Goldenrod, I have found your purpose

Yesterday I cut the tops off of about 15 goldenrod stems with full open flowers. They sat overnight in a pot of water and this evening, I boiled the flower stew for about 30 minutes. The result was a very bright, vivid dye bath.

The used flowers:

I simmered alum-mordanted yarn in the strained dye bath for about 15 minutes and got this beautiful color. The yarn really is this golden and I love it!

Would...

This weekend's activities revolved around wood. We're preparing our bedroom for the addition of a wood stove. The first step involved the unprovoked torture of some very old wood. We had to remove the baseboard around the chimney and it was unwilling to be separated from the wall due to the massive number of square head nails holding it into the masonry.

Why, yes, that is an electrical wire we found under the molding.

This is is the current state of our new hearth. The cement board has been applied and is awaiting our slate tiles. Also, yes, I know our floor is not painted in the middle. Our bedroom was our first project when we moved in and I felt guilty about painting the unpainted wood. I enjoyed pulling up the old carpet and discovering the 3 different colors of brown paint that had been applied over the years and wanted to preserve the experience for the next inhabitants of the house.

To assist in keeping our house warm this winter, we purchased (gasp!) 2 cords of wood. A very nice man from Craigslist delivered it and regaled us with stories of lumber jacking. Would it be that we had enough time to chop all our own wood. Alas...

Upon doing the calculations, purchasing wood is a more efficient use of our time than chopping it. This pile quadrupled our supply of fuel. And it makes us very happy.

Do other dogs do this?

Sugar loves to climb up on the couch and lay across the human occupants. Is this normal behavior?

Eggs! (The four white ones are holdouts from the store).

Our larger eggs tend to have double yolks.

(No, I can't believe I just posted a picture of myself in my pjs on the internet. The power of the cuteness of the puppy overwhelmed my judgment.)

Garden fruit and cuteness

We harvested our first ripe Vine Peach (aka Mango Melon) - an heirloom musk mellon. It is advertised as smelling like a peach and tasting like a mango (or the other way...). But, I believe this is false. It smells, and tastes, like a mild cantaloupe. 

 

We ate it all up before I could take a picture of the inside...

 

It has been a lovely fall this summer (in the 40s tonight) and Bernie insists on barging outside to eat the grass.

 

Sugar's head has nearly healed and you can hardly see her bald spot:

 

Autumn Approaches

The high temperature yesterday was 69. Degrees. Total. While I know this is unseasonably cool, it is a undeniable reminder that winter is coming. The mammals know the seasons are changing and have resumed their practice of piling on the closest human whenever possible.

Cooler weather means socks must be knit:

And our pumpkins are starting to turn orange:

A very musical weekend

Friday we made our first visit to Lucas Oil Stadium for the DCI semi-finals. For any readers that aren't band geeks, it is the major league of drum corps - 150 college kids traveling on buses, sleeping on gym floors and competing across the US for the summer. We saw 17 corps, including my high school favs the Phantom Regiment.

Also playing were the Holy Name Cadets (previously the Cadets of Bergen County). In high school, we marched in the Cadets Marching Band Cooperative - a group of bands from the northeast that competed against each other throughout the fall and held finals in the Meadowlands. The Cadets were thought of as the big kids we would aspire to be some day.

About half way through the Cadet's show, I realized that when I marched in their cooperative, most of the current Cadets were in diapers.

Last night we saw the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra at Conner Prairie - a living history wonderland. It was a perfect night for the happy music of Mozart with clearly skies and a lovely breeze, though the moon didn't appear until after the show.

Goodwill

We scored some wicked useful stuff at Goodwill this weekend. A lamp for an eventual library which is so solid that Bill has taken to calling it Colonel Mustard because he now understands how lamps can be used as weapons. A glass jar for dried garden things (perhaps beans or oats) and the old fashioned flashlight on the bottom left. All for $10!

 

The socks currently on my needles: