Odds and Ends

 

Flowers have been pretty sparse this year.  I have a few but not like in years past. My days are spent in trying to ignore the front yard. Yesterday I no longer could pretend it wasn't there and started weeding my Amazon like flowerbeds. Its nice to see that buried deep within the grass and weeds are my Black Eyed Susans making a come back. We took all of them out last fall because they were just so over grown.

The road work continues. Tractors, water trucks, asphalt and cement trucks. Road graders and all things construction.  That is a reason I try and ignore the front yard. This is how our sunrises look right now. Can you see the smoke? There are so many fires burning now in California that this is how it is pretty much every day. One evening as I looked out at the sunset, the ash was raining down like some nuclear winter.

 

I manage to keep myself busy. I didn't grow any beets this year, I thought why don't I just start buying beets at the grocery store every week and make a jar or two each week. So this is my first week of beets. It is nicer than doing a whole field of them like I did last year at once. I also made these pickled carrots. When William and Makenzie got married in January, the caterers brought  marinated carrots as a side dish. I just loved them and found them in the Mexican food section at the grocery store. I decided that this summer I was going to make them myself. So yesterday was my first attempt. I will tell you if these are good in a week or so.  Not to mention I told Emilie yesterday that I was just going to can beets for her Christmas present and she said that would be the best present ever. So starting Christmas planning now. *wink*wink*

 

This is my current rug. I put it on my floor frame because its just too hot this summer for having the wool and burlap on my lap. I am almost finished. I need to get it done, because my thoughts keep turning to fall and pumpkins and all of that stuff.

Pattern by Brenda Gervais

Its so nice to work on a counted cross stitch that I can finish in a few days. Working on something that it so big like His Eye is on the Sparrow is hard because sometimes I feel like I can't get any place very fast.

Time to get out in those flowerbeds. We are supposed to be back to record temps by the weekend. Above 110 on Monday, so I would like to get my front flowerbeds finished before the weeds are as high at the railings.
Have a lovely day,
Kim

“ The summer,' Randy explained. 'I'm going to appreciate it. I'm going to walk in the woods noticing everything, and ride my bike on all the roads I never explored. I'm going to fill a pillow with ladies' tobacco so I can smell it in January and remember about August. I'm going to dry a big bunch of pennyroyal so I can break pieces off all winter and think of summer. I'm going to look at everything, and smell everything, and listen to everything so I'll never forget -- ”
Elisabeth Enright---Four Story Mistake.