fuzzy

 

 

a fuzzy pair

Lyffan and Loki enjoying a rare moment together at the foot of the bed today.  Lyffan moved just as I started to snap the picture - and she is extremely hard to get a photo of most of the time.  I got a few others of her the night before on my phone but they are refusing to transfer to the computer.  

Had a chance to speak French to a cashier at the grocery store - they were talking about being able to speak 'really good French' in a dream, but they can't speak it well.  He did a better go of remembering sentences than I did, although I understood all of what he said.  I remembered a lot more I could have said to him later - just like in English.  I am still thinking of maybe getting a Babbel subscription or taking some of those online lessons because speaking is still the hardest thing.  Just figuring out what you want to say, in any conversation, is one thing.  Then you have to translate it over.  Trying to figure out if I even should speak in Spanish to the truck drivers at work who keep saying 'no english' to me is hard enough.  I did write up a card in what I am sure is awful grammar to give to them with the dock instructions when they tell me that next time.

 

I did the walking route yesterday at the post office, for the first time in about four months.  I normally have my own route to do on Saturdays, but they had circumstances with people quitting and being out on surgery and I had to be shuffled to make sure they had someone there that could do every route.  In the middle of the day I stumbled off one of the porches - not a very tall one, but concrete steps - and somehow did a 'ta-da' type Spiderman crouching catch at the end and stood up surprised that I hadn't actually fallen on my face, instead.  Happy, yes.. but definitely also surprised.  I didn't get hurt, not even tearing up my hand because it was on grass - but I knew I'd feel the extra muscle work today.  I felt ALL my leg muscles today, because I haven't walked that fast for that far for a while - but I definitely feel the opposite knee and thigh muscle responding to the catching pose that I ended up in.  I am not Spiderman.  repeat after me... *ha*  

Being hypermobile is sometimes a good thing, maybe a bit more 'rubber' when it comes to some sorts of falls and catches - and the knee or ankle that might fold up and give out one moment instead of breaking will hurt like a * but 'snap back in place' and be usable - but also you definitely feel it later, comes back on with a vengeance the next day like 'WHAT did I do to myself.. oh right, and that could have been worse, so suck it up and also be more careful'.... and you really have to be more careful with it until it has time to heal, because now it is less likely to have that rubber-response as it has already used up that flexibility and now will tear easier.. and when you tear the skin up like catching with your hands and knees on the ground that is always taking longer to heal up than a 'normal' person would etc.

 

It has been fairly warm and raining all day - but it is supposed to get down to freezing and maybe snow a little tomorrow and the next day.  I am not terrified of driving in it but I have not been looking forward to when that will come and I have to try to get into the new job in that weather.  Mostly, I worry about the hills being icy.  The start time is before dawn, and I don't like the idea of having to be out there trying to get up hilly roads in the pre-dawn ice.  The post office would often understand if I said I didn't want to leave before first light - because as long as I got there and got it done it really wasn't an issue.  The office job is much more linked to timeclock time and being there consistently on time.  They go by 'the points system'.  ie: A late punch counts for as many 'points' as an absence.  The only way to get the minimum amount of points for not being there exactly from 7 am to 3:30 pm is to attend in the beginning of the day and have a doctor's note for an appointment in the afternoon - and that is still a quarter of a point off.  It's one of those systems made by people who don't have to live through it etc... but it is what it is and so far I haven't had to have any 'points' knocked off - because I knew the ice was coming I have just tried to do it all correctly and hope the weather cooperates.

 I'm going to get to bed and let tomorrow 'be tomorrow'.... I was quite tired earlier today and took a nap for a few hours while the rain was falling the heaviest.  Esme went out to do chicken feeding about that time and two of the dogs came and told me they were worried about her and she was 'out in the weather' and I had to let one out and calm the other one down until Esme came back in a few minutes later.  We've all had dinner now and the rain is off-and-on, so they are laying down now.

