Last Sunday, Matt and I helped a friend who was hosting a dinner at the Ronald McDonald House in Minneapolis. It has been a long time since we’ve done any volunteer work, and we were happy to join the effort.

Generous members of rec.food.cooking paid for the food. Barb (our organizer) wrote up the event here and has provided photos. (Do not click on the photo captioned “I love this picture” unless you want to see an enlarged version of my bum. I’m just sayin’.)

I made the stuff on the tray at the far right. If you’re curious, the recipe for lemon bars is here) and the one for the turtle brownies is here. They were both “just OK” (tasty, but I’m not sure I’d make either again).

I’ve been brooding over handmade spinning wheels again. If money were no object, what would your ideal spinning wheel be like?

For me, I think these may be the fundamental requirements, roughly in order of importance:

- Solid hardwood
- Handmade and beautifully finished (I know, I’m such an elitist snob)
- 30+” drive wheel, rim weighted and perfectly balanced
- Left-handed setup (flyer on the right), perfectly balanced flyer
- Sealed bearings (no oil needed) that provide permanently silent and smooth operation
- Ratios between 10:1 and 30:1 (or higher), with regular and fat-core bobbins
- Solid join between the footman and treadle (no “slop” in the movement)
- Double drive or Scotch tension
- Double treadles (but I will consider a single treadle that is completely smooth, ie, without hiccups or dead spots)

Other things that are important but not deal killers:

- Choice of flyer orifice sizes (especially for laceweight)
- Narrow, V-shaped grooves for the ratio whorl *and* the bobbin whorl
- Ability to align the drive wheel
- Somewhat knock-down-able for transit but not wobbly when assembled
- Flyer that attaches to the maiden only in the back (really love this feature of my Drudik wheel)
- Clean lines (no need for ornate decorations)
- Shaped, wide treadles (I don’t like the look of rectangle-slab treadles)
- (I already have a wheel that does this, but) Level-winding large bobbin for plying

What features are important to you?

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PS. No, none of my wheels are for sale. Sorry! :)

For the past 2 summers, I made a “casual” compost heap in the backyard. That is to say, I placed all the weeds and dug-up sod in a pile and then ignored it. I added to the pile on a near-weekly basis (we had *so* many weeds!), watered it once in a while, turned it maybe 3x each summer, and that was that. By the end of last year, we had a burial mound fit for a king (10x4x1 ft or thereabouts).

This year, I used most of that mountain of compost as the lower half of my raised-bed garden (more on that in a subsequent post). However, I needed some place to put the leftover compost, the would-be-generated garden trimmings, and the kitchen waste that I intended to add this year. I also figured it was time to use a proper bin and hide the unsightly bits from the neighbors.

I wanted a composter that would be in contact with the ground to facilitate colonization with earthworms, so I immediately excluded tumbling bins. (And no, I could not see myself paying for worms.) I considered building a structure myself (plans like this abound online), but good golly, that requires wood skillz. I thought, surely someone has a kit of precut stuff with drill holes that I can just put together?

After a bit of searching, I found a great double-bin cedar composting unit that was a good size, easy to assemble, and, best of all, could be purchased without paying a hefty delivery fee. The guy who makes these (Steve) lives very close to Northfield; I placed my order, drove to his house, and brought this home:

This is a clever design and required only 30 minutes to assemble. (If you’re used to hammering, it would probably take even less time, but I hammer gingerly and crookedly.) It is open to the ground and is quite sturdy. I probably should have leveled the area underneath before installing it, but I think it’ll settle with time.

The slats in the front are removable, and the other surfaces are covered in a wire mesh that has 1/2″ openings. To turn the pile, I remove the cedar slats and go at it with a pitchfork. It takes me about 10 minutes every week. I water it every day that it doesn’t rain and give it at least 2 gallons of water. I’m not sure if that’s overkill – I never feel any heat, but the stuff seems to be decomposing briskly. The last 2 times I turned the pile, I saw a handful of pink worms, so I’d say things are going well.

