Little odds and ends

Today I picked my first butternut squash. I've been waiting for it to get as big as the squashes I buy at the store, but today I just went ahead and picked it. I cut it up, and noticed right away it didn't look like I expected inside. I rationalised that it must be really not big enough, and tossed it in the oven.

A few minutes later, I thought some more. That really didn't look right. I went back outside and checked the tags on my plants. No wonder it didn't look like a squash inside. It's a golden zucchini! The other squash plant, the one that hasn't had a single fruit yet, is the butternut squash. I hurried and took the pan back out of the oven, and cut it up and roasted it with olive oil and garlic. I won't let the others get so big, now that I know they're zucchinis.



I don't pay much attention to Twitter, but I do have the Yarn Harlot's twits on my blog reader. They're fairly interesting/educational/entertaining. In a Twitter sort of way. Today she twitted:

I wish I could magic a dress for this wedding. I hate all my clothes.

It was like she stole it, right from my brain. I only have tonight and tomorrow night before I depart for a well-anticipated family wedding. This is enough time to be sure the laundry is done before I leave, but not enough to create or discover anything new and wedding-appropriate. If I'd had any sewing time in the last month, I might have actually magicked myself a new skirt, but all I've done is launder the fabric.

I do have my airplane knitting all picked out.

like the deserts miss the rain

Desert showers...


bring desert flowers.

Actual knitting progress

At last! The weather is lovely and i can sit outside and knit at lunch. I turned 2 heels this weekend and i'm working steadily up the leg.

Deep freeze

Still working on freezing all my wool stuffing. The days have been cold, but not consistently frozen, yet.

Saturday pic

Mobile blogging... meet the view at work on a very white Saturday.

Saturday Sky

Our gorgeous but unseasonable autumn weather continues, with people wearing shirt sleeves outdoors the weekend before American Thanksgiving.

 

Saturday Sky

I've never officially joined the Saturday Sky rings, but the idea has always appealed to me. Just for kicks and grins, here's tonight's sky. It was so warm this afternoon that I found myself scooting to take the garbage out in barefeet.

 

Autumn Sunday

All week I've been looking forward to escaping to the hills this weekend. And while I even scheduled the escape with the family, other forces intervened and I was forced to remain in the city all weekend. My paper is coming along very slowly, but I will crank out the final thousand words this evening, after a pizza-infused visit with a friend recovering from surgery.

While I didn't make it to the hills, I did get a lovely walk through the park to appreciate the gorgeous, if chilly, fall day.

 

 

 

 

moon at dawn

I once read about a guy getting fired for blogging a pic of his work at Microsoft. Apparently he was giving away classified information. So here is a dangerous picture showing the view from my desk. A perfect view of the perigee moon as I start my day!

White pine and aspen

one more photo

Desert through the camera's lens, as seen by an 8 year old

Fire

Our newspapers are full of reports of deadly fires, in this dry, dry summer. I'm not sure which fire this is, but we drove around the point of the mountain into the next valley over, and were shocked to see it full of enourmous clouds of smoke. This is the view of the fire from the car, and as with most of my weekend's photos, it failed to express the magnitude of the subject.

Desert knitting, part two

We discovered a secret sandy cove... well, not so secret. Apparently savvy mothers everywhere know to take their kids there, and finally now we, too, know this secret. Parents can just sit down and rest, and the kids will climb and play in the sand to their hearts' content. It's an easy walk there, and it's almost completely in shade, so the family doesn't suffer from exhaustion, sun stroke, or dehydration from the journey. I got lots of knitting done this weekend! :)

Desert knitting

When I first received Knitting on the Road, I went through all the patterns, identifying which patterns I could knit from stash yarn. I was able to select several, including the Hiiumaa mismatched mates, which would be perfect for those half-skeins of pumpkin and evergreen Knitpicks Essential.

When the KOTR knitalong selected Hiiumaa for the June/July selection, I was excited, fully intending to knit these socks sometime during the available months. However, these socks were not originally on the must-pack list for my weekend desert trip. I had all my projects packed, when I thought, "Road trip, better take Knitting on the Road." So it was a last-minute thing, grabbing the KOTR book and the pumpkin and evergreen yarn. I started the first sock--on double points, no less!--immediately after finishing the Lithuanian Amber socks from the Folk Socks knitalong.

It wasn't until I was sitting in this swing, early in the morning,

gazing admiringly at this view,

while knitting these socks,

that I noticed that the socks were a perfect tribute to the desert. Just looking up at the cliff walls, I could see the exact colours of my yarn there, looming above me.


PS When I was ordering my Comfort Zone double points, I selected orange for my size 1 needles, and never really expected to actually be knitting some socks that would hardly show on the needles. Guess there's been a lot of orange in my knitting lately...

Desert fauna

It is rare that our family actually gets a weekend away. Despite living so close to some amazing geological wonders, we don't carve out enough time to go explore them. Our son spent the week in the southern desert, rafting on a river and learning about geology and astronomy out of the classroom, directly on location. This was a marvelous opportunity for us to take some time to leave the city behind and enjoy the southern Utah desert, and pick him up at the end of his odyssey. June/July is truly not the best time to head south, for the heat only increases the further south you go, however, I was willing to take what I could get.Our daughter was delighted to learn that our cabin was not only home to humans, but hosted a variety of desert fauna as well. Most exciting were the bunnies. They fearlessly hopped about our campsite, munching on green treats. Naturally she named them all, although most of them seemed to be "Howard". She ran about our cabin, searching for bunnies, shrieking, "Howard? Howard Bannister???"
We also saw a variety of raptors, a multitude of fascinating desert insects, bats, and many kinds of birds, but only was able to photograph the lizards.
We were standing on the trail, admiring this last fabulous lizard. A couple came up, and we let them pass. We thought it was obvious we were observing animal life, but they missed the cues altogether and stomped right up to the lizard, and were surprised when it dashed off the trail. The woman exclaimed "A visitor!" and the man was quickly cataloguing its stripes and spots as it vanished. We hiked off giggling, asking, "Who's the visitor?"