Yesterday long and hard, today some happenings

Hello, everyone.  As y'all can see from the title, yesterday was a demanding walk. There were lots of ups and down, some steep. Also, the route into Logrono was transformed into a "green route" which whike it went past every new tree planting in the area, was a little bit longer. Gronze.com has the walk from Viana into Logrono at about 8 km. It was morexlike 11km. I was too tired to make a post. 

Carp at the park

Pilgrimage monument at edge of Logrono

Today, we left Logrono about 7 am. The walk through the damaged and park area at the edge of the city, which we did in pre-dawn dark 11 years ago, was very pleasant in the early morning. 

About noon ish we saw a helicopter flying around, which has not been usual. It turned out, when we got into Najera, that the power was out. It wasn't out for half of Europe as the rumor was running. It was just out for all of Iberia, the peninsula that includes Spain and Portugal. After the power came back, around 5 pm in Najera, we tracked down a bar with internet and looked it up. It turns out that, if you should happen to be in a power outage in Spain, Najera is a great place to sit through it. Big cities like Madrid and Lisbon had some panic buying and their (electric) metro systems got stuck. (That must have been fun for the passengers.) 

Sheep happily in the pasture outside of Najera 

Lo carb and wonderful

 Hello, everyone. 

DH had dental work,  and I have been trying to thread the needle between eating lo carb and not stressing his teeth a lot.

Yesterday I was inspired by Mr. Bevin at Spain on a Fork (a Youtube food channel, y'all should check it out) and the discovery of a new variety of fish patty at HEB Grocery. "Cajun style salmon and crayfish" raw fish patty. A.K.A. fishburgers, I know, but many of their fishburgers have been good.

I had seen Mr. Bevin do a salmon and veg dish that looked really good, and decided to do the new style of fishburger that way.

It involved fat (butter this time)  in the skillet, then some diced onion and garlic, let it work on getting translucent, then two bell peppers diced, continue cooking, then the last part of the mixed super greens bag, let this wilt in. Then add the fish patties, and a little water and Better Than Bouillon vegetable concentrate, and cover.

This was the vegetables getting ready for the fish.

And here is the cooked fish with the vegetables. 

It really came out tasty!

A summery sort of fidget mat

Hello, everyone.

This fidget is more summer-oriented. Or, at least, water-oriented.

The large buttons are in functional buttonholes. Under the side fin is a concealed heart-shaped bead. And behind the little zipper is a backing piece, so none of the fur can get stuck in the zipper when it's in operation.

All components from stash. The background landscape was an off-cut from the embroidery-hoop holder we did in last month's Sewing Club meeting.

The fish fabric was also extra fabric from that project. It was free-motion quilted before the hoop holder was made and the flame-like (or succulent plant-like) stitching made me think of water.

The "seaweed" bundles are also functional; they hold the backing against the front of the fidget.

Israel pilgrimage, seventh in series

Hello, everyone.

The remainder of this day, in the area of many Gospel incidents, has more churches, and a boat ride.

The area is named for the seven springs in the vicinity.

The Benedictine fathers placed a sign explaining the significance of the several churches in a small area. It's in reasonable boat riding distance from Capernaum and probably could be reached with a hike from there as well.

There are churches in memory of the Feeding of the Multitudes and others whose names escape me at the moment. There is a list on this sign.

This was another one of those moments when we were surprised to see how close together everything is in the Holy Land.




This is the stone, mentioned first in the letters of Egeria in the fourth century, which local tradition says is the place Jesus blessed the loaves and fishes.

It's easy for us, in the very mobile-oriented US, to laugh and say "sure it is." But these places were remembered from generation to generation and the places were passed down in families. In the fourth century, when it was finally legal to reverence the places Jesus walked, people still remembered where things had happened. And after shrines were built, even when conquerors later knocked them down and piled trash on the site, people remembered where they had been. When they could, they rebuilt the shrines in the same places. Rinse and repeat.

There are a number of interesting mosaics on the floor of this church. Of them all, this guinea hen is my personal favorite. (Photo edited to cover a bright white splash of light in upper right corner.)

 Not the same church, this one was a Franciscan one. Anyone who recognizes which one it is is welcome to contribute the information in comments! All I can remember is it was one of the three.

