Another Experiment

Once I found out that I'd been accepted for the synod choir (and was going to be on camera as well as on stage), I wanted something a little special to wear. The e-mail said we were to wear black bottoms and black, white or red tops, so I decided to try making a red scarf printed with the UCC comma symbol. (Gracie Allen is quoted as saying "Never put a period where God has put a comma." The UCC is running with that thought.)

Anyway, the silk dye marked "brilliant red" has thus far given me shades of coral, but never a really intense red. I decided to make free with the dye, really saturate it. But first I took a note from my 10th grade art class and made a potato print comma. The comma itself was fairly easy to carve with a paring knife and a potato that was past its better days anyway. I painted it with some pearlescent fabric paint and went to work printing white commas on the (then) white fabric.

I figured out fairly quickly that I needed to hold the fabric down with a block while I did the printing, or the potato would slide off the fabric and smear my image. A more experienced person probably would have taped or pinned the scarf down anyway.

Once the prints looked dry, I applied gobs of red dye to the fabric. As it turned out, I should have waited a bit longer; but I kind of like the pearescent glow around each comma from where the remaining paint flowed into the dye.

Anyway, I did it, I like it, and I wore it. A couple people complimented me on it before the service, but I don't think either I or my scarf were actually visible to the audience or the cameras. (When you are a 5' 4" tenor, you learn to accept these things.)

I'm not sure what I'll do with it now, since it's really not an obvious addition to my everyday wardrobe. Maybe donate it to the fall bazaar auction at church?

And On A Personal Note

This is turning into the summer of travel. Besides my lovely visit to Peninsula State Park with Lynn & Jeff, last week I enjoyed a 5 day trip to Michigan for some cousin time and the UCC General Synod in Grand Rapids. And I still have trips scheduled to visit the in-laws in Missouri this weekend, then Maine (in July) and California (in August) to check on my younger brothers and their families.

If you're not familiar with it (and you probably aren't, unless you happen to attend a UCC church yourself), the general synod is the every-other-year convention. I got to sing in the 150-voice choir, accompanied by a real orchestra. There are speakers, workshops, wonderful services with world-class music and liturgical dancers and all kinds of stuff, and a group of booths with an incredible variety of free premiums and items for purchase. Two years ago in Hartford, CT, I went deep on the cause buttons and pens. (My favorite was a rainbow theme that said "Straight But Not Narrow." It sparked some interesting discussions.) This time around, reusable shopping bags were all the rage and I think I came away with 6 or 7 of them. And I may have resisted the fair-trade chocolate, but the fair trade wool yarn in a gorgeous fuchsia color just had to come with me. Four skeins for less than $20, and it's wonderful, soft stuff. No idea what it will be made into, but I'm sure the yarn will tell me when the right project comes along.
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My traveling buddy Deb was kind enough to dedicate extra time on the beginning and end of our synod trip so I could check in on the Michigan cousins. We spent Thursday evening at Camp Newaygo and I finally got to try out kayaking. Loved it! And even more, I loved spending time with some of my favorite people.

Austin was very proud of himself for paddling along in the two-person kayak with Bill, and was telling me jokes:

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This girl was sitting in class and all the sudden she got

up and started dancing around and shaking her but and

stuff. The teacher asked her what was wrong, and she said,

"I have to get up and move! My but fell asleep!"

"It sure did," the kid behind her said. "I even heard it snore."

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We also got to stop for a short time in Hastings to see Cousin Julie and her family. I was really starting to get nervous because my camera had suddenly stopped working on Saturday afternoon. Here I was with my pretty cousin and her beautiful, adorable kids, and my camera wouldn't work!! I figured out the malfunction after I got home, but I'm going to have to get back there for a make-up photo shoot. Those kids are growing up so fast! Patrick (who is going to kindergarten in the Fall) has a new calico kitten, and carries her around constantly. Lauren would melt anyone's heart with those big blue eyes and white-blond hair. And Baby Lauren blessed me with a dozen sweet little kisses. I promised Julie that I'd stay overnight next time.

