Berry Season…

More than 25 years ago we bought a house in the country. Having grown up as city kids with limited gardening knowledge, we were dismayed to find that with the house came several hundred raspberry bushes at the back of the property. We’d always eaten strawberries, but not raspberries and at first thought them too tart. We quickly came to love the taste of the red caps and black caps and happily shared them with family, friends and customers for almost 10 years.

When we relocated, a handful of the plants came with us. More than 15 years later we are still enjoying our berries and we look forward to having plenty of them for our own use starting just before the 4th of July and continuing for a month or longer, sometimes with a repeat crop early fall.

Right on time the berries started to ripen earlier this week… today I made a berry fields iced green tea and for lunch fresh lettuce from the garden, sprinkled with berries and cheese crumbles with a drizzle of raspberry vinaigrette. Yum!

Interestingly, after we moved to our current home we discovered that a neighbor’s very large mulberry tree drops mulberries into our yard. For years I’ve just swept up what the birds don’t eat, happy that the mulberries start to ripen at the same time as my berries and thus the birds leave ours alone.. Last year the birds pretty much picked that tree clean and I had little to sweep up… This year what a mess… Hmm… maybe I’ll have to find some way to use the berries, use them instead of tossing them…. so far haven’t found anything made from them that I like…

One of the photos shows the raspberries starting to ripen… Another shows my salad….another shows the mulberry tree to the right of my garden sthop/studio. Another shows the mulberry covered garden path to my potting storage area… not pretty at all. Too bad I can’t get them to fall in containers I put out… Hmmmmm….

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berry salad 2

under the mulberry tree 2

fallen mulberries 1

Dragons In The Lake…

Some new things at a park where I like to walk. I understand there are 5 of these dragons even though I saw only 2, all are actually large paddle boats.

Other attractions at the park.. lake/pond for fishing, very large and fast carousel, a boat named Jasper, skate board park, Banquet Hall used for weddings, etc., arcade, sports field, walking paths and more..

Along with a lot of other things, tracks and a train will be added in the future.

Garage Sale!…

This is garage sale weekend for us. We started setting up at about 7:30 and before 9am the skies opened up and it started to pour… Good thing we have a large enough garage to be able to set up in. The rain stopped an hour later and we were able to pull things out again. I took a photo as we were setting up and that was only a little of what we had to sell. Our sale continues tomorrow!

While pulling out things for the sale, I found a toy guitar belonging to an older grandchild. A younger grandchild saw the guitar, grabbed it and declared himself a rock star while playing and nodding his head to the beat of the music… shown is a photo of our rock star..

garage sale

rock star

Blooming…

May was a busy month for us, but somehow we managed to get most of our garden work done by the end of the month. Now we mainly have to keep things watered, weeded and occasionally divide plants and transplant or give away our extras.

Shown are some of the things thriving in the garden..

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Testing…

WordPress has introduced a new feature.. posting by email.. thought I’d try it out, including a photo. 
 
I’ve been moving some things into the garden shop including some things to hang on the walls.  I picked up the artwork at the Art Festival in Sayre, PA. I love all the colors in it.  I especially like the way it is made.  Would you believe some hand crocheted items were used to make some of the designs in the piece?
 
And the Star… my granddaughter says the design on part of it looks like knitted stitches.. so of course it will live in there with everything fiber and flora.

April Showers…

While sitting at the table in the new garden shop/shed/whatever,  I looked up to see what at first appeared to be a blizzard.  With unusually warm temps, in the 80’s, snow wasn’t possible.

Knowing  what it was, I went out to be closer to the cherry trees so I could experience the showers of blossoms with every gust of wind.  Some friends and family will sometimes comment that I see things as a child would see them.  When the cherry trees are in bloom, is one of those times when I feel like a child who is seeing this for the first time.  I am in awe of the beauty, will sit or stand under them to gaze up at the blossoms and love to experience the blossom showers. I noticed neighbors will also stop to enjoy the trees.  In fact some have told me that they look for to the trees blooming each spring and if they happen to be walking or driving by when they are raining blossoms, they will stop and experience the showers.

Photos taken yesterday…

The first is of the small Weeping Cherry tree.  It is still relatively young and so not yet very big nor dense, but it has the most beautiful pink blossoms.  I’ll be picking, pressing, and drying some of the blooms today.

Under the Yoshino Cherry trees. These are the types of trees you see in D.C.  The blossoms are a little paler than those of the weeping cherry, but just as pretty and the trees themselves are beautiful with that layered branch way of growing.   I’ll be cutting some small branches and taking them to a friend in the infirmary.  Last year she came over often to sit on the bench near the trees to enjoy them.  If she can’t come to enjoy the blossoms, I can take the blossoms to her and maybe make her day a little brighter.

And speaking of children…  last week granddaughter Jess was trying on hats from our collection of vintage hats, to see which one she wanted to wear to Hat Day at school.  Grandson Connor had been dropped off very early as his daddy was having hip replacement surgery.   Connor was upset at not being able to find a boy hat to wear, something other than everyday hats.  I remembered I’d pulled out a chullo hat from a trip to Bolivia so that I could copy some of the stitch designs and use them in a chullo hat I’ll be starting soon.  Connor tried it, and it was perfect!

 

Looking at that smile you can easilly see why it is that children can smile that way. There is a lot of passion in everything they do… they way they experience a shower of blossoms, they way they smile. We can learn a lot from children. 

I mentioned Connor’s daddy having surgery.   Our son-in-law could use prayers and healing thoughts as he recovers from this surgery and faces the next one.  Hip replacements at his age are not common, but we are hoping that once healed he will be able to do all the things he has not been able to do for quite some time, important things like teaching a son about camping and the great outdoors. 

I also mentioned the garden house…  if you’d like to see photos of it so far visit my studio blog, link in the sidebar.

A Concert of Sacred Lenten Music…

A friend invited me to a concert, we went yesterday. I knew it would be held in a historical church The Park Church, and I thought it would be like many other church concerts I’ve attended, watching and listening to music being performed.

 I was right about the listening part, but not the watching part. After a very brief introduction by the pastor, we listened to MUSIC for ORGAN/VIOLIN for OUR JOURNEY through LENT (Music for Meditation and Reflection). What a unique experience! Not being able to see the musicians on the balcony behind us allowed us to just close our eyes and listen to the wonderful music, meditate.

Music played:

 - The Eight Station (from “Stations of the Cross) for Organ – Macel Dupre – (Jesus Comforts the Daughters of Jerusalem

- Kol Nidrei (Hebrew Chant for Yom Kippur or Day of Atonement – Max Bruch

- Hymn Prelude on Stabat Mater” – arr. By Alan Viner – Largo (from Xerxes – G.F.Handel – Gammal Fabodpsalm Fran Dalarna (Swedish)

- Oskar Lindberg – An Old tune from Dalecarlia

 Afterwards there was a luncheon where we met some of the church members and visitors and learned a little about the church itself. I’m sure I’ll be back in the future.

Nesting…

Been a while since I’ve updated my blog, but as my friend Sue says … I can be doing or I can be writing about doing. I’ve been doing, little time for writing about it. 

The first day of spring we had a dusting of snow, this came after a week of nice spring like weather and it still hasn’t warmed up much. Yesterday my daughter and I took her grey girls for a long walk around the park, exercise for us, obedience training for them.  We were warm as long as we were moving and we were moving.  Weimaraners love to move fast and have lots of energy so doing a few miles with them doesn’t wear them out. They did very well, for the most part ignoring the ducks, geese and seagulls in the park lake, sometimes needing just a little reminder.  Hopefully our next walk/training session will be on a mild sunny day.  

Today I went to the monastery for Sunday service. It was cool and cloudy and its gone downhill from there, with a few scattered snow flurries. A warm up is predicted for the rest of the week. 

Along with regular spring chores such as cleaning out flower beds, putting out new mulch where needed, trimming trees and shrubs,  I like to check all the bird houses, make sure they are clean and in place for new tenents.  I put this one up and within minutes a pair of birds were checking it out and claiming it.   While I have quite a few bird houses, this is a favorite one, partly because it was a gift from a friend and partly because it has a little front stoop.  The bird house resembles a country store and one bird will go inside while the other sits on the stoop.. very cute.

Of couse, the birds aren’t the only ones nesting.  We are working on a little ‘house’ of our own.  We started out with wanting to replace our old metal garden shed. It was too small to hold more than a lawnmower, snowblower, tools and my collection of pots. There was no room to move around in it at all and it was looking old.   The only other storage space for furniture and other garden items was the 3rd bay in the garage, which I use as a summer studio during the warm months. 

