A Million Butternut Squash

I rely on Michael Snyder’s Pacific Northwest Weather Watch channel on YouTube for an accurate weather forecast, and he’s been talking for a week about the impending storm train coming in off the Pacific. We had a lovely day yesterday with sun and temps in the mid-70s. Today is supposed to be slightly cooler, followed by a week of temps in the 50s and rain. (Still no frost in the forecast, though.) I want everything brought in from the garden—either stored in the house or, temporarily, in the greenhouse. I cleaned off the two Honeycrisp trees yesterday afternoon.

[A neighbor up the road caught a grizzly bear on his game cam the other night. I saw the pictures. So did one of the bear biologists at FWP, apparently, who estimated its size at over 1000 pounds. 😳]

After getting the apples in, I went out to the garden to deal with the butternut squash. I worry that if I leave them out in the garden, they will rot in the rain. I put in two butternut squash plants last summer and none of the squash ripened before frost. This year, I hedged my bets and put in five plants. And this is what happened:

I didn’t count, but I would guesstimate that there are about 60 butternut squash there. And another 20 or so are still out in the garden and have to come in today.

These are all up for grabs, local peeps. There are personal-size squash, family-size squash, and everything in between. I even told the UPS guy to stop and get some the next time he drives past the greenhouse on the way to the neighbor’s. Whatever is left next week probably will be taken to the food bank.

The load of pig manure that was spread out over that section of the garden last spring no doubt contributed to the bounty.

Our tray of lettuce in the greenhouse is pretty well spent. I need to start up the indoor system again soon.

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I had a great visit with my naturopath yesterday. He said my bloodwork was perfect and that I am one of the healthiest people he knows. Considering that I was a hot mess, health wise, when I first saw him 15 or 16 years ago, that is a big deal.

And I had a wonderful e-mail waiting for me when I got home—my class proposals for Sew Expo 2024 were accepted! The class coordinator sent me a lovely note and said she was excited to see my proposals. We are working on scheduling. I don’t want to give specifics about the classes other than to say they are three knitting classes geared toward knitters who want to increase their repertoire of skills. The dates for next year’s Expo are February 29 to March 4.

I am trying to find a pants pattern for the class in Spokane in November. This is proving tougher than I expected. I could teach the Jalie Renee pants, but I don’t think that that style—skinny legs—is going to appeal to some of the women I know want to take the class. I had a request for pants without an elasticized waist, or with elastic that doesn’t bunch. The Renee pants are like that. They have elastic, but it’s smooth and hidden inside the waistband. What I need is a pattern like the Renee pants on top, but with wider legs. I could hack the Renee pattern to have wider legs. StyleArc has a number of really nice pants patterns, but they split their sizing such that if someone has to grade between two specific sizes, where the pattern breaks, they’d have to buy two patterns. And should I do knit pants or stretch wovens? Questions.

Arrggghhh. I’m still thinking about this. I need to get cracking, though, in case I need to make a new class sample. Lots to do this week. The fourth podcast episode will be up later this morning.