I have done some French on my phone Duolingo, and Japanese on my computer.

of rugs and cats

It's been a while since I mentioned this, but we're sort of a hobby farm - with all these chickens, and my gardens, our 'working dogs' who are Catahoula and mutt and protect the chickens and the cats - and Melody, our blind goat whose main job is to eat weeds.  I had thought at one time I might have sheep or goats for wool and milk, but I wasn't quite brave enough for that, at least.. yet.  I guess you could also say our cats are actually 'working cats' - although don't tell them that there are cats that aren't (they won't believe you anyway) - they catch mice, they patrol around the yard and the chicken yard perimeter and the gardens, the garage etc.  And we have lots of mud, and lots of cold floors in the wintertime (cement and wood). 

 

 

  

The first of the 'working rugs', shown with Loki cat, a large Manx (we bought him and his sister from a working farm near Milan, so our cat Minion would have someone to teach to chase mice after all of her kittens were gone)  Loki decided this morning he would sleep there - although our dogs have been loving them, as well, especially as 'parking points' while they watch us cook.  I made this rug years ago for use in Esme's room.. but it sort of phased out and ended up in an old hamper.  During one of these cold snaps I had pulled it out and washed it, and put it back to good use.

 

 

 

This rug is headed for in front of the chair in the downstairs bathtub area - where the green one was before I got very cold cooking one night and moved it to the kitchen.. then I moved it to another place in the kitchen, and that sort of set off 'You should make more of these'  So I did, I made two more.  And when they get really dirty (like these garden shoes here, which are some of my favorite, mud and all) they can just get thrown into the washing machine. 

The bits : I darned socks and blankets today, finished that rug, swept floors, (swept floors again, and again... it is like that here with dogs!) did lots of laundry - put away lots of laundry! --- that ice storm, and the frigid cold that made it last all last week meant so much got pushed to the back burner.  I've got to work the weekend so I tried to just put as much 'good' as I could without really wearing myself out.  Esme when she got home and saw the post : You know that's a cat, not a rug, right?  It's not a cat rug?  Maybe Loki thinks it is.  The post says 'of rugs and cats' : it's about how our cats are working cats and chase mice and stuff, and these rugs are working rugs - as in, we're putting them to use.  Loki is, putting them to use, too.

I also finished that thank you gift for the people who helped us pull our truck out of the mud -a couple of knit dishcloths and a little card.

Still Iced In 2024

 

 

 

Still frozen in on our little farm - that freezing rain over all of it made it so difficult.  We are low on dog food, and propane - and really no way to get out or for anyone to get in.  Hopefully we have a break tomorrow - it is supposed to get up to 31 degrees.. and they still think they have me scheduled for early in the morning on Monday.  That is yet to be seen.

 

Anyway, working on my French language.  DuoLingo says I have now gotten to B1 level - so I went and found an hour long plus French detective movie (with Lea Thompson, Miss Detective, it was good!) and watched it with just the French subtitles on for clarification of what I was hearing.  I understood a lot - not all, but a lot.  I can think of French translations for most, but not all, of the sentences I am thinking in English. It gives me a good idea what I need to learn still (besides spelling, which I am still not great at).  

I finished the crochet rug for in front of the stove, and started another one as the original one I took for the sink side of the kitchen had been in the bathroom where I put on my shoes.

Mark wants to make dog cookies with pumpkin, flour, eggs and bacon grease for the dogs to tide them over.  They're not out of dog food yet, but they can see the bin emptying and they all have expressed concern.  That is what you get with Catahoulas - they are such conversationalists.  They've been talking with the cats about being in front of the propane heater and etc etc.. as well.  I can just sit in that room and watch the air currents from the heat sources and the lights and watch the animals communicate and almost feel like I'm relating to some ancient yurt scene of ancient times.  All while I take yarn and form it into cloth, and drink hot fluids.

