First Day of Autumn

September 24 - the first full day of autumn and it was a humid 84 degrees outside. I sincerely hope this was the last day for 2007 that I had to run the air conditioner!

This is the post I would have done yesterday if we hadn't gotten that severe thunderstorm with lots of lightning last night!

There was lot of monarch butterfly activity in my wildflower garden late in the afternoon, so I decided to try and catch some for tagging since I have quite a few unused tags left yet from the monarch ranch. I managed to catch and tag only 2, but spent some enjoyable time around the wildflower garden (despite the heat and those really tiny black bugs with a painful bite).

I have so many asters blooming in beautiful colors in this garden and that's what the monarchs were there for (the bumble and honey bees love these flowers too).

The asters are mostly in shades of pink and purple. (I'm glad I took these photos yesterday because the wind and rain last night really battered some of the blossoms.)

They grow profusely throughout the garden and it's nice to have all this color late in the season when most of the other flowers are done blooming.

There are still some other flowers blooming too: Brown-Eyed Susan

One Purple Coneflower (amongst the already dead ones where finches have begun eating the seeds)

There's lots of bird activity in the wildflower garden--mostly goldfinches, but I believe I also saw the Eastern subspecies of the Orange-Crowned Warbler (according to what I read in my Stokes Field Guide to Warblers). This little bird is very similar in size and appearance to the goldfinches right now in their drab olive-colored plumage. I spotted this little warbler in amongst the stems of the purple coneflowers. According to the Stokes Field Guide, they "feed mostly low in underbrush, weedy fields, and understory." I also noticed this little bird had a split whitish eye-ring. There were no other wingbars or distinguishing features. Of course, I didn't have the camera with me and when I ran into the house to get it, by the time I got back the bird had disappeared. (I spotted it again this afternoon, but still no camera for a photograph.)

Our apple trees are so weighted down with apples that some of the branches are dragging on the ground. The apples on the south and west side of the trees are much redder from getting the sun all the time. (you can see here how red they are with branches hanging right down into the asters)

These apples are huge and quite delicious. We've been sharing one for lunch each day and I picked a bunch for one of my co-workers.

this is not a trick photograph--some of the apples are actually this big!

I still saw a couple of hummingbirds at the nectar feeders yesterday, but since the storms blew through the weather has cooled down considerably and no hummingbirds have been seen yet today. According to the nature diary I have kept since 2002, the next 10 days or so are when the last hummingbirds are seen and by the 29th, I may begin seeing juncos coming back for the winter.

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This is a picture of a deer "Bed & Breakfast" we discovered near our deer hunting area. It's between the cornfield and the woods and all the grass is flattened because this is where the deer bed down after eating in the cornfield. There are lots of does and fawns in this area and it's an nice sheltered spot for them--away from the road and no people living nearby.

Happy Anniversary To Us

Today is our 28th wedding anniversary. Where has the time gone?

It seems like only a couple years ago and it's funny how so many of the details of that day are clear in my memory, especially when I can't seem to remember some of the stuff I did last week (short-term is the first to go, right?)

It's always fun to look back at these pictures and see how much everyone has changed.

I had a hard time finding the wedding photo album and finally was able to locate it in the bottom of a box in our "storm shelter" room under the stairs. We haven't used this room recently, so I was surprised to find that things were quite damp in this room and the photo album (in addition to some other items) was kind of musty smelling and the back cover of the album was covered with mold. (Looks like I have another item to add to my "To Do" list for when I'm on vacation the week after next.)

We both had to work today because of the EOQ demands, so we're just going out to supper tonight at the Macaroni Grill (not sure if this restaurant is a nationwide or just Minnesota chain, but it's been quite good on previous visits).

Middle Name Game

Last week, I was tagged by Jayne at Journey Through Grace to play the middle name game. The name of the game is to:

List one fact that is somehow relevant to your life for each letter of your middle name. If you don't have a middle name, use the name you would have liked to have had. When you are tagged you need to write your own blog post containing your middle name game facts. At the end of your blog post you need to choose one person for each letter of your middle name to tag. Don't forget to leave them a comment telling them they're tagged, and to read your blog.

My middle name is Elizabeth, and it's taken me several days to come up with something for each letter, so here goes....

