“Arctic-Wolf” Slavi-Aladjova-fineartamerica.com
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Monthly Archives: October 2017
Acorn Art
I happened upon a wonderful display of creativity, humor and talent applied by Dubanci.CZ and the folks at Natural Living and Parenting and wanted to share them with you. I loved sticking a toothpick in acorns, painting on faces and pretending they were people, but it never occurred to me to build a whole scene around them, finish making them into people, and more. I love the way creative people think. They bring up my spirits and make me smile. I hope you love them, too.
Dubanci.cz via Natural Living and Parenting
Dubanci.cz via Natural Living and Parenting
Dubanci.cz via Natural Living and Parenting
Dubanci.cz via Natural Living and Parenting
Dubanci.cz via Natural Living and Parenting
Filed under Creativity
“Pastel Colors of Autumn”
“Pastel Colors of Autumn” – Paul Militaru Photography
Filed under Paul Militaru Photography
Bathing Suit or Overcoat?
petcommunitycenter.org
Last week it was in the 90s with air conditioning.
Yesterday it was in the 80s with doors and windows open.
Today the high will be 53, with a cold front and high winds bringing it down into the 40s with freezes tonight and tomorrow night.
Ah, Arkansas!
I’m as ready as I can be with two newest tomato plants dug up and repotted in the greenhouse, sheets and clothespins ready to try to protect veggies in the garden and tender plants in a planter. Irrigation systems have been turned off and drained. Hummingbird bird bath emptied, turned off, and drained. We repaired the greenhouse and generally tried to batten down the hatches.
I was going to try to gather leaves and make mulch, but yesterday’s 30 mph gusty winds discouraged that. Same for finishing my pressure washing. Same for weed whacking.
As you can see, the freezes will last only long enough to kill a bunch of my sweet plants and then we’ll have more fall-like temperatures again. :0(
I’ll TRY to quit my ‘whine and cheese’ act, but my nose is pretty out of joint this morning. I’m glad we can look forward to seeing our good friends at Lunch Bunch in about an hour.
May YOUR day be just the way you like it best!
Filed under Arkansas, Greenwood, Mother Nature
String Art – Take 26
Good Word for String Art-DIY Crafts and Things.
Nautical Decor via Etsy-www.pinterest.com
Filed under Creativity, String Art
Folding Myself into a Paper Airplane – Take 13
The Awesome Daily
I told you that I did something mysterious and hurt my back. I have no clue what I did, but I was in real agony for about a month, unable to do much except gripe, groan an try to sleep while my husband tried to keep things afloat and take care of me. I’m really not interested in repeating this experience, so I have CAUTIOUSLY begun my yoga for old ladies stretching again, plus CAREFULLY starting up my sessions on the elliptical trainer.
I have to put Amber on the porch because getting on the floor is an invitation for 65 pounds + of dog to sit on you, mouth open, with too many teeth available. I’m doing stretching on my own on my mat, rather than trying to do a lesson from my “Gentle Yoga” DVD set. I’m up to 10 minutes again on the elliptical – pretty pathetic, except I don’t know what I did to trigger my problem. I’m treated myself kind of like a time bomb at this point, hoping to ease into more and more.
Since I’ve been walking and playing with Amber several times each day, plus working in the yard, I’m still getting a reasonable amount of exercise.
Now – If I can JUST be a good little girl and eat my low-carb stuff, my world will be complete.
taolife.com
Getting Ready for the Freeze
Arkansas doesn’t do a great job of winter.
We have a short fall, going from 90+ degree weather a week ago to a projected freeze Friday night and Saturday night, and then returning to fall for awhile longer, while threatening bad ice storms, rather than pretty snow throughout the winter. I hate this sudden short weekend of freezes because it kills my flowers. I cover up the raised beds in my garden and a couple of other things, but there is no way I can protect everything. :0(
Since my flowers will probably be gone by the end of the weekend, the first thing I did today was cut some of the twice-blooming purple iris and some of the hydrangea blooms, bringing them in so we can enjoy them for a few more days.
I then went out to the garden. I had stored old sheets and clothespins in a tall trash can that just fit under one of the raised bed planters. It occurred to me last night that ‘something’ could have gotten into the trash can, since it doesn’t have a lid, and that I might not want to encounter whatever it was. This morning I brought the trashcan out from under the planter box, dragged it out of the garden and dumped it on its side quickly on the ground. Nothing showed up, so I grabbed the bottom of the trash can and shook out the rest of the contents, throwing it on the ground again, staying well away. I lucked out. No critters, No snakes. No insects or nests – just sheets and a bag of clothespins. I’ll put the sheets out tomorrow night and Saturday night, and then put them back in the trashcan, but I’ll move the can into the shop for safekeeping this time.
