Our life is basically a big vacation but we occasionally still need a vacation from our vacation. So we go sailing. This trip, we sailed five hours north on the NY side of Lake Champlain and today crossed the lake to Burlington, VT. We are in a minority at anchorages since the vast majority of boats are from Montreal and a wee bit bigger than ours.
My new towels are coming in handy on the boat.
Not only is summer short, in the Adirondacks, it’s the busiest time of year. Seasonal residents are here and events abound. The Essex County Fair took place last week, and to my amazement, the car rollover contest was still on the program.
A new event was introduced – crush the camper.
Yup.
We finally had some rain and tomatoes are plump and ripe. I picked up extra from the CSA to preserve. You would think I don’t have refrigeration. So far I put up dill pickles, watermelon rind pickles, tomato marmalade, tomato sauce, pickled beets, strawberry jam and India relish.
My sewing machine has been languishing because I have been making friends with my loom.
It was a perfect day for a canoe trip. We loaded the canoe with our favorite gobbler sandwich from Saranac Lake, safety gear and yarn. Right after this picture, I fell in the water while getting into the canoe. Good one.
We traveled for about an hour when we found a mossy covered ledge for lunch, a nap, a little blueberry picking and knitting.
Perfect day topped off with an ice cream soda at lakeside.
Or knookie in my knickers? I try to hang dry all my laundry. The other day, I went out and found clusters of June bugs, clustering, or whatever June bugs do, on my clean laundry!
Two singles
One double
I shook them loose and carried on with yard work when I stumbled upon our diminutive fruit tree crop. Probably crabapples but perfectly formed.
Speaking of small, I live in a community so small that a piece of mail addressed to me, with only my name and town on it, found its way into my post office box. Small fish in a small pond.
It all began when Tim took me out to the ball game. We went to a minor league game in Burlington and watched the Lake Monsters, the minor league team for the Oakland A’s, play. They played the Lowell Spinners! I looked hard for Spinner souvenirs but couldn’t find any.
I love minor league baseball. The game is fast and there are lots of diversions…and hot dogs. I haven’t had a hot dog since we joined the CSA and craved one. Their mascot is the Lake Champlain monster, Champy, who kept the kids entertained. I wasn’t scared one bit.
I pulled my knitting out of the bag and set myself up to start knitting when a young boy behind me tapped me on the shoulder. I thought, oh my he’s a sweet Vermonter about to ask me about knitting. Instead he told me there was a grasshopper sitting on my head!
Later In the week, I took a trip to Albany. With a stowaway. A baby mouse had somehow gotten into my car and came along for the ride. It took me a full 12 hours, during which I slept eight of them, to find and remove it from my car. Then I had second thoughts because I had placed it on the asphalt parking lot and thought he’d never survive. So I caught it a second time and released it on a patch of grass. I was wary the whole way home because I kept expecting the rest of its family to show up. I scoured the engine and trunk but couldn’t find any others.
This spider was hanging around the house yesterday but I’m not sure where he is today.
Well actually, I jar. Why isn’t it jarring? I made a batch of sour dill pickles, watermelon rind pickles and pickled beets.
The dill pickle recipe is from a book, The complete book of small batch preserving, which I think will be useful to help me preserve the farm produce. We generally pick up all we need for a week, but when the crop is in we can take more to preserve. I have been blanching and sealing some veggies but our freezer is pretty small and I will quickly fill it.
Our growing season is about two weeks later than downstate. In fact we just celebrated the 4th of July on Sunday.
Fifteen minutes of stupendous fireworks seen up close. We heard the first blast at 9 and headed to town and had a front row seat. We came home to find Loki the cat cowering under a bed.
Not yet but I am ready. I found this vial of Muddler Minnows at a yard sale today.
They are nice flies and look good enough to eat. I hope my local fish thinks so too. I am not sure Muddler Minnows attract trout but time will tell. I’m sure it has nothing to do with my fly casting.
I came home and made a batch of watermelon pickles. These are one of my favorites and not available In stores here.
These really look good enough to eat. Tomorrow I will can them and make a batch of dill pickles. We already tried a jar of strawberry jam and it was pretty tasty. I hope we can save some until the middle of winter.
Today I won a book from a knitting magazine, Knitcircus; saw a pink sunset
And am heading out now to see fireworks. It’s an auspicious day. I missed all the other firework displays because the Fourth of July can no longer be celebrated on the 4th because overtime wages for support staff is too high. Instead it’s celebrated on the 3rd, 7th and 21st.
The critters and I spent the day close to home. We had much needed rain and thunderstorms so I headed to the cave and finished weaving my placemats. They are off the loom and drying now.
During the height of the storm, the hummingbird feeder was the place to be.
And even the grasshoppers sought cover.
We’re friends again.
I spent the past couple of days holed up inside finishing a number of fiber projects. I completed a zipper baby cardigan which I just love.
The Marble Chunky yarn by James Brett is beautiful and will be machine washable. I knit a garter stitch button band as I went and it was so easy to insert a zipper by machine.
It has a seed stitch yoke so I didn’t mind back and forth knitting but otherwise knit a bottom up raglan as one piece. Then to top it off, I made care labels by computer, printed directly onto fabric with Jacquard inkjet Fabric sheets. . The only drawback is I have to set the ink before I sew it on and don’t have any Scotchguard on hand.
A favorite little summer dress of mine deteriorated and I decided to make a copy. I roughed out the pattern pieces on an old sheet and stitched away. I am pretty happy with the finished product.
I finished a set of rag placemats on my rigid heddle loom. I may have worked up the courage to approach my floor loom again.
So this morning I went fishing and spent most of the time trying NOT to catch the little minnows that were attracted to my lure. Not the elusive trout though.
Speaking of placemats and water, I devised these for the boat. I used that rubbery non-skid shelf liner and bound it with upholstery fabric. Hopefully it will keep the dishes in place.
Finally, my clothing sewing began this summer with this cute little wrap dress. The rayon fabric is pretty but not quite stretchy enough so I look fine standing still but can’t reach for things too well.
Bing, bing, bing. That’s a typical week for me. What will it be today?
Island and North Country Life 