strange flower

My camellia starts blooming around Christmas, and is done by the end of February. It’s bright and cheery pink flowers always lift my spirit when I see them through my kitchen and dining room windows during the dark, gloomy winter days. Each flower stays pink through its life. Then in the end they drop off whole and the ground around the bush is littered with pink and brown globes.

This year it’s continued to bloom, and it’s just finishing up now. This year, most of the flowers did their usual thing. Except for this one. I don’t know if it was because of the warm days followed by cold and wet again. But, this one turned orange. I was so surprised when I saw it that I ran out in the rain and snapped a picture.

It’s gone now. It didn’t leave in the normal way, either. The petals dropped off one by one, and the base of the flower is still on the tree.

Very strange.

I’m about 1/2 way up the legs on the clown barf stripy socks. Stay tuned for knitting news.

In techie news, I have upgraded to Wordpress 2.5. Can’t say I’m entirely pleased with the admin panels. I had to hack the life out of the new media uploader and the write panels to make them usable. But there are other things I do like about it. So the jury is out. I’m used to hacking WP. But the previous release (2.3) finally incorporated most of my changes. Now I’m back at square one. Ah well.

I’ve looked at it under IE 7, Firefox and Safari and it looks OK. Let me know if you find anything broken.

chilly bloom

Thank you to all of you who wished me a long and happy relationship with my new love, the DVR. Honestly, I don’t know how I lived without it before. I have about a gazillion shows already recorded, and it keeps recording more, so catching up is going to be interesting. But I will persevere.

I don’t have any new knitting content, so I’m distracting you with pictures from the garden.

I planted the camellia the first year that I lived here. It’s supposed to be in bloom at Christmas. The first few years it was widely off the mark, blooming any time from March-ish through September-ish. The last several years, though, it’s finally settled down and gotten close to the mark. This bloom was a bud on Christmas, and didn’t actually pop until just after New Year’s, but I appreciate its attempt at making Christmas a little brighter.

It will bloom for quite awhile now. I really love looking out my kitchen window on a cold and gloomy January day, and seeing flowers. It makes me smile every time!

a little too early

But this is just crazy!

This tiny little green shoots belong to daylilies. It’s going to be several months before they bloom. This is January. It’s been colder than normal here. This week these poor little things have had their heads chilled by freezing fog and then blanketed by snow. They’re not brave, they are foolhardy.

I’ve told them to go back to sleep, but they are not listening to me. Perhaps they think they are safe because they are being watched over by Todd The Weather God (named by #1 Son), who is lurking in the background. But I’m not sure that Todd provides much in the way of shelter. Or perhaps they are looking forward to the February faux spring.

We shall see what the real spring brings.

Tomorrow a group of Seattle knitters are invading Portland and several of the PDX Knit Bloggers are joining in the fun. So if you’re down in the Pearl and see a bevy of knitters marching purposefully down the street, you might want to clear the way. Just remember that we’re after yarn, we have pointy sticks, and we know how to use them.

rose down

I do feel sorry for the weatherpeople in the Northwest. It’s hard to predict our weather. It comes down from Alaska and up from California and across from Hawaii and sometimes all of those at once. On the east coast they have plenty of time to watch the weather as it crosses the nation and have a good idea of what it will actually be when it gets there.

Sunday the weatherguy (station will remain nameless) said that we would have a storm on Monday, and it would be a little windy, but not really that bad. Maybe gusts of 20 MPH or so.

Yeah. Right.

I worked from home on Monday. As I typed away on my computer back in the back corner bedroom, I heard the wind pick up. Pretty soon it was howling around the house. Then I heard…

swish swish swwwwiiiisssshhhh creek creek CREEEK WHACK WHACK WHACK BANG

OMG, WTF! I said, and other expletives that will remain deleted on this usually family-friendly little space. I ran to the window.

For the last 10 years, a willow arch has framed the entrance to the back yard at the corner of the house. A Climbing Iceberg rose grew on it.

Note, gentle reader, that I am using past tense.

I tried to lift the arch back up, but it is old and came apart in my hands. I stood in the rain and wind and mourned my rose, that had snapped off at the base. It was lovely — but did sort of grab people going through the arch. It was… friendly.

I came back inside and called my yard guy.

Brett, you know that clean-up you are coming to do tomorrow? Yeah… I have a little extra clean-up that’s needed this year.

I have finished the shell edging on The Great Green Glob. You know how I was looking forward to the I-cord? Now that I’m there… not so much. This is going to be a slog. But I will persevere!

Confidential to Bobbie: If I knit your top-down raglan pattern from my coned yarn, I’d probably just end up giving it to someone like Chrispy.