I found four tall stakes that I can put in the planter that holds the purple plant and the elephant ear plant. I put a sheet and some clothespins in the planter, ready to cover the plants tomorrow night.
I dug up the two youngest tomato plants after finding two large pots. I replanted them in the pots with Mel’s Mix and left them on a table in the greenhouse.
While I was out there, I heard a ‘CRACK!’ which turned out to be the plastic PVC pipe holders breaking that hold the wood at one end of the greenhouse to the curved PVC rib of the roof. The whole horizontal piece attached to the two vertical pieces was FREE, moving in the gusty wind! I put one of the tomato pots on the table up against one of the vertical pieces of wood. I put a tray and a full gallon jug of water against the other vertical piece of wood until my husband got home. We took a ladder out there and replaced the plastic holders with metal ones, fitting them over the PVC pipe of the rib and screwing them into the vertical wood uprights.*
*NOTE – Don’t EVER use the cheap plastic PVC pipe holders for ANYTHING. Always get the metal ones.
I then spent about 20 minutes securing the sheeting that is stretched over the ribs where it was coming loose. Since we’re having gusty winds, about 30mph this afternoon, this will be a good test of the greenhouse. Fingers crossed.
I think I told you that I finally got the book on starting my greenhouse. It’s called Gardening in Your Greenhouse – Greenhouse Basics, by Mark Freeman. I’m learning a TON. This was just the book I needed. I particularly love the sections about starting seeds. He does it a completely different way than I have, using the same seed starter stuff I’ve been using. Since my nickname is the “Serial Seed Killer” I need all the help I can get! I’m making a list of things I want to get to use out there, plus I’m getting ideas on how to make the best use of my space, and a realistic idea of what I can do – plus my limitations – so I have a better idea of what to expect.
As I try to implement some of Mark’s good suggestions, I’ll try to share them with you.
I still have a to-do list as long as my arm of things I’d like to do outside, but I really don’t like trying to gather leaves for mulch in a gusty wind. Except for the actual covering of what I can cover tomorrow night, we’re pretty well as ready for the freezes as we can be. We’ll regroup after and see where we are.
I’m going in to put my feet up and read more of my greenhouse book. I hope you’re having a wonderful day.
Animal Paintings – Take 10
Filed under animal paintings, Creativity
Happy Halloween – Take 36
entertainmentmesh.com
liluna.com
creative-ads.org
hotpenguin.net
Author Recommendation #2 of 2 Today
The second new author recommendation came from my husband, who is a Science Fiction connoisseur. He didn’t like this author’s science fiction books, because he says his books are “weak on physics” but he loves this author’s fantasies. Any time my husband recommends a series based on a 12-year-old girl, describing her as strong and gutsy, you know this is a unique recommendation.
The Zero Blessing is the first book in a trilogy called The Zero Enigma Trilogy by Christoper G. Nuttall. I finished book 1 last night.
“Caitlyn Aguirre should have been a magician. Her family certainly expected her to be a magician. But by the time she reached her twelfth birthday, Caitlyn hadn’t even managed to cast a single spell! In desperation, her parents send her – and her magical sisters – to Jude’s Sorcerous Academy, her last best chance to discover her powers.”
Reminiscent of the Harry Potter books, but only because it’s set in a world where magic is a given, you’re immediately immersed in Caitlyn’s world. I almost felt as if I’d been ‘dropped down a rabbit hole’ in a world where kids are kids, except armed with the ability to hex each other, make potions, cast spells, and more. I didn’t want to come out of her world to do the mundane stuff in mine, such as cooking, working in the yard, cleaning, taking care of my animals….
I’m going to start book 2 of the trilogy, called, “The Zero Curse” soon. The author is writing book 3 now.
My husband has read about 25 of Nuttall’s books, saying that if I liked the first one in this series, I would love the rest of his books, so again I feel as if I’ve won the lottery!
String Art – Take 25
Filed under Creativity, String Art
My Yard Before the Frost
I’m feeling a bit sad, having to cover up as much as I can in the garden and the yard, digging up plants to try to winter over in the garage, digging up the last of the tomato plants to TRY to winter over in the greenhouse, so I took some pics to share with you in case we have an abrupt end of season. The frustrating thing is that the frost will come Friday night and Saturday night, and THEN the lows will be in the 40’s the rest of the week. :0(
Two colors of impatiens in the planter to the left side of the front porch. (Amber attacked and demolished the others on the right side)
Here you can see the impatiens as above, plus the volunteers below the porch from seeds from last year! (You can also see why I pressured washed the front porch, porch pad, and front sidewalk a couple of days ago)
Gerbera Daisies
This is the completely root-bound, overflowing iris planter I dug out recently, now replanted. I have two buckets full of rhizomes to plant elsewhere in the yard, sometime after we have our frost.
