Day: June 15, 2011

Turkey Tracks: Prudy’s Quilt

Turkey Tracks:  June 15, 2011

Prudy’s Quilt

My friend Prudy Netzorg is incredibly generous!

She gave me two quilt tops last fall:  a smaller child’s quilt featuring dogs and a lap quilt of bright, lively colors.  (Prudy has a wonderful eye for color.)

I loved both, but knew that she, too, loved one of them especially, but had just lost energy around finishing it.

I had gotten the long-arm just before Prudy’s generosity, and there is a HUGE learning curve for long-arms.  So, Prudy and I agreed that we would go together to buy backs for her tops, and I would pay for those in return for using the quilts as learning tools.  Prudy would bind them and give the little one to a local fund-raising charity for auction and would keep the other.

I tried a pantograph pattern on the smaller one–and learned a lot–to include that I didn’t especially care for narrow patterns.  They repeat too quickly.  I did think the pattern looked like a dog’s footprint and a group of balloons rising–both motifs in the print.

I just finished the larger, bright one.  I think it mostly came out looking pretty good, but it is not perfect, and I like perfect.  I did, however, learn a lot, especially about using templates.

Here’s the quilt finished without the binding, which Prudy will do.  I remember a hot pink binding…

 

Here’s a detail of the border.  I special ordered a hot pink thread, which I think came out nicely.

Here’s another detail:

Another thing I learned is that it is necessary to take a picture of the whole quilt or draw a quilting pattern–especially with a pieced quilt like this one.  Once the quilt is rolled up on the back roller–which happens as you quilt the length of it–you can’t see what you did at the other end.  I got confused on which way I quilted the pieced blocks, for instance.  I put the loops on the pinwheel blocks in two different places.  And, at one end, I forgot what I did at the other with two blocks.

I did walk away with a new comfort level with templates, and the quilt is lively and fun.

Thanks Prudy!!

Turkey Tracks: Sardines For Dinner

Turkey Tracks:  June 15, 2011

Sardines For Dinner

Here’s what we had for dinner last night:

There are lots of good reasons to eat sardines.  They’re a little fish and are low on the food chain, so they don’t carry the heavy metal levels (mercury!) bigger fish carry.  They’re full of calcium!  They’re delicious!  They’re quick!  (Be sure to buy some that are NOT in soy sauce.  The ones in flavored sauces, like tomato and mustard, are usually full of stuff you don’t want.)  We had some fresh ones in Italy once–just caught and pan fried.  They were beyond delicious!

Surrounding the sardines, what you see is local carrot, local feta, local sweet radishes just coming in now, shaved spring onion from the garden, local hydroponic tomato (cut up and sprinkle tomato with salt to release the flavor), and local lettuce from our neighbors Susan and Chris Richmond of Golden Brook Farm.  The rest of the ingredients are not local:  dried lemon thyme, olive oil, lemon, balsamic vinegar, olives, stuffed grape leaves from a can, avocado, and a cuke.   At least the produce came from California–I don’t buy food from outside our borders.

The chocolate is fair trade.  One of the best of these is Equal Exchange’s dark chocolate with sea salt and toffee bits.

And, of course, REAL MILK, which is fabulous with the chocolate!

PS:  Canned sardines and grape leaves are one of the few things I eat out of a can as most cans are lined with a mixture that releases BPA–a heinous chemical that can seriously harm humans.

Turkey Tracks: Around and About–June 2011

Turkey Tracks:  June 15, 2011

Around and About–June 2011

Chive is in full bloom everywhere now.  Here’s one in Margaret and Ronald’s garden.  I have three or four now as well.  They reseed themselves all over the place.  The leaves are wonderful snipped with scissors over a salad, over cheese (goat, feta, yogurt), or soup.  But, I didn’t know until coming to Maine that the flowers are also delicious.  I kept asking people at potlucks, “what are these lavender things in the salad?”   The chive is one of the earliest herbs to come back in Maine spring (and yes it is still spring here; we don’t get summer until July 4th or so), and it lasts all summer and up to a killing frost.

