My Travelogue, Part Three

Jeepers! This is taking quite awhile, isn’t it? Of course there was Canadian Thanksgiving this weekend. We had a lovely family dinner at the bro’s. MMMMM…I lurve turkey. Now I’m wishing I had one for myself. (I think we’re volunteering for Solstice/Christmas this year though so I’ll still get my chance.) My daughter-in-law made her famous pumpkin pie and we also had commercial cakes and a delish chocolate/graham cracker square from Nana so lots of desserts! I had some of each. Of course.

I am Giving Thanks this year for my lovely warm supportive family and for my recovered skin, particularly my hands and feet. What better could one ask for?

Right! Back to the vaycay. We were heading up the Oregon coast for the last half of our 3 weeks and we managed to travel every inch of it. Our first night was at Harris Beach, just north of Brookings:

It’s a very photo-friendly beach judging by the number of pics I’ve taken over the years! There’s a steep hill down from the campground to the water so we decided to take our bikes. It was here that we discovered that T-Man’s BionX computer had leaked under the plastic bezel in all the rain and was swimming in water. Not a good idea to turn it on! So he had to ride like an ordinary bike until we could get it dried out. He carefully took it apart (we fortunately have a fairly comprehensive toolkit in the van) and dumped out what water he could and then put it open to dry. It spent some time on the windowsill in the sun and some time in front of the heater’s fan. Took more than a day but it finally dried out enough to work again. Yay! It got a circling of electrician’s tape for the rest of the trip and a plastic bag over top while we drove. Mine was just fine, thank goodness.

Next we were going to stay at cute little Humbug Mountain but the state campground was closed for renovations. It was quite foggy especially in the mornings so we bypassed Cape Blanco, the most westward part of the coast, because we were sure it would be socked in with rain and fog. We continued on to Bandon instead and camped at Bullard’s Beach were we found this little guy:

and a bunch of his relatives hiding under the plug-ins by the light to keep warm. We were happy to have the plug too, though the second day we were there had better weather.

This state park has quite a hike to the beach over the dunes and another 2 miles along it to the Coquille River lighthouse on the North Jetty, across the river from Bandon. Our bikes came in very handy for the trip and we finally got a chance to go up into the lighthouse:

It was hard to see out the windows because they were so etched by the salt and wind and therefore need replacing every few years. You can see why, when we hiked out near the end of the North Jetty:

The waves were high and though the sun was shining there was still some fog around. We didn’t go much further than this.

We did go into Bandon, but we drove because the bridge was under repair and there was only one lane open at a time. We looked around Old Town, bought a huge lunch of fish & chips (delish) and fudge (also delish but we didn’t eat it until later) and hiked up the hill to The Wool Company, where I only bought a Spin-Off. Such self-control. The hike helped to wear off some of the lunch though! We never even ate a proper dinner that evening because we were still stuffed. (US restaurant portions can be a bit overwhelming at times. No wonder there’s an obesity problem. Yeah, I know we didn’t have to eat it all. We didn’t.)

After our fun time at Bandon we moved on to one of our favourite places, Carl Washburne State Park. Unfortunately the weather pooped out on us again. This part of the coast is quite damp especially judging by the moss covering everything in the forest with a thick layer. We managed to get a good walk in the first day despite the intermittent sprinkles but the second day we spent pretty much confined to barracks in the van. We both read a whole book each! It was still foggy when we left but the sun was peeking out a bit:

This time we headed to Newport’s South Beach.

The park has great paved bicycle trails which we made full use of. We parked the bikes and hiked out on the South Jetty, which was hard because it’s just a jumble of rocks, not paved, so we didn’t go too far. We spent lots of time watching a bunch of sea lions feeding and playing in the surf between the jetties. And we saw pelicans and cormorants:

Then we decided to carry on to the Oregon Coast Aquarium, which handily was on our side of the river and not far on our bikes. We started with a yummy lunch outdoors and then checked out the exhibits.

Don’t you love the colours of these ochre stars and anemones? I was sorry that part of this pool (with a realistic tide wave action) was in the shade so I couldn’t capture them better. We also went through the shark tunnel (sharks overhead!) and saw sea birds like tufted puffins and auklets up close and underwater. I also totally love the jellies:

These big ones are especially pretty, Pacific sea nettles, but they can sting. (Apply vinegar to neutralise!) They like to swim upside-down a lot. I didn’t get a good photo of the moon jellies since they weren’t lit well and are nearly transparent. This time they didn’t have my favourite egg-yolk jelly which we once saw when we had our sailboat. It was huge and had tentacles much longer than our boat! It’s a much smaller place than our Vancouver aquarium but it’s pretty fun.

OK, I have to go so the last (hopefully!) part will have to wait. It’s nice out again and I must go dig in the garden. More anon.

My Travelogue, Part Two

I went and left you hanging at about the 1/3 point in our vacation, didn’t I? Sorry about that. I’ve been caught up in getting back to what passes for normal around here. Nearly 6 hours in the garden didn’t get me very far and there’s lots more to do still when the weather clears up. Had a lovely time with my Spectrum Study Group where we planned the next few months worth of meetings and I finished a Super-Secret Project or two. So, back to south-central Oregon and heading towards Crater Lake.

The weather remained dreary as we headed south and a little west toward the “back door” to Crater Lake. The roads we travelled are closed in winter and spring which could be very soon in these parts. They apparently get ridiculous amounts of snow and only plough the main road up to the rim. After that you’re on skis or snowshoes until summer! Luckily for us it only snowed a tiny bit but T-Man had to drive very carefully along the rim road with sheer drop-offs often on both sides. There was no lake! Just a humungous bowl-full of fog.

After driving nearly halfway around the rim we had to drive down the twisty mountain road to the campground where we were lucky to get one of the last electrical sites. It was hailing on us by then and we were very glad for our little heater. I still thought the lake was just a myth! The next morning broke sunny and a whole lot warmer so we drove back up and spent all day going all the way around the rim road with a few extra side trips. There really was a lake there:

It was formed when 12,000 ft. Mt. Mazama blew up 7,700 years ago with a force many times that of Mt. St. Helens, leaving a crater that eventually filled up with water. It has the most gorgeous colours in every shade of indigo due to its clarity. There’s only one trail down to the water: 1.1 miles of steep zigzag where you can get a boat tour of the lake. We were proud that we did the hike just so we could say we touched the water! I think this much-too-friendly guy was trying to help T take his photos:

Golden-mantled ground squirrels look a lot like big chipmunks and obviously somebody has been feeding this cheeky one against park rules. Crater Lake is something like 6,000 ft. above our usual sea level so we were pretty happy when we finally made the arduous trek back up to the rim:

Amazingly there were an awful lot of folks heading down the trail who looked like it was going to be a difficult hike back for them. They do warn you that you should be reasonably fit but they also have a defibrillator in the storage locker at the bottom! And a washroom as well as an emergency phone. People always think they are in much better shape than they really are. Even we spent a lot of time resting while huffing and puffing before we made it. All hot and sweaty but pretty pleased with ourselves.

