Double Wedding Ring

Day 352: The Double Wedding Ring quilt top is done, and now it moves to a new spot in the queue, to wait until I am done hand-quilting the Kittygons which are currently on the frame. This is how the process goes: a rotation consisting of one on the frame, one in waiting (possibly backed and batted), one being pieced, pieces for another being cut. Currently, the cycle has two empty slots (piecing and cutting) because I need a break, folks. I need to shift onto a new activity for a while. I think I may set up a project on the floor loom. It's been empty since I finished the overshot coverlet. I measured out some warp yesterday, intending to devote today to dressing the loom. We'll see how this goes. I am still nursing a painful shoulder, so I'm not making any promises.

Baker's Dozen

Day 351: Up until the moment this happened, I thought the Goldfinch Gang only had six members. There are at least thirteen in this photo, and I'm not sure there isn't a wee wink of a fourteenth head showing just to the left of the third bird from the left. These are mostly youngsters, some of which are still being fed by the parents. Their antics are hilarious, little wings trembling as they beg for food, vying with one another for space, learning to keep their balance, and of course coming to the shepherd's-hooks outside my window to remind me to refill the feeders. I'd been trying to capture at least five in one image and had the lens trained on the wire hoping that I was actually seeing six when a sudden flurry of yellow-grey swept in like thick mist. When it resolved into bird-shaped "droplets," there was my baker's dozen in perfect frame.

Dear Friends Stopped By

Day 350: Today, three dear friends unexpectedly stopped by for brunch, much to my delight. I seldom see Canada Jays (Perisoreus canadensis) at this elevation. They are common to the higher backcountry of the Park, and all backpackers know them well as pleading, irresistible beggars. I am almost certain that these three are the same birds who have come to visit my feeders in prior years, and I suspect they are a family unit. They never stay long, a week or two at most, but their presence for even a day or two gives me  great joy, as if they have come to tell me that they are looking after my beloved high country. I see them as bearing acknowledgements from the individual rocks and trees who are my spiritual kin and who know that I am no longer physically able to go to them instead. They bring with them memories of broad meadows, star-studded nights, pure stream waters, rocky peaks, and the better, best days of my life when I could find the precious commodity of solitude for only the expense of a few tired muscles. Would that I could follow them when they leave, for there is nothing so ingrained in my soul as backcountry. But they seem to know that, these visitors from the uplands, and they come to me with their tidings. If their stay is but brief, they carry back with them my love and gratitude for those peace-filled days.

A Fair Showing

Day 349: The results are in. I am pleased to announce that I took a second-place ribbon in "Weaving - Shawl, Stole or Shrug" and a FIRST PLACE in "Lace Openwork - Crochet Garments, Thread" in the Washington State Fair (Puyallup Fair). I had my doubts about the McLeod shawl taking a ribbon, knowing that I had not beaten the weft to be perfectly square in the yellow sections and, in fact, that was where I lost points although I still scored high enough to earn the second place in the category. The first place for the apron was a pleasant surprise, and when I went in to pick it up, two of the Fair officials came up to me to offer their compliments. A comment on the judges' score card said, "This is very eye-catching!" These were my only two submissions this year, and I'd say I put up a pretty Fair showing!

The Devil's Due

Day 348: "Are you sure you want to plant this in your yard?" Oh, if only I had picked up on the implied warning in that question, but I had seen Crocosmia "Lucifer" filling up waste space in other peoples' landscaping, and I couldn't resist the bright red panicles. I suspected the hummingbirds would share my enthusiasm for the flowers (in fact, they do), so I was deaf to the cautionary query, hearing only Lucifer's persuasive enticements. Devil that he is, he soon established himself in the flower bed, and it was only after I had spent diligent hours down on my prayer-bones that I was able to exorcise the evil I had brought to dwell amongst the gentle peonies and columbines. But again, I gave way to temptation (encouraged by those sinful little hummingbirds) and in a fit of backsliding, merely shifted the fiend to a new location where he was free to wreak any amount of havoc he so chose. The hummers are happy, and in that, I feel I have done sufficient penance for the transgression of inviting Lucifer into my garden.

Scrappy Stars Done!