Margaret got  two pigs about 10 days ago.  They’re pink, so will sunburn; thus, the umbrella.  Margaret has always wanted to see what pigs would do on their land.   She’s talked about it as long as I’ve known her.  Now she’ll find out.  She’s moved them once already, and they had completely tilled their former pen at least a foot deep overnight.   They’re now in an area filled with alders–an area M&R would like to clear out for more gardens.  So, they just cut down the alders, put the pigs in, and voila!

I’m still awestruck at how big pigs will get and how quickly they do it and how much they eat–all info gleaned from FARM CITY, by Novella Carpenter, which is a terrific read!

M&R are also raising Freedom Ranger chicks.  Here’s one–a beauty–with her tail cocked and ready to fly!

The lupines are blooming everywhere–all along the side of the roads.  It’s a glorious sight.  Maine lupine come in a variety of colors:  the most common is blue/purple, but there are also pink and lavender shades and white.   Here’s some up at our neighbor’s home, Sarah Rheault:

Here’s some on the side of a road leading west out of Camden.  Lupines line both sides of the road:

Rose and Pete have finished their bread oven, and Rose is learning how to use it and developing recipes.  Here’s a pic of some bread in progress:

Our River Birches are something to behold.  I couldn’t resist taking this picture of the shedding bark:

We went out for lunch today and came back via Barrett’s Cove–one of our swimming holes and a beautiful view.  Here it is:

This little tour does not begin to cover everything exciting that is happening these days.  But, that’s Maine for you!

Turkey Tracks: The Garden is In–June 2011

Turkey Tracks:  June Turkey Tracks:  June 15, 2011

The Garden is In–June 2011

The gardens are all planted.  Several days of rain has been terrific for all the seeds and little seedlings.  Since I took these pictures about a week ago, the beans (dragon’s tongue, haricot verte, and a dry climbing bean) and–hold on to your hats since they produce SO much–the zucchini are up.  So are the kale, the lettuce, the beets, and the radish.  I don’t see the Hubbard squash I planted next to the zukes in the front bed yet though.  And I forgot to check for the winter squashes along the driveway now that the sun is out.  The potatoes are sprouting in their tubs.  No sign yet of the carrots or the cukes.  Here are some pictures of what is now an early garden, but one that is GROWING hourly.

The asparagus, there on the left, has doubled in size now.  We got about 5 meals this year–its third year.  The peas on the trellis are now halfway up.  Way in the back you can see the very healthy garlic–planted last fall–fronted by La Ratte fingerling potatoes, which I planted in late April and am hoping to “grabble” (sneak some out early) when my children are here this summer and early fall.  La Rattes are beyond delicious!

I planted four kinds of onions.  Two kinds are a bedding onions which should get big and round.  I planted scallions, which are all up.  And the onion sets I put out last year did nothing-it was too dry last year–and when that happens we can’t water a lot or we’ll run out the well, especially if the house if full of family.  I put the sets out again–you can see some in front of the peas–and they’re doing really well.

The raspberries are starting their third year and are making a lovely border fronting rugosa roses and some struggling bayberry that lines the steep hill to the left.  (We were afraid of grandchildren falling off our hill.)  The raspberries are FULL of blossoms!  As are the strawberries, which are on a hill at the side of the house.

Our big experiment this year is planting potatoes in tubs–which we got at our local Renys (a terrific Maine store) for, I think, $4 each.  We’ll keep the dirt in them over the winter , augment it, and plant something else next year.  Maybe squash?  The potatoes are sprouting as of this morning.  There’s a selection of 5 kinds.  I put the extras in the front bed, behind the brassicas.  The dried bean vines are planted beneath the new white fencing John upgraded and painted this spring.  Doesn’t it look nice?

The front bed is planted with cabbage, Broccoli, Brussel Sprouts, zucchini, a Hubbard squash, leeks, extra potatoes, and, at the far end, I threw in some sunflower seeds.   In the foreground, peeking out from a daylily, are some white flowers–Star of Bethlehem–a flower my grandmother in Georgia brought up from the swamp, planted in her front hard–when I was a baby or earlier.  They now cover the front yard in the spring.   The daylilies are setting buds, and the wind chimes along the porch sing so sweetly in a soft breeze.   Beyond you can see how dense and dark the Maine woods get in the summer.  They are full of mystery and beckon one inside.  There’s an intermittent creek at the edge of the woods, and by now, Jack in the Pulpit will be blooming all along its edges.

So, there you have it, the 2011 garden.