Chico, CA, has a wonderful place that the locals call the Tree Farm. It’s real name is The Mendocino National Forest Genetic Resource & Conservation Center. People go here to walk their dogs off the leash. Photographers go here to take portraits in a natural setting. I go there to smell the woods and stroll through a quiet place.
There are lots of exotic trees from Asia and Europe, all with numbers to help you find them on the trail guide. The paved, accessible trail borders Comanche Creek which the dogs just love. There are wet paw prints all over. One of the exotic patches of trees is the bamboo patch (top left photo). It’s odd to be walking in vegetation that feels right in Chico and then blam – there’s a bamboo forest. It’s mystical.
Fall is coming to Chico, slowly. It starts at the top of the trees and creeps down.
When not enjoying the color in Chico, I’m stuffing felted mice for the Friends of the Library Fall Craft Faire, November 21, 2009.
This was a fun knit, watching the waves form, first on one side and then on the other.
It’s knit in the round with two different sized needles, one large and one regular (details on Ravelry). To form the bumps, you insert a short row on the large needle side. Following the pattern is an adventure on the first repeat, but after that it’s a piece o’ cake, walk in the park, float down a river, etc.
The pictures here suck. My camera wasn’t seeing red very well today. I tried indoors, outdoors, flash, no flash. I just couldn’t get the details to show right.
People who think instant coffee is the dregs of the coffee world can click to somewhere else now.
Lately I’ve been losing my taste for strong, robust, freshly ground coffee. It has begun to taste bitter. Instant coffee now has a place on my pantry shelves. I put instant coffee, a drop or two of almond extract, and sweetener (sugar, Splenda, whatever) in the bottom of the cup and poor on hot-to-boiling, filtered water. Filtering the water makes a difference. Top off with fat free half and half, or 2% milk. And in the summer I can mix in less water and poor it over ice. I’m loving it.
So what brand? Well, Starbucks is selling instant coffee now, for about $1 a cup. I didn’t try it. Trader Joe’s is selling 100% Columbian instant coffee at a reasonable price. I bought some today and am sipping it now. It’s a little bitter for my wimpy taste buds. You might like it.
My favorite instant coffee to date is Folgers - it’s mild. And this has been my coffee of choice for several months now.
Should I throw away my coffee beans, canisters, grinder, cones, filters and Mr. Coffee? Not quite yet. If I don’t use them in the next six months or so, then I’ll think seriously about donating them to the local Salvation Army/Goodwill/freecycle.com.
It’s good, really good, to get out of town every once and a while. We drove two hours East to Graeagle, CA, for lunch.
On the way to and from we drove through Quincy.
This is the cemetery on Hwy 70 between the West and East parts of Quincy. It’s a relatively recent cemetery. Earliest date of death is probably 1882. The last date of death is probably 1996. The Quincy Cemetery District Database has records about the graves. Besides names and dates, there are notes like “ashes”, “baby”, “child”, “infant”, “colored”, “Masonic”. I was surprised to see the “colored” note from the 1940s and 1950s. There was one from 1912, and then none ‘til the ‘40s and ‘50s, and then no more. Makes you wonder what the black history would be for Plumas County.
We had another wonderful lunch at the Graegle Millworks. Fall color is just barely starting.
After lunch there was a quick drive up to Gold Lake, not very scenic this time of year, and then home. There was about 4.5 hours of driving and about a 1/2 hour of lunching. Much of the drive up Hwy 70 is along the Feather River, which is just beautiful.
I have all this lovely sock yarn in my stash, but I’m not knitting with it <insert big frown here>.
Instead I’m still plugging away on items for the Friends of the Library Craft Faire. Only 7 weeks left, and then I can tackle some bigger projects not meant for the craft faire.
Have a nice October, y’all.
I’ve been knitting little mice. Lots of little mice.
There about 50 of them, all knitted, ends tucked in and felted. In the beginning of November they will be stuffed with fiber fill and fresh catnip, then sewn shut with tapestry thread. Hopefully they will be more cat proof this year. I had reports from last year’s cat lovers that some of them disintegrated within a day.
I also heard that my mice were found in the swimming pool, or they were seen flying through the air, or they were lurking in the kitchen looking real enough to scare the humans.
There are brown, gray, white and purple ones.
This is enough for the Friends of the Library Craft Faire this November. No more mice in 2009.
Thanks to Jen who was nice enough to let me use her pattern for our fundraiser. Thanks, Jen!
