A Rant & Knitting Class

Do you know what September means for me? It's the end of another quarter at work. After last EOQ, I resolved that this one would be much better, and things were going pretty good until today. Here's the background to this story. Lynnea is the person who receives and processes all of the failed or damaged parts for me to send back to the manufacturer and she's on vacation this week and next. She really needed this vacation and her backup (Mark) and her manager have known about this vacation for months now. My office mate and I have been somewhat apprehensive about Lynnea's time off because Mark is kind of a slacker and we know he doesn't get things done as efficiently as Lynnea.

Last week before I got down to meet my Spousal Unit for lunch, Mark comes into the lunch room and mentions to my SU that he should expect me to be pretty bitchy for the next couple of weeks. "Oh yeah, how come?" my SU asks (what he really wanted to say was, "welcome to my world" but that's another story). And Mark's response was, "because she has to work with me." It kind of irritated me that he said that (why does everyone think I am such a bitch? I'm really a very nice person--most of the time)

Anyway, on only 2 days of this week has Mark received any of our parts to work with. We're getting pushed from all our engineers to get this inventory moving because we only have a couple more weeks to try and get rid of a little over $1 million in defective inventory (did she say million? yeah, that's right). So late this morning, Mark walks in and announces to us that he won't be in tomorrow because he's taking comp time. And he still hasn't received any of our parts yet today. Oh man, I just lost it as soon as he left the room. Before Lynnea left, she told me that her manager had said if we had any situations where we felt Mark was not taking care of our work properly to let him know, so you better believe I fired off an immediate e-mail to Mark's manager. I tried to word it nicely and read it back to my office mate, just to make sure the note didn't sound as angry as I felt. In less than 10 minutes we had a response from the manager indicating that Mark would be in tomorrow. (So Mark, that prediction you made last week in the lunch room did come true....)

While I was at lunch, my office mate said Mark came down to our work area and he wasn't happy. You know what, that's too bad, because you're not doing your job, Buster! I wouldn't begrudge him the time off if he had gotten even a portion of our parts taken care of for us, and I have yet to figure out what he does all day because there's another guy in his regular area who can help cover Mark when he's over doing Lynnea's job for us. So needless to say, I believe there's now another person at work who will say that "Ruth is a bitch and you sure don't want to piss her off. " All's I can say is that if I'm working hard trying to support my people for that lousy $11.90 an hour vendor wage, you better be earning your $17 or $18 per hour (plus regular employee benefits) too. Is that too much to ask?

Whew, I'm glad I got that off my chest. Thanks for listening. So now I need to relax and what better way to do it than a few hours of knitting. Tonight was the second session of my "Funky Fair Isle" hat class. I had 2 students and here's a picture of us happy knitters.

They did pretty good considering we had only 2 hours. It's always rewarding for me to teach someone something new in knitting and have them say, "wow, that's really cool, I never knew how to do this before," or my other favorite, "this is so much easier/better than the way I was doing it."

Next month I will be teaching a two-part mitten class. A couple of my students have indicated that it would be fun to make some mittens to match the hat they learned in this class. Hopefully I'll be seeing them again.

I want to let you all know that I probably won't be posting as regularly for the next couple of weeks, due to being busier at work and archery deer season opening up this Saturday. I hope to be able to stay caught up with everyone's blogs. I'm looking forward to a week of vacation in October and getting back to my regular schedule (and happy mood) again.

Self Preservation

There was definitely a nip in the air today. Late last night our wind switched around to the north and was blowing pretty strongly already this morning at 4:15 when I went out to fill the birdfeeders before work. No sweatshirt over the jammies today--I had to break out the fleece with wind-blocking liner and zipped it all the way up to my chin!

It turned out to be a beautiful sunny day, but I think our daytime high was only about 64. Our weatherman is predicting a chance of frost for low-lying areas tonight, with a hard frost for northern Minnesota. When I went out to pick the almost-ripe tomatoes (just in case), I had to put on a stocking cap because the breeze was pretty chilly on my ears.

Here's the thermometer on my deck at 7:15 this evening (wish you were here, Mary!)

