We spent a happy afternoon working stone again today, as we do many Tuesdays. I was shaping the bottom basin for a fountain/birdbath my mother started. click on photos to enlarge.
Before.
During.
After!
The basin will go on the ground (flat edge against the blocks) under the marble piece sticking out of this wall. It will take up two plus cinder blocks in width.
Imagine the big semi-circle catching water from the protruding pool, maybe dribbled in from a little tube run off the hose? Everything will dull down with weathering, to gray or even charcoal gray in time unless I scrub and bleach it!
Happy knitting and wearing
I made this vest several years ago and it has been a favorite garment. I’ve gotten many compliments, but I particularly love it because it is comfortable and versatile.
“Olive Sleeveless”
-- from knitting notes
Front and back are the same shape. This will be a boat neck if the yarn used has plenty of body, if drapey-er fiber is used, the neck will drape to about the collar bone.
It’s always good to knit a swatch with your intended material to see what the guage will be. I knit loosely, your stitches may be a different size.
Row 1: P2, * K5, P1 * repeat between *’s until 7 sts. remain, K5, P2.
Row 2: K2, * P5, K1 * repeat between *’s until 7 sts. remain, P5, K2.
Work this ribbed pattern for 11.”
Yoke stitch:
Row 1: P2, K across row, P2.
Row 2: K2, * P1, K1 * repeat between *’s, K2.
Work this ribbed pattern until piece measures 12-1/2”
Shape arm hole:
Rows 1 & 2: Bind off 4 sts. at beginning of row, continuing in yoke stitch pattern.
Row 3: K1, K2tog, work pattern across row.
Row 4: P1, P2tog, work pattern across row.
Repeat rows 3 & 4 twice more. 55 sts.
Continue in yoke pattern stitch until work measures 20”
Loosely bind off.
Sew side and shoulder seams. Shoulder are 12 stitches wide.
My grandmother served a casserole she called Finnan Haddie. The ingredients I remember were haddock, noodles, sour cream, hickory smoke flavor and pimientos. I got rather tired of it at one point because it seemed we were eating it often and it’s a particular sort of dish, good, but one you can wait a spell before having it again. Anyway, it seems to have been on my mind ‘lo these many years later.
Tonight I made a risotto with reminiscent flavors. I started with a tin of smoked herring, opening it and putting some of the oil in my saucepan. I added about 3/4 cup of diced sweet peppers, mostly red a few pieces of green (frozen from my garden I can pick a mix of flavors). I also added about 1/2 a pickled jalapeno. Simmering these briefly I added 1 cup of arborio rice, 3/4 cup small red lentils and about 1/4 cup of boiling water. I continued to add water, some chicken broth and some more of the oil from the canned fish. Later I adjusted the flavors with 1/8 tsp. little ground coriander and cumin, and some ground mixed pepper (pink, green, black, white I think).
I also steamed some curly kale to go in the bowl. When the risotto was done, I put it on a bed of kale, topped with some chunks of smoked herring and with a nod to my grandmother, a dollop of unsweetened yogurt. Hmmm- make that two dollops!
Not just black tea and sugar, this batch of cultured beverage has pau d’arco and rose petals, and it’s almost ready to pour off and I can start another batch.
Here’s the airlock, bubbling 12 hours after we cast the yeast.
5 lbs. ground malt
2.5 gallons water
3.3.lb. can extra light malt syrup
.5 lb. smoked malt barley
.35 lb. chocolate malt barley
3/4 tsp. smoked paprika
Hallertauer hops 1 oz. boiling, 1 oz. aroma
Cascade 3/4 of one .5 oz. pellet - finishing
Mash the 5 lbs. of grain in 2.5 gallons water:
This required two pots, as we don’t have one big enough. With grains we must have had a volume of three-plus gallons. Bring to 120º and hold for 30 minutes; raise to 150º and hold for 10 minutes; raise again to 158º and hold an additional 15 minutes. Sparge (strain and rinse) into a container, or actually into a pot to be boiled. This is the “sweet wort.”
From here I adjusted the liquid: instead of having 1.5 gallons to start with I had almost double that. I extracted the chocolate and smoked malts separately in a saucepan and poured the resulting dark liquid into the wort pots. I put all the boiling hops in one pot so I could sparge only that into the fermenter, keeping the other cooking vessel separate to cool and add to the fermenter before casting yeast.
