Another week, another few rows on my "Which Came First?" shawl. I'm on the third color, "Red Dawn" by Blue Moon Fiber Arts Socks That Rock.
Now I can close the window at night and put down the room-darkening shade. We're still missing the screens for two windows, so we get bugs. Fortunately, we haven't had any mosquitos.
We're lucky to have pretty cool temperatures most nights. We open up most of the windows and outer doors when it starts to be cooler outside than in. DH puts down the locks on the windows when he goes to bed, so the windows can stay open a couple of inches. I've been getting up at 4:30 or 5:00 AM to open up again and then close everything up again when the temperature outside starts getting close to the temperature inside. During the cooling period, I have fans set to try to move air through the house, in through the upstairs front and out through the downstairs back, and I run the vent fans in the laundry room and one bathroom. With the new windows, even on a hot day it's tolerable, especially with my new little cooler.
The pups are lazy when it's hot. Here's Dusty, relaxing on the couch. (That little pink spot is the stitches where one of his adenomas was removed last week when he was out for teeth cleaning. There were three of them. The stitches will come out on Thursday.)
Masks are mandatory in Oregon if you can't stay 6' apart, and I think that's too close. Even with the mask requirement, some delivery people or sales people come to the door with no masks, ring the doorbell and then wait right in front of the door. We made a little sign with instructions and taped it by the doorbell. I hope this works. Fortunately, we have a side light I can look out and see. I don't open the door anyway without putting my mask on, but we're starting to see 10-15 new cases in our county now. People are just too lax here.
The Doll's Storybook will be getting a new cast member, probably in October, or perhaps November, if delivery is delayed. This is Götz "Lotta," but she will get a new name. I already have a Charlotte (Lotte), and the name is too similar.
Lotta is one of the new Little Kidz line, smaller than the Happy Kidz. Here you can sort of see the size difference, though the Happy Kidz doll is on ice skates, which gives her added height. The Little Kidz are proportioned and shaped like younger children (all girls at this point.) The face is a younger version of my Mandy, but this doll has blue eyes and blonde hair. I think this character will give me an opportunity to do something new in the stories. I haven't decided yet how that will go.
This week's story is a poem about brothers. It's called Little Billy.
The plants in the garden have grown since last week, even with the cool nights. It's hard to get a photo of the zucchinis, which should be ready to eat soon.
We have two eggplant plants and a winter squash plant, in addition to the zucchini plants.
The pea plants have pods on them. I think they will be ready to eat soon.
Some of the radishes are ready.
The little tomatoes (I think these are "grape" tomatoes, but the other plant is "patio.")
Our first set of chard plants were eaten down to the ground as babies, so we replanted. Now some of them are a couple of inches high, so maybe we will have some before our first frost if we're lucky.
We're using our home-made compost now. We have decided not to put eggshells, avocado peels and pits, and orange or tangerine peels in anymore. They will break down eventually, but we're operating on a small scale, and it takes too long. The used tea bags (without tags) and used unbleached coffee filters, filled with used tea and coffee, melted away. We remove any stickers or price tags on the produce before throwing them in the compost container.
What's on my needles: The "Which Came First?" shawl.
It has been slow going, because I've been committed to completing my whole cloth quilt, which I've been working on, on and off, for several years. I did get quite a bit done this week.
It's a little warm working under that quilt, so DH bought me a little portable evaporative air cooler. This will only work well in a dry climate. It's about the size of a tall coffee can. The blue tape is there to show up where the water level was at 10:00 AM on Sunday morning, so we could see how much water it used. It can be used as a fan, too, and has lights you can turn on, I guess so you don't trip over it at night if it's on the floor. It's by Imikeya. The instructions are not worth much. They neglect to tell you to put water in the top. (That seems important to know.) The tiny thing won't cool your house, but it does cool an area where you might be sitting or working. Apparently you can also put ice in the water chamber to make it even colder. I haven't tried that yet.