Yesterday I canned the tomatoes I've been ripening on the kitchen counter for the last week or so. Six quarts was my yield for that batch. I should probably get at least 4 or 5 more quarts from the tomatoes currently ripening on the counter.

It's nice to go downstairs and grab a quart of tomatoes from your own garden for that first pot of slow-cooker chili on a cold November day.


Today my project was peach jam. I got some huge and delicious peaches at the grocery store last week and thought it would be fun to try this since I'm on a "jelly roll." A bit messy peeling and cutting up the peaches, but all in all much easier and quicker than last week's grape jelly.

So for now, I'm caught up on preserving and going back to knitting for the rest of the week.

The hummingbirds are still here, but I don't know for how much longer. My migration guide says they will leave around the last week in September, but a few more chilly, windy days like today and they may want to head out a little sooner.

The northerly breeze is ruffling the feathers on her head.

Finally Did It!

It was time to change the hummingbird nectar again tonight. The hummingbird activity has been amazing this last week. All the buzzing and chasing, I don't know how they get a chance to sip any nectar at all.

When I was taking the feeder down, they were buzzing all around me, so I decided tonight would be a good time to see if I could get pictures of them eating out of my hand. Here are the results:

Almost there.....

One foot on my thumb and trying to stretch one food down to the red dish

At last.....both feet perched on my thumb! I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. What an amazing experience--thank you for letting me share it with you.

I love these little birds so much. Our northerly breeze today was a reminder that they're going to start migrating very soon and it always makes me so sad to see them go, knowing they won't be back till next May.

'Tis the Season??

Look what showed up in my mailbox today:

How many days till Christmas??? Too bad I'm not one of those people who's organized enough to start buying or making Christmas gifts already.

So Long, Farewell

Today I tagged and released the last monarch butterfly from my monarch ranch. She seemed a little smaller than most of the previous monarchs. I hope she does OK out on her own.

Since the monarch ranch opened in July, I have successfully hatched and released 19 monarch butterflies. Eleven were females and eight were males. I'm not sure if there's any significance to the number of males vs. females, but that's what my tally was.

It was kind of sad to clean out the little ranch and put everything away. I had a lot of fun and learned some new things about raising monarchs from the egg to the caterpillars and then to butterflies. I'm already looking forward to next summer and a bigger, better monarch ranch.

Thanks everyone, for sharing in my monarch ranch project.

Ooooh, It's So Good

Sorry Mr. Food, but I had to borrow your trademark phrase for my grape jelly.

So after I cooked the grapes last night, I put them in a strainer over a large bowl, covered them with a towel and let them sit in the refrigerator till I got home from work today. Picking the grapes, cleaning, pulling them off the stems, and cooking them was definitely the hardest part of the whole process.

Today I just had to add the sugar and stir constantly till boiling, then add the pectin, bring to a boil again and then put everything into the jars. I ended up with lots more jelly than I originally expected.

Once you get the jelly in the jars, it gets processed in a hot water bath for about 5 minutes. I sat and listened to all the jar lids seal as they cooled.

It has such a delicious flavor. There's definitely a different sort of tanginess than you get with any store-bought grape jelly (or at least the cheap grape jelly I buy at the store).

So as I'm making this jelly, I'm asking myself whether it's really worth the effort and what have I saved? Yeah, the grapes are organic, and I know exactly where they came from. There's quite a bit of sugar (not organic) in this jelly, but really I'm only eating a couple teaspoons of jelly at a time, so is it that bad? I'm not sure how much gas I used running a couple burners on the stove for half an hour. But, hey, I made it myself and it tastes SO GOOD! I'm excited that I have enough to give some away as gifts. Do people appreciate gifts like this? I like making gifts for people and that's where you can really save some money by not going out and buying stuff nobody wants or can't use.

Anyway, now I think I'm getting hooked on this jelly thing. I've still got all those highbush cranberries to pick after the first frost....but what about all those crabapples? The birds can't possibly eat that many, can they? I think I'd better go and buy some more jelly jars this weekend.

