Piapie

Tea with Willow

Saturday morning Papi Chulo took the girls out and I stayed home with a cup tea and poured through the hefty, hearty, oh-so informative The Essential Urban Farmer.  The book was written by Noevella Carpenter and Willow Rosenthal, who happens to be a friend of mine from when I lived in the Bay Area.  She is also the founder of City Slicker Farms in Oakland.  I have always been impressed with and inspired by Willow, especially with regards to her urban farming.  And now I get to pick her brain about gardening whenever I want!

And pick her brain I will!  Although I've lived around gardners for much of my life, I've never actually had my own garden.  Starting one this year is super exciting and a little bit daunting.  I am crossing my fingers that we won't have total crop failure the first time around.  And so I plan on tapping into all my gardening resources, especially Willow.  

Hats for E. Junebug

Now that it's finally reached it's destination I can share with you the culmination of my hat knitting these past few months .  I didn't have it in me to start a sweater  for Miss E. Junebug, but I so wanted to send off something handknit.  I thought a little hat would be perfect.  I've been itching to make this sweet bonnet for some time:

 

It's in a early American style and I knit it up in earthy colors of green and brown as they remind me of Junebug's mama.  

Once I finished it though, I realized that it's waaaay too big for a wee baby's head, so I cast on to make this lovely thing:

 

It's a favorite of mine, all vintage and girly-girl.  I first made if for MonkE:

I happened to have enough yarn leftover to try my hand at booties, my first attempt:

 

Of course that pink hat still seemed too big so I made this darling slugger and crossed my fingers that it might be closer to a newborns head size:

 

By now I was on a roll.  And I was getting closer to the right size so I tried my hand at making a simple hat fancy by using the remaining yarn and the color pattern from this dress:

 

to make this hat:

 

Once all the hats were stacked up, it became quite clear to me that it needed something blue.  So I dug through my stash, found a pattern that I hadn't used before, and made this:

 

The crazy thing about this hat is that it stretches so much that it actually fits MY head!  I am hoping that it'll work on Junebug some time before her 40th birthday!  

Before you go though, a round of applause for my lovely models.  

Pattern Credits:

    Hat one: Joelle Hoverson from Last Minute Knitted Gifts

    Hats Two and Three, Booties:  Erika Knight's Knitting for Two

    Hat Four: my own creation based on color pattern by Ella Rae

    Hat Five: Tahki Stacy Charles

Wallpaper

On Friday night Papi Chulo and I had a date, the first really good one in a long while.  We ventured beyond the known and went to three new-to-us places.  After sushi and some cocktails we headed to a small, independent movie theater for a documentary about surfing in Papua New Guinea, two things that are close to Papi Chulo's heart.  As we approached the theater we were surprised by the large crowd gathered outside.  Surf culture in PNG didn't seem like it would draw a crowd of that size.  It didn't (although there was a good turnout in the end).  The crowd was the aftermath of Bike Smut, something I'll let you google on your own time, if you are so inclined.  

Ah, yes, we shook our heads knowingly.  Not that we knew anything about Bike Smut, but we do live in Portlandia and these sorts of things happen here.

So there we stood on a 40 degree misty night, waiting in line to buy tickets.  I had on my stylish black boots and tweedy Banana Republic skirt along with a cream raincoat from Columbia Sportswear.  I was looking rather well put together.  Papi Chulo looked smart and dashing.    We were surrounded by a sea of black, chrome, leather, disheveled hair, tattoos and body piercings.  I saw at least two bright pink hairdos.   A tall skinny dude in too-short shorts and argyle knee-hi's kept passing by.

From down the street a loud honking siren blared and up rolled a red bus with a dozen or so bikes piled on top.  As bikes were tossed down from the top others were unlocked from the nearby racks.  There was clearly some momentum building, although towards what end was unclear.

Suddenly someone yelled, "Flash Mob Naked Bike Ride!!!!!"  There was a quick exchange about who would carry clothes and suddenly people started stripping down to their undies, or less.    Shortly thereafter someone started counting down from 15 and soon they went off leaving us standing there with mouths agape in amusement.  Someone in front of us said, "That would never have happened in Virginia."  Having lived in Virginia I know that she spoke the truth.

While some might consider me to be a bit "out of the box", unconventional, one of those West Coast nuts.  I beg to differ.  I do not have dreadlocks.  I have not accumulated body art in any form.  I am married, to a dude.  We live in a 1964 ranch with our two children.  We are, really, pretty normal.  But! I love that all sorts of fruits and nuts, wacky hippie-dippie people, off-the-grid and out-of-their-minds characters share these streets with me.  They are the wallpaper of my life.