Day 347: The Scrappy Stars quilt is done and ready to be delivered to a friend who doesn't have the faintest inkling that they are on the short list of people who need a quilt to remember me by. I love gifting special people with surprise quilts! I finished the hand-quilting this morning, attached my "made by Crow with love" label to the back, and threw it in the wash to remove the stitching guide lines for the geometric design I'd drawn with a washable graphite pencil, the final step in its creation. Admittedly, I've worked on other quilts in between and even completed several, but when Scrappy Stars went on the quilting frame to be hand-stitched roughly two months ago, it took the place of honour in the living room. A quilting frame occupies a substantial bit of space, and it only went back in the box for a few months after I finished a hexagon quilt for my botany partners. It's not likely to return to storage any time soon, either. I mounted the Kittygons on it even before Scrappy Stars went in the laundry. When they're done, Double Wedding Ring will move to center stage. There's a good reason I don't have TV. I have too much else to do to waste my time in front of a box.

Dehiscence

Day 346: Here's a good word for you to drop into the conversation at the next party you attend: dehiscence. Of course, if your party companions are the same kind of people I enjoy being around, no one will bat an eye, but that's another subject. The term comes directly to us from the Latin verb "dehiscere," "to split open or gape," which is exactly what certain seed pods do when ripe. Legumes are notorious for their ability to dehisc violently when fully dry, often throwing seed 25 feet or more from the parent plant. Others such as the slender siliques of Fireweed simply split and peel backwards to release their fluff into the breeze. On the other hand, indehiscent fruits such as sunflower seeds and acorns open only when the germinating seed begins to exert pressure from inside, or when the hard outer shell is weakened by some external factor (freezing, fire, moisture, etc.). In the case of Fireweed (Chamaenerion angustifolium, shown here), the teensy-tiny seed attached to the silky pappus is so hard that it still requires scarification by fire before it can sprout. It is often the first plant to emerge in clear-cut timber plots which have been burned over to remove debris. But do not assume that fluff and dehiscence equate. They do not. Although Fireweed siliques dehisc to release their seeds, the common dandelion is indehiscent, its fruit an achene, albeit attached to a silken parachute.

Autumn Wow

Day 345: A sure sign of Autumn's incursion, the vine maples are beginning to redden, and one of the best local displays is guaranteed to catch the eye of any hiker on the Park's Westside Road. At the base of Mount Wow's rugged slopes between Dry Creek and Fish Creek, the talus fields are covered with this native shrub. If you're thinking you'd say "Wow!" if you were standing here looking almost straight up, you'd be right in doing so, but wrong if you thought that was how the 5921' peak got its name. As the story goes, "wow" is a transliteration of a word from an indigenous language meaning "mountain goat," and indeed, the goats can often be seen precariously perched on the narrow ledges above the road. But there's one old goat who never made the summit of the massif, and probably never will. That's not to say I didn't make the attempt a few times, but never found a route which was not obstructed by dense vegetation or insurmountable cliffs. Still, were you standing here beside me, you might hear me say, "Wow!" I might be referring to the scarps above, or it might just mean I've spotted a sure-footed goat who has boldly gone where no Crow has gone before.

The Moochers

Day 344: You've heard me say it again and again: "There is nothing...absolutely nothing!...cuter than baby birds." In this case, it's half a dozen young Goldfinches who appeared as a group about five days ago as newly fledged, adorable fuzzballs with astonishing appetites. They gathered en masse on the shepherd's hook in the front flower bed, and when I didn't immediately look up from the computer, began flying to the window and flapping their wings gently against it. To be clear on a point here, they are not striking the window because they don't see it. It's less than a foot from the bend of the hook. I can't imagine that they aren't aware of the barrier and are trying to get inside. No, they are pointedly trying to get my attention. And it works. Sure enough, when I look up to see who's knocking, they'll be there, staring at me, trying to communicate by bird telepathy with the human they know is the Bringer of Food. A visual check of the feeders out the other window confirms it: empty. Whatever I am doing, it is laid aside so that I can fulfill my duties to my avian friends. In a few more hours, there will be another knock at the window, and I will again respond as my trainers expect. They've schooled me well.

A Good Excuse

Day 343: WARNING: this is not a happy essay. Read at your own risk.