NOTE: I got this recipe from the internet, at the RecipeZaar site (here's the link).

Tonight's The Night

Remember these--from my backyard?

Tonight they're turning into jelly!

No time for a post tonight. See you tomorrow with jelly pictures!

Three Days Went by Fast

Wasn't it a great weekend? I don't know about you, but I'll be happy to go back to work and relax!

We got a lot of stuff done, but nowhere near everything that should have been done (as the 10 pounds of tomatoes sitting on my kitchen counter waiting to be canned continue to remind me). Archery deer hunting opens in just 2 weeks, so several hours were spent on Saturday morning and today going out to the woods and putting up a couple of deer stands. It's hot and strenuous work requiring copious amounts of profanity. Do you know how hard it is to find a perfectly straight tree that's not too small or too large to support a portable stand and yet it's still near a deer trail? I'm really feeling my age this evening after hiking through woods, weeds and cornfields, sawing limbs and trees with the "Jack Armstrong" saw and climbing up and down the ladder to the stand 12 feet up in the tree. Pulling weeds and filling birdfeeders just hasn't kept me in shape like it used to (or maybe it's all the ice cream and BLT's I've been eating lately???)

Our reward for working so hard in the mornings was to take a couple of nice motorcycle rides. The weather has been quite warm and summer-like all weekend, so we're trying to get in as many rides as we can while it's still nice. I've ridden into November in previous years, but after the middle of October, the days we can still get out on the bikes will become pretty rare.

Switching gears here, I'm going to be teaching a couple of knitting classes for a "Fair Isle Hat" on September 8 and 13 at Kristen's Knits (my local yarn shop). It was supposed to be a two-part class (2 hours for each class), but an error was made when Kristen sent out the notice, so it's two sessions of the same class (each only 2 hours long). I started on the hat last night to see if it was possible to get it done in 2 hours (no - and I'm a pretty fast knitter). However, I've designed the hat with fairly simple Fair Isle patterns and no crown shaping, so hopefully if the students have any experience at two-colored knitting, they will be well on their way to a finished hat by the time our 2 hours of class time have elapsed.

Here's my cute little (original) hat design:

And for all of you knitters out there....here's what it looks like on the inside:

I don't know about you, but I always turn two-colored hand-knits inside out to see how the carries are done (kind of looking at the backside of counted cross stitch, you did that too, right?)

Okay, blogging friends, here's the deal: If you have no aversion or allergy to wool and you've always dreamed of wearing a funky little hat like this, I will mail this hat to the first person who sends their USPS address to my e-mail box (rjknits at msn dot com). The hat is 100% wool and the circumference is approximately 18 inches. And just so there are no hurt feelings, for e-mails number 2 and 3, I will send you a hand-knitted, cotton dishcloth.

P.S. I will have to get this pattern written up by Saturday for distribution at class, so if you want a printed copy, please e-mail your mailing address and I will get a copy sent off to you.

And, hey, did you notice the new picture in my profile section? I found a really fun website this afternoon: www.meez.com and that's how I turned out there. (I was getting pretty tired of that old photograph anyway!)

Another New Tool

Last week after my blog post about my new grass clipping tool, Maud posted a comment telling me that she had the same grass clipping tool and really liked it and also that Fiskars has a long-handled dandelion digging tool that she was very pleased with. I checked on the Fiskars.com website and sure enough, there it was!

I haven't bought any new lawn or garden tools for quite a few years and because I liked the grass clippers so well (because I don't have to kneel down to use it), I decided I should try and find one of those dandelion diggers also.

I remembered seeing quite a few of the Fiskars tools at Menards last week, so we made a stop there again today on the way home from work. I had to ask someone where to find this tool and fortunately, there was one left which I promptly grabbed before someone else saw it.

It's about 36 inches long and quite simple to use.

Put the pointy teeth over your weed and push it into the ground (you can use your foot on the black tab sticking out to get it all the way pushed in).

Then slowly pull the handle sideways -- towards the black tab (which closes the teeth around the weed), until the weed pulls out of the ground.

