Summer in the Garden

Last week, we were down the Shore for a little family getaway and the weather was almost cold the first few days.  It was a nice time away, but we returned home to the start of some serious heat.

We are in the midst of a rather impressive heat wave; it has been over 100 degrees the past three days and the humidity is high, so it feels like walking into an oven when you go outside. It is supposed to rain tomorrow and cool things off a bit. My flowers in the back patio are looking a little scorched, but there really was nothing for it. I'm hoping they rally with cooler temps.

Pre-scorching, obviously.

In practical terms, it means I'm out weeding and watering before 7 a.m. just to be in a tolerable temperature. This morning it was 93 degrees by 9:30 a.m.

 

The community garden where we have our big plot also has six sour cherry trees that in past years have gone unharvested.  The president of the garden association sent out a plea to pick so we were happy to help ourselves!

By the time the girls and I got there, the low hanging fruit was gone, but we were able to get a goodly amount with a regular ladder.  I made two pies with it!  Pro tip: a metal straw is brilliant for pitting them and made quick work of the job.

We've had a spectacular strawberry harvest this year (almost double the yield of last year) and I'm happy with how things are sitting with the vegetables I put in.  

I think we got around 60 cups this year!

I've already got two cucumbers well on their way; it will be the earliest cuke harvest I've had.  I planted four this year.  I also have another watermelon, but I got proper trellises for both the cukes and the watermelon to keep them somewhat contained in their respective corners.  

One of my tomato plants came with a green tomato on it that ripened in May, but that was a total fluke, and the tomatoes are just starting to flower a bit now. Two of them were volunteer plants from the perimeter garden that I was given, so they are a bit small at the moment.

The carrots finally took! It took two sowings to get it, but the second time was the charm (weirdly, it was the same situation last summer. First sowing, nada. Second sowing, a few. This year, I've got three different carrot patches going).  I have two peppers going and the one has a couple on it that are ripening v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y.  

I moved my blueberry bushes to the community plot last fall because they were doing poorly in the back patio garden and the one especially is doing much better.  The other one was flagging pretty badly last summer, but it might rally yet.  I'm hoping another year in good sunshine will perk it right up.  

Taken in early May, when it was flowering.  The berries are looking quite nice at this point!

The raspberries in the back are coming into harvest now and we have quite a crop! I was worried we wouldn't get as many since last year's harvest withered since we were away, but it doesn't seem to have affected this year's crop much.

This was just the first picking.  We've had several pie tins already and there is so much more to pick!

And, drum roll please...the mulberry finally fruited!!  I'm so happy about it, as I absolutely adore mulberries.  Mine is a dwarf variety, and I put it in the back patio several years ago and despaired of getting fruit.  This year, we got a good handful!  

The fig tree died with the move to the big garden, but it was pretty leggy anyway and had never fruited, so I pulled it out and replanted with a healthy-looking plant from our local hardware store.  Here's hoping for some figs next summer!  Gardening is a marvel.  I learn so much every year, and it keeps me moving forward with hope. Plus, there really is no better therapy than putting your hands in the dirt! 

Raspberry Lizard Redux

Another brief note, this one an update about that sweater I posted in the fall.  I finished it a year ago but didn't wear it until cooler weather in the fall.  The length always bugged me, as it wanted to ride up in the back and left me feeling cold!  I didn't end up wearing it much at all this past season.  

I decided to lengthen the hem an inch or so, and also fixed one of the cuffs that I had made a mistake on while I was at it.  It was a fairly fast fix.

I didn't want to make a turtleneck out of the neckkline, so I made a little cowl using the pattern as a guide so I can add it if I want to.  I did the first repeat twice (or maybe three times?) and the second repeat twice before purling a few rows and then a bind off.  I like how it came out!  It will definitely be warmer than the first iteration.  Fingers crossed I will wear it more this coming winter!

And yes, it really is cold enough for wools again today!  Go home, weather, you're drunk.

Capstone Season

Just popping in briefly to say it is capstone season around here and life is busy.  I'm just trying to survive it, to be honest.  The summer is already over-scheduled and I feel slightly crazy.  Piglet starts his senior year in the fall and there are Things to Do to get ready for the college admission process.  

 The garden is putting out an incredible number of strawberries (I picked at least 16 cups today, probably more) and the raspberries are coming in nicely.  Did a bunch of heavy work pruning the rose that came with our plot but hadn't been dealt with in a long time.  

I also need to thin the irises (again!  I did it in the fall and they seem to have sprung back with more than ever!) and do some other work in the larger part of the garden as part of our community garden contract. 

 

I'm making baby sweaters to stay sane.  (Lots of new babies in my life!)  At some point I'll post about them. 

I did finally get to the end of my superwash stash so started a cowl from Kate Davies' latest book.  Watching Elementary like it is comfort food and liking Jonny Lee Miller more and more.  (I liked him in the Austen films/series, but couldn't get into his other work.  Really enjoying his take on Sherlock Holmes).  

Христос воскресe!

 Christ is Risen, Truly He is Risen!  

Well, we made it!  Holy Week seemed very long this year, but the midnight celebration was good.  The kids went back to school today after having the week and yesterday off for spring break.  

I didn't get pictures of all the services this week because I sing in the choir, and our church doesn't do Bridegroom Matins on Monday and Tuesday, but here's a few pics of the latter part of Holy Week and Pascha.  Some of the pics are from other parishioners who shared them with the parish.

