Solstice!

Three days of dark, and then on the 25th, the sun begins its slow crawl back up the vault of the sky.

Christmas Craft Project

 

DH brought home a bunch of glass candle holders from Goodwill last week. He thought he had a plan for them, but I was able to talk him out of that silly idea and commandeer them for my own project, which involved a can of Krylon Looking Glass spray paint that I’ve been carrying around for the last couple of weeks, just looking for something to paint. Bernard and I found the glass Christmas tree and the tarnished silver platter at a junk store, and suddenly my project had fallen into place. The pictures aren’t the greatest—my camera really balked at the lighting issues.

Potatoes

We dug more potatoes yesterday. The big knobby purplish ones are Caribe, the yellow ones are Cosighin, and the small red ones are Red Thumbs. We ate the Caribes and Cosighins last night.

The Caribes had a great yield, producing really big tubers, and they were kind of gorgeous (you can’t see in the picture that their skin is bright lavender-fuscia). They have white flesh, and an ok flavor, but with a hint of bitterness—just the tiniest hint. Their texture was kind of meh—DH called it creamy, I thought it was watery.

The Cosighins had a small to medium yield. They were also beautiful—golden skinned and yellow-fleshed, but their flavor and texture were great. They were very dense and smooth with a buttery flavor with no trace of bitterness. They were wonderful—too bad they’re almost impossible to find! These came as part of my sampler from Tom Wagner, so we’ll see if I ever manage to get any more!

Praying Mantis Egg Case

It was so mild today—in the 60s—and I spent hours in the garden, digging potatoes, preparing a bed for garlic (yes, I know it’s late), and generally cleaning up after the messy, weedy summer. There were lots of these praying mantis egg cases, which I collected and stuck in trees and shrubs around the garden.