A Fall Fungal Foray

Happy Autumn Everyone! We have been having a very wet fall, making it a great year for mushrooms. Patrick has been itching to get out on an exploration trip, so we thought we'd count how many different kinds of mushrooms we could find while investigating the backyard. While we won't try to identify all of them, we think this first one might be a slippery jack or Suillus luteus. In theory, it is edible, but not considered very palatable. By the way, please don't use this blog as an id. guide. You should never eat a wild mushroom unless you are 100% sure of your identification and its edibility. Never eat wild mushrooms that are raw or decayed, and never eat them in large quantities.

This cute little mushroom is a Lepiota cristata, sometimes called a star dapperling or a stinking parasol. Hmm. I like the first name better. Not recommended for consumption as it has toxic close relatives.

Okay, I'm not even going to try to identify this one or we'll never get through this post, but it IS hard to resist trying.

Looks like another Suillus type mushroom. Don't they look like just the perfect pancakes? Makes me hungry, but I will pass on eating these.

This large stump is a regular nursery. It has moss and fireweed, and baby birch trees, along with these adorable parasol shaped mushrooms

Ooooh. Now this stump is amazing. Check out this colony of mushrooms here!

Awesome! That big white thing is a giant mushroom pushing up out of the ground. They are coming up right through the moss all over around here.

Now this one looks like the earth itself is growing up out of the ground.

I am beginning to feel surrounded in fungus. These are called larch boletes, Suillus grevillei. They grow in a symbiotic relationship with western larch trees providing them with more water and nutrients then they can get with just their roots alone.

These cute little orange fungi are growing out of the side of a log with moss and lichens.

I'm starting to get bored with the whole mushroom thing. We found at least half a dozen others, but the photos didn't turn out so great. This stick is starting to look more fun to play with.

Besides mushrooms, there's also berries out this time of year. This one is called bunchberry. It is related to dogwood and is one of the fastest plants on the planet (the pollen is released by a little trigger when a bee lands on it.) MamaT insists I include the Latin names. That's Cornus canadensis.

Here's something to pucker you up. It's Oregon grape (Mahonia or Berberis repens). We tried making lemonade out of it once. Started with 10 berries and it took about 10 teaspoons of sugar before it wasn't too tart anymore!

Now Patrick is just exploring without looking for plants--walking along a rotting nurse log here.

Do you think anyone will think I'm holding this big log up on my shoulders? I didn't think so either, but it's fun to imagine.

This hollowed out stump is kind of fun to play in. I think there's a red squirrel who hangs out here shelling pine cones all summer.

Gregor showed you all kinds of hidey holes like this earlier this summer. I'm finding some cool critter haunts too.

Just a swinging in the trees. That little branch doesn't look quite strong enough to hold me, but it did!

I like all the different colors of rocks you can find around here--red, yellow, and green for starters.

And finally a trip to the dock where I got to look a large mouth bass in the eye. How cool is that? Thanks for sharing my little autumn adventure with me. See you later.
--Patrick Terrance (a red-headed Gregor)

Sari Dress-up Day

Many years ago, when MamaT was in graduate school, she lived in a house with 2 kitchens and baths and 6 bedrooms and girls. One of her housemates was from India and wore traditional dress most of the time. She was also MamaT's all time favorite cook and got her addicted to Indian curry dishes. One evening the apartment pulled out Abha's saris and played dress-up, while Abha "dressed up" in western style clothes.

With this history, MamaT has always liked the Sasha Sari dolls, but they are not quite in her budget, so she thought she could make one of her brunettes into a sari doll and picked out some fabric that might make nice saris.

She also found instructions for making and wrapping saris. There is more than one way to correctly wrap a sari. She learned that a human sari is normally 45" (1.14m) by 6 yards (5.5-6m). Scaled down to Sasha size, that is about 9" (23cm) by 48" (1.2m).

You are supposed to have a half-slip to tuck the sari into. MamaT said she was too lazy to sew up a slip that won't be seen, so she used a rubber band instead.

About where the sari makes full circle around her waist, add 5-6 pleats. We hold these in place with a tiny safety pin.

Wrap the sari all the way around the waist one more time, and then throw it over her shoulder.
The Sari Sasha typically wears her sari over her head. It could also be left over her left shoulder, or brought around over her right shoulder, like MamaT and her housemates did. You can use another safety pin to hold the sari in place where you want it.
MamaT made two dragonfly saris and auctioned one off during the festival stay-at-homers raffle a few years ago. Here is the winner, Karen's doll, modeling her prize.
For some years, MamaT has envisioned making sari's for all the dolls, and as our Sasha family has grown, she picked up more bits of fabric to make Saris from, but the task of making us all saris become more and more daunting. One day MamaT's granddaughter found the fabric and wrapped several of us up and made this display.
MamaT decided it was as good a time as any to re-enact the sari dress-up day, even if all the saris weren't neatly sewn up like she planned. At least they were all cut to size. She decided that since there were 6 models in the original Sari dress-up day, just 6 of us would suffice for the Sasha sari dress up day. So here we are!
By the way, since you might wonder, MamaT is the one in green. The Sasha link we will share today is a site in Stockport, England that still has a few Sasha dolls and accessories for sale. ABCeta Playthings.

http://www.sashadolls.com/

Baby Sasha's Cradle

Shhh, Don't tell, but baby Sasha is getting a pine cradle for a birthday present. MamaT wants me to tell you she designed all by herself and built it too with a lot of help from her DH.

It is stained with a cherry wood stain.

The babies can't wait to try it out.

Tasha is making up the bed for the babies.

First, the mattress goes in.

Now to fluff up the pillow.

Doesn't that fleece look cozy, all in shades of pepto-bismol pink.

