Hardy Horse

Our quiet Saturday was not so quiet.  We had a good start - reading, drinking coffee, playing with our pup.  But then things quickly spiraled into busy-ness.

I packed up a quick picnic lunch - sandwiches, chips and water - and we jumped into the truck to head off to the final flower sale of the season.  (I promise I sold more than I bought!)  Then it was off to dinner with some of the flower club members.

Then, since we were on the other side of the county, we had to get some shopping done for those things you just can't get near our bucolic manor.  You know, trickle chargers for the truck batteries in winter and the like.

We also took a close look at a greenhouse.  I really thought that we would get it, but no dice.  My DH pointed out that it wouldn't handle the snow load, so after all of the research and checking and pricing it out, we had to pass.  (And it was on sale!)

Then we stopped to get some frames for our Town Hall.  We had the fundraiser last winter to put lights on 2 spruce trees so we're going to put up a photograph and acknowledgement in Town Hall for all of the donors.  I think it's sweet, but trying to find a frame that is nice but won't look dated 50 years from now was a bit of a challenge.

My reward for all of this was spending 5 minutes at a lovely yarn shop, browsing for some fiber for my next project.  Unfortunately I didn't find anything that was "perfect, just perfect".  (And since my DH was there, it really was just 5 minutes!)

On the way home we were supposed to stop at a nursery to pick up our hardy mums for the Fall planters.  This proved to be too much for me and my DH to handle so we continued the drive home.

Once home, our little pup was a bundle of energy since she was cooped up inside all day.  She demanded some serious attention and a long walk.  My DH was wiped out, so our pup and I went for a nice little 2 mile stroll (pull, tug, walk 2 steps, repeat).

12 hours after we left for the flower sale, I finally sat back down in my reading chair to pick up where I had left off.  My eyes weren't cooperating - they kept closing.

At the end of the day I couldn't help but think about this horse.  She's on her feet all day long - when I leave for work in the morning, when I come home at night - and she has 4 feet.  I've never seen her even laying down for a roll in the dust.  She just keeps going.  No complaints.

I dont think I could ever be a horse.

A Long Yarn

Today I had to go to the DMV.  It was really quite quick and, dare I say it, nice.  That's one of the things that I love about living in the country.  When you go to the DMV up here, the people are genuinely nice.  Maybe it's because they aren't ground down by seeing hundreds of people every single day?

But still, let's face it, I had to go to the DMV.  And when you have to go to the DMV (or the dentist, or clean out your septic tank, or any other unpleasant kind of thing) there's really only one thing you can do when you're done - treat yourself to something special!

So I went to the yarn store.

I've been obsessing about those Windsor Mitts.  I may have mentioned them a time or two!

I was thinking that I would check, just look, to see if they had a comparable yarn to the Blue Sky Alpaca Royal Petite yarn that the pattern calls for.  I knew I had a hundred other errands to run, but surely a quick in and out little short tiny visit was in order.  After all - I had just come from the DMV.

So I took a little look around.

First I looked at everything.  Then I looked for the color family that I wanted.  Then I started checking the yarn weights.  In order to avoid doing adjustments on the pattern I wanted to get the recommended fingering weight yarn.  It's pretty thin.

She had some really nice yarns.  There was a Debbie Bliss silk alpaca blend that was the shimmery softness that angel's wings must be made from.  So nice.  Her organic bamboos were dyed in the most subtle of shades.  She even had a yarn made from corn!  (Seriously - corn!  I wasn't sure whether I should put some butter on it or what.)

Well, after an hour of finding a beautiful soft yarn that would look stunning worked into the Windsor Mitts only to discover that it was the wrong weight or there was a color fleck that just wouldn't do or there was no way I would every even consider wearing that scratchy glittery color combination on my hands.  After an hour of referencing and cross-referencing yarns on my handheld with the online Ravelry yarn database, I admitted defeat.

It just wasn't meant to be, I guess.

So I thanked the yarn shop owner for her time and went to leave.  But nothing is ever that simple, is it?

