This weekend I figured it was well past time I got motivated and did some more trailer training – for me and Blondie. I need more experience towing the trailer and Blondie needs to realize this is HER trailer, her safe place.

I hitched up myself for the first time. Usually DH jumps in and does this even though I’ve told him I *need* to know how to do it myself (not just in theory which I already knew, but in practice). The hitch weighs at least 40 pounds, then there are the weight distribution bars, and getting the sticky clam shell coupler to slide into place. Hooking up the safety chains, lights, and breakaway are all easy steps, but each one is super important for safety.

Standing quietly at the trailer. This is good, neither of us is stressed.

In the trailer. She’s actually a really good girl when it comes to loading up due to a lot of re-training I did about 4 years ago. When I got her 9 years ago I could only haul her in a stock trailer and now she’s pretty experienced at slants, straight loads, and big semi center loads. The trick to loading is that you really want the horse to self load – even though there’s a large escape door on my trailer (both sides) I don’t want to be in such a small space with a large animal. The other thing to know (if you’re a horse person I’m sure you already know this) is that you don’t ever want to tie the horse in the trailer until whatever gate or butt bar you have is closed. So, the horse needs to step all the way up in the trailer by itself AND stand there quietly while you latch the butt bar.

What do you think she’s saying here? Personally I think this is, “why am I still in here? And where are my treats?”

“Hey mom, are you going to let me out now?” I did let her out and it seems she will get a refresher in backing up as she came out a tad bit faster than I like. Not terrible, but definitely room for improvement.

Due to a digestive upset issue on her part and a broken board in the floor of the left stall of the trailer, loading/unloading in the right side is all we practiced this time. That’s enough though! Next time maybe we’ll go for a short ride.

No, I’m not looking at becoming a vegan or even a vegetarian, but since it looks like I will be eliminating dairy and eggs from my diet the best way to find substitutions is to look at vegan recipes.

Even before I started the detox I was eating LÄRABARs, but on the diet they’ve become an essential snack that I always carry with me. I buy mine at Costco or from Drugstore.com. My current favorite is Coconut Cream Pie.

(Speaking of LÄRABAR, they recently came out with 4 new flavors. If you’d like the opportunity to win a case of the new flavors you can check out Chocolate-Covered Katie’s blog. I just discovered her today and I have a feeling I’ll be trying a LOT of her recipes.)

A couple weeks ago I ordered Amazing Grass’ Amazing Meal in chocolate and original to add protein to my smoothies. Many protein powders are based on whey or eggs, this product is vegan and has proven to be pretty tasty so far. I’m looking forward to trying the chocolate in a few days.

Do you know what Chia is? Do you remember Chia Pets? I bought the Chia to add to my smoothies and oatmeal. Then I found out it can be used as an egg substitute! For 1 egg use 1 tbsp chia seeds, 3 tbsp of water. Mix together and let sit for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally. My pancakes tasted just fine! To really make the chia disappear into whatever you’re making you can buy all white chia seeds and you can grind them prior to soaking. Personally, I had no issue with the texture or visibility. Also, I can no longer have the cheap maple syrup since it is full of corn syrup. Pure maple syrup is SO expensive.

Right after I made pancakes I found Earth Balance at my normal grocery store. I was bummed I had pancakes without “butter”, maybe I need to make them again. A couple of the Smart Balance products are also vegan.

Do you want to know what the theme here is besides substitutions? EXPENSIVE. Part of it is the cost of transitioning – replacing products we already have (not throwing them out, DH is still eating whatever he feels like), but besides that all of these replacement products are more expensive than their more common counterparts. Over all though, I think it’s worth it.

In the photo, the top section is the stretched out, way too loose end and the bottom is the gauge I started with. The top is also showing 7.5 eyelet columns while the bottom has 9 columns visible. This project has now been ripped back to just before the halfway point.

Pattern: None, just simple stripes to maximize the available fabric.
Fabric: I used fabric from two collections. The stripes are made of fat quarters I picked up during a quilting shop hop. Whenever I go on a shop hop I like to buy something to support the store’s participation in the hop. In this case what I remember most about the store is that it reeked of cat pee. Not exactly a good memory. The backing and binding fabric is by Valori Wells, about the time she published Radiant New York Beauties.
Notes: There’s nothing terribly complex here. The only thing even remotely different from my usual sewing techniques is that, on the coasters, rather than doing a bound edge I cut the backing fabric larger than needed, pressed it under twice, and then machine stitched it down. The goal was to use a quicker method than the normal “sew the binding to the front of the quilt, turn it under, hand stitch it down.” In reality this was a pain to do and didn’t seem any easier or quicker than my normal method. Next time I’ll try sewing the binding to the back of the quilt, turning it to the front, and machine stitching it down.

