Harvest Bounty

One of the parishioners at our Church brought us a huge box of apples - they are sweet tart cooking apples a lot like the ones at my Mom's house. They were always my favorite for eating right off the tree when I was growing up. Anyway, that was last Sunday and the box was sitting around the kitchen all week, making us feel guilty for not doing anything about it. So, yesterday about 3:00 PM we started peeling apples - there must have been at least 100. By midnight we had the juice finished and about 5 quarts of peeled and quartered apples in the freezer. We just didn't have the energy to make the jelly at midnight. So first thing this morning, I started cooking the juice and sugar:

4 cups Apple juice
2 T. Lemon juice
3 Cups Sugar

Pretty simple, eh?

These are the neat and orderly rows of pretty jelly. I should have taken a photo of the chaos that was mere minutes before this picture was taken. I think every pot in the house was dirty. Oh, the apple peeler corer that you can see on the counter is the BEST invention ever. I don't know how I ever managed without it. Not to mention that it's lots of fun. The Man and the Man-Cub both had a lot of fun with it, too.

Green Belt!

Last night the Man-Cub tested for his Green Belt in Tae Kwon Do. He did a super test and we're really proud of him. I think the best thing about TKD is that it's a sport where you do your personal best and you are not compared to other people.


















I didn't do any knitting during the test - I had a camera in one hand and a camcorder in the other. Right after the test, I had to leave to go to Scout Night. It went really well and we signed on about 12 new scouts. These were the tables I set up with all the Scouty Goodness I could pull together in about 10 minutes.

Hello World!

Remember when we used to write little BASIC programs that displayed "Hello World"? Oh well - that probably dates me. This is a brand new blog - it will be mostly about knitting and some about life and family and vegan food and outdoorsy stuff and biking, Cub Scouting, and what I'm reading, but mostly about knitting. Which is what I'm mostly doing.











































I just finished reading two of Jon Krakauer's books - Into the Wild - the tragic story of Chris McCandless and Into Thin Air - the tragic story of the 1996 disaster on Mt. Everest. Lest you think I only read tragic stories - I do like to read non-fiction and I like outdoor, sort of adventure stories but I've had enough tragedy for a while and right now I'm reading two hilarious books by Laurie Notaro - The Idiot Girls' Action-Adventure Club and the Autobiography of a Fat Bride. These are really funny.

It's funny how my knitting projects are divided by when and where I work on them. Socks always go to Tae Kwon Do class and I knit them while the Man-Cub has his class. I'm currently working on a sweatshirt for said Man-Cub which only goes to the library and the park on Saturdays. Then I have a perpetual - use up leftover yarn project - which I only work on in the big room while watching TV. It's really too big to be portable - though I might consider boxing it up and taking it on a long car trip, as it's a pretty mindless knit.

Right now I'm knitting more socks for winter - which is fast approaching.

So there's my first post. Bienvenue a mon monde!

BOOKS

September 2006: Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer

September 2006: Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer

September 2006: Grass of the Earth by Aagot Raaen

October 2006: The Idiot 's Action-Adventure Club by Laurie Notaro

October 2006: The Autobiography of a Fat Bride by Laurie Notaro

November 2006: Kon-Tiki by Thor Heyerdahl

November 2006: It's not about the Bike by Lance Armstrong

November 2006: The Making of a Southerner by Katherine Du Pre Lumpkin

November 2006: The Cloister Walk by Kathleen Norris

December 2006: Affluenza by John DeGraf, David Wann and Thomas Naylor

January 2007: The Bird Flu Book by Dr. Michael Greger

January 2007: National Geographic January 2007

February 2007: The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd

February 2007: National Geographic February 2007

February 2007: The House at Otowi Bridge: The Story of Edith Warner and Los Alamos by Peggy Pond Church

February 2007: O Ye Jigs & Juleps by Virginia Cary Hudson

March 2007: National Geographic March 2007

March 2007: Renoir, My Father by Jean Renoir

April 2007: Rachel Calof's Story by Rachel Calof - edited by J. Sanford Rikoon

April 2007: Two Old Women: An Alaska Legend of Betrayal, Courage and Survival by Velma Wallis

April 2007: National GeographicApril 2007

May 2007: Open Secrets: A Memoir of Faith and Discovery by Richard Lischer

May 2007: National GeographicMay 2007

June 2007: National Geographic June 2007

June 2007: Dakota: A Spiritual Geography by Kathleen Norris

July 2007: National Geographic July 2007

August 2007: National Geographic August 2007

August 2007: Sounder by William H. Armstrong

September 2007: National Geographic September 2007

September 2007: Fahrenheit 451by Ray Bradbury

Always: Field Guide to North American Birds by The Audubon Society