[kaixixang]

One or more new people! Who knows what we'll have this set of 100 (+/- 50 pages). :sm23: :sm23: :sm23:

Okra is one vegetable I've never tried. I think it's a southern thing?

I'd be surprised how much of a crop you got considering the temperature range you get in Saskatchewan, CA . I know Okra has 2 types (thorned and non-) and can grow in growth zones 4-10 here in the US. You may need to water it so it doesn't wilt if you notice it drooping...but you shouldn't have difficulty growing some.

Neat, but how do you use this pdf?

You can get the cloth (or cloth transfer) sheets from JoAnn's and Michael's...maybe Hobby Lobby. I would have recommended Hancock Fabrics but they're going out of business in quite a few places if not nationwide in the US. Near the quilting section at JoAnn's was the one place I saw a few.

FYI, the heat + humidity around here is downright dangerous now. There has been a multi-country weather warning for several days with the heat index in triple digits due to the humidity. Even early this a.m. when the temp read only 80*F, stepping out side was like an intense sauna. Have barely been able to move for days now. I have no A/C.

I've been there several times at the old apartment...no A/C. Swamp cooler method on the shadiest sides of the house where possible is the first possible solution I can recommend. I feel for you!
I gave this link before...but I wouldn't mind a selection sent to my new address for this/next year: http://www.rareseeds.com/summer-savory/
...under $2 for 300 seed

Maybe not available THIS year as supply may have been used up...but keep checking the Rareseeds website for other selections! PM me if you get the seeds so I might have some?

Bonnie7591 and tamarque --> You might want to at least look at the Rareseeds website for the Okra...if you care to. It grows better ground-based/larger planter than I currently have available. I know I need a larger planter for my Heirloom tomatoes next year. I can always move the planters to the North side if they don't improve at the South side. :sm24:

 

[kaixixang]

http://www.rareseeds.com/store/vegetables/okra/
30 varieties offered by Rareseeds! Now I'm a bit hungry for some fried okra with hot sauce/cayenne!

#20 thread (I hope), #11 needle/hook, and it's 4.25 inches. :sm24:

 

[kaixixang]

If okra grows in zones 4-10, I sure can't grow it???? We are zone 2

It's a bit late this year...even if I were to consider growing it: https://myfolia.com/plants/416-okra-abelmoschus-esculentus

Try to wait until you have a known month of 59+ Fahrenheit temperatures before you attempt to plant. The PH is described in the link I gave. You said you had higher than usual temperatures...maybe not EVERY year but something to try.

 

[kaixixang]

Beautiful doily Karen.

Bookmarked the Rareseeds URL for reference. Bought some Summer Savory couple weeks ago but too late to plant this year. Next year.

Your Southern connection is showing with your love of okra. I loathe it and having picked okra on a farm one summer will never feel good about it. What a horror show that was! Went South to volunteer on a community based farm that needed volunteer labor. We lived on tomatoes, okra and corn for 2 weeks and got hotter and itchier by the day picking the d..n stuff. Was glad to have helped with the harvest, but even gladder not to have to do it again! :sm25:

You didn't catch the spineless variety offered! I'm well aware of the prickliness of the majority of Okra. With the sunlight offered by our Northern neighbor I thought she'd try a crop of the spineless Okra for soups, etc.

 

[kaixixang]

Oh dear, I forgot to mention your doily, Karen. It is a stunner too :sm24: :sm24:

This last doily only took 8-12 hours. 13 rows instead of the placemat's 15.

 

[kaixixang]

Besides the stinging during harvesting, the sliminess of it is a big turnoff. I would eat the baby okra breaded and fried. That was like eating eggplant as a kid in eggplant parmigiana--bury the texture and taste so might as well not eat it. I would not eat food prepared like that anymore being far more nutrition and health conscious than I was decades ago. Today I do love eggplant and appreciate the texture it can add to dishes like ratatouille which is coming up for making now that the tomatoes are beginning to come in. Even if I made a baked version of parmagiana, the eggplant would be cut much thicker and not breaded in grains. Probably would much prefer an eggplant and greens lasagna, even one without grain noodles.

