Category: Uncategorized

The Art of Quilting

  One of the biggest sellers in our artisan gallery over the past two years were Vivika DeNegre’s Art Quilts.  They are beyond beautiful and I am lucky to have two of them in my home – She uses many different color threads, a wide array of fabrics, and her subjects vary from shorebirds to pet portraits to modern designs.  Often in the store, people would say “What a beautiful painting!”  and I ‘d say  “That’s actually a framed quilt!” … Upon closer inspection  they’d  see it – the quilt details are that refined.   My favorites are the nests and pet portraits, which she does on commission – GREAT present for someone with a beloved pet.  I have a  quilt portrait of Bailey and Rudy in my office, see bottom photo.

Baily & Rudy!!….
To see more of Vivika’s work, visit her blog at
http://vdenegrequilts.blogspot.com/
Her etsy shop is here
http://www.etsy.com/shop/vdenegrequilts?ref=top_trail

Greenhouse Project

   Our rising Son is at that age where he knows everything, and everything you think you know is stupid.   (enter my mother, chuckling at the irony…paybacks, apples not falling far from the tree, surely you remember when..….)   The problem is, I remember all too clearly!…

We forced him to tag along with us on errands yesterday and I noticed while having lunch at Chilis, I think rather than be seen with his parents he would have evaporated into the upholstery of the booth if he could have found a way.

  So this morning when he said  “Dad, remember we talked about the greenhouse, want to build it together today?”… you know… my heart kinda skipped a beat or two.  The moon will surely be blue tonight, I’ll have to remember to look. 

Spring Give-away Winner – and You Guys Totally Rock

  Thank you so much for all the birthday wishes, you make my heart sing with all your kind words, truly.
 No, I didn’t get a pony.

 Sandra of Thistle Cove farms… You have won my Spring Give-away!!  Send me an e-mail with your address – I’ve had fun putting a package together for you.

 Have you heard? Today the moon will be at it’s largest, and the Tides will be at their highest. Get your cameras out!

  Yesterday I took Ben for a walk on the beach and for the first time ever, I saw a seal sunning himself on a rock nearby.  In my 26 years of living in CT, I have never seen a seal in the waters here before.  Then, making our way back up the beach, there were two swans just out of dogs reach.  Always an odd sight to me in salt water.  But beautiful.   When I wrangle Ben, the camera is too much… so many photo ops, and NO CAMERA!!  The dilemna of being a camera lover is, you ALWAYS see something you want to capture… hard to be without it!

 Have a wonderful weekend    🙂

46

Tomorrow I’ll be
Forty Six
Four Six
46
Just four years and I’ll be 50
It’s scarey… the time
In particular,  how it flies
 I have always been acutely aware of  the process of aging
I wouldn’t say I obsess over it, but the weight of it has always been there
like a stone in my pocket
One summer day – I was 20 – I sat on a beach in a bikini
Basting in baby oil, of all things…
and I looked at my limbs, youthful and muscled and tan
but not yet mottled with sun spots, as they are now
I remember so clearly ..thinking…
Enjoy this time, this wearing of YOUTH
It won’t last
One day you will look down and things will be different
Enjoy it..now
And I did
Youth was not wasted on this youngster
because I was fully aware of its temporary existence
I did appreciate almost every detail
minus the zits and heartbroken angst
While it was mine
Now in middle age as things start to weaken and creak
I need to remind myself to appreciate all that is still working and healthy
because it is truly a gift, not a given
I carry that stone in my pocket now too
My birthday wish this year is for some kind of peace for the people of Japan
some saving grace, some respite and rescue
a ressurection from the devastation
that is their home
*****
OK, and maybe a pony…….
because some things never change  ðŸ™‚

Randomest Post Ever

 The Coop came yesterday! … We decided rather than kill each other attempt to build the coop ourselves, what they were offering at chickensforbackyards was reasonably priced, so we bought one from them.  It’s perfect for our eight-chicken needs.

 
Plenty of nesting box room and the interior is roomy with perches too.
 

 Initially I wanted the coop on the other side of the garden shed behind the house… you can see it off in the distance here..  However, Mike got a bit of information from one of his farm buddies that rats are attracted to chicken feed, and next thing I know, the coop is on the other side of the barn/garage.  …..Chicken.

 These are the chicken yard panels and green roof, next thing on the to-do list.
We’ll be able to run power from the back of the garage to the coop.

  Unrelated! ….I’ve said earlier that I’m a half-breed, and what I meant by that was I’m half Italian and half Irish-German.  Yes, that’s a nationality because I said so.   I was born a few minutes after midnight of St. Patricks Day…  not quite a leprechaun.  So today a dear friend came by to see This Old House bearing house warming and birthday gifts.  She fortified my kitchen chicken collection (say that three times fast) with these adorable things…

 ..a beautiful Rooster cookie jar!