This is the metal duck we made to perpetually fly over the iris planter.
Here you can see the whole planter, with the pole and the duck on top. You can also see my new greenhouse and my husband’s new ham radio tower recently erected.
Our hydrangea plants are just now reviving after the 90 degree + weather we’ve been having until about two weeks ago, and now they’ll probably be stopped dead in their tracks by the coming frost. I’ll try to bring in some more blooms before the weekend.
Also, some nice white.
Twice-blooming purple iris.
I thought I had pulled out all the zinnias, but more volunteers arrived. I haven’t had the heart to weed whack them. The shovel bird is standing guard.
More, with a hint of phlox on the left.
Filed under Arkansas, Gardening, Mother Nature
Animal Paintings – Take 9
Filed under animal paintings, Creativity
Author Recommendation #1 of 2 Today
I feel as if I’ve won the lottery with people recommending authors new to me.
I’ve just finished Open and Shut by David Rosenfelt, recommended by my sister-in-law, Mary Lou.
“Whether dueling with new forensics or the local old boys’ network, irreverent defense attorney Andy Carpenter always leaves them awed with his biting wit and winning fourth-quarter game plan. But Andy prefers the company of his best friend, Tara, to the people he encounters in the courtroom.”
After about a third of this book, I really liked the main character, Andy Carpenter. He’s a smart, very real character with whom you can identify.I love the way his mind works. He has a sense of humor that at various times caused me to smile, smirk, or snort. And he loves his dog, Tara, above everyone else in the world. This book kept my interest, making me want more when I finished. Thankfully, there is a whole series of Andy Carpenter books! I’m getting ready to read the 2nd book, First Degree.
See why I feel I’ve won the lottery?
THANKS, Mary Lou!!!
Scaring My Hair Off
FunnyPica.com
This is what I looked like after our trip to the mall Sunday.
My husband was antsy, suggesting we go to the mall. We took the Corvette, my husband’s car, to ‘stretch its legs.” He only scared me once on the way to the mall. (He is a much better driver than I. He routinely sees things before I do and reacts much faster than I. One problem, though is that he tends to look at a speed limit as a ‘suggestion.” He drives faster than I do, and – in any given situation – puts on the gas when I would put on the brake.)
On the way home we were surrounded by foot-draggers who insisted on driving side by side blocking all progress. The minute there was a break, my husband punched it, passing the car in front of us on the right. At the same time, a Jeep decided to change to the right lane – where we were going. We were forced onto the shoulder of the road, where my husband punched it again to get around the jeep plus the car in front of that. We made it, though I looked like the sweet child above.
We pulled into Walmart to get some gas. I started to tell my husband that I was displeased – to say the least – about his driving. Three police cars, (two marked and one unmarked) pulled into the Walmart gas station behind us. Long story short, we got a ticket. We will talk to our lawyer on Monday. My husband was wrong for several reasons, but I decided the ticket was probably more effective than my tongue lashing would have been…
Filed under Attitude, Challenges
Protecting my Fall Garden Plants
preschoolgarden.blogspot.com
Isn’t this a cute picture? He looks like he’s having such a good time.
We usually have a freeze in the fall that kills some things and threatens others. When I had my first fall garden, I missed the freeze warning and lost all my plants. Now I listen carefully to the weather reports and cover my garden plants with sheets. Most of the time this will bring the garden plants through and I can continue harvesting until we get a truly hard freeze.
Here you see my sole spinach plant. I’ve harvested 4 leaves so far and cut them up with fanfare in our salad the other night. :0)
This is the Simpson lettuce. I’ve been harvesting this for salads most nights.
My husband is only interested in head lettuce. I started this one from the core of the head I bought at the store. I don’t know if it will do anything before a hard freeze or not.
These are carrots.
And this is Bibb lettuce. You can see where the recently rain was hitting the Mel’s Mix so hard it splashed up on the lettuce leaves.
usethatherb.com
I’m lucky to have raised beds, but this gives you an idea of what the garden planters will look like with sheets over them. I’m hoping for another couple of months of harvest time after this first frost.
What is it about Labs and Mud Puddles?
This isn’t Amber, but this photo gives you an idea of what my husband and I were dealing with this morning.
I told you in another post that we were going to clean out and empty the hummingbird birdbath today. My husband built a very nice water system for it, using a trash can to hold water and a toilet valve. The system regulated itself, so that if the water level got too low, it allowed the hose to fill it up and then turn off. Because of this closed system we didn’t notice any change in our water bill, even though the birdbath flowed all spring and summer, 12 hours each day on a timer.
