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Pink Fussy Fuzzy Grows On You and the Garlic is Just Plain Gonna Grow

Posted by on December 20, 2009

When I wrote out the title I meant to just write “pink fuzzy grows on you.” But instead of fuzzy I wrote fussy, when I realized my mistake I decided to keep fussy and just add fuzzy because it is very fussy.
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Kathy, you like eye lash yarn because you are a weaver. Knitting with it can make you go blind! It takes at least twice as long because I have to keep checking if I am about to stitch the yarn or just a clump of the eye lash.
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But now that both ear flaps are done and joined and I am done with the pearl stitch on the forehead and neck part to keep it from curling up, it will knit up quickly. I actually got quite far while I waited for these photos to load.
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My computer is bogging down again, I think that means I should give it a slight lobotomy and get some stuff off of it. Organizing and putting my photos on my external hard drive would be a start and a good idea since I panic every time someone moves the lap top, the potential of loosing all of this year’s photos you know. I really am bad at “paperwork” .

Check out what I use for a stitch marker. Yep that is a bread sack closure. I don’t use them all that often because on regular tender yarn they have a tendency to snag the yarn because they are a little rough, but on this stuff, like anyone would notice a snag!
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Counting stitches on this eyelash yarn is a bit of a challenge because it is hard to add one more thing to the mix of trying to find the yarn to stitch into. But counting and pearling, ugh. Pearling, putting the working yarn to the front, oh yeah, right, try seeing through double eye lashes. Yikes! The head that this goes on better be a thankful head is all I have to say.
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I sure hope it fits. I hate doing the gauge swatches that I am supposed to do (prep work, not my forte) so I just measure my gauge off of the ear flaps and adjust the number of stitches on the forehead and neck piece. But if it doesn’t fit one head it will fit another and several people at dinner last night were putting their dibs in for this puppy. So hopefully it won’t be a case of the crocheted poodle toilet paper cover, “oh thanks, so much” said in a very forced happy face manner. You know, I have joked several times in the last month or two about poodle dog paper covers, I bet I make one soon, just to be silly and get my come upens.
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Well I got the rest of my garlic separated and graded, I separate the big cloves from the smallish ones. There really is no point in planting the smaller cloves because they just don’t make the size of the others, I might tuck a few of the in between sized ones, that I put in a different sack, in some of the flower beds or some of the other beds that will have other veggies planted in them in the spring. But they would be there for pest purposes rather than garlic production.
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The girls prepped and fertilized the beds with Sea 90. Each bed took about 11 ounces of Sea 90, measured out in a red plastic beer cup, very scientific looking. All in garlic – five beds, four by sixteen feet.
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Thats gonna be lots ‘o garlic. It should yeild 720 bulbs of garlic next summer (that’s nearly two bulbs a day), some braidable and some hard necked. I picked up three new varieties this year from
Fillaree Farms in Okanogan, WA , and we are looking forward to seeing how they will turn out. My list is out in the propagation house and I am in my beautiful new bedroom, but lets see if I can remember, Red Janice, Early Red Italian, and Nootka Rose. The ones we already had: Idaho Silver, Shandong, Chesnook Red, Inchelium Red, oh and an unknown soft neck that seems to do fairly well, just can’t remember who he is. Lots of red in that list huh? Funny how that happened, rather by accident, and here I am posting about red garlic and pink yarn together, odder still.
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Inchelium Red, new last year, isn’t storing very well, I’m thinking our humidity may be to high and Dirt had the heat lamp on the well pump during the cold snap we just had. Or maybe we should quit relying on the well house to store all our stuff in. I wonder if the dormant plant storage would work it appears to be dryer in there than the well house. Unfortunately it is far from the kitchen. Maybe we should just try hanging some from the ceiling in the pantry. I don’t braid that much anymore like I used to but I do have it in these great net bags. The netting actually comes in a long long tube, you just cut and tie it off to the length you want.
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Speaking of braided garlic, we did pick up some more braidable varieties and are planting more cloves of the ones we had last year, so I am hoping to get back into braiding up garlic this summer, I love to braid it, it looks so beautiful and I like to braid in other herbs and some dried flowers. Then for gifts I go to the florist and buy some of their long stem rose boxes from them and get some excelsior from the craft store and box up my braids. But I haven’t done that for years, I think it is time I got back to doing that.
