I'm Back!

We had a lovely time at Shell Cottage.  I was terribly sorry to leave so soon, but Norbert had an afternoon bat mitzvah to attend, so leave we did.


I suppose you'd like a little more info than that.  Let's see.  Monday was sort of an easy day.  Norbert slept in, but Myfanwe and I acted like adults and only slept an hour (me) or two (Myfanwe) later than usual.  We made a trip or two outside -- to the orchard for a big bag of peaches and a mess of corn -- but other than that, we were lazy.  We went to the library -- I checked out another Foxfire book and a book on calving for persons involved in bovine husbandry.  We had lunch in the village Saloon -- which we never would have done six months ago, but thanks to the new smoking ban in Michigan, we can and do avail ourselves of the vittles served up by our neighborhood publicans.  In the afternoon I knit more on the Eiffel Tower Shawl -- I'm nearing the end of the 2nd Chart and will then do a repeat of it to create a large shawl.  I sort of remember napping a lot, which must have been more tiring than it sounds, because I had to go to bed early!

Tuesday we kept to basically the same schedule.  I slept an hour later than usual, Myfanwe slept two, but Norbert only slept three hours later than usual because we were going on an adventure.  The three of us went kayaking on the Galien River.  (River does sound a bit more...um...mobile than this body of water.  We were told that the return didn't take any longer because there was "zero current".)  Anyway, it was beautiful, peaceful, and a bit of a thrill.  I was a little worried I wouldn't be able to do it.  But I could!  And we saw a beautiful, big Blue Heron at pretty close range!  He flew out of the reads about 20 feet ahead of us and flew down the middle of the rive so we could get a really look.

Wednesday we drove to Shipshewana, Indiana for the Flea Market, the Antique Auction, and -- my favorite -- E & S Sales, the best Amish general store in the Midwest!  I bought stone-ground course whole wheat flour, unbleached all-purpose flour, and bread flour (all grown in Indiana by people the owner knows, milled locally, and all carrying kosher certification!), six pounds of SAF Instant Yeast, raw honey, beef ring bologna, and various pickled veggies.  We ate at the Auction House Restaurant -- we all ordered the chicken & noodles special and Norbert & I split a piece of peanut butter pie.  Michelle bought an old 12-light window with frosted panes which she is going to hang in our bedroom at the cottage and use to frame photos from our trip to Ireland.  She's going to mount one photo in each of the panes of glass, and hang it where she can look at it from bed.  (She really misses Ireland.)

Thursday we went to St. Joseph, Michigan to Silver Beach, possible the finest beach on a Great Lake.  It really is a stunning beach, clean, orderly, with benches in the shade along the periphery and a few shaded picnic tables for lunch.  Myfanwe had packed a picnic, so we availed ourselves of the shade.  It had warmed up nicely -- it was, for the first time all year, a little cooler than normal -- but warm air does not necessarily mean warm water.  When Myfanwe says it's cold, it's COLD!  After the beach we walked around downtown St. Joe, including and especially Kelwins's Ice Cream & Candy!  Yum!  I had two scoops -- 1 cappachino chocolate chip and the other toasted coconut.  I would like to go back every day for the rest of my life, please!  SO delicious!

Friday.  Hmm.  Norbert and I started off the day with another kayak excursion.  Myfanwe begged off.  The river was beautiful again -- though I can't move a quickly as Norbert can -- he flies!  We need to find another person to go with us who can move at the same speed so we aren't holding Norbert back.

We made another library crawl.  Norbert had to collect his prize.  He entered the summer reading contest which offered a prize to the top 5 readers and a Grand Prize for the reader who read the most minutes over the summer.  Noah felt a little handicapped, since he only had 3 weeks to read and keep track of time before he left for camp, and he was volunteering full time at his school's preschool during those weeks.  But he really focused on reading and keeping meticulous time records.  The outcome?  Norbert read 43 hours 15 minutes, besting his nearest competitor by 6 hours and some odd minutes.  His Grand Prize?  $50.

After that Myfanwe and Norbert went to the beach in New Buffalo while I went and had a visit with our friend Jaye, who was our realtor when we bought Shell Cottage.  I enjoy her very, very much, so that was a big treat.  When I left Jaye's office, I staked out a little bench on the main, boardwalky sort of street and sat in the shade and knit.  If there is a better way to spend an hour, I don't know what it is!

This morning I started off by going to a friend's to meet her new goat, Posie.  Posie is a real looker!  I'm completely smitten.  I thought she was so cute that I felt her up at the first opportunity!  Yes!  Me!  Milking a goat!  It isn't as easy as it looks, but I did it, and I plan to get better in the future.  Posie is a very patient young goat and forgiving by nature.

