Playng Catch Up

 Having spent two glorious weeks away from home wandering around foreign countries and...having two big craft fairs coming up at the end of the month I have been spending a lot of time chained to my loom since we got home.  I've finished weaving a batch of red and blue potholders which have yet to have their hems sewn up,

and am currently weaving two warps of organic colorgrown cotton tea towels in a huck lace pattern.  I hope to get 20 towels finished and ready for the fairs by Thanksgiving.  Might even make it as I wove 5 of them today.  15 more to go but if I can keep up that pace I'll make it with a couple of days to sit around and do nothing before Thanksgiving.

I'll shortly be back to blogging about the trip.

On to Dorset

 We met up with Siri at Gatwick airport in London.  She had flown in from New York via Dublin.  We picked up our car, a Vauxhall Meriva, which was our magic carpet for the next week.  When the woman at the car rental counter heard what our plans were, to drive from Dorset to North Yorkshire via the back roads, she recommended that we rent a diesel.  A little more per day but much better fuel mileage.  That little car took all 3 of us and our luggage in comfort, handled the windey roads and steep grades without complaint and got 50 mpg.  Can't complain.

Joel took a deep breath and plunged into the traffic leaving Gatwick on the...."other" side of the road.  Siri and I were very still except for an occasional quiet chant of "keep left, keep left".  He managed to get us to our little house in Bere Regis in Dorset without incident although I think he was definitely in need of that pint of cider we had with dinner.

The little house that Siri had found for us was a delight.  Formerly a corner store it had two bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs and a comfy sitting room and kitchen down.  We spent 4 nights there in lovely comfort.

 The idea of renting a house for a number of days was so that we could explore the surrounding countryside and have a place to come home to.  So on Friday we started exploring the Dorset coast at Lulworth Cove.  It's a quiet almost circular bay with a narrow opening to the ocean.  Above it on the hills is a long neolithic hill fort.  People have thought that the cove offered a nice sheltered haven for thousands of years.

 Nearby is Durdle Door.  Joel and Siri hiked and slid down the bank to the little beach that was covered in agates.  Me??  Well, I have a sort of gimpy knee and decided that putting it out on the first day of the trip probably wasn't too wise so I sat at the top of the hill admiring the view.

Along the trail down to the beach were these wild brassicas, ancestors of all our cabbages, cauliflowers, broccoli, kohlrabi, Brussels sprouts, and kale.

 Further west is the town of Lyme Regis famous for its beaches where wonderful fossils are found.  If you don't know anything about the Lyme Regis fossils or Dorset's Jurassic Coast I recommend you read Tracy Chevalier's Remarkable Creatures.  We had fantasies about finding a fossil or two on the beach but the tide was high and wind ferocious so I settled for buying this charming example at the Lyme Fossil Shop.

We also fulfilled another of our England trip requirements, a cream tea at a little shop there.  Scones, strawberry jam, Devon cream and tea. 


Then back to Bere Regis and dinner and a pint and free wi-fi at the local pub.

Journey's Start - Reykjavik

Okay, we're back.  Jet lag from following the sunset all the way back from Iceland is finally wearing off, our internet is back up after Joel climbed up the tree with the antenna and twisted the broken wire back together.  San Juan County isn't so lucky.  Last Tuesday an underwater fiber optics cable broke in 280 feet of water cutting off internet, land line phones and most cell phones.  It wasn't until Friday that a patched together network returned the internet.  Phones are still a bit wonky, I hear.  Out here in the outer islands we have had less impact other than not being able to call most numbers in the county.  We at least could call the mainland.


So I am gathering my wits to start to write a bit about our adventures.  We sat in our hotel room looking at each other and not believing that we were really and truly in Iceland.  Jet lag definitely added to the sense of unreality.  Our hotel, Center Hotel Skjalbreid was sweet.  An older building, small charming, pleasant on a great street full of neat little shops.  Here's Joel in front of the hotel.  The door was obscure enough that in the dark we kept walking right by it.

 The breakfast room was light and airy and being on the third floor had a view out over the rooftops of Reykjavik.

 We only had two days and those days are short this time of year so we spent most of the time wandering about the city enjoying the sights, the city pond with it's population of whooper swans, greylag geese and mallards, the stony waterfront, and the beautiful Hallgrimskirkja Cathedral.  And shopping for Christmas presents.  I love to bring a little piece of our adventure back to the family at home.