Try it with ricotta! Even if you develop the cheese from raw it will taste better with the eggplant and other veggies. Slobber!
:sm24:

 

[kaixixang]

One thing to watch for on ANY yarn is "colorfast". I dabbled in dying (5+ years prior to my 2014 surgery sessions)...and you cannot get much color to show up in your intended length(s).

 

[kaixixang]

One thing about the spineless Okra... it only needs 60-65 days to maturity/production. Something to consider if you still want some okra for your soup. :sm24:

 

[kaixixang]

I'm actually getting more use with the silvery colored jump rings than I am the coilless safety pins. The only main reason I need the coilless safety pins for now is to hold the jump rings. :sm24:

 

[kaixixang]

The person you need is Tricia .She is a dab hand with cows !

When she isn't trying to replace her tractor/car with cattle 'transport'. :sm23: :sm23: :sm23:

 

[kaixixang]

The reason for the ruffled Eagle is the rumor-mill/sounds made him/her ready to take on another drone.

All Eagles must now add drone takedown 101 as a VERY serious course of study.

You have to be quicker than a house-pet attack with a motor vehicle to catch one. After all, you cannot predict WHEN that critter will get near the nest. :sm23: :sm23: :sm23:

 

[kaixixang]

Thanks for appreciating my humor about the Bald Eagle. I had to include a little humor just to liven things up. :sm24:

I've requested from 2 of the LP members some sheep's wool in hopes that there would be practice lengths. Bonnie (Sascachuwan, CAN) came through with 2-3 different colors... smaller lengths.

I'm saving the greater quantities for serious projects. :sm24:

Thanks sisu and Bonnie for my learning pieces. I'll get the smaller lengths worked up soon.

 

[kaixixang]

Bonnie...this is the second time I've heard of anyone reacting to peppers. Is it the peppercorns or just the red, green, yellow, orange stuff that grows on the vine? You may look up the mixed peppercorns or choose just the white for hotter flavor.

I can't have as many peppercorns as I'd like...and hotter than Serrano/Jalapeno/Cayenne is something I don't care to experience. I've tried Habenero (sp?), but don't care for the heat.

Frank's and Louisiana Hot Sauce are my two choices for the pre-mixed hot sauces that I don't ferment/develop myself. I don't like the original Tabasco at all, though the smoked variety isn't bad.

 

[kaixixang]

Which means fall is not too far from us!

That is the inevitable cycle!

From the sky color when I was driving home from Mom's latest PT visit at the VA Hospital...we're well into Fall already in the EST area.

 

[kaixixang]

Not sure why peppers give some people a problem but they are so healthful and come in so many varieties. The grilled ones sound wonderful and really are a tradition in that SW climate and culture. I remember being in Mexican markets where peppers were strung up by size. It was eye opening to me to see the variation from teeny weeny ones to humongous things that memory tells me were well over 12-15" long. The colors were varied as well as the heat of them, from sweet to super hot. A few years ago I tried growing a pepper called Czechzen (or something similar). They turned out to be very dark eggplant color but would ripen to red and that was when their heat developed. It was not a great crop for me but very interesting. I gave some to this Mexican organic farmer in town and he just bit into them. They were supposed to be a very hot pepper and he just shrugged finding them not very flavorful. He was looking for hot peppers to grow and was just not impressed with these. I think the dislike/discomfort is due to insufficient stomach acids or enzymes needed for digestion. A person may develop a dislike for them due to the fact their body has some metabolic deficiency and this, then, becomes a bit of a survival characteristic. My theory.

Another theory that my Mom and I were discussing this morning...

Dad cannot stand the extra heat of the warmer peppers...hotter than Pepperoncini/Anaheim and he's not happy. Basically his side of the family came from Northern European blood...and they often don't need the warmer peppers to "cool off".

Mom and I share the Spanish and French blood...which is closer to Mediterranean climates. Both of us enjoy Jalepeno, Serrano, Cayenne (in moderation). I know that I cannot tolerate 100% mild on my stomach and I have to have milk or some other food before drinking fruit juice. No juice drinking on an empty stomach! Because of the mini-precautions I don't have an ulcer. :sm24:

 

[kaixixang]

:sm23: :sm23: :sm23: I have 1 model... but it doesn't have any eyes or a name.