There are several underwater volcanic cones in the lake but this one:

Wizard Island is the biggest and unlike the rest, is above the surface. There’s one more island:

called the Phantom Ship that is the remains of an even older volcano than the caldera it’s sitting in. We also took a side trip from the rim road and visited the Pinnacles:

These fantastic rock formations were situated along a deep river canyon and are the remains of fossilised fumaroles, hollow volcanic heat vents, that were uncovered by the scouring action of the river. Really cool-looking, huh?

So after the Grand Crater Lake Tour we left the next morning for another of Oregon’s famous geological features: the Oregon Caves. You hang a left at a little town called Cave Junction and drive a narrow twisty road through the farms and up into the mountains. The little campground we stayed at was empty apart from one more camper who came in after dark. Before then though we drove up the rest of the twisty steep road to the cave entrance. We found a cute little chateau there as well as the welcome centre, all sided in cedar bark. Luckily we were just in time to join the next tour of the caves so we jumped right in. It’s a 90-minute half-mile hike with over 500 stairs inside the marble caves:

   

I didn’t get any great photos really so I borrowed these ones from T. I’m really impressed with myself – that’s the second tour we’ve been in (including Lewis & Clark Caverns last year) and I haven’t had even a twinge of my underground-phobia. Maybe it’s the fact that it’s all tamed by tunnels and stairs and there’s a guide who keeps you hopping and entertained. We also saw a cute little cave bat hanging from the ceiling. I love bats. No pics because we didn’t want to disturb it anymore than we already had.

After our adventures in the caves and with a whole new vocabulary (stalactites, stalagmites, columns, flows, curtains and moon milk – oh my!) we had to get over to the coast. However there is no direct route except through the corner of northern California. This took us back to Cave Junction, down through the redwoods, bypassed Crescent City and back up to the Oregon Coast for Day 11.

What we did and where we went from there is unfortunately going to have to wait for the next instalment! This is getting pretty long again. We have our Thanksgiving Dinner tomorrow night at T-Man’s brother’s with a large contingent of family – minus The Ninja who left yesterday for Japan and classes with the ninjutsu masters. More anon.

My Travelogue, Part One

I promised to tell you of our three weeks’ adventures so while I’m waiting for it to warm up enough to go play in the garden, here ya go.

It feels like a long time ago now when we packed up our little old VW Westphalia and headed south. The border was relatively painless this time, even though they’re still working on the US part of the Pacific (Peace Arch) crossing. We hung a left at Burlington (after stopping for groceries) to head east through the North Cascades. This was the first time we’d been this way though it’s nearly directly south of our familiar Manning Park. The scenery was lovely: deeply forested mountains and sparkling rivers that had been dammed in some places for hydro power which created attractive lakes. There were several national park campgrounds and we stayed at two different ones. This is the view of Diablo Lake from the top of Thunder Knob:

The weather stayed sunny and quite warm, which was a good thing since T-Man had forgotten to pack my warm jacket and extra fleece! I had left them hanging in the closet with the raingear which he delicately extracted without taking the rest of my carefully sorted pile. I was pretty upset because I knew it was going to be cold enough to need something more than the fleece vest I had on. And I hate shopping, particularly since we weren’t going through any larger towns for at least a week. Things worked out ok though because on the third day we stopped in the cute little pioneer-themed town of Winthrop with it’s wooden sidewalks. For a miracle, this shop…

…had a great selection of good quality sports clothes whereupon I had a wonderful time ignoring the price tags and just trying things on. I ended up with a green hoodie silkscreened with a subtle tree pattern, with lots of useful pockets and a heavy fleecy lining. Attractive and warm! Plus a gray fleecy vest with toggle buttons as a second layer for over top. And lastly, because I had also forgotten my sunhat, I got one of those packable/squishable wide-brimmed hats with a chin strap in brown. Now I was set! Even though it cost poor T nearly $200 for his boo-boo. <snicker!> It was a good thing too because we never did find another shop anywhere with such a perfect selection and I ended up wearing the hoodie at some time nearly every day.

After that we started heading south through Washington with a stop at the tourist town of Leavenworth:

It’s the silliest bit of fake-Bavaria anywhere! Oompa music, gingerbreading, dirndl skirts, lederhosen and all. Even the Safeway sign is in blackletter. You can see why it was full of elderly tourists. We didn’t stay long and opted to buy apples at a fruit stand instead. We passed miles of apple and pear orchards in the area.

Another day later and we were heading through the rolling fields of cows and wind generators and over the Columbia River into Oregon. The central part of this state is famous for grass and there was definitely a lot of haying going on for miles and miles. Past Bend we visited a volcanic red cinder cone, driving around and around the coiled road up to the top:

Here we’re on the trail around the crater looking directly across it at the fire station on the highest spot. Unfortunately we couldn’t climb up in the tower because the warden was working on active fire duty. Looking the other way we could see where the lava flows had spread leaving patches of forest untouched. This was the first of what was going to be the volcanic theme of the middle part of our vacation. We wanted to see the Lava River Cave too but unfortunately highway crews had blocked off the access to it.

So we decided to go off my original itinerary to camp in another part of the same volcanic area: Newberry crater. The caldera holds 2 lakes and a lot of other features such as cones and obsidian flows but most of it is covered in forest so it’s not very visible. The weather had also turned on us but I managed to get a photo of the volcanic cone next to Paulina Lake:

This was taken from our campsite right beside the lake which was really pretty…except for the crappy weather. Just after I got this picture it started to rain and blow gusts of wind. We ended up sitting in the van for a whole day unable to go anywhere without getting soaked. We unfortunately left our awning out which turned out to be a big mistake. In the early morning we were surprised by a truly strong gust of wind that picked up the awning, smacked it up and around and broke and bent all of the aluminum struts. It sounded like an explosion and we both shot up out of bed in a panic! Nothing like trying to assess the damage and take off the awning so it would stop flapping around in the wind and rain and pitch dark. We just dumped it on the ground and went back to bed, pondering what we were going to do with it and how we were going to manage the rest of our trip without it. Not only does it shade the side of the van and occasionally a picnic table if we can get close enough, but it allows us to open the window and the sliding door in the rain without getting the inside wet. It also allows us to take off our wet gear outside and gives us a place to hang things up to dry. It’s a very useful addition to our camping gear and we weren’t even sure if we could manage to get it together enough to bring it with us just in case it could be salvaged.

