Columbine Collection

The flower bed beneath my east window is the prettiest it's ever been this year with many plants in bloom all at once. Even though the peonies are past their prime and the delphiniums having retired of their own volition after 35 years of service, the whole bed is a live with colour as displayed by the columbines. This old-fashioned favourite provides a backdrop of foliage even after the blooming season is over. Trim the flowering stems back, leaving graceful mounds of leaves, and save the seeds! I've never managed to sprout them successfully indoors, but several have re-sown themselves in the garden. There's no such thing as too many columbines.

Sculptured Pine Borer, Chalcophora Angulicollis

There are times when discovery gets a little too exciting, for example, when you come in the house after working in the yard, scrubbing at an ear because a gnat is tickling you, only to find a much larger...significantly huger and ginormouser bug walking casually around your neck! This Sculptured Pine Borer (Chalcophora angulicollis) was easy to identify because of its size: a full 30mm by actual measure. That's one big bug! After knocking it off me and taking photos of it on the hearth, I contained it in a lidded petri dish long enough to assure myself of the identification. I think I must have disturbed it yesterday when I took out some old cedar fencing. There are no pines in close proximity, and it was not designated invasive or introduced, so after Merry had thoroughly investigated the petri dish and was contemplating releasing it himself, I let it go outside.

Nålbinding Slipper-socks

With everything else I've been doing, this Crow-original nålbinding project went by the wayside, and I really hoped to get it done in time to put in the Puyallup Fair. But wait...! There's a problem. I can't find a Division to submit it under, let alone a Class! Obviously, it doesn't belong with Knitting or Crochet, and the closest I could come was an "Other" classification under a catch-all which seems primarily dedicated to embroidery. I even contacted the Fair, but they were no help.

So, lemme tell ya, that braid was a pain in the neck! I quickly discovered that the instructions I had for making it were not going to work well, so I designed another way to apply it, working each strand of the braid separately. Even that was a nightmare! I took the third row out of one sock twice before discovering that the reason it wasn't twining correctly was because I'd made a mistake in the second row. That experience taught me to run a "guide thread" through the legs of the braid to keep track of where I was supposed to weave over/under. But aren't they adorable? I think they were well worth the work.

Towel Day 2026

Do you know where your towel is? "...any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the Galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through and still know where his towel is, is clearly a man to be reckoned with."

I resisted the draw of Douglas Adams' books for many years, but when I finally gave in and read them in order to find out what the hoopla was all about, I found myself caught up in his web of words. Admittedly, sometimes I questioned his possible relationship with mind-altering substances, but there was something in his mad verbal meanderings and the (at times) nonsensical and tangential interludes in the books which had a magnetic appeal. I identified deeply with Arthur Dent, the hapless human in a situation clearly not of his own making, who craved desperately for one item of normality: a cup of tea amid the chaos. There is much in "A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" which is relevant in modern times, so I ask you again: Do you know where your towel is?

Medlar Flower

It's possible I may get a couple of medlars on my Mespilus germanica this year if the pollinators cooperate! The tree has half a dozen flowers in varying stages of openness. What's a medlar? It's a member of the Rose family, believe it or not, and the fruit resembles an outsized rose hip. But here's the catch: you can't eat them/make jelly out of them until they've begun to rot. Yep, you read that right. Once they've been hit with a light frost, they begin to soften, and once they're thoroughly mushy, they're ready to eat. You can pick them or gather them where they've dropped from the tree, and take them indoors to "ripen" during a process called "bletting." The taste is honey-like with a hint of citrus/rose. I haven't perfected making the jelly yet, but the batch which didn't set made a lovely, aromatic syrup to stir into vanilla yogurt. It also made a delicious glaze for my Christmas ham!

Gooseberry Bonanza

Take a gander at my goose...berries! I think this is going to be a record harvest! And a good thing, because not only is gooseberry jam my personal favourite, I've addicted my weaving partner to it. But he should be having his own gooseberries to harvest in a few years. I soil-layered a couple of starts for him last fall. Although you can't see the spines in this photo, picking gooseberries is hazardous and must be done with great care. And then there's the matter of topping-and-tailing each individual berry (i.e., cutting off the flower end and the stem) before you can make jam. There are no shortcuts, believe me! I harvest them as they ripen (a subjective matter, that...I pick when they first start to "give" a little when squeezed), and after I've topped-and-tailed them, I cut each one in two and freeze them. Then when the cooler fall weather sets in, I make jam.

In other garden news, I will also have a record crop of figs if all goes well. They're as big as the end of my thumb now, and there must be at least 40 on a six-foot tall tree. The kiwi vines are setting flowers, and I'm hoping the weather doesn't get too hot or too cold before they set fruit. On the other hand, I was terribly disappointed that my purple akebia did not produce a single female flower this year, so there will be no fruit there. The male purple flowers do not pollinate the white females.

Native Honeysuckle, Lonicera Ciliosa

The native honeysuckles are in bloom, and I couldn't resist taking a photo while I was walking on the Bud Blancher Trail. The orange one shown here is Lonicera ciliosa, and is probably the most common in the local area. It bears the uninspired common name of "Orange Honeysuckle." Other species of Lonicera may be white, cream, yellow, pink, purple, or various combinations of these colours, and may appear either as a vine or a small shrub. They are much loved by hummingbirds for the nectar held deep in their flowers. I have to admit that as a child, I was guilty of pinching off a blossom or two for a sweet treat. I left these for my little birdie friends.