Soil & Toil & Flora & Fauna :-)

Wonder of wonder and miracle of miracles - BW was offered Friday off, a huge surprise - and accepted it, which wasn't! :-) We've been wanting to get our backyard herb garden planted, and knew we had a very narrow window of opportunity before several days of significant rain moved in. So Friday morning BW spent two hours prepping the bed with a pickax and some amended soil, and then we spent most of the rest of the day visiting three different greenhouses to buy some drip irrigation supplies, fencing, and plants.

Bright and early yesterday morning, we started designing and planting it (sometimes in the rain that came earlier than forecast), and by lunchtime we had this little herb and flower garden under our kitchen nook windows...

Willow wants you to know that she and her sisters "helped." :-)

We bought a really pretty solar-lit, painted glass birdbath on sale last fall, and it was supposed to go beneath the middle awning window and be the centerpiece of our herb garden. Alas, its metal stand has a defect that makes it too wobbly to trust, so BW plans to take it to an automotive repair shop to see if they can repair the flaw. *sigh* Meanwhile... we planted red and purple columbine, lavender, marigolds, thyme, rosemary, spearmint, cilantro, three varieties of basil, and two varieties of peppers. The "Yorkshire Scroll" fencing came from Home Depot and the recycled rubber stepping "stones" from Gardener's Supply (sorry they got so muddy during our planting frenzy, you'll see on the web site how pretty they are when they're clean!)... 

Unhappy Update, 5/24: After 24 hours of 40mph sustained winds and gusts of 60 since the middle of Wednesday night, our new herb and flower garden, not even a week old, is a near total loss. Even some of the sturdy little marigolds were broken and wind-blasted, and the columbine, herbs and pepper plants never stood a chance. It's very frustrating because it's in the one area that should have been protected from our usual N/NW winds, and therefore the one place we can enjoy flowers! But this time the wind came from the E/SE instead. Our potted flowers didn't fare much better, since those winds - which had not been predicted - came up suddenly in the middle of the night. I know I shouldn't complain - at least it wasn't a tornado! - but to see all that time and effort and money and prettiness go down the drain after only four days of enjoyment is a bit hard to take without feeling pissed off. In somewhat happier news, BW was able to fix the birdbath (I'd brought the glass bowl indoors the evening before the wind blew so badly, so at least it wasn't smashed to smithereens!), and though they were violently blown around, I think most of our other plantings made it through (can't say the same about our mulch, though!) And at least we haven't planted the front flowerbed yet - but I think we'd better go with boulders and tree stumps, the only things that can stand up to Wyoming's #@$% winds!

We've also been planting flowers in our flower pots during the past couple of weeks, so while I was in the back yard with my camera I decided to photograph some on the patio to share with you. But Tess thought the photo would be much more interesting if she walked through it as I took it (one of her methods of "helping," the others being to sniff and lick everything you're working with, and/or to sit on it and demand lovin's. Also to lick your face suddenly while you're working at dog-tongue level)...

There's no rest for the wicked, especially when racing the weather. The rains had stopped for a few hours, but were clearly intending to start in again just as soon as they felt like it, so after a quick lunch break we took turns mowing and trimming the back yard. I'd just mowed it on Wednesday, but it's clear that it's going to need it twice a week, especially this time of year when it grows so fast, because that yard is too beastly hard to mow with the reel mower when the fescue gets so long and thick. This time it was much easier, especially with BW at home to share in the fun! :-)

We were delighted when our Greenspire Linden finally leafed out last week, after stubbornly (but perhaps wisely) clenching his little bud fists since late March!

We had another brief break in the weather last evening, when we even got to see the sun for the first time all day. So we took the dogs for a walk around the neighborhood and I took my camera along, because on a walk the day before I'd spied this beautiful Purple Leaf Sand Cherry in bloom down the street. There are several in our neighborhood, but this one is huge and by far the most beautiful. I reduced my many photos of it down to three (based largely on their lovely backgrounds of "blossom bokeh!"), but then could cull no further. But maybe you can narrow these down to a single favorite...

Willow, who'd promised her fan club a photo (to make up for her "bad hair day" refusal to be photographed for this SkyWatch post), found that a day filled with "helping" in the garden, watching Mom and Dad mow, and then going for a walk and having to wait while Mom took 14,593 photos of some smelly branches, just too exhausting for words...

:-)

Today is rainy and windy and cozy, and we'll be spending much of it in the garage, sorting through and pricing more stuff for our huge upcoming yard sale in three weeks. But after that, it's BW's famous homemade vegan pizza and a movie! :-) Here's hoping your weekend is being a perfect mix of productive and relaxing! 

John Henry lament & some LOLs for TGIF!