I asked Esme if she wanted to go sledding out there in this - the hills are perfectly slick, and she sounded just like Mark and I combined: 'I'd rather not.  Let's just say we stay in here and be warm, ok?'  Ha. I'm still remembering her swearing when she heard I had just walked home from where I abandoned the truck the other day - and then she gave me a big teenager hug, and said she was glad I was safe.  She doesn't want out in this : and I understand.  She has been feeding and watering the chickens, though, and getting their eggs - which is no small task when they are all in the house together.  We use the empty water pitcher to ford the way to the nest, and then grab the eggs and put them in the collector basket.  

 

We do have plenty of chicken feed to make us to the warm spell -- and I need to remind myself to stock up on feeds if at all possible in case we get a repeat of this for February.  I don't want one.  But I want to be even better prepared for one.  I thought I was fairly well prepared for this one, but then it lasted longer than expected, AND I was asked to go out to town more often than originally scheduled BUT did not feel safe enough or have enough money to bring much more resources home in between it all.  I could have bought more propane one of those days, but I was already worried about going in the ditch and in the ditch with a full canister of propane in the back of the vehicle is just 500% more No-Fun-At-All, enough to make me not even try.  Gah.  At least if I had bought more dog food though, I could have went back to the truck with the sled and brought it home.  Things to Think About.  Things I wish we didn't have to think about.

I do think Esme will help us bake, if we choose to do that in a bit.

She tried to boil some eggs last night to go with her dinner - she didn't like the freezer meals we were using up and she wanted to make something of her own.  But she didn't boil them long enough in this cold temperature.  I do that sometimes, too.

crochet rug, 27 by 16, scrap yarns and stash yarn (the blue-grey stuff) that was leftover from making my huge shawl a few years back - still using that to keep warm, as it wraps all the way around me and ties in the back or at the side.  Minion cat has said the shawl is wonderful, because she can lay on my lap and rub her chin against the fuzzy part and feel like she is being held by a mama cat.

Blue Shawl, from 2018, with two kinds of yarn

Going through part of my yarn ends and scraps to make sure I have enough to finish the second kitchen rug I'm working on.  I do.  I only got halfway through my collection and started sneezing and said 'yep, there's enough, put this all away and go make tomato sauce'.

Making tomato sauce with garden tomatoes in the freezer, and black olives, and frozen meatballs from a few weeks ago - and Esme and I are having that for dinner tonight.  Mark is also making more Brazil Nut cookies... every year he gets on a habit for Brazil Nuts, and the last two years I've asked him to watch the House episode where the guy gets Selenium poisoning from 'chestnuts of peru' (brazil nuts) just because it reminds me of that.  Ha. 

cats reluctantly inside from the rain

 Minion and Lyffan curled up during a cold rainstorm outside

 

Lyffan is sleeping on the little woven mat I made and placed on the footstool

 

Mid June

 

Nasturtiums, morning glories, hosta and lilies blooming, peppers and tomatoes coming onto their vines, green beans, harvested potatoes and all sort of greens.

 

purple potatoes from our garden

LANGUAGES: (with some synesthesia thrown in)

 A little graphics art project I did very quickly one night to remember the transformations in Finnish.  I did a good update in Finnish this month, after doing an update on Romanian last month and sort of letting that sit a bit.  I'm also touching on Japanese, and Spanish and French and throwing in a bit of this and that and so forth.   Japanese makes me feel 'my brain is actually rearranging this stuff as I hear it- and then rearranging it to produce the sentence again and I can FEEL it trying to figure it out)  Finnish is more in the 'oh, that word transforms a little in this situation, and combines this way in that - got to remember that and get the vowel marks right'... I do know there is much more in Finnish it has yet to actually present to me, but I'm almost halfway through all that DuoLingo has to offer at the same time.  It's a bit daunting how 'easy' it is and yet how 'hard' I've been told it will be.  With Japanese, both of those are up front, I feel it's hard, I know it's hard, and yet I keep understanding more in ways I did not expect to understand (it feels like a different liquid in the channels of my brain) so I keep coming back. 

