milk crate, garden cleanup, entrelac, scarves

Sunday morning (6/24) Michael and I did our usual Sunday morning bike ride with a stop at the grocery store.  We had a longer than normal list and Michael wasn’t sure we could get it all home on the bikes.  Last summer when I started to ride my bike more regularly, I wanted some baskets or something on the bike that would make it easy for me to haul things.  I looked on-line, and there were lots and lots of panniers for my bike….for lots and lots of $$$$.  That didn’t float my boat, so I thought about it for a bit, and thought about making some kind of quilted bags, but I really wanted something hard-sided.  I finally figured out that a milk crate would be the perfect thing.  I was telling one of my friends about it, and she said she had a milk crate in her garage that she was going to get rid of….PERFECT…didn’t cost me a thing.  Michael bungee-corded it to the back rack of my bike and it was ok…but when I put something heavy in the crate, if it slid to one side, the bungee cords would stretch and the crate would slide off to the side.  Plus, it was hard to put bigger things in the crate, because the bungee cords went across the top as well.  I had the winter to think about it and I decided that those plastic strip ties would be a perfect solution.  I bought some a week or so ago, and tied the bottom of the crate to my bike rack and….viola…..perfect!  You can see the ends of the strips at the bottom of the crate and one out the back:

So, back to the this morning….this is what I fit in the crate: a gallon of milk, a 1/2 gallon of milk, a quart of 1/2 and 1/2, 4 large jars of pickle relish, 3 pounds of orzo and 2 pounds of butter!  And actually, I had a tiny bit of room left for a bit more, so I threw in a tiny box of TRUVIA.  Those milk crates really are quite large and best of all, the price was right J.

After breakfast I headed to the computer and spent quite a bit of time pulling together the minutes from our last volunteer meeting while Michael cleaned up the yard.  We had a really bad storm Saturday night and lost one of the branches of our crape myrtle: 

Donna stopped by for help with her sweater…that only took a bit of time, then I continued to knit on my own sweater.  I started the 4^th color:

Hope I still like it as much when all seven colors are in it!  I got the ends sewn in on some scarves I finished awhile ago:

and spent the evening knitting and watching TV with Michael.