A Medley Of Updates

Some good, others not so much ...

The garden.   Heavy Sigh.  Our final crop tally (now that summer seems to be over for good and what isn't already ripe never will be):

Four apples.
Three hazelnuts.
A lifetime's worth of chives.  Apparently you can't kill these little suckers with napalm.
Four black currants.
Four stalks of rhubarb.  Hey, it got almost-red, that has to count for something ... doesn't it?
Eleven green beans.
One strawberry.  One.
A gallon ice-cream pail full of lovely Italian prune plums.  Yeah, surprised the heck out of me too  -  we planted the tree three years ago and were told not to expect fruit from it for about five years! I'm most gratified (and the plums are almost all gone already).
Enough small, rock-hard green tomatoes to make a couple of gallons of my great-grandmother's green tomato mincemeat, if someone can find the recipe.

On the upside, we have the fattest, happiest squirrels and Stellar jays you've ever seen.  Next year I think I'll just plant raspberries.  Or maybe chives.

In other news, my daughters have told me that since the job market is still so depressed  -  and consequently so am I  -  I should write a book.  Something along the lines of "Being Dead Flat Broke Is The Best Way To Live Green" or "How To Squeeze A Dollar Till The Loon Lays Eggs" ... Personally, I suspect that a more appropriate title might be "How To Survive Making Horrifically Bad Choices In Life" ... But maybe they're onto something.  I'll give that some thought. 

Men and trucks.  What is it with men and their trucks, anyway?  Big Guy loves his truck.  He bought it new in 1975.  No, that's not a typo.  1975.  He has kept The Truck running for 35 years, he loves The Truck, he will never sell or scrap The Truck; I'm pretty sure he wants to be buried in The Truck.  Or maybe pass it down to our grandson, like a beloved family heirloom.  The running not-so-funny joke around here is that if Moses showed up with another stone tablet saying Big Guy had to choose between me and The Truck ... he'd miss me.

There have been times when my love for him has been all that kept me from taking a cutting torch to The Truck and not stopping until there wasn't anything left big enough to use for an ashtray.  

Big Guy went fishing with a buddy for a week or so.  It was all good, until ... something expensive broke in the suspension of The Truck.  At Lillooet Lake.  Which, if you are fortunate enough to have BCAA, as we do, turns out to be only a $280 towing distance from here.  "Only", he said.  I bit my tongue and did not say what I was thinking, which was I would have just put a bullet through its head and rolled it into the river.  Instead, I patted his shoulder comfortingly and reminded him that in all its 35 years of faithful service, this is the first time The Truck has ever had to be towed home, and isn't that some kind of world record or something?  Cheered him right up.  Men are strange about their trucks.

Nice things have happened, too.

A friend sent me a lovely ten-colour sampler pack of Fimo; she'd heard I was getting back into the craft fair stuff and wanted to cheer me on.  Beautiful, clear, bright colours, and I smile every time I look at them.

I notified the extended family that the only Christmas gifts I'd be giving this year would be made by me, for obvious reasons.  Various requests are starting to trickle in, and I went trolling the internet for patterns ... 

Oh. My. Gosh.

Not only am I overwhelmed with the volume and variety of what's out there  -  and I only googled "FREE patterns"  -  but why didn't somebody tell me how many knitting websites and blogs there are?  Good gravy, I could sit here around the clock for the next century and never get caught up!  The internet, it turns out, is hog heaven for knitters! Who knew?

And  -  I found a local knitting group within a reasonable distance, and when I tentatively e-mailed them asking if they were open to new people, I got such a warm welcome!  They meet every Thursday evening at a local (well, fairly local) coffee shop, so guess where I'll be?  I've been feeling like a bit of an inadvertent hermit lately, and I think this will be good for me.  I'll get out of the house for something besides necessary errands, I'll make new friends who actually understand when I mutter no, idiot, it's k2 then psso, and I might even get some Christmas gifts made.  At least, that's the plan.  

Do you think they'll still like me if I tell them I get all my yarn at Value Village?