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There is a lot I need to get back to doing. And a lot I need to start doing, like paper work and doing things on time. I am such a procrastinator. And sometimes I get on a roll of being a great gardener and wife, then along comes some sort of thing, be it a crisis or just an impromptu party and off the wagon I go. And even when the crisis abates or the party is over and everyone has gone home, there I sit, unable to get back on the organized, do-what-your-supposed-to-be-doing, wagon.
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I’m thinking this is a semi-annual New Year’s resolution (I have two New Years, one in January like everyone else and one in September when I really feel like it is the best evaluate and reboot time.) and has been for most of my life. Well, I do suppose there have been those years when I have said, “to heck with it, I am who I am, I haven’t killed myself or anyone else with my randomness.” But I really do think that fifty is a good decade to finally get a hold of one’s self and grow up a bit and be responsible, eh?
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But I really would not like to be too organized and anal about everything, I am rather fun after all. Well at least fun to watch run around catching up I suppose! But really, the lovely thing about being random and easily distracted is that my girls always have the opportunity to drag me off to see some sort of crazy thing they found. And I to them. So it is a good thing that Dirt has a job that pays real money, so that we can go to the store and get those things that are still in the seed packet box and not in the ground growing like they are supposed to be. Lot of things are forgiving, like garlic, give or take a month or two, but then a lot of things are not, like corn and squash and tomatoes and peppers. And don’t even get me started on all the flowers I keep planning on having but never seem to get started on time.
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Okay, I’ve ragged on myself and my ineptitude long enough, lets just say I’m going to do my level best to get a grip this year and Bet is with me on that score. She claimed it herself just the other day all out of the blue and not when I was saying anything out loud. And I am going to hold her and myself to it! Anna on the other hand is just happy the foggy way she is right now and has absolutely no desire to change her wandering dreamy ways. Bet and I have just been careful to step around the poor dear lately. Making sure that we don’t give her too many things to do at once or anything that involves sharp objects.
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I think it is funny how I always seem to have one girl getting down to business and another girl that is in fairy land, and how they seem to perfectly switch off to the other at the same time the other switches. Not sure what I would do if I had two girls dwelling in fairy land twenty-four seven and me being my usual random procrastinatin’ self. Yikes. That would break poor dear sensible Dirt I am sure. Well I have rambled quite enough tonight. I’m either tired enough to sleep now, this bedrest thing has my body clock thoroughly confused, or I will knock off a few more inches on the Fantastic Fuzzy Fussy hat. Now that it is on the circular needles and I am knitting in the round it zips by fast, eyelashes and all.
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Tomorrow the last of the garlic goes in the ground and the beds get some mulch and I will rest easier, maybe we will even get to those last few feet of tulips and the cutting bed of daffs, before fall ends on Monday morning. But if I have to use the first few days of winter to finish up I will, vowing of course to plan better next year and not do a huge remodel and get sick during the time I’m suppose to be planting bulbs and such. (Before the month of pneumonia and bed rest it was a month of lymph nodes the size of golf balls, and I only exagerate slightly.) When are you supposed to remodel things? When isn’t the calendar full of things you are to do regularly? I must figure out when our off season is or find one. Then I could plan a remodel instead of falling into one. However, I won’t plan on being sick. Maybe we could plan to travel to a far away land. Farther than the huckleberry fields or the clam holes. Ummm.
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Have a wonderful rest of the weekend Dear Reader, if you are a “Sunday is the holy day” person, then by all means, may it be filled with the wonders of God, and if it is a day like all the others, make sure that God owns it as much as He did your yesterday. He is who He is and worthy of our every moment, give them to Him freely and with joy in your heart. He came to earth that we may be free, be free indeed.

2 Responses to Pink Fussy Fuzzy Grows On You and the Garlic is Just Plain Gonna Grow

  1. Mildred

    Fortunate indeed the head that gets the lovely pink hat! I think that is so pretty.

    I've never grown garlic and don't usually like garlic. I am amazed at all your varieties. I love the garlic braids though. That's a grand idea to put them in the florist boxes for gifts.

    Wishing you continued improvement with your health and happy holidays.

  2. Daisy

    Your eyelash yarn hat is going to be so pretty and girly fussy. Some head is going to be lucky to be wearing that when you are done. :-) You must have a lot of patience to work with that kind of yarn.