Photographs at Summer's End

SIL Jack has some great pictures on his Flickr account.  He sent one on email yesterday, so I'll show it along with some others from our garden.  (Go here to see more of Jack's photographs.)

This is a volunteer sunflower growing alongside morning glories.

These morning glories are also volunteers from seeds sown several years ago.

Can you see the spider web to the right of the head of the plastic iguana below?

This summer, 12 yellow finches were eating from their feeder at the same time!  Below, four were caught on camera a bit later

It feels like autumn in Colorado, although we still have three weeks of summer left.

Ginger Crunch via Crafternoon Tea with GrannyG

A favorite podcast cached on my MP3 player is Crafternoon Tea with GrannyG. GrannyG is from New Zealand and has that unique accent which is so charming.  Just be aware that certain words she says are a bit of a puzzle until you begin to understand her patois. Case in point: she says "REED" and the word means the color red.

She is delightful and full of information.  Listening to her and a friend talk about an old time recipe for ginger crunch interested me enough to print out her recipe and give it a go. 

GrannyG's recipe can be found here.

Conversions: oven to 375 degrees F

Sugar for shortbread: 125 gm butter = 1/2 cup butter

Butter for Icing: 75 gm butter = 1/3 cup butter

Bron Marshall, another New Zealander who cooks and photographs, says of this nostalgic recipe:.

Ginger Crunch is a well loved slice found in most cafes, bakeries and tearooms around New Zealand. There are several versions and as many variations on different recipes, however here is my recipe, which I believe to be fairly true to ‘the original’.

Marshall's recipe can be accessed here.

GrannyG's Ginger Crunch cookies:

Glitter Graphics

A nice fall treat; they really are easy and tasty!

Sometimes a Mistake is Just a Mistake

Let's make this clear. Working on the Lovely Eliina Scarf (download from Ravelry available here), after hours and hours of knitting lace, it was wrong.  Bad knitter; poor follower of directions; incompetent reader, you fill in the blank... - but it was just WRONG.  What to do with this mass of yarn that was almost a finished shawl?  Continue on knitting, hoping the mistakes were not noticeable, or do the honorable thing and start over in knitting that lace edging?

Rip, tink, frog, whatever you want to call the tedious process, I took out 24 rows of lace knitting, with over 300 stitches in each lace row.  It was knit incorrectly

Was it g-d punishing me?  Was I supposed to take this injustice because I did not recycle that latest plastic milk jug, pushing it way down in the garbage can, hoping it would not be noticed by the neighborhood eco patrol?  Or was it payback because I spoke harshly to my cranky father?  Or because my telephone manners were poor when I did not identify myself when making that phone call a few weeks back?  Or am I just a totally bad person?

Sob...here is the lovely Eliina being ripped out, along with my aching heart:

Or could it just be a mistake, and life goes on?

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)

Stay tuned for the latest assesment in a few weeks, hopefully after the Lovely Eliina is finished with the lace knit the way the designer intended.