I cleaned out the actual birdbath and we’ll store the decorations, timer, etc., in the garage for the winter. We dumped the trash can off the deck into the yard below. My husband was resting, keeping me company and drinking some hot apple cider when we heard the distinctive sound that Amber makes when she finds water. She paws it rapidly, spreading it everywhere, having a great old time.
THIS time it was even more wonderful because it was MUD! By the time we heard the pawing, she was covered in mud from stem to stern, laughing while she made the mud go everywhere. She then laid down in it. GREAT.
It’s in the high 50s with a healthy, gusty wind today, but we chained Amber to the porch and hosed her off as well as we could, albeit protesting dog. We sat on the deck while she shook herself over and over and then got her on the back porch where we could dry her off with towels. She didn’t like THAT, either.
Needless to say, progress on finishing cleaning up the deck came to a halt with the dog wash. We’re now taking a break and regrouping.
Filed under Amazing Animals, Family
We’re Going to Have a WHAT?
We’ve been enjoying a reprieve from the 90 degree weather lately. I was just breathing a huge sigh of relief and then last night the weather man was talking about the first chance of an area-wide FREEZE will be Saturday night into Sunday. WHAT? WHAT! We’ve only had three days of fall!
So – added to my outdoor list for the week is
- emptying out and storing all the parts of the hummingbird bird bath
- getting out sheets so I can cover up the veggie garden plants and some of the more tender plants in the yard planters Saturday night
- digging up the two late tomato plants and putting them in the greenhouse
- digging up the elephant ear and purple plants to store them in pots of peat moss in the garage for the winter
Anything else I get done will be ‘gravy.’
I hope you have a good day today.
Filed under Arkansas, Gardening, Greenwood, Mother Nature, Square Foot Gardening - Raised Beds
Garden Progress
We have a LOT to do outside.
We have a lot of HAVE-TO’S – where we’re acting like grownups, making sure we’re ready for the coming cold weather. In this group, my husband is turning off the irrigation system that automatically waters everything in all the planters around the house, plus the deck planters. In doing this, he found that two of the three outside faucets leak. This isn’t surprising after 30 years, I guess, so we went to Yeagers and got some replacement washers and he’s trying to get them installed in all three faucets. He finished the one for the well house, and is now working on the two on the back of the house. To do THAT, he has to shut off the water to the house. Always happy to do my part, I immediately wanted to get a glass of water from the tap and go to the bathroom…
We also have the group of things that SHOULD be done to show that someone cares what things look like up here. In this group is weed whacking, weed and bug killing, cleaning up the beds around the house that are now full of leaves, pruning, etc. I did some of the pressure washing this morning. This afternoon I’m doing some of the weed whacking. I’ve been at it for a couple of hours now, so I’m taking a break and drinking some water. I’ll heck on my husband’s progress, armed with more kleenex and band-aids, and then I’ll do another hitch. None of the ‘should’s’ will be finished quickly. I figure if we try to do a bit each day, eventually we’ll get things under control or run out of good weather.
Finally, we have my real LOVE, working in my raised bed square foot garden. The fall garden is small, but is coming along fine. I’m still waiting for my book on the basics of getting my greenhouse organized well and running right. I’m supposed to get the book by Halloween or before. I’m watching the weather forecast for when we’re due for frosts or freezes, and I MAY have to go ahead and dig up a few things before I have a clue what I’m doing. I have some sheets ready to put over the garden plants at night, so hopefully I can keep that going until we have a deep freeze.
I love this time of year, thought I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed by my to-do list. I keep reminding myself – one day at a time…
Plan B
beginwithyes
My husband helped me hook up the pressure washer this morning.
PLAN A: I was planning to use it on our brick planters which have hard water stains on them. I worked and worked and then finally conceded that the pressure washing wasn’t doing anything. I guess the next step is to get some muriatic acid or other hard water stain remover, gloves, old clothes and shoes, and goggles and see what I can do.
PLAN B: Since we had the pressure washer hooked up, I went ahead and cleaned the front porch, porch pad, and the sidewalk that runs from the front porch to the garage/driveway pad.
I’m not finished with the pressure washer for the year, but I feel that I made significant progress with it today. I could become addicted to this thing. If other tools made SUCH a difference and lasted for a reasonable period of time, I would be a MUCH better housekeeper…
Filed under Housekeeping - Maintenance, I'm a slob
String Art – Take 24
Filed under Creativity, String Art
Animal Paintings – Take 8
Lesley Harrison-“Time For Play”
Amanda Clark – “Owl Power”
Filed under animal paintings, Creativity
Happy Halloween – Take 34
liveworktravelusa.com
Mike-Pumkowski-www.designbolts.com
String Art – Take 23
Butterfly String Art by StringTheoryVan on Etsy
string art -by_mflows – pinterest
Filed under Creativity, String Art
creativeartworksblog 