HighFiber

Monday, July 17, 2023

Packing for...?

We've been getting ready to pick up our new trailer in Eugene. I made a couple of dishcloths and a nylon scrubby. Unfortunately, the pattern I have for the scrubby is no longer available, but I found this one, which looks to be almost the same. I used a much finer nylon net this time, and I found it easier to work with.

I'm adding this dish mat, which is the second one I made two years ago. How I made it is on the project page on Ravelry. I'm keeping the red one here at home.

You can see we're going with grey and turquoise as our main colors. I like these two colors, alone and separately, and we thought they would go well with the grey cabinets and the rag rugs I made last year for the trailer. Most of our bedding needed replacing anyway, so we got new sheets (only our third set in 23 years!) a new duvet cover (replacing the first one we got 23 years ago), which came with pillow shams. The mattress cover was also original and was starting to have holes in some places. We're keeping the original quilt for now, because it's a good cover on the bed to protect from muddy paws, but we're adding a fake fur throw, which Sandy loves. We can put the bedding into black plastic trash bags and hope they don't get mixed up with actual trash.

We have inexpensive bath and hand towels, but I used those to pack our kitchen things, which includes our dishes. It mostly fits into five small boxes. This is greatly pared down from what we had in our old fifth wheel. It doesn't include our clothes, toiletries and personal items. We will only take enough clothes for a few days, because we have to fit everything into the truck. We'll tape up the boxes, put them in the bed of the truck and hope it doesn't rain.

It also doesn't include food, other than coffee, tea and a few other shelf-stable items, along with any leftovers from our fridge that might spoil if we left them. We'll use an insulated bag with cold packs from our freezer for cold stuff, and then we'll grocery shop for what we need when we get custody of the trailer and know how much will fit into the fridge, which is 6 cu. ft., which I think is smaller than what we had in the fifth wheel.

How about that old 5th wheel, which we sold on June 28th? It's still sitting on our RV pad. The gentleman who was supposed to pick it up had his tow vehicle break down. Sound familiar? He lives in Portland or Salem. It's taking some time to get it fixed. (Looking for parts, is my guess.) The registration and insurance on the fifth wheel runs out this month. We were going to give him the tow hitch, but he will have to get here and get it installed. We will need a place to put the new trailer. We're still trying to work things out. Right now, we don't know when we'll go to pick it up.

Health issues (mine) interfered with my activities this past week. I had an infected toe, which took me (limping) to urgent care. The day after I went to urgent care, I discovered that I had a UTI, which sent me to see my regular doctor (still limping). Now I'm on two antibiotics and no longer limping, but it took a lot of time getting it all sorted out. I did manage to get the blocks for Soren's quilt organized according to the arrangement I worked out last week. I have each block labeled with a pinned sticky indicating where it goes.

Sandy continues to grow, tipping the scales at 17 lbs. as of Friday. He is now six months old. Minis grow faster and finish maturing sooner than standards, so we still have the expectation that he will be under 25 lbs. when he stops growing. He made us look good at training class on Sunday, in spite of the fact that I was unable to practice loose-leash walking with him during the week due to the toe, which continued to hurt when wearing any kind of shoe for most of the week. Dusty keeps Sandy exercised when we can't walk (or maybe it's the other way around).

Here's Sandy and his friend Snowball having a bedtime tussle in the upstairs hallway.

Sandy brings Snowball to bed with him at night. I think Snowball will have to go camping with us when we go.

Soren has been enjoying summer school. Here he is, off on the bus.

Johan, who turned nine this week, learned how to use a power drill, when the family put together a new shed for tools and things in the backyard. Useful life skills!

Useful in a different way, is Zachary's hiphop class. (He's the one in the white shirt.) I think he's very good!

I only got a couple of rows of the Kultainen käki sweater done, with the dish cloths and scrubby taking up my knitting time and all the other things, including another new story in The Doll's Storybook this week. (More info on that below). Here's how it's looking.

I have a lot of difficulty responding to comments to my blog posts because of technical issues beyond my control (my lack of understanding of how things work). Message me on Facebook, Ravelry or Spoutible if you need information.

If you have a few minutes and are willing, please go to Amazon and B&N and search for "Classic Tales Retold: Stories from The Doll's Storybook by Peggy Stuart" in Children's. Every click on the page for the book makes it more likely they will keep a good supply in their warehouse and stores. If you are outside the US, you may have a separate website for these retailers. If you have a copy of any of our books, including Emil and Mariah, please leave an honest review on the websites, especially if you bought from them.

Where's my blog: If you want to follow my blog, go here and sign up to follow.