I cannot recall the last time I turned back before reaching a hiking goal. Today I did it not once, but twice. In all honesty, it was probably unreasonable to expect success in reaching my first choice of destination. It involved cross-country travel in steep terrain, and I was only about a third of the way there when I decided I was asking too much from an injured shoulder. By the time I got to my car, I was already considering whether or not to head home to the ice pack which has been a nearly constant companion for the last two months. My stubborn streak chose that moment to exert itself, so I hooked my thumb in the waistbelt of my pack to take the weight off the arm and headed up the closed road on foot. In a mile or so, I came to an obscure, disused trailhead and this sign which, under normal circumstances would not have deterred me in the least, but I was already too hot and in too much pain to continue on more than a quarter mile. The sign suggested an excuse, so not even reaching the ginger patch I'd hoped to visit, let alone the suspension bridge another two miles in, I turned around and came out.

As I have mentioned to Kevin and others, this getting-old thing sucks. Between the pandemic, gas prices and people swarming into the backcountry like ants, I have not taken much exercise this summer, and my legs remind me of the fact every time I ask them to carry me anywhere. But it goes beyond that. The Queen's passing hit me hard. I watched her coronation. I watched her funeral. I am left with the overwhelming feeling that my era is near its close. I've seen a lot of "hazardous conditions" in my time, and I've grown weary of struggling to surmount them. I'm not sure I have the strength to keep putting one foot in front of the other much longer.

Slim Pickin's

Day 342: There's slim pickin's in the tomato department this year, and those which are just now coming off the vines are tough-skinned and less tasty than in years past, courtesy of too much sun and too little water. The Romas aren't much larger than the Sungolds, and the Sungolds are about half the size they should be. Here you see approximately two-thirds of the yield so far. No, it was not a good year for tomatoes, not in my garden. While I've noted a dearth of some crops (notably apples and basil, as friends have confirmed), there were some surprising abundances. The gooseberries did extremely well, and the raspberries seem set to follow their example. Blueberries? My bushes yielded precisely four dry, flavourless berries. That said, if I have to accept a tradeoff, I'll take gooseberries over tomatoes any day, although I do miss the "tomato candy" of the Sungolds.

Coin O' The Realm

Day 341: In her cabin, Morgan Corbye had spread on a coarse cloth what few coins remained from her last raid. If her quartermaster bought cheap, at most it would provide the crew of the Winged Adventure with a hard loaf or two and a scant handful of citrus fruits to stave off the scurvy. The sailors were no strangers to rough seas, metaphorical or literal, nor to short commons, but nonetheless, tempers were taut as rigging in a gale and as likely to snap when frayed by hunger. Weighed in the balance of her hand, the metal tipped the scales toward going ashore at Port Ryffe to risk a daylight raid smack beneath the pointed nose of Harbourmaster Beale, one of Capt. Corbye's principle adversaries. The ship put in to land some miles from the village in a tight cove closely guarded by forest. Morgan and two men set off on foot and in a few hours, were at the eastern edge of town. From her vantage point atop a bluff, she could see Beale on the docks, his cocked hat and swagger unmistakable even in the distance. Although the summer seas had not been kind to the pirate band, here Dame Fortune made up the shortfall for, as Capt. Corbye and her men left the concealment of the woodland, they came first upon a chicken yard behind a home rather larger than the others in the village. "By th' Lord 'arry," said Capt. Corbye, "a pot o' chicken stew would fill empty stummicks quite well, an' a spud or three if there's some about." A garden stood to one side of the poultry house, withered vines signalling that potatoes were ready for jigging, as indeed it seemed the absent gardener also had considered, for he had leaned a shovel against the garden gate in preparation for the work. Yet the hungry looters were to have a feast for their spirits as well as full bellies from this raid, as above the arched entrance to the garden hung a carven wood sign proclaiming it to be "Beale's Pleasance." Given this fortuitous discovery, the pirates felt compelled to have a much wider look at the homestead's inventory, and it was a full two weeks before Mr. Beale had identified everything which had gone missing.

