A WHAT in the hand?

Apparently, 7 snails in the hand is worth a lot to a certain 11 year old girl. Better her than me. It's not that I am afraid of snails or slugs, Heck, I pick up worms in the garden all the time and move them to safer places, but there is something about that slime trail that just makes me not all that anxious to pick them up. Mira delighted in grossing out my cousin's wife this past summer when they were visiting. She was raised in Montreal and is not used to the ways of a gal in the country. Especially when that gal is a tom-boy.

And what is Bill holding?

It's a quick trick bubble stack! Pretty impressive display, eh?
Well, actually, it's not so impressive when you find out that the bubbles are the kind that harden a few seconds after they are blown. Not hard like a glass ball, but their surface actually is able to be touched and retains it shape. Think of them as fragile balloons. Fragile sticky balloons.



And I have been hard at work creating more temari balls. I am down to about 3.5 hours for most of these balls. Now I am looking for new patterns. Not that it is hard to find them, it's just hard to chose one that won't take 20 hours to complete and still look great. I think that I may have found a few to try over the next few weeks. As well as getting a new warp on the loom. And working. And dealing with the much dreaded HOMEWORK! Oh, pooh. The garden is almost ready to be taken out and what with frost threatening, the basil, ALL the basil will have to be processed soon. All 8 or 10 large bushy plants. We pre-measure it into double batches of 4 cups packed basil and a cup of olive oil, pop them in the freezer in tubs and eat pesto all winter for the price of pine nuts and parma. But there is a limit to how many times we have pesto in the run of a winter. And I think that we have about 6 or 8 tubs in the freezer already. And it doesn't even look like I have touched the plant. So I will get to the temari balls..... sometime.

So, does anyone want some basil?