What's on my needles: Still the Kultainen käki cardigan and the EmPower People Kerchief (hibernating), but also the dishcloth.

What's on my loom: Still the rag placemats, no progress.

What's on my sewing machine: Still ready to put the quilt blocks together.

What's in The Doll's Storybook: Nico has a problem in "The Secret," this week's story in The Doll's Storybook. Pauly thinks Veronika can help.

What's on my iPad/iPhone: Still listening to Die Unendliche Geschichte by Michael Ende, not much progress there, either.

What's in my wine glass: Another Madroña El Tinto, always a favorite.

What's my tip of the week: If you need to save on space and keep food for a trip cold in an ice chest, use frozen food you expect to use up in the first few days as "ice." (Be sure it's food that is safe to cook thawed.)

Where are my books: The stories in each book first appeared in the blog and they are reproduced with a few changes.

Classic Tales Retold: Stories from The Doll's Storybook is available from BookBabyBookshop and other booksellers worldwide. The stories are Little Green Greatcoat, The Boy Doll Who Cried Wolf and Lost in the Woods.

Emil: Stories from The Doll's Storybook and Mariah: Stories from The Doll's Storybook are also still available from booksellers. The link for Book Baby is here. The three stories in Emil are Best Buds, Getting What You Want, and The Boys Cook Dinner.

The three stories in Mariah are Being Little, Besties, and Distraction.

If you don't get free shipping from Amazon or B&N, buy from the BookBabyBookshop, because 50% of the price goes to St. Jude. Other booksellers pay much less.

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.

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Monday, July 10, 2023

Dog Days

A busy weekend with the grandkids ended at the beginning of the week, with (among other things) a trip to Lava Lands Visitor Center just south of Bend, where we did a couple of short hikes. Short, because it was very hot, and our granddog, Louis, was having trouble with his feet on the hot pavement and sand trails.

I think poodles must have tough feet, because our dogs didn't seem bothered by it, but they were happy to drink a lot more water than usual. We had some beautiful views, and it was fun just being together.

The boys both wanted to hold Sandy's leash. I remembered the trick I learned with Therapy Animals of Utah of adding a second leash to the collar (or harness, in this case) so one of the boys could hold one leash and I could hold the others. They had to take turns.

After the visit, Louis decided he had had enough of being in the car, so he shredded his car bed.

On July 4th, the kids left to go home. I was singing in the Festival Chorus for the Fourteenth Annual Sound Fourth! Fourth of July Concert. It was a lot of fun, and the imperfect but charming performance by the Cascade Horizon Band brought back memories of celebrations from my childhood, where a small band performed on a bandstand set up on the shore of Jamaica Pond, where we lived then, just outside Boston. This was my view of the audience and our director, the only downside.

That night, I took Sandy out to our front yard to watch the fireworks, hoping the experience would inoculate him against fear of the loud bangs we're subjected to every July 4th. I held him up to see, and every time a rocket when up, I pointed to it and raved about how beautiful it was, and weren't we having fun. He seemed very interested and not at all frightened. (Photo from The Source Weekly.)

Later in the week, we took the dogs to the off-leash dog park at Pine Nursery. The meet-up group was supposed to have an event there during which dogs of participants could socialize with each other, followed by beer and eats at 10 Barrel Brewing's East Side location. When we got to the park a few minutes late, we couldn't find anyone, but the dogs got to have some off-leash time. While we were looking around, another person came, a lady with a silver miniature poodle a little smaller than Dusty. She was also looking for the group. We talked and decided it was late enough they must have cancelled. The three of us decided to go to the brewery and meet there.

We had a nice visit with Maggie and Asta. The dogs exchanged sniffs and we exchanged phone numbers. After we got home Maggie sent a text saying she received notification that the meeting at the dog park had been cancelled due to excessive heat. We had tried to sign up at the last minute but couldn't, so maybe it had already been cancelled then.

Sandy had another puppy training class on Sunday. Among other things, we got some tips on loose-leash walking. Sandy amused the class with his nonchalance when the trainer gave each dog a chew stick. Sandy played with it like a cat with a toy, then took it in his mouth and rolled around on the floor, stopping on his back as if he were just going to take a nap. One of the other dogs is pretty high-strung, and two others are a little nervous, so he got a lot of attention for being laid-back.

After the kids left on Tuesday, I got back to the quilts. I have finished all of the pieced blocks now. I'm using a pattern called "Disappearing Hourglass." You take an hourglass block, cut it up, move things around and put it back together to form a new design. This is an hourglass block, one I made for Johan's quilt to go with green.