First Fruits

Day 340: When you treat everbearing raspberries such as "Heritage" as if they were fall-bearing, you get a higher yield than if you allowed them to produce both a crop both spring and fall. The "treatment" means that you brutally mow them flat after they're done bearing. The growth which emerges the following spring will be entirely primocanes ("primo-" meaning "first") which in the fall behave like floricanes ("flori-" meaning "flowering") and produce fruit in the late season. The two-crop alternative is to prune back this year's floricanes when they've done their job, retaining the primocanes so that they will be floricanes in the spring. But as I mentioned earlier in this essay, that means you'll have a smaller yield overall. Another bonus to treating everbearing bushes as fall-bearing is that you get all those ratty, tatty, leafless raspberry vines out of your yard and you don't have to stare at them all winter. For those of us who consider pruning to be a chore best avoided, getting a heavier crop of tasty raspberries once a year speaks of nothing but advantages, all things considered. Mine are just beginning to ripen now. I lost one to one of my avian friends, ate another one, and picked these two at great hazard from the abundant, buzzy pollinators who are also grateful for a ready supply of fall nectar.

Breaking The Habit

Day 339: Like a vast number of people who sew, I have the bad habit of holding pins between my lips and teeth. I think I can recall from early childhood my grandmother telling me that was something I should avoid doing, but I persisted nevertheless until it became so ingrained that I could see no reason to change. Until recently, I failed to see a connection between sewing and cold sores, but since I have been machine-piecing quilt blocks for the last several months, a correlation has been making itself painfully obvious. I know that I react to many metals to the extent that I can only wear gold jewelry. Why would I not realize that steel against tender lip tissue might result in irritation? Pushed to it, I decided to make a wrist pin cushion with the intention to force myself to use it. As it turns out, the habit of putting pins in my mouth is not being difficult to break. Sometimes, Occam's Razor has to shave pretty close to the skin to get the point across.

Aphelocoma Californica, California Scrub-jay

Day 338: In 2016, the American Ornithological Union determined that the western race of scrub-jay was comprised of two sufficiently distinct species and separated them into their own taxons, Aphelocoma woodhouseii and Aphelocoma californica. The "new" California Scrub-jay is larger and brighter in colour than Woodhouse's, and its bill is heavier. Its range extends from southern British Columbia through the coastal states and Baja; on the other hand, Woodhouse's Scrub-jay resides inland in the southwest desert. Many people call either bird a "blue jay," but despite being both a jay and blue, that term only applies to the eastern Blue Jay, Cyanocitta cristata. Perhaps the most noticeable characteristic for distinguishing the two where their ranges overlap is the lack of a crest on the Scrub-jay's head. In fact, its taxonomy describes it: "aphelo-" meaning "smooth" and "-coma" means "hair." California Scrub-jays are most commonly found in oak groves like those of the southwest Washington prairies, but for the last several years, Scrubby has come for a brief stay here in the mountains. I hope he leaves some of those mountain-ash berries for the Waxwings.

Scrubby Showed Up

Day 337: Just this morning, my botany partner posted a picture of a California Scrub-jay in his yard 90 miles north of me. "Oh, that's where he is!" I said. "I haven't had one here this year." And look who showed up shortly after I got home from a grocery run: Scrubby himself. When I first saw him, he was sitting on the suet feeder directly outside my east living room window. The only camera I had within reach was my little Sony point-and-shoot, and it simply wasn't up to the task. As soon as I moved, Scrubby took off. No matter where I've seen him, he's always been a difficult subject to photograph. But he was interested in that suet, and the window badly needed washing anyway, both inside and out. That's done, and I've seen him in the Sitka Mountain-ash twice in the last fifteen minutes, but he's still proving to be elusive to the lens. I'm hoping for a better picture.

Update: thirty seconds later, I got my shot. We'll talk more about California Scrub-jays tomorrow!

Pan Chang Knot

Day 336: In between quilting (which is to say, when I'm not sewing blocks of the DWR or applying the binding to Scrappy Stars or hand-quilting the Kittygons), I needed something to rest my fingers, eyes and painful shoulder, and I thought I might take a look at Chinese knotting. It's a logical extension of macramé and marlinespike work, i.e., one more way to fiddle string or rope into something attractive. After watching several YouTube videos...watching, mind you, because I don't understand Chinese...I finally found one which was not only easy to follow, but gave instructions in English. It took me half an hour to create my first Pan Chang in 2mm satin rattail, and I only pulled the wrong loop a few times, knowing from hours with a marlinespike how easy it is to mistake the standing end from the working end when you're trying to identify the direction of travel in the center of a complicated knot. This is not to say that Pan Chang is a particularly difficult knot to tie. It looks complex, but the tying is relatively straightforward. Tightening it up to give loops of the correct sizes, however, is another story and takes a healthy dose of patience. You might think that working with larger cord would make the knot easier to tie, but in fact the bumps in the cotton rope made it harder to adjust. The Pan Chang knot is said to bring good fortune to those who display it.

