inch by inch

Slowly slowly, more things get done. It was a beautiful day here; clear, breezy, and cool 65°(in May!) Warmer in the sun. So I decided to put two more lattice strips up. The old ones are okay. There are a few broken strips here and there,  but with a fresh coat of paint, they are just fine.

Before front: 

Before side: 

After front: 

After side: 

 

Of course all of this happened under the watchful eye of the Supervisor. 

Garden update

 Aliums are in full bloom. They are gorgeous this year! It must be all the water they are getting. This spring has been very strange weather wise. We had a lovely 85° day today, but by Sunday it is supposed to be 65°. My roses are barely starting to make an appearance and usually they are in full bloom by now. I guess I shouldn't complain, Minnesota is still getting snow! Ugh. I'll be they are mighty done with that.
The azalea bush I discovered my first year here is also doing just dandy.  It is brilliant white and so many blooms. Maybe because I fed it this year. just maybe. ahem.

 And since Mr. El left and hasn't been back for almost a year. I hope no one will notice that the ugly wall of the house is being covered up with beautiful vines. This is from last year and I'm hoping they will continue to propagate and cover everything. This vine goes bright red in the fall. Lovely. 

5 years

 

Five years ago today I signed my fingers off to to get the pieces of paper that say that I'm responsible for this house. I can't believe it's been five years. How did that happen? I still feel like I just moved in. I'm still unpacking (a few) boxes, I'm still trying to make it exactly the way I want it! How did five years go by? Well they did and this also means that I've been writing this blog for almost five years as well. That's probably more of a surprise, by all accounts I should have petered out by now. Still going though - because there's still lots to do. (This is a pressure print I did this past weekend at Melanie's press.)

On Tuesday, having toured all of Philadelphia with my Australian guest, and having survived my peer review at school, AND inspired by Karen (of course) - I indulged in a little creativity. I covered some light switches.

The new cover in the studio. An old seed packet. 

My absolute favorite marbled paper - but the Modge Podge made it even darker, so it's hard to see. 

 

Bathroom switches

The thing I realized though, once I was putting them back on the wall, is they will look better on a colored wall. That's what makes Karen's so stunning - the colored wall behind it. My favorite is the turquoise one for my kitchen on the blue background. So... I guess I 'll be thinking about what color to paint the bathroom.... maybe that green!
But that blue in the kitchen is especially hard to photograph so here is a clear one slightly blown out...

 and here is a slightly blurry picture with better color...

Next time I will cover them with paste paper.

What I want now...

Because there is an Australian visiting from our Mail-Art exchange, I was up a Melanie's for the weekend. Katie who is also in the mail art exchange was able to come to meet Heather, and Melanie also invited Karen -  a friend of hers who does a lot of mail art within her own circles. Heather and Karen had "met" on facebook and it was so much fun to get together with like-minded people and have a play day. Heather was introduced to a whole new world of printmaking!  We spent Saturday at Melanie's PRESS and each made a pressure print. I'll have to post those another time because I want to take photos and I'm planning on "installing" them somewhere on the premises.

Karen invited us (Heather and me) to her home on our way back to Philadelphia. And wow. Just wow. What a beautiful home!
It makes mine with all of my colors look conservative!
It is so beautiful!
I want one.
Look...

The cabin in the woods

The living room and the studio (second floor)
Karen in her kitchen  Heather  

 

The breakfast nook

The Mona Lisa Bath

   

The light switch cover in the Mona Lisa bath

The green bath... (huge sigh - is this a bathroom for me or what!?)

light switch cover in the green bath...

But since I can't really have a house like this (not right now anyway), I'll settle for the light socket covers... Look at these!

(I'm sorry the images are a little blurry. I don't know what was blooming up there but I was having the worst allergy attack I've every had. I took antihistamines and everything, did no good.)

Karen explained that the light switch covers are covered with decorative paper, stamps, maps etc.  Well. I think I have some of that stuff lying around! I can't wait!

Heather and I did some running around yesterday... the running tour of Philadelphia. Got her safely onto the train this morning and I dashed off to my peer review at Moore, which I think went okay. 

And now I've blogged - so I think I can indulge in a little art. I'm going to go cover some light switches!

Procrastination: the ultimate motivator

No really, procrastination is the ultimate motivator. I get so much more done the more deadlines I have. I'm too busy doing a million other things to get those deadlines finished.

Firstly, the daffodils are done, still a few tulips, the aliums are coming, and I've had my first ever own-garden-bouquet:

 

My favorite tulip - I just love the color

 

I started seedlings a few weeks ago, sunflowers, sweet peas, Shasta daisies, and cucumbers (the "Burpless Beauty" heehee!). With the exception of the Shasta daisies, everything else made it into the ground. The daisies aren't quite far enough along for that.

 

And then the real procrastination started. Recycling candles! Mind you, I have three spreads for my students to finish, an application and a peer review to plan for, not to mention an Australian coming next weekend. But candles were the priority. 

