8 September 2007 Forgot Handwork Circle again last Tuesday. I remembered it when I first got up, and then never gave it another thought until it would have been time to pack up my stuff and come home. I rode to the Farmer's Market, the health-food store, and the library today. Despite a very late start, I bought corn, tomatoes, and peppers. Then I went to the health-food store for dried cranberries and bought half a pannier of nuts and fruit, then I bought a paperback at Bishops and traded _Alpha_ for a very thick anthology at the library, so my panniers were pretty well packed when I came home. Just in time for lunch, so I didn't get any work done today. I oven-baked sixteen white-wheat buns yesterday. I'm zeroing in on it, but I should have flattened the balls of dough more than I did. We still have a piece of rye and four pieces of white-wheat bread from my kettle baking, so I guess I don't get to try out my new insight Monday. I finally figured out that I've been having trouble getting the bread to brown on the bottom because I've been putting the coals on a pile of cold ashes, so I shoveled everything back into the fireplace and will put down pre-heated ashes next time. And we got a little rain today, 0.07 inches the last I heard. 10 September 2007 We've been free of mosquitoes all summer, but they've been making up for it the last couple of weeks. 12 September 2007 It's time to stop worrying about not having any decent short-sleeved shirts and start worrying about not having enough decent long-sleeved shirts. For a couple of weeks, I've been freezing my knees in shorts, and wearing my better pair of denims when I'd rather not, because my everyday jeans needed two hooks and an eye. Yesterday, I put two spools of thread in the pockets and packed the pants in the bag I take to Handwork Circle. Half an hour after Circle started, I'd changed into them, packed up my black linen pants, and was well started on darning a sock. Pity most of the mending in the pile requires a sewing machine. I'm down to the last pair of socks in the bag, but I think there are more in the basket on the closet shelf. My order from Wm. Booth, Draper came today. The hemp drill is much lighter in color than I expected; It's not only paler than unbleached linen, it's paler than unbleached cotton. It will make good summer pants, but off-white is going to show dirt. Also got a spool of black linen sewing thread and a fifty-cent cake of beeswax. I'd expected a piece the size of a starlight mint, but it's at least as large as my Dritz beeswax. I'm surprised that I can still read the brand name on a forty-year-old cake of wax. I wonder whether the "beeswax" Dritz is selling now is still beeswax? I suppose I could take Dave to Lowery's and have him sniff it. (I inherited Mother's nose, and can detect the odor of beeswax only when it is concentrated.) 14 September 2007 The russia drill is soaking in the washer. I hope I remember to wash it tomorrow. A testimonial for Mohawk's "Simply Berber" carpeting: Al threw up on the carpet sample under his food dish, and it had thoroughly dried before I noticed. This morning, I took it out and whapped it on the picnic table until I'd got off everything that would come out that way, then turned the hose on what was left, and it came perfectly clean. The sundial that they were installing at the focal point of the Greenway bench in the picnic area is complete; Dave has had a close look at it, and says that it actually works, and looks pretty good. I made cinnamon balls this morning. Bread is low enough that I can bake Monday. I think I'll make oatmeal bread. Rode my bike to Owen's yesterday. Didn't get much else done. While I was getting a strainer out of a bottom cupboard, a clock fell off the wall and broke into many pieces -- the clock-holder, that is; the clock mechanism was mounted on a stiff piece of cardboard with a clock-face printed on it, which shielded the works from shock without getting dented itself, so I hung it back up, and Dave threw out the crystal and the pieces of the frame. After we found the battery, that is. Turned out to be on the stovetop when all the other pieces were on the floor. While I was looking under the stove for it -- found many cobwebs and a pistachio -- I discovered that Al likes the flashlight almost as much as he likes the laser pointer. But the flashlight is heavy to hold up, and hasn't as much range. 