E is for everyone I have met through blogging

L is for learning, because I have learned so many new things this summer

I is for I/O moth, a beautiful moth I had the privilege to see and photograph earlier this summer

Z is for zinnia, a colorful flower I have to remember to plant next summer for butterflies and hummingbirds

A is for amazement, which is one of the emotions I feel when a hummingbird sits on my finger

B is for birds and blogging, two things that enrich my life every day

E is for environment, something I try to continue to improve every day

T is for thankfulness, for the many blessings I have in my life

H is for happiness, which I have an abundance of in my life

Now I'm supposed to tag as many people as there are letters in my middle name, but I'm only going to tag 3:

Lynne at HastyBrook

Nina at Nature Remains, and

Trixie at Trixie's View

What's on My Knitting Needles

In October, I'll be teaching a two-part class on knitted mittens. This is going to be a basic mitten, but based on some feedback from a student in one of my hat classes, our mitten is going to have a pointed top rather than the rounded top found in most mittens (because that's how your hand is shaped, right?)

Here's one of the mittens started with stitches for the thumb on a holder.

I don't like doing thumbs very well, so they always get done last. I have to get this pair done pretty soon, so I can deliver it to the knitting shop so students know what they're signing up for. I'm also going to teach them about "half-mitts" and fingerless gloves. Half-mitts are just what the name implies--half a mitten which stops just above the knuckles, but you don't have to knit in the half-fingers like a fingerless glove. I have several pairs of these and they're really nice in the wintertime--especially if you work in a chilly office (like I do) but you need your fingers free for work.

I found a bunch of dishcloth patterns a few weeks ago on a really cool website called Dishcloth Boutique. There are patterns for knitted and crocheted dishcloths. I have a bunch of cotton yarn in my "stash" and decided that I would try and get a few dishcloths knitted up so we could start using them instead of paper napkins at the dinner table. I thought this was a pretty good idea for several reasons: I could use up some yarn to make space for storing more yarn, I would get to try lots of new patterns, and I would eliminate more trash by not throwing away paper napkins anymore. A "win-win" any way you look at it!

Dishcloth/Napkin

Everyday in my e-mail in-box, I receive the Knitting Daily e-mail from Interweave Press. I also subscribe to their Interweave Knits magazine and they publish many other fine knitting pattern books which I own. In the daily e-mail about 10 days ago, they interviewed Mags Kandis who designed the "Modern Quilt Wrap" for Folk Style, the newest pattern book published by Interweave Press.

Here's the picture of the "Modern Quilt Wrap." Isn't it beautiful? I really liked the design, but thought to myself, "that looks really difficult and so many ends to weave in!" They had the pattern included in the e-mail, but I didn't even take the time to look at it because I thought it would be just too much work.

About a week after that e-mail, I was looking over at Martie's blog and saw that she had actually started working on the quilt wrap herself and was doing it a bit narrower (more like a scarf). Well, after seeing what Martie had done, I was so inspired, I decided to take a second look at this pattern. The instructions listed it as "easy." "Come on, Ruthie," I told myself, "you should be able to handle this without any problem."

So I printed out the pattern and started looking through my yarn stash again and came upon a couple of kits I had purchased years ago (one for multicolored socks and the other for multicolored vests). The only thing I ever did with these kits was to wind the hanks of yarn into balls and it's been languishing in the yarn cupboard ever since. The yarn colors were perfect for this design and I started it last Friday night.

It really is a very simple pattern--you start with this L-shaped thing on your needle and with a decrease on each side of the center, your L-shape gradually decreases into a square. I've been weaving in the ends as I go, so will not even have to deal with too many tails once the project is completed. I've been trying to do one section every couple days or so, and it's quite enjoyable to see my progress and how the colors work together.

Here's the front side (see how it's turning into a square from the "L" shape?)

And here's the backside (I usually don't cut the yarn tails off till after everything's finished and I wash it).

Now that the sun is going down by 7:30, I have much more time in the evening for knitting. (Although I did spend a few minutes with a hummingbird perched on my finger tonight after supper--no amount of knitting can even come close to the joy I get from those little birds!)

Thanks Mon@rch!

Remember this picture?

This is Tom (aka Mon@arch) showing off the little jar of grape jelly I sent him last week (did you notice his hat?) Being a truly grateful person, he posted that very nice entry on his blog and in his e-mail thank you, mentioned that he was going to send me something in return. "Really, Tom you don't have to do that," was my response. To which he replied, "it's not that big of a deal," along with this statement, "It's nothing special and just think of it as you being one of the team! BTW: Young Naturalist J did the logo design." So now, I'm really wondering what will arrive in my mailbox this week.