The next morning it was still raining so in full raingear we hauled the awning over to a picnic table under the pines to assess. We were pretty shocked at how much damage there was just from one blast of wind. It turned out that one piece of broken aluminum had flown over the van and embedded itself deep in the ground between our campsite and the next one, over 5 metres away! Another piece was picked out from between our bikes where we had them on their rack on the back. Luckily the bikes weren’t damaged. But the rain gutters on the van where the awning attaches were bent and scratched quite badly. Every single aluminum strut was wrecked – even T’s umbrella that was hanging underneath was bent. And we still haven’t looked to see if the vinyl was torn. It wasn’t easy but we were able to hammer (using the back of the hatchet) the bent pieces enough to tie the thing back together with rope and screw it back onto the van for the rest of the trip. Now we need to see if “Franken-Awning” can be repaired or if we need to buy a new one. Kind of a holiday expense we hadn’t foreseen. Things could have been worse though. The van’s canvas top or a window could have been pierced. Amazing wind power that was!

We finally got it together and packed up camp. It was still raining and windy but we were determined to go climb up one of the obsidian flows before we left Newberry. It was fascinating:

This photo just shows the edge with more craters behind. Obsidian is black volcanic glass and creates edges sharper than a surgeon’s scalpel. It was very useful to the Native Americans for cutting tools but you have to be very careful hiking up the trail. Dogs are not allowed because it cuts their feet. There’s also chunks of pumice, bubbly stone that floats in water, and ash in this pile of volcanic debris. I don’t know – does this show it any better?

I had to capture the manmade rock pile on the trail. You have to admit there was no lack of raw material for it!

So this is getting pretty long. I’ll carry on with Part Two later. I’ve got lots of work to do today while it’s still nice and sunny outside. Rain is on the way again for the weekend (of course!) and I’m going to play with my Spectrum group tomorrow. I have to bring in my poor cactuses and haul a bunch of finished veggie plants out of the garden so I can plant fall rye in the bare beds. I’ve already picked the last of the tomatoes off the dying vines. There’s a few things left: scarlet runner beans, kale, tah tsai, and some greens. The dye garden probably has some colours left in it too, but that will have to wait until maybe next week. Lots to catch up on! More anon.

The Wanderers Return

Just a quick note to say we’re back, we had a great holiday and I’ll give you a tour of the highlights when I have more time. I was very lazy while we were away and barely booted up my little netbook computer long enough to download my photos. I still haven’t sorted everything out. Well, OK. Maybe not so lazy – we crossed the depth of Washington and Oregon and even a snippet of northern California and back. We also hiked a lot of trails and put over 65 kilometres on the bikes. We experienced every kind of weather though mostly it was fairly nice and relatively warm. The best news is the Itchy-Peelies continued to improve and my hands are just about back to normal. I can make things again! Yippee!

So the grandbeasties are due to come over shortly. Apparently they missed us as much as we missed them. Gotta go.

And yes, Crater Lake is really this blue:

Nearly Packed

Tomorrow is the big day! I’ve done my best Google-Fu and we have maps and directions. We’ll be heading through the North Cascades in WA state and then down to Leavenworth (cute little fake-Bavarian tourist town) and then all the way down to southern Oregon to Crater Lake and the Oregon Caves. After that it’s a short hop through the northwest tip of California and back up our beloved Oregon Coast before heading home. This will be 3 weeks of short hops between campgrounds with lots of hiking and relaxing – weather cooperating. Glad we aren’t leaving today however. It’s been pouring rain all day with no respite. Supposed to be nicer tomorrow. Perfect! Anyhow I’m packed for just about everything: shorts to longjohns, sleeveless t-shirts to raingear. I am not a minimalist. I might be camping but I like at least some creature comforts. Our poor van is going to burst at the seams!

T-Man has been having a great time with his woodturning buddies at the conference. He brought home an expensive tool that just looks like a fancy handle to me but he assures me he can use it to make spindles. I’ll believe it when I see it but I’m hoping it’s true! We both seem to be stocking up craft supplies for his retirement in a couple of years. Or sooner. You never know. Anyway, he says he’s learning lots of good things and I don’t mind delaying our departure for a couple of days. The cleaning and packing a lot of stuff by myself is a bit draining but it’s not like I haven’t done it many times before.

Unfortunately I’m very sad that I have to leave yummy produce in my garden to the kids or the compost, whichever comes first. We can’t take any of it across the US border. There are grapes nearly ripe! But not ripe enough to do anything with yet. I dehydrated a lot of the Juliet tomatoes though and they came out very good so I’ll remember that next time I have too many to deal with. About 1.5 ice-cream buckets worth (maybe 6 litres?) dried down to one small ziploc baggie. Amazing. And easy. And I made fresh pickles with a lot of the cucumbers. We’ve been eating a lot of our own produce since spring so I don’t feel too heartbroken – and there’s always next year.

This damselfly posed for me last weekend in Manning Park. There were lots of these pretty blue ones plus a couple of different varieties of their big cousins the dragonflies.

Even though I’m bringing my little netbook computer with me, chances are we won’t stop anywhere where there is free wi-fi so this is a fond farewell until after October 2!

One more sleep! Yippee!

September Woad Day & A Holiday

My! It’s been a week since I blogged last. I’ve been a busy damselfly! First it was Woad Day on Thursday with half of my Spectrum Study Group. The 4 of us picked my woad leaves, keeping the Chinese woad separate. We got about 2/3s the amount of Chinese woad than the regular kind. We could have picked more of the regular leaves but I didn’t want to exceed the size that my pot could handle. We used my usual recipe for both, adjusting the proportions to suit the smaller Chinese woad pot.