Now for the matching blanket.

And finally, the quilt to inspire dreams of dancing fairy princesses.

After making up the bed, Tasha thought she'd try it out, but she really doesn't fit.

Here it is, all snugly made up and ready to surprise baby Sasha.

Oh, and there's a matching nightgown too!

Baby Cara is modeling the nightgown.

Testing the comfort level of the fleece blanket and snuggling Pepsi Koala.

I think Cara's eyelids are getting very heavy snuggled under the quilt there.

The twins fit too, snug as a pair of bugs.

Sandra & Margot insist on snuggling with Koko and Pepsi Koala.

Tasha plays rock-a-bye baby with the twins.

Is 3 a crowd? No way, we say!

How about 4 (or 6 counting the bears)? Well maybe it would be tough to sleep like this, but who cares about sleep when we're having this much fun?

We can hardly wait for baby Sasha's next visit (she only comes over with MamaT's granddaughter), so we can give her the cradle!

And today's link to share is by Andrea of the Doll Works. She has lots of clothes and very cool accessories to choose from, plus knitting patterns.
http://www.the-doll-works.com/index.html

How Tall is a Sasha Doll?

We are called 16” dolls, but the book answer is that the English dolls ranged from 15.5-17” (39.4-43.2cm) and generally got taller as time went on, while German dolls were 16-16.5” tall (40-42cm).We got to comparing heights the other day just to see how we compared to each other. Do you see how much taller Lona is than I am?







So we all lined up and drew lines on the wall, and then measured the height of the lines. First time we measured, I came out the shortest of everyone. They started calling me Shrimpy Sasha. No fair. Here we are all lined up shortest to tallest with the Shrimp at the tail.
A week later, MamaT decided to see whether taking our shoes off would make a measureable difference. We all had our shoes on for the first round. She took my shoes off, and I stood as straight and tall as I could. Without my shoes, I was 3/8 of an inch taller than the week before. I grew! I grew! MamaT was not convinced. She muttered something about “must have measured wrong”. Then EVERYONE had to take their shoes off and line up to get measured. MamaT told us that's a lot what it's like to wait in line at an airport. I wondered if they had to measure everyone's height for some reason.

In round two, Kiltie grew almost as much as I did, and Patrick was next. Madie shrunk by an 1/8 of an inch. I think her wig adds to her height. I am mighty tempted to call her Midget Madie, but I'll try to be nice. I didn't like being called a Shrimp. Everyone else was within 1/16 of the first measurement (but even so most “grew” with their shoes off). What this shows is that depending on how we stand, you might get slightly different answers when making measurements. For one thing our legs are not exactly the same length (like real people you know). We had several ties in the first round. In the second round, we remeasured the ties for any subtle differences and got a different height for everyone. They are posted below the photo in inches and sixteenths.
Madie 16 4/16; Angela 16 5/16; Sasha 16 7/16; Cora 16 8/16; Gregor 16 9/16; Patrick 16 10/16; Kiltie 16 11/16; Shyvonne 16 12/16; Tasha 16 13/16, and Lona 16 15/16.

So in our little group we found the German dolls to be shortest. The one anomaly is Lona, who is most likely second oldest of the English dolls after me, but is indisputably the tallest at very nearly 17 inches. Everyone else seems to fit in with the theory that newer dolls were generally taller. So our little group is between 16-17” tall. That's kind of like MamaT and 3 of her sisters who are all between 5' 6” and 5' 7” tall.

Today's link is Lisa's dolls. She offers a wide range of shoes for Sasha kids and babies, a few dolls, and Sasha hospital services for the Great Britain area.
http://www.lisasdolls.eu/index.html

Trading Fashions - Sasha Style!

Lately the dolls on Sasha Street have been trying out a lot of fashions from other dolls. For example, the Best Friends Club (BFC) dress that we posted earlier that Lona is modeling.

Sometimes all it takes is an accessory to create a totally new look. MamaT's granddaughter loaned us this ballerina skirt, which Tasha adopted and refused to take off until it was time for Ryin to leave. Tasha has aspirations to become a dancer.

For poor Sasha's with a limited wardrobe, we found another way to "trade fashions." You don't so often see Sasha's wearing original Sasha outfits other than their own, so we thought we'd try swapping our original outfits around one day just for fun. For starters, we have Patrick in the pajamas outfit usually worn by blonde boys and Gregor is wearing Patrick's blue cord outfit.

Here is Tasha again without the ballerina skirt wearing Shyvonne's white dress, and Shyvonne loves Cora's flower dress. She also swiped the shoes from the BFC outfit Lona is wearing.

Here we find Angela wearing Tasha's pinafore and Lona wearing Kiltie's dress. This was taken before she took possession of the BFC dress.

Now Cora is wearing my newer Kilt skirt. We know this should traditionally be worn with my sweater, but it is the middle of summer, and we couldn't bear to subject her to putting on a sweater this time of year, so we substituted Patrick's white shirt from the blue cord outfit. We all think Kiltie Grace looks fantastic in Angela's white dress, and yours truly is wearing Lona's pink dress.

And lastly one more group shot of the girls just for fun.

I think I've been forgetting to add an outside link to explore on my recent posts. Here's a link for exploring some beautiful fashions by Nikita at Dreaming Under the Lilacs (Eseascaper7 on Ebay). http://www.dreamingunderthelilacs.com/

More berry picking

The strawberries are gone, but now it's raspberry season. We've all been picking our fill, especially Shyvonne who was a little reluctant to share her haul.





We also picked serviceberries and made a pie. Mmmmm. (aka saskatoon, juneberry or sarvisberry depending on your latitude--except MamaT and her botanist friends who would call it Amelanchier alnifolia.)