Field and Fen

Greeting Saturday with the painting of that name by Brynhild Parker

Yesterday's Misfits arrived, modest box, trying to economize

But still eating well.  That odds and ends bag is raw almonds, a staple around here.

And yesterday, Mike the contractor came to finish replacing the walkway so I have an operative deck again, in case the weather ever gets warm enough to go out.

To the right of the gate is a new open place where the walkway used to be, fine for a couple of containers, probably herbs, next to the sage you see there. Mike left with a branch of curry leaves and a section of sage. He's a great cook, so he's got plans for both.

When he does a job involving large screws and nails, he makes a box to hold them as he works, and leaves it for the customer. Here's mine

Today is about making butternut and carrot soup, the weather still being soup friendly.

And, before we move on from Tunisian crochet, here's a Tunisian crochet bag I made ages ago, lined with a scrap of black silk, closed with Dorset buttons. 

The strap is regular double crochet. The yarn was the rest of the multiple short lengths you saw before in the gloves.  Time to get it out again, for Spring.

Hoping Spring will return to Ukraine, too.

Happy day everyone!

So my contractor is back from his mother's and showed up to take care of the deck situation. 

Now I hope I won't be studying a building site for months while the fence work is being argued out. Well, we've done our bit.

And  strawberries are in at the farm. 

The last few hot days moved them along fast and they're the best in years, much sweeter than last year when we didn't have those sudden hot days.

One container to eat fresh, one to freeze for future jam or whatever I suddenly decide.

And here's a lunch for the day the cleaners came, when I completely forgot to think about lunch and came home starving and with no plans. 

Sardines on whole wheat. Yogurt with strawberries. In fact pretty good.

I had done the strawberry run then I went to read at the park. Read? In fact I thought wait,  that stuff isn't in this book, oh, right, I was sleeping and dreaming an exciting scene about chasing or something. 

I can dream during even a short nap, the ever-moving shuttle at work. But it's confusing to wake and wonder where that scene was in the book.

Oh, and massive excitement in the houseplant department. My ginger finally put up a little shoot!! My excitement is out of all proportion to the size of the shooticle.

Here's my trusty friend, artist and contractor, at work on my deck.  I asked him to take a look at the rotting bits and do something about them.  

He checked them out, went away, cut pieces to fit perfectly into the bad bits once he'd removed them, went around replacing screws here and there as he tested the deck, and now I have a pretty much renewed deck.  You see the new bits just beyond the bench. They went in like birds, perfect fit.



It's nearly 30 years old, so it's not doing too badly. The wear and tear was on the narrow part in front of the gate, where workmen come in, bang down equipment and generators and so on, and it got a bit beat up over the reno.

But now, all is well.  Since Mike lives across the street, he likes to measure, decide, shop for wood, parts, etc. do most of the work at home then come over with just what he needs to install.  He put in new grab bars in my bathtub bathroom, this week, and that has made life more confident for me.

So I can get out of the tub, and nobody's going to fall through my deck any time soon.  It's only a few inches off the ground, but you can get a meanly twisted ankle if you go through it.  And I don't want the meter reader hobbling away.

He, Mike, not the meter reader, always visits a while, checks out what art is happening, loved the artist books I showed him.  Altogether a Good Thing. Not just a job to him.  He also does the cooking in his house. His wife is on velvet, or so it looks from across the street!  She has a very demanding job, so they have a great balance.  And he and I swop recipes and tasting of various kitchen experiments.

He is one of the people who keep my life on track. I notice how often people in the building trades also have an eye for art, and a good bit of adeptness at it, too. Mike loves to make origami, and he collects prints, especially woodblock prints.

To see what I was doing while all this was happening, go to Beautiful Metaphor.