After visiting the churches of the Tabgha area, we went to an area restaurant (popular with tours--an amazing lot of buses there!) and ate fish from the sea of Galilee: "Tiberias fish." Which when DH inquired we learned is a kind of tilapia.


There were the customary mezzes: cabbage salad, eggplant and tomato I think at the bottom, tomato sauce, corn, tabouli...














And the whole fish, with fries on the side and a lemon wedge. They serve so many of these plates that they were already prepared...maybe because of the moment when we hit the place...the fish was tasty.

The waiter had an amazing way with removing used water glasses from the tables.
















After lunch, we went to a port, walked through a sculpture garden and out onto the dock and boarded a boat for a ride on the Sea of Galilee.

One of the boats offering this ride. The experience showed us, again, how close together these things are, as we passed the famous Golan Heights area and viewed the landscape.




The boat crews raised the flag of the tour groups' origin with each ride. We saw a Korean group, and ours of course had the Stars and Stripes. I think the crew members were a little surprised when, at the intro to the Star Spangled Banner, we all stood up, put our hands on our hearts, and sang along. (Hey, if you're going to have your flag out there waving in the breeze, have a backbone about it!)

At the end of the ride, we disembarked in Tiberias and met up with our bus. The day was pretty well gone and we returned to the hotel.

Block Play

Hello, everyone.

One of the new projects on the list is a baby-sized quilt.

This is a tentative draft of the layout, minus sashing and borders as y'all can see.

Fabrics in this medley are all from stash-on-hand.

The Texas flag block is new. I used the 5 point master template from Kaye Wood for the star. (I also have stash of cutting tools. It grows as one does more work with fabrics!)

If the arrangement still looks balanced with itself after a day or so, it will be sewn up into a quilt top, then quilted. 

Cañero, a lovely spot with a beach

Hello, everyone.
Tonight, after accidentally walking 6 km too far, we are staying at the friendly and cozy Hotel Canero. It is in the tiny village of Cañero, and if it weren't raining we would go down to the beach.
Unfortunately the day began with rain and has kept it up most of the day. We didn't realize what the weather would likly be when we left from Soto la Luiña this morning, so we headed up to the scenic mountain route to our day's destination. Famous last words as they say! We found many low muddy spots on the trail, and then it took off through some cow pastures. The trail, being the lowest spot around, was a running stream. But eventually we came down, missed the turn to our destination, and ended up here instead. But this is a delightful place!
These are two of the items in the menu del dia for today.

 Homemade chicken noodle soup was the soup of the day. Eat your hearts out, Campbells!

This was the dessert, a house made fresh cheese sprinkled with sugar--it's a Spanish thing I guess--and drizzled with honey. I forgot to photograph the little peppers stuffed with fish and accompanied by potatoes. We ate them too fast for pictures.
Ultreia.

Now in Gernika

Hello, everyone.
Yesterday we reached Markina about 4 pm, after a very long and trying walk. (From 0730 until about 4. Lots of ups and downs!) We were lucky to be walking on Saturday, when the little bar in Olatz was open. We reached it around 9:30. At around 1 we encountered a little table next to a farmhouse, selling soft drinks and muffins. (Got Aquarius, a rehydration drink, and a Coke, and sat in nearby grass to eat sardines on baguette for our lunch.) The last 10 kilometers took almost 3 hours, for 6.2 miles, but it was yet more up and down.
When we got into town, we found the convent albergue and commenced to doing laundry.
The we went out for a Pilgrim's Menu. This is the first course:

Lots of little clams in this. It was wonderful. The main course was marinated cod, cooked and with a sauce, and garnished with fried potatoes. There was also the usual bread, wine, and dessert.
Today we walked to Gernika and again reached town around 4 pm. (We would prefer to get out earlier and arrive earler, but taping feet takes time in the morning. I am going to try and speed it up!)
Ultreia.

Just for fun: Fish

Hello, everyone.

Today is a "just for fun" post, as things are somewhat busy at the Olde Homestead this week.

This fish is a Rio Grande Cichlid, which eventually grew so big that he owned a 30 gallon fish tank all by himself.

The quilt is still in progress, but the current block is fairly intricate to put together and with the other things going on it may not be assembled until tomorrow.