Changing Seasons

It’s raining now and supposed to rain all day. I am delighted. Today is also the autumnal equinox and I can say an official goodbye to the 2022 gardening season.

I’m not done by a long shot—I still have to clean up and put the garden to bed, make tomato sauce and salsa, and start up the indoor lettuce-growing system, but my schedule will no longer be dominated by time- and weather-sensitive tasks. That’s a relief.

It’s soup weather again. The sweaters and jackets have come out. Soon we will be relaxing with YouTube videos and embroidery projects after dinner. I love to garden, but summer is a hard season for me. I like the slower pace of winter.

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I taught two serger classes yesterday. We are still working out some scheduling hiccups. I have told both stores that I will be happy to teach classes even if only one person signs up. A time may come when I am less willing to do that, but until we generate steady interest in serger classes, I think the consistency is important. I do not want to get a reputation as a teacher who cancels classes. And a class of one or two students gives me a low-pressure opportunity to see if I’ve paced the material well.

The morning class was on rolled hems. I had two students signed up, one of whom was the owner’s son. He is the store’s sewing machine technician. I asked him if he was taking the class so he could make things with a serger or so he would know more about how they worked, and he said, “Yes.” He was very much interested in making cloth napkins. The other lady had plenty of serging experience but a new-to-her serger. This is us trying to puzzle out how to thread her lower looper:

We got it sorted. She completed a lovely set of batik napkins by the end of class.

I always get a giggle out of the differences between male and female students. Ryan, the sewing machine tech, spent a solid half an hour testing his rolled hem settings to get them dialed in. Even I don’t test that thoroughly, LOL. For someone with very little serging experience, though, he did well and also finished a set of napkins.

Toward the end of class, a lady walked in carrying a serger and said, with some surprise, “Is this the morning class?” Unfortunately, she wanted to take the morning class but had been told it was cancelled. She was understandably a bit disappointed. She and the lady in the photo, above, were my two students for the afternoon class, or so I thought. The afternoon class wasn’t supposed to start until 2 pm, but because we were all there, I asked the two of them if they wanted to get going half an hour earlier. The afternoon class was a flatlock scarf project. Both of them were serging along when the door opened and another woman came in with a serger. She said, “Am I late?” and I said that no, the other students were just early. After a bit of questioning, I determined that the third student thought she had signed up for the class online.

I’ll have to talk to the store owner about the scheduling bumps. It wasn’t a problem to add another student at the last minute, but clearly, some bugs need to be worked out.

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I have a dilemma and I haven’t yet come up with a solution. The Mennonite relief sale in Ritzville, WA, is next weekend. I go every year. I’ve been planning to go this year. I’m not crazy about driving back to Spokane again so soon after the Seattle trip, but I will do it.

However, that plan was predicated in part on the timing of the craft co-op sale. I had been told that the craft co-op sale would be held September 23 and 24 (tomorrow and Saturday). I opted not to participate this year because I was getting back from Seattle and teaching two serger classes and I thought that throwing the co-op sale into the mix might send me around the bend. I did ask if I could help out with some publicity on two of the local Facebook groups by making an event listing as I did for the plant sale and the garden tour. I was given the go-ahead and created the events, only to discover afterward that the sale dates had been changed some time in the last couple of months. The sale is NEXT Friday and Saturday. That information was not disseminated to the co-op members who weren’t present when that decision was made.

Sigh. The road to hell and all that. I edited the Facebook events and fixed the dates. I need to brush up on my mind-reading skills.

Now I have to decide. Do I want to go to Ritzville or do I want to stay here and participate in the co-op sale? Or do I want to stay home and make tomato sauce? I’m still thinking about it. I’d like to participate in the co-op sale and now I have time to get ready, but it means skipping the relief sale.

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The poor husband had his hands full dealing with mice while I was gone. We have always had a low-level mouse infestation in the chicken coop because the feed is out there. (The bags of feed and scratch grains were in garbage cans with lids, but the feeder is close to the floor.) The problem got bad enough this summer, though, that the husband booby-trapped the outside perimeter of the coop with mousetraps. They were constantly filling up, but our neighbor’s cat kept dragging off the full traps. We suspect there is a pile of mousetraps stacked up in the woods somewhere.

A few weeks ago, I went out to the coop with the husband one morning to check on something, and as soon as he turned on the light, many, many mice ran across the floor. A lot of mice. I’ve never seen that many mice in one place. The chickens, by the way, are happy to eat mice but they are lousy at catching them. They would prefer to have them served up by the farmer.

The husband rigged up a system to get the feeder off the floor at night and he put the bags of feed elsewhere. That solved the problem of mice in the coop, but then they began invading the house. I think he caught at least a dozen while I was gone. I haven’t seen any since I got back—although he caught one the other night after I went to bed—so he’s hoping that we’ve convinced them to go elsewhere.

All the rodents were bad in general this year. I don’t know where the coyotes were, but I hope they come back next season.

It’s raining today, so I am going to sew. I have a pile of new fabric waiting to be made into clothing. You’ll see it soon, either as yardage or completed garments.