You can just call me "Jane" Henry, because I'll die with a paintbrush in my hand, lord, lord... 

Okay, so remember our freshly painted living room and bookcase full of rocking horses and minis?

Well, turns out that when we took down the old quarter-round ceiling molding before we painted the room, it apparently left behind a perforation in the drywall that we couldn't see but that let the new paint seep behind some of the drywall paper, creating a hand-sized blister that appeared a couple of days later up by the new ceiling molding. You can't see it in the photo but it was definitely noticeable, especially in certain light. Of course I couldn't bear it, so we had our drywall guys Dana and Gordy out to make the repair on Tuesday. Dana's pretty meticulous, so he decided the corner needed straightening out while he was at it. So here's what our pretty new living room looked like on Tuesday…

And wouldn't you know the blister just had to be in the wall above the bookcase? So I spent Monday night removing most of the rocking horses and all the fragile minis (that I had just so painstakingly put in there in November!) so we could move the bookcase on Tuesday morning. We also needed Dana and Gordy to repair/redo some previously-done (not by us!) unsightly patches in our laundry room ceiling where overhead lights had been before our remodel, and repair a crack above our terrace door in the dining room. So guess what we're doing this weekend? Priming and painting in all three rooms. AGAIN. I have primed, painted, plastered and/or stained every square inch of this house at least once, and usually twice (and in the case of our deck, every flippin'-flappin' year for 18 years)... and the house before that, and the house before that... hence my prediction that I'll die with a paintbrush in my hand, lord lord, gonna die with a paintbrush in my hand!

"Dead Painter" by Frank Kallop

Or... I might die laughing instead! Because to cheer myself up, I've been visiting Cake Wrecks, which is probably familiar to many of you but which I just stumbled upon the other day and that's often had me LOL.* Some of the cakes are hysterical, some are odd, and some are sick, just sick I tell you (really). All of them will make you feel better about your WORST cake-decorating - or any other culinary - disaster. And I love Jen's captions and editorial comments. Here's an example from the post, They'll NEVER Notice (captions hers)...

How to make Al feel special:

AFTERTHOUGHTS:

Technically they're still thoughts, and that's what counts.

(So, um, Joanne - aka AdventureJo - just who the hell's "Al?" LOL)

I have barely scratched the surface, but these are three of my favorite posts so far...

Truth in Advertising

What's THAT Supposed to Mean?

New Discoveries in the Animal Kingdom

(Not all of the cakes are wrecks - some posts are devoted to some amazing cake-decorating art. My favorite so far, by far, is Seussical Sweets). 

And speaking of the animal kingdom and dying laughing, you have got to check out the hilarious, priceless video Molly shared on her latest post! (But I'd go pee first, if I were you!) ;-) It had me in absolute hysterics this morning.

*And also speaking of LOL ~ and I hate to admit this but sometimes you have to confess to these sorts of things on your blog for the cathartic effect it provides ~ when I was driving home from town on Wednesday I saw something that amused me. And my response was to think - to actually THINK - "LOL." I didn't think in a laughing noise, or in words like, "That's funny!" No, indeedy. I thought the letters "L" "O" "L". Is this normal? Does it mean I need to spend some significant time offline? I wish I could remember what it was that I saw that I found funny, because oh-so-briefly - in the nanosecond before I realized I'd thought "LOL," I thought, "I need to blog about that." But my sudden comprehension that I'd thought "LOL" eclipsed everything. (If I ever remember it, I'll post it here. Assuming they allow computer access at the asylum).

Have a great weekend! Stop by and grab a paintbrush if you're not busy! We'll drink beer and listen to more Springsteen. It'll be fun, you'll see! ;-)

One more time in case you missed it - it's a great tune to take us into the weekend!

;

New look for Noël & some rockin' ponies

No, not a new look for me, I still have the same raggedy-ass look I usually do!

But our living room got a bit of a makeover earlier this year, with new carpet, new paint, new baseboard and ceiling moldings, and some new decor (well, not really new, we just shuffled stuff around between rooms so it feels new!). I thought I'd thrill two birds with one scone by including photos of our holiday decorations as my "after" photos. :-)

Summer 2008

December 2010

AdventureJo made the beautiful quilted star pillow! :-)

It's not easy to see, but many years ago I'd stenciled a pretty vine with red berries around the top of the two living room walls. It was a lot of work and I really loved it, so it was painful at first to paint over it. But once I'd gotten started I loved the new green wall color so much I was able to paint over my stencil rather ruthlessly. :-) Hey, out with the old, in with the new, right? Besides, I still have the stencil kit, so I can recreate it some other time (and place!)

