Onion Skin Dye

Last week I continued experimenting with natural dyes, this time using onion skins.

I used regular yellow onion skins that I had collected over time.  The natural coloured  wool was pre-mordanted, as usual, in cream of tartar and alum.  I was surprised by the colour.   I expected something  more yellow rather than this brown/gold colour.    These onions came from my uncle’s garden.  Somewhere along the line, without ever discussing it,  my uncle and I  have reached an agreement where he provides me with his onions, which are particularly sweet, and I provide him with maple syrup.   It works for us.

I think the next dye experiment will be with wild grape leaves  because the vines are growing like crazy  and interfering with the clothes line.  Not that the clothes line is much use right now with all the rain. Oh well.

 

Canada Day 2009

Yesterday we went for a bike ride to a small pioneer cemetary that is about two or three kilometers from where we live:

 

It seemed fitting to stop off at this cemetary on Canada Day.  Two families came from Scotland and settled here in the 1830’s. There are only about a dozen graves, the oldest is from the late 1800’s and the most recent dates in the 1960’s.  At the risk of sounding morbid, and I don’t think I am, I find old cemetaries fascinating.   First of all, there are trends in tombstones.  There was a period when all the tombstones seemed to have weeping willows on them, then that  trend died out ( of course the pun was intended) and  the weeping willow was replaced by another motif.   You just never see weeping willows on tombstones anymore.  References to lambs have always been popular on the graves of children.  I have seen many tombstones that say ‘the wife of so and so’ but have yet to see one that says ‘the husband of so and so’. Since families didn’t seem to move around very much,  several generations of  a family are often  buried in the same graveyard.  Lots of time can be spent speculating on whether this person was the son of that person,  etc.    Occasionally, by looking at the dates of death,  you can find  hints of other things that were going on.  Sometimes you will  find a tombstone saying several people from the same family died in the same year.   An illness?  A fire?  So really , hours of entertainment can be found at an old cemetary.  I’ve noticed plenty of pioneer cemetary signs on the  backroads around here and I think I might stop and take a look at some of them.  Anyway, enough about that.  After paying our respects to the pioneers we went into town, had a picnic and stared at the brilliant blue sky:

Eventually night came,  as is it’s habit,  and the sparklers came out:

No eyes were injured.

And, finally, the fireworks:

Happy Canada Day

 

Tomatoes

I now have blossoms on my tomatoes.  I have no idea if  they are early or late for the season but I do know they are good:

It is very gratifying to watch the plants gradually develop.  Only a few months ago this plant was just a seed that I put in some soil and now it is beginning to form fruit.  It just doesn’t seem possible but the proof is right there in the garden.  Of course , it’s still early and  a lot can go wrong.  Some animals got into the garden and ate the tops off three of the plants but I don’t think any permanent damage was done.  I have since built a fence. Incidentally, I read the other day that tomato plants make a good  natural dye so I have that to look forward to.

 

Test Garden

This year the experiment garden is all about tomatoes.

 I  have never had much luck growing tomatoes which I blame on the fact that they do not thrive on neglect.  However, this year I planted six tomato plants in my special little plot and will devote to them the attention they deserve.  Or so I say now.  The purpose of this experiment is to find out how much fruit, measured by weight, these plants will produce.   All six plants are heritage tomatoes that I started from seed.  There are three Livingston Perfection, one Moscow, one Urbanite and one Howard German.  They got off to a late start due to the cold, wet spring but I think they will come ahead just fine.  The first task is to build a fence to keep  unwlecome animals out.

 

Black Bean Dye

I’m back to dying wool this time using black beans.  The beauty of this method is that nothing is wasted.  I began by  soaking the beans overnight as if I were  to cook them. The next morning I drained the beans but  instead of throwing out the water they were soaked in,  I used it for a dye bath.  Since the wool and the beans never came in contact , the beans could  be cooked for eating.  I used my usual natural coloured Briggs and Little wool pre-mordanted in cream of tartar and alum.  I brought the dye bath to a simmer, added the wool and let it simmer for about one hour, then let it soak overnight. The result is a beautiful shade of blue:

I was very surprised by the colour since it is quite a departure from the  greens and yellows I usually get.  It doesn’t quite  have the vibrancy of a commercial dye but  if  I wanted a commercial dye I would use one.  The only problem with this dye method is that I am  left with a lot of perfectly edible black beans.  A lot of them.  Since I wanted a strong dye bath I used about a pound  of dried beans.  Throwing them out seemed an incredible waste so I dug out some cookbooks that I thought would have some recipes:

By my calculations, which I have never had reason to doubt,  I think I can make every recipe in these books. I hope they freeze well!

 

Robins and Kittens

Late last week the robins flew away with no one to witness them go. The nest just sits there empty.  The whole thing has left me feeling strangely bereft which does not  bode well for the future when I will do this again with little humans flying from our nest.  We have seen some small robins hopping around the yard and  I like to think they are from the nest but it’s hard to tell since all robins  look alike.  So, now we will turn our attention to insanely cute kittens:

 

Odd Sighting

I have heard of shotguns in the back of pick-ups but this is ridiculous:

 

Bird Sightings

The robins hatched around May 15 and are getting ready to leave the nest:

There are two birds in the nest and the mother robin flies back and forth all day bringing them food.  I noticed while trying to take pictures of the babies that the mother  has a very distinctive call that makes the babies immediately crouch down in the nest. 

  Other bird sightings include these six ominous vultures on top of a barn:

Recently we went on a bike ride on a local trail.  Since the weather was perfect I expected the trail to be quite crowded  but we were the only bicyclists and these were the only pedestrians we saw for many kilometers:

We also saw this family of geese:

 

Robin’s Nest

Every year for the nine years we have lived here robins have  built a nest on our front porch.  This is not a particularly good place to set up housekeeping since there is an astonishing amount of human foot traffic on the porch.  Most years the robin gives up on the nest pretty early in the game and, I hope, builds  a nest in a more secluded area.  This year the robin decided to stick it out:

This robin can frequently be found sitting on her nest.   She flies to a nearby tree when she is disturbed which is quite often since we keep forgetting she is there.  This spot must have some very desireable feature that is obvious to robins because a nest is built here every year in this exact spot. But only one other time has the robin stayed in the nest until her eggs have hatched.  We were particularly  fortunate that year  because we happened to be leaving the house to catch the school bus just as the baby birds were taking their first flight.  Needless to say we stayed to watch, missed the bus and had to drive to school but it was well worth the inconvenience. Sometimes you just have to rearrange your priorities .  I’m hoping we’ll be so lucky this year.

 

New Additions

It seems that  I know many people who believe that to get the things you want you have to send the thought out into the universe and you will be rewarded.  I am very skeptical.   However, when we decided that we would like to adopt a mixed breed puppy I thought that sitting on the couch thinking about puppies would be a lot easier, physically and psychologically,  than going to the local shelter and  choosing only one or two  dogs.  So I thought very hard about the puppy we wanted.  Although I often appeared to be sitting on the couch drinking tea and staring into space, I was really very busy sending thoughts out  into the universe.  It was hard work and it took hours but eventually  I was rewarded with these: 

I know.  They are kittens.  I seem to be having a communication problem with the universe.

This is Frey:

Frey  was originally named Freya after the Norse goddess associated with cats but the vet told us that our ability to determine the sex of kittens was somewhat limited.  Fortunately Freya had a twin brother named Frey.

This is Fezziwig:

Fezziwig is named after one of my favourite characters in literature. 

If you need me I’ll be on the couch looking like I’m staring into space.