1/2 cup frozen strawberries
5 ice cubes
1 serving vanilla soy protein powder
cap full of vanilla sugar free flavoring
2 squirts of agave nectar
1/2 cup strong hot yerba mate tea, made from 2 tbsp loose tea leaves

I made the mistake of putting the strawberries in first with the powder right on top, so when I poured everything out at the end, all of the protein was stuck at the bottom.  I moved it with a spoon and ended up re-blending it, and it was alright.  It didn't taste that great, had chunks of protein, and seemed watery.  I stopped at the grocery store between jobs today and got some xantham gum and hazelnut milk.  The hazelnut milk should give it a less watery taste, especially if I can reduce the amount of water needed to brew the mate.  The xantham gum will emulsify and thicken the shake.  I think I will leave out the ice, too.  The frozen strawberries already make it cold.  I'll keep experimenting until I figure out something.

Somehow, this shake did get me through my first job with a sufficient amount of caffeine, but when I got out, I was starving!  I never get hungry before noon now.  I might actually have to start packing a breakfast if I can't figure out how to make this shake more filling.

I haven't been able to work on spinning since Sunday.  Every night I've been exhausted.  I'm still adjusting to getting up at 6am.  I'm working until anywhere from 6 to 8 today, and then after the half hour commute back, it will be time to shower and sleep.  Maybe I'll fit in a little tomorrow after work.  Friday, I'm going hiking with Jon's cousin after the first job because I don't have the second job that day.

At least the weather is nice!

First day of new job

It went pretty well.  I mostly just had to watch and start learning the routine.  I'll gradually take over responsibilities as he gets used to me.

I'm really not used to getting up that early, but give me a couple of weeks and I'll be fine.  Today I spent the extra time between jobs in a mall parking lot playing Angry Birds.  My coffee was really gross this morning.  I think I was half asleep when I made it so it must have had way too much water.  I wanted to buy another one very badly, but I have to remind myself that I'm saving up for very important things.  That's why I didn't actually go into the mall.  I want new spring clothes.  I might just end up making a new skirt and knitting a sweater.  That will, of course, just means that I need more fiber!

I really want to try a bolero next, but this shawl is going to keep me busy for a long time.  I spun up another bobbin yesterday and plied one.  I'll ply up the rest today and hopefully that will make 1000 yards, with only 500 to go!

Yesterday was Easter, and Jon and I went to a different Baptist church in town.  I loved it!  The service was pretty much just like the ones I grew up with, the pastor prepared a good and thoughtful sermon, and the only problems were the laughter and talk of a couple of teenage boys behind us.  We will definitely go again!

Jon's Gramma came over and we all had ham, potatoes, carrots, salad, and bread.  Dessert was a lemon curd cake, which was amazingly good.  Jon and I took a walk though the newly green fields.  We even had an Easter basket full of chocolate waiting outside the bedroom door!  We didn't work on the rabbit hutch because of the off and on rain.  I'm not sure when we will be able to start.  He's hopefully finishing up a job today and starting another that will last at least the rest of this week.

This weekend I have my second shower!  I'm looking forward to catching up with my side of the family and some good friends.  I really don't need gifts, but I am excited to get nice kitchen things.  I love baking and cooking.  Here are some rather funny photos of me and my face opening gifts at the first shower, and a Whole Foods raspberry chocolate ganache cake!:

Day Off

I've had the day to myself, and it has been wonderful.  I counted yardage for the skein I finished last night, and it comes to 507 yards.  I'm 1/3 done!  Yay....I just spent the afternoon spinning up another bobbin, and I'm going to try to get most of another one done tonight.  37 days until the wedding, 2/3 of this yarn left to spin, and then an entire lace shawl to knit!  Can I do it?

Dinner tonight is chicken marsala.  I have marsala leftover from making tiramisu a while ago, and there are mushrooms in the fridge, so this is a good time to try it.

http://allrecipes.com//Recipe/chicken-marsala/Detail.aspx

I just finished writing all of the thank you notes for my first shower.  It took longer than I thought, so there's no time for plying yarn today.  But it needed to be done!  I did take the time, however, to have some chocolate cake =)

I posted my new skein of yarn on etsy today and took some rather nice photos of it despite the rainy weather.  It held off long enough for me to get some nice photos outside:

I really like how the colors turned out- I call them burgundy and violet!

Time to get ready to go to work!

Last night, I was able to fill up the second bobbin!  So tonight I can start plying and figure out how many yards I have.  I still have plenty of fiber, but I'm hoping that I've gotten at least half the amount that I need for the shawl.

Jon and I picked up some wood this weekend to build a rabbit hutch.  I couldn't find any plans online that made any sense, so I made one up.  It will have room for my three rabbits, and each section is again separated into a front area and a nesting/cozy box.  We are even going to insulate it.  The wood came from a bargain scrap pile at a local lumber mill, and a few boards that Jon's father had around.  I just need to pick up some galvanized wire mesh from the hardware store on the way home from work today.  We won't have time to work on this until the weekend, but I'm very excited!  I'm also hoping to get enough mesh to construct a run somewhere in the yard for supervised play time.  Pictures of this project are to follow!

Ruby, Max, and Yardley will be delighted.

Ruby

Max

Yardley

Jon shouldn't read this post (wedding stuff inside) Apr 15th, 2011 2:25pm

Working on spinning up yarn for my wedding shawl!  

http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/evenstar-shawl

(image taken from the author of this lovely pattern, and can be viewed at the link above)

It takes 1500 yards of yarn, though, so I'll see how much I can get from these two rolls of mohair/wool/silk that I have.
I have some grey wool that I dyed drying in the shower:

It took up hints of red and purple, and actually looks quite nice!  Now to spin more yarn!