There was so much blue right away in the Chinese woad! It was amazing how strong it was. The colour was closer to indigo than regular woad usually achieves. Here’s a very pleased Masami hanging up her woad-dyed things alongside the others:

You can see how different all the blues are! My wool on the right is dyed in the Chinese woad. Some things also got hints of a purple which later oxidised to grayish. I believe that’s the indirubin colourant that is also in the woad along with indigo. It’s what gives it such unique shades. (As a side note, there is some evidence that this chemical is useful in cancer treatment, particularly for leukemia.) I hope to grow more Chinese indigo next year when I have a chance to start the plants earlier. We’ll see how well it overwinters because I’d like to get at least one plant to seed. Not at the same time as the regular woad though so they don’t cross-pollinate.

Because I’ve been feeling so much better, we were invited to go with T-Man’s brother and sis-in-law to share their campsite at Manning Park for the long weekend. I was so excited to go somewhere finally! Saturday was shirtsleeves warm and mostly sunny but Sunday and Monday were plagued with intermittent rain. It was so cold that at one point I had on 5 layers including 3 fleecies and my Gortex rain jacket. Not to mention 2 pairs of socks plus sweatpants with nylon/lycra capris underneath. And I was still freezing. We had lots of fun though, see?

We saw a pileated woodpecker (think Woody Woodpecker), cheeky Clark’s nutcrackers and whiskey jacks, a mule deer doe and her fawn, and a flock of very tame grouse. This is the only one who posed for me long enough to get a picture.

You can still see lots of beetle-killed lodgepole pines on the mountain slopes. But it’s still really scenic. We took several long hikes:

T and I were falling behind because we were nibbling on the thimbleberries and black huckleberries. Yum! The black currants were not so tasty – too seedy and sour.

On our way home on Monday, we stopped at Sumallo Grove in the midst of the huge cedars. There’s a circle trail where you can see the grove’s trees but we went further along the Skagit River trail to the Delacy wilderness campsite, about an 8 kilometre round trip. Just off the trail and right beside a lovely waterfall is an old mine site:

Don’t know if you can just see the “Danger” sign in there where someone has broken open the blocked entry. There’s also the remains of an old cabin and even more interestingly a truck:

It’s been there for so long that trees have grown up around and inside it! The engine and tires are still there though. I love the front grill:

We were prepared for the rain but we were all pretty soaked and muddy by the time we got back to our nearly-matching VW Westphalias for lunch. I was really happy that I was able to walk with only a bandaid or two on the worst cracks on my soles.

Which brings me to today. Time to go back to Dr Serious Dermatologist. Blech. I’m renaming him Dr Arrogant Dermatologist. No, I wasn’t able to convince him to even consider that I had something else besides psoriasis. I told him I started healing without all the meds and he said I was probably just sensitive or allergic to them. Well, yeah. Then I refused another corticosteroid (which I’ve already tried and it doesn’t work anyhow) but we decided to try one more last-ditch med: Protopic (aka tacrolimus). At least it’s not steroidal but is normally recommended for eczema when nothing else works. For psoriasis or PRP, it’s off-label. But as a “topical immunomodulator” it’s worth a try, pricey though it is. My portion of the cost of 2 small tubes is nearly $40! It had better do something useful, or I give up. Truly this is the last prescription med I will allow. The very final one. (Make a note and call me on it if I renege.) I will give it a month or at least until we come back from our holidays.

Yes! We are actually going away. Yippee!!! T has a woodturning conference starting on Friday until Sunday and we’ll hopefully be leaving for parts south sometime on Monday. I’m thrilled that I’m feeling better enough (and no stinkin’ black tar!) to go. It’s our last hurrah before the dark of winter keeps us close to home. More about where we’re going when I research the options, but we’re thinking of Crater Lake and return via the Oregon coast. Much to do before then.

Is It September Already?

Whew! Finally got a photo so I can post a final Finished Object.

Stargazer’s Johnny Boy Sweater #2

Begun: June 24, 2010
Completed: August 21, 2010

Yarn: Schachenmayr nomotta Regia Design Line Kaffe Fassett, colour 4252 (blues/greens), 75% superwash wool/25% nylon, 210m = 50g, 3.5 balls.

Needles: Addi Lace circulars, 2.5mm, 3mm

Pattern: Johnny Boy by Berocco Design Team, size 4.

Comments: I never did a gauge swatch or even measured it after the fact so I have no idea what it was! I just knit it the same way I did his first one that I made when he was 1-1/2. Only now he’s 3-1/2! So I followed the pattern for size 4 instead of size 2.

It didn’t really take me that long to knit it. The delay came with the assembling because my hands have been too cracked and sore. It took several hours of sewing to put it together finally the day before I was to give it to him. Just barely had time to wash and dry it on the sweater rack in the sun.

The original sweater got lots of wear so I hope this one does too. Looks like the sleeves and body are too long still which is great – gives him some growing room. Kids always grow taller before they get wider.

I forgot to take a photo of the finished sweater so his mom coerced him into this one still in his jammies! Apparently she had trouble making him stand still long enough. Cute little beastie, isn’t he?

When my hands are up for it I’ve been knitting a wee bit – a row or two at a time – on my little handspun scarflet. It’s coming along slowly. I find it interesting that will all the colours blended into the yarn it mostly looks like blue and red stripes when knitted up. Unless you look at it v.e.r.y closely. Only then do you notice the greens and oranges mixed in. Creates a greater depth of interest, yes?

I’ve got three friends (plus myself equals half of the Spectrum Study Group) coming over tomorrow for a Woad Day where we’ll try to use up the rest of it, including the Chinese woad. I have no idea how much colour there is left in the leaves after all the cool weather and rain but it’ll be fun to find out. I’ll try to remember to take photos. I want to do some itajime (folded and clamped resist) so I need to go hunt for some appropriate fabric.

In other news, even though my skin is only a little better I’m feeling emotionally more stable these days. After the 2 dermatologists at the Skin Care Centre put the idea in my head when they were confused over what my disease was, I did some super-serious research. I think I now know what I actually have and it’s not psoriasis, though the symptoms are quite similar and the prognosis just as murky. However convincing Dr Serious Dermatologist to even reconsider his diagnosis is going to be extremely difficult. What I suspect is very rare and he may never have seen a case of it before. Plus he’s not going to take the opinion of some little old female patient (albeit one with Killer Google Skilz!) over his own education and experience. I hope to get him to at least do a biopsy, which he should have done in the first place. (Not that I really want one. Ouch.) And perhaps get a second opinion. If it’s really impossible to get him to agree with me - or preferably come up with it himself without my prompting – it doesn’t essentially matter because most of the treatment options (such as they are) are the same anyway. We’ve already tried and rejected the main one, the evil Soriatane. I’ve already stopped using the tar and have cut down on the other strong meds in favour of shea butter, petroleum jelly and other moisturisers and I’m already seeing improvements. Go figure! Though it would be satisfying to have it official, the truth as I see it helps me feel much more in control of things and that’s what really counts. More on this when I’ve seen him again next week. As my dear old mummy would say, “We’ll see.”