                                                
                                                      and this hand stitched piece in a frame…

..and a beautiful dishtowel and spoon rest I didn’t photograph.
This is the tray on the wall above the sink… see that sign below it?
…. that about says it all.

 

 She handstitched this beautiful chicken out of old quilt material too…

H has been one of my horse buddies for many years and it doesn’t matter
 how long the span of time in between visits… we always pick up right where we left off
and there is never enough time to cover all the things we want to catch up on.
Thanks, H.  –  Now lets find some new trails to blaze.
Totally unrelated again…(I warned you this was random)
 The manchild saw me taking pictures of my orea stuffed cookies and said
“Ma…. get a shot of THIS..”
Just six months ago, he was still a twig. A stick figure! MAH  BAYBEE  BOY.
As he likes to say now, while flexing a bicep…
“BOOM”
*sigh*
 My midsection is saying the same thing.
As T-shirt weather approaches, I am thoroughly disgusted with my eating habits.
Time to get off my arse and start working it.
 After this last batch of cookies is gone.

 

Louie

 Mike and I come from Italian stock (I’m a half-breed to be honest) , and as is typical of our history, our grandparents were avid gardeners. It was a means to feed their family, not just the hobby we nurture today.  Mikes grandfather had a fruit and vegetable stand in West Haven.  He remembers rows and rows of plants in the garage and out in the yard behind the store, and the scolding he’d get if he put too many potatoes in what was supposed to be a 5 lb. bag to be sold in the store.

 Grandpa Al in his shop

  My grandfather grew roses and tomatoes and peppers and there were fig,  cherry and loganberry trees in his back yard on Staten Island. I remember harvest days when we would climb ladders and drop fruits onto tarps from the trees.  I also remember being scared beyond  silly in my grandparents presence. They were a stern lot, speaking broken English and  always, in my eight year old point of view, so serious.   Occasionally  they’d take a giant Hershey Bar out of a drawer in the kitchen and give each of us a big chunk of chocolate.

      Mike decided about five years ago he wanted to learn the art of gardening with the traditions and methods our ancestors used.  Our grandparents are long since gone… however LOUIE… Louie Louie.. is still alive and kicking it up in his magnificent garden in Middleltown.  Louie was a sheetrocker in the building business for many years. This is how Mike came to know him.   He is also an italian immigrant and fantastical gardener. That man works wonders in the soil of the small plot of land next to his house.  He also raises and kills rabbits for food, the reason I sometimes despise him… but in fairness he has let me buy two in recent years so that I could save them from his dinner table.   One of those rescue rabbits died at the paws of my barn cat… ask me how awful I felt that day. No don’t.  It’s still awful.  (I’m sorry, Sonny.. I failed you.)

  ANYWAY… Louie is tight-lipped with his gardening secrets. You cannot ask him direct questions, he will not give a direct answer. In a heavy italian accent you can imagine this line …”  Oooooh, you wanna know, huh?…..eeee hee heee…. well, I notta gonna tell ya”.     Mike has learned that he needs to just walk with him in the garden as he does his thing, and  it is there that Louie starts to talk.  In the talking, he gives away little bits of information, especially when he scolds.  (What is it with the scolding?).    “You putta da seeds in That size seed cup?  Oooh, too big, too big.  You gotta starta small, so the plant gets a little root bound. Then a they grow strong, you see?  Then a you move them to the bigger seed cup.  You young a people want things too quick, that’s a you problem.”

   This weekend while Mike paid a visit and gathered some tips, Louie gave him a big bunch of dried oregano from last years crop. This Old House smells delicous with the scent of rich oregano.

CSN Give-away WINNER!! and a spring give-away of my own…

Yes, I was going to wait another week to announce this giveaway, but I decided I wanted to give my followers a better chance at winning, so I went on over to Random.org  (thanks, kim)  and used their true numbers generator.  AND.. the number it settled on  was 39!   Comment number 39 was…

KATE the country girl! … Kate, I’ll mail you the code, and you now have $40. to use on CSN’s sites as you please.

 And so… I just reached the 200 follower mark!   It’s never been my intention to see how many followers I can accumulate… my blogging was initially  just a journal. However, it turned into much more than that.  It’s been such a pleasure getting to know you and the places you live and places you go – learning and creating and commiserating together.  I plan to blog for a long time, it’s a wonderful community.  To celebrate all of you – I am having a little give-away of my own.   All you have to do is answer the following questions in the comments section of this post and on Friday I’ll use the random generator again to pick a winner. The giveaway will be a box of spring goodness, contents a surprise.

