Grow damn you!

I am attempting to force my basil seedlings to grow through pure force of will. I stare at them, I hum to them, I spritz them with water…but so far they are not cooperating. Also my tomatoes. This is my first experience with saving seeds and so far it is not very successful. I saved the seeds from a variety of heirloom tomatoes from the farmer’s market last summer and put them in little envelopes and kept them out of the light in a nice dry tin…in short I did everything, so now I’m just supposed to sit back and wait for the damn things to sprout, which they are not doing. It is a little chilly though, maybe they just don’t have enough heat, I think if they haven’t sprouted by next week I will go and buy one of those waterproof heating mats.


The Rabe seeds are sprouting though, so that’s very exciting. Rabe is related to Broccoli (which is SO satisfying to grow) but instead of one big central head it puts out these rather leggy looking broccoli-like stalks, and has very tasty leaves as well, sort of like collard greens. Ever since I found out that Rabe, also known as Rape is the same thing as “Rapunzel” of let down your hair fame, I’ve wanted to grow it. Story goes that Rapunzel’s mother could see into the witch’s garden while she was pregnant, and became obsessed with eating a salad of the Rapunzel that was growing there (good instincts since it’s very high in folic acid). So her husband snuck in and stole some in the night, and the wife ate the salad and was happy for awhile, but then the craving started to grow again. The next time he went to steal the greens the witch was waiting for him, and that’s when she did the whole “give me your first born child,” nonsense. She also insisted that they name the child Rapunzel, in honor of her stolen veggies. So anyway, I’m pretty excited about the Rabe, I’m gonna be like witchy-poo!

And if the saved seeds refuse to give up the love I have that $80 order that I placed with Seed Saver’s a couple of days ago…which will probably be in by the time I get back from Louisville!

Yes! I’m going to Louisville, which is in Kentucky, which is where Bourbon comes from! I am visiting Adrien-Alice for a slightly tardy birthday celebration, and will stop and visit with a couple of former Lansingers that moved away (and hell, when you’re moving to the land of Bourbon, how can you blame ‘em?) I will also be delivering the artwork that AA’s father commissioned for her birthday present. Perhaps she will photograph it with her digital camera and I will be able to post it here, the first real photo on the blog. Now if I can just convince Dready (that’s Mildred, the French girl) to drive so that I can knit the whole way I will be all set.

The brother-in-law gloves are sorta pissin’ me right the fuck off. This is the first time that I’ve tried to knit gloves for someone far away. I’m working off a tracing of his hand, which I thought would be fine, but I don’t think really is. So I’m taking a break from that project. Instead I think I will resurrect the ancient pink and skull scarf that I started for Rat Girl last year. Of course I can’t travel with just one knitting project…what if I get bored with it? So I’ll have to dig deep into the bin of unfinished projects and find another one.

I have this lovely superwash that I bought to make myself some socks, but then realized that the logistics of intarsia in the round were rather more than I wanted to tackle. The socks were going to have a repeated skull motif up the front with a cabled border, but…yeah, not so much wanting to do that anymore. So I think I am going to repurpose it (good word from Pillage, even if it did come from TV) and make the “we call them pirates” hat that at least three people have sent me the link to…must be fate. I’m also bringing a legal pad with me so that I can start work on that “list of everything I haven’t finished yet.” Ha, you thought I forgot about that, but I didn’t.