Bits and Pieces

I like to write and I like to blog, but sometimes I get caught in a trap of What do I blog about today? Is this really blog worthy? Why would anyone want to read this? So, often, I just don't blog at all.  I sometimes forget one of the reasons I blog is to keep a semi-regular record of day to day stuff for myself. The bits and pieces that fill the hours, make me sing just because I am loving what I am doing or maybe rub my back, because while loving the task at hand, there is no denying the exertion required.
Yesterday was a day filled with some of my favorite bits and pieces. See that yarn up there? What an unexpected gift! A few days earlier, I had received a call from a friend in a panic. She was test knitting a pattern for a designer and had gotten herself in a bind and couldn't find her way out and was wondering if I could come by and help her if I happened to be in town. I was happy to help if I could. I knit, but am in no way an expert. We put our heads together over the troublesome project and soon had her on her way again. This friend just happens to be a spinner too. Her house is nirvana for anyone who loves fiber, especially wool fiber. Her coffee table holds a bowl full of wool roving in all colors waiting its turn on one of her wheels. On the hearth is a basket heaped with newly spun yarn equally as colorful. As I walked by and was admiring her efforts, she told me to choose some yarn. Well, I didn't need to be told twice and as I admired this beautiful blue she told me to take both skeins! I couldn't believe she was giving me this. It is the loveliest shade of almost robin's egg blue that just faintly blushes to pink all throughout.  I put it on my swift and wound it into balls and then parked it beside my chair. Sometimes I pick it up and smell it. I love the smell of wool yarn and am waiting patiently for it to tell me what it wants to be when it grows up. A scarf? Fingerless gloves? Hat? Oh the potential!
Yesterday's bits and pieces also included canning. I love my freezer, but I am a visual person and opening up the freezer to all those flesh-toned frosty plastic-wrapped parcels is not nearly as eye appealing as looking at rows of crystal clear glass jars in every color and hue filling my pantry and making me feel oh so domestic. Talk about eye candy.  Besides, I just love to can. I have a friend who also loves to can and a daughter who does too. I'm working on the other daughter. When we can-can girls talk about our endeavors we get all giddy and silly talking per pounds pressure, time, the best canner for the job, how many pints or quarts we got. Yeah, I know. It sounds a little un-canny. Chortle, chortle.
While the canner was whistling and rocking gently, I spent a restful hour garbleing the herbs you see in the not so good picture above. What's garbleing? That's a funny word to describe the process of stripping leaves and blooms from herb plants. Earlier in the day I had gathered some herbs down at the farm and needed to prepare them for drying. I now have several bundles of Sage neatly tied off and hung up to use in the Thanksgiving dressing. Lots of Lemon Balm to use in a tincture that is said to help with migraines. I have plenty for tea also. Lemon Balm tea with a sprinkle of sugar and splash of milk has a faint taste of Pez candy to me. I love it in the winter time. Finished off with Peppermint. Good for the tummy. Plus, I just like to grow it.
At the end of the day I headed to the farm to put the chickens up for the night and gather eggs. I ended up sitting in a rocking chair looking at our young fledgling orchard and the few raised beds and the pumpkin patch I have growing. I really just meant to sit there, but I kept thinking about the small fall garden patch I really want to grow and the next thing you know, I had out the tiller and was fighting Bermuda grass and rocks as I made a few rounds, all the time keeping my eye out for one the three evil-eyed roosters who are free-range since flogging one of my grands. One of them likes to follow behind me and I can just imagine him aiming for my backside. The tiller finally ran out of gas and I decided that I was out too. As I made my home with my small clutch of eggs, I was smiling at what a great bits and pieceful kind of day it had been.