Back From Hiatus

I have been out of the blogging sphere for so long I don't know where to start. I have closed the Etsy store. Irene has been sick, and there is just too much dampness in the basement for me to spend a lot of time down here. The mold and mildew really affects my allergies, so I have been confined to the upstairs more. We have had such a damp spring and early summer that even though there haven't been huge amounts of water coming in, there always seems to be a treickle here and a trickle there, and the damp mustiness is too much to deal with. On the upside, though, I discovered the dampness was not good for the loom, so I brought it and my wheel upstairs. I warped the loom with cotton rug warp and then wove a nice rag rug with all blue rags. I got some cotton thread in a blue green color and a cream and am going to warp for a table runner sometime in the next couple of weeks. I think I'm going to weave checks, it will look nice and is easy. I have tons of pics of crocheted and knitted items to post, I made a pair of mittens from handspun that I really like, also several shawls and hats. I've made 5 pairs of mittens since I posted last. I am currently working on a pair of socks (my first!) and a spinning project using the 12 oz or so of Nfld wool I had left. I just got 6 lbs of fleece I was going to start washing tomorrow, but it's supposed to rain again and keep raining off and on for the next 5 days.

On the fishing front, John and I have both landed some nice bass this year. I caught an 18 inch in Westmore woods during spawn. Suprised the hell out of me, I didn't realize there was anything that big in there. John caught his at Bass Lake about a week or so ago. Chris has only caught a nice crappie and small bass so far. We're going to Shelbyville the 8-11th of July. It will be Chris, Sio John and I, so a nice family trip. Hopefully the rain will be gone and it won't be too hot.

I didn't put in a garden this year, but my herbs from last year came back. The sage is enormous, I planted it 2 years ago, and I need to dig it up and divide it. The flowers are pretty and it makes a nice decorative plant, I might put some in the front of the house. My St Johns wort came back and it has to be 2 feet tall. It is getting small yellow flowers. The golden oregano I planted last year is doing really well too. I have been using it in different Italian recipes. And my lavender is flowering and almost ready to be harvested. I want to let some of it go to seed so I can plant more next year. I got a few ripe mulberries yesterday, just a handful, but in a week or so the should be ready to be picked. I checked the raspberries and they are tiny and very green still. I'm looking forward to raspberry jam so I hope they end up being nice. It's hard to say with the weather being so weird this year.