Friday Cozies – Week 32 of 2020

Fridays are for getting cozy around here! One of my 2020 goals was to take more pictures and to use them on my blog. In an effort to revel in daily life (trademarked by Kat), I’ve been sharing those photos on Fridays. This week was full of outside life – picking berries, finding caterpillars, and harvesting from the garden. So come on in and read more!

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When I woke up this morning it was 53 degrees with no humidity. After a super humid and hot July, this was welcome weather! I’m wearing my freshly knitted Mariechen Cardigan right now – just a little glimpse of what’s to come in the next couple months! But for now, we can revel in all of the summer weather activities.

Last Friday we went blueberry picking at our local farm. We picked three quarts and brought home some farm baked sourdough bread, hothouse tomatoes, and sweet corn (not pictured). It was a day for feasting! It reminded me that it’s time to start reviving my sourdough starter so that I can practice baking again in the fall. But since visiting the farm late last week, we were able to start picking our own tomatoes! I’ve been having tomato sandwiches for breakfast, lunch, and dinner and am one happy hobbit. Finally, all that garden work is paying off! (Yes, I do it all for the tomatoes.)

We went back to the farm yesterday to pick raspberries, but the season is over. Instead, we spent some time walking through the apple trees (the picking season is so close!) and rolling down the hill (the video above). I also bought some more sourdough bread, which is already almost gone. That really lit the fire under me to get my sourdough started, so when we got home I got to work on it. I hope I’ll be able to share a bubbly starter with you by next Friday!

Hurricane Isaias blew through here on Tuesday. We didn’t get much rain but we did get a lot of wind. We were lucky – our power only blinked but Bug’s bus driver and monitor both said they lost power the whole night. We lost our beans – a big tree branch fell right on top of our bean poles. Could have been way worse, right?

Last Saturday we spotted our first monarch caterpillar of the year in the garden, so Bear and I clipped off its sprig of milkweed, placed it in a ball jar with a coffee filter for a lid, and have been watching it. When we checked on it on Monday night, it had transformed into a chrysalis! This is in Bear’s room so that we can keep a close eye on it. On Wednesday I think I found a milkweed leave with several monarch caterpillar eggs on it, so I’ve clipped that and am waiting to see if they’re going to hatch. This is definitely an exciting part of the season! (And you better believe that I’ll have a full Phenology Wheel in August!)

It’s been a quiet week for my learning at home goals and that’s okay. It is summer, after all. I think it will be easier to pile around the dining room table when the weather is a bit cooler and there aren’t so many tempting things outside. Besides, there’s plenty of biology happening all around us!

I’m so looking forward to tonight: I plan to curl up on the couch with a cup of tea, knit on my Spark Cardigan (second sleeve is almost done!), and watch at least two episodes of the second season of Home Fires. Sarah introduced me to the book the series is based on, and I’m looking forward to ordering that once I finish the show!

How about you? How was your week? And how do you plan to spend your Friday night? I’m not planning to publish any posts this weekend, so I hope I’ll see you again on Monday morning when I’ll be sharing a peek inside my Hobonichi Weeks. I’d love it if you joined me and shared a post about your own notebook(s) and how they’ve been helping you throughout the craziness of 2020!