Holy Thursday morning Vesperal Liturgy for the Last Supper

Holy Thursday Passion Gospels

On kliros for Holy Friday Vespers midafternoon

Before Lamentations on Friday evening

Holy Saturday morning Vesperal Liturgy, 15 Old Testament readings

Blessing bread after the Holy Saturday liturgy

Almost ready for Pascha!

Reading the Acts of the Apostles before the Midnight Office and procession

"Come receive ye the Light that is never overtaken by night!"

Midnight procession around the city block

Singing ‘Christ is Risen!’ on the street in front of the church.

All lit up and open for the feast of feasts!

Agape Vespers on Sunday evening

Approximately 4:00 a.m. Sunday, because I know you are dying to see what I wore...I had so much sturm und drang over clothes this year. My original outfit involved sweaters and heavy skirts, but the weather turned suddenly summer-like overnight and so I went with this instead after much dithering and hand- wringing.  The skirt is a new purchase and I had planned to return it because it is too big, but it was the only thing that really worked for the weather and color scheme. So here's me with needle and thread altering the skirt at 8:00 p.m. on Saturday before heading to church at 10:00, but I'm quite happy with how it all came out!

As I wrote previously, this Lent was...a lot.  To be honest, I'm still feeling it.  Having three teenagers and a tween is intense!  I did better with the Slavonic this year--every service gets a little better, but my brain still gets tired after thinking in Russian and Slavonic for several hours.  I would love to get to the point of fluid chanting in Slavonic, but for now, I'm happy to stumble through the choral bits.  For whatever reason, I basically didn't sleep last night, so with the sleep deficit still from Pascha night, I'm a bit foggy today.  Here's hoping for a better night's sleep tonight!

Words about Ferns

This has been a Lenty-Lent.  It started with a bang on Forgiveness Sunday with the news that my brother-in-law and his family were involved in a serious car accident that flipped their mini-van.  They were hit by a drunk driver in a high-speed chase with police.  The cops said if the angle had been slightly different, at least one of them would have died.  They all came out with concussions and minor contusions, but no broken bones or major injuries, so there is that to be thankful for.  That was on top of another hospitalization for my father-in-law, who had been in and out for several months with a respiratory infection.  There were a few other things that happened around the same time that just felt like a pile-on.

The Upper School musical this year was Narnia and it was a pretty intense show with a lot of spiritual attacks during tech week and the first performance.  A lot of weird stuff happened.  The kids were total pros and took every twist and in turn in stride, but it was stressful for the adults!  The whole cast did a superb job but our White Witch was amazing and nailed it as did Aslan (which I just found out is the Turkish word for lion--how cool is that?) I worked on costumes leading up to the show and was backstage again this year and that was fun.  It was a very good show and I still have a bunch of the songs living rent-free in my head.

Just before tech week, my father-in-law passed away.  He had gone on hospice care the week before so while it was not a surprise, it was a little faster than we expected.  My father-in-law was 90 and had not been well for several years. My husband was able to get to Texas in time to prepare his body before having him moved here for the funeral and burial.  (We had bought plots at an Orthodox cemetery about an hour out of town).  

My girls and I sang the Panikhida at our church on the Sunday night and then sang the funeral with the priest's wife at the out-of-town parish the following morning.  Relatives and colleagues came for the services and it was nice to catch up with some people we hadn't seen in a long time, including our beloved spiritual father who happened to be in the area for something else.  Many stories were told of my father-in-law's truly bonkers antics over the years.  After the memorial meal, we went back to the city for afternoon rehearsal at school. It was a crazy start to tech week.  

And since the weather has turned frigid again, I figure I better log this sweater I finished in February. This is Words about Ferns and I reused the yarn I made Ponchik's Weekender with when she was in 1st grade.  She's long outgrown the sweater, but it was a cashmere-merino blend yarn and I just couldn't let the yarn go to waste.  

I had more than 700 yards to play with, and the pattern said 600 was enough for my size, but I am here to tell you that the pattern is grossly off.  I had to buy 3 extra skeins, so almost 400 yards more.  

The new ones were obviously a different dye lot so I had to get creative about blending the new yarn so it wouldn't show as a harsh line.  Three-quarters of both sleeves and all of the collar are in the new yarn.  In some lights you can hardly tell, and others it is more obvious.  It is a little bit of an ombre effect, I guess.  I don't really care, to be honest.  It is warm and cozy and I've worn it a LOT since finishing it.  

My mods were to add waist shaping and to double the collar, because at that point, I had the extra skeins so I figured I might as well take advantage.  I used up every last bit of yarn except for a 6" piece I'm using for sleeve scrap on a baby sweater.  Talk about yarn chicken!

I went out to the garden last week to spread the salt hay that we can purchase from the garden association to which our community plot belongs.  We received our plot too late last year to take advantage and hauling in mulch by the bagful on a busy city street was not fun, so I was glad to have the hay delivered right to the plot this year.  The daffodils are blooming and the tulips are up with a few in bloom.  The bulbs out back are up green but not blooming yet (just a lone crocus managed to bloom) but the containers tend to lag the big garden by several weeks, so I'm not concerned.

I moved my fig and blueberry bushes there in the fall in the hopes that full sun might encourage better fruit development. The fig has never fruited and the blueberry bushes have struggled in the back. Plus the bleeping squirrels wouldn't leave the bushes and containers alone.  I'm focusing more on flowers in the back, although I still have the raspberry canes.  The birds get a few but don't bother them as much and the squirrels can't really climb the canes very well.  I might move them to the plot at some point, but they do okay out back for now.

Japanese Theotokos and Christ child

We celebrated Annunciation liturgy this morning and it is already Lazarus Saturday and Palm Sunday this coming weekend!  C'праздником!