DWR - Two Of Five

Day 335: It came as something of a surprise when I went to attach a completed block to the second row of the Double Wedding Rng (DWR) quilt and saw that it was #4 in the string rather than #3. "Oh!" I said. "I'm done with the row!" DWR is progressing much faster than I'd anticipated, and also with fewer issues than one might expect. I had honestly thought that attaching the second row to the first would be problematic since I had had to make a few adjustments to the first two blocks of Row 1, but all the meets lined up without having to ease the fabrics and except for one short area of wobbly seaming where the sewing machine had difficulty with bulk, I didn't need to pick and re-sew. Now you can see how the rings tie into one another. Four rings wide, the finished quilt will be five rings long. I really need a better way to hang my quilts for their portraits than on shrubbery or across my garage door!

Goats In Smoke

Day 334: While I was down at Lodi Creek, Joe and Sharon were counting goats. The final tally was something over 20, as I recall, arranged in several small groups along the ridgeline. Some were resting. Others were looking for forage among the tough scrub characteristic of this habitat, but all looking quite well-fed. Oreamnos americanus is particularly suited to this environment. Their hooves are equipped with flexible inner pads which act like suction cups and give them grip on the smooth, slick surfaces of rock slabs and ice. They also have dewclaws which add stability and traction. Their wool...well, lemme tell you about that, okay?

I've been a spinner for a long time, and back in the days when I was a bit of a mountain goat myself, I spent a lot of time climbing the same scree slopes and rocky ridges which Oreamnos finds so attractive. I often found clumps of their wool on the ground.  I knew that the native peoples of the area had used it for clothing and insulation, so I set about collecting as much of it as I could find. After I'd gathered roughly a gallon Ziploc full, I began trying to clean it for spinning. First, I removed the long guard hairs which protect the soft undercoat. That reduced the volume of material by about 50%. Then I started trying to pick out the larger bits of goat dander and found that for every flake of dandruff I pulled out, two or three soft hairs came with it. It soon became clear to me that the yield from a gallon of wool was probably going to be a little string about six inches long once it was spun up, so I abandoned the project with a new and refreshing perspective on the diligence of hunter-gatherers. Trust me, it would have taken a long time and a lot of walking to gather enough wool to make a pair of mitts or a hat. No, I think I'll buy my wool in bags, cleaned and processed and ready for the wheel.

The Annual Bath

Day 333: For as long as I have been hiking in the backcountry as an adult (some 50-plus years), I have observed a particular ritual of plunging myself into a cold mountain lake or creek some time during the month of September in what I refer to as my "annual bath." I will further inform you, should you ask, that the purpose of this ablution is to "cleanse myself of the dross of humanity," refreshing and renewing my spirit that I may survive another year of contact with humankind. It is, of course, necessarily done completely naked and is not complete until I am but one click shy of hypothermia, emerging from the water with tingling skin and painful scalp. Sometimes, the bath takes the form of a swim in an alpine lake, but the most common observation of this rite is done in a shin-deep pool of a stream, and consists only of splashing and/or pouring ice water on myself until every inch of me has been rinsed with clear, pure living water, and only that.

For the last several years, I've had to make do with a small kettle lake as my bathtub. I've stepped out of it at least twice with a scummy coating of fir pollen clinging to my hide. What matters is not the physical cleanness, but that of my inner being. Once, I dunked in the Nisqually River and came out coated in glacial silt and had to shower when I got home. For obvious reasons, the clear water of a mountain creek is more desirable, and for several weeks now, I've been trying to figure out the best spot for my annual dunk. There are more people on the trails than there used to be, and of course I am beyond the years when I could hike into the deep backcountry to find a private spot. One possibility kept rising to the top of my list of options: a secluded corner in Lodi Creek where it veers away from the trail to Berkeley Park. 