Another Week In Review

I spent 2 1/2 glorious days last week up at Peninsula State Park, catching up with old friends and soaking in the scenery. It was just glorious weather and the lilacs were rioting. The puppy adapted quickly to tent living, and with several other dogs in the group she had lots of positive role models and lots of play time. It really was a situation that just couldn't be beat. And though I hated to leave when I did, I had the consolation of knowing that the weather turned beastly cold and rainy as soon as I was out the park gate.

But I had to get home for the first day of Farmer's Market on Saturday, and it was just brutal. Cold, with threatening rain that turned out to not to be a bluff, and accompanied by the chaos that one would expect for the first attempt of the season. I was late, and my set-up didn't go smoothly, and although there was a surprising volume of customers (given the weather and the lack of actual produce this early in the season) I barely made enough to justify my efforts. When it started raining at 11:00, I packed it in despite the disapproving looks from my fellow vendors.

Luckily, Sunday's graduation events were all indoors and my baby made it across the stage without a hitch. There were a lot of misty eyes when she and the other graduates were recognized in church that morning, but the graduation itself was strangely anticlimactic; perhaps because college is looming so large in her future, and we have the strong sense that this is just another milestone towards a still distant goal.

Along with the big events, we've had a few smaller incidents this week. Somehow a (presumably mother) squirrel and her compatriots got into the roof overhanging our front porch, and from there worked their way into the kitchen soffit and the kitchen/master bath wall. We could tell that one squirrel had fallen down into a gap between a pair of studs and was trying to climb out over the weekend. Rick got into the bathroom ceiling and fished a rope down between the studs, hoping the squirrel would climb up and then get out - which may or may not have worked, since the sounds in that part of the wall were gone by Monday or so. And meanwhile, he applied some tinfoil to the trim piece they'd been climbing up to access the overhang, hoping they'd slide down and be unable to get back up. But by Tuesday or so there was more scratching and carrying on in another section of the wall, and we eventually gave up on the rope concept in favor a low, discrete hole through the sheet rock.

This little guy seemed almost too young to be away from his mother, and despite Rick's best efforts with a warming lamp and eyedroppers of preemie puppy milk, he didn't make it. The whole thing is a shame, but I'm secretly relieved we didn't end up adding a pet squirrel to the menagerie. Instead, I acquired 8 Auracanus chicks from a friend and am incubating them in the same glass cage recently occupied by the squirrel.

Most of them will go to Cousin Kate in a few weeks - but there's a dark chocolate chick with a certain air about him who reminds me a bit of our recently deceased Rudy. I'm not sure what the little guy's name is just yet, but he's probably male and he's definitely staying.

Just A Little Experiment With Color

I was wandering around Michaels a few weeks ago in an inexcusable manner when I came across a couple of lightweight cotton shawl/scarf blanks on clearance for almost nothing. The suggested use was to add iron-on items and buttons and such, but I thought the scarves would probably lend themselves well to the farmer's market (after a little jazzing up with some of my silk dyes).

I was using the memory of a recent sunset for inspiration - golden ambers fading to deep blue. I noticed, however, that the cotton didn't seem especially absorbent. I twisted the scarf before painting it and figured I'd end up with diagonal light patches, but wasn't sure how the fabric would take up the dye that was being applied directly and enthusiastically on top. This is what I got, after everything dried:

I think I like it. It's almost an aurora borealis effect, with streaks of color on an otherwise fairly bland background. But I think I'll go for more "woodland-type" colors on the other blank.

Christy is a very good teacher.

I am officially Christy's "Show & Tell" today, and was featured right after the singing mechanical bunny, the pokemon cards and the pinewood derby car brought in by various kids. It's so neat seeing her in action! She really has a way with the kids and is clearly in her element. (Where I would say "Sit down and get to work," she'll say something like "I'll be sad if you have to stay in from recess because you didn't get your work done."

I am still convinced that I'm a much better fit in the high school than at the elementary level, but I'm having a blast being the spare adult in First Grade.

She Really Just Wants To Play

Dog: "Um, excuse me, but that's my bed."

Dog: "But you can use it if you want. That's fine. Unless you'd rather play? Look, I've got a ball. It even squeeks. Grab one end, and let's play tug of war."

Cat: "Don't make me kill you."