1. Name three things on your bucket list.  

2. You’ll be stranded on an uninhabited tropical Island for a month. Name two items and one person – any person alive in the world today that you would choose to bring along with you.

3.  If you could chose any person at all to be the next President of the United States, who would it be and why?

4. Your stuck in an elevator for an hour. Who are you stuck in there with?  Jack Nicholson, George W. Bush or Charlie Sheen?

5.  What’s the first question you’d ask?

My answers:
1. To visit all the National Parks in the US,  to drive along the Pacific Palisades -California Coast, and to tour Europe. 

2. a gallon of bug repellent, a box of dry matches and the best eagle scout in America, whoever he is.

3. Brad Pitt.   Hey.. he’s easy on the eyes,  he’s a humanitarian and he already manages a small country amidst kaos.

4. George W. Bush.

5.  Question: ” ……………………………………………………..Really?!…………………………..”

An Hour of Your Time

  Did you move your clocks ahead?  I do love this practice… a big step toward the arrival of SPRING.

 This morning the light shifted…. as the sun rose and spilled over the back fields, the light cast a warm golden hue.    Robins are scouring the earth for worms and the bluebirds are staking their claim .

I think we’ve arrived, people.. my soul is rejuvenated.

Count on Martha…

..for those fabulous ideas that no human can possibly pull off full time in the style that is Martha – even she has an army to do the dirty work. She does make it look easy, though, doesn’t she?

 And just in case you notice… Yes, this post was written at 2am.  Because at 45-gonna-be-46, my sleep is not as restful or as dependable as it once was. Not that I’m complaining…. I don’t have tsunamis rolling over my house and driving my car down to the ocean today, so I am filled with gratitude at this moment and sorrow for those people.

I found this soap recipe on another blog that is relatively new. She gave an excellent tutorial with photos and used lavender and lavender oil.  I grow lavender out in the “Newport Real Estate” lamp post garden and I plan to dry it for sachets…and soap! This recipe looks pretty do-able and I’m gonna give it a go. You might see it on the farm stand this summer if I get it right.

 photo from Loxley Abbey’s soaps and sundrys –

Martha says….

We used plain, unscented glycerin soap base for these projects (available at most crafts stores). Soap bases with natural additions, such as aloe vera, goat’s milk, or olive oil, are great too.

Tools and Materials

•Assorted citrus peels, berries, and herbs
•Paper coffee filters, if using herbs
•Clean, dry containers, such as milk cartons, drink boxes, juice-concentrate cans, or yogurt cups
•Heat-resistant glass measuring cup or bowl
•Vegetable oil cooking spray or petroleum jelly
•Dough scraper
•Glycerin soap base
•Spray bottle
•Rubbing alcohol
•Paring knife

Fruit and Herb Soaps How-To:

1. Make Purees

Wash and dry all fruits and herbs; use whole berries, herb leaves, or citrus rinds with pith removed. Puree separately in a food processor. To make the herb purees, you may need to add 1 to 2 tablespoons water; place pureed herbs on a coffee filter, and wring out excess liquid before mixing into soap. Set purees aside.

2. Prepare Molds

To determine how much glycerin soap base you need, fill mold with water, then pour the water into measuring cup or bowl. Note the amount, pour out the water, then dry mold completely. Evenly coat interior of mold with cooking spray or petroleum jelly; wipe out excess.

3. Melt Soap

Use dough scraper to chop soap base into 1/2-inch pieces. Microwave soap in a glass measuring cup or bowl covered with a paper towel on medium in 30-second intervals until melted but not boiling. (A double boiler can be used instead.) Add more soap pieces as needed, and continue melting. Remove from microwave, and stir until smooth.

4. Mix In Purees

Start with 1 teaspoon puree per cup of soap. Add more as desired. The color will intensify as the purees steep in the warm soap; stir frequently to keep soap from setting. Heavy additives may settle at the bottom, while light ones float to the top. For consistent distribution, let the soap cool (but not solidify); then stir in puree, and pour into mold.

5. Pour Soap into Molds

Fill small containers 3/4 inch full with soap; for cartons, fill partially to form 1 bar at the bottom, or completely to make a block for slicing into bars. Spray surface with alcohol to eliminate bubbles. Let soaps set, 20 to 60 minutes, depending on size. Transfer molds to freezer for about 2 hours (this will help the soaps release from the molds).

6. Release Soap From Molds

Tear away cartons to unmold bars. For hard containers, pry soap away from the sides, and press bottom of container to release. Neaten soap edges with paring knife. Slice large bars into smaller ones. Use soaps within 3 to 4 months.