New Loom!

Recently I got a new toy, a brand spanking new loom. It's a rigid heddle loom, which means I can't do any of the super fancy weaving patterns, but it costs 10x less than the fancy looms that can. So far it's been lots of fun. The loom is more limited than knitting. Really I can only weave rectangles. Fortunately there are lots of rectangular things to make. Also, weaving is MUCH MUCH faster than knitting.

Ashford Rigid Heddle Loom

Steve helping with the warping process

This is the first thing I made on my new loom. A nice standard scarf. I finished it in a day. One day! Can you believe that.

Dark Purple warp, light purple weft with pink accent.

Now really, who keeps putting these cat pictures up on the blog?
How many cat pictures do you need?
(answer: MILLIONS!!!)

New herbs for a new home!

So, we're here in Midland all moved in. We've been spending time exploring all of town, which is of course small and doesn't take much time, but it's been fun. One thing Midland has to offer is a good farmers' market downtown on Wednesday and Saturday mornings. Coming from Berkeley, our expectations may have been a bit low for a mid-Michigan market, and we were pleasantly surprised. There are a lot of flowers available right now, and every time we've been, there have been more fruits and vegetables. Some are from California, but we'll ignore that. Everything we've bought has been fresh and tasty. They sell some herbs there, so we figured it'd be time to try growing our own again.

I tried growing some in Berkeley, but they unfortunately can't survive a large amount of neglect. Who'd have thought? I put them outside at our old place, so I never thought about watering or pruning them unless I was on my way in or out from school. Now, though, we've got these beautiful plants growing next to our large sliding door and under a full spectrum CFL. The Thai basil, with its large purple flowers (that we pruned after a day so it wouldn't stop producing leaves) and Greek oregano, tasted delicious on some pasta. We haven't had the mint (in its own pot to prevent aggresively taking over the others), but it smells great rubbed on my fingers. Even though we've only had them a few days, we're getting excited about someday having some real ground and a real garden. Until then, we'll survive with some potted herbs.

Congratulations Steve!

Or should I say Dr. Steve!

Trip to Sequoia

When the Guillaudeu parents came to visit we decided to visit the giant sequoias. The trip through the 100 degree heat in a non-air conditioned car was pretty brutal, but totally worth it. The trees were utterly amazing. I was there and I almost can't believe how big they are!

Steve is thrilled about the General Sherman Tree
Largest living tree - by volume

The senate grouping of giant sequoias
and a very tiny Aimee

Fallen Sequoia's Roots
and a Steve for scale

Laying in the paved "footprint"
of the General Sherman Tree

Beautiful spiderweb photo by Steve
Yes, it is covered in pollen

View from the top of Morro Rock

Super Honda goes under the tree

Crescent Meadow

Grizzly Falls