Mid August

 Mid August and dusk falls a little earlier. The evening cicada chorus is less deafening than it was a few weeks ago. The bulk of the tomato harvest is canned or frozen but the plants still produce fruit. Likely I will freeze more but not have enough at one time to make canning worthwhile. After several beastly days of heat and humidity, this morning was cooler with a hint of autumn in the air. 

Last week we celebrated a virtual birthday with one of our grandsons. Micah requested a "Phillies" themed party with his family. My daughter sent Phillies cupcake toppers and wrappers, sunglasses, plates, napkins, and cups to us ahead of time. I made cupcakes and set our table. We put on our Phillies sunglasses and sang (via FaceTime) Happy Birthday to him with his family. We also had a bite of cupcake together. Our little party was the next best thing to being there in person. Micah had a very happy day. Now he is six and headed to kindergarten in a week or so. Where does the time go?

Linking with Kat and the Unravelers this week to talk about knitting and books. I might be doing some unraveling soon. I enjoy knitting on this sweater in the evenings. After I separated off the sleeve stitches and knit an inch, I tried the sweater on and it fits but - there is always a but in a tale of unraveling - when I went to the storage bin to pull out another skein for winding, I discovered only three remained. I thought I had four more. I checked the invoice that came with the yarn and sure enough I'd only ordered five for another sweater that didn't work out. I probably don't have enough yarn to finish the sweater so I cast on a pair of socks while I decide what to do.

I could knit down the body of the sweater and divide the remaining yarn between sleeves. Or I could see how much yarn it takes to knit one three-quarter length sleeve. The sweater has a garter stitch button/neck band and garter stitch takes a fair amount of yarn. I could order more yarn and hope the different dye lot isn't so different that I could alternate skeins throughout the rest of the sweater. This is not a tonal but a very solid color yarn and I don't want to create stripes.  Or I could cut my losses, rip out the sweater, and use the yarn for something else. After all this is just knitting and I won't be freeze if I don't finish this sweater. Here is another reason to enjoy scrappy projects: I rarely run out of scraps and when I do I just join another. I finished the knitting the scrappy shawl with scraps to spare. It needs to be washed and blocked.

I read the Ruth Galloway mystery, The Dark Angel. Ruth, an unabashed middle-aged archeologist and DCI Nelson feel like old friends. This book was more about the characters' stories and less about solving the mystery but it was an easy summer read. I am also reading Wade in the Water, by Tracy K. Smith, the current US poet laureate. In one section, the poems are composed of letters written by African American soldiers during/after the Civil War. They are beautiful and haunting. I love the way she let the words of the men stand as written. I can recommend Smith's short podcast episodes of "The Slowdown." Each day she comments about a poem and then reads it. Her voice is gorgeous and soothing. Her personal interpretations of each poem make me think differently.

I hope mid August finds you enjoying the sunshine and finding something to think about in a new way.