You measure the block, divide the size by three and then cut it into thirds vertically and horizontally. After you rotate the nine resulting pieces and sew them together you can end up with this (but there are other variations):

Here's what the block looked like after cutting:

This is how the pieces were rotated before sewing them back together in their new orientations:

There's a YouTube video demonstrating the technique.

I had decided to put the blocks on point with setting squares. First I had to figure out how to arrange the blocks, because they are all different from each other. I gave up my design wall when we moved, but I decided I could do it on my computer just as well, so I took a photo of each block. Then I put them into a word-processing document and arranged them in rows, moving them around until I was satisfied that the individual fabrics and other characteristics of the blocks were dispersed. Here's a screen shot of what I ended up with. (They aren't very evenly spaced, because I didn't think that was important.) There is one block where I forgot to turn the center square. Can you find it? I think it make the quilt interesting, as do the blocks where the pattern just about disappears.

Now all I have to do is sew them together in diagonal rows, with the blocks in each row of my screenshot in the same locations, only on point. I hope to get that done this week.

While the kids were here, Johan found a beetle that had a body about one inch long and striped. He said it hissed at him. When we went to look, the beetle had run off. However, a few days later, I found this fellow in the dog water dish. I "rescued" him and left him on the rail. He was there long enough for me to get a photo. Peter looked him up and learned he was a Ten-lined (hissing) June Beetle. Perhaps I shouldn't have saved his life, because the larvae feed on roots of grass, bushes and trees, but I did, and he left after he dried out.

In other dog-related news, we found another one of Sandy's teeth, this time on the mat the dog dish rests on. We now have two souvenirs of his early puppyhood.

I've continued to experiment with using the pressure cooker to heat food that normally would go in the gas oven, since our new trailer won't have one of those, just the microwave/convection oven that needs electricity (shown below, with the sticker on the door).

We will have the gas cooktop, so if we are camping where we don't have electricity, we should be able to heat things up in the pressure cooker on that.

Here's what I have to work with, shown here on the stove in my house kitchen.

This is a Presto 6-quart pressure cooker with several choices of racks. I found a silicone "sling" online that can be used to put around a dish or bowl in the pressure cooker for reheating. I'm also getting a springform pan I can use. As I've done with the plastic food storage containers, I can line it with heavy-duty foil and freeze a casserole. The springform pan will be easy to remove from the frozen meal and then replaced for cooking, so I can use the same pan over and over. The square containers will not go into the pressure cooker, obviously, so I will need to put the food on a metal rack.

I have bought new sheets and a new duvet cover to replace the old ones, which are worn out.

Now I'm knitting a new dishcloth with some of the yarn I used for warp for the rugs I made for our fifth wheel.

I decided that grey, aqua and teal will be the mail colors in the new trailer. The woodwork is grey, and the upholstery is an exciting beige. The rugs have grey and beige in them, but also some aqua. I can probably only use two of the rugs at a time in the new trailer, but it will be good to have a spare in case one gets muddy.

We hope to be able to pick up our new camping trailer next week.

Where's my blog: If you want to follow my blog, go here and sign up to follow.

What's on my needles: Still the Kultainen käki cardigan and the EmPower People Kerchief (hibernating), but also the dishcloth.

What's on my loom: I only made a few picks on the placemats.

What's on my sewing machine: Still the quilt, but ready to put the blocks together.

What's in The Doll's Storybook: In Reading Things, Mandy reads her knitting, but also other things.

What's on my iPad/iPhone: Still listening to Die Unendliche Geschichte by Michael Ende. I'm really enjoying listening to it in German at .7 speed (70% of normal).

What's in my wine glass: Bodegas De Olmo Garnacha 2019, from Spain. Very...Spanish.

What's my tip of the week: I should have worked back from a finished size for a block that was an even number, such as 10" or 11" instead of 10.5", which is what I got starting out with an arbitrary 7" square to make my original half-square triangles. When you divide a finished block size by 3, it's nice if it's something you can measure accurately with a ruler divided into eighths and sixteenths instead of decimals.

Where are my books: The stories in each book first appeared in the blog and they are reproduced with a few changes.

The three stories in Mariah are Being Little, Besties, and Distraction.

If you don't get free shipping from Amazon or B&N, buy from the BookBabyBookshop, because 50% of the price goes to St. Jude. Other booksellers pay much less.

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Monday, July 3, 2023

Independence Day!

My internet was down over the weekend, so this blog post is a bit late. It was another busy week, busier than usual, in fact. However, I managed to get more blocks made for the boys' quilts. (I'm up to 26 blocks.) So far, the blocks go either with the green paint chip or with the blue, or in some cases, with both.

