Little Bits of News

The days have been getting ever so slightly shorter here, and I've missed coming to visit bloggy land this week as work has picked up its pace while summer is slowing down.  Little Penny, however, has been taking it easy during these dog days.  She always knows exactly where the sun shine falls the best.

We've had tiny harvests from our garden, including 9 cherry tomatoes.  It's funny, but even if we buy locally grown ones at the market, the ones from our garden still taste the best.  Ours have a slightly tougher skin and a wonderfully acidic bite to them- compact bursts of essence of tomato.  It must be something about baking in the sun, drowning in the downpours, and warding off the deer and voles and rabbits that make our tiny tomatoes, although few in number, strong in personality.

A while back I shared our tomatillo harvest with you, and I'm happy to say that the tomatillo plant is still going strong!

I've had a chance to make some salsa verde- it is divine: 

The secret seems to be roasting the ingredients before blending, giving a very deep smokiness to the otherwise crisp and "apple-y" tomatillos.  Yuuuuuuuummmmmm!

On the crochet side of things, I've been carrying these little projects around in my purse so that I can do a bit whenever I can. 

It's practicing hyperbolic crochet, and eventually they will become broaches with colorful buttons sewed in the middle.

But I like the colors of the mercerized cotton the best- they are fresh and springy.  After this little experiment, I'm looking forward to doing some open-work motifs in all different colors joined together.

There have also been many a granny square lately, from the very nifty Noro yarn that I'm trying out.  It changes colors and thicknesses/textures as it goes, so the stitching is actually pretty exciting.  Every square turns out with a different color and texture scheme.

Finally, in the evenings, we've been really enjoying the lamp we brought back from our Amishland adventures last week.

Our big idea was to use it on the patio as we sat out in the evenings, but we had forgotten that there are many a streetlamp in our neighborhood, so a lantern is unfortunately eclipsed.  But indoors, it creates a wonderful glow with a hypnotic flame and shadows cast everywhere.  Our little lamp (which fits right on top of a mason jar) produces so much light with its adjustable wick. 

In fact, one or two more, and we'd never have to flip a light switch in the evenings!  I highly recommend giving lamp light a try- cozy, elemental, warming.

Uh-oh!  Penny just told me that she's shocked I'm staying up so late writing this post- she insists that it's time to go outside once more before bed time!

Gotta go!
~Mersydotes



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