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Already Wednesday, avec les pommes

Yesterday, we made applesauce.
Monday, we made applesauce and apple cake.
Sunday, we made applesauce.
Saturday, we got lost on an Epic!Quest! for apple cider.
Tonight, we will make applesauce. And maybe can it.
(the makeshift canner (our giant pot and a steamer rack from the Chinese food store) will hold 8 quart jars. Our next-biggest pot will hold about 8 cups of applesauce. So batches.)

There hasn’t been as much work on this house this week, but we got a Giant Order Of Stuff from Lowes yesterday (incl. the stuff for the closet, window molding, log rack supplies, door molding, drywall, insulation… and a chest freezer) so there will be Stuff to Do once again. Also, mudding and painting. This bedroom is taking a lot of mudding.

~~
Read The Kiss, from ysabetwordsmith‘s mid-month Monster House Fishbowl, from my prompt.

Read a short Addergoole fanfic, by cluudle!!

Read Ghost Story, by Rix-Scaedu

And someone is trying square foot gardening & Lasagna gardening together!

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/152772.html. You can comment here or there.

Is it Tuesday?

Oct11

Last night, as we were sitting in our living room with the windows open (yay nice weather), we heard a sound like sticks hitting against each other and a thrashing in the cornfield across the road.

Sooo either there were men mock-swordfighting with sticks in the field, or there were deer fighting. This neighborhood, I’m betting on the deer.

This weekend involved a lot of replanting/repotting of freecycled plants – have you heard of Freecycle?. It’s an awesome way to get rid of stuff you don’t want and get stuff you do want (or just think at the moment “hey, that would be neat!”)

So, T. surfs the lists and sends me stuff that looks interesting, and then I send them e-mails: “I’d love that, I can pick up XXX after 5.” And then they ignore me, or say “sorry, already taken,” or “sure, I live in Ecovillage.”

Ecovillage? The website’s down right now – http://ecovillageithaca.org – but here’s the wiki for the concept.

Guys, this bears an uncomfortably strong resemblance to the community living thing I started in my head 18 (shh, I’m not that old) years ago that has slowly become both Stranded ‘verse and Planners ‘verse. Cross this with some Amish, some Mormons, and some polyamorous hippies, and you have the society that evolved into the Planners in my mind. (This is like when I found out about the prefab bunkers – it’s always neat to see how stuff you’ve imagined has been developed IRL).

So, that a strange moment! But I got aloes out of it – pics to follow – and chives from another trip, and they are now happily in pots and/or the ground.

***

Thesilentpoet is having a poetry/writing sale. Clever idea + stuff in the mail! Check it out!

Ysabetwordsmith has posted all of “Restoration,” to my prompt from her August fishbowl

***

Another use for player piano scrolls… I worked with a bookbinder who wanted to use those in a book at one point.

and

a moody couch.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/142027.html. You can comment here or there.

Sunday with apples

Oct9

Yesterday, we had apple pie for dessert (Small Batch Baking) and apple-cinnamon-raisin oatmeal for breakfast.

Thursday we made Spiced Apple Cookies (delicious).

Wednesday we made Baked Apple Rice Pudding, which is absolutely delicious.

Tuesday, we made apple crisp.

Are you sensing a theme?

