A whole lot of pears, a kitty cat, and a little knitting.

In addition to our apple tree, we have a pear tree in the backyard. Seth climbed up in the tree (surprise, surprise) and picked all the ripe pears last weekend. On Wednesday we canned them. All 16 pints of them. Phew.

We gave a jar away already and Seth opened one of the quart sized jars. 

Thankfully, I think we're done canning for the season. It's definitely worth all the work, but we're running out of room to store things! Hopefully next summer our tomatoes will do better and I can make and can some tomato puree for sauce. 

In other news,  Sailor has had an exciting few days! One of the neighborhood kittens has decided that our backyard is an awesome place to hang out. This pleases Sailor to no end. This morning I woke up to him barking like a crazy dog and clawing at the sliding glass door because the kitty was in the yard. It has certainly made for some good laughs. 

When the kitty (Seth has named him/her Polka Dot) came around this afternoon, I took the camera outside to snap a few photos.

The first thing Polka Dot does is jump up on the fence and hide behind the shed. Big Dumb Dog (sailor) has no clue that the cat is up there.

 Polka Dot peeking out from behind the shed.

 Pretty Kitty. 

Sailor watching me pet Polka Dot. He was surprisingly calm. 

Polka Dot clearly isn't phased by Sailor giving him the stare down. 

Impressively close to the kitty...

And....chasing Polka Dot.

Silly Pup. 

Now time for the knitting. I actually have TWO finished projects to show off. 

Seth's mom asked me if I would make a baby boy sweater and hat for her to bring as a gift to a baby shower she is going to in a couple of weeks.

Pattern: Manda Ruth by Jane Richmond 

Yarn: Dream in Color Classy in Happy Forest

Modifications: A whole bunch. Ummm, let's see. First, I used a smaller gauge than called for in the pattern which resulted in some creative math being done to make sure it didn't end up as doll-sized sweater. I also skipped the hood and made a collar instead. 

Pattern: BuzzBee by Woolly Wormhead (this is from her pattern book "Wee Wooly Toppers"- a good investment for 10 ridiculously adorable baby hat patterns)

Yarn: Dream in Color Classy in Happy Forest

Modifications: None. Followed this exactly as written and it's adorable (even Seth thinks so!).

How cute are the planes, trains, and automobile buttons?? 

Well, I think I've inundated you with enough pictures for now! 

Love,

liz :)

Mom's Sweater....finally.

Well, Mom's Tea Leaves Cardigan took a hideously long time to knit. I could blame it on all the visitors we had this summer, but the reality is that it takes longer when you have to rip out an entire sleeve and re-knit it. I accidently used size 5 needles to knit a sleeve and didn't realize until I had bound off for that sleeve. I thought that the sleeve felt a little dense and the stitches looked smaller, but kept going. Lesson learned. After ripping out the sleeve, the sweater got put in the "time-out" pile for a couple of weeks. But, now it's done!

Pattern: Tea Leaves Cardigan by Melissa LaBarre

Yarn: MadelineTosh DK in colorway Amber Trinket

Modifications: None. I made the size 34 and followed the pattern as written.

Today I received my very first shipment of the Three Irish Girls yarn club that I joined. I'm particularly excited about this yarn club because each month I get at least 2 colorways to choose from. This month's yarn is Wexford Merino Silk. Whoa, this stuff is yummy. I have a huge double skein with 480 yards, and I have no idea what I'm going to knit with it yet. But here it is:

There's also some gorgeous pinkish-reddish tones in there that are hiding.

Seth and I drove up to Salem today so that he could look at new running shoes. On our way there we noticed a sign that said "U-Pick Peaches" and decided to stop on the way back. What we didn't know was that the U-Pick/We Pick place was a 15 minute drive from where the sign was. It was hysterical. We just kept following the signs until we arrived at this house surrounded by peach and nectarine trees. Since it is the end of the season, u-pick was closed but the guy had a bunch of nectarines and peaches for sale. First, he told us $1/lb....then it was $.75/lb. Then he gave us this huge bucket of peaches and nectarines that aren't perfect plus FIVE POUNDS of nectarines and about a dozen peaches. For FIVE DOLLARS. Yes, five dollars. We probably have 20 lbs of fruit. More canning is in my immediate future. He also gave us the cool metal bucket the fruit was in.

Seth was especially excited about the bucket. 

We're thinking about heading to Crater Lake this weekend, then camping and possibly going to Bend. 

I'll leave you with this cute picture of my two boys:

Love,

liz :)

Weekend of Preserving

Seth and I spent almost the entire weekend canning! We have an apple tree in our backyard that has been dropping apples for the last several weeks. I admit, we've been lazy about picking them up off the ground (or at least I have), but on Thursday Seth picked them up and bagged up the ones that were suitable for cooking with. We ended up with a big paper grocery bag full of apples. 

Saturday, we cut up apples and threw some in the dehydrator and made applesauce out of the rest. Okay, I peeled the apples with our Apple Peeler Corer Slicer, and Seth sliced them. The apples are too soft for the Apple Peeler Corer Slicer to actually do the slicing, so we just used it to peel the apples. I definitely had the easy job!

We made 3 batches of applesauce and ended up with 6 quarts. I looked at a bunch of recipes ended up just kind of winging it. Basically, we used apples, a little bit of water and cinnamon. It was plenty sweet without any added sugar (at least Seth thought so). 

There were tons of left over apple peels:

Seth wanted to do something with them, so I put a bunch of them on a baking sheet, sprinkled sugar and cinnamon on them, and baked them in the oven. 

On Sunday we picked blackberries from the side of one of the trails nearby. Unfortunately, the blackberry bushes are full of thorns and it was difficult to reach many of the ripe berries. We still have tons of strawberries in the freezer from earlier in the summer, so we combined the berries to make Strawberry-Blackberry Jam, and then used the remaining blackberries from Blackberry Preserves. 

Check out all that canned goodness:

Poor little half jar of Blackberry Preserves!

We were on a roll with the cooking this weekend. Last night we made a whole roast chicken with green beans, radishes, carrots and onions. There were also mashed potatoes. Everything except the carrots and onion was from the Corvallis Farmer's Market. The chicken was from Afton Field Farm in Corvallis. All of their animals are pasture raised and grass fed. We've bought quite a few things from them this summer, and it has all been delicious. 

On the knitting front, I'm hoping to finish my Mom's Tea Leaves cardigan by Tuesday. It's going to be rainy today and possibly tomorrow, so I'm planning on watching movies and knitting until it's done. Then, the goal is to finish the sweater for Seth's Dad by sometime mid-October. 

Hope your last few days/weeks at camp are going well!

Love,

liz