After I go home, we ran to the orchard again for more peaches and some apples this time.  I do love quality produce!  These are the last peaches we will have for the season, so I'm sorry to see them go, but with the end of the peaches we should also soon see the end of the heat, so I can start backing some apples pies and cakes!

I know there are no pictures.  And that's because I can't find my camera.  I took a whole bunch of pictures with my phone, but then my phone died a horrible death while kayaking.  At least it was quick, that's all I can say.  (And thank Bob our contract is up and we are all going to get new phones, maybe as early as tomorrow.)

Good night.  I'll write again soon.

What Do I Do Now?

We had a guest for Shabbat -- Norbert's best friend, Leroy.  Knowing how much Leroy likes lox -- he really can eat a pound without noticing -- I picked up a pound of Nova at the grocery yesterday.

This morning I put out a spread of soft baby pita. homemade fromage blanc, lox, diced read onion, tomatoes, and blueberries.


Leroy arrived at the breakfast table, asked for cereal, and then ate a bowl of (dry) cereal instead.

We leave for a week at Shell Cottage tomorrow.  What in the hell am I going to do with a pound of lox?  Did I mention I don't LIKE lox?  Oi!

Knitting Needles and Tools Reviewed

Knitting Needles and Tools Reviewed

I don't like charts, so I would never use this, but this is an easy, inexpensive way to create charted patterns. $6! Who'da thunkit?

It's Not the Same as a Trip to Paris

...but it will have to do for now.  Last Thursday I cast on the Eiffel Tower Shawl, which was inspired by the iron work detail in the tower.  I'm half-way through the second chart, and enjoying it.  It is, for the most part, an easy, mindless knit -- which is exactly what I need right now!  The end border will be more involved, which I am sure I will enjoy as well.

Norbert is home from camp.  He grew two inches while at camp and is now 2 inches taller than I.  And he is only 13!  His return is much appreciated -- I didn't realize how much I rely on him for the tie breaking vote on things like going out for Vietnamese or buying ice cream for dessert!  All joking aside, he is a good boy and I am so glad to have him back.

Next week is vacation.  The three of us are going to Shell Cottage.  We'll spend one day in Shipshewana, Indiana, but other than that we plan to stick around and go to the beach, go kayaking, and lay around and read a lot.

While on the subject of books, let me recommend a couple I have really enjoyed:  "The Good Good Pig" by Sy Montgomery is at the top of this year's list.  I enjoyed it immensely and it really touched me deeply.  I'm also re-reading "Miss Mary Bobo's Boardinghouse Cookbook.".  I love the unfussiness of the comfort food.

Gotta run.  Have fun.  Be good.  Stay well.

HOW 'S ABOUT A QUICKIE?

Myfanwe and I spent the weekend together at Shell Cottage sans Norbert, who is at camp. We went to hear Uncommon Folk at the band shell in the park and took a wonderful picnic of grilled pork (don't tell my Rabbi), sliced tomatoes, marinated green beans, some perfect melon, lemonade, and peach cobbler. We ran into a former colleague of Myfanwe's, Fakurdi, and her husband and son and ended up staying well after the concert was over. If the mosquitoes hadn't gotten so thick, I think we would have stayed even longer! They have a house nearby, so we'll be able to take up again soon.

So. This spring we had all the raggedy bushes in front of Shell Cottage ripped out and I planted 6 hedge roses (Rosa Rugosa) in front of the house. I wanted a low maintenance, healthy rose. When the roses came, they really looked like nothing more than sticks poking out of the ground. Not a surprise -- I knew and was expecting it. And I expected that they would bloom for the first time next year or possibly even the year after. So you can imagine my reaction to this:

I hope it will be in bloom when we are there next. If it is, I'll update the pics! Have a good week!

I Have No Excuse.

Except to say that I've been having a good time.

I've been chided in comments, in e-mail, and in person. Please accept my sincere apology and know that I've missed you, as well.

Let's see. Since we last spoke, we've done our best to spend 2.5 days a week at Shell Cottage. More if we can. The spring was kind of cool and wet, which didn't stop us from enjoying much! It made the grass a bit harder to cut, but not for long. Because right behind the cold and wet Spring came the hot and wet summer. (We've had good luck, though, with cutting the grass. Only one weekend so far was too wet each to find a window of opportunity to mow.)

When I said hot, by the way, I wasn't kidding. More days over 80 degrees than in any summer since they started keeping records. Our guest room isn't air conditioned, which has cut down on summer company a little -- but not entirely. (One weekend Norbert slept on the floor in our bedroom, and another Myfanwe and I slept in Norbert's room while he was at camp. We took turns -- one of us in the bed, the other on an inflatable twin mattress.)

Just in time for Flag Day we found a piece of folk art that we love and had to have. (It is made from remnants of now demolished Three Oaks barns!)