Late Summer Rain

Can’t say the land doesn’t need the water we’re getting today but it feels more like winter than summer. I’m trying not to feel guilty that I should have picked the coreopsis yesterday but instead I weeded the veggie garden. It felt good to be out in the dirt again! The garden is definitely slowing down now though at least we’ve had great summer weather after that lousy spring. They’re predicting a cold winter this year with lots of precipitation thanks to good old La Niña. We’ll have all those lovely hot summer days to remember when we’re shivering in our shoes!

T-Man and I had a lovely weekend. On Saturday we loaded the bikes up on Fraulein (our old VW Westphalia) and went out to Richmond to ride on the dykes. (Don’t look at me funny. That’s how they spell it on the signs!) We started at River Road somewhat to the east of the Olympic Skating Oval and carried on past to Terra Nova:

That’s me with Roscoe and Rideau. Notice my new tote-bag/pannier-basket. I got it from Mountain Equipment Coop and it works a treat! Holds my backpack so I don’t have to. It doesn’t put my balance off the way it does carrying the weight on my back. Anyway, then we turned the corner:

and headed towards Steveston. Once there we found an even larger crowd than usual. They were having some kind of seafood celebration so we even had a hard time finding a bike rack to park in! We ended up chaining up to a fence by the wharf. Then we found a quieter spot where we had a lovely lunch on the deck at the Mandalay:

Crab cakes and prawns and drinks – oh, my! Meanwhile while we were relaxing, everyone else was buying up all the seafood and leaving no fish for us, even though we had brought a bag along to pack it in. When we got to the ramp it looked like this:

The line-ups were ridiculous and many boats had sold out already. Unfortunately we weren’t interested in live sea urchins or frozen spot prawn tails which was just about all that was left so we went home empty-handed. At least we had seafood for lunch!

On the way back we stopped for a look at the big turtles that live in the ditch behind the dyke:

I like that someone has made them a couple of sunning spots, also enjoyed by the duck.

Somewhere on the ride I lost the stupid magnet that’s part of my electric assist system. It had already been fixed once when I bought the bike but fell out again. T-Man fixed it this time and hopefully it will stay. I can’t be bothered to go back to those twits people again. Luckily the assist still worked, just not the braking and recharging so I got back to the van just fine. We rode 23 kilometres round trip. That’s nearly the equivalent of T riding to work and back and work again and the wind was blowing pretty hard the whole time. (Check the whitecaps in the first 2 pics.) I was pretty impressed with me.

On Sunday, we lazed around in bed and later walked to the market for a few groceries. So T is scheduled to get the last 3 weeks of September off work. If we don’t get to go away anywhere, this is the type of “day-cation” we hope to have instead. Lots of them. Interspersed with lots of relaxing. Depending of course on the weather.

Apologies

I spent a good long time on Saturday sewing up grandson Stargazer’s new sweater and…forgot to photograph it before I gave it to him on Sunday. Rats! Now it won’t be easy to get a picture for my notes. However I will try, starting with a request that one of his parents take one for me on the boy. We’ll see how far that goes! Anyhow I did finish it. Some small accomplishment makes me feel better about my languishing crafts.

Speaking of which, the rag quilt project got kind of stalled at the ironing phase. My hands could only take doing a few pieces at a time. I hope to carry on some more this afternoon and get the last few pieces done. I want to start cutting out the flannelette inner layer and see how many squares short it leaves me. It will be an adventure trying to find a comparable substitute to complete the total 256 approximately 7.5”-8” squares I need. Their actual size will depend on how close the measurements work out on the sheets. The seam allowance can be anything from 1/2” to 1” depending on how much fraying you want and I haven’t totally decided yet the exact size I’m going for.

In other news, the P-Word is improving a little. Two steps forward and one step back though. At least that’s what it seems like. My feet are mostly clear enough that I can walk again but if I go too far, I’ll regret it the next day with small splits. My hands are able to escape gloves for short durations during the day but I need to moisturise them constantly. My fingertips are thick and dry and clumsy and the palms are sensitive to pokes and rough edges. The rising tide seems to have slowed (or maybe even stopped, dare I say?) after covering my breasts about where my bra does and my inner arms up to my armpits. My legs are fairly clear now however and the skin is slowly going back to a more normal colour. I still spend way too much time gooping myself up with various potions but I’m feeling a small glimmer of optimism. At least it’s better than the alternative, right?

After perusing the Internet and chasing down as many leads as I could find, I’ve come to the conclusions that a) doctors really know spit about how to treat psoriasis and b) that leaves the door open for snake-oil salesmen of every stripe. Persons With P are desperate for something to relieve symptoms. The fact that what works for one doesn’t necessarily work for another and that what works for a time doesn’t necessarily continue to work just compounds the desperation. “If you just use this cream/eat this diet/get this light you’ll be cured!” Hah. Personally I’ve already used something like 8 different prescription meds, 4 over-the-counter creams, my own handmade cream and shea butter with varying success. My pharmacists know me on a first name basis. I’m actually getting a tan after decades of avoiding the sun. I don’t wear anything that shows tar and grease stains or that I care about at all. Right now at least, this disease is dictating my life in a big way. Which is why you, my gentle readers, are being subjected to too much of my babbling about it! I don’t have much else to talk about really.

Off to water the garden. Again. The weather is lovely – sunny and hot-but-not-too-hot in the day but cooler at night. Perfect.

Didja Miss Me?

No, I did not fall off the edge of the earth! I’m still here plugging away and trying to regain my equilibrium after the disappointments and frustrations of last week. I’m sure you didn’t want to hear me bitch and complain. I didn’t want to hear me either! Suffice it to say that there have been some improvements and some…not so much. Moving on. I’ve got lots to tell so this is going to be a looooong post.

