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Jul. 19th, 2025 09:41 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
greenstormRain in the afternoons. Our wildfire danger system is a 4 point scale (which is calculated through a series of amazing other scales that all lead into each other). Low, moderate, high, extreme. The last several summers we've sat at extreme all summer pretty much. Right now we're at moderate. There's not even smoke here, though the center of the continent is still burning up. I can leave my windows open. I can relax in ways I haven't for years during the summertime, knowing it's deeply unlikely I'll need to evacuate. I don't need to keep all the animal crates prepped and the trailer ready. It's so beautiful and peaceful.
The garden is slow; there are beautiful lettuces and fennel and kale and the kohlrabi is sizing up and the tomatoes are growing well, but the peppers are in stasis and the corn isn't doing much. This is the Fort I remember.
On the other hand, the KARMA miracle/sweet cheriette cross I made is in the F2 now and it's ripening here and there already. I made the cross because sweet cheriette is super early and miracle is tasty and fairly cool-tolerant, and I do seem to have successfully created a bunch of early plants. I'm tasting them as they ripen, I think I've tasted 5 now of the maybe 20 I've planted. They're very good! I'm discarding the ones that are too sweet but I'm still left with lots to proceed with. I also have a set of zesty green/silvery fir but they're a bit slower.
I discovered a place the next town over that sells 4' long trim ends, usually pretty checked or with wane on them, but it's a 4x4x4' cube for $50 so I get to play with that. At that price it's actually cheaper than firewood, although it won't burn long enough to use exclusively it's still going to be a help this winter if I can get several of them squirreled away. Anything that's good enough to make dog houses, duck houses, garden chairs, etc with is a bonus.
I've also been doing some fabric dyeing. Scentless chamomile most recently, horsetail, willow and yarrow are on the list. The tansy I did last year was gorgeous, I'm going to try some goldenrod, and I want to do rhubqarb root but getting it means being mean to my plants so it's hard. I'm also very curious what aspen does. I've been dyeing cotton shirts since they're cheap and I can easily test for wash/lightfastness by wearing them a bunch, and linen is so expensive.
I met the person who's been doing a spinning residency in the art studio yesterday. She has a bunch of light wool so we're going to play with some dyeing. That will be fun.
I need to be very careful not to overload myself right now. It's so tempting to think that the internet can combine with rest, and even audiobooks do take some energy -- much less than the internet. It's a learning thing.
I've been spending a ridiculous amount of money on fresh fruit but it means I've been eating the most delicious peaches and apricots. It's so luxurious. I make up for it from the garden or eating the cheapest canned sardines on rice the rest of the time. My easy canned food has tripled in price with the weirdness going on with the US, trade war or whatever. Cleaning the rice cooker isn't no work, but it's what I got.
Meanwhile I follow some folks in gaza, kids who reminded me of me at that age who used to do little videos about things they loved to do. People talk about the bombing and famine as being traumatic, and of course it is. But kids watching their cats slowly starve and die, feeding the cats lentils and watermelon, that's... the cruelty administered to that population, the level of care put to considering every type of indignity that can be inflicted, the goal is very clearly to craft a forever war, a set of folks who can never heal but only return what they have been so skillfully taught. The kids I follow don't seem like that at all, but.
It's a dark note to end on, but these are dark times.
The garden is slow; there are beautiful lettuces and fennel and kale and the kohlrabi is sizing up and the tomatoes are growing well, but the peppers are in stasis and the corn isn't doing much. This is the Fort I remember.
On the other hand, the KARMA miracle/sweet cheriette cross I made is in the F2 now and it's ripening here and there already. I made the cross because sweet cheriette is super early and miracle is tasty and fairly cool-tolerant, and I do seem to have successfully created a bunch of early plants. I'm tasting them as they ripen, I think I've tasted 5 now of the maybe 20 I've planted. They're very good! I'm discarding the ones that are too sweet but I'm still left with lots to proceed with. I also have a set of zesty green/silvery fir but they're a bit slower.
I discovered a place the next town over that sells 4' long trim ends, usually pretty checked or with wane on them, but it's a 4x4x4' cube for $50 so I get to play with that. At that price it's actually cheaper than firewood, although it won't burn long enough to use exclusively it's still going to be a help this winter if I can get several of them squirreled away. Anything that's good enough to make dog houses, duck houses, garden chairs, etc with is a bonus.
I've also been doing some fabric dyeing. Scentless chamomile most recently, horsetail, willow and yarrow are on the list. The tansy I did last year was gorgeous, I'm going to try some goldenrod, and I want to do rhubqarb root but getting it means being mean to my plants so it's hard. I'm also very curious what aspen does. I've been dyeing cotton shirts since they're cheap and I can easily test for wash/lightfastness by wearing them a bunch, and linen is so expensive.
I met the person who's been doing a spinning residency in the art studio yesterday. She has a bunch of light wool so we're going to play with some dyeing. That will be fun.
I need to be very careful not to overload myself right now. It's so tempting to think that the internet can combine with rest, and even audiobooks do take some energy -- much less than the internet. It's a learning thing.
I've been spending a ridiculous amount of money on fresh fruit but it means I've been eating the most delicious peaches and apricots. It's so luxurious. I make up for it from the garden or eating the cheapest canned sardines on rice the rest of the time. My easy canned food has tripled in price with the weirdness going on with the US, trade war or whatever. Cleaning the rice cooker isn't no work, but it's what I got.
Meanwhile I follow some folks in gaza, kids who reminded me of me at that age who used to do little videos about things they loved to do. People talk about the bombing and famine as being traumatic, and of course it is. But kids watching their cats slowly starve and die, feeding the cats lentils and watermelon, that's... the cruelty administered to that population, the level of care put to considering every type of indignity that can be inflicted, the goal is very clearly to craft a forever war, a set of folks who can never heal but only return what they have been so skillfully taught. The kids I follow don't seem like that at all, but.
It's a dark note to end on, but these are dark times.