She was convinced she could find the yarn substitute that I was looking for.  We revisited each shelf, each hank and each skein of yarn that I had spent the last hour going over.  She was not to be deterred!

I explained my reason for rejecting each - wrong fiber, wrong color, wrong weight, flecks of green, flecks of orange, too flashy, too plain.  Still, she persisted.

Finally, after going through each selection, she gave it one more try - she would special order the Blue Sky Alpaca Royal Petite yarn for me.  It would take a few weeks, but she would get me that yarn (even if it killed her, I think)!

Such a sweet lady, I hated to disappoint her.  Thanks, but no.

Part of the joy of a new pattern is looking through all of those yarns to find the one that is the perfect fit for the picture of the finished object that I have in my head.  Shopping - without buying anything - is a really fun part of the process for me.

You wouldn't just gobble down the perfect champagne truffle, would you?  (Okay, maybe you would!)

So 2 hours after I walked into the yarn shop, I walked out - wallet intact.

My quest will continue though.  And actually, I think that my DH had the best idea of where to get the yarn - at a local farm about 5 minutes down the road.  The woman is a family friend.  She spins the yarn herself.  The sheep are raised here.  It doesn't get more local than that.

I think that's what I'll do.  Now I just have to figure out how to schedule another DMV day so I can reward myself by going to the farm!

Collector's Sale!

My DH and I went to the iris and daylily bareroot plant sale today.  The prices are - OMG - so incredibly low and the flowers for sale are - OMG - so incredibly pretty.

I got that really pretty icy light blue iris (second one back).

This is where I buy my irises.  The collector's go out and spend mega dollars for the flowers when they first come out on the market.  The newer the flower, the higher the cost.

My DH picked out that yellow and purple one in the back.  You can see we are going to have to have 2 different beds to put them in.

The collector's fuss and pamper and grow these beauties until they are mature enough to start dividing - sometimes they wait up to 10 years before they divide.  Then they turn around and realize that there's no more room in their garden to plant the same flower (they are saving room for different ones), so they clean them and sell them - really cheap.

I also got that light blue with white falls in the middle there.

Of course, the collectors think of them as just another one of the same flower, but I think of them as a grand shopping extravaganza!

And they toss in some freebies as well.

Some folks don't buy bare root flowers.  They want to see them in bloom at the nursery and buy them then.  Then they take them home and plant them in their garden - and are usually disappointed that they don't bloom as well - or at all - the next year (or three).

This is because the root system isn't acclimated to the new garden.  It's not "established".

The plant from the nursery has been 110% cared for and tended to its' entire life.  It never had to search for nutrients 'in the wild'.  It was served breakfast in bed, so to speak, ever since it was a little cotyledon.  (Those are the first 2 leaves of a plant.)

When the pampered princess gets to their garden, it usually gets planted with (maybe) a handful of time release food, watered a couple of times, and then it's left on its' own.  Well, if it has a lot of foliage, leaves, flowers to gather food for - and if it doesn't have strong enough roots to go gathering that food, it's not going to do well in the garden.

That's why I buy bare root.  It gives the plant enough time to acclimate its' roots to my garden and to grow nice and strong - get established.  Then, when it's ready it will flower.

And if it doesn't...well, at least I didn't spend a couple of hundred bucks on a plant that won't grow for me.

You just have to love the collector's sale!

To Market

Friday is market day here at our bucolic manor.  Our local farmer's come to town and bring whatever is growing now - fresh, out of the fields and into my shopping bag.

In the summer months, they set up their pop-ups in the town hall parking lot and load up the tables with goodies!  There's fancy soaps and lotions, salad dressings and bbq sauces, fresh baked bread, organic meats, yarns, fabrics, pillows --- and vegetables and eggs.

I sent my DH to the market today to pick up the eggs and vegetables - they close before I get home.  He got the groceries and a few pics to share.

You have to love that!