1. Misti Alpaca Baktus – 50% done. It’s all downhill from here!

2. Blue Flowered Table Runner – the binding is stitched down. Now I need to decide how to finish the center and whether I want to add any decorative stitching to the flowers.

Do you want to see what I ate for dinner this week?

Freshly picked pea pods from my garden, zucchini, and chicken on rice noodles. I wanted to make this a Thai curry dish since I wasn’t able to eat wheat this day. Evidently DH was not on board with that plan and as a result, let’s just say that rice noodles need a flavorful sauce.

Dessert the day I was challenging wheat. I had a portion of Cream of Wheat cereal leftover from breakfast that I needed to eat so I put strawberries and a bit of almond milk with it, a weak attempt at a similarity to rice pudding. It was gross.

Quinoa and Black Beans. I had to swap the corn for celery. I served this on a bed of greens from my garden with half an avocado on top.

Crustacean challenge day! About 9 am I fixed myself half a dozen shrimp sauteed in garlic. So yummy. For dinner – shrimp again, but this time we had a few scallops too. I cheated my diet and had wheat noodles with this dish.

With the seafood pasta I also had a big bowl of salad greens with avocado, sunflower seeds, and lemon juice. I’ve been eating so many salads I get sick of them. It helps to mix them up a bit with different vegetable accompaniments.

Steamed fish with veggies (yellow squash, zucchini, onion). Seasoned with lemon, garlic, salt, pepper, and olive oil. Next time I’ll add a splash of white wine too. This is the first time I’ve ever cooked fish; I was very satisfied with the result.

It made two smallish servings. That was no problem though because we scarfed down some sweet potato fries while waiting for the fish to finish cooking.

The good news is that I had no reaction to wheat or crustaceans. I also challenged egg yolks and the result wasn’t so favorable – I had pangs of gallbladder pain both morning and evening after eating a few yolks. Coming up on my list to challenge: cheese, nightshades, and soy.

I’m also continuing to work on finishing up sewing projects. Guess I may as well put those on this list.

1. Misti Alpaca Baktus – I’m getting a repeat or 2 done at lunch each day, but that’s about it. Hey look, it’s a new photo, but it really doesn’t look much different then last week.

2. Bright Placemats and Coasters – these are almost done. Just one placemat left to stitch the binding down on.

Pattern: Vinca Shawl by Miriam Felton (MimKnits), available in her book Twist & Knit.
Yarn: 3 skeins of Knit Picks Shadow, Kettle Dyed in colorway Eggplant
Needles: US #4 (3.5 mm) Addi Turbo circular and 3.5 mm double points
Notes: Wow was this one a long haul. Looking back on it, Summer simply isn’t the best time to knit a big shawl because I don’t have as much time available. I love the finished product though, it was totally worth it.

I did half an extra repeat of the chart for the counterpane, which then means my wings are a bit wider as well. This took my shawl from 940 yards specified in the pattern to a whopping 1250 yards. Since I’m tall, I also knit the wings a bit longer too.

The pattern is awesome. Miriam includes detailed instructions for the special cast on and for binding off. Then she details how to adjust the size of the pattern to suit your available yarn. Definitely do as she says and start on double point needles. My blog post about getting started is here.

These are actually the thinned out carrots. Hopefully the remaining ones will grow.

In fact, the peas are the only thing that’s doing okay which led me to believe our soil is very low on nitrogen. After fertilizing with a high nitrogen granule the plants did perk up a bit.

Here’s the first harvest. It doesn’t help that the chipmunks ate 3 of my lettuce plants.

Oh well, this is the first year. We didn’t invest much time or effort in improving the soil. Next year things will be much better because I’ll have Miss Blondie’s composted horse manure to mix in.

1. Vinca – I’ve completely forgotten how many repeats I did on this last week. I know I did at least one. It’s getting close to the finish line. My goal is to have it off the needles before Wednesday next week.

2. Misti Alpaca Baktus – a few repeats here and there has amounted to enough that I can at least show you a progress shot. There’s really no rush on this, it’s fulfilling it’s purpose as the easy knit that I carry along with me each day.