When my botany partners suggested a hike to "Fremont junction," I assumed we would be turning around at that point. When we got on trail, I found out that Joe had meant the Northern Loop junction instead, a mere half mile from first contact with Lodi. I really debated whether to ask them to wait for me there (Joe is still breaking in a knee replacement) since I didn't want to burden them, but when he said that he thought he might shear off onto the trail to Skyscraper Pass, I asked him if he'd mind waiting. He'd heard a rumour about goats in the area and wanted to get photos, and having not seen any yet, was more than willing to grant my request. I took off at a lope. Forty-five minutes later, I met up with my friends again, my spirit divested of humanity's dross and hair still wet beneath my hat. Unbeknownst to us, the Goat Rocks Fire was preparing to divert us onto another adventure: having to make a full circuit of the Mountain in order to get me back to my house. In Sharon's words, "At least there were goats." And I got my annual bath.

Moon Festival

Day 332 (bonus edition): Happy Moon Festival! Also referred to as the Mid-Autumn Festival or Mooncake Festival, the 15th day of the 8th lunar month is one of the most significant in Chinese culture. While I am not of Asian descent, I feel that there is a lot to be learned from embracing other cultures and exploring the meanings behind their traditions. Although it is most certainly not the same as the American holiday of Thanksgiving, the Mooncake Festival shares many of the same tenets: family, reunion, harmony and gratitude. For the occasion, I baked a modern version of the traditional sweet mooncake, this one filled with pineapple. The recipe was recently shared on YouTube by Mandy of Souped Up Recipes. The only alteration I made was to use well-drained crushed pineapple from a can rather than fresh. It worked perfectly, and resulted in what is now my favourite mooncake. As I described them to the friends who received them as Festival gifts, "Imagine a Chinese-style newton made with pineapple instead of figs." These won't last long!

She'll Be Comin' Round The Mountain

Day 332: It started out like any other Botany Friday, if perhaps a bit smokier than usual. My botany partners got up at 2 AM in order to make the long drive to pick me up at 5:30 (I got up at 3:30), and if we hadn't been delayed by road construction, we'd have been at Sunrise at 7:30. The air seemed to grow thicker with smoke as we progressed eastward, but thinned as we gained altitude. It was less smoky at Sunrise (6420') than it had been in the valley, and as we climbed up to Frozen Lake, we noticed a slight improvement in air quality. However, by the time we were ready to return to the car, more smoke had moved in from the east, thick enough to smell and taste. In the distance, we spotted the billows of a rising cloud in the vicinity of Packwood, and later confirmed that it was in fact the smoke plume from the 150-acre Goat Rocks Fire (update 6 AM 10 Sept. - fire is now at 1200 acres). Meadow Rovers were recalled from duty due to the rapidly rising air quality index shortly before we arrived back at the car. Not long afterwards, an alert went out from area cell towers saying that a Level 3 evacuation order had been issued for Packwood residents, "Leave now!" Highway 12 was closed from Skate Creek Road to White Pass. We figured we could still come back through the Park, but found Hwy 123 closed at Cayuse Pass. Our only option at that point was to complete a full circle around the Mountain in order to get me back home, adding roughly 100 extra miles to my botany partners' driving day. Did we find any new and interesting plants? Nope.

Ribes Sanguineum, Fruit And Flower

Day 331: Ribes sanguineum, the native Red-Flowering Currant so loved by hummingbirds that I planted two in my yard for my feathered friends' enjoyment, produces a dusty blue, freckled berry full of crunchy seeds. They are purportedly edible, but I find the lingering musty aftertaste undesirable. Some people in my acquaintance eat them, so a few years ago, I collected all my bushes produced and juiced them for jelly. The result, even though I mixed it with the berries of nursery-grown red-currant cultivar, still carried that dusty note. Lesson learned, I now prune the bushes back right after their blooming period is done, but a few fruits always manage to develop on the twigs I missed.

