A Green, Green Weekend.

As I walked out the back door this weekend, these tall and stately fern stood at rapt attention, except of course for those that bend and sway just over the walkway. They are so lush and thick and seem to give and get joy from being there to greet us.

My main goal this weekend was to get the garden in!! I presumed that the frost danger was behind us, and as I have had my garden plants (tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, melons, etc.) for several weeks now, they were bursting out of their containers, surely aching for the garden soil. Pleasantly, I get to walk past these profuse and colorful primroses on my way up to the garden.

This is my main garden, with the corn garden to the west, off by itself.

Tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, melons, cucumbers all 'breathed' a grateful sigh Saturday night, though they must have curled up tight when it reached 30 degrees. Except for a few 'burned' leaves, they seem to have made it.

And much to our dining delight, we had our first salad made entirely with greens from our garden, fresh radishes and lots of dill weed.

It is difficult on days like these to tear myself away from the outdoors and come into the workshop and answer my other creative calls, but I managed to get a few projects started, some completed, and others, well...let's just say they are...waiting.

Birthdays, Fishing, Sewing and Growing

A beautiful Sunday for Freddie to fly fish the West Fork, while I simply basked in the beauty, sunshine, solitude and silence. It hardly gets any better than that.

Monday was spent on the farm, contemplating the asparagus!


At 8:00 this morning, I decided to place a yard stick behind one asparagus spear because I am astounded on a daily basis as to how fast asparagus grows. Some days I can pick a large batch in the morning and another in the afternoon. Here this stalk measures 6 1/2 inches tall.

It is a bit difficult to see, but at 1:30 today, the singled out asparagus stalk was at 8 inches, and today was not a particularly good growing day at that.

Knitting Needle Cases

My daughter Jonel's 37th birthday was Friday, and she asked for a Knitting Needle case. I decided to make one for her, which is on the far left. Making that one sparked the making of a few more as well. I think there are still a few more in the making, too.

Biking Caps

New creative endeavor courtesy of Andy...wondering if I could replicate his winter biking hat with a summer one. After much study, some pattern 'making', and trial and error, I made one that was too big on the first try, and fit on the second. He went home with it but I still felt the urge, so the above two are today's effort. I think, here too, a few more are in the making.

Fanny's Gardens

Just one of the many paths in Fanny's garden.

I did bring home some Bleeding Hearts.

Working in the yard and the garden...abundant sun, gentle breezes, looking out over this valley, just across from Jug Creek and I get the urge to make my seasonal visit to Fanny Gingerich's. It is simply breathtaking, and comes as close to a 'fairy garden' as I've ever seen. Each season it seems even lovelier. I'll never forget the year Freddie came with me and we wandered the many paths that wind among the flowers when from an open window came the most angelic voice singing a hymn. I asked Fanny about it and she said one of her daughters likes to sing while she irons. We remained rooted to the spot for quite some time.

This year, as each year, it was difficult not to continue choosing plants far beyond what I had come for, though I finally cut myself off. This is a trip to make, if for no other reason but to be entranced and momentarily transformed.

Read on to the next entry, as it follows from this.

They're not Fanny's flowers...

yet they bloomed on a field of green.

A lovely, old, green wool coat is the basis for my latest 'bag', and needle felted flowers seemed just the thing to adorn it.

After visiting Fanny's gardens, I came home to complete a simple 'flower' project of my own. About a year or two ago, I started needle felting small animals to go along with children's books, and truly loved the the sculpting nature of the work. I have not needle felted for quite some time. A while later I began making 'bags' from reclaimed fabrics, mostly wool jackets/coats and old silk ties, and found these projects really stoked my creative side. As with all of us whose interests are many and varied, I've been caught up in other endeavors; Iris, weaving, knitting, sewing, and have not returned to either of these loves of mine, until just now.

Blessings Abound

The old and crippled crab apple tree just outside our back door is in profuse bloom, seemingly unaware that half of itself is rotted off, and several branches have completely fallen and been dragged away. This tree has blessed us with its beauty each spring since we have lived here, nearly sixteen years now. That it continues to do so, even as it surely approaches its demise, is a wonder, but just one of the wonders of this spring. We have been blessed with the birth of another beauty; spectacular, tiny, warm and simply, utterly beautiful; Elsa Mae. (Do I sound like a grandmother??)

Elsa joins her sister Iris, a two-some that fills the heart to overflowing, spilling joy and smiles all around. Our blessings are as many as the blossoms on that tree.

Someone has to cut the 'rags'.

RAGS! RAGS!! RAGS!!!
My new weaving love.

The pair of scissors pictured above were my mother's. She gave them considerable use making costumes for dance class all through my youth. I gave them even more use when I first started weaving rugs. I cut the strips for my rugs with these scissors, and believe me, cutting strips by hand is not an easy task.


This is the very first rug I ever wove, though tattered, still in use. It is woven from an old chenille bedspread, and I recall that I started at one end, and continuously cut it round and round until it was one really long, long strip. I used nothing but scissors for the next hundreds of rugs, knowing no different. It was perhaps even more crueling than warping, which is hard enough.



Then I was introduced to the rotary cutter with the cutting board! Ah, what a wonderful device this was. It cut my cutting time by more than half, and it sure saved my hands and wrists. I wasn't always able to cut entirely precise straight strips, but it was a God-send. I was eternally thankful to those quilters who introduced me to this device.

For some years I had been reading about rag cutters. These are devices that rug weavers use to cut their rags, and I believed that they cut only cotton or light weight rags. After looking at them in catalogs for years, I finally contacted a manufacturer and asked about cutting wool blanket ends with this cutter. I was told it would handle the wool quite well. It wasn't all that inexpensive, especially for someone who doesn't make $$ at weaving, but I invested anyway.


And I believe that this is the single most wonderful weaving event that has happened to me since I have been weaving. I LOVE THIS RAG CUTTER! Honestly, this has transformed my weaving life, and sometimes I just want to sit and do nothing but cut 'rags'.


And this is the last rug to come off my loom, strips cut, of course, with my rag cutter!

It doesn't get any better than this!

May 1st. Iris, Freddie and I walked above the garden where there are many dead Elm trees, and where for the past several springs I have gleaned mess after mess of morels. We found our first batch! Iris was thrilled, and proud to find and pick a few herself. Growing up on the East coast, we never heard of or saw a morel, though my grandmother picked every other kind of wild mushroom. In order to determine if they were poisonous, she sauteed them with a dime. If the dime turned black, we could not eat them. I never recall the dime turning black, but then I wasn't always looking in the pan. I do remember delicious mushroom sandwiches on homemade bread.

Morels speak loudly of spring, and for me the first asparagus, vegetable of the Gods, is what spring tastes like. We had our first taste of the green spears last night in a great risotto.


When I was just a girl, my grandfather would come to our small town in the spring, from Buffalo. I loved my grandfather; his bald head, slightly stooped shoulders, and his almost indiscernable broken English. One of my fondest memories is walking hand and hand with him in the vast fields behind our house looking for Garduni, pictured above. You might recognize it from its fall remnants in the picture below. Burrs! Yes, garduni is Burdock, the bain of all farmers. For Sicilians it is highly sought after, and is still today sold in the Farmer's Markets in Buffalo, Chicago and the like. My family on the East coast drools each spring when I tell them we had our first garduni.


Oh, those sticky burrs!


This is the part of Burdock we eat. One must gather them in the early spring when they are still tender. Some people eat the roots, but we always ate the stems. They must be blanched first to rid them of their innate bitterness. Then gather a 'bundle' of the blanched stems, roll them in beaten egg, and then bread crumbs. Saute and serve with lemon juice. Morels, asparagus and garduni, now this is gourmet eating!