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May 31, 2007

no tomato plant shall wander freely on my watch!

which is exactly why i made some super-heavy-duty tomato cages. i can't remember if i saw this on victory garden or ask this old house, but i remember thinking; HEY! i've got somma that leftover! why don't i try and make those?!?! so i did. the first thing i did was roll out what leftover fencing i had... then i chose an amount i thought would give the plant some breathing room, yet offer it the maximum amount of support(....i suppose time will tell if my guesstimate was a good one...), and cut it from the roll. you have to make sure to have one side squared off, and one side loose.... this is so you can wrap the loose ends around the squared ends, to create your cylindar. the last step is to free some of the vertical wire, so it can go into the ground. the guage of the wire is a little thicker than the small garden border fences i use. since the leftover fence i have is four feet tall, i removed two of the horizontal wires, for maximum stability. i think they came out really well! VIVA PBS!!!

Posted by Meagen at 02:33 PM | Comments (0)

May 30, 2007

YARN HARLOT comes eastside!!!

stephanie pearl-mcfee came to the calvin theater to speak on her new book the yarn harlot casts off

it seemed such a long time since i saw her at stash in berkeley, ca on august 3, 2005...and soooo much has changed. it's now 3 books later, and there's an appropriately increasing following. i was quite a way back from the podium...

i don't know exactly how many people were there, but it had to have been at least 300! (please excuse the poor quality of the shots; my zoom isn't all it could be...) there's no way all those people could've fit into the webs store (webs sponsored this event). the talk was witty and clever, and there was much audience participation! i particularly liked the whole discussion of CHOKE (cultural harrassment of knitters everywhere), and the cultural pervasiveness in modern opinion of who knitters are, and what they are "like". i laughed out-loud quite a bit!
in addition to the food drive, webs distributed a skein of debbie bliss yarn, and boye #8 needles and asked folks to knit a 7"X7" square for the warm up project. it was great to see that a majority of the folks were working on that project while stephanie spoke. i got about 1/3 to 1/2 of the way done during the event. i really had to stop as the width of the seats was not condusive to knitting. we have a week to finish the squares and drop them off to webs.

it was kinda neat to have been able to hear THE YARN HARLOT on both sides of the country. i didn't go to the book signing because 1) it's better i not spend the money on her book right now, and 2) i figured it would be around midnight before i would actually be able to get her to sign my book, even if i ignored point #1....
on my walk home i passed this super-summer art car

i also noticed that the tree at the end of my street is like something outta dr.seuss. how is it that i've never noticed how freaky this tree is?

Posted by Meagen at 08:41 PM | Comments (0)

May 28, 2007

messy fun for me

it's that time of year again; when whatever-tree-it-is sheds those little fuzzies that float about and make a person feel like they're in a real-life snow globe.... they really do make quite a mess, not to mention getting in your drink (if you take one in a regular glass or mug outside) where they're sometimes swallowed and feel like felt in my mouth....i still find the enjoyment of the experience worth the clean-up/out of the remnants...

Posted by Meagen at 11:36 AM | Comments (0)

May 27, 2007

double your pleasure with double begonia

i was with connie over at wyncziks in hadley, and i got this beautiful shade loving plant. it's just what the living room needs! i also got 6 red lettuce plants, as the ones i tried to start from seed don't seem to have worked out so well....

Posted by Meagen at 10:32 AM | Comments (1)

May 23, 2007

wysteria

the wysteria is out. this super-invasive plant is as fragrant as the lilacs. unfortunately i've not been able to really enjoy that aspect since it's only at the front door, and i've no idea how one would enjoy the blossoms in a vase....do you?

Posted by Meagen at 10:30 AM | Comments (0)

May 17, 2007

taking advantage while i can

last year i wasn't able to take much enjoyment of the lilacs in the backyard, as there were quite a few storms the two weeks they were in bloom. (did you know that lilacs typically only bloom for a period of 2-3 weeks? yup-yup) this year i decided that it would be better to bring some of the branches inside and so doubly enjoy them. it seemed to me a much better plan than just losing them all to the rain. they strike me as not only elegant in appearance, but their intoxicating fragrance is giving the whole house a different ambiance.

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as an aside, lately i've got this sneaking suspicion that the tessinator has acquired some new superpowers.....

Posted by Meagen at 03:20 PM | Comments (0)