While I don't wish to eat products with preservatives and other chemical additives in them, there is a point at which harvesting "natural" foods passes into the category of "ridiculous." As I mentioned, some friends eat these, and even claim to enjoy them. Other friends (who will recognize the direction my finger is pointing) harvest the strangest greens for the table (notably Lapsana communis, an invasive weed). Thanks, but I'm not quite hungry enough to extend the "natural foods" fad far enough to encompass Nipplewort leaves or currants which leave a taste in your mouth like that you'd expect after bicycling down a dusty country road.

Pink For A Queen

Day 330: Today, with the passing of Elizabeth II, I am reminded that all things must end, both good and bad. Elizabeth herself said as much when Britain's people were struggling through difficult times, and her words hauled them up by the strings of their character to meet numerous challenges. This is a measure of true leadership, the ability to unite people in a common cause. I admired Elizabeth greatly for this facet of her charisma, that she could reach peoples' hearts despite their differences and, if seen from my romanticized, American perspective, that she was a tough but kind and considerate ruler. But this you already know, or will have heard on today's news. What you may not know is that I watched her coronation on a black-and-white Muntz television set which my father had bought expressly for the purpose of allowing me to witness an historic event. I don't recall that I knew it as such, young as I was, but I have never forgotten the moment when the ceremonial crown was placed on her head and slipped down to her eyebrows before the celebrant realized it was too large for her. If ever there was a moment typifying British aplomb, it was then. For me, this was the historic moment, perhaps not the one my father had intended to impress on my brain but significant nevertheless. Today, I mourn her passage. The world will not see her likes again.

Planned Chaos

Day 329: I'm a little desperate for content, folks. I'm not getting out much these days unless it's with my botany partners or to grab groceries, but as a consequence, I'm getting a lot of sewing done. I dragged out a cork board to help with laying out the Double Wedding Ring because, believe it or not, there is a certain amount of order in the chaos. I am trying to avoid having identical prints in proximity to one another, avoiding placing any two in the same position where it would be noticeable, but I suspect there will be a few which escape my notice. And that, I say, is what makes a scrap quilt fun. I've spoken before about the games I played as a child with Old-old's DWR, but until I began putting this one together, I had forgotten one of the most compelling of my childhood searches: find the longest sequence of repeats. If memory serves, Old-old's quilt has one or two arcs where three prints appear in the same order. They are not adjacent, not placed so that they would be noticeable at a casual glance. No, they took some serious hunting for an obsessive small child to find. And here I reveal another facet of my character which I only recently labelled: I'm a discovery junkie. Whether it's plants, what's around the next bend in the trail or anything else, I'm sure Old-old's quilt played a major role in addicting me to the thrill of the find.

Waiting For Waxwings

Day 328: The vigil has begun. At some point in the next few weeks, the Cedar Waxwings should be making their fly-over and will undoubtedly stop for lunch when they spy such a lavish spread of Sitka Mountain-ash berries on the two trees in my yard. One tree is a transplanted native, the other (this one) a commercial cultivar. Other than the native being somewhat smaller because it is younger, both trees produce prodigious amounts of berries, and if it wasn't for those dear Waxwings being on the job, my driveway would be a sticky mess. Trust me, I know. One year, the Waxwings passed over without stopping. When the berries dropped, you couldn't see gravel under the boughs. This is the price we sometimes are asked to pay when we create gardens to attract birds, bees and other critters. Sometimes they don't show up, and then we are saddled with clean-up duties. But for the joy that those Waxwings bring me for the few short days they are here, I'm willing to bucket out berries on the years they miss. It doesn't happen often. My trees are on their map.

Measured In Miles

Day 327: Let's do the math. There are 1760 yards in a mile (1093 yards in a kilometer), and there are 400 yards per spool of thread. I've used almost all of the first dozen I bought late this spring, so that means I've gone through roughly 12 x 400 = 4800 yards (2.7 miles/4.3 Km) in sewing and hand-quilting over the last six months alone. Since I seem to be showing no signs of winding down from this present obsession, I bought twelve more spools. That, dear readers, is a whopping lot of thread.