 I threw in a few lessons of Chinese to see how the number systems compared, since they use some of the same symbols.  Then we watched Kill Bill series and I understood more of what they were saying in Japanese, but still, not enough.  I also found a decent program for teaching Latvian (Apsveicu!) and was trying that out but my spelling is absolutely awful and that program does require you to get it right to advance so... Ko jus teicat?  Just try to spell 'iepazities' on the fly...  still, it is hard to find resources for it at all, so I was excited to get the chance to work on it more than the children's site I had found and reading the news site when I'm in the right mind for it and remember to go check.

We renewed our library cards, and Esme got a book on electricity.  I found a book that captured my interest with the prose, hard topics but I'm pushing through it - 'Find Me', by Andre Aciman.  Not something I would have picked up having known what it was all about, but the author did weave a beautiful scene and a fast tale full of rich details, so I'm pushing through and seeing what it has to show me.  The thing that grabbed me was that on the cover it said 'by the author of Call Me By Your Name', which is an anime Esme and I saw about a boy and girl who 'meet' on a train (this story also starts, oddly, on a train), alternate 'swapping bodies in dreams' having to relate to being a different gender and different expectations from their families they don't really know - and when they figure out what is going on they 'write letters' (while they are each other, they leave each other diary entries) to one another, but then towards the end we find out that they are actually in different times, about three? years apart, and the boy ends up saving the girl's life by writing to her not to be somewhere at a certain time that he finds out is a disaster her and her family apparently died in, and she listens to him and ends up surviving, to meet him in the real future.  I'm not sure, now, if this is the same author of that anime story - I'll have to look that up after I finish the book but not before.

Esme got her glasses renewed and we pick up the new pair today.  We've been playing more board games, card games, such.  I want to get her more engaged this summer and also taking care of herself better.

 

Our cat, Lyffan, whose name means frog (not seen is her brother Loki, he was inside sprawled on a countertop near the food) sniffing the Nasturtium flowers I had picked.  Our Minion cat is thirteen years old, the black tortoiseshell, she is doing well but has dry skin issues (like her daughter Doxie had much earlier in her life) yet is still so stubborn about wanting to be outside nearly all the time I have to call her in and sometimes go pick her up bodily and bring her in to eat dinner at night. 

My brother's birthday is today.  I sent him messages.  My birthday is next week.  I ordered myself a tamagoyaki (Japanese omelet) pan I had been thinking about for a few months, and a new colander for my vegetable washing.  Mark said we might go out somewhere for a lunch or something closer to the day - although honestly I always feel like Father's Day and my birthday collide some - ever since that year when I was a kid that I was told 'you can't have a party, Father's Day is the same day as your birthday, no one will come, anyway it's summer and there isn't anybody to ask who isn't already doing something'...and I decided oh, so, nobody will come...  I did have a few little parties here and there, not saying I didn't - but I was told that because of where my birthday fell in the month it was really just going to be overlooked by most because they were busy.  And that became okay - my birthdays are for me then, to decide where I am in the Universe, and reflect, and that has been mostly what they have been all my life since with a few nice recognitions, an indulgence, like a new pan or a special sandwich here and there, but primarily 'pearls on a string' thinking back where I was last year, where I am now... 

Esme has asked a few months ago to try more salads, so we've made two that she enjoys so far.

Green lettuce, black olives, tomato, no dressing (she tried two, doesn't like it at all)

Green lettuce, black olives, mandarin oranges, sometimes with cooked chicken patty cut up and placed on top.

ink drawings

 Ink, as in dip nib pen ink, is one of my oldest hobbies that I have begun to get back into.  What now, twenty years ago? The year 2000, so yes... I did this almost every day as part of my drawing training at NDSU - I would do large 18x24 sheet papers of ink in many colors.  It took lots and lots of patience and close vision - which I had back then, and time, which I also had in abundance even though I was going to school and working at the Michael's store. (I also did not sleep much then, either *ha*)

I tried a little bit when Esme was small, but didn't stick with it.  Some of my inks have deteriorated over that time and I had to replace them - the brown turned to a purple, the yellow to a brown, and the red mostly just clotted up and is unusable.  So, I ordered some replacements and they came in the mail last weekend.