I Think It's Going To Work

I'm puttering this weekend with projects for the Women's Wild Winter Weekend up at Moon Beach next month (which is an utterly fabulous time, and I heartily recommend it to anyone). My goal is to come up with two different projects which crafty women could accomplish in 45 minutes or so, which are fairly inexpensive, and which are at least a bit unique. Oh, and it should reflect the theme for the weekend, which this year is "Reflection." (If you are actually planning on attending the retreat, or know someone who is, please forget you just read that. As a matter of fact, please go away now and don't read this until at least March.)

So Mary and Maggie, the fabulous sisters who are running the show again this year, have developed an image to use as the logo for this weekend. The silhouette, as in years past, will be stenciled on tote bags by the attendees and burned into sheet metal to make sculptures. The ladies were kind enough to share last year's logo ("Attitude") with me ahead of time so I could use it on a submission for the fundraiser auction, and that worked out so well that we're e-mailing back and forth about projects for this year's logo. And so, here's what I've got thus far:

Project 1: silk hankie

Materials:

Dyna-Flow Silk dye (sourced from Dharma Trading Company)

10" silk hankie blanks (Dharma again), damp

Assortment of cheap brushes

Assortment of disposable cups for use in mixing dyes and washing brushes

Spray bottles filled with water - at least one for every 5 crafters

Freezer paper - one 33 yard roll should serve about 100 crafters

Fabric pens in coordinating colors

Masking tape

silhouette of logo, traced on paper

1. Tear off about 12" of paper and secure to table with masking tape, coated side up.

2. Spread damp hankie out on paper. Spritz with spray bottles as necessary.

3. Pour dye into cups, adding water for less intense colors or mixing dyes to achieve new colors.

4. Using paint brush, dye hankie.

5. Allow hankie to dry. In the example at right, I scrunched most of the hankie to create strong lines of dye, but left one section flat. You can either scrunch or not, as you see fit.

6. When hankie is dry or mostly dry, set dye with hot dry iron.

7. Place logo silhouette under dry hankie. The outline will be clearly visible through the hankie. Arrange the logo where you want it, and use masking tape to secure logo and hankie in place.

8. Using fabric pen, trace logo onto hankie. Sign and date hankie if desired.

9. Two days later, iron hankie again. Swish in sink with baby shampoo, rinse, swish with hair conditioner (this is a natural fiber, after all), and rinse again. Let dry, iron, and enjoy.

Project 2: Felted logo pin or magnet

Materials:

Sheet of craft foam

Wool sweater from thrift shop, pre-shrunk

Tacky Spray (or some other adhesive that can be applied easily and uniformly)

Stencil of logo

Marker

Very sharp-tipped, small scissors

Pin back or magnet dot with adhesive

Large Sequin (1" or more)

Super glue

Prior to event, cut shrunken wool sweater in to flat pieces and glue to craft foam using Tacky Spray. Ideally, crafters could choose from several different color combinations of sweater & foam.

1. Using stencil, trace logo onto foam side of material.

2. Use scissors to cut out shape. (It may be necessary to use exacto-knife to cut out negative space by elbow.)

3. Attach sequin with super glue, creating a reflecting pool for your silhouette to gaze into thoughtfully.

4. Apply pin back or magnet dot.

It's actually a very easy project. I considered using a jeweler's jump ring to attach the sequin, or even sewing it to the wool with needle and thread - but I think we need to keep it basic for such a large group.

Saffron and Plum and Turquoise

I love the way the saffron scarf came out. I mixed a little salmon in, so it has wonderfully subtle variations in color, and will be just the thing after the dye is set and rinsed and the whole thing washed. But for now it is crusty with dye and needs to set for a couple of days before I can try it out, so all I can do is look.


I also pulled out a silk blank with a burned-out velvet floral design and started playing with it. I'd seen one online where the individual flowers had been painted different colors, and it was so pretty that I wanted to try it. But I'm starting to suspect the artist who did that other design was using a different technique, because when I started to flow the colors onto the velvet they kept on flowing. My salmon and fuchsia flower colors blended with the emerald and kelly green leaves, making unexpected (and not particularly attractive) splotches of muddy brown. I overdyed it with a light lavender, which helped bring all the different colors to a closer tone but still wasn't what I was looking for. Then I dyed the fringe plum - and decided I liked that enough that I added a lighter plum overlay to the whole thing. And instead of laying it flat to dry, I've got it wadded and rippled, so as to make striations in the plumb color. We'll see what we get this time.