18 September 2007 I remembered the russia drill, but I didn't wash it. Our water was running almost black with rust. Luckily, I woke up early enough on Sunday to wash it before going to the ouini roast. After spinning out the soaking water, I took it out and filled the washer before putting it back. Also filled the washer before putting in the first load yesterday, and was more careful than usual about keeping the clothes away from where the water runs in. Forgot to start the bread, so I'm doing that today. I wanted to make oat bread, but I couldn't find the steel-cut oats. Perhaps I ate them. I put oat bran in it, though. Yesterday we took our afternoon walk around the island so that I could get a close look at the new sundial. The first thing I noticed is that the mosaic covering the pedestal is intended to be seen from close up; from a distance, it looks merely messy. On closer inspection, we did a double take: the gnomen appears to be pointed in the correct direction -- but the design on the top does nothing at all to help you tell which way the shadow is pointing. It's a sundial with no dial! Ah, well, that's the definition of fine art. We can see the work on the new house without even going outside now. But this morning, what I can see of the framing on the second floor is covered with particle board, which somewhat blocks the view. When I first realized that the modern way to build a two-story house is to build a one-story house and then build another one-story house on top of it, it bothered me -- but while watching this one go up, I realized that if I were cowering in the central bathroom, it would be a great comfort to know that a tornado would have to demolish the two stories separately. Just apropos of nothing, I wonder whether I've been underneath the old bank vault when in the cellar of Bishop's Book Store? I'll have to take note of the vault's location the next time I go down the stairs. One assumes that it would have pretty strong supports. The vault invalidates, I think, the rule that one should hide at the west end of a cellar. The ladies' room near the east end of the north side might be a good spot, since it's next to a foundation wall and isn't lined with shelves of books. 24 September 2007 Grump. Two sets of size zero needles, all my double nothings, and my skein of black persian are nowhere to be found. Since I've just started a pair of black-persian socks, I think I'll drop in at the yarn shop on my way home from the mammogram. [Forgot about it. Got two books at the library, though, and returned _The Space Opera Renaissance_"] There's a dilemma with home-baked bread: real whole-grain bread is much better for you than what's available in the stores, but stuffing on bread hot from the oven is *not* good for you. The dime finally dropped, and I'm making maximum-sized loaves, so that most of it won't be hot from the oven when eaten. When I go back to using the oven, I may make two batches at a time. It also helped that yesterday's loaf came out of the kettle just in time for supper. I put a little meat and cheese in Dave's salad, and told him there was nothing but hot bread for supper. I had what I'd nibbled on while making the salad (including about half the remaining white cabbage) and hot bread, and ate *less* bread than I would have if it had been a between-meal snack. It was oatmeal bread, and by George, I think I've got it! It's the semolina that makes all the difference, I think. I put one cup of steel-cut oats, one cup of semolina, one cup of red-wheat flour, two cups of water, yeast, salt, lecithin,and ascorbic acid in the oven to rise before I went to church. May have also been a spoonful of wheat germ. When I got back, I kneaded in the remainder of my red-wheat flour, about two cups, which made a very stiff dough. I think kettle bread requires a stiffer dough than oven bread. Let that rise during my nap, then formed a loaf and started gathering firewood. And I'm back to burning the bottom, instead of leaving it raw. I think part of the secret is that the bed of coals must be bigger than the bottom of the kettle. I sprinkled rolled oats on top just so I could tell it from the white-wheat bread in the freezer, but roasted rolled oats are *good*. I'll do that again. Evening: The loaf is more than half gone. I had a slice for breakfast, another slice with cheese and a smoky link for lunch, and served tenderloin sandwiches with tomato and onion for supper. So I don't think I'll freeze it. I didn't have to wait at all for the mammogram, despite arriving early, except for a very short time while she developed the films and made sure they were good. They'll be read later; she says I'll get a phone call if they find something and a letter if they don't. Presumably I'll also get the bill -- since I don't have supplemental, Medicare won't cover all of it. Came home soaking wet, so I ran a load of wash after all. I also found a wet shirt and wet shorts in the laundry room, and ran them through too. Urk. I think I forgot to bring in the underwear I hung out, and it's supposed to rain tonight. Clothes inside, and I *didn't* let out the cat. You'd never guess that the bra I wore today and the scarf I wore today were cut from the same piece of linen. The scarf is lime green, and the bra is pale yellow; not even a greenish yellow. The scarf gets more sun, and at least as much sweat, since I mop my face and blot my helmet pads with it. I think Al E. Cat wants me to go to bed. 28 September 2007 Back to the Days of Koscuiszko tomorrow. I may go there after the farmer's market in the morning, but if I go to either, I'll have to drive the Buick. When we were coming back from our walk yesterday, I noticed that my wrist was sore, and I think I did it by riding too long that morning. Don't know why it came on suddenly; it might be that it had been sore and I hadn't happened to touch or bend it, but it got