Fun with food coloring...

A big box arrived yesterday from KnitPicks with a bunch of undyed worsted wool. The plan is to have the kiddo help dye it using food color. He picked out kelly green food coloring (Wilton's) at the store yesterday and perhaps today we will fire up the dye pot before violin lesson. We did some Kool-Aid dyeing a couple of years ago and had a great time with that. This time, I think we will do less dipping and more pouring...

There was an article in the most recent issue of knitty.com that talked about this and I got inspired!

I also ordered some undyed sock yarn. I really like it as it is VERY soft! It is 75% superwash Merino, 25% nylon and the plan there is to dye it with royal blue food color. If it dyes up relatively easily, it may be the new sock yarn of choice because it is so soft!

We also got our meager garden started this weekend. So far the plants are doing quite well. We planted cherry tomatoes (Supersweet 100), Brandywines, and one called Mr. Stripey, which I mostly bought because of the name. It is an heirloom variety that is yellow with red stripes in the flesh. We had a hard time trying to find a place in the yard that would get full sun, but settled on this spot close to the house. I hope that the reflected heat from the house will do the plants good. You can see the results of last weekend's digging project in the background, if you look hard. The pipe that goes underground used to be a long piece of black flex pipe that we tripped over almost every day! This looks much better and my muscles are finally beginning to get back to normal after lots of shovel work!

We also planted a few cucumbers that the kiddo picked out. I am not sure that they will do much since they are planted underneath the day lilies and roses in a flower bed, but who knows!
The herb pot on the back porch looks great and is almost ready for kitchen use. We have basil, chives, thyme and cilantro. Yummy! I will probably get some more basil plants to plant near the tomatoes next week at the farmers market!

Last night we ate sausages from the farmers market and they were okay, but not great. We also had panzanella (bread salad) with olive bread from the market, tomatoes, and fresh mozzarella. It was delish!

Digging in the dirt

There was not much string in my weekend, unless you count the level line that we used to dig a trench in the side yard. We have a sump pump in the basement that was dumping water out of the catch basin into a splash pad on the side of the house. Once it had a drain pipe but for some reason it had been cut off. The water mostly pooled right next to the house so we figured it was seeping back into the basement. Not good!

I decided to put my geological skills to work and we built a lovely drain for the pump! Actually I was tired of tripping over the piece of flex-pipe that we had stuck on the end of the pipe coming out of the house as a stop gap. We dug a 10 foot long trench about 12" deep with a 2' x 2' chamber at the end, laid in a 4" sewer pipe and then lined the chamber and the end of the trench with landscape cloth and filled it with gravel. Hopefully it will last a good long time.

Even the kiddo was helpful on the project. What 5 year old boy doesn't love to dig! He found all sorts of good things too... A cicada still in its chrysalis, lots of worms, big white grubs, and lots of rocks!

On Sunday we went to the local farmers market and found all sorts of goodies. There is a guy that sells pasta that is to die for! This time we got pumpkin ravioli and they tasted like little pillows of pumpkin pie. Most excellent with sage butter on top! We also decided to try the local meat purveyor and bought some pork sausages and ground buffalo. DH has an idea for pesto buffalo burgers... Sounds yummy to me! We tried some bread from a place called the Bread Ovens at Quail Creek Farm. This is the best bread I have tasted since we moved. (It is just as good as Red Fox Bakery in McMinnville, Oregon) We got one loaf of Olive bread and one of Potato and White Truffle. The potato is just about the best tasting thing on earth! There was not much in the way of veg, but we did get some asparagus and some strawberries. Yummy!