This Morning’s Blooms

To say I am enjoying the weather this past week or so is an understatement!  Mild morning temps around 50 degrees with highs no greater than the mid-80’s.

Perfect!

As most know I am a summer gal, love the heat and getting outside in it but I think I love the mornings the most.  I take my coffee to the garden and see what fresh bloom is awaiting me.  My garden is a “free for all” grow where the seed drops, cottage, chaotic paradise so I never know what will crop up or where.

I have certain perennials in specific locations but the biennials and reseeding annuals are allowed to have their way.  I let seed heads remain in the fall on certain varieties like my Echinacea and rudbeckia so the birds can feast on them.  They are easy enough to yank out if they sprout in areas I don’t want them.  

I also love the quiet, it is relatively peaceful at 5:30 to 6 in the morning and the scent of the morning air is so refreshing.  I saunter along the garden paths with the morning birds serenading me.  Yep, heaven for me!

And this is what I saw this morning.

Some new iris have opened up..

My Lupine is such a gorgeous fuchsia!

I absolutely love this Firewitch Dianthus, the foliage is more finely cut than other Dianthus.

My Pear tree has little pears on it!  I am surprised as I figured the late freezes had zapped any chance of getