Month: May 2016
Garden Notes
I have one solitary iris (though you can see behind this one that the Siberian iris are poised to go crazy any second now), so it’s officially time to plant.
The above is the before shot, when I headed out at about 8:30 this morning- well before the heat of the day (it was about 85 where I was inland, not sure if it got that hot here). The daffodils are well and truly gone by, so I chopped those all out.
I had the above to plant, between the rest of the seed starts (above), and some things I picked up at a garden store on my way home yesterday (below).
Here’s the oregano and Thai basil, with last year’s chocolate mint, which is the mint doing the least well of last year’s mint. I’m trying to decide if I just need to pull it out, to give the roots room to expand for this year.
I added marigolds into the tomato pots, and cauliflower next door.
In the last of the big pot row, I added some shishito peppers. I also have some nasturtiums, sage, and some leftover mint.
And in the corner: regular thyme (only the lemon thyme survived from last year), leftover mint, regular basil, and some more cauliflower.
Garden Notes
Last weekend, we did some much needed deep cleaning, so I’m fairly late posting these pictures. Because we were going away this weekend, I want ahead and bought tomatoes a week early, and because the forecast looked good, just went ahead and planted them that day, with the Swiss Chard and kale. The week did prove out to be exactly as the weather had said it would be, so they’ve survived. Further planting will be happening either tomorrow or the next day.
Broken Homes – Ben Aaronovitch
In this book, the families Thames came back in force, as the Folly staff (Nightingale, Peter and Leslie) are more or less ordered to provide security when Father and Mother Thames hold Court for the first time in about a hundred and fifty years. Needless to say, having the two gods of the river and their assorted children show up is a fairly interesting event, and brings along the return of Beverley Brook, who I’m pretty sure we’re going to see more of later.
The main portion of this story takes places in Elephant and Castle, which is south of the Thames, and I am only familiar with because we drove through it earlier this month on our way to Dover, and our friend K mentioned it was one of the last places in London where builders have come in to start and gentrify things.
In the story, there’s something odd happening in one of the developments there, and Peter and Leslie actually move in for some undercover sleuthing. Something fairly important does happen at the end of the book, and even though I’d been pre-warned, so was trying to keep my eye out for clues, I did not see it coming. I’m really not sure what to think of it, or where things could possibly go from here with that particular story line.
We do have one more of these books in the house, but the next one doesn’t come out until August, and that’s in England – we’re due to get it in the winter sometime. So I haven’t quite decided yet if I want to wait a bit and hold out for a bit more story before I have to wait for the next.
Whispers Underground – Ben Aaronovitch
So before we left for England, the BF was looking for something to take on the plane, and I suggested Midnight Riot (aka Rivers of London), the first book in this series. Well, he blew through that book, bought the rest that were out and we didn’t already have yet, while we were in London, and has now read them all. Our friend K (in London) accidentally let on that something fairly big happened in the fourth book, so I was pretty much ordered to read up at least that far, lest I accidentally be subject to spoilers. So here I am.
In this book, the son of a US Senator has been found, stabbed, in a Tube station. Peter finds himself involved with the Underground, Victorian sewers, and an FBI agent, who was a great insight for me into how the English view American’s obsession with guns.
They also make some progress into their search for the Faceless Man, which introduces a couple of characters that have already recurred in at least the book after this.
What I really do like about these books is the touches in real London – this one included a trip to the Tate Modern, and having just been over there, I had such an easy time seeing everything that happens in the Tube in my mind’s eye. And I still just really like Peter as a character – his reaction to everything that’s happening around him is just great.
Garden Notes
So instead of pet sitting, for my trip, I required seedling sitting. My chard and kale went over to my mother’s house, and came back with friends. That, and my chard must have quadrupled in size.
So I now have chard, kale, basil, shishito peppers, yellow cauliflower and marigolds. The chard and kale are on day two of a hardening off schedule, because there’s really no reason I shouldn’t be able to plant those out this coming weekend – they are cold hardy.
This weekend, I started out with some much needed yard work. The clematis was just about ready to walk away, so I’ve got that trellised. I also got the big pots set up in their summer locations. Most of what will be in those isn’t ready to go out yet, but at least that’s one last task I’ll have when I I can plant.
There are no back yard pots this year. I planted the remaining potted hostas into the hosta bed in back. I lost my heucheras again, so I’m done with those, until I have real garden beds I’ll be willing to locate them in permanently. I won’t do them again in pots.
I did have to repot my lemon thyme as the pot it was in was actually flaking apart. That and the mint are out in the side garden, getting sun. (Well, they were in the gorgeous weather yesterday. It turned rainy and cooler today.)
Knitting Notes
In the spirit of Cold Sheep, I looked for ideas for using up my worsted weight scraps en mass (they’re the biggest volume I had since I control the fingering weight scarps with hexipuffs.) I hit upon this garter stitch blanket (Ten Stitch Blanket by Frankie Brown), which is great, because you basically just keep adding on until you decide it’s done. So I’m just going to keep adding until it gets to a decent size.
So far, I’ve managed to use up the following: Cascade 220 (green), Quince and Co. Lark in Bark and Chanterelle and Malabrigo Rios in Glazed Carrots and Indieceta. I’ve got a few others in there as well that had large amounts, but since the beginning makes more sense for smaller blocks of color, I’ve split those up, and they’re not gone yet.
I’m liking this so far. It’s easy to memorize, and goes quickly. However, as it grows, I’m not sure how good a summer project it’ll be. Might just have to go on hiatus for a bit.
Knitting Notes
Pattern: Pyukkleen by Ysolda Teague
Yarns: Knit Picks Wool of the Andes in the Bamboo Heather, Baltic Heather, Camel Heather, Shire Heather, Coal and Brass Heather colorways.
Needles: Size 9 circs and DPNs
I liked this pattern. It was a good intro to colorwork (I made some notes in my last blog post that I will definitely be remembering).
The colors were probably not a perfect match to the colors in the original pattern, so the contrast probably isn’t as good, but it’s still decent. So that’s another learning – pay very close attention to the contrasts.
The North Wind and the Sea 