Meanwhile, I'm still working on craft project ideas to take to the Women's Wild Winter Weekend retreat at the end of February. I have the silhouette of this year's logo and am going to experiment with making pins similar to the one I made for the purse last year. I need it to be a fairly simple, fast (45 minutes or less) activity for about 45 women, so instead of using the sides of milk jugs I'm trying to use a thin craft foam from Hobby Lobby as a backing. I'll give it a shot over the weekend. And I'm also experimenting with a very simple silk painting project on a 10" hankie, with the weekend's logo stenciled over it in fabric pen. We'll see how it turns out, and whether it's viable as a group thing.

In Search Of Color

The grey weather indemic to a Wisconsin winter has left me craving color in a downright visceral way. I woke up early this morning with a bad dream that involved tornado's and a badly soiled baby diaper - not hard to analyze that one, I guess - and found myself reaching for my beading supplies. I made this:


I also discovered that in dim winter morning light, even with overhead lighting, I really need to have my reading glasses to accomplish anything involving pearls. But the interesting thing was how eagerly I was reaching for anything, everything jewel-toned. I need some rich, deep color in the middle of this very grey season.

Once I finished the necklace and decided I didn't have enough time for matching earrings, I put it on and tried to get dressed. That's when I realized that my winter wardrobe (excluding the Holiday drama) really boils down to shades of grey, black, and oatmeal. You'd think that being the queen of the second-hand impulse purchase, I'd have every color imaginable in there; but even the blues and greens were muted slates and olives. Nothing that actually worked with the new necklace. I ended up with another grey ensemble and a garnet necklace that comes nowhere near satisfying my craving.
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And so I feel some purely selfish silk dying coming on tonight. I have a silk scarf blank with rayon velvet, a twin to the origins of the pleated raspberry scarf Mari received for Christmas. I'm thinking tones of saffron - warm, bright, and reminiscent of very good karma.

Pretty

I love how the silk came out the second time around. It's softly covered by waves of blues, greens, turquoise, and even a little purple in the "depths." I found a length of broadcloth in a dark turquoise that blends in nicely, and will use that for the backing. Now I just have to decide (before I turn it over to my friend on Thursday after work) if I want to put a thin batting or other middle layer into the mix.


I painted fish on the first attempt, and although I think that's still a viable option for other projects, I ordered a batch of metal fish charms instead which will be sewn onto the waves on one side in ones and twos. I was thinking about drawing a fishing net on the other side with silver fabric paint, but then had the idea of attaching an actual silver fishing net in miniature. TexAnne suggested a non-tarnishing silver embroidery thread which I should be able to find at Michael's, and I'll experiment with it until I have the look I want. I also have a few pieces of large 1960's costume jewelery from my friend's Grandmother which she'd asked me to refashion into something she'd actually wear. A few of the excess parts remind me of shells, so I might play with scattering them across the bottom of the stole along with a few pearl beads. And lastly I'll be applying a length of light chain across the inside of the V to keep everything in place when she's wearing it.

I checked out the options for edge binding at Hobby Lobby while I picked out the broadcloth backing, and noticed a double-wide binding in metallic gold. They didn't carry a metallic silver, but I may call around to see if I can locate some and then hand-stitch it along the edges, rather than being satisfied with just the serged edges. We'll see. In any case, I'm pretty pleased with how the latest incarnation of this project is coming along. I just need to set and wash the silk yet tonight, so I can turn it over to my sewing friend tomorrow after work.

Meanwhile, after the shoveling was done today, I can report that we have snow piles next to our driveway which are taller than me. Isaac even had to make a break in the snow piles so the puppy could get onto some flat snow to do her business; the sheer snow walls were more than she could handle. And it isn't even officially winter yet! Last year we had over 100" of snow during the course of the season, and a friend pointed out to me today that we'll already 5" ahead of last year. Oh, boy, here we go.