Now I can close the window at night and put down the room-darkening shade. We're still missing the screens for two windows, so we get bugs. Fortunately, we haven't had any mosquitos.
We're lucky to have pretty cool temperatures most nights. We open up most of the windows and outer doors when it starts to be cooler outside than in. DH puts down the locks on the windows when he goes to bed, so the windows can stay open a couple of inches. I've been getting up at 4:30 or 5:00 AM to open up again and then close everything up again when the temperature outside starts getting close to the temperature inside. During the cooling period, I have fans set to try to move air through the house, in through the upstairs front and out through the downstairs back, and I run the vent fans in the laundry room and one bathroom. With the new windows, even on a hot day it's tolerable, especially with my new little cooler.
The pups are lazy when it's hot. Here's Dusty, relaxing on the couch. (That little pink spot is the stitches where one of his adenomas was removed last week when he was out for teeth cleaning. There were three of them. The stitches will come out on Thursday.)
Masks are mandatory in Oregon if you can't stay 6' apart, and I think that's too close. Even with the mask requirement, some delivery people or sales people come to the door with no masks, ring the doorbell and then wait right in front of the door. We made a little sign with instructions and taped it by the doorbell. I hope this works. Fortunately, we have a side light I can look out and see. I don't open the door anyway without putting my mask on, but we're starting to see 10-15 new cases in our county now. People are just too lax here.
The Doll's Storybook will be getting a new cast member, probably in October, or perhaps November, if delivery is delayed. This is Götz "Lotta," but she will get a new name. I already have a Charlotte (Lotte), and the name is too similar.
Lotta is one of the new Little Kidz line, smaller than the Happy Kidz. Here you can sort of see the size difference, though the Happy Kidz doll is on ice skates, which gives her added height. The Little Kidz are proportioned and shaped like younger children (all girls at this point.) The face is a younger version of my Mandy, but this doll has blue eyes and blonde hair. I think this character will give me an opportunity to do something new in the stories. I haven't decided yet how that will go.
This week's story is a poem about brothers. It's called Little Billy.
The plants in the garden have grown since last week, even with the cool nights. It's hard to get a photo of the zucchinis, which should be ready to eat soon.
We have two eggplant plants and a winter squash plant, in addition to the zucchini plants.
The pea plants have pods on them. I think they will be ready to eat soon.
Some of the radishes are ready.
The little tomatoes (I think these are "grape" tomatoes, but the other plant is "patio.")
Our first set of chard plants were eaten down to the ground as babies, so we replanted. Now some of them are a couple of inches high, so maybe we will have some before our first frost if we're lucky.
We're using our home-made compost now. We have decided not to put eggshells, avocado peels and pits, and orange or tangerine peels in anymore. They will break down eventually, but we're operating on a small scale, and it takes too long. The used tea bags (without tags) and used unbleached coffee filters, filled with used tea and coffee, melted away. We remove any stickers or price tags on the produce before throwing them in the compost container.
What's on my sewing machine: I may be sewing again, starting today, now that I have a way to stay cool in my fiber studio.
What's in my hoop: Still the Whole Cloth Quilt. A little progress this week.
What's in The Doll's Storybook: Little Billy.
What's in The Doll's Storybook: Little Billy.
What's on my iPad/iPhone: Still Mrs. Tim of the Regiment by D. E. Stevenson. Not much progress this week.
What's in my wine glass: Torero Mendoza Tempranillo 2019. Not terrific, but not expensive and perfectly drinkable.
What's my tip of the week: Warm air rises and cooler air sinks. You can use this to your advantage when cooling your house, with or without air conditioning.
Note: This blog post was produced on the iPad and the MacBook, using the iPhone for some photos and some photo processing. No other computer was used in any stage of composition or posting, and no Windows were opened, waited for, cleaned or broken. No animals or dolls were harmed during the production of this blog post.
No comments:
Post a Comment