All of the citronella candles from the last few years have been driving me mad. The wicks have burned down, but there is still plenty of wax (about an inch) in them. Put them together and you get several inches. I've been wanting to do this for quite a while, but the wick part of making new candles eluded me.

 

Step one: google how to make your own wicks. Since I am a pack-rat, I must have everything I need, turns out I do! Cotton twine, (I only have red, but when it's on fire, no one will notice anyway) salt, and boric acid. Boric Acid is what we use to keep roaches and ants at bay. Perfect. Soak the "wicks" in boric acid/salt/water solution overnight.

Hang to dry:   

 

here's a more focused image of my beautiful pink tree!

 

It sort of exploded into color one day last week.

Once the wicks are dry they need to be set up in the container: 

 

This requires lots of paper clips and interesting rigging. 

 

While one is fiddling with that, the wax melts down.  I have a bottle of citronella oil so I dumped some of that in as well to boost the existing scent.

 

 

(Those sugary coated looking things are the wicks!)  

 

When everything is melted, time to start pouring:  

While the citronella candles are cooling you can start to recycle all of those IKEA candles:

Same deal, melt wax, add wick, pour.

The result? four brand new candles! all for the price of - well whatever I paid for them last time and some cooking gas. But now I am ready for the hordes of mosquitoes that always plague me!

Then when you are finished, admire the mess you've made in the kitchen.  Have fun cleaning!

 

Just a little more procrastination....

Teaser or Warning

We had a glorious day on Wednesday, Tuesday wasn't bad either, but Wednesday was heavenly. 85°F in the shade. aaaaaahhhhhhhh. So nice to warm up the bones. I skipped yoga to sit under the pine tree which sweated sap all over me. Jacques thought this was a good plan as well. Thursday,  the temperature went backwards in that baffling east coast way. The morning was 68°F and we ended the day at 58°F with cold wind and finally rain. Today it's pouring. Yoga tonight - definitely.

But Wednesday....

 

The forsythia has been under threat of removal for several years now. This year it has given a few more flowers, but nothing worthy of keeping. In one last ditch effort to figure out how to make this thing the bright shock of yellow I want it to be, I did some more research. Turns out my first research was in correct. The forsythia has had a reprieve. I've made a note and will do the new recommendations next year.

 The one at the front of the garden did a little better. Hopefully with the new recommendations it will do even better next year. (Note to self, time to move that pile of bricks.)

Raspberries are starting again. I hope I get a better crop than last year, which was understandably a wash, due to the porch reconstruction.  


Other edibles are coming back as well. The ramps I brought back from Massachusetts last year have made a reappearance. These are wild garlic/onion plants. But as this clump is so little I think I will leave it alone again for another year. Maybe this year it will spread out and I can harvest some next year.



Melanie gave me two of her grandmother's heirloom garlic heads.  I planted them last fall and they have appeared beautifully.  The mustard greens I planted last year went to seed and I've been digging out the little plants all over the yard and putting them back into good soil. The big one is doing really well, the two little ones are struggling along. 

Then there are the others interesting things happening in the garden. Some are welcome, like this tiny moss:

Others are not! Like this nasty dandelion. It was removed seconds after this photo was taken. 

 

There is also sad news. My bees did not make it after all. In the middle of March they were buzzing around in a bit of sunshine which I dutifully reported to the BeeMan. Two weeks later there was nothing. I was about to report this when he stopped by personally, just to be sure and discovered that they had most likely starved to death. Not because there wasn't enough food in the hive. On the contrary, there was plenty of honey still in the combs! It just wasn't where they expected it to be, and since they aren't programed with strong intelligence - none of the 10,000 of them thought to look in the back of the hive where all of the honey was.  

I took the opportunity to take some photos of perfectly still bees, but it was still sad.
The crazy artist in me decided to collect a jar-full just in case I might need bees in the future for...goodness knows what.  He also scraped of some of the old combs which had been started in places they weren't supposed to be. They look like different kinds of bugs to me.

Later that same day, the BeeMan returned with a new hive of 12,000.   and a queen

 

He explained that the queen is always from a different hive. She lives in this little box for a week with a few of her attendants. The new hive feeds her through the screen while at the same time trying to kill her. !

After about a week the hive accepts the new queen, the BeeMan can release her, she can start laying eggs, and then there will be many many more bees. This will be an interesting experiment this year. We will find out if my honey was so good because of the bees, or because of what was available for them to make food. We will also need to monitor what will happen now that they will have so much more sun. Should be an interesting year.
Cleaning out the hive:

 Putting the new hive in front of the box so they can find their way inside:

And my handsome guy? 

 

Jacques is doing better. He is still itchy and cranky, and most concerning has lost a lot of weight, but at least he is not scratching himself raw anymore. He loves being out in the sun with me. His black fur warms up so nicely. He alternates between bright sun, and then a bit of shade. I hope we are really on the mend.