It has been stinking hot here – though not quite as bad as last summer. Sleeping has been difficult, at least until the house cools down in the middle of the night. I cannot sleep properly without covers up to my chin! (Why is that?) Today is cloudy and cooler and a lot more comfortable. Up to now I’ve been spending an inordinate amount of time watering everything in sight and it seems a lovely reprieve to slow down. We are eating beans, cucumbers, tomatoes and even a pepper or two from the garden now along with the summer squashes, salad greens and kale. I have new baby green things planted that will hopefully produce before the fall cold slows them down. If we’re lucky the first frost won’t be until late October. Though Luck doesn’t seem to be my friend these days so I won’t keep my hopes up. Whatever!

T-Man has been continuing to ride his electric-assist bike every day. And he’s lost some weight with all the exercise too. He is very pleased with the fact that he can get as much assist - or not - as he likes. If he’s feeling particularly energetic he can even apply resist which is great for going down hills and charges the battery at the same time. I’ll be interested to see what happens when the weather changes. He’s been talking about getting some nylon rain pants to go with his jacket. A positive sign. 

Even though things are improving somewhat I’m still wearing gloves nearly every single moment: alternating between cotton, disposable nitrile, gardening and heavy-weight nitrile. My hands are still too sensitive (thanks to the corticosteroids) and my fingers are still peeling (thanks to the Soriatane, which I’m thankfully no longer taking). I am really truly missing my knitting! So instead I’ve been dyeing which I must do with gloves on anyway.

I’ve been using Procion MX dyes which are for cellulose fibres like cotton, linen, rayon, tencel, bamboo, etc. and work in warm water. No need for a heat source or heat-proof dyepots. I’m quite familiar with these having learned how to use them in Applied Design class way back in high school in the 1960’s. (Yes, young-uns, that was the stereotypical “hippy tie-dye” days! Don’t laugh.) First, just to whet my appetite (wet my dye-petite?), I dyed my stained white cotton gloves:

I call it “Damselfly’s Camouflage”! At least they aren’t dirty white with added tar stains anymore: seven pairs, one for each day of the week. Although recently I’ve only been wearing the two pairs with longer fingers and washing them by hand to wear them again. Even if I finally heal enough not to need gloves in the daytime, I’ll still need them at night. It keeps me from rubbing my face with tarred hands! Ick.

The adventurous part of trying to dye the gloves was that even though they were fresh out of the laundry, they still had lots of residual grease and oil embedded in them. Some of the dye (I used turquoise, purple, and scarlet/orange) had a hard time taking and there was quite an oil slick on the surface of the liquid. So after that first attempt (too pink! blech.) I simmered them in a dyepot with Synthrapol, rinsed and tried again with my favourite moss green (a proprietary mixed dye from Maiwa). This time I nuked the dish to make sure the dye had set. There was still some oil slick but it worked much better. At least now they don’t show the tar stains or the dirt and T no longer calls me Minnie Mouse. (Hi, Mickey!)

Flush with that success I decided that it was time to tackle the vintage cotton sheets that I’ve been promising to make into a rag quilt. I collected these from close family members who have since passed away: my adopted mom and T’s auntie. (They weren’t dead at the time! Just going into care homes.) The sheets are all lovely pure cotton, unlike the cotton/poly sheets that are so common now, and all different sizes from crib to double. (Though why auntie -who was unable to have children - had two crib-sized sheets in her stash, I’ll never know!) I tore them into quarters to make the pieces easier to handle - except for the crib sheets which I plan to use as tablecloths if I don’t need them for the quilt. There were 22 pieces in total, which to simplify dye measurements I considered approximately a yard each. Probably lots more fabric than I actually need for the quilt. Awwww…

This was a big project, so I got out my trusty copy of Ann Johnston’s Color By Accident to remind me of the amounts of dye and assists and the recipe for her ‘parfait’ dyeing technique. I definitely wanted accidental colours! But to keep them somewhat coordinated I only used 4 dyes: gold yellow, scarlet, emerald and black. The first two are pure colours and the latter two are proprietary mixes, all from Maiwa. I also got out the soda ash which is the ‘fixer’ for Procion dyes and for once I actually used urea which I usually skip, though at a lower rate than recommended in the book.

Parfait Dyeing
(based on Johnston but with modifications by me)

Prepare the cloth. If not PFD (prepared for dyeing) it needs to be scoured in hot water and detergent. Mine of course was already washed many times, plus once more when I brought it home. The recipe works best with 1 yd. (1 metre) pieces, so tear to size.

Wet the cloth. I used the washing machine filled to “low” with warm water and just threw everything in to soak until I needed it. I kept the crib sheets separate to dye at the end to use up any leftover dye stock.

Mix up the urea water. I used hot-ish water and added 4 tbsp (60 ml) urea to the 5 cups total (about 1.25 litres) that I needed. Use more urea (2-4 tbsp per cup) if you have difficulty getting the dye powders to dissolve in solution.

Mix up the dye stocks. I used 2 tbsp (30 ml) dye powder per cup (250 ml) of urea water, except for the black which was 2 tbsp (30 ml) per half-cup (125 ml). I made 2 c. of gold yellow, 1.5 c. of scarlet, 1 c. of emerald and 1/2 c. of black: 11 tbsp of dye powder total. This was enough to dye the whole shebang a medium shade. Don’t mix more than you can use in a few days because it doesn’t keep very long in solution and it doesn’t keep at all once the soda ash hits it.

Mix up the soda ash solution. I needed 22 cups (5.2 litres) total and Johnston’s formula is 9 tbsp (approx. 130 ml) soda ash to 1 US gallon water (just under 4 litres), so I used about 11 tbsp + 2 tsp soda ash in my tap-hot water. It would cool quite a bit before I needed it.

Hunt down every ice-cream bucket (or similar size) that you can find. I used 6 buckets (including one larger one) and a buffet warming tray. Really you only need one for every 3 pieces of fabric to be dyed.

Mix a dye colour. I used disposable plastic cups that hold approx 1 c. with a little room left over to stir. In the cup I added about 4 or 5 tbsp (60-70 ml) of dye stock, mixing colours as I liked, and then topped it up with plain warm water to about 1 c (250 ml). You can use more or less dye stock depending on how dark or light you want your colours but always top up with warm water to make one cup. Make a new cup of diluted dye stock in this way for every layer of cloth, deciding which colour you want next. They will effect the each other to varying degrees depending on which order you layer them. (More on that later.)

Layer one. Squeeze out a piece of fabric and arrange in a scrunched-up layer in the bottom of a bucket. Add a cup of plain warm water. Press and squish to get out the air bubbles. Pour over your first dye colour. Press and squish some more. More movement means more homogenous results. I prefer not to play with it too much. Pour one cup of soda ash solution over and press and mix some more to make sure it penetrates throughout.

