The hat boxes

The hat boxes have needed cleaned out for a while. As is the way with storage boxes they had become more and more stuffed with stuff! The stuff wasn't hats. I use these boxes for some of my sewing and temari-making things. There is a fourth, the smallest one, which is upstairs with boxes of fabric scraps. As it happens, only the middle two sized ones got a clear out today because during a break in the very heavy rain showers, I went out to do a spot of hedge hacking.

fuchsia & rhododendron ponticum 'trimmings'

The first box I tackled contained, among other things, bits of elastic and curtain tape, old, clean wool socks that provide temari filling, and the badge off Toadlet's first school sweatshirt. When DerbyshireDaughter and DivingDaughter were at that school there was no uniform. Nobody batted an eyelid when DerbyshireDaughter went to school one summer day wearing a teeshirt of mine as a dress. Toadlet only went to the nursery class there and the reception class and then we moved up to Scotland. She remembers the deep maroon uniform colour as brown and she hated it.

old socks

I've made enough room in that box for my jar of thread bits. When I'm making temari I drop all the thread ends into a jar and it makes a pleasing muddle of colourful strands. Every now and then I have a rummage through it for a particular colour that I've run out of and need a short length of.

I like the almost nest effect

The jar with a small temari and a couple more below. Check out temarikai.com for history and more info.

So! Back to the hat boxes! The next guddle stuffed into one of them was leftover embroidery wools (loosely called tapestry wools). I think I can find a use for these at Oasis. I can wind them into small balls for M3 who likes to change the colour she is knitting frequently.

Next, all the needles came out. I have quite a collection (there are more upstairs) because I inherited some from an aunt. The packet in the bottom left corner of this pic has the price 9d on it, so its vintage is pre-1971. I have not identified the use of some of her 'needles'. Does anyone recognise the two below and know what they are for?

They were in the packet shown but I don't think  that was their original packet. I've now slotted them onto the same card as some other varied purpose needles.

The other two hat boxes will have to be tackled another time.






Meanwhile the woodshed rose, Albertine, which I can now smell if I stick my nose right into a bloom, is thriving as usual.

In the garden 23 June 2016

The woodshed rose (Rosa Albertine, I think) and this year's first amanita mushroom that I kicked over by mistake while weeding the north-west birch bank. Not surprisingly, it's an amanita associated with birch: Ringless Birch Amanita.








Dog roses in the hedge at the bottom.



The progress of the Southern Marsh Orchid, and Reflexed Stonecrop on the drystone wall that hasn't, yet, been eaten by deer.

One day to the summer solstice...

...and the woodshed rose is doing its stuff,


foxglove season is fully with us, and honeysuckle is taking off

honeysuckle and young birch growing together

It is perhaps not surprising that this rhododendron Toad planted "up top" a good number of years ago has never flowered. It is still suffering deer depredations. Hey ho. We think it will have red flowers when it has outgrown deer chompings.


Meanwhile, the splendour of ponticum, such as it is in its non-Tennysonian way, falls. Also that of fuchsia.


I love the word music of Tennyson's poem and I always think of that first line, minus the castle walls, when spring and summer flowers begin to 'go over'.

The splendour falls on castle walls

            And snowy summits old in story:

       The long light shakes across the lakes,

            And the wild cataract leaps in glory.

Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying,

Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.

        O hark, O hear! how thin and clear,

            And thinner, clearer, farther going!

        O sweet and far from cliff and scar

            The horns of Elfland faintly blowing!

Blow, let us hear the purple glens replying:

Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.

        O love, they die in yon rich sky,

            They faint on hill or field or river:

        Our echoes roll from soul to soul,

            And grow for ever and for ever.

Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying,

And answer, echoes, answer, dying, dying, dying.

Boggybrae being a little behind the rest of the world, Mouse-ear, Greater Bird's-foot Trefoil, and Lesser Stitchwort are just beginning. Have an African daisy while you're at it. These, like Ox-eye daisies, are doing less well than they were.




The chives are lovely right now. Bees love them. The leaves are always useful as garnish on food or just chopped and chucked into whatever dish one's making. Recently I thought of floating some of the flowers, which are also edible (quite strong flavoured so go easy!) on some soup I made (recipe at the end). Pale Escallonia, some cuttings of which I gave to a friend earlier in the year, is opening its flowers now.



In other news, Toadlet is at a sleepover with a pal. This pal, who is a singer and wants to get into the Korean Pop Culture scene might be moving to Korea this summer. Toadlet could not let her go that far away never having watched the Harry Potter movies so they arranged a Hogwart's movie marathon.

Here is the recipe for mushroom, tuna and sweetcorn soup. There are loads of recipes for mushroom and tuna pasta sauces so it was bound to work.

Ingredients:
home-made chicken stock (approx 300ml)
chopped onion (approx a third of a big one; I was chopping one for something else and chucked a handful in the soup pan)
crushed clove of garlic (I love splatting garlic with a broad bladed knife and a whack with my hand)
chopped mushrooms (100g or so)
small tin white tuna in brine, drained

Boil these up, cool a little and whizz in a blender. Then add

small tin of sweetcorn kernels in water (drained)

Serve with your garnishings of choice. All or some of these work: dash of cream, chopped parsley, chopped chive leaves, chive flowers.

Some pinks, some blues & a titanium spork

The woodshed rose has begun to flower and the little pink garden geraniums have done very well this year so I put some in a vase with some alkanet.

Right at the back door was a stalk of Tufted Forget-me-not (Myosotis caespitosa). I checked some details on this little YouTube video. BotanyBill, whose video it is, seems to call it Myosotis laxa and there is also a Myosotis laxa subsp. caespitosa. Result: confusion on the Boggy Brae! I think I'll just stick with Tufted or Small-flowered Forget-me-not.

Meanwhile, in other news, I discovered recently that one shouldn't use a LightMyFire titanium spork on Royal Evesham porcelain. It leaves marks that don't wash off. I realise not many people take Royal Evesham porcelain on hikes and camping trips! We have three sporks from cub scouting days and we still use them at home a fair bit. The other two, being plastic, are suitable for use with your best china!