The pie didn't work, but the magic might have

Harry Potter notwithstanding, it appears magic can only do just so much. I was all prepared for pie baking on Sunday -- my never-fail Julia Child recipe for pate brisee (that needs an accent egout, dammit), a new and highly recommended alternative pastry recipe, a pile of Granny Smith and Golden Delicious apples, butter, shortening, the proper flour -- all of it. It was in the low 90's out, and humid with it, but I figured central air conditioning should handle it, right?

Wrong. Clearly one cannot argue with the weather, and the humidity was just too much for the pastry. The alternative pastry recipe was summarily tossed at the first taste, and even Julia's pastry floundered, even after a couple of hours in the fridge. Never one to bow to the cursed animosity of inanimate objects, I went ahead and made a Granny Smith lattice-top pie anyway. It turned out reasonably tasty, but insanely ugly. We've been eating it with our eyes closed.

However, it may have in fact influenced the weather. It was only (only!) 86 degrees today, and the rest of the week is actually going to be in the 70s, and not nearly so humid. I cannot tell you how happy that makes me! I'll be able to work on my chevron socks again without the wool sticking to my fingers and the needles! I can do some more blocks for the Babette! And I'm going to make another apple pie this weekend, too!

I forgot to say -- the beloved Wiggy sent me four skeins of denim-blue alpaca wool from The Alpaca Yarn Company. He's currently in residence in Detroit with about a dozen cameras, and spends his weekends scurrying around the Lower Peninsula going to festivals and taking pictures. So far there has been a maple syrup festival, a Native American powwow, a zombie walk (unannounced, at dinnertime, down the main street of a town full of glass-fronted restaurants), a Red Flannel Festival, and a couple of weeks ago, the 11th Annual Michigan International Alpaca Fest. (That's where my Ravelry icon came from, by the way.) Local alpacas, local yarn, and very shortly a new winter cap for Wiggy to keep his ears warm in the Michigan winter. It's sooooo soft I almost don't want to give it up, but I'm pretty sure I can get some more. Apparently alpacas love Michigan, and there are quite a number of alpaca farms.

Here are some of his photos. I thought alpacas were like llamas or camels -- nasty and bad tempered. I had no idea they were this cute! Wigwam Jones' Alpaca Fest photos