Well, I don't have the job, but I guess I have the habit. This is the start of the second year here.


tis a beautiful late summer morning. the crickets are singing and an occasional bird does a solo. I've been working on getting some elderberries and rose petals ready to make dye. Every batch is so different, it will be interesting to see what I get.

Stan is getting a nice long nap this morning, so I guess I'll go out and enjoy the sunshine before it gets lost behind the clouds coming in.



rose petal, 3 shades of goldenrod and elderberry

Those are lovely, soft colors.

I agree that the colors are very pretty.

I hope you stick around Kathleen!

Very nice colors! I make juice and jelly from my elderberries, you dye cloth. Do you use vinegar and salt to set the colors? What will you make with all of those fabrics? Ha, better that Stan does his napping at home rather than at church where a few of the dairy farmers always fell asleep in the service in a church we attended about 50 years ago. The community had a lot of dairy farms, and a lot of Dutch families with names like Boersema and Van Dyke. They and their families filled up whole pews. The minister's sermons were too long, so mid way through we started seeing heads nod and hear an occasional snore or snort when the wife applied her elbow to her husband's ribs. Of course the men had all been up since about 3 or 4am, and after milking and breakfast...... they relaxed. The wives always seemed to stay awake!

The Vos family next door to us had been farming there on the edge of town for ? years, while the town built up all around them. They had 9 children. The oldest one was a boy, the next a girl, and after that a whole string of boys. The girl kept hoping for another girl to help her with her work. The boys all helped their dad in the barn and fields. The farm is gone now, it's all houses. I really hate to see that happen to good farmland.

The county where we live was almost entirely rural 25 years ago. Now it has become a huge bedroom community for nearby Houston. Farms and ranches have given way to these artificial suburbs built by developers and called subdivisions: hundreds of big houses plopped down in the middle of nowhere and given some fancy neighborhood name like "Pecan Grove". Sure there once were pecan trees there, but they cut them all down so they could build all the houses. Where do all the people come from?

They stick those houses so close together. I don't know how people can stand it. But then I watch shows like House Hunters on HGTV and many of those people looking for homes don't even want a yard.

They are all silk scarves that will be used in a workshop I'm giving at the local Audubon Society. We'll be pounding leaves on them.





This is one I made last year, before I knew what I was doing. It is beet juice and then leaf pounded. I didn't set it properly the first time, so had to do some more pounding, hence the ghosts.

When you set them, berry dyes are set with salt and vegetable dyes are set with vinegar. I use an alum mordant on the scarves before I dye them.

Pounding leaves - literally? I know nothing about the whole fabric dyeing process.

I love the leaves, colors are all pretty.

Kathleen, when you have time, please explain more about it. That's a nice moon picture you are using for your avatar. Our sun and moon have recently had interesting pinkish colors because of smoke from forest fires.

Yep, literally pound the leaves, or flowers, into the fabric. You tape the plant matter onto the back of the fabric, turn it over and hammer until you have the look you want. It works best with thinner flowers and leaves. Pansies are quite wonderful and maple, birch and similar leaves work well. You have to prepare the fabric as if you were going to dye it naturally, as that is what you are doing. I wrote an article about it once for someplace else.

Oh, and you all really are very nice for the thumbs up and the wishes that I hang around. I may be occasionally scarce, but I'll be around.

I'm here.............off to try my hand at making naan in our neighbors new clay pizza oven. wish me luck. LOL

Kathleen, I found the article. The colors are amazingly vivid. It looks like a fun project, thanks!

I love the scarf. The leaves are beautiful!

I thought I could keep summer squash going till the end of September but that is looking less and less likely every day. Yesterday I pulled and tossed three, today pulled and tossed two. They look so ratty from the powdery mildew that I am sure more will follow. But I pulled due to the fact these showed the typical wilt that comes from SVB. Just don't feel like fussing with the squash plants like I do earlier in the season. Plus the stems on the gone ones were so anemic, not then nice green they should be at all.

Veggies can look really pretty!

Tuesday and Wednesday were in the upper 80s, yesterday near 80. Today, September has shaken itself off and straightened out - high of 52, maybe.

Stan and the girls got the two loads of second cutting(third?) off the wagons. Now he's talking about mowing up to Melissa's to see if he can get some second cutting off for her to sell.

We are keeping the cows "The hard work is all done! Hays all in and the silos were full, we are going to keep them." okaaaaaaaaaaaay

I've been picking lima beans and need to go through and do a better job - maybe there will be enough to freeze some. The gardens are all looking over grown. I have autumn asters all over the place and they and the tall native sunflowers and the goldenrod are making the yard bright.

addendum: said cows decided that they needed a romp in the misty cloudy cold. yay

Sounds like Stan wants to keep those cows!

Keeping the cows, ok, I hope that works out.

We had some rain overnight, not much but it sure raised the humidity! According to the weather records, at 85 yesterday we were 12 degrees above normal for Sept 12, and 10 degrees warmer overnight. Forecasters say the snow level will be down to 6,000 ft in another night or two. So far our lowest temp has been 45. I hope frost holds off for a while because I still have a lot of green tomatoes and there is still plenty of corn left to finish maturing. Something has caused brown, shriveled kernals in my corn. Bugs? I find bugs on the outside but none inside the husks. There is no sign of mold. We are just eating around the brown ones.