Silly Puppy!

When I began to make the bed, this morning, I didn't realize that Sprocket was laying on the floor at the end of the bed.  So when I threw the covers off to adjust the fitted sheet, they all landed on him.

.

.

He didn't seem to mind, though!

.

The Play's the Thing!

Over the weekend David and I took a trip to Ashland, Oregon to celebrate our 3rd anniversary.  Can you believe that it's already been 3 years? 

.

.

People outside of Oregon may not be familiar with Ashland.  Why did we decide to drive 5 hours each way to visit a small town in Southern Oregon?  Here's a clue:

.

.

That's right!  The Oregon Shakespeare Festival!  The Oregon Shakespeare Festival is not a weekend carnival-like event.  It is a permanent fixture in Ashland, with plays showing from February to October each year.  They put on several Shakespeare plays, but also have a variety of other play.  We saw two plays:

.

.

"Pride and Prejudice"

.

.

and "Twelfth Night."

.

.

We also went on a backstage tour, and were lucky enough to get Kate Hurster, the actress who plays Elizabeth Bennet, as our tour guide!

.

.

Since both our plays were in the evening, we did a couple of small outings outside of Ashland during the day.  One of these outings was to the Butte Creek Mill in Eagle Point.  The mill began operation in 1872, and is still active today.  We got to poke around the mill, and see some of the old equipment, including some gears with wooden teeth.

.

.

A few months ago I bought a cookbook called Good to the Grain.  It is a baking cookbook that focuses on whole grain flours.  It has 12 chapters one each for 12 different whole grains.  While we were at the Butte Creek Mill we bought several new kinds of flour that I hadn't been able to track down before: Barley flour, Quinoa flour, and Kamut flour.

.

All in all it was a great weekend.  We enjoyed both plays, had a great time walking all over downtown Ashland, and even had a pretty good drive, enjoying a couple of books on CD.

Fava Beans

Last weekend David and I made Spring Risotto, made with corn, peas and fava beans.  If you've never experienced the joy that is cooking with fava beans, let me warn you:  they are a labor intensive vegetable!

.

.

We started out with a big pile of fava beans.  It looks like a lot, doesn't it?

.

.

In fact, we started with 3.830 lbs of fava beans.

.

.

.

First we shelled the fava beans.  After this we had a big bowl of fava bean pods . . . 

.

.

 . . . and a small bowl of fava beans.

.

.

We had 1.040 lbs of fava beans, to be exact.  Now you may think that this is the end.  But no.

.

.

Next we skinned the fava beans.  It turns out that the fava beans themselves each have a tough skin that is not good for eating.  In order to skin them, we first blanched the fava beans for a minute or two.

.

.

So then we finally had the fava beans that we were going to eat: 0.618 lb.  For anyone who is wondering that 16 percent of the original fava bean pod weight.

.

.

After all that work we had worked up an appetite.  

.

Spring Risotto, yum!

Déjà vu

This post may look very familiar.  You're probably thinking that you've seen that blue lace scarf before.

.

.

And you'd be right . . . but you'd also be wrong!

.

I used the same "Shetland Triangle" pattern that I used back in February, but I used different yarn.  Still blue but a different brand.  At the yarn shop they seemed pretty different to me, but now that they are knit up they're looking very similar.

.

.

Also new is the blocking method that I used.  Last time I pinned the scarf out on a towel using about 75 sewing pins.  But I recently obtained actual blocking mats and lace blocking wires, so this time I tried them out.  I am a big fan of them!  I slipped a blocking wire through the points of the scalloped edge, and along the straight side, and then used about 20 pins to hold the wires in place.

.

.

I've currently got another lace scarf on the needles, so you'll probably being seeing the blocking equipment again soon!

Crazy Animals

When we were in Seattle last weekend, we went to a barbecue at David's godmother Vicky's house.  Vicky has two very fluffy cats.  Or rather they were very fluffy before they got shaved for the summer.  I've never heard of this before, but I guess I can understand that a really fluffy cat would get really warm when it gets hot out.

.

.

With the head still fluffy, she looks kind of like a lion.  Doesn't she?

.

.

In other animal related news, last weekend we also saw my good friend Jenny.  Jenny is a science teacher, so during the summer she gets to take the class pets home.  This includes the bearded lizard in the above picture.  His name is "Cricket Slayer".  David got to hold him . . . but all I wanted to hold was the camera!

Weekend in Seattle

We spent the weekend up in Seattle celebrating David's Mom's birthday, as well as the Fourth of July.

.

.

On Friday night we went to a sports bar for dinner; David was really excited about the Happy Hour specials! (Or maybe it was the cool painting . . . I'm not really sure.)

.

.

There was all sorts of sports memorabilia, including the team pennants above.  (Yes Robby, I took this picture for you!)