Shaggymane Season

Day 359: I'd gone out of the house at a dead lope, hurrying to get down to the pharmacy before they ran out of vaccines again, and other than grabbing a "perhaps bag" and sticking it in a day-pack, did not really consider what else I might need. Halfway to Eatonville, I said, "Oh, dang. I think there's a 'shroom knife in here someplace," and there was, tucked in the console. It wasn't until I got out of the car at the trailhead and started up the hill that I realized I didn't have a hat. I never go out without a hat, and the problem was that I was walking into the sun and it was blinding me. I got up to my Shaggymane patch, looked in all the usual places, didn't see anything, and then continued on up the hill to check a second site. There was nothing there either, so I turned around and started down. Now that I was facing away from the sun, I saw what I hadn't seen before: a nice cluster of a dozen or so 'shrooms just begging to be cream-of-shaggy soup. I'd gone right past them! The biggest one had begun to turn to ink, so I left it, and there were quite a few end-of-thumb sized caps poking up through the grass, too small to pick. If the rain doesn't ruin them, there'll be another batch of soup next week.

Forest Gold

Day 358: Like the old prospector said, "There's gold in them thar hills!" And there are more chanterelles in that basket than you might think. I know. I ate them all as one lunch fry-up, and was still too full at dinnertime to eat my regular meal. Admittedly, I had to hit three different spots to collect them all, but as is my usual wont, I left enough behind to seed future generations. Mushroomers are very protective when it comes to sharing locations where "forest gold" can be mined. I've lost too many sites when they were discovered by commercial pickers who harvest 'shrooms right down to pea-sized buttons. I probably should have divided this lot into a fry-up plus a bowl of soup, my usual limit for harvesting, but I didn't. I just sauteed them in butter with a little minced garlic, seasoned them with salt and pepper and pigged out.

A Measure Of Success - Hardy Kiwis

Day 357: Sometimes even small successes are cause for celebration. Yes, my horticultural efforts finally resulted in a micro-harvest of hardy kiwis, and I think the key to ripening them on the vine was a night just short of a frost. They are roughly the size of raspberries, and eminently juicy and sweet, perhaps surpassing their larger cousins (at least those available in the grocery store) for flavour. The chipmunks nibbled a few while they were still hard, but for the most part, most of what hung on the vine through the heat of summer was undamaged. There are still some firm ones out there, almost as many as you see here...a small beginning, but proof nevertheless that my purportedly self-fertile vines ("Issai") actually do make fruit without a second variety to serve as a pollinator.

The Gatorade Method

Day 356: When I first began weaving, I had an assistant to help with warping in the person of my husband. "Help" is perhaps a mis-statement, because although I had heard that combing that warp with the fingers to straighten out tangles was a bad idea, he refused to listen to my instructions and we invariably wound up with a mass of thread spaghetti after only a few yards had been wound onto the warp roller. Once he was out of the picture, I had to devise a way to warp solo, and came up with what I jokingly call "The Gatorade Method." I saved up empty 16-ounce bottles, tied loops around their necks, loaded them with equal weights of water (which, I might add, can be changed depending on how tightly you want to wind the warp), and fastened my warp bundles to them so that they were barely suspended above the floor. Obviously, the bundles have to be retied roughly ever two feet, but the system allows me to wind the warp under even tension. When moving the bottles, I untie one, shake out the warp as if I was "giddyapping" a horse, then re-tie it and move to the next bundle. On a warp 16-24" wide, ten bottles is usually enough. Re-tied every two feet on a 24' warp...well, you get the idea. It's a lot of re-tying, but thread spaghetti is no longer an issue. And this warp, destined to be an overshot holiday tablecloth, is now ready to be threaded through the heddles.

October Weave-Along Towels

Day 355: Well, here they are: three shadow-weave towels and a "file sample," off the loom but not yet wet-finished, and I have to laugh at myself. I got so carried away with the rhythm of dark-light, dark-light that I completely forgot to put the yellow weft stripe in the last two. Shadow weave is fun! These were woven at 24 epi, more closely spaced than I usually weave with 8/2 cotton. There isn't much room for fulling here. I think 18-20 epi would be a better sett. The height of the vertical pattern rectangles is greater than the width of the horizontal ones, i.e., I did not achieve a balanced weave of 24 throws per inch, the preferred result for shadow weave when perfectly square motifs are the goal. Even so, the weave gives such a compelling optical effect that in this case, a balanced weave was not really mandatory. Widening the sett for this pattern would elongate the horizontal rectangles to the correct proportions. Switching to 10/2 cotton would also achieve the same end because it would beat more firmly. But they're towels, right? And this was my first time playing with shadow weave, thanks to Chris Acton's "October Weave-Along." Next up: a holiday tablecloth in overshot, and it's already partway hung on the loom.

The Joe Stick

Day 354: Four years ago, my botany partner Joe posted a photo of a blue-green fungus he had found in the watershed where he worked. We identified it as Chlorociboria aeruginascens, and at the time, I remarked that it was something I'd always wanted to see in person. A few weeks later, he showed up on my doorstep with a stick which was lightly encrusted with a blue film. "It doesn't look like much now. I think it dried out after I collected it," he told me. Given the habitat he reported in the area where he found it, I selected a spot for it in my front flower bed which offered similar conditions. Summer came and went, and a few weeks after the autumn rains had returned, I checked on the "Joe Stick" and was pleased to see it had sprouted cute little aqua blue cups. It has fruited every year since then, although the flush of fungal growth seems to be diminishing with each cycle. Still, I'm happy to have kept it going this long as one of my oddest horticultural projects.

Socktober

Day 353: It...Sock...Tober. The first snow dusted Elbe Hills last week, and if I'd gone out an hour earlier this morning, I might have found a few patches of frost in the colder parts of the yard. The cucumber vine blackened, having given me precisely one cucumber, and the leaves on the mulberry (ever fruitless) are beginning to look rather limp. While the garden is in its throes, the vine maples are celebrating. Although I can't quite label this a "Red Year," they're coming close. Multiple conditions determine whether Acer circinatum turns red, orange or yellow, or whether it goes straight to brown, and the formula is too complex for mere humans to figure out. I'd call this year "mahogany." There's enough red in it to satisfy any leaf-peeper's soul even though it's not as fiery as it sometimes is. But it is definitely Socktober. My toes can attest to that.