   

Kentucky BlueGrass ink from the Birmingham Pen Company

and Higgins yellow drawing ink (new stock)

 

Paper study between Master's Touch Mixed Media, Grumbacher Mixed Media, Stonehenge drawing paper and a regular Master's Touch drawing paper.  The results?  Both of the mixed medias (which I have because they are diff. sizes and I was at diff. places when I bought them) have their own unique qualities that could be used to get an effect with the ink.   

 

The Grumbacher is smoother, but can pool and make dark spots with the ink and those spots can easily tear or 'rough' and look bad in the finished drawing.  But it is a brighter white and takes the ink more smoothly across it's surface.  The MT has a rough tooth, is sort of ivory colored, but also leaves 'high points', white spots where there wasn't enough ink to fill in the tooth and the top of the surface.  Each has give and take.  I have yet to make a tear or rough pool point in the MT.

A small porcelain tea bowl I purchased at a specialty tea shop with my husband many many years ago - and finally found again this year through a comedy of errors in my cleanup of the studio after my eye surgery.  It is now in my ink kit where it belongs.  The pen on the left is a regular pen with a regular nib.  The crow quill pen is in the middle and I don't like it (but I gave it another try).  The brush is a small camelhair brush and I do use it a lot.  The pen comes with various other nibs meant for calligraphy, but I tend to use the one with the sharpest fine point.  Some nibs like the ones by the bowl have reservoirs, that hold more ink in them.  The one that is on the pen in the picture does not have a reservoir.

 

 

I've recently been embracing the probable fact that I was supposed to be left hand dominant, but was trained with my right.  I made a post earlier this month about that revelation while trying to draw portraits again.  All of the drawings to follow were drawn with the left hand only.

 

Manx Kittens Lyffan and Loki

in a mixed ink of 10 year+ brown and new red

which turned out sort of ruby or cranberry colored

 

Wood Thrush 

drawn the day the new brown ink came, with a nib that does not retain and needed to be dipped every third stroke or so - I then changed it out to one that had a small reservoir, and have been using that one since.  Although, it must be taken care at the end of writing or drawing to either 'draw it dry' or stroke on a piece of cork or ragged paper until all the ink is drawn out and it is as clean as it can be.  I used to have pen cleaner - but I never used it, and it went dry before I opened it.  I find 'drawing it dry' useful and leads to some interesting things, little sketches or lines of poetry sometimes.

 Hazelnut / Filbert tree

only one color of ink here - the new brown, but the 'fresh' ink in the pen is super dark, and as it lessens it becomes more of a 'tea' than a full ink of the pigment and gets lighter and lighter until the pen is dry and must be re-dipped.  This is something that can be used to advantage in drawing, but it will take practice.

Took a mile walk this morning, still in the COVID-19 quarantine.  Our schedules are all off -- I am up at 3 am making soup, Mark is just getting to bed, and Esme won't wake up until 10:30 in the morning.  This is not like us.. but we have about two weeks more until school starts back up.. unless they cancel it for the rest of the year.

I ;am still deemed an 'essential' worker in both of my jobs - postal worker and medical technology service - but the actual hours are few and far between.  I do not see many people.  So, there's that.  I went out to two medical tech jobs the other day and wore gloves for both.  I'm doing what I can for those patients - even though I can't stay entirely at home.

I love the stages of the hickory trees, and the redbuds, and the dogwoods.  The sarvis (serviceberry) trees have finished now with their flowers, falling away to green leaves only.  The dogwoods that are blooming now are a green color and large flowered.  The more delicate white flowered ones will be popping in the woods soon I'm sure.  It seems like it was just a few months ago I was photographing them -- but I know it has been nearly a year.