Color on a Monochrome Day

I pulled out my last large scarf blank last night and re-started the liturgical stole project. (I also talked to a friend of mine, who is blessed with both a serger and the knowledge of how to use it, and cut a deal for her to do the actual assembly work on the stole.) This piece is heavy hobotai silk with a very strong sheen, and probably is more suitable for the project anyway.

I am still trying to figure out the best way to control the rock-salt effect. Rock salt absorbs some of the dye, so you can get these neat ebbs and flows which remind me of water flowing over a rock. On my first attempt I had the table set up in the Northeast corner of the dining room and the salt caused little comet shapes with the tails pointing South towards the lighter section (the "top" of the piece). When I over-dyed it the other day in the Southwest corner of the dining room (which is frankly much more level), I got little "bulls eye" shapes from the salt instead. So for this new piece, I shoved a couple of phone books under the legs on one end of the table to get those comet shapes back. It worked - but they were pointing the opposite direction from what I expected. I still like how they turned out, but I need to read the book more about the whole salt process and how to better control it.

Anyway, by this morning it looked like this:

Very pretty - love it. But the result is really white with a blue/green/purple design, rather than the blue base tone I wanted. So I went over the back side of it with a coat of plain blue, watered down a bit on the "deep" end and watered down a lot on the "shallow" end. And then I added just a few more swirls of purple and green, because hey, it was in front of me. It's the kind of project where you could putter and tweak results for a long time, so in the end I had to work to pull myself and my blue fingernails away.

Oh, and this was the view from the dining room this morning:

Schools are canceled, and what do you want to bet I'm the only one who shows up for work?

Dye, dye, dye!

This is why my fingernails are green today:


I'm working on holiday gifts and other miscellaneous projects, so I pulled out two wool/silk scarf blanks, set up my long table in the dining room, and had at it. The green/coral/gold scarf has swales of color and curved lines that remind me a lot of the mountains near Tucson in the dry season, and is a gift for a new family connection. The blue one to the right has more geometric lines, almost like a tie-dye project, and is destined for a friend.

Then I pulled out the piece I'd been working on in August or September for a liturgical stole, and stared at it some more. The problems are that (a) I sort of forgot that the intended recipient is not 7 feet tall when I placed the design elements on the scarf; (b) the cross which was meant to fall on the left shoulder is too small and muted for my taste; and (c) the transition from "water" to "shore" color was so dramatic that it would not have been visually appealing as a wearable in the form intended, no matter how pretty the individual colors were. So I laid it out and tried over-dying the "beach at dawn" golds and corals to a more "tropical shallows" blues and greens look. But there's still a very definite demarcation, and I'm just not happy. Also, I tried to throw in a few silvery grey "rocks" at the point of the old "shoreline" to obscure my botched and splotchy attempt at a cross, but it just doesn't tell the story it was meant to. So what I have is a scarf (silk-type, not warm-type) that would look pretty knotted around someones neck, or pieced together in some sort of applique piece, but really doesn't satisfy me for the task at hand. I hate to do it, after all the work I put into that piece (and especially since I was so happy with how the bottom half of it came out), but I think I'm going to put it away and start over again with a new blank and the knowledge gained from the first attempt. I'm meeting my friend for lunch a week from tomorrow, and I'd really, really like to be able to give her the finished stole then. Wish me luck.

Meanwhile, I am cranking out holiday socks. These will all be fulled (or shrunk on purpose to make a very dense sock), so don't be too alarmed at the current size. The large green pair is from my brother's standard pattern, so I feel pretty confident about them. But I also want to make several pairs for various smaller feet, and Dan's sock pattern only comes in two adult sizes. I've got him at work right now converting measurements into a child's version of his pattern, but I'm also cheating by purchasing a copy of Dawn Brocco's Fulled Family Booties pattern from Ravelry. The little green socks are pretty much a direct interpretation of her pattern, and are the "child's small" size. I was thinking of putting them on Eli, who is 19 months or so, but to my eyes they look a little small. I'm going to felt them, then measure them and see. But at that size they were a fast easy thing to knit, and baby booties are always a good thing to have tucked away in case of emergency gift needs so I really can't lose. The blue/grey ones are tentatively for Austin - but again, I've got to felt them and then measure them and see where we are. They are a hybrid of Dawn's pattern, with a little more of a shaft added to bring them further up the leg. I might also add some embroidery to those ones; I loved the individual colors in the yarn, but knitted up they don't quite have the same charm and the colors will blend even more when I full them. Snowflakes, maybe?

