Osborn Fiber Studio

Moving into a new house, one is filled with high hopes. Future housemate and I have grand plans for turning this arid wasteland:

Into 50% vegetable garden, 3% compost heap, 5% clothesline, and 42% bonfire area. We need to get a move on, because our front porch full of “seedlings” have turned into a barely contained container garden.

I am dying for these little dudes to get a little bigger so I can clip them off, fry them up, and serve them in tortillas, just like I had in Mexico. According to the Internet, these are “male” blossoms, and thus their harvest will not diminish the number of squash we get to devour later.

Yardwork is intimidating. Mom always told me that when you get married, don’t move into a house – move into an apartment. Houses are difficult. I suddenly understand. It doesn’t help that, during these dog days of summer, if we want to avoid heatstroke, all yardwork has to be done before the hours that we want to be awake. We still haven’t attacked this monster:

And let me tell you, spending last week with poison ivy on my face does not make me any more eager to attack the family of bigfoot poison sumac.

But most of the tasks we have to look forward to are pleasant: once the side bed is cleared out, the wildflowers acquired on sale last week will have a home as well:

Some gardening is done for us. There’s at least one bona fide dye plant growing by the driveway:

Along with some nice ivy keeping the kudzu on the back fence company.

Michelle’s mamaponcho continues to grow. That ungainly oriface in the front is hypothetically for Ella’s head; it should look much nicer with its soft little alpaca collar. I expected to be done with the body by now, but I made a few miscalculations that would have made Michelle hand this poncho down to a hippo. Not what we want. So there was a bit of ripping last night, and now I’m ready for the front and back kerchief flaps. I should start trying it on with a pillow under my shirt to see if it will fit.