Boiled the first bunch of hops flowers (from Mountain Rose Herbs) for 40 minutes, then added the aroma hops and boiled for 18 minutes; adding finally the finishing hops for 2 minutes at end, then sparging immediately.
We are using the yeast from the previous batch in this one, so we have a quart of beer & yeast reserved to add to the cooled wort.
Original gravity 1.050
70º. We cast a quart of yeast sediment/beer dregs from our previous batch, bottled today.
We have embarked on a new phase of brewing. Today with a fair bit of effort and a HUGE mess in the kitchen, we made a batch of beer that is 1/2 grain mash and 1/2 ingredients that were pre-processed.
By pre-processed I mean that before I’ve made beer with 3.3lb or 4 lb. cans of barley malt syrup, which is reduced from a mash such as the one we made today. The cans are easier because you just open, pour into a big pot with lots of water, add other flavoring adjuncts as desired, boil with hops, cool, add yeast, ferment and bottle. It’s already a bit of a production.
So the difference today, using many of the kitchen’s large vessels, was to slowly heat milled barley to release sugars and dextrins - fermentables and unfermentables - which then being boiled, make the sugars converted to alcohol by the yeast.
We started with 5lbs. of barley, from the brew store, and had to put it in two pots with a total of 2.5 gallons of water.
And we had a batch of beer from 2 weeks ago that needed bottling, and was occupying the bucket destined to hold today’s new batch of beer.
There’s a lot of cleaning and sanitizing of equipment and bottles to avoid random contamination in the beer. We haven’t been brewing for a while, probably a year or two. So everything was dirty!
We bottled 5 gallons of Porter with chocolate, coffee and licorice for flavoring in addition to black patent and crystal malts. It’s a decent brew, not stellar, but may improve with clearing and carbonation.
Bluebell has hatched another chick. Born either today or yesterday, a dark colored Araucana. Tweet.
And other news in the coop, the latest previous hatch now a lovely dark Araucana, nearly black with red speckled wings and iridescent green wing bars, is a rooster. It’s all in the posture, tail shape, attitude.
A letter sent by Mary Anne to Dad’s long-time physician, currently on fellowship at U.W. and working with some patients in the facility where Dad was in rehab.
“Andrea is home and doing a little better each day. As I expected, the first night and full day home were a bit of a challenge, now he’s sleeping more comfortably and balance/strength improving enough that he’s only using the wheel chair if very tired, otherwise he’s strong enough to use walker when up and about the house.
The Providence physical therapist started working with him last Thursday. She’s terrific and the same one we had in ‘07; she really gave Andrea a boost of confidence. Next week Occupational and Speech/Swallowing will start in.
He’s tolerating the tube feedings, and with the help of a nutritionist I’m starting to add some real food into the daily mix. He’s able to take pills with applesauce and, being a creative guy when it comes to food, he’s coming up with some blends that he swallows carefully, so far without any issues beyond minor throat clearing. So far no constipation and incontinence issue has improved enough that he’s back to wearing his regular shorts. We’ll see how it goes.
Finished antibiotic (Levaquin) -no fever or other symptoms of infection.”
Well close anyway. In the wee house here, I have made birch shaker style doors for all the lower cabinets with water-based polyurethane finish. Also I built an upper cabinet to accept a venting range hood over the stove. With a new gas range, the kitchen is very changed.
Seattle snowed in with Dad @ Terraces at Skyline rehab
A visit to Seattle hoping to help Dad settle in at home after a collapsed lung episode and recovery in a rehab facility turned into a several day siege in the rehabilitation building with him. Mary Anne and I decided to get snowed in with him rather than snowed out. We stayed 4 nights in his room. Dad is now at home and eating applesauce! He had also a swallowing difficulty which is apparently improving.
Other photos have to be photoshopped to load in correct orientation. :( eventually.......!
Before
Stormy without, peaceful snoozes indoors. This looks beautifully like Liba’s face (Dad’s mother).
We took the llamas and goats for a walk the other day essentially off leash. Only one llama on a halter and lead, we walked to the end of the pond and back. It’s a treat to watch the llamas especially walk outside of the enclosed areas, off lead, just moving freely and being themselves.
I play sculpturally with wood, paint and fiber. Otherwise I spend time on carpentry, web/graphic design, gardening, volunteering, folk dancing or schmoozing with pet llamas, goats and chickens.
