Hello!

 Hello dear friends!  I thought I'd jump on here and say hello.  So many of you have written lately to tell me how your summer is going. Thank you very much!  I love it! It's been a rough one, hasn't it?  But we can't always expect things to be perfect, can we?  My garden is confused.  Some things that should be done and over with are still producing. Some, such as potatoes and onions, have finished early and tomatoes and corn are late.  Like I said, it's confused.  Yesterday we went nutting, as the squirrels were getting into our hazelnuts.  It's much more romantic to gather nuts on a blustery fall day that makes your cheeks pink and preferably wearing a nice woolen red sweater, than on a hot August day, but that's the way it goes when squirrels are involved.  We have black squirrels around here  and they look just like the little imps that they are. Not only do they steal my nice hazelnuts, the plant lots of the neighbor's heartnuts in our garden that I'm forever pulling out.  When we become too old to garden this place will quickly revert to a nut forest. 

 Because I decorate in a primitive-colonial style with lots of natural elements, I'm always in an autumnal state of mind.

I hope the heat doesn't infringe too much into the fall months.  I'm hoping to get lots of bittersweet berries on my vines this year.  Last year I only had one small cluster.  They looked promising earlier this summer, but since this heat, I'm not so sure.  Some acquaintances of mine have a split rail fence covered in the vine and in autumn it is about the prettiest sight I ever beheld.  

Haven't been doing as much as canning as I used to do.  Mostly our garden has provided just enough for us to eat from  for the summer, but not a lot of extras.  I always say that The Father provides for our needs and evidently He feels we need lots of cabbage and broccoli this year and not too many onions and lima beans. Ha! Can you believe we only got a few zucchinis? Who has ever had a failure with zucchinis?  Strange weather patterns this year.  

Other than that, I've been working on all sorts of projects that have been on my bucket lists for years, maybe even decades.  One thing I always wanted to do was to knit a fair isle vest from my many balls of scrap yarn, using a pattern I made up.  Here's the results:

It was a fun knit, but it barely made a dent in my yarn stash.  You can knit a lot of vests with very little yarn.  No wonder they were popular during hard times.

I also made this teapot mat:

I sort of copied the idea from a Tasha Tudor book and borrowed the kettle and teapot motif from a couple of cross stitch charts I had and changed the T and B to an old English script.  Such a quick little project and it only took a few days, yet it took me a few decades to get around to making it. Right now I'm knitting a cardigan from one of the Country Diary craft books.  I've really felt time ticking this year and am enjoying creating all the things I've always wanted to make but put off to later. Sometimes for more than four decades.

Do any of you feel time is moving too quickly?  When people ask me "What did you do today?" I have no answer.  It feels as though I am busy from dawn to dusk, but with what, I cannot say. Meals are dictated by what is ripe in the garden.  There's the daily chores  and traditions that give a sort of rhythm  to life.  It's a simple life, but it's a pleasant one. We don't feel the need to travel abroad for adventure.  The other day, Ran and I spent a good twenty minutes watching a flock of turkeys in our back yard.  They were so funny.  They mama and the papa were trying to herd their little ones into the back yard, but they were all afraid to cross the threshold of the garden gate.  The papa would march bravely up to it then back off.  He finally mustered up enough courage to cross the threshold and skittered across it as though he was being chased by a red hot poker.  Then seeing that lightening didn't strike him down, he came back for the young ones,  chest puffed out like he was the hero of the day, but they too,  were fearful of crossing to the other side.  He finally got the kids across, but the mama didn't want to go.  She finally reluctantly crossed over because her chicks were on the other side.  It was quite comical.  I wonder what made them so afraid of the garden gate threshold.  Did you ever wish you could talk to the animals and find out what they are thinking?  Well, I guess that explains where time goes for me, doesn't it?

So there's a little update on life here.  I wish I had something exciting to tell you, but such is my life.  Won't you please write and tell me how you are doing?

Hugs

Jane