Many long years ago, my husband gave me a Christmas gift of stunning proportion. He had gone down the thread aisle at Joann Fabric, and gathered up a 150-yard spool of almost every colour (even a range of pinks). The box was enormous! I went through the blues and greens rather quickly and had to supplement them with further purchases and (although it shames me to admit it) I gave away most of the pinks, but even today when I pull open the thread drawer, I see a few of those original spools still waiting to match up with a project. At times like this, I wonder just how many miles I've stitched by machine and by hand. It must be over a hundred. And to think that I know people who have only a few dusty spools in their sewing baskets, people who have never sewn a hundred yards, let alone a hundred miles.

Dog Food

Day 326: For some time now, the dogs have been showing a reluctance to feed. It had come to the point that I was having to force the issue, so much so that I had begun shopping around for a new sewing machine, having exhausted my father's entire tractor-starting vocabulary on the cheap Brother. To complicate the matter, I'd just ordered a 1/4-inch foot to help with quilting, and although it wasn't expensive, I really wasn't happy about wasting money on a machine I'd be taking to a thrift shop. However, that new foot played a vital role in determining why the dogs wouldn't feed, because when I dropped the regular foot off the machine, I noticed a tuft of lint poking up behind their teeth. I tried to pick it out with a pin, then with a seam ripper, but it didn't want to budge. Figuring that there was more inside the machine anyway, I decided to open it up to have a look inside. I shouldn't have been surprised, given the amount of sewing I do, but when I lifted the plate off the feed dogs, I saw that they were almost completely choked with lint...lint so compacted that it was hard to the touch, so packed in that it was preventing the dogs' back-and-forth action. I teased out the big pieces, vacuumed up the looser stuff and put the machine back together. Now the dogs are walking normally, feeding nicely and without that obnoxious barking noise they'd been making for so long, tamed by a well-placed foot.

Ilagiorum

Day 325: I am so excited! Hoya ilagiorum has produced its first spur, and it has a dozen or so little bitty buds! This is the red-flowering version (H. ilagiorum may have red, orange or yellow flowers), if the seller's description holds true. Presumably, it was started from a cutting, so it should be identical to the parent plant. It is said to be an "intermittent" bloomer, flowering several times a year like H. fitchii and H. bella. I've had the plant for six or seven years, and had kept it hanging in an east window until last fall when I rotated plants and relocated it to a northern exposure. Was that the factor which made the difference? Fitchii prefers the north window, but bella is not particular. Perhaps now that ilagiorum has settled in, it will become as prolific as the others.

Anyone May Apply

Day 324: Wanted: pollinators for small raspberry garden. Must be ambitious and diligent, with ability to distinguish non-threatening life forms. Working hours from dawn to dusk. Anyone may apply, regardless of experience.

The present work force seems to consist largely of European paper wasps in conjunction with nondescript menials and overseen by a few bumblebees, but it is obvious that they are getting the work done. Hundreds of pink-tinged unripe raspberries dangle well above the top of the deer fence, telling me that this is going to be another ladder-climbing year. Funny, I don't remember nine-foot raspberry vines from my childhood. Why are these Heritage everbrearings so flamin' tall? Perhaps if I pruned them to fruit twice a year instead of solely in the fall, I'd have a spring crop I could actually reach from ground level. However, pruning the everbearing varieties so that they only produce in late season results in a greater yield. The system has worked for me over time, so I'm not likely to change it up. Besides, there are always more pollinators looking for work in the late season.

September Morn

Day 323: A glad, good September Morn to you, my faithful readers! A number of things have lined up to keep me from celebrating the day with my customary physical activities, not the least of which is the fact that it's probably going to be over 90 today. Consequently, I cast about for other ways to commemorate the occasion, and making the first complete ring for the Double Wedding Ring quilt hit the top of the list. Pizza was second, and I'll be picking one up later. Putting the Ring together was facilitated by the Slit 'N Sew templates which create a ring from four blocks. When quilted, the center seams will not be noticeable. I'd made four test blocks to work out any issues, but one I had not anticipated sneaked up and bit me on the bum. I hadn't really looked at the white-on-white background print as carefully as I should have done, and therefore didn't realize that the pattern was directional until I was assembling the third block. "Hang on a mo'," I said. "Something is wrong here. Some of those dashes are vertical and others are horizontal!" I only had to pick out two pieces to fix the error, and was grateful that I hadn't been farther into the project when I caught it. All in all, I think this was a pretty good way to kick off the Beautiful Month. I'll get my annual bath when the weather cools down.