Handspun Yarn

Here is my first yarn spun on a spinning wheel. It's a little odd and lumpy in places, but that's ok. Next time, I'm going to try to spin more intentionally and pay more attention to what I want the final product to look like. #1 on the list is spinning a bulkier yarn, since I would rather knit with something thicker. #2 is trying to get the twist more balanced.

Water Down the Drain

We lose a lot of water down the drain. When I go to take a shower, I usually let the water run until it gets hot. So I lose about a 1/2 gallon of water on every shower. Since there are two of us in the house, that amounts to about 365 gallons per year (assuming one shower each, every day). We aren't living under drought conditions, but that's no reason to waste all that water, and besides it costs money. We're charged about 50 cents per cubic foot of water (1 cubic foot = ~7.5 gallons), which works out to about $50/year. In the grand scheme of things, that's not a lot of money, but again, there's no reason to put that much money down the drain (hehe).

I was inspired by a post on Radiant Things about how she saves water. Now, when we run the water to get the shower to warm up, we catch the water in an old detergent bottle and use it to water our garden. Maybe it only saves us a little money, maybe it won't save the planet, but really, there's no reason not to.

Strawberry Season

I went strawberry picking yesterday with one of my friends and my boyfriend. We went in the afternoon, so it was hard work (a case of the early birds getting the worms), but we still had quite a good haul.

Yesterday, we canned strawberry jam (left) and strawberry-rhubarb butter (right). The strawberry-rhubarb butter recipe comes from Food in Jars, a nifty canning blog. I think I like it much better than regular strawberry jam: more flavor, less sweetness.



I'm also making strawberry-balsamic ice cream today. The balsamic vinegar is a souvenir from our trip to Italy in January. It's three-medal grade and amazingly good. Makes me wonder what five-medal balsamic is like.

Pesto!

The first basil harvest of the season.

This year I decided to have lots of a few things in my garden, and so far it's working. Last year, we had a small handful of tomatoes. This year we already have enough basil to make pesto. mmmm, tasty.