Time has been so odd this year, even before the coronavirus, with changing jobs and getting through the anxiety of that - then Dad died in October - and I had a lot more anxiety and PTSD type epiphanies.  But  that is a human response, and I am feeling like I've swum to the other side of the shore.

I made soup, following my nose.
I'm a champion at thinking up weird combinations in my sleep... woke up and decided to make onion soup at about 3 am.  Then, as I grabbed for ingredients, things fell together to this.  The actual soup looks awful - kind of like the shiitake mushroom tapenade someone once tried to make with me - and it was so awful the cats and dogs wouldn't touch it..  But, this was amazingly good.

Lentil Seaweed Soup with Onion

About 2 to three cups of water
About 2 tbsp olive oil
celery salt, black pepper, garlic powder, ginger powder
1 medium onion, diced small
about 1/2 cup of brown lentils (washed)
1 sheet of Kombui seaweed
2 cubes of chicken boullion
1 packet of miso tofu (red style) soup
Some leftover packets of tofu cubes and green onion flakes from another bag of miso where they come separate from the paste

It started with waking up thinking about onion soup.  I have eaten a couple of cans of French Onion soup the past week and found them very satisfying.  But - looking at the recipes for how to make it from scratch did nothing for me.  It wasn't right for me.  So, this morning I was thinking I would just start with olive oil and onions and see where it took me.

I put in the spices, and then I knew I wanted the brown lentils.  Then the thought filtered in about the bouillon.  After all of that was together and bubbling nicely, the miso soup that came in the mail the other day entered into the edge of my mind and I added that in.  It was when I put the tofu soup packet in that I smelled the little bits of seaweed that are in it, and it made me think - I bought sheets of kombu last year for soba soup making.. which I've only made a couple of times since.  They were still in the cupboard, waiting.  They add a lot of salt, along with the bouillon, so NO need to add any extra.

After I had let that entire combination boil then simmer for an hour or so, I took the stick blender and gave it a few careful pulses.  You could pour the whole thing in a blender and do the same thing.  I am always careful about hot soup - volcanic bursts onto skin if you do it wrong etc.  But a few pulses was all it took to wake up Esme, too - she had slept through our entire conversation about 'soup at 3 am' but the stick blender woke her up.  She came out and looked at it, made some comments about games she had been playing, and went back to bed.

To serve the soup I put in an extra fresh grind of black pepper and a full teaspoon of hot madras curry powder right into my bowl.  It was one of the best things I've eaten in a while - but yes - it LOOKED gross.  Nova dog highly approved when I woke up at 8 am and had more for breakfast.

This camera has better eyes than I do - it almost gets down to the grain of the wood and the 'feather and fur' of each little leaf.

There was an ant crawling in the redbuds, and bees buzzing everywhere.  I couldn't get any of the insects in focus, but I wanted to remember that they were there.  The sun was coming up over the trees behind me and it made the redbud glow.

My right ankle gave out on me, as well, this morning.  It sent me crumping to the ground just like that time I was pregnant with Esme.  I remember that one often because I was so scared for her.  I fall down in this way quite a bit - just the other week in the garden, as well, but that was the time I had to worry for more than myself.  I was also thankful this morning I wasn't carrying the camera yet.  But, because I was now bleeding from my hand and knee - I was even more determined to capture some images of the things that were unique about this morning, the things that turned a walk to the mailbox into an expedition.