The property came with an apple tree, which hasn’t been maintained in a while. It’s putting out about a zillion apples (I’ll be canning applesauce & apple butter), smallish tart apples. So far, we’re really just putting a dent in the windfall fruit.

~~~

ysabetwordsmith has posted her Fishbowl Summary. I really love “Full Stop”; I also enjoy “Haunts of History”, which she wrote to my prompt.

lilfluff has posted a sequel to Sweet Iced Tea, set in the Tir na Cali ‘verse.

And clare_dragonfly has added more to “Harvest Day”, which she wrote from my prompt.

Links!

Bamboo curtain door, via Wyst.
Ikea Hack+Wendy House… two things I’ve been googling a lot lately, together.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/140807.html. You can comment here or there.

Tuesday Morning, Still full

Oct4

Yesterday for dinner we had a sort-of-goulash made from tomatoes Mom left when she visited, and apple crisp made with apples from our tree. There’s a sense of happy homeyness about that that I love.

I patched T’s jeans the other day, and I’ve been looking up canning and other food-preservation. It makes me feel like I’ve come full circle. Which (along with a conversation with cluudle) has brought me to a thought I had in college, a magazine I wanted to publish.

The ideas are a little vague after *cough cough* years, but, loosely – a sort of practical Mother Earth News / Foxfire / different ways of doing things. Both how-tos and, if I get brave enough, histories and interviews.

If I were to do something like that, what sort of thing would you be interested in reading about?

***

haikujaguar posted a call to cover artists so that she can begin a list of cover-artists-for-hire.

Autumn’s story written to comments/linkbacks/donations to Meeks’ sketch of Autumn is still hanging out there, waiting for more love.

***

http://simplyrecipes.com/recipes/making_grape_juice/ Grape Juice! (we have a lot of grapes)

http://www.etsy.com/listing/53092763/yarn-wreath-felt-handmade-door?ref=sc_2 I love argyle. I may have to make this.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/138477.html. You can comment here or there.

Monday, tired and accomplished

Oct3

I’ve been remiss in posting lately; this has been a combination of tired (sick + busy) and busy (busy + busy) 😉

This weekend, my parents came down to help us install a new window in the bedroom-to-be (the old one was leaking air and a general mess). Of course, it rained all weekend, but we have a new window, my mother cleaned our kitchen (it sparkles. How does rough ceramic tile sparkle? O_O), and we had two nice meals together.

Step one in bedroom remodel: done. Step two – find a plumber not occupied, difficult as two nearby counties were recently flooded in Irene. The baseboard radiators need to be redone/replaced/moved so we can have a closet.

***

Until noon EDT today (you have 3 hours!) rebelsheart is offering a microfic fishbowl. Read the piece to my prompt!

Dakotabailey is doing a free icon day.

***

I want this Ferris wheel. I have absolutely no place for it. But it’s cute.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/137622.html. You can comment here or there.

Tuesday, with strange fears

Sep28

The weather has been a bit dismal, so yesterday T. finished pulling stuff out of the left half of the House’s eaves. Among the odder finds – porn, for instance, or very strange crocheted bottle covers over wine bottles full of sand – was a WWII era cot, still mostly intact, and a steamer trunk.

Once upon a time, I wrote a story where people, having bought a house, found a steamer trunk in the hidden passageways with a baby skeleton inside. I wrote it, and it still creeped me out. So having found a steamer trunk in the back of a semi-hidden eaves hideaway…. yeah, I made T open it first.

No skeletons. An old mouse-nest and some chewing damage, but no skeletons. I may have to refurbish it. *adds to list*

***

Links of the day:
I totally want this.
and I think I need to make this.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/136418.html. You can comment here or there.

Friday, Pensive.

Sep23

I’ve been thinking, after some conversation with cluudle about the nature of friendships, most specifically the idea that it’s okay to stop being friends with someone. Not sure where I’m going with that one yet; it still feels foreign.

I do know I have some really awesome friends, and some people who I call friends who are really not awesome, some people who have hurt me by their soi-dissant friendship. (Hint: If I am following you on this blog, I’m not talking about you in the “bad friend” category).

***

Cheerful stuff!

It’s apparently Bisexuality Visibility Day. So, um, hi, I’m bi.

lilfluff wrote a piece maybe-in-Cali.

clare_dragonfly wrote a piece to my prompt.

Rix_Scadeau commented on the meeks drawing, so have a little more Autumn.

***

Castle Playsets – http://www.yutzysfarmmarket.com/swingsets/castle-playsets/cozy_retreat_playset.php

Spy Jacket – http://www.scottevest.com/v3_store/Carry-on-Coat.shtml

***

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/133510.html. You can comment here or there.

Morning, with a small signal boost

Sep20

It’s raining! Or at least grey-ing very actively.

I put together a set of wire shelves (we <3 wire shelving) last night to serve as a closet until we can finish the bedroom. Yay having closet space!

***

clare_dragonfly is hosting a call for prompts; her theme is herbs, and there are tip incentives.

(herbs! I had fun with that prompt!)

My own Call is on writing-the-donor-extensions, and then I will put up a poll to determine which other story gets extended. (Also – any ideas for themes?)

***

Two links for the morning:
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/you-have-to-see-the-441-sq-ft-garage-this-man-calls-home/ (this is pretty cool)

and one more goat house: http://catfishgallery.blogspot.com/2009/09/goat-house.html (not a house, actually, more of a playground).

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/131829.html. You can comment here or there.

Monday, after a productively desctructive weekend

Sep19

This weekend, T. spent large chunks of time ripping large chunks of overgrown undergrowth out – what had thought was razor-wire-like-vines over a bush turned out to be razor-wire-like-vines over more of the same, for instance, and there are grape vines growing over everything; there are entire TREES that have been choked out by grape vines in our hedgerow. (I hear grape burns nicely).

Plus side: we know the soil’s good for grapes, which are on our list of to-cultivate plants (just not, ah, trellised up the 40′ pine?).

Today, T. and I were dragging piles of chopped vines into the hedgerow (mulch!); I asked:

“Is that an apple behind you?”

“In the pine tree?”

“We have pine-grapes, why not pine-apples?”

And, indeed, we have pine-apples (A small apple tree growing right up against the pine tree, putting out different apples than either of the other two apples on the property…)

***

Michikip is holding another free icon day, and ysabetwordsmith has given me an idea for naming my prompt-calls, so I’ve commissioned a giraffe icon from Michikip.

Speaking of Ysabet, head over to her journal for a discussion on her serial poetry and an overview of her poetic series

***

I am working on longer prompts now for this past weekend’s call for prompts – if you donated, please finalize where you would like your wordcount to go. If you would like to donate, I am counting all donations to continue prompt work this week at $0.01/word.

***

Today’s links come from the awesome cluudle, who believes (as I do), that our theoretical pygmy goats deserve a castle.

<a href="
http://blogs.riverfronttimes.com/dailyrft/2009/06/behold_the_tower_of_baaa_findlay_goat_tower.php”>Tower of Baa-ble
http://i.imgur.com/5LdZT.jpg

“Goat castle is the best google image search ever”

<a href="http://listsoplenty.com/pix/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/goat-castle.jpg
“>another shot of Baa-ble

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/131276.html. You can comment here or there.

Friday, with goodbyes and fire

Sep16

Yesterday, we cleaned out the old apartment and turned in our keys. Carpet shampooers are both awesome and scary (there was THAT much dirt in our rug? O_O)

That place is where we buried our Gatsby-cat last summer, so it was harder leaving it than most places. I said goodbye again, and got rather teary. He was a very good kitty. I will miss him forever.

***

We are pondering a wood stove for House, after fuel-oil sticker shock. The one we want will run us about $2000, but we’re thinking of putting in a smaller, cheaper one now, then moving that to the garage next year or the year after when we can afford the one we want. Fire is nice heat when you have oil as back-up.

***

Tomorrow is my monthly call for prompts. The theme will be abandoned, lost, and left behind.

***

And this – http://call-small.blogspot.com/ – is wee and adorable.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/129102.html. You can comment here or there.

Alder's Grove Fiction

The Worlds of Lyn Thorne-Alder