Here's how it worked on dandelions.....how cool is that? Got the big long tap root and everything!

OK, let's see how it handles English Plantain (I hate that stuff!)

Wow, great job!
And now for the true test: thistles. Since our dry spell this summer, I have several huge thistle outbreaks in the lawn.

Thistles were a little bit tougher.

I tried on several plants and only managed to get the weed and the complete root on one of the tries.

Perhaps I'm not getting the whole plant centered in the teeth, or maybe I'm pulling it over too fast. Oh well, I must persevere and continue to hone my weed digging skills with this clever new tool.

Oh yeah, did I mention it was only $24.88? A heckuva deal!

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In the continuing "fun with hummingbirds" saga, I found a small red cap this afternoon that works to hold a few ounces of nectar. I sat out there with this cap in my hand for about half an hour, but the hummingbirds were reluctant to check it out and just went to the flowers nearby.

Finally the "idea light" went on over my head and I plucked a couple of verbena blossoms and floated them in the nectar.

Then the hummers were sipping nectar from that cap in less than 5 minutes (and sitting on my fingers to do it!) I'm fine tuning this idea a bit further and using one of those yellow plastic flowers from an old Perky Pet hummingbird feeder and hopefully my next post will contain photos of hummingbirds eating out of my hand! Stay tuned.....

Fun With Hummingbirds

Even though the days have grown much shorter and many of the summer birds have already begun their migration, I really don't consider summer officially over till the hummingbirds have left and boy, do I have hummingbirds right now!

It was time to clean and refill the nectar feeders tonight and I decided to have a little fun with the hummingbirds before hanging all the feeders back out again.

In my opinion, the most fun you can have with hummingbirds is getting them to come close and maybe even perch on your finger or eat out of your hand. It's easiest to do this when you're changing the nectar and have taken the feeder down for a few minutes. When you get back outside, they usually are waiting impatiently for you to hang it again.

I like to just hold the feeder myself and see how long it takes them to come while it's in my hand. I'm always amazed at how bold and fearless they are for their size.

When my arm got tired, I decided to see what would happen if I put the feeder on my lap.

Amazing......

I like this particular nectar feeder because the bottom is flat and it's easy to hold in your hand or sit on a flat surface (like your lap!)

I had the camera stuck to my face, but I could hear their little buzzes and chirps all around me while they were flying in. I was sitting perfectly still and didn't take the camera away for fear the movement would scare them away, but before I saw them in the viewfinder, I knew they were close because I could feel the breeze generated by those rapidly beating wings....they really make a lot of breeze.

One came.....

Then there was a little challenge when the second one arrived.....

(if you look close in the top center--just right of the red salvia--you can see the hummer across from the one in the lower left corner)

But after a couple seconds, they both settled down to eat.

Then a third one tried to come to the feeder and was met with strong resistance. Can you see all three hummers in this picture? (I should have used the action mode, but forgot in all my excitement.)

I remember a few months ago, someone sent me an e-mail of a woman holding a little red dish (filled with nectar) in her hand and feeding hummingbirds. I'm going to try and find a little red dish and attempt to do this myself. This late summer time of peak hummingbird activity is the perfect time for fun with hummingbirds....and unlike the warnings on TV, "please do try this at home!"

Cooper Strikes Again

When I got home from work and grabbed the dog leashes from the downstairs patio door I spotted the Cooper's Hawk flying away from this ground feeder tray right out in the backyard.

"Oh-oh," I thought to myself. I walked the dogs around to the backyard and sure enough.... there was fresh blood on the edge of the tray and lots of feathers scattered all over. (I deleted the blood picture and here's the less gross scattered feathers).

I picked up a few feathers to try and ID and I'm thinking (hoping) it was a house sparrow. What do you think?

On days that I'm home, I may see that Cooper's Hawk a couple times a day swooping through the yard. She particularly likes sitting in the apple trees (at the right side of this photo) and I've scared her out of there on more than one occasion when walking out in the yard. These trees are pretty dense and it's a short quick flight out of there to the birdfeeders nearby.

