Apples and pickles

Thursday, October 06, 2005

Last week a coworker told us about some apple trees he has at a rental place here in town and said we could go pick as many as we wanted. Hell yeah! So we went, my son and I, and no we had never picked apples before. I had done a drive-by and saw that most of the apples were up high so we went armed with some grocery bags and... a hockey stick. You can tell by that statement just how "hockey" we are. Quite awhile later and after a nice little chat with one of the tenants and we left with one large grocery bag fun of apples. We made Apple Crisp, which was super delicious, but in all my weekends strange busy glory, we didn't get to make anything else yet.

However, on Monday, the aforementioned coworker brought his apple picker* to work to let me borrow. How cool is that? So we went back tonight after parent/teacher conferences and I loved the apple picker so much that I want to marry it. Or at least buy one for myself! I could hardly stop myself! I think I would have picked all night if my hands hadn't froze to the handle. Yes, that's right: froze. We had snow here last night! Luckily very little, less than an inch, because our neighbors on the western part of the state got 18-24". Eighteen to twenty-four inches IN OCTOBER. The first week in October! Yikes. A strange weekend topped off with a strange week.

I'm a little more long-winded when I post at home, no?

Last night we stopped by my LYS to find some shawl yarn. Choosing yarn is the hardest part of a project for me. Imagining the way things will look when completed is not one of my strong points so I stress about every possible color and yarn choice. But I went with my instincts on this one and chose a beautiful lightly variegated blue yarn - just one of the many recommended ideas by the patient lady at the store. It's Araucania Nature Wool, which I've never heard of but love almost as much as the apple picker. I wish I could show you a picture but, you know, I'm not THAT together this week. I actually got spontaneously sick with a terrible cold on Tuesday and then got spontaneously "better" on Wednesday after sleeping for almost 12 hours but I'm still a little tired, hence the quotes on "better."

Did I mention the wool was pretty cheap? What a bonus, huh? AND, it knits up in the Wave and Shell pattern so beautifully I can hardly believe it. But, alas, no pictures yet.

What I meant to come here and post about were all the great discussions about blogs, blogging, blog-reading, and etc. that I've been reading around blog world lately but maybe I'll save that for another day. Suffice it to say that I like my blog, plan to continue it, but don't be surprised if life gets in the way pretty often.

* It's a tool, I learned, with hooks and a basket at the end of a pole.