Back to Weaving

The days have been warm and sunny after last weekend's welcome rain and as I am now back home most of the time I am back to weaving. I've hardly touched the looms all summer. I spent yesterday out on the studio porch tearing up strips for potholders. I collect cotton flannel pillowcases from the thrift store as I can get a nice variety of colors particularly plaids which weave up nicely. Pillowcases are too small to mess with for rugs but for this they are perfect.

Altissimo Rose

I saw this rose at the county fair years ago and last year finally bought one. It is the most gorgeous large single red rose. It's a climber and I hope eventually to have it all over the back of the house.

Fall Bounty

I love Fall for its amazing bounty. This dry hot summer has created a bumper crop of tomatoes both outside and in our hoophouse. Here a few of the 70+ jars of salsa that Joel has put up. He's also canning chopped tomatoes for stews and spaghetti sauce.
One of our hoophouses is devoted to drying things. Here we have all our onions, bundles of grains and now dry beans. This year we tried two black beans for drying, black coco and black turtle. The black coco beans were a lot earlier, but the black turtle more productive. We'll probably need to grow both in the future as we can't depend on having the nice long growing season we did this year. We were moved to try growing beans for drying when we found out that it is almost impossible to find organic dry beans grown in this country. The last bag we bought was from China.
We also have a bumper crop of Italian prune plums this year. The wind storm last Saturday knocked most of them down but we still harvested lots off the tree. Tonight Joel is going to start canning some and then I will make plum jam. This is our division of labor in the family.

Fair Fun

The San Juan County Fair was a month ago but when I was going through pictures I found this one and had to share. The goats have teats of rubber gloves filled with water. The kids had a great time "milking" them.

Albineers of BC

Saturday evening we once again joined the Albineers of BC for their fall get together at Roche Harbor. This time we left our boat in Friday Harbor and drove across the island to join the group as there just wasn't time after market to get there in the boat at 6 knots. We are very fond of our Albin and it's fun to see a bunch of them all together.

Frogs

We have these little green frogs all over the place. We find them in buckets, in plants, in vegetable boxes. A customer at the Farmers Market brought one back to us that she had found in a bouquet of flowers. We found it a nice place (we hope) in Friday Harbor. In the spring the frog chorus from the marsh behind the house can be deafening. These frogs on the window are two of several who have been there for the last month. They wait until night when moths come to the light in the windows and then they feast.

Rain

It is finally really raining. Real, wet, measurable rain. We really haven't had more than occasional sprinkles since May. It has been so very, very dry. I can just feel all the plants soaking it up.

And the sheep chose the first rainy day to escape out onto the road. Thanks to friends parking their vehicles in driveways and at intersections we got them all rounded up and back home, everyone, sheep and us very wet.

Summer is over, the booth at Roche Harbor was closed on Monday and now I am going to sit in the house and knit.