I don't mind if she gets a few birds in my yard.....I have an overabundance of house finches and sparrows and even quite a few mourning doves that would make a good meal for a hungry Cooper's Hawk. I remember when I worked at Wild Birds Unlimited there were always a few customers who would come in and be absolutely irate about a Cooper's or Sharp-Shinned taking songbirds from their feeders or yard. I read a great article in The Backyard Bird Newsletter one time that reminded us how few hawks there are in relation to songbirds and how truly difficult it is for them to catch enough food every day in order to survive. I always tried to share this information with people and also remind them of what a privilege it is to see a bird of prey going about its business in their own backyard. (It's still hard to remember that though when you find a pile of cardinal feathers under your backyard feeder.....)

On my way back into the house, I used a fern leaf to rescue this little beetle who was trying to right itself in a half inch of water in a plastic bucket. According to my new Kaufman insect field guide, it's an "Earth Boring Scarab" Bolbocerasoma species. The book says adults are attracted to dung....plenty of that in my yard with 2 dogs and all those bird feeders.

On an entirely unrelated subject, I'm pleased to report that we have completely discontinued the use of plastic beverage bottles in our household. There's been so much in the news lately about all the plastic bottles (water, pop, juice, etc.) being thrown away and lots of them not being recycled. My Spousal Unit loves the flavored waters in plastic bottles and would go through at least 12 of them a week. I've been refilling glass tea bottles with water and a little packet of Lipton "Green Tea to Go" for my lunch beverage and asked him if he would give up his flavored water in plastic bottles to experiment with something new.

At the grocery store, I found these "Water Sensations," a Clear Liquid Flavor Enhancer for Water (cost is about $2.50 for a box of 12 packets). I bought a 6-pack of plain Lipton tea in glass bottles (which I drank myself) and then filled his bottles with water from the tap and the "Water Sensations" (BTW, it comes in yummy flavors: peach, mixed berry, and strawberry/kiwi and it's sweetened with Sucralose). Turns out to be very delicious and he really likes it....doesn't miss his plastic bottles at all and 6 bottles guarantees that there will always be a bottle of cold, flavored water in the refigerator for his lunch and to quench his thirst after his afternoon walk. And boy, have we noticed a reduction of stuff in the recycling bin every week!

Not Much Going On

I'm going to post early today because there's another round of severe thunderstorms rolling in late this afternoon. I can see the dark sky and hear thunder rumbling outside my window. The storms we've been having lately have so much lightning in them that I've started unplugging my surge protector.....just in case!

I wanted to show you a picture of this swell new tool I picked up on sale (for only $19.99!) at Menards last Sunday.

Fiskars makes this neat grass clippers that you can use standing up. No more crawling around the flowerbeds for this old gal anymore! I tried it out Sunday afternoon and it works really great. I like these manual clippers better than the weed whacker because it's quiet and the grass clippings don't fly all over the place (plus it's environmentally friendly--no stinky two-cycle engine).

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When we get home from work, my first duty is to let the dogs out of their kennels and walk them around the yard so they can "do their business." As we were walking past the wildflower garden, I spotted one of my "monarch children" still hanging around. I was so excited and hoped he would still be there after I ran in the house to get my camera.

All the butterflies and other insects are loving this Canada Goldenrod blooming profusely right now. Can you see the 3 Monarch butterflies in this picture?

Autumn is Near

Warning: This is going to be a post about hunting, so if any of you have objections to hunters or hunting, you will want to skip today's blog from the Nature Knitter.

The opening if our archery deer hunting season is fast approaching--September 15th this year. Except for turkey hunting in the spring, I think this is the time of year my Spousal Unit looks forward to more than anything. He started putting up the portable tree stands last week. I am a bow hunter, but definitely not as hardcore as he is. It's a heckuva lot of work putting up all those stands and trimming trees and underbrush for shooting lanes. He spent lots of hours last fall after each day of hunting documenting what we had seen and at what time, what the weather conditions were, what phase of the moon, etc. This year we will find out how all of his hard work benefits our hunts.

