Looking back and playing around

Looking back to this time last year....

It was interesting. Around now we were using the air conditioning almost daily. The tomato plants were large,  two weeks from this time last year i was picking green beans.

I mean we had temps in the 80's.  We've been 60's and 70's lately and a good deal of rain, which is good and bad.  With so many overcast days it seems that things are lagging a bit.  This cool weather is probably great for the brassicas because they aren't battling high summer heat.  But what a difference between years.  This weather sure is horrible for getting weeding done.  I think i may get behind badly like i did last year.

On the positive side of weeds taking over is more organic material for the dirt when all gets plowed under in the fall.

I've been surfing around and i found a few cool things.
I have used a sourdough starter a number of times and i liked how i didn't have to buy yeast for a loaf.  The packets are convenient and all and really not that expensive honestly.  But there have been many times that i have wanted to bake a loaf of bread and found that i am out of yeast packets.

So, learning that i can dry sourdough starter at home and it can store indefinitely in the freezer (and i assume also in vacuum packs) makes me happy.  So i plan to try it myself soon. Just need to whip up a batch of starter and let it age a bit, then i'll probably dry the starter on the lowest setting in the Excalibur .

http://www.breadtopia.com/drying-sourdough-starter-for-long-term-storage/


Another thing i found on the crocheting front....  A great tutorial on  African Daisy granny hexagons.  These are some of the prettiest color combination patterns i have ever seen.  I have started my first one and thanks to the fab tutorial its going great.


http://heidibearscreative.blogspot.com/2010/05/african-flower-hexagon-crochet-tutorial.html

I even printed it off just in case i need a portable version of the pattern until i have it memorized.  I want to do a multicolored, random mix of colors and then i'd love to do one with a daisy mix.  Maybe some black-eyed-susans. I'll use Simply Soft by Caron.

Well i think that is about it for today.