Yogurt, tornadoes and weaving epiphanies

Yesterday morning was about making soup and yogurt, at the same time, why not 

The soup was barley, sausage, chard, leek and potato

It's good, plenty of spices, and there was ginger in the stock I used. Enough for six bowls.

The yogurt started yesterday

Here's the warm mixture, wrapped in a dishtowel then an emergency foil blanket to conserve heat, on top of the fridge. The top is always warm because of a top freezer, and I put bread dough there to rise, same reason.

Comes today's reveal

Tasted terrific, best starter, best milk, and a bit thin

So

I strained some of it through a lawn hankie

And as you see, got an excellent texture and a lovely dish of homemade yogurt, with plenty more in the jar. The whey is in the freezer to use in soup.

This is particularly good because there was no yogurt available in this week's Misfits offerings anyway.

It's also pleasing because I rescued the batch from operator error. I forgot to let the boiled milk cool before adding the starter, doh. 

Soooo I waited till it cooled to the right lukewarm temp and added another batch of starter yogurt, figuring it would either work or not. And, as you see, it did.

I had a great, if chilly, walk in the sunshine in the afternoon,  despite storm warnings, what storm.

And later was thinking about the weaving again, and why it hadn't worked even after I threaded correctly 

Then a light bulb moment. The dent, or epi, the weaving equivalent of stitches to the inch in knitting, was wrong for the yarn.

It was a 10 dent. Suitable for heavier yarns, not the fingering weight I was using. If I'd had an assistant to manage the other end of the warp instead of a dumbbell, they'd have increased tension and helped maneuver it. 

The reason I realized this was that the last attempt involved stripes, why not, and the one part that did take up as I turned the beam was worsted yarn stripe, the right gauge for this dent 

So, though yes, some brain fog, otherwise it wouldn't have taken me days to get to this point, it's not all up with me.

Last evening I decided the scarf will still happen, using the warp I preserved on that dowel, only with a better heddle, a real warping peg, and a no loom, backstrap approach. It's more my style than the loom.

And I've now ordered a warping peg, and a smaller heddie than the twenty inch, which was too clumsy for my taste. Also the heddle's a twelve dent, better match for the yarn I use.

Stay tuned! I have to acknowledge Sarah Swett for the idea of using a rigid heddle with backstrap weaving. I'd only seen it done with either string heddles or none. 

I made a miniature rigid heddle ages ago using a credit card sized piece of plastic 

and tested it with a tiny experiment, and it worked fine.

Once again, I'm set. I tell ya, whoever gets this scarf better treasure it, is all I'm sayin'.

And yesterday's winnowing was this

The mark is near one end, so not a problem, and I ethically showed it on the Freecycle picture,  full transparency. It's being picked up today.

All this happened before an evening of anxiety, packed with local tornado warnings all around. Lashing winds, rain, thunder, multiple lightning flashes and damage reports all around. 

Once again we escaped damage, kept power, and Handsome Son texted when he got home safely from work through it all. So we are relieved. Again. 

Interestingly this kind of weather features right now in the Japanese microseason 

Happy day everyone, keep going, you simply never know!

Misfits box and Friday salad, fence saga

Did I mention we had a massive storm last night, tornado warnings, very local, massive rainfall, most roads closed around here with water everywhere and trees down, local police rescuing stuck cars. 

It was pretty hair raising for a couple of hours. We do occasionally get tornadoes, one tore the side of a neighbor's brick house off, a few years ago, but we don't get them often enough to be experienced. 

So I was surprised when the Misfits box showed up early. I thought the road closings would hold them up but nooo. 

So here we are

Taking full advantage of the summer fruit season.Couple of hiccups. My flour wasn't packed but a mysterious bag of sugar was.

Misfits refunded the missing flour in about an hour from my email explaining. They're very good at this, cheerful, fast, and it's not anything big, after all. 

I came out with a windfall of sugar, and I can manage for now without the flour. I'm more pleased over the number of things they get right, really, than the occasional mia item  which I told them.

And here's my Friday evening salad, tomato from next door, Misfits romaine lettuce, celery, same dressing as yesterday, with capers.

And an email about the saga of the fencing. A second site manager left in a rush last week, and now the regional manager is running things. So far Fence 2, site mgt 0.

Email Friday afternoon, to say fence work starts Monday. Lot of notice, no? Complete with demands for stuff to be done or else. At this point all the foliage and shrubs I cut back at great labor have all grown up again and it's all to do again, sigh.

So I decided to do a bit a day, it being heavy hot work I'm not quite up to. And I actually managed to pull and cut one section of pachysandra and foliage from one section of fence.

Then I bumped into Gary returning a spade to my storage place where I keep the neighborhood gardening tools. They're mine but anyone can borrow, and frequently do.

He didn't know about the fence update, but when I explained, well, whined,  said nah I'm going to take care of that foliage, free next week. Asked if he has a weedwacker, he remembered he does, somewhere. So that will simplify matters a lot. And I feel a lot less stressed.  We'll get this. 

It might actually be fun weed whacking the overgrown pachysandra. He's worried about killing it, and I assured him it will be be encouraged, not  wiped out.

Always something. If it's not the weather it's the HOA, which acts like a force of nature at times.