Layer two. After 5-10 min. squeeze out and arrange a second piece of fabric over the first one. Pour another colour cup of dye over and mix a little. Pour another cup of soda ash solution over and lift and press a little to distribute. This colour will effect the bottom layer quite a bit and the bottom layer’s colour will transfer some to layer two.

Layer three. After another 5-10 minutes, repeat the instructions as for layer two. This colour will effect the bottom and the second layer and the second layer’s colour will effect the top one. You can turn the top layer over (which I forgot to do) after a few more minutes and press it more to get more of the other colours onto it. It won’t be as multi-toned as the other layers and the bottom one will have the most.

Leave alone for the dye to set at least one hour. I left the buckets outdoors on the deck overnight.

Rinse in cool to warm water. You don’t want to use hot water at this first stage or you will lose some of the dye. I rinsed each piece a bit in the sink and then threw it into the washing machine (filled with warm water and a couple of tsp of Synthrapol) with the others. Then I ran it all through a wash cycle.

Wash again in very hot water. I ran it all through another wash cycle with straight hot water and more Synthrapol. This can be repeated one more time if the rinse water isn’t coming out clear. Once all the unfixed dye is out, the dyed cloth will never run again and can be laundered normally.

Dry. I just threw the whole bunch into the dryer and they came out like this:

You should see each one individually in real life. I’m really pleased! Now I just need to iron them all and I’ll be ready to cut out my quilt squares. (Not that I can use scissors or even a rotary cutter at the moment. Boo-hoo.) I also have a couple of flannelette sheets to sandwich in between for extra warmth. I’ll leave them white because only a little will show at the rag edges and it will give a nice contrast to the colours. If you haven’t seen rag quilts, here’s one tutorial and there are lots more. Easy-peasy.

Aitch. Eee. Double-Hockey-Sticks.

Man! Yesterday had to rate as one of the worst days ever. It was so bad that I’m truly glad it’s now today instead. Just so it’s not still yesterday. Horrible.

Oh, you’re curious, huh? What’s got ol’ damselfly’s tail in a knot? Well, appointments with Dr. Serious Dermatologist are uncomfortable at the best of times. But this time I was running late, scooting along on my bicycle and…caught my skirt between the back brake and the tire rim. Took me several minutes to get free and tore a hole in my skirt. Finally got to the dr’s office and his receptionist was away. No, he doesn’t have a sub. He just carries on by himself. So it was “slam-bam-thank-you-ma’am”: stop this, restart that, do the other, here’s your prescriptions, call if there’s a problem, ‘bye. Any questions from me were given short shrift. Why does he insist I only have palmo-plantar (hands and feet) psoriasis when obviously it’s covering about 2/3 of my body? And it doesn’t resemble anything I can find in my research. He actually said, “Everyone’s psoriasis is different.” Ohhh-kayyyy. Is he covering up that he doesn’t really know what’s going on?

So then I had to go to one particular pharmacy to get a refill on the black tar since they’re the only ones in town who can make it for me. It took much too long so I had to leave for my next appointment at the skin care centre. I would have to go back later for the prescription. The skin care centre was interesting. Everyone was friendly. But…I was examined by a young dermatologist and he called in a resident and they debated and questioned and checked and double-checked and…said that I should not get light therapy right now. My condition was too sensitive. It would be too painful. They questioned the treatment ordered by Dr Serious and really scratched their heads over me. They finally weren’t even sure whether or not I really had psoriasis! The first doc said he would talk to Dr Serious and then I have to find out if any treatment should change. But of course nobody could get through yesterday if the lovely Erika was away sick leaving nobody to answer the phone. I still haven’t called. I’m too upset still.

Then I went back to get my tar at the first pharmacy plus I had two more prescriptions to fill at my usual pharmacy. Of course they couldn’t fill them right away because they always have to order the stuff in so I still have to go get them later on today. The only good thing was that by then I was starving so I bought myself a yummy Beard Papa chocolate éclair and a cup of jasmine tea. Unfortunately that didn’t really help me feel any better about the day’s frustrations and disappointments. And that’s not all. There’s more!

So I rode my bike home all tired and dejected and was right at the corner where my house is when I miscalculated the turn at the curb and missed the ramp up. Thankfully I was nearly stopped by then but my bike fell over with me not able to get my foot down in time so I fell under it. I couldn’t lift the bike off myself because that darned precious battery is so heavy so I had to crawl out from under it. I scratched up both myself and poor Rideau (the bike) but luckily not too badly. Much of my skin is rather fragile these days, as you might imagine. Now I had a torn skirt and a road rash behind my knee to go with it. At least I was only a few feet from home. And I’m not leaving again until I absolutely have to. No, it was not a very good day at all.

So far today is better. The sun is out and it’s not too hot. Let’s talk about something else, shall we? Because the lack of it was driving me nuts, I did a teensy bit of knitting on Sunday and a bit more on Tuesday. I used the Aurelia superwash wool that I had spun up for Andrea:

I decided that I needed to knit something that didn’t have a specific yardage necessary since I only have this single 50g ball to work with. So I started with 3 stitches and am knitting mindless garter stitch, increasing 1 stitch with a yarnover one stitch inside each edge on each row. So far it looks like this:

It’s a little scarflet and is coming out kind of a boomerang shape which I like a lot. I’ll just carry on until I nearly run out of yarn and then bind off. If I want to, I can always knit or crochet an edging on later with another yarn. Should be superwash too though, shouldn’t it? Maybe add some beads? Right now though I’m not knitting any more until my fingers are healed some, hopefully now that I’m not taking that nasty med anymore that caused them to peel so badly. I already had to cut longer fingers on a new pair of gloves because they weren’t protected enough with the short old ones. Just the tips of my fingers stick out from these and I can’t tension my yarn properly. Sigh. But at least my hands are more comfortable.

Now I’m going to go put on my gardening gloves and play in the dirt.

Segue Dyeing

At least that’s what I call it! My Spectrum Group met on Thursday to play with a new dye technique that one of our members recently learned. You start with balls of yarn, as many as you need for your project. In this case I used 50g balls of sock yarn: 2 white Phildar Preface and 2 medium gray DGB Confetti for two different dye sequences which will become 2 pairs of socks.