We did get out of the city the first night on a tour looking for the northern lights.  In spite of the fact that it was so cloudy we never saw them we have to admit we had fun driving around the countryside in the total dark while our tour guide regaled us with descriptions of the landscape and sights we couldn't see.  We could see a bank of greenhouses heated and lighted by the geothermal energy that Iceland is determined to use to produce 90% of its energy needs.  And as we drove by one of the geothermal plants we could definitely smell it.  The hot springs the water is coming from are definitely sulphuric.

The tour did deposit us at the Vatnsholt bed and breakfast hotel where we wandered around in the dark hoping the clouds would part.  The hotel dining room was open to warm us up and were serving tea, coffee, hot chocolate, beer, wine, vodka and waffles.  We did see one Icelandic pony looking over a fence wondering what was going on and enjoyed the farm dogs who wandered around visiting with the 200 or so people on the 4 buses who had suddenly appeared in their midst.  On the way back to town we were told that since we didn't see the northern lights that nights our tickets were good for 2 more years and we could try again.  Enough to entice us to go back.

 It was neat to wander around listening to everyone speak Icelandic.  Most everyone also spoke English any time we had a question.  We had dinner at a couple of nice restaurants eating local food, vegetables grown in the greenhouses and whale steaks.

And then it was get up at 3:30 AM to catch the plane to London to meet Siri and continue the adventure in England.

Fly Away

Just recently two Great Blue Herons flew over the farm and landed in a tree.  And....today we are about to fly off on an adventure of our own.  We are going to spend 2 days in Iceland and then on to
England with daughter, Siri, to wander around for a week or so ending up in Yorkshire to meet a couple of farmers who I know through her blog weaverofgrass.blogspot.com.  I promise to post pictures as soon as we are back. We are so excited.

Change of Hats

 This time of year things slow down outside on the farm.  Getting a good winter garden requires quite a bit of hustle in the middle of summer, getting the plants started, finding bare ground to plant them out in, keeping them watered and weeded.  But now, in October the Brussels sprouts, cabbage, kale, chard, and overwintering broccoli and cauliflowers are growing nicely, and don't need to be weeded or watered.  We just harvest before each winter market day.

So I can take off my gardening hat and put on my weaving hat.  I often tell people that I weed in the summer and weave in the winter.  Christmas craft fairs are coming up fast and my stock is, as usual, depleted from summer sales so I need to get busy.  I've made one batch of 14 rag placemats in reds and golds

 and started on a second batch on a blue and yellow green warp.  The first ones were woven with blue fabric and i just started a set with yellow.  Then more potholders, scarves, tea towels. 

Seed Saving in the Fall

Fall has fallen and along with harvesting squash and beans onions, readying the garden for winter it's time we think about saving seeds from some of the plants we are growing.  We save seed for a variety of reasons.  Some seed just saves itself like the ornamental amaranth that has seeded itself all over the place.  We call it feral amaranth.  This time of year when most of the flowers are over with we can still harvest beautiful big stalks of it.  And the birds love the seeds.  So all summer we weed around as much of it as we can.

 Some seed gets saved in the process of growing the crop.  Like beans where the crop is the seeds.  We measure out enough seed to plant next year before we even start thinking about making chili.  With a crop like this once you've started growing it you don't need to buy seed again.

We also often save seed from varieties that have been deleted from seed catalogues.  For one reason or another the growers of commmercial seeds will decide to replace one variety with another.  The new variety may or may no be a better choice for our particular garden site, our micro climate.  When that happens we hope we have enough seed left to grow a seed crop so we can keep growing that particular cabbage or kale or chard.

Sometimes there is an unusual plant that crops up in a planting.  This year there's a gorgeous hot pink/purple chard that I'd love to grow more of.  Because chard is wind pollinated and we want to save seed from our regular strain I'm going to see if a friend will let me transplant the purple chard to her garden to keep it from cross pollinating with any other beet or chard.

Brickworks

 The new Farmers Market building, Brickworks, is finally finished and open.  We moved our booth inside last weekend and we love it.  The building is beautiful and on a hot summer day it is cool with a great breeze and the lettuce doesn't wilt.

Our daughter, Siri, has come home for the summer and we have turned the flower side of the business over to her as she is so very good at it.  She makes beautiful bouquets.

 I love the low window sills behind our booth space and have been filling them with hats.

It's just such a beautiful space and we are so grateful to everyone who donated money and time and energy to make this project happen.  Do check out the link above for more information about the project.  And also this article from one of the neighbors