We have some private landowners who let us bowhunt on their property in the fall. Yesterday afternoon the Spousal Unit promised me he would take me to the new McDonalds for an ice cream cone and then out to scout for deer. Now what woman could possibly turn down an offer like this? He knows I love ice cream cones and also being given the chance to sit out in the woods and watch birds (with an occasional deer, if they're cooperative).

The first thing I noticed when walking from the car was that several of the maple trees had already started changing color.

We saw a doe and fawn shortly after getting out in the field. The lay of the land necessitated that I had to put my little stool on the top of a rise right out in the middle of the hayfield. It was so beautiful and quiet (something I never get to experience here at home right next to the highway). I saw and heard lots of birds: flicker, eastern wood peewee, chickadees, cardinals, crows, common nighthawks, great blue heron, and robins.

We use walkie-talkies to communicate and finally about 8:15 I was calling him to see if he was ready to leave when all of a sudden about 30 yards away from me, out of nowhere appeared the biggest buck I have ever seen alive. Holy crap--my heart started pounding just like when it's hunting season. He didn't know I was there because the wind was blowing towards me and I wasn't moving. I took a few pictures but it was getting so dark and I couldn't hold the camera still enough for the delayed shutter. Here is the only crappy picture in which he's somewhat identifiable (and I had to adjust the contrast).
These big bucks are so cautious and it's such a privilege to be out in their habitat and able to see one. Around here, most of the bucks don't get very old or big because so many people hunt (mostly shotgun). I like bowhunting because it's early in the fall and the weather is usually not too cold. I love sitting in my treestand in the woods and watching all the birds....because you're dressed totally in camouflage the birds and other wildlife aren't usually aware of your presence.

Last year I finally got a deer with my bow (after bowhunting for 4 years). It was on my birthday and a pretty nice 8-point buck. (Here's me and my antlers--which the Spousal Unit picked up from the taxidermist just today).
Our taxidermist, Larry (and his wife, Sue) are also big bowhunters. While listening to Larry's stories about the bear hunts he's been on, apparently the Spousal Unit mentioned enough times that he's never had bear meat and so Larry and Sue gave him a package of bear brats which we grilled for our supper.
They were pretty good, but I couldn't really notice a difference in flavor from the deer brats we've been grilling all summer. Anyway, now we can finally say we've eaten bear meat, even if we didn't shoot it ourselves. Some day....

A Nice Saturday

It was a beautiful, late summer Saturday and a welcome change from the rainy week we just finished. I mowed the lawn....it's amazing how quickly the grass has recovered from drought conditions of a few weeks ago.

The grass was really long in some spots....looks like I'll be spending some quality time with a rake tomorrow.

I still haven't gotten out to deal with this giant ragweed. Some of the stalks are still upright, but a lot of them fell down in the heavy rains of last weekend.

Look at all these grapes. This is a grapevine the birds planted and it's covered with grapes this summer. I'd like to pick these (before the cedar waxwings discover them) and see if I can get some jelly made.

My apples are getting bigger on the trees. Some of the branches are hanging almost to the ground with the weight of all these apples.

Here are some of the white berries of the red osier dogwood. I was surprised to find these....the birds usually pick them off as soon as they're ripe.

The crabapple trees are covered with little apples too. Aren't these pretty? The cedar waxwings and robins should be pretty happy with all these little treats come winter (if the starlings don't get them first!)

I wasn't able to spend much time in the garden last week either. Looks like I'd better get these tomatoes picked tomorrow! I haven't found any bugs on these tomatoes. The chipping sparrows spend a lot of time in the garden and I think they've been eating many of the insects.

My highbush cranberry bushes are loaded with fruit! I found a couple of recipes for jelly and sauce on the internet, but it says the fruits are better if they get frosted once before picking. I think there's enough here for me and the birds this year.

My goldfish seem to be happy with the cooler weather also. At least they seem to be a little more active, not hiding under the plants all the time.

Can anyone tell me what's eating these little round holes in the oak leaves? I looked close at a couple of leaves while I was mowing today, but couldn't see any small insects or caterpillars that might be responsible.