There was some debate about the balls. I left them in the commercially-wound state that they came in, just removing the ball bands. Some tried balls (or cakes) wound on a ball winder. One fine silk cake had a cardboard tube in the centre that kind of mushed up (technical term!) while the dyeing went on but it helped to keep the yarn from getting impossibly tangled. And some tried old-fashioned hand-wound balls, which in my opinion worked best of all. I’ll explain why in a bit.

After putting down plastic on Jo Anne’s deck under the awning, we each took a 4-litre (gallon) ice-cream bucket or something similar and filled with a couple of inches of hot tap water. It was supposed to be enough to cover the balls but I discovered that less worked better. Strong dye stocks using acid dyes (1 tsp to 350 ml hot water) and acetic acid (1/2 tsp 56% or 1/8 c vinegar) were already mixed in containers. We added a tablespoon or two to the bucket and then plopped in the balls.

Now came the tedious part:  you had to take the ends of the two balls together, squeegee them off between your gloved fingers and drop them, each into its own small container. Pull, squeegee, drop. Pull, squeegee, drop. Over and over until you thought that you had enough of that colour. Then add another couple of tbsp of the next colour and repeat the pull/squeegee/drop thing until you got sick of that one. Continue adding colours and unwinding the ball until you run out of yarn, hopefully more or less at the same time with each ball. This is what my second batch that I finished at home looked like near the end:

It doesn’t look terribly exciting, huh? That’s the gray yarn though and it’s hard to see the variegations when it’s wet. How about this?

Better? Turns out the effect improves vastly when it’s dry! But you can’t really tell while you’re in the middle of doing it. T. D. Us. When you’ve finally gotten the two yarns all dropped into their containers, then you have to carefully bag them up either in cling wrap or Ziplocs (partially unzipped to let the steam out) and steam for 20 minutes or microwave for several short bursts with a rest between each to set the dye. After the yarn cools it can be wound on a niddy-noddy (a PVC one or an old one that doesn’t mind the wet), then rinsed and allowed to dry. The first sequence that I did on white yarn looked like this when I was half-finished the winding:

That spaghetti actually wound up pretty easily as long as I didn’t mess with it too much. The old towel is to absorb the drips. And here’s the final dried yarn:

To see the way the colours actually segue here’s the yarns stretched out:

Now when I knit socks from the first yarn they will segue (yup, that word again!) from the turquoise at the cuffs to the green at the toes and no repeats in the sequence. And similarly with the second yarn from the blue-gray through to the brown.

OK, what would I do differently next time? The commercially-wound balls are looser especially in the centre and that gave the dye a greater chance of penetrating to the centre sooner than I wished. It meant that the later colours were more influenced by the colours that came before them and that it was harder to shift them as they got darker from the layers of dye. That’s why the first colours are lightest, both because they were in the dye for a short time and because they only had one colour applied. So tightly hand-wound balls are better. A tighter ball doesn’t let the colour penetrate so easily so you can have quite different colours from one end to the other, ones that aren’t nearly so “layered” and mixed. Theoretically you could even go back to the first colour again or repeat the sequence more than once if you were careful not to add too much dye each time. Though of course hand-winding the balls adds another step to an already extremely slow process.

Speaking of slow, if I had moved more slowly at the beginning and given the dye more time to set in the yarn, I would have had a deeper starting colour. Also, I added the next colour too soon before I had wound off very much yarn. Since it’s such a glacial process it felt like a much longer portion of the balls than it was! In other words, be patient. Be very patient.

Altogether, it took between one and two hours to wind off the whole 210 yards in each ball! Each and every yard has to go through your fingers and sometimes it’s difficult to separate them into their individual containers smoothly. And yes, they need to be separated or you’ll have a mess when you try to wind them up into a skein later. Plus you have to stop and add more dye every so often which also takes time to do. Did I say: T. D. Us? And it would be worse the more balls you were trying to deal with at once. Note this is not a potential production process! (Unless you could find a way to mechanize it somehow?) For me, it’s strictly for the unusual results only.

Admittedly, slow as it might be this is a reasonably functional way, besides spinning the yarn from scratch, to get the colours to shift over the whole length of the ball of yarn. And to do it to more than one ball at the same time if you want. Pretty slick really. However the proof of whether it’s actually worth all the effort will be in the finished socks. When I’m able to knit socks again.

Things Are Looking Up

Well, somewhat. At least I’ve stopped coughing quite so much, my voice is nearly normal and I have some energy. Yay! Now if I could stop peeling all my skin off it would be lovely. The danger is trying to do too much too soon. Especially because I am so danged far behind on everything.

Milady Daughter (and Alien!) came over on Saturday and we had a lovely day chatting and dyeing with my woad. This time we got the best and darkest blue I’ve ever seen from woad. Gorgeous.

That is only two dips each! On the left is the first skein and the right is the second one which is still impressively dark, if a little uneven. They’re both 100g of 2-ply laceweight merino from a large cone purchased at Birkeland Bros some time ago. We got that strong depth of colour plus I also dyed 125g of my Perendale roving and still got a fairly good blue – about the colour of my cotton scarf from the last woad session. We probably could have dyed even more if we’d wanted light blue but I have lots from past woad baths. I figure there’s more where this came from, so I dumped it. That’s 325g of dyed wool from about 750g of leaves. Not bad at all! And it continues to grow in the dye garden.

Today I tackled the coreopsis which hadn’t yet been picked. There were lots of flowers, of which this is just a detail shot:

I love the configuration of my new dye garden because I was able to get a chair and sit in front of the plants and pick comfortably for quite a long time. I can reach about 2/3 of the way into the bed and there is some space behind to move the chair in to pick the rest. I got an ice-cream bucket full:

Now they’re drying on bamboo mats on the big table on the deck. They take up a lot less room after they’re dried.

I also noticed that some of my weld is starting to bolt even though this is only its first year and it’s pretty little still because it was late getting planted. Since I’ve never grown it before, I’m not familiar with it’s tricks so I don’t know if this is a good or bad thing. See the one at the top-left?

I will wait to see if the flowers develop and start going to seed. That’s the time to harvest apparently. I was all prepared to wait until next year, but if it wants to give me something to play with now, I’m not going to argue! However I’m hoping they all don’t bolt right away so there will be something to try next year as a full-sized plant. Otherwise I’ll be back to square one. Hmmm…maybe I can can get some new and more viable seeds from this to start next spring? And I know not to cover them because they like light to germinate. Here’s a great old botanical illustration:

Reseda luteola