KRRE

Knitting

I am so-so-so close to finishing the blue sweater. I took it with me last weekend and completed seaming it while watching football Saturday afternoon. I also made a ribbed wool cap – start to finish – over the weekend, and it's ready to mail to Congressman McKinley (R-WV, 1st District), as part of an effort to promote civil discourse in politics. I have two more hats to make.

All that's left on Jujuba is a neckline treatment. The original design was for an airy summer topper, but I've changed it to be a fall/winter pullover and I don't want a wide boat neckline. So I'm picking up stitches all the way around and doing a few rows of garter stitch, with some short rows at the shoulder "corners" to fill in those gaps. If you're not a knitter, this probably sounds like Martian-speak. If you are, you'll likely know exactly what I'm doing.

Running

Week one of the Up and Running program has gone well. I look forward to the workouts, I don't feel like I absolutely have to exercise on the off days and I'm making progress. My pace has stayed approximately the same both days, but I was able to run a continuous half-mile yesterday, something I didn't do Monday.

I maybe probably shouldn't have run that continuous half-mile, however, because I was so-so-so sore by the end of the day. A body as large as mine is can't take that kind of pounding without growling and biting back.

I did the workout in the morning, then walked around town yesterday putting up posters for the Iron Jawed Angels event. I stopped for groceries before I came home, fixed dinner and collapsed.

But you know what? I'm already looking forward to Week One, Day Three. So there, body!

Reaping

Sweet potatoes! When the deer ate all the leaves from the sweet potato vines, I thought there would be no harvest. The leaves came right back, though, and yesterday I decided to see what I could find. I used a trowel, which nicked the flesh of one of the tubers. No big deal, but next time I'm going to use a shovel and dig deep. Harvesting potatoes is a bit of a crap shoot ... you really don't know where they are, since they're all underground. My soil isn't quite loamy/sandy enough just to pull the vine up and out with potatoes dangling from it.

Eating

Sweet potatoes! You're supposed to cure the tubers to improve flavor and storage properties, and I probably will cure the rest of the very small harvest. (I only planted four slips.) I'm going to wait until the leaves begin to yellow, as suggested in the linked article. I ate mine with butter and cinnamon and, honestly, I felt like a real gardener again. This has been a not-very-successful year for crops here in the Middle of Nowhere, but it's nice to go dig something out of the ground that I put there months ago, and that the deer tried to destroy. Debbi - 1, Mother Nature - 0!

So there you have it: A comprehensive update on the Knitting, Running, Reaping and Eating lately. Sometimes it's good to get back to basics.