Ilga's socks by Nancy Bush

I finished these for Liz and gave them to her at Schutzenfest on Saturday. They appear to be a bit tight around the ankles, but that may improve in the wearing. They are a super wash wool so they will not shrink.

This is the Ilga Sock by Nancy Bush from the Favorite Socks book by Interweave Knit. I used Lang Jawool and Cascade Yarns Heritage Solids.

The pattern is Latvian in origin and I just love it.

Beets Galore!

This massive beet is roughly the size of a baby's head.

......mmmmm babies......

I picked, cooked, peeled, and canned 9 pints of pickled beets on Sunday, and there are still beets left in the garden. Yummy!

I used a recipe from Cooking Alaskan that uses allspice, cinnamon and whole cloves along with vinegar, sugar and water. It smelled and tasted divine. I can't wait!

Things to do when it's hot...

Canning all day is probably not up there on the list, but it's what I did on Friday.



The produce has exploded in the garden and I've reached the point of stopping strangers on their evening walks to load them up with zucchini. The heat and sun from last week has finally encouraged the tomatoes to start turning. I have several ripe tomatoes waiting for me at home. I've already shredded and baked a batch of double chocolate zucchini cookies, 2 loaves of zucchini bread and 4 freezer bags of shredded zucchini ready for more baking.

I focused on green beans, cucumbers and zucchinis for the initial canning.

I made Thai green beans (recipe in my co-op newsletter), Dill Zucchini chips (from Cooking Alaskan) and Dill pickles from Grandma Alice's recipe. She canned her dill pickles whole, but my cucumbers were so massive there was no way.



I installed shelves in the utility room and moved all of my food storage downstairs when the lids popped. The basement is looking like a proper MN basement. At least I know we have food to keep us set for the winter.

This week is beets and melons.

Warning sirens

Last night I heard the severe weather sirens at our house for the first time. Good to know they work, good to use they are used, good to know that we can hear them when they are used. The sirens were sounded to warn us of Thunderstorms. Fortunately the extent was a lot of wind, a lot of rain, a lot of lightning, and not much else. Considering there was predictions of .5-2" HAIL I was glad that we got none of that.

My garden was soggy this morning but no worse for wear. There are a whole bunch of green tomatoes that i hope will ripen with the warm weather coming later this week.