Remember back at the beginning of June when I posted this picture?

It’s always such a long wait, it seems. And the grapes are such teases.

The summer isn’t very old when I can look out and see lovely green globes hanging down. They look sooooo good to eat.

Eat my grapes in July, and you will know the meaning of the word “sour.” Ditto for August.

Some time after school starts I test a few, and those in the know begin to ask are the grapes in yet? Maybe next week, I tell them. Or the week after.

Grapes are in now.

My grape harvest lasts for a month or so. These in the picture are very, very edible right now - nice and sweet. If I leave them on the vine a little longer, they will become a beautiful golden-green, taste like honey inside, and will almost be too sweet.

Here is my awful secret: What do I do to grow such prolific and wonderful grapes? uh… not a blasted thing. I have two vines that are about 10 years old now, but have been producing abundantly since their second year. Over my back patio is a 12′ x 16′ arbor. The vines cover the top of the arbor, and by the end of summer have spilled over the edges and reached the ground so I have to fight my way into the yard. After the leaves fall in autumn I whack them back up almost to the top of the arbor. And that’s it. I don’t water them. I don’t fertilize them. I don’t prune for production.

In the spring I admire their loveliness. In summer I appreciate their shade. In fall I and everyone I know eats grapes. In winter I whack.

That’s it.

Note: I do not recommend trying this at home!

Kristie opines:

I LOVE your Victoria Socks. I MUST have that pattern. (hint, hint)

It’s my standard toe-up pattern (think Tangled Up In Blue in plain stockinette). The stitch pattern is *K6, K2tog, YO* repeat. The pattern moves one stitch to the right every round so that the YOs spiral up the sock. The number of stitches that are knit before the K2tog, YO can be modified to fit into any number of total stitches depending on your gauge. I used K6 because my total stitches were evenly divisible by 8.

I did do the garter stitch edges on the heel, which is a new thing for me. But I can’t give away all of my secrets! What sets this sock apart is really the spiral YO stitch pattern, and that can be worked over just about any sock.

hpny knits comments:

my son is only 4………. reading about yours moving out, makes my heart skip a beat.

Hang on tight, Mom. Mine was only 4 just yesterday. It’s amazing how fast it goes. Give him as many hugs as you can while he’ll still let you!

Deb adds:

I was so worried about food when the son moved out (the nephew finally went to live with his own mom)I was constantly taking car loads of food over.

I’m not too worried about mine starving, given that he works in a bakery. But I’ve got to keep that boy warm! I’m sure he’s just not dressing warmly enough. He must have socks. And blankets.

And, speaking of #1 Son… today I received an odd call from him asking me how to get to Tangle from downtown Portland. When I asked him why he wanted to know, he replied because I want to go there. And no further information would he give.

So, of course I called Alice and told her I thought my son was on his way over there and I had no idea why. Alice, bless her, said you know that I can’t tell you why unless he says I can.

I’m fairly certain he’s not taking up knitting.

aarrrggghhhh it’s going to kill me!

4000 years ago, Egyptian royalty favored a confection made from honey mixed with the sweet, sticky juice from a flowering plant that grew in marshy areas. Later, eighteenth-century apothecaries used the same extract, cooked with sugar and egg whites and then whipped, to sooth sore throats and coughs. The extract was also used on burns, scrapes and minor cuts.

The plant, of course, was Marsh Mallow (Athaea officinalis). Nowadays gelatin has replaced the Marsh Mallow extract in marshmallows (the candy). There’s no egg any more, either. Marshmallows are made from gelatin, corn syrup and corn starch, whipped and with air “jet-puffed” in.

Marsh Mallow (the plant) has naturalized in the Eastern US, where it grows wild in many areas. Here in the Pacific Northwest, it makes an unusual, rather exuberant garden plant. I use the sap, along with lavender, rose, mint and rosemary, to make an after-shampoo rinse for my hair.

I’ve never tried making candy from it, but I’ve been tempted.

My latest pair of sock toes are enjoying the Marsh Mallow.

This is STR in Mudslide (the brown) and Stonewashed (the blue). I’ve dubbed these the “Mudstone” socks. I’m knitting them in a spiral stripe — i.e. work one round of color 1, drop color 1 and work one round of color 2, drop color 2 and work one round of color 1, etc.

I made the toes brown after polling the teenagers who were at Tangle last Saturday. I might make the heels blue.

I haven’t decided what to do on the legs yet. Well… I have an idea but I think I’ll keep it to myself until I can work it out a little more.

And, just in case anyone was wondering, keeping 4 strands of yarn untangled is the pits.