The red brown brush beside the road always piques my attention.  I wonder if there are many other people who find it as beautiful as I do.  This, and the red gold grasses bring me back to a time in the field at Arbo Road - standing in the middle of the sky, one tree to my back and a full circle clearing farther than I could run in one breath to all sides.  I was alone with the sky and the tree there.  I spent a lot of time there, far beyond the garden, but not too far Mom couldn't hear me when she yelled.  I sat at the base of that tree and thought about my ancestors, about my future, about the woods around me.  I was a deep little nine year old.. but there was something about that place - something it imbued me with - that comes back to me when I am out in the grasses.  It is one of the reasons I like to drive up by Martin, TN, too - the wide open sky, like an eyeball looking down on me from above, and the grasses, and the trees like eyelashes at the edges, waiting to blink.

Red brown feathers, delicate structures.  They seem to shine almost pink and looking through them is like looking many strings and webworks repeating over and over to infinity.  When it rains, they collect shining drops of water in their branches and intersections.  When it frosts, they collect tiny crystals of ice.

I think I spend more time looking at the tiny bits of plants around me than most people - it is something I find joy in, the changes, the differences, the transformations.

Mark found this out in the driveway yesterday, he says a woodpecker has been hard at work on it.  It was almost hollow inside - insect work that the woodpecker then went after the insects?

I'm sewing up the ends of dischloths, knitting on yet another lap blanket, bright green this time. Our black tortoiseshell Minion is truly enjoying where the pink one ended up I made over the last few months.

Besides that , more soup, maybe a bit more work in the garden.  It is supposed to rain today so I don't think it is right to put the seedlings out to day.. but it is so warm it is almost there.

We also finally downloaded the game GardenPaws, and it is very sweet.  Esme and I have been exploring that new world and discovering all of the creative things to do in it.

Painting progression,

 

The Comfy Chair

painting progression showing how the details come in

7 inches by 14, wrapped canvas with blue edges

http://mariemeyer.etsy.com

Finished this last night, inspired by a chair I saw in a magazine, and my own cat muses lounging around our house.  I guess it's even Caturday!

Our family zoo portrait

From left (clockwise) Minion, Freckles, Minerva, Lucy, Nova, Sweetie, Spud, Kitty (the goat), Dox, Daphne, Pumpkin, Callie.

Mark says my style isn't cubist, it's trapezoidal.  Ha.  I wasn't sure I was going to get everyone in there- started with the dogs and Esme said I had to add the goat, and then I had to find places to put the cats.

Antenna Adventures and cats

Mark's latest antenna design to replace the last 'bisquare' that he had up.  He hopes to get more UHF wavelengths on this one.  Esme helped him build it a few days ago and I helped him break out the extension ladder and attach it to the pole.

In other news, both of our teenage cats are at the vet today.  I felt like a mom leaving her kids at preschool... gotta let go and they'll do okay.  Mark will decide if he is going to pick them up when they are done or let them stay there the night.

My hosta seeds came in.  I'm probably going to start them in three or four days, not right now  I am hoping several things that are currently in the greenhouse area can go outside before then.  I also did some mending at my table - Esme is outgrowing so many things I need to take a bag and put it in the clothes donation.  Other things she has ripped holes in and they probably would have fit her but I couldn't get to putting knee patches or cutting off for shorts before now. 

I am thinking about the best way to make a large mostly open wire basket.  I might practice some on the dahlia buckets they need cages around them and I would like to try some overlap techniques to see if they will hold etc.  There is a metal basket at work being sold that I think wouldn't be too hard to make the sides but the bottom is obviously a cast grid.  Mark has talked about us making more crafts with Esme this summer for her to try to sell at the flea market, woodworking projects, maybe these baskets would be a good project, too.  She did so well with helping on the antenna, she is getting more confidence in her skills.

Greenhouse progress

 I have moved a CFL light to the greenhouse area to help some of the plants get more light.    I still have some not shown here that are in another windowsill,  but not germinated yet.  The cabbage and several of the tomatoes (also elsewhere) are really needing to go outside.  The Hosta is even a little bigger and/or spread out than when I bought it - it should go out when the ground is not mud, too.  The Hosta is an Aurea Marginata, and it should have purple flowers eventually.  It will be a nice companion to the Frances Miller hosta that is in the garden now (blooms white, has green leaves tinged with chartreuse).

