Aw. A little mushroom love. I found this mushroom with its brilliant white heart as I tromped through the back woods.
Fungi sends love
Month: July 2021
Shh, I’m hiding
I was looking around my melon vines for more potential melons, and spotted a little green tree frog snuggled into a leaf. He is a very welcome garden inhabitant! Go get those bugs, buddy.
Diamond Willow Needle
I was combing my tool stash for a nål (needle) to make smaller nålbinding stitches and found an old hand-carved diamond willow needle. My great-grandfather carved all sorts of things from diamond willow, so our guess is that this is one of his works! It had been sitting in my knitting box for quite a while, so I sanded it up a little with 400 grit sandpaper to smooth the unfinished surface. Although I’ve been partial to semi-flat oblong nåls to this point, I found making stitches with the round needle worked well. I’m learning a new stitch called Dalarna, which was used to make milk strainers in Sweden (https://www.en.neulakintaat.fi/75). I like the way that the stitch makes a fabric that appears woven on one side. I’m practicing with commercial wool sock yarn, not my own spun yarn, until I get the pattern firmly in my fingers’ muscle memory.
Return of the frogs
When we first moved here, there was an army of baby frogs in the summer; tiny jumpers here, there, and everywhere. In the intervening years, we have seen less and less little ones, but a fairly consistent number of adults. When the snake ate the Gulf Coast Toad from the backyard, we stopped seeing any toads by the back door (so apparently it was just one toad that hung out on the doorstep asking about tea). Now, we are seeing younglings again! Not an invading hoard, but toadlets here and tree froglets there. I picked up a water dish to dump the June bugs and realized not all the critters were insects. A little green tree frog regarded its situation for a moment before hopping off. Maybe we will also get another threshold toad (although I have not missed shooing a toad from the door).
Trial cake
My youngest wants a rainbow chocolate chip chocolate cake. We settled on a four-layer cake with chocolate frosting and mini chocolate chips in the batter. I used Heritage Wheat all-purpose flour from Sunrise Mills both to see how well it bakes in a cake, and if my digestive tract has any issues with it. Using a recipe for yellow cake from my go-to Better Homes and Gardens cookbook, I did four layers (because that is how many pans I have), and used gel food coloring to make yellow, orange, pink, and purple (which is more indigo because a second drop of blue slipped in). I halved the cooking time recommended since the layers were thin, then added 2 more minutes which I didn’t need (my gluten-free cakes lately have been not cooked through, so I was apprehensive). The cake was slightly dry, but definitely cooked, and the layers were easy to handle. It was also easy to frost with a thin layer of chocolate frosting (store-bought ‘cause I didn’t want to make it). The family said it was good cake! (Which are words that have not been uttered for the last few cakes, when I was using different flours.) The mini chocolate chips were rather lost in the frosting and crumb, but I also forgot to put them in until the last minute, so we’ll try to remember them earlier next time. Oh, and no tummy troubles, huzzah!
Critters and Craft 