I know that colors don't usually look all that true and can vary widely on computer monitors. The actual colors are deeper, darker and more subdued (with more gray tones in them) than they look in the first two photos, but look truer in the next ones, at least on my computer. We used Sherwin Williams' Duration (low VOC) satin paint in "Coastal Plain" for the walls and "Basil" for the trim...

Some of you may have noticed the Santa's Workshop on the stereo cabinet. You'll get to see it in detail in a future post... probably on Christmas Eve when we can sneak in and look around while Santa is otherwise preoccupied with his deliveries.* ;-)

Look, Molly! A latchhook rug from my crafty past! ;-)

*BW, my UPS-man husband, made up a little ditty that he and his co-workers now all sing as they load and sort their package cars at this time of year. Sung to the tune "We Are Santa's Elves" from Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, it goes:

We are Santa's elves, filling Santa's shelves...

we do the work but he gets the credit, we are Santa's elves!

Oh, go ahead and sing along, you know you want to! ;-)

I think BW needs to re-write the rest of the lyrics. :-)

Now that we've enjoyed that festive musical interlude, here are a few non-holiday living room decor details...

You may have noticed this little gallery hanging just to the right of the hallway in the above photo. I bought the butter prints cross-stitch pattern and the ceramic bas relief butter print goat plaque above it in either Maine or NH about 20 years ago. (I entered that cross-stitch in my local county fair the following summer and won a blue ribbon for it, yay!)

In addition to my fondness for goats, I've loved foxes since I was very little and have a few foxy goodies (<-- that should make for some interesting Google search hits, lol) scattered throughout the house. Here is an ensemble consisting of a tiny original Claudia Hopf scherenschnitte ("paper-cutting") fox picture my mom commissioned her to make as a gift for me a long time ago, and a cross-stitch illustration of the Aesop fable The Fox and the Grapes that Mom did in 1987, upon whose frame I've perched two wee fox figurines and a little wood carving that also depicts The Fox and the Grapes fable.

The antique lawyers bookcase to the left of the bay window originally belonged to my grandparents, but was decorating my bedroom by the time I was in high school. When BW and I brought it here from Mom's where it had been stored all those years, we put a new back on it and lights in the top section. The top shelf houses what's left of a pretty extensive miniature rocking horse collection that Mom and I started when I was in junior high. We'd noticed that between all her miniature displays and my miniature horse collection, we had quite a few rocking horses. So we thought, "Let's put them all together as a collection and add to them!" After a while, when it got truly ridiculous, we agreed, "Only unusual rocking horses from now on." As you can see, that caveat didn't really narrow the field much so our collection continued to grow like kudzu. What you see in the following photos is what remains of our fairly heavily-culled original collection.

The bookcase's second shelf holds my little Beatrix Potter and Tasha Tudor books from childhood, along with the last of my once vast herd of miniature (non-rocking) horses. As a tot and teen, I glommed onto anything horsey! In recent years I gave a lot of them away and sold some others, so now my collection is distilled down to my very favorites, some of which I've had since kindergarten. (The third shelf holds more books and little odds and ends, but I decided it's not closeup worthy). :-)

Here are some rocking horse closeups... I'll give you a little tour of my favorites. :-)

The large rocking horse in the back corner, standing on a toy drum with other toys at his feet, is a music box. The stained wooden horse on the right near the back (between the spotted and terra cotta horses) is one of my very favorites. He was made by a man in Virginia who made exquisite dollhouse miniatures. I wish you could see the craftsmanship in that rocking horse!

The gold one in the middle near the front is an old Avon sachet holder. His saddle is hinged, and when you open it there's a little stash of sachet - a perfumed wax you're supposed to dab on your pulse points. Given that it was fresh back in 1973, I wouldn't advise doing that. ;-)

Just to the left of the gold horse and behind the red one with the bright yellow mane and tail is a clunky little rustic wooden horse. His name is Ned (I'm not kidding, it's even written on his belly), who was carved by a man in Canada. I just love Ned!

Favorites in this group include the patina-green rocking horse on the left, which is made of some kind of metal that's heavy as hell; the red and white glass one behind him; a plain little wooden one near the front right that my mother made out of basswood; and the fuzzy little brown one just in front of him.

And here my faves are another music box in the back corner; a red horse with fancy embroidery and bells who's looking back over his shoulder (made in China long before the days when everything was made in China); and a cute little merry-go-round of rocking horses that spins. (But none of them, in my opinion, hold a candle to Ned). :-)

I hope you enjoyed your visit and our sing-along! ;-) Now help yourself to a freshly baked muffin and some tea. Speaking of which, Mountain Rose Herbs is having a fantastic giveaway this week for all you tea lovers out there! Deadline is Sunday at a stroke before midnight (PST). Cheers and good luck!