Really Boring Dishcloth & Pair of Socks

Knitter's still life:



I found I still had a ball of actual "dishcloth cotton" in my stash, a weight I prefer not to use, so I thought I would quick knit it up to get rid of it. I'm almost done.

I am still plodding away on these socks, a couple of rows at a time.

I printed out the directions for the third "Sampler M" pattern. There should be a "join" button in the sidebar, if I changed the template correctly. Maybe I'll get a chance to try this pattern later today!

Here is my favorite of the things I did yesterday. We have lots of berries growing wild on our property: tiny wild strawberries, black raspberries (the kind that pull off of a center), red raspberries, and blackberries (the kind where the center stays in when you pick them).

I like to eat black raspberries fresh. The blackberries I prefer canned. So we went out last night -- only 80 degrees! Cool! And I picked until my son was tired of being out there. Then I canned a couple of pints, and put a little over half a pint in the fridge for the next round.

Last year our property apparently caught some spray drift from one of the neighboring fields. My favorite patch of red raspberries was almost completely killed, except for a couple of canes protected by taller trees. All of the blackberry brambles "old wood" -- the canes that would have blossomed and borne fruit last summer -- died.

But it is hard as heck to kill a blackberry bramble. Our first dog was a treeing Walker coon hound whose joy in life was to dig out ground hogs. One of his holes went three feet deep into the ground in the middle of a blackberry patch. The roots went that far down, and probably further. That's how blackberries survive steaming hot droughty summers.

So last year they made new wood anyhow, spray or no spray, and this year that wood bloomed like crazy. All I have to do is brave the bramble scratches, and I'll be eating blackberry pie in mid-winter.