Flower Time in the City

Yesterday being Valentine's Day and all was *the* day for flower sales in Manhattan - and if there's one thing I love, it's flowers.  There are a few different levels of flowers I have gotten over the years.  There are the delivered FTD bouquets that come to the office, the custom florist bouquets for office or home and then the pre-packaged bouquets.

These are the florists prepackaged bouquets.  Very traditional roses with baby's breath.   These are the roses that the florist is trying to salvage from his flower order.  The good ones with lots of petals are inside in the refrigerator.  For these ones, he has stripped off the dying outer petals and added baby's breath.  They are quite lovely and have a lot of petals still left on them so you can get about 3-5 days worth of life out of them.  The problem is, they are sold in bunches of 6.  6 roses is not a dozen.  

These are the deli roses - the ones sold in the buckets outside of the corner deli.  Pick up a sandwich, 6-pack and a bunch of roses - perfect!  These are fun bouquets because they have a mix of flowers.  You get a few of your basic roses, but they also add in any other red or white flower.  You won't see much baby's breath here (it's actually kind of expensive), but you will see lilies, gerbera daisys and those red berries left over from the Christmas wreaths.  These bouquets usually will last 7-10 days because of the lilies and the berries and I actually like them a lot.  I would split up the bouquet and put little bud vases around the house with different flowers in them.

These are my personal favorites - the flower cart roses.  You will find this woman (or her sister) at each and every subway and train station entrance just as rush hour begins on Valentine's day.  She has standard carnation mixes, roses with baby's breath and single roses individually wrapped at a really good price.  It's perfect!  Her flower distributor gets whatever the other guys didn't get from the flower district and she cleans them up and wraps them up for sale.

Maybe I like her best because she is out there "working it", really pushing (literally) her wares to the consumer.  I know that she's probably been up since well before dawn to get the flowers, prepare the flowers and then get her cart from all the way down in the flower district (28th Street) up to the station (125th Street).  And yet she's cheery and bright.  She must really love her family to be out here selling no matter what the weather.  

Some years her daughter sits with her.  During the summer she sells ices (rainbow, coconut, cherry and lemon-lime).  Her daughter is with her most of the time in the summer and her mom is teaching her business, encouraging her reading and summer studies.  They're pretty close.  For New Year's she sells funny glasses and noisemakers.  Whatever the holiday, she has the appropriate accessories for sale - and she loves to bargain the price.

To me, this woman really captured the heart of Valentine's Day with her steadfast, happy and hope-filled attitude.  It's not a flash-in-the-pan, it's her working and caring for family that matters.  It's what keeps her going.

I think that, more than anything, is a really good message for Valentine's Day.  (The love part - not the commerce!)

Which Came First?

These are the chickens that lay my eggs.  Well, my eggs and other folks' eggs - I don't eat all of the eggs and they're not my chickens.  They are Sophie and Craig's chickens - a local farm.

On Saturday when I arrived 15 minutes after the market opened there were no more eggs to be had.  They were sold out.  Why!?

The thing about chickens is that they don't consistently lay eggs at the same rate every single day of the year.  Apparently in the winter, their egg production slows down.  Which means there are not as many eggs to go around.   I just learned that this past weekend.  

Who knew!?  Aside from Sophie and Craig, of course.

Sure, I could have gone to the grocery store and bought some eggs that came from - well, who really knows where they came from or how long they'd been sitting there.  But I didn't do that.

I know these chickens.  I know the farmers who raise these chickens and the children who play with them.  These are nice clean healthy chickens and they eat good organic food and get to run around outside all day - if they want to - or stay inside all day - if they want to.  

Besides, they're really pretty chickens and their eggs come is all sorts of colors.  Opening up a carton of their eggs is having Easter all year long.

Their eggs make me happy.

I feel like the father in 'A Christmas Story' whose Thanksgiving turkey was eaten by the neighbors dogs.  No breakfast omelets, no pumpkin bread, no cakes, no meatloaf, no egg salad sandwiches!  

I plan to be 5 minutes early this Saturday.