Hearts Made

Valentine's Day snuck up on us this year.  As of Sunday morning there wasn't a heart to be seen in our house, unless you count those that beat but they don't really count because they can only be heard, not seen.

Anyways, Sunday morning I brought out the hearts from years past and decorated the house.  

Then I brainstormed how to make Valentine cards for the girls to distribute at school.  Any sane mama would have run out to Target and bought a stack of cards.  I'm not sane.

Instead I stamped, cut hearts, punched holes, coaxed the girls to write their names 20 times, threaded pencils, and twisted pipe cleaners to make these:

 

(Pencils were not sharpened to prevent lead pokes during distribution)

Then, today I realized that the girls hadn't made cards for each other.  Or their daddy.  Or The Fireman.  As I pulled out all the pinks and reds, I then realzized that I hadn't made cards for them either.  The last minute collage resulted in this:

 

I did have dinner planned though.  I actually planned it about a week ago.  Go figure.  Food takes top priority here.  Pink pancakes were on the menu.  The brilliant color comes from pureed beets (recipe from Good to the Grain).

Some were shaped into hearts special for the girls.  Slather with sour cream and eat with smoked salmon.  All were happy.

Hearts Strung Out

XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO

Happy Valentine's Day

We Saw

For the past few months the girls have made a variety of requests to which our reply has been, "Well, we'll see."

Well, this past weekend we saw.  Snow.

We sat in it.

We flew over it.

We ate it.

We laughed in it.

We had a grand time.

1900 Pounds

After all my waxing philosophical about the garden, I suspect that it's time I actually showed you all what we did last weekend.  It was a satisfying undertaking, made all the better by some sunshine.  I won't delude myself by saying that it's done.  Far from it.  But we got a good start.

I spent most of Saturday digging out plants and apologizing to Muriel.  Turns out our best sun spot is in the front yard.  

Of course Funky B discovered some bulbs that were being dug up and insisted that we set them aside for replanting, less we miss out on our spring color.

 

The next day Papi Chulo and The Fireman unloaded 1900 lbs of concrete in the form of 30 lb bricks.

 

They then trenched out the irrigation system so that we could switch to a moveable drip hose.

Meanwhile the girls made good use of the bricks for balancing acts, playing "house", and acquiring scrapes on knees.

 

Eventually the bricks were all lined up nice and neat.

 

Leaving us with a garden plot.  Something to start with.

Had It, Lost It

I had a nice little post for you all about the garden.  It took about an hour to put together and then, blink!, it disappeared.   I was rather frustrated.  Then I typed out the title for this and realized it had a rather sweet double meaning.

You see, today I was told that something else was gone.  It took a bit more than just blinking but that tumor found last summer has gone somewhere else, thank you very much.

I'll get the garden post back for you but I am going to let the tumor go.

Apologies to Muriel

As I dug up various plants this weekend, I began to think about the woman who sat here before me.  She had her own visions for the house and the yard.  Some of them may have been realized, others were fantasies to entertain the mind on a quiet day.  I thought about how she planned her garden, choose flowers that appealed to her, tended to them year after year.  She created a space she felt was beautiful, appealing, comfortable.

And there I was, willy-nilly, tearing them out to make room for carrots and lettuce.  

I thought about the Old Peep and how she's cultivated her own garden for over thirty years.  Bit by bit, seedling by seedling she's created an utterly beautiful, serene space.  Eventually my parents will move out of my childhood home.  Some young family will move in with their 2.3 children and a rambunctious lab.   The parents will be too preoccupied with the demands of parenting to tend to silent pleas of flowers.  The bright petals will fall prey to chubby fingers.  The dog will need to relieve itself and will not discriminate between grass and garden.   If the parents happen to have their own desires and motivation to be in the yard, they will change it to suit their preferences.  They will want to make it "their own".  It is inevitable.  It is also crushing to think that my mother's labor of love will not withstand the next family.

So it was with my own mother in mind that I began to make apologizes to Muriel.   

Sitting in Dirt

Saturday afternoon my phone rang.   I answered it and was asked by the caller, a friend, where I was.  I replied, "Oh, I am sitting in a pile of dirt."  "By choice?" she asked.  

"Oh, yes." said I, smiling contentedly at my filthy jeans,  soaking up the warm sunshine on my back, and admiring the enormous mound of dirt that lay around me.