So…   Hubby started on a new shed,  with plenty of room to be used for a potting shed.  Somehow the project evolved so that now this will be my potting shed/summer studio and the 3rd bay in the garage will go for large storage and garden tools.

I’ve been taking photos of the project all along and once we are a little further along I will be posting them on my studio blog, here is a sneak peek of the ‘nest’ so far. 

This is what you see when you pull into the driveway, it sits in the corner under the mulberry tree, off to the side and back of the garge.  I told hubby I planned to pain it bright yellow with a red door and purple shutters, He’s hoping I’m not serious.  *G* I’ll let him sweat a little before I tell him what I plan to do.

Here the garden side of it.

Needless to say the herb garden has suffered a lot of damage and  I will start over.  I’m thinking of shutters on the windows and trellis’ on either side.  I’m also thinking of  making that garden larger, centering the bird bath with paths or some maze design around it.  Stuff to ponder. This will be insulated and has good windows and doors so I should get a lot of use out of it for studio work or for when I just want to be alone and with a little heat, I can use it year round.  I have a hired man’s bed that will go in there for sitting, reading, napping.. etc.  Also chairs for visitors… work isn’t all that I’m going to be doing here.

Still to finish, insulation, wiring, lots of paint!

I need to decide what to call this place name for this place.  Right now it is the shed/studio/nest. Ideas welcome.

Bag vs Binoculars

Is it possible to be creative and get anything finished after a 3 year old child discovers the joys of binoculars? 

I think my brain is fried…..

Yesterday hubby and I celebrated an anniversary.  Instead of buying each other gifts, we pick out something that we can use, something that would reflect where we are in our lives.   One of our new hobbies is bird watching and we didn’t have binoculars  so we went out yesterday and picked some out before we went to eat. 

Back home, using the binoculars, we spotted our resident hawk and scoped out feral cats waiting to pounce on birds.  I like cats a lot, but between the cats and the hawk, the birds are in constant danger.    Maybe I should have a talk with Mr Hawk and see if he can solve the wild cat problem…. actually we plan to work with a local group to trap and neuter the cats.

Anyway, today I am watching grandson Connor…  who came with no volume control …. sigh…    The older I get the less I seem to be able to function around  noise.

Of course, I also have some things to finish up for The Festival Of Women In The Arts “Entangled Threads” exhibit which runs the month of March.  I’ve finished some final things,  needed to finish some small felted items and then tag the items and do up some cards with descriptions.  It has taken me a good part of the day to finish the little bag below ( for size reference, it is sitting on a large postcard) make and attach the beaded dragonfly.   Normally it would have taken me a fraction of that time.  I’ve decided anything else will have to wait till the little man goes home.

The little bag was made with fiber dyed in my studio.  I used very bright yellow/pink/orange.  I love all colors and just about now I need a shot of bright color to help cope with the last days of winter.   I have a bunch more of these to finish, in different sizes and colors, planned to pick one from the group to add to my exhibit items.  Since this is the only one finished, I guess I will be spared having to choose just one.   

Now I need to get going on the tags and descriptions….

Thinning…

I’ve recently finished reading Sabbath by Wayne Muller.  One of the things the author talks about is ‘thinnning’ , part of it is looking at how we value things, what we have, what we need, letting go of what we don’t need, etc.   The author also talks about the value of things we give, how we are more wealthy when we can part with things that weigh us down, regardless of monetary value, than when we keep them. 

 I’ve been doing this for a while but I tend to have trouble with things that were a gift or that I think I may use at some point, although I know I probably won’t.  In my effort to do a better job of thinning out, thus having less things to maintain, less things to tie me down, I’m designating Thursdays as Thin Down Thursday.  It will also be the day that I review  my progress to physically thin down and be as healthy as I can.

As it just so happens that the guild is having its annual De-stash Day in March, I am concentrating this week and next week on clearing out any craft related items I don’t need.  I already have quite  a pile of things to take and the camera I’d planned to take has already found a new home. 

So…. this is what I’m doing today,  thinning out while I do other things, work on guild newsletter, update guild blog, set the twist on yarn,  take photos of yarn and fiber for my studio blog. and work on updates… 

My goal is to have a carload of things to take to de-stash day….