And just to top off the fiber and dye theme here, I have been in the process (more or less) of going back to my own hair color for some time now. I got something a little too light the last couple of times, which left me with yet another sharp color demarcation line. This time I chose a darker color carefully and applied it while I was waiting for some other projects to set on Saturday. I've done the color from a box several times and feel fairly confident about it, even though my hair is - finally - getting some length. But apparently I didn't get the goop saturated quite through properly, because I discovered when my hair was dry on Saturday night that I had a very distinct band of gold/brown around the crown of my head, with the much darker brown above and below. Either I had been a very good girl and earned my halo, or I had screwed it up - and I don't think I was that good. I think I've got it fixed now, after another run through the whole process. Here's hoping that's the last time, and I can just wear my grey hairs as a badge of honor from here on out.

Thanksgiving 08

It is the tradition at my church that we hold a joint Thanksgiving eve service with the other UCC church in town, with the confirmands of both churches holding primary roles in the service and the combined choirs performing the anthem. Then we all head into the other room for a massive distribution of pumpkin pie with whipped cream. It's a good time and a nice tradition, but it pretty much rules out any Wednesday afternoon travel plans. (One year we did go directly from church, but that put us in Chicago at the exact same time as about 40% of the other travelers in the entire Midwest - it wasn't pretty.)

So, it seemed much more reasonable to leave the house about 4:00 on Thursday morning, and glide through the trip when everyone else in the world had either (a) already left or (b) was still asleep. It worked out fine - a nice smooth trip which ended with us in the Grandville parking lot about 20 minutes before anyone else. (The alternatives seem to be either arriving too early, or too late. With the variables of Chicago traffic, there is no such thing as "on time.")

But folks started showing up before too long, and I headed into the kitchen with a few of my Dad's female cousins and other assorted relatives, and we started putting the feast together. The fruit salad worked out okay, although I stuck with just one pomegranate (after squirting juice everywhere while trying to get those seeds out) and even then some people decided to work around the seeds. My cousin Kate brought a turkey - and so did one of Dad's cousins, and I think there was even a third somewhere, so we were never in danger of running out. I don't know who brought the flan, but it was fabulous. The rest is all a happy blur, although I seem to remember a cheesy broccoli dish and a rice concoction that went down well. The group was smaller than last year, but another subset of cousins who were not regulars filled in some of the gaps and we still had a respectable gathering of 35 or so.

The fun really begins after dinner, when attendees split up to chat. There was the usual pile of people asleep in front of the football game, and another group talking about politics or tractors or something along those lines. Some of the women started talking about childbirth (can anyone tell me why we always do that?), and a couple of knitting and other craft projects came out (mine included). Some group photos were taken. The kids discovered some of the exercise equipment in the back room, and had a wonderful time with the stretchy rope thingees. I'm not sure how they got into "Guliver's Travels" mode, but a mob of the "under 5" group surrounded Rick, trying to get him down and tie him up while yelling "Get the giant! Tie up the giant!"

We broke up when the light started to get dim, and followed Carl's group back North to the farm for a game night. There's something so wonderful about a large happy group of family, gathered around the dinner table and laughing and teasing and competing gleefully with each other long into the night. It's one of my favorite parts of visits to the farm, even if I'm not actually playing in each game. It leaves you with a strong sense that no matter what challenges we all face, there is always this warm safe group of people in the background who care about you - even as they knock your piece off the game board.

Happy Thanksgiving! (Lynn's Fruit Salad Recipe, sort of)

Sometime between 12 and 18 hours from now, I'll be off to Michigan for the holiday. No blogging on Thursday, and probably none on Friday since I'll either be shopping with the cousins or getting into similar mischief. So as I prepare for yet another "Thanksgiving Dinner that couldn't be beat," here's my hypoglycemic-friendly version of the fruit salad I remember fondly from when I was a kid up at the farm in Massachusetts.
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Ingredients

3 fresh Clementines, peeled, sectioned and halved

2 large Granny Smith apples, cored and chopped

1 cup sweet cherries, stoned (I'll be using frozen)

1 cup blueberries (frozen again)

4 kiwis, peeled, sliced and halved

Seeds of 1 pomegranate

1/2 cup raisins (or even dried sweetened cranberries, depending on your sugar tolerance)

1/2 cup pecans, chopped

2 cups plain yogurt, no sugar added

Nutmeg to taste

Cinnamon to taste

Splenda to taste

Try to cut the fruit to equal size chunks, where possible. Blend gently and garnish with sprig of mint (in a perfect world). Enjoy!