There are three or four jalapeno peppers that are getting second leaves.  The split ivies are doing 'ok'.. I don't see immediate die off on any of them yet.  I can hope.  That Ivy is called 'Asterisk', Hedera helix.

This is the apple sapling, from Esme's homeschool project after we watched the documentary on how plants reproduce and learned that apples from seed are nothing like their parent plants usually.. and we decided to try saving some seeds anyway.  This is the second one we've tried - as the seeds were still in the fridge from the first one and the first one died unexpectedly one day (just leaves fell off and poof, gone?)...  I thought maybe it didn't get enough light, and that the tiny petunia and forget-me-not seeds might benefit, too from a more direct light instead of reaching for the window all day and stretching their stems.  So I'm trying three to four hours a day of this CFL to see if it perks them up more.

The Frances Williams hosta in the garden is coming up pretty this year.
The hosta seeds have not yet come in the mail, and I haven't gotten my basil planter made yet.

We decided that Callie and Doxie cats are about eighteen months old, probably born in December of 2015.  They are both (hopefully both) getting fixed tomorrow.  Their mother Minion and Pumpkin are next in line, but it might take a while to get them done, as they graced us with more kittens about two months ago.  I'm still a bit embarrassed by Doxie's name now that I remember what it means - but I called her that (and her twin, Dorrie, who died) from the start so it can't be changed now.  Sometimes I call her Dox for short.

 Callie cat, with her one little tiny white spot on her spine

I've set up a hard two days for us.. getting the two youngers in the house tonight and penned up for the night and all the running back and forth to the vet tomorrow.. but hope we can get it done.  Doxie has been spending almost all her time outside so she will be the difficult one.  Callie is curled up in my sewing chair.  The other day I tried to patch a pair of pants for Esme and I had to remove her from said place -- I had to pick up the cushion with the cat (claws dug in) and set it on the floor and wait for a good minute for her to realize I was not moving it back.  Then  she got up and stalked away.  *sheesh*  Calico cats!

Spring sweet pea fence

 Strutting around the garden playing dirt.  I called her a garden fairy.

 Showing off the blue fingernails she got last night - she was very good and it was her reward.


The sweet pea fence I put up while she was at Grandma's.  She came in the house and asked me where all the food was that I had made - I told her I wasn't planting yet, just putting up the fence.

Cat snuggles from Mouse cat, our older Manx cat who is usually far too dignified for these things.

Another moment of indignity having fun rolling in the dirt.

Esme's Crew

Esme and her crew
hanging out, thinking up what trouble to get into next.

Buttercup Kitten

Buttercup was the kitten who had trouble with her legs when she was born. However, she got much better and now keeps up with everyone else. We were really surprised she is orange AND a girl - as almost every other orange kitten Mark has had was male.


Buttercup likes dogs

And snuggling in general.
Kitty snuggle heart shape!

Late Caturday : Hobbes

Happy Mother's Day!
Remember to enter the 'Night Was' contest until May 15th (click above)

Hobbes looks a lot like his mommy Pogo

He has a very dark nose.

And is very 'brave' and playful. Mark named him after the tiger in Calvin and Hobbes.

In Other News: I've been working out in the main store for about three days and so far I really like it. I'm trying to learn where everything is and getting lots of specific questions to hunt down the answers for. Being away from home is still very different. Mark is doing a wonderful job with Esme and the Ebay store. He even went out and did some planting and weeding in the garden with Esme along in her seat yesterday ;)


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Very funny! I got 218 clicks in 30 seconds. And yes, I was halfway through a cup of coffee at the time. I am a Caffeinated Mind (TM). That was going to be the name of the coffee shop a friend and I tried to start out of high school. Sadly, it never got further than the business plan stage because I caved to my mom's 'You can't move into your own apartment, it's too dangerous!'