Throwback Thursday: Harvey

On By CarynIn throwback

In August 2017 Hurricane Harvey devastated Texas and flooded many of our neighbors houses and property, displacing them for months on end. At the beginning, we didn’t know what we were in for, but our youngest did have a fear of storms, so we made a cake.

Photo description: white and blue frosted cake with a definitive swirl formation and “Harvey” written in light blue icing

The storm wasn’t a furious one, it was a sulking behemoth that just sat over us and rained constantly for days and days. We had just recovered from a house fire two years before and were fortunate not to add flood to the house history. Many of our neighbors were not so fortunate, and had to be evacuated by boat, with flood lines two feet up in their living rooms.

Grow light stand

On By CarynIn Flora, Life Hack

When our halogen light from the nineties finally gave up after 30 years of use, I deconstructed it and couldn’t bring myself to throw out the nice heavy base just yet. When rearranging my plants on the kitchen counter, and moving the grow lamps on stakes, I decided to combine the grow lamps with the old lamp base.

Photo description: old halogen lamp base with poles and wires removed

I had to get longer screws to secure the posts of the grow lamps into the stand, but I had some that worked in the garage. The result was quite acceptable.

Photo description: two terrariums and eight potted plants arranged around two grow lamps mounted into an old halogen lamp base

Yarn chicken redo

On By CarynIn Craft
Photo description: crocheted blanket edge with scallops incomplete with not enough yarn left to finish

I lost at yarn chicken on a baby blanket edge. I needed to make two more scallops to finish and there just wasn’t enough yarn. Rather than scrap the whole edge, I ripped out just the last side and redid it so the scallops spanned 6 stitches instead of five. This gave me less scallops overall on that edge and I had enough yarn to complete the edge.

Photo description: crocheted baby blanket with scalloped edge before weaving in, showing the extra yarn

The blanket is based on Mary Maxim’s Easy Diagonal Blanket pattern, but done with alternating two rows of white, purple, and pink. I deviated on the edge too, by doing a single crochet all along the outer edge to hide yarn ends, then making 5-double crochet scallops along the edge.

I used acrylic yarn for the blanket because it is machine washable and dry-able, and new moms do not need any gift that can’t be easily washed.

Pic-a-nik table

On By CarynIn Wildlife

My eldest gave me a bird feeder that looks like a little picnic table for Mother’s Day (I *may* have laid out some heavy hints). It came rigged to be hung, but after trying it that way for a couple days, I decided to mount it to the tree.

Photo description: small picnic table shaped feeder screwed to a post oak tree and filled with seed

The tray serves a dual purpose, both as entertainment (although the squirrels don’t have proper table manners), and to catch the corn the squirrels drop from the spinning corn holder (which doesn’t spin when they eat off of it, but does hold 5 ears of corn). The squirrels drop the corn after they eat the tip off and discard the rest of the yellow part of the corn kernel.

Photo description: downward view of the squirrel feeder, showing the discarded corn kernels

Training cucumbers

On By CarynIn Garden

My cucumber plants are starting to grow vines! I have a trellis set up in the raised bed and would like them to climb that rather than drape off the sides of the bed. I found it helps to gently hook the questing tendrils around the metal. I wrap the tendril around the post, then hook it back through the loop, like a knot, but not tightened.

Photo description: cucumber tendril looped around a post, then around itself