Progress at last!

While it wasn't my preference to re-thread, re-sley, tie on and hemstitch all over again, those tasks are done and the scarf is growing one thread at a time.  I like the way it looks and am happy with the assymetric white-on-white stripes, too.  Here it is in progress:

The silk is smooth and lustrous and I think once it is woven and washed and pressed it will be a winner and very suitable to the man who will wear it.

I spent quite a lot of time yesterday doing yard work, mowing the lawns front and back (I use a mower that cuts and re-cuts so I don't catch the clippings but let them feed the lawn from which they came) and trimming and weeding completely filling the 60 gallon yard waste container which I put at the curb last night.  I am so glad that Salt Lake City has this program because all the yard waste they pick up is shredded and composted for use in city parks and for sale to anyone who wants to buy it.  I compost in my own garden, too, but rose trimmings take too long to break down because I can't shred it and bring it up to the heat level the city composting produces.  Our soil is alkaline here so all my tea leaves--which are acidic although not enough to be corrosive--go into my compost along with fruit and vegetable scraps and help bring the pH of the soil I amend with it to a better level.  The big cottonwood tree in the front garden drops many more leaves than I can compost but of course some of those--run through my power mower--go into the compost bin as well.

The first year I lived here I put all the leaves in the vegetable garden area (where I built raised beds some years back) and layered in nitrogen heavy fertilizer to aid in their breakdown, watering them between layers.  They were thigh deep that fall and still almost knee deep in spring.  I dug them in as well as I could and learned that the old tree (planted in 1859) produces more than I can handle.  Since then I have been more restrained in my leaf composting!