You can get anything you want at Alice's Restaurant (excepting Alice) . . . .

Just playing

I spotted a few neglected apple trees on my way through the hills today, and just had to get my new camera out to play. I can't believe they were just hanging (or laying) there, going to waste. Don't the owners know that they've got cider "on the hoof" out there?

When I was a kid, we'd take a tarp out to the gnarled old apple trees scattered around the field and pile it high with the "drops." Even if they have a few spots, most of them taste just fine. Apple pie, apple crisp, fabulous apple cider - and homemade apple jack, as I recall. (Dad let us try a taste once or twice. It had a funny "bubbly" taste completely different than the Woodchuck cider I drink these days.)

Three different apple trees by the road. I'm not very good at spotting varieties, but I did find the variation in colors interesting. The apples ranged from Easter pastel to dark plum in the space of 20 feet. It seems a shame to see them go to waste.

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Apple Crisp - a basic recipe

6 or 7 apples of the variety of your choice. (Firmer, tart apples are better)
1/2 cup raisins or dried sweetened cranberries (optional)
1/2 cup (one stick) of unsalted butter, not too soft
1 cup of flour
1 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup flax seed meal (optional, but it makes this officially a healthy treat)
lemon juice
cinnamon
nutmeg
olive oil

Preheat oven to 350°.

Crumb Topping

Slice butter into pea-sized pieces. Combine in small bowl with brown sugar, flour, flax seed meal and spices to taste. Using hands or pie cutter, mix until the ingredients resemble damp sand. A few small chunks are not only okay, but add interest to the end result.

Filling

Peel, core and slice apples thinly. Mix in raisins or cranberries if desired. Oil casserole-sized baking dish using spray oil (or drip into pan and use an apple slice to spread it around). Layer roughly half of the fruit mixture into the dish. Sprinkle roughly a teaspoon of lemon juice over the fruit, followed by half of the crumb mixture. Layer remaining fruit into dish, followed by another dose of lemon juice and the remaining topping.

Bake at 350° for about 45 minutes, or until the fruit in the center has softened. Enjoy for breakfast or after dinner, with ice cream, cool whip, chocolate syrup, or anything else that strikes your fancy.

World Dairy Expo 2008

Did you know that when they're getting a cow ready to show, they blow-dry and trim the hair along the base of her spine (right above the tail) into a Mohawk-looking line to make her back look straighter? And that you can buy a hairpiece to make a cow's tail look thicker and fuller? (Which is not cheating, because the cow isn't being judged on her tail. But a fluffy tail makes the udder look fuller, and the cow is being judged on that.) And when a cow is all dolled up and ready for the show, one person walks her to the stadium holding her halter while another trails behind with a bucket and paper towels, so if she has to defecate they can catch it mid-air and wipe her off. Somehow I was amazed by this.

Anyway, greetings from the World Dairy Expo in Madison. I'm mostly clueless about this topic, but it looked like Cousin Bill did all the right stuff out there, and the cow looked pretty (as cows go). And the exhibition hall is a wonderful thing, with people giving away tote bags, foam rubber cows, cheese, bookmarks, and an amazing variety of key fobs and magnets and candy and stuff. If you happen to be the kind of person who will happily take anything that's free, even if you have no use for it and aren't even sure what it is (that would be me), then you would have been in heaven there. I particularly enjoyed the vanilla "cow's tail" candy, and was surprised that a company was marketing a form of bovine growth hormone as an environmentally friendly strategy (more milk from the same amount of resources means less impact on the environment, theoretically). They gave out the best freebies, so I guess they're really trying to convince folks.

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Next time, I really need to take the whole day off. And bring boots.