Presents and knitting marvels

This morning Gary showed me he and the daisy owning neighbor lady had planted transplants along the outside of my fence. It's east-facing, just what these daisies like, so I'm hoping for a great show next year. Nothing to see yet.

He also showed me his snake plant starts, all but one of which had rooted, yay, and we discussed his elephant ear wintering over.

And, best of all, he asked me to take care of his pot of succulents! 

He thinks he's overwatering them, leaves dropping.

I'm thrilled about this chance, because I was thinking about starting again with succulent propagation. I was successful a couple of years ago, then when I moved the babies outside for the summer, squirrels trashed them. Literally shreds, nothing left to plant. I was discouraged but now I'm ready to try again over the winter. 

Then the Friday knitting group brought marvelous things 

S, with her Halloween sweater and lovely ocean colored sock

I., wearing one sweater she made while knitting another 

New crocheter K's two Halloween critters, the right one, both are wips, was her very first foray. 

I. again with a pillow for her daughter, front knitted butterflies, back running cross-stitch om burlap.

One other knitter is continuing with a project you've seen, but she's not a one project knitter by a long chalk. Just no picture today.  And your humble blog writer was still with Ministry sock. 

Talk ranged over plans for the yarn for a first sweater, to be bought this weekend at Rhinebeck, voting, knitting patterns, Tunisian crochet, the weather, local politics, book groups, challenging racism, emails, German Shepherd sense of humor and more.

Happy day everyone, I hope your day is  good. Mine was. Friday night online meeting with friends. Because of these great fun meetings, I moved my daily evening dishwashing to the next day. I do it while I cook lunch.

Speaking of which, here's a baked white sweet potato, mashed, salt, pepper and bits of butter, nothing fancier needed, along with part two of last night's supper. 

You see the tan skin and creamy colored flesh, really delicate flavor.

With it was a baked tomato, mozzarella and egg dish. Break the egg over, bake 400°f, when the egg suits you, the dish is done. Good on toast, too.

Farm food and me, perfect together, and rehoming succulents

Today was about the first farm tomatoes, and peaches, great lunch.  With homegrown basil cut up and strewn around, olive oil spritzed on,  and tuna salad, made with tartare sauce.  

Pinch of baharat on the peach.  

And this was a lunch for a queen.

After I'd picked the basil, I looked back and there was a female goldfinch noshing on the seeds.  I let my herbs go to flower and seed, because I usually have all I need off them already.  And the flowers are often lovely.  

Then the seeds come in handy for roving bands of goldfinches.  I already saved all the basil seeds I need, so I can start seed next year.  I'll leave the rest for the goldfinches, our state bird, dropping in numbers because of habitat loss, least  I can do, really.

At the libe this morning I picked up a book on moss gardens, and a chat with circ desk friends about succulents.  They're trying to rehab an old jade plant that sort of fell apart, so they didn't burst out laughing at my experiments.  Kindred spirits.

And home to look at the book which told me more than I wanted to know about moss, its care and feeding.  Turns out it's aJapanese book, should have known, great photography, extreme care with handling everything, many quizzes to qualify the reader to continue with the moss journey.  Not exactly for me, but it did trigger a nice thought, which, you know how it is, I put into action instantly.

Dug out a lovely old Vermont Pottery platter, greenish brownish glaze, friendly for plants, realized I had containers of glass pebbles and beach glass for a bed, and installed the Three Little Succulents in their pots in this posh new home.

So here they are in their new digs. 

The platter we bought, along with some other lovely pieces, on a trip we made 50 years ago, when I was about five months' pregnant with Handsome Son, whose birthday it is today.  There must have been a subconscious river of thought about this.  And about Handsome Partner whose sixth anniversary is also today, and with whom I picked out the pottery.

It's all good.