Return to Lopez Island and other stories

Well, here it is a stormy, rainy Saturday afternoon, and it's raining like I have not seen in a long time.  So, I've done some knitting, some sewing, cleaned the kitchen up from the mess we made last night with our Thursday night dinner party that was on Friday.

And now, I will blog while DH watches football.  I haven't even gotten dressed today.  Yesterday I vowed to spend the day doing nothing, and I'm succeeding to a slight extent.

 

Last week, Terry and I went to Lopez Island again, because the tides were good for clam digging.

When I dig for clams, I get down on my hands and knees, right in the hole, and really enjoy myself, as you can see.

Each day we filled a large bucket 3/4 full.

 

 

 

 

I'm trying to show off how dirty I am here.  I hosed it all down when we got back to the cottage, with me still wearing it, and left all the clothes in the sun to dry for the next day.  In fact, where we stay is so secluded, we stripped all the way down to our birthday suits and hosed off before we went inside for showers.

 

 Below, I am filling the bucket with clean water so the clams can spit out all the sand.

After clam digging, we rowed the boat out and set 4 crab pots.  The next day, we pulled up 14 crabs!!!  Then we dug clams again.  We have lots of crabfeeds and clam chowders in our future.

We didn't do any hiking this trip.  All the work we did really wore us out.  We went into the Village for lunch the first day, and I felt surreal.  It was like being on a movie set.  Folks were walking along the streets, riding bikes, and one lady went buzzing by on her brand new Candy Apple Red Moped.

No body lives like this.  It's like a dream

Meanwhile, I have been spinning up a storm, and have finally started to enter items on my Etsy Store.  It is Alpacalady.  I'd like to change it to Fiberfabrications, but I can't.  Oh, well, I will be known as the alpacalady by many people for a long time.

Here is the link to my shop:  https://www.etsy.com/shop/alpacalady

I will be a vendor in a Fiber Show coming up in October, which I'm excited about.

Here is the link if you are interested in attending Fiber Fusion Northwest.

http://www.fiberfusion.net/

 

On another note, I raised a Stevia plant this year.  I pulled it up by the roots and hung it in the Man Cave to dry.  I later learned that it is a perennial, so I  bought two more plants.  I took about one Tablespoon full of the dry leaves and placed them in a coffee filter.  I tied it shut and boiled it in a cup and a half of water.  Like making a simple sugar.  I'm keeping it in the refrigerator and it will provide sweetener for my coffee for a week.

Finally, I don't think my niece reads my blogs.  This is the finished quilt top for her that I just completed this week.  Now the hard part begins.  And, I have three more quilts to get made.  If it's a long rainy winter, that won't be a problem.

Three Sisters and other bits of trivia

 

 

This portion of our little garden is called Three Sisters.  I learned about it this past Spring at the Community Center Outdoor Festival.  You plant corn, beans and squash together.  They provide benefits for each other, such as stalks for the beans to climb, and moist shaded roots.  The corn looked really pathetic until a few weeks ago, and now we are getting enough beans for a dinner for 2-6 every day.  I think I planted pumpkins under it all.  We'll have to wait awhile longer until I can find something growing.

 

 

So come along, and I will show you the rest of the yard.  It won't be as amazing and unique as what I had at the farm, but I'm very proud of what we have achieved this first year.

 

I got this wonderful Tonka truck filled with sedums at the Burien Farmer's Market.  I love Farmer's Markets.  Great finds, and wonderful people to talk to.

 

Sedums in a large metal cup on an old silver plated coffee stand.

 

These are the blueberries.  I'm attempting to propogate them myself so we can have more and save the cost of buying them.  I used to propogate Hydrangeas, so I should do will with these.

My sunflowers. 

The heads are HUGE.  I wanted to create a screen between our yard and the neighbors.  It worked.  Now I have to think of what to do that is more permanent and has fullness year round.

This is the fig tree I bought this past

Spring.  It was just a little stick, so I'm quite pleased with it's progress.  Have you tried blue cheese with fig jelly, or honey on crackers?  To die for.  And, I make a fig sauce for pizzas.

 

I can't believe it's been over a week since I started this.  Time gets away from me.
The weather here continues to be unseasonable warm, and it only gets into the 60's at night.  The gardens, however, know that fall is coming, and it's cleanup time.  I'm excited about having the greenhouse so we can raise lettuce, spinach and carrots this winter.  We are waiting for cooler days to get in there to organize things.  Right now, it's so hot in there you can't bear it for more than a few minutes.
And, the darn tomatoes continue to ripen, so I need to tend to them today and make more puree to can.