Flag Day, which is a major holiday in Three Oaks, Michigan, was great fun. We had an open house and friends and neighbors filled the house up, ate, drank, then watched the Flag Day parade.
I have started making my own cheeses -- fromage blanc and chevre. It has been too hot to bake much, but I did find a wonderful recipe for Amazing Corn Cake in a Nebraska 4-H cookbook that I'm very happy with.

Norbert, Myfanwe, the pets and I are all happy and healthy. M & I are working a LOT, but feel lucky to have jobs. And lucky to have jobs that challenge us. Norbert is at camp until the 14th -- we miss him lots, but also are so glad to know he's having so much fun.

I've got to run and take a cake out of the oven. Stay well. I'll try not to take so long between posts. Love. Peace. Cake.

Quick Update

Um. Where to start.

Work. Work. Work. Work. That pretty much tells the story of Monday to Thursday.

Friday. Worked -- a little bit longer than planned, but still out of the office in time to run home, throw the dog and the food into the (already packed) car, drive back downtown to pick up Myfanwe, and make it Norbert's school by 2:30.

We arrive at Shell Cottage in late afternoon, and I immediately started mowing the lawn because I wanted to get it cut before it started raining. I got the front law mowed before the rain came down, and it rained the whole rest of the weekend, so I never got to finish the back. It's going to be a bear to mow next Friday.

We had chicken, onions, mushrooms and sweet potatoes roasted with white wine and rosemary for dinner. It was ok. Norbert loved it. The boy is ALL about the mushrooms.

Saturday I woke with a migraine. Lots of meds and an ice bag later it was manageable, and coffee helped keep it at bay for the rest of the day. Which was good, as I had a lot to do. The rain was nice, soothing, and I loved knowing that the roses were being watered by G-d. That way I don't have to tote buckets. (Have I failed to mention that this house has no spigot to take water to the outside? No. Really! None.)

Mitzi had an appointment with the vet in Three Oaks. Mitzi needed her rabies vaccine and she desperately needed to have her nails trimmed. (Click Click Click all through the house!) It's so much easier to walk her over to the vet in Three Oaks than to drive downtown and park. The vet in Three Oaks is a quiet, pleasant man and I really liked that he apologized to Mitzi when he stuck his thermometer up her Hoopdeedoo. I also liked that the bill was half as much as in Chicago. We will definitely be repeat customers.

After the vet, we decided that Mitzi stank and needed a bath, so we drove a few miles to the town of Bridgman, which has a do-it-yourself dog was and feed store. Plastic aprons donned, we proceeded to wash and condition, rinse and dry poor Mitzi. She is such a good dog. I'm sure if I'd been poked and pinched and stuck with a needle, had something stuck up my folderol and then been dunked in water, well, let's just say that I wouldn't be happy about it. Mitzi is, above all, forgiving.

Saturday night there was a hog roast at the American Legion hall, the proceeds of which benefit the Three Oaks Flag Day Parade. Flag Day in Three Oaks is a very, very big deal. If you were taking your ACT, the correct answer would be, "Flag Day is to Three Oaks as the Tournament of Roses is to Pasadena." Or possibly, "Flag Day is to Three Oaks as Mardi Gras is to New Orleans." It's part of the life force -- the spirit of the place.


Sunday I made my favorite coffee cake. In the cookbook put out by the Women's Axillary of the Three Oaks American Legion it is called the Walton's Mountain Coffee Cake. Paula Dean has a variation -- which is really just the Walton's Mountain recipe without the 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon. (And, to be totally honest, it is better with the cinnamon.) I also increase the nuts and mess with the brown sugar, so I guess this is MY version, and I'm going to call it the Three Oaks Coffee Cake.

Three Oaks Coffee Cake

• 3/4 cup chopped pecans, divided
  
• 18 knobs of frozen white dinner roll dough
  
• 1 pack (4 serving-size) NON-instant butterscotch pudding mix
• 1/4 cup packed light brown sugar
• 1/4 cup packed dark brown sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
  
• 1 stick butter, melted
  

• Generously grease a 10 in fluted tube pan.
• Sprinkle 1/2 cup pecans in the bottom of the pan.
• Arrange the frozen dough balls on top of the pecans.
• Sprinkle pudding mix over dough balls.
• Sprinkle brown sugars and cinnamon over the pudding.
• Sprinkle remaining nuts.
  
• Drizzle with melted butter.
• Cover with plastic wrap and leave to rise on the counter for 8 to 10 hours or refrigerate for 12 to 24 hrs.
• Uncover and bake 350 degree oven about 35 minutes or till top is golden brown.
• Let cool 5 minutes before inverting coffee cake onto a good size serving tray.
• Let stand for 10 minutes before serving.