I went to Joann's on Friday to pick up some fabric for setting blocks for the quilts. ended up with the green on the left and the blue on the right, both fabrics that read as solid. I had forgotten the paint chips I was using for color selection, but I called Charlie, who was at home, and he took a photo of the samples and texted them to me.

The kids I'm making the quilts for are the ones who came to visit us over the weekend. This same weekend, we had Sandy's first puppy training class, and I had rehearsals for a concert on July 4th. Rehearsals started on Wednesday and were held almost every day. It's a joint concert with Cascade Horizon Band.

We were very busy, but I did manage to get in a little knitting, either at home or while waiting for a medical appointment. The pattern in the Kultainen käki Cardigan is starting to be evident. (That orange strip at the bottom is a removable tape that helps me keep my place on the chart.)

The boys' birthdays are coming up. Soren's is Wednesday and Johan's is a week later on the 12th. We sent their presents and cards home along with the parents.

Sandy is continuing to grow. He's up to 16 lbs. Sometimes he looks almost as big as Dusty. Tuesday our vet let us know that they finally had the canine influenza vaccine in, so I zipped over there and got the puppy vaccinated. We were hoping to get this done before his first puppy class on Sunday, and it was soon enough that he probably had almost complete immunity by then. He will need a booster in a few weeks. As he matures, he's safe in more situations. We can allow to be outside in the back yard by himself now, and he behaves better in general, so I'm expecting to have more free time in the future.

The day after Sandy got his vaccine, a young man knocked on our door and wanted to know if we wanted to sell our 5th wheel and the pickup. We had planned to trade in the trailer for the new RPod, but we wanted to keep the truck. He offered us more than the RPod dealer had offered as a trade-in, and we wouldn't have to tow it to Eugene, where our expected new trailer is. The young man wanted the trailer to live in, and it's a good size for a home for one person. His grandfather was helping him, but let him take care of all the business himself.

They were willing to take just the trailer, and we had almost finished emptying it of our personal stuff already. All it needed was some vacuuming and the tanks flushed out. We have the money, he has the papers, and all he needs is to find a way to tow it to Portland. We had a lot of fun with the trailer, but we really don't need something that big, and it isn't easy to tow around. We're looking forward to a new RV and more adventures while we're still healthy enough. It's like Independence Day!

Our son and DIL take turns running in the morning. They almost always take their dog, Louis. When they are here, they usually take Dusty, because he runs nicely with Louis. They are best friends. That gave Dusty and occasional break from being Mr. Mom to Sandy.

They will leave to go home on Tuesday.

Hope everyone in the US (and everywhere) has a safe July 4th!

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

Happy Independence Day to all who celebrate!

Where's my blog: If you want to follow my blog, go here and sign up to follow.

What's on my needles: Still the Kultainen käki cardigan and the EmPower People Kerchief (hibernating).

What's on my loom: I didn't make much progress on the placemats, but there's no rush. I did cut a few more strips of fabric.

What's on my sewing machine: Still quilt blocks.

What's in The Doll's Storybook: In "Where Do Dolls Come From," Jolena wonders about her origins. This story originally appeared on August 24, 2018.

What's on my iPad/iPhone: Still listening to Die Unendliche Geschichte by Michael Ende. I'm really enjoying listening to it in German at .7 speed (70% of normal).

What's in my wine glass: Hawks View Winery 2019 Barrel Select Pinot Gris from Willamette Valley. The kids brought this one. It's a nice one.

What's my tip of the week: We will be camping without an oven that can be used without electricity. How to fix frozen dinners when we're boondocking. (I've learned that's what people call dry camping, or camping without hookups.) I froze lasagne in a plastic container lined with heavy-duty aluminum foil. I picked containers that were square (so I can fit more of them in the freezer) but small enough to go into my pressure cooker. I have a rack with a handle, so it can be picked up and removed without getting scalded. (If you don't have that kind of rack, there's a workaround: just cut a strip of heavy-duty aluminum foil long enough to go under your rack and extend over the edges of the pressure cooker. Fold it lengthwise in thirds, and it will be strong enough to lift the rack. It can be folded over itself at the top to make a loop.) I put the water in the pressure cooker, then the rack with the frozen dinner, still wrapped in foil. I brought the pressure up and let it cook for 17 minutes. I let the pressure drop on its own.

Where are my books: The stories in each book first appeared in the blog and they are reproduced with a few changes.

The three stories in Mariah are Being Little, Besties, and Distraction.

If you don't get free shipping from Amazon or B&N, buy from the BookBabyBookshop, because 50% of the price goes to St. Jude. Other booksellers pay much less.

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