sorer while we were walking. Not quite so sore today, but it's swollen. Good thing I didn't tell anyone I meant to make cookies for the Kiddie Kollege bake sale today. When it came time to mix up the dough, I couldn't even dig up enough energy to search the freezer for the rolled oats, which I attribute to missing my nap yesterday. And I'd made a special trip to buy sunflower-seed oil! Well, a special stop; I got sunflower oil, corn oil, and two bottles of fizzwater on the way to the mammogram. I'd set a batch of rolls to raising before I canceled the cookies. So I decided to kettle-bake the dough in one loaf, since I wasn't heating the oven for the cookies. (Takes half an hour to heat the oven, and only ten minutes to bake rolls.) Kettle baking a loaf that contains half a cup of molasses is a BIG mistake! (Well, I'd *said* that I was making black bread.) I've eaten quite a lot of it, trimming the crust off each slice, but Dave ate his tuna salad on some of the white-wheat bread that I thawed yesterday. I'm going to buy some caraway seeds to put in next time, and call it pumpernickel. And I'll bake it as rolls, in the oven. I've got new spring in my step. Dave took me and my bike to Little Big Horn yesterday, and I rode to Pilcher's Shoes in North Webster. There was a fellow there who knew quite a lot about fit (and called the other clerks to look at my feet -- rather like having a gaggle of interns come by with a resident). He fitted me with a 9 narrow -- I've always worn a 7 or 7 1/2 A/D. He also put in an extra insole to improve the fit; the show was already rather bouncy, being an athletic shoe (Okay, I'm back in joggers -- but at least they are *black*!) and this is a resilient insole. Hence the spring in my step. It feels rather queer, but I'm getting used to it -- and I don't take my shoes off nearly as soon after coming back to the house. Then lunch at Blimpie's; it's very like Subway. Exploring afterward, I found that there is also a Subway in town. In the antique store, I saw a dog nutcracker like the one Dave's uncle made. It was marked only "old, not a reproduction". Our nutcracker has more detail than the one in the antique shop, and doesn't have visible screw heads. Then I wended my way home. Royal pain to check the map at every intersection, since I always got the wrong side *and* the wrong way up, making it necessary to open it at least three times every stop. Finally the dime dropped and I folded it with the part I was using outside. Perhaps I hadn't thought of it because it won't fit into the map case in that condition. I meant to stop at the Jottam Down Store, which I'd passed on the way in, but wandered north of the Barbees instead of between them. But that revealed how I'd gotten onto Armstrong Road that time I unintentionally went to Leesburg: the road I was following made a right turn, and Brown Road went straight. From there I could see Armstrong Road. (I checked the map twice before making the turn!) Forgot to re-fill my water bottle in North Webster, and ran out somewhere along CR 225 E. So I stopped and drank the milk left over from lunch, and poured a little melted ice into my bottle. Nowhere near enough, so I stopped at the church and used the water fountain even though that's nearly home. By the time I got settled down after coming back, it was only an hour to suppertime, and half a nap is worse than none, so I stayed up. Dave and I took a longer walk than usual because he'd seen a cement truck at the new building in the Village at Winona earlier. They had poured a concrete floor in the crawl space -- I thought those always had gravel floors, so that any water that got in could get out again. The foundations had been spray-painted gray; I presume that that is some sort of waterproofing. On today's walk, we saw that they have poured a foundation for another "artwork", near the entrance to the Boy's Camp. 29 September 2007 Wrist much improved, but I don't think I should stress it. Skipped both events, as going by car didn't sound like any fun -- and I wasn't sure a steering wheel would be any easier on my wrist than handlebars anyway. The re-enactment is on again tomorrow, but by the time I get up from my nap, there won't be much time left on it. Would go there for supper if I had some clue as to whether suitable vendors will be there. And if I hadn't already thawed a packet of ribs. 30 September 2007 We really liked those boneless ribs! But I'm going to take the other packet out of the bag *before* I thaw it; much less mess. I hope they weren't a "special purchase", as I'd like to buy more. Raw meat, but one need only pop it into a casserole and bake it for half an hour. And, much to my surprise, the burned-on bits dissolved in water. My wrist has gotten to the stage where I can forget about it and pick up an iron skillet without due care. There were a lot of cookies left over from the bake sale, so it's just as well that I didn't make any. I was tempted to bring some home, but avoided walking too close to the table. -- Joy Beeson http://joybeeson.home.comcast.net/ http://roughsewing.home.comcast.net/ http://www.timeswrsw.com/craig/cam/ (local weather)