I really love that all of the work occurs the night before. And I love the flavor. SO delicious. And, yes, I understand that there are some food snobs who will turn up their noses at a recipe that calls for pudding mix. Feh. This coffee cake is one of the best things I have ever made. And I now make it almost every week. It's that good.

Gotta run.

I've Been Really, Really Busy

But that is really no excuse.

I've been doing the job of two people. Well, except for the 7 weeks when I had help. But he got a better offer and his last day was Good Friday. So I'm back to the job of two people.

When not at work, I've been enjoying Shell Cottage every possible moment. We try to go three weekends out of the month. I've done quite a bit of gardening and can't wait for high season so I can see everything going wild and blooming! I've discovered an absolutely huge..um...vine doesn't seem immense enough, but that's what we'll call it for now -- vine of wisteria growing through/over/in a spray of pine trees in the back yard.! My neighbor, DeeDee, says it is gorgeous in bloom.

One of the trees in the side yard is blooming! I don't know what kind of a tree it is, but it is beautiful!

The other tree in the side yard is the bottle tree. We are up to 12 bottles. Norbert gave me an early Fathers' Day present -- three unusual bottles, including red and yellow, which are unusual colors. You can just see the red bottle near the top of the pic above. DeeDee says the tree will bloom soon, as well, and that the blooms are white. If you have any weird bottles -- unusual colors, shapes, etc. -- send them to me! Nothing makes me quite as happy as adding another bottle to the tree.

We also have a shrub, above, blooming in the back yard. Again, I don't know what it is, but it is pretty.

As for the front yard, all of the raggedy bushes have been pulled, the roots dug up, and 6 hedge roses planted in their place. It looks like six twigs have been stuck in the ground, but give it two or three years and they will be spectacular with blooms of pinkish red. (And in the fall, brilliant orange hips!) This past weekend Myfanwe and I put down landscape fabric around the roses and then a good, thick layer of mulch.

Knitting

I'm a little bitter about knitting, but trying to get past it.

I will not have the Cathedral Window Shawl finished in time for the State Fair. Early in the year I had scheduled to take a class at an LYS on knit-on lace edging, since it seems fairly difficult to learn from written instructions. But then, four days before the class, the LYS called, mortified, to say that the teacher's "scheduler" had inadvertently scheduled two events in two different states for the same day. The class was rescheduled, but -- such is my luck -- for a date I couldn't be there. So I'm going to have to put it on the back burner for a bit until I can find a teacher who can teach me.

I hated the Rose Leaf curtains (more than I can say) and ripped back almost to the beginning and decided to design my own using stitch patterns from books. It's only through one repeat and I already know I like it more.

More later. Please don't forget me!

5.5!

We spent the weekend at Shell Cottage, where I was able -- for the first time in weeks -- to have genuine, guilt-free knitting time! And the result?

5.5 rows in 36 hours! That's 6347 stitches! And -- given work demands and the rigors of planning for the bar mitzvah -- I had been averaging half a row a day!

I have 8 rows left before the edging. And I can't begin the (1154 rows) edging until after I learn how to do it. And I won't learn how to do it until April 10th, when I am taking a class on Knitted Lace Edging from Franklin Habit at Loopy Yarns.


So when the body of the shawl is done, I am going to break my "One Project At A Time" rule and cast on a curtain for the front door of Shell Cottage. I have decided to knit Marianne Kinzel's Rose Leaf Curtain (above) in a butter-yellow cotton yarn that will take to starching. Mine will be probably a foot longer than that pictured, but I am going to stick with three repeats of the motif at the bottom. I don't want anything too fussy.

Over. Done. He's a Man Now. Whew!

Things went very smoothly, Norbert did an exceptional job. He chanted beautifully -- his voice only cracking 13 times. (I didn't count -- two 16 year old girls did!) But nothing phased him. He didn't even pause. He just kept chanting with precision.

Dinner and services on Friday were spectacular, and the luncheon after the bar mitzvah was well attended and we didn't run out of food. (Always a worry of mine.)

Sunday's boy/girl party went well -- the kids had fun, and that really was the whole point of the party.

There are no pictures from Friday or Saturday -- our synagogue considers cameras (as well as any electronic devices) to be prohibited on the Sabbath. Today we got Norbert to put on his bar mitzvah clothes, ride over to the synagogue, and let us take a few pictures.

He's a good boy.

We are tired, but pleased. It was a lot of work, but we love the kid, and that made it a lot easier. The friends who came to our aid -- cooking, setting tables, delivering things -- touched our hearts in a way I can't describe.

Tonight I pick up the knitting and get cracking! But probably won't get too much in. I'm going to have to turn in early -- tomorrow we are all back to work, and I'm plenty tired still.