Orto Watch

I went up to the Orto to water today. I was so taken by this garden being the most beautiful vegetable garden that's ever, EVER been planted that I thought I must share with you all. Grab a beverage of choice and come watch my garden grow...























I couldn't be prouder if I'd have done it myself. I owe Augusto more than that lemon tree and the 2 cases of beer I've bought him.

Yeah yeah yeah, ok. So those of you reading this who know me or those of you who have been following for a bit will know that this garden tour for what it is...a distraction from the fact that it's Tuesday of week 8 of Project 20/20 and I haven't even picked the new projects much less got to work on them.

I'll just think about those projects for tonight...

Week 7 - Project 20/20 concluded...maybe?

Is this an improvement?



I'm not convinced. Any of you gardener people out there (hello Mary and Cindy!) please comment with suggestions for ground cover - or ANYTHING to improve this spot.

It's very possible that I'm not patient enough be a gardener. I like to work by butt off and get things done. Like knitting, for example...you knit 20 rows and you have 20 rows done. If it doesn't look good, you rip back and do it again and it's done, again (right, Mette?). With gardening, you work your butt off, and your arms and your back, and your hands and your finger nails and ... you have, well, a patch of dirt with 6 lonely lavender plants.




Speaking of getting things done...



Yep, the Das Needles group project blanket done. Whilst aesthetically it's, well, you can judge for yourself, as a completed piece I find it to be a beautiful reflection of the woman who contributed to it. I hope its owner will like it.


Lastly, guess what this is?!

Photo problem solved?

I hope so.

HI friends...I have a new post ready to go but am getting an error message. As soon as it's sorted, we'll be back and running......

Week 7 - Project 20/20

Having really awesome parents, they instilled in me from birth the notion that I "can do anything I want to". On the aggregate, this attitude has served me well. It just happens to not be true. In my parents' defense, they probably didn't imagine all those years ago while I was growing up that one of my "want to's" would include building a grill from stones. As it turns out, I CAN'T do that.

Project 20/20 Week 6 Finished product:



It doesn't look like much because, well, it isn't. Here's the bird's eye view:



Seems like it would be really easy, doesn't it? You just collect a bunch of rocks like these:



And you fit them together, puzzle-like, into a form that both holds wood and supports the grill screen. No problem.

Problem.

It's not that easy. Puzzle pieces are meant to fit together. Stones, not really. Not to mention that my buck-o-five body had a tough time carrying the big stones needed to make the thing stable.

Oh well. I got it done and next year's will, I'm sure, be better ('specially if I take Earle-in-Denver's recommendation and go to the Self and BUY one). And, we did successfully cook meat over fire in this collection of stones on Sunday for some friends...



On the knitting front, last week's wonky-but-sincere blanket is....not done yet. It's MOSTLY done but not done enough for a photo.

This week I've picked a small project. Remember the stray grape vine? That grape vine grows from a small terrace of land that needs some attention. I attended to only half of it whilst creating the trellis for the grape vine. Having brilliantly done so leaves a patch of dirt just outside out bedroom window which has the dual benefit of being freakin' ugly to look at from the bed AND allowing all that dirt to blow right in the window on the bed.

So, this week's project is to clean up that little area:



For knitting I will be finishing the wonky-but-sincere blanket and maybe making a pair of socks.

Just in case anyone cares, my orto now has beans!



And our house might soon have city water:

ridin' the pine

So I'm sitting here working on the wonky-but-sincere blanket listening to a Wisconsin Timber Rattlers minor league baseball game on AM radio when I hear this sentence:

"I bet you still got splinters from ridin' the pine in t-ball".

I don't know why it struck me tonight since it's part of an advert that comes on about 10000000 times during any given Timber Rattlers' game, but it did. What language IS that?!

Of course I fully understand that the frozen pizza making sponsor of Timber Rattlers' baseball was razzing his colleague/brother about his lack of skills in the game of baseball being such that, as a child, he didn't get to participate in the baseball games played by the league for kids 8 year olds and younger. But think for a minute how much other background information one needs to have in order for that sentence to have any meaning what so ever.

I have a lot of international friends who speak English fluently, FLUENTLY, who would have absolutely no clue what that pizza guy was trying to say. In fact my British friends wouldn't get it.

Kinda makes me wonder how many times in the past 8 years someone has dissed me with the Italian version of a ridin'-the-pine insult and I didn't even know it.

On a related but tangential note...today one of my non-mother-tongue-english speaking friends asked me the definition of the word "corny". I said "cheesy". That cleared everything up.

Baby Needs a new BBQ

David will be back on Friday. David likes to grill. We have no grill.

Project 20/20 week 6 house project -- Build a grill.

Before:



After first day:



Probably about 40 of those stones will be needed to make a nice sized BBQ. I'd better pick up the pace. There would have been more in place already but when I picked up the second one in the lot across the street, I found this underneath...



That put me off the task a bit. Hopefully the severe case of the creepy crawlies I have contracted will have subsided by tomorrow so I can get back to it.

As for knitting (which, by the way, is NOT something that sounds at all appealing when one has the creepy crawlies) I'm working on another blanket. This one is rather special, however. Christine from Das Needles (our little international knitting group) has recently lost her mom. When we first heard that she had been taken ill, Mette, Natalie and I decided that maybe Christine would like something warm to wrap around her in the hard times that would follow this inevitable loss. We each made 12 squares - knitted, crocheted, in any fashion or color of yarn which will be assembled into the wonkiest but most heart-felt blanket imaginable. So this week for my project 20/20 knitting I have the honor of sewing the pieces together...right after I finish making my 12 squares. (note: if you are reading this and you are a friend of Christine's, please don't tell her. It's meant to be a surprise. If you are reading this and you are Christine, well, pretend you didn't read that last paragraph, ok?)