I don’t have any pressing purpose for the compost, other than perhaps as nutrient mulch for next year’s planting. I think my greatest pleasure is derived from the knowledge that I’m not throwing as much junk into a landfill. It also is kind of fun to put watermelon rinds, carrot scrapings, leek tops, egg shells, coffee grounds, and dryer lint into the pile and watch it disappear.

Want to learn more about composting? You can start here and get acquainted.

After my esteemed undergraduate university received an anonymous, $100M donation, I noted with wry amusement that another graduate had this to say about his college experience:

“How could the University of Chicago not be on that list of life-changing colleges? Its just one data point, but it turned me from a bright-eyed, gregarious, optimistic young man into a broken, cynical, self-doubting misfit. I know I wasn’t the only one.”

We’ve made some improvements to the yard this year (John, tease me if you want, but this truly is Year 3 of my 5-year plan). The biggest changes were the addition of new hardware to the yard.

After much wheedling on my part (like, a year’s worth!), Matt finally agreed that a wooden water barrel would not be a hideously ugly thing to display on our property, although I note that he insisted on placing it in the backyard. It’s a Kentucky whiskey barrel that originally was used to age liquor (ie, the stuff that spends 10 years in a charred oak barrel). They are not reusable for liquor in the United States, so they often are exported to other countries (for reuse as liquor containers), recycled as rain barrels, planters, and the like, or are thrown away.

I spent a week sanding the splinters off and wire-brushing the loose rust flakes, and I finished it with a few coats of spray sealant. I cut a backyard downspout with a hacksaw and attached a flexible gutter elbow. I had Matt dig up some sod immediately underneath, I laid a thick layer of sand on the bare earth, placed 2 layers of brick pavers on top of the sand (it’s not exactly level, but close enough), and we hauled the barrel to rest atop the pavers.

It holds a little over 50 gallons of water, and it fills up literally within minutes if we have a good storm going. I use ~8 gallons each time I water the garden and plants, so 1 barrel lasts a week or so. The barrel has 3 spouts – an overflow spout on top, a decorative cardinal-shaped threaded spout in the middle, and a minimalist brass threaded spout on the bottom. A 10-ft hose is connected to the overflow spout, so excess water isn’t poured directly onto the house foundation, and a second small hose is connected to the bottom spout to drain the lower half of the barrel. I love this barrel so much, I’m trying to talk Matt into getting a second one. By positioning the overflow hose over the intake of a second barrel, multiple barrels could be hooked up in a series and filled by a single downspout.

If you need more convincing about the virtues of collecting rainwater, start here. I’m not sure how much I’m saving on the water bill because we have more plants to water this year, plus we installed a second meter to monitor outdoor faucet usage (thereby eliminating sewage charges, etc). But still – it saves water, provides sun-warmed and naturally soft water for my plants, and makes a quiet statement to the neighborhood.

ETA: The barrel has a screen over the opening. The screen is a fine-gauge mesh (same as what you’d put on a window) to prevent mosquitoes and roof detritus from entering the barrel. I note also that if a mosquito infestation already is present, you could consider adding “mosquito dunks” to the water.

Thanks to everyone who left such delightful birthday wishes! I had a wonderful weekend – on Saturday, Matt and I went to the Cannon Valley bike trail and rode from Cannon Falls to Welch, a trip that is 10 miles each way. I really liked the path, it reminded me (sort of) of the Minuteman trail that ran behind the house we rented when we lived in Arlington.

The bike path runs next to the Cannon River. We are thinking of going canoeing or tubing sometime when it is a little warmer.

The path is completely paved, and the trail grade is very even (it’s a former railway path). Someone even goes through the trail and spray paints yellow circles around any divots in the path that might cause you to bump a little on your bike seat.

The trail is in a wooded area, and even though it was quite warm and sunny outside, we were bathed in cool shade for 90% of the ride.

Of course, for the other 10%, we saw corn or soybean fields, mini mountains, or both at the same time.

We stopped in Welch, had hot sandwiches at a local cafe, and turned our bikes around to head back. I was pretty saddle sore by the end of our journey (must buy padded shorts!), but otherwise, I felt great.

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I know it’s summer (more or less) in the northern hemisphere, and most of you probably are not interested in eating soup for the next few months, but I love soup and eat it year ’round. I recently made green lentil and veggie soup (flavored with chicken broth and bacon). What’s not to love?

This was based mostly on the “Hearty Lentil Soup” from Cook’s Illustrated New Best Recipe. My version follows:

4 slices bacon
1 onion
2 carrots
3 garlic cloves
14.5 oz diced tomatoes – (canned)
1 bay leaf
1/2 t dried thyme
7 oz French green lentils – rinsed and picked over
1 t salt
black pepper
1 qt chicken broth – fat free, low sodium
1 1/2 c water
8 oz fresh spinach – washed and chopped coarsely

Cut bacon into 1/4″ pieces. Peel and chop onions and carrots. Mince garlic. In a large pressure cooker (lid off), fry bacon until bacon is half cooked. Drain oil, keep bacon in the pot and add the onion, carrots, and garlic. Saute until the vegetables are softened. Stir in tomatoes, bay leaf, and thyme. Add lentils, salt, pepper to taste. Reduce heat and cook until lentils have darkened (~9 minutes). By “sweating” the lentils in acid, they stay firm and don’t get mushy. Increase heat until contents simmer. Add chicken broth and water, seal the pressure cooker, and cook with medium or high pressure for ~10 minutes. Cool enough to remove the lid safely, stir in spinach. Serve immediately (6 servings).

I’ve been eating a bowl of soup for lunch nearly every day with a half sandwich of multigrain bread spread with liverwurst made from pigs grown without antibiotics, growth promotants, or animal-based feed and with garlic herb cheese from the local sheep-cheese farm. Now that my CSA subscription has begun, I’ve been putting leafy green things (mesclun mix? straight arugula? can’t tell!) in the sandwich, too.

I have looked on and off for “true black” huacaya alpaca because I think it would be hilarious to wear something that is the same color as my hair. This fiber is a close match, but in strong sunlight, it shows red highlights on a dark brown base.

Yarn made from pure alpaca is shiny, drapey, and dense – great for wraps and stoles, not so good for sweaters. I knew right away that I wanted to make something suitable for lace knitting. To create the smoothest and sleekest yarn, I chose to comb the fibers. I used double-row Forsyth combs, as I typically do for small jobs. The fiber was combed 4 times, and I picked out knots and second cuts as I saw them.

I always think of Don King whenever I comb fiber. Do you?

I used a needle threader to pull the first tuft of wool through the diz.

I used a short draw (1.0-1.5 inch) to diz alpaca because the fibers don’t cling like wool and will drift apart if you let them. Here’s the trash after all the usable fiber was removed.

Even though the hole in the diz was ~2 mm wide, the fiber puffed up after it passed through the diz. This was how it looked right after it was drawn off the comb.

As such, this wasn’t a “stable” form of fiber and wouldn’t spin easily because the air:fiber ratio was too high. I compressed the top by winding it into a coil and inserting just a little bit of twist as I wrapped it around my fingers. Below is a nest ready to spin. Note that the tip of the top is on the outside – by spinning from this end, I maintained the directionality of the fiber as it came off the comb.

I repeated these steps a million times until I had prepared enough fiber (a little over 100 g) for a decent-size project. I decided to spin this in a worsted fashion to further enhance the shine, maintain density and drape, etc, and used what I think is called a “sliding, supported, point-of-contact, backward long draw.” If you don’t know what that means, you can read Jenny’s explanation here.

By the way, that’s one of my new Walunas fat-core bobbins in action.

Because I usually work with wool and silk, alpaca always makes me stop and think. It is a “hair” fiber, and it behaves quite differently from wool and silk during spinning. I spent some time trying to achieve the correct amount of twist that allowed the singles to hold together but not have the twist so tight that the yarn would be wiry and hard. It took me about 5 g of singles before I got to a happy place. :) I split the spun fiber to 2 storage bobbins and plied.

Nice, hm? Wanna see the closeup?

I bought this fiber via ebay, of all places, but the seller’s Web site is here. (Pleasant person, easy to deal with, and the fiber was exactly as advertised.) She didn’t know the micron count of the fleece; by my crude estimate, it is probably in the mid-to-upper 20s. Just in case my fingers were deceived, I wore the hank around my neck for about 60 minutes, before and after washing to set the twist, and I didn’t get the awful pricklies that would make it unwearable next to the skin. (Remember how I felt when wearing my Peruvian superfine alpaca scarf? Bleargh.)

The twist was set by washing in hot water and laundry detergent. I agitated the skein slightly, gave it a cold rinse to shock the yarn, and spun the water out in the laundry machine. The skein was air dried overnight with the help of a big fan.

Final specs on the yarn: 98 grams, 370 yards (348 m), 2-ply, fingering weight, 100% alpaca, natural black color. That’s enough yarn to finish projects like this, this (scarf version), or this.

Because today is my birthday, I thought it would be fun to give away something. Assuming that it’s OK with Claudia, I am donating this big skein in support of her fundraising efforts. (If you read other knitting blogs, you probably already know that Claudia is but several hundred sawbucks away from becoming perhaps the number 1 fundraiser in her group of peeps who are biking and raising money for the National Multiple Sclerosis Society.) For every $10 donated, you get a chance to win something from a slew of fabulous knit-related prizes (explained here). I hope you can help out.

Something sad:
     Earlier tonight, I was outside watering the flowers in the yard. It’s gorgeous outside, blue skies and 70 degrees. The neighbors were out and about, 2 little girls (~3 year olds?) were drawing with chalk on the driveway, a dad was keeping an eye on them while drinking beer in the garage entrance. Out of the blue, I heard him sharply bark, “[Jenna]! Quit it! Quit it now or you’re going inside!” I hadn’t heard any commotion, I didn’t turn around to see what the kids were doing, I kept my eyes down and continued to water flowers. A minute later, [Jenna]‘s mom comes out of the house. [Jenna] runs up to her and says, “Mommy, I was kissing [Susie], Daddy told me to quit it or he’d make me go inside!” WTF? He was going to punish his daughter for being affectionate with another girl. That made me sad.

(An unrelated snicker – a month or so ago, I was setting up the sprinkler on a Sunday morning ~5:30 AM, and a big SUV pulled into the driveway next door. It’s sort of odd to see traffic in our area that early, so I glanced over. Mr Neighbor got out of the passenger side, and I could see a man on the driver side. I wondered briefly if my neighbor was a bartender coming home at the end of a shift or a married man sneaking home after an evening’s tryst with a lover, but honestly, I didn’t care. I cheerfully called out “Good morning!” and the guy literally growled at me, scowled, and went inside. I haven’t tried to talk with him since.)

Something happy:
     Check out the Knit Night cupcakes. These are the most laugh-out-loud adorable cupcakes I’ve ever seen!

If you aren’t familiar with the television phenomenon that was Buffy the Vampire Slayer, check out this handy video to get up to speed.

Ha ha, OK, that video makes no sense unless you’ve watched all 7 seasons. But still – nice flashback, eh?

We went on Saturday night.

We weren’t the oldest people there.

They gave away goodie bags and instructions on when to use the props throughout the episode.

Grrr! Arrrgh!

But it was not.

I was making flan. I ran out of Pyrex dishes and thought I’d give the decorative ramekin a go. It made a pinging noise and split in half about 5 seconds after I poured hot melted sugar in it.