Today, when we got home, my Spousal Unit handed me the little corrugated box from our mailbox and here's what was inside:

Now how cool is that? How did Mon@arch know I like caps? And that I needed a special cap for birdwatching trips? Thanks Tom, I love it!

I have a small cap collection--special caps that I've received as gifts, collected from my travels or have a special significance (like my blood donor cap which bears my "gallons donated" pins). There are summer caps, winter caps, hunting caps, and grubby, sweat-stained everyday caps (not pictured!)
I almost always wear a cap anywhere I go on the weekend--eliminates the need to do anything with my hair! But if anyone were to ask, I would always say it was for sun protection.

The View From The Woods

Today was our archery deer hunting opener and it was pretty chilly! We had a hard frost last night and there was ice on the birdbath this morning when we left. We got all our gear ready last night and you can be sure my long underwear was the first thing on this morning.

We left the house around 5 AM and it's about a 25 minute drive to where we hunt. It was a really nice calm morning, so we could hear the owls hooting as we walked to our hunting stands in total darkness. Thank goodness for those little lights that go on your head! The Spousal Unit got to his stand first, so I took off on my own to my stand farther down in the woods. Last year we utilized the little reflective tacks to mark trees along the trail we use to get to the stands. This has been a lifesaver for me as I tend to lose my sense of direction even with the headlamp. These little reflective tacks shine like a beacon for my headlamp enabling me to get to my stand with no trouble.

Of course, by the time I get there, no matter how chilly it is, I've gotten warm enough from the hike that I have to wait for my eyeglasses to un-steam before I climb the ladder to my stand. Once I get up to my stand, I hook up my safety vest to the tree and I'm ready to sit and wait for the sun to rise and deer to appear.

I really enjoy sitting on my stand in the dark and listening to all the sounds of the woods. Today I heard both the Barred Owl and the Great-Horned Owl. And I can always count on hearing some type of heated verbal dispute between raccoons. Today I also heard a strange sort of barking noise and wondered if it was a fox? The first songbird to start singing this morning was the cardinal, followed shortly thereafter by a bluejay. There is also a pair of Bald Eagles where we hunt, so I got to hear their calls this morning too. And the best thing of all is that my stand is close to the edge of a bluff just above the river, so the background to all of these noises is the river running over the rocks below. It's very peaceful and beautiful and some days I imagine how wonderful it would be to have a house in this woods.

This is sunrise from my deer stand.

Once the sun comes up the grey squirrels wake up and boy, are they busy leaping from tree to tree.

And burying or digging up acorns and other squirrel snacks.

These squirrels in the woods, with their chubby little bodies and beautiful, luxurious furry tails, are much healthier looking than the squirrels that come to raid birdseed in my yard. And they make as much noise as a herd of elephants! There aren't too many dry leaves on the ground yet, but once the leaves start to fall, all their scurrying drives us crazy because we can't tell whether it's a deer or a squirrel.

This morning I saw a large doe with two fawns who were still covered with lots of spots. They were quite a way from where I was sitting--too far even for a photograph. She must have had these babies quite late in the spring, and it was fun to see them trotting along behind her.

It was finally time to leave for home about 9 AM. Now that the sun is up, I can show you some of what I see in this woods around my deer stand.

Here's my stand--it's about 13 feet up in this tree. I wear a safety vest because I have a tendency to nod off once in a while and I've heard horrible stories about people who fall from their stands while sleeping and don't want to become a statistic. What if I fell and broke my arm and couldn't knit???

A few leaves are starting to change and drop. This area is mostly maple trees and it should be quite beautiful in a week or two.

How about these neat little shelf fungi growing inside the hole in the bottom of this tree?

Here are some broken pieces of (clam?) shell along the trail in the woods. I wonder if a raccoon brought it up from the river?

Here's the trail I have to hike to the top of--you probably can't tell how steep it is, but I never get to the top without having to stop and catch my breath partway up.

Here's the view from the top of the trail looking back towards where my stand is. The leaves are all really green yet, but I'm sure this morning's frost will hasten their changeover to fall colors.

Here's my Spousal Unit in his stand (look way at the top of the picture). This is a new location for a stand this year and he was really happy with it after sitting there this morning.

And here's me modeling the latest in scent-control camouflage for the well-dressed woman bow-hunter!

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!)