J has been planning. He picked up some demijohns from Freecycle (when it existed, it now appears to have morphed and we have a local Freegle) and is planning to embark on making wine, or more specifically ‘country’ wine, as although we have vines, they aren’t producing grapes (or are even in the ground yet…) So I ordered him “Booze”, by John Wright, the twelfth book in the River Cottage Handbook Series. Of course I had to have a read of it myself. I’ve made various infusions/liqueurs/ratafias in the past, but not anything ‘from scratch’, so it’s an interesting read (and has given me a giggle in a few places so far). Lots of inspiration to be had and I’m rather excited that potentially in about a year’s time we may have some of our own home-made wine.
Also on the table is “The Story of Plants” by John Hutchinson and Ronald Melville. It dates back to 1948 and in the back is the library card from when it was part of the San Mateo Junior College Library. I first saw this book when 5 Orange Potatoes shared a photo of it online and in a herbal group I was a member of (before I left Facebook) and it looked so interesting I thought I’d try and find a copy for us as well. I was lucky and managed to find one for a few pounds and was really pleased when it arrived. It’s a lovely old book. Originally written for children, so very approachable, without ‘dumbing down’ the information. I saved it to read until we officially started back home-ed wise and Nin and I have been steadily working through it. It has some wonderful fold out ‘family trees’ of plants:
We we will be using it for inspiration for further learning in the weeks to come.
The swirl ball is finished. The actual knitting part of it, a little while ago, but it took longer to get around to stuffing and sewing it up (I’m not a great fan of having to sew a seam). It was a quick and simple knit and interesting in how it knitted up with the short rows (not that short rows are inherently interesting, rather how they worked together to make the swirl effect). I am now on to baby knitting for friends’ babies, as there’s been a few born all around HipHop’s age (and all boys, with one still to come in the next couple of weeks). I was struggling to get basic things done for a while after HipHop was born, let alone manage to knit anything for friends, so I’m now catching up (albeit slowly).
Joining in with Keep Calm and Craft On and Yarn Along.
