Gratulerer med dagen!


I'd love to be in Norway today. Actually, I was planning to be, but didn't plan enough and it seemed rushed and last minute, so decided to try for July instead. Today is Norway's National Day. Last year, Norway's Prime Minister, Kjell Magne Bondevik, wrote a short article explaining the significance of syttende mai. I'll refer you to that, since I can't do a better job.

Asparagus Hunting

Have you ever gone asparagus hunting? Asparagus grows wild where I live, but somehow I never quite "got" how to spot it before. I needed to see it growing to know what it looked like. It's a little late in the season, mostly because other people have already harvested most of it, but it is also starting to go to seed now. Anyway, it grows along fences and ditch banks, right along the roads. When you see people driving along slowly and they stop and someone jumps out of the car with a plastic grocery bag and a knife, you can bet that they are hunting asparagus. What you do is drive along and look for last year's growth, which doesn't look like much but gets 3 or 4 feet tall. It looks like this:


Go take a look at it, and you will see the new asparagus stalks growing around it:


Only the male stalks are eaten - the female stalks produce the seeds for next year. What I found is just the few stalks that someone else left when they harvested, so that it can keep growing for future years, so I didn't pick it. There was some directly across the street from my house. This picture was taken just around the corner. Yesterday I found some more that was shooting up tall and starting to go to seed, also just up the street.

When I actually get time to go out walking, not only do I discover neat stuff like this, but I also get well over 10,000 steps on my pedometer those days. I decided that jumping rope is not cheating. It is much harder work, and really doesn't put steps on that much faster. The pedometer gives no credit at all for yoga or sit-ups.

Apron

I finished with the skirt on Saturday, took a picture, but still haven't gotten it uploaded. Now I am working on the back ties, which is all that is left. I already did the bib, neck ties, buttonhole, sewed the button on, and worked in loose ends (not many since I work them in as I go). Tomorrow or later tonight I'll finish, take another picture, and post the pictures. I'm happy with how this is turning out, although if you want to do this pattern, be advised that there are some errors (omissions actually). If you have a little bit of common sense and look at the picture, you won't have any trouble figuring it out. The biggest one was that the pattern did not say anything about working in seed stitch at the top of the bib before making the neck ties.