I crocheted a brown yarn Teddy Bear awhile ago and haven't figured out when to finish. It isn't as large as all y'all models... but I have a single model. :sm24:

 

[kaixixang]

I actually had a wildlife expert over to the garden earlier this week. And he was stumped as to who was doing the damage but he did say he thought it was a rodent. Immediately thought of Opossums but the teeth markings were not right. Called Hav-a-Hart trap company as I use of their traps and they were useless. Went online and looked up, of all things, teeth mark patterns of rodents and found this picture of a Norway rat and his markings. Not only the teeth patterns but the eating patterns like the circular damage around that beet I posted. Never saw anything like that before so it really threw me for a loop but feel somewhat confident that this is the offending critter. Left peanut butter out on a trap as they seem to get spooked by new things in 'their' terrain. Sure enough there were new teeth marks on one of the food samples left. Am thinking to just plain poison them; ie, put some rat poison into some peanut butter and leave it out there and not even try to catch them in the trap. Sounds mean of me, but when it comes to my labor and garden? This is war, honey!

Smooth peanut butter and hair-trigger rat trap! The more unstable the trap is when that rat plays with the bait insures that the neck is snapped!!!!! I'm a VERY good student of trapping mice thanks to my Southern Mom! She was raised on a farm from 1947-1960(+/- a few years). I have some cooking skills she never mastered...and some she has that I haven't had to learn.

Karen, humor aside, there actually are some hawks being trained to take down drones. I will have to look it up but I think it is in Norway. They are being used around airports to take down the drones that morons fly in the flight paths of airplanes.

http://www.google.com/search?q=hawks+being+trained+to+take+down+drones&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8.

And do you think they even leave a thank you card!!!!!

WHAT! No droppings for next planting or season's try? How dare they!!!

Right now I cannot watch the YouTube material as I'm on my home desktop computer. At least I can relax knowing I don't have to miss the material. I wonder if I can now watch RosD's material with my portable? No hurry on attempt. Just curious.

 

[kaixixang]

I now have 2 Hav-a-Harts in the garden, 2 medium sized traps and 2 small traps. I will be setting some for neck breaking (sounds horrid) and some with poison in the peanut butter. Yes, I have the junkiest, smooth PB in the world for this task.

Are you suggesting your southern cooking tradition cooked these critters? I know Opossum was eaten by many.

:sm23: :sm23: :sm23: NO!

Mom hunted and set various traps. She had a farm cat that appreciated the trapped critters like mice and shot birds that threatened the fruit tree production. Whooo! I can see I have to stay awake when going for philosophical and solution discussions! :sm15:

No rodents except for squirrels raised in the country were hunted for human table food.

 

[kaixixang]

Ronie--they are a combination of snails and slugs. No doubt about it. For such little things, it is amazing how much they eat. I have seen them hollow out an entire cantaloupe while it was ripening on the vine.

Have plenty of copper wire around here in electric wire and can strip some down and try it. Your storage method is pretty much what Bonnie and I described. It certainly works.

Here's a thought...
You need copper and nickel (I think) and a potato or lemon...most likely the potato. Let's zap those slugs! How many potatoes in series you'd need I have no idea? Fresh dried slug via homemade electricity?

http://www.groworganic.com/organic-gardening/articles/organic-slug-control
http://www.rose.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/The-Good-The-Bad-and-The-Bugly-ARS-KNR-final.pdf
Most useful: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riccardoella_limacum Y'all need to order some NOW or keep ordering to keep the slimy beasts under control.

 

[kaixixang]

Thank you, Julie - so are you. Actually, all our party members seem to be very good knitters, don't they? :sm02:

I have two different knit squares and two crocheted projects (finished) that I have only displayed the basic pattern of one knit (Zebra, original Eloomanator).

I like the colorway of the Blue shaded Red Heart Love yarn and am wondering how many squares will be produced by one skein of yarn (it's $6 --> rounded up, USD) and I have 2 knitted so far. I can knock out 3 squares of the one blanket's Eloomanator original pattern thanks to my towel dispenser at the same time. It helps if you only concentrate on ONE pattern instructions x3. I memorize pretty well with my crochet training...and I am using 2 silvery jump rings per square with one extra so I have a trade piece laying on the work surface at any time. Total of 7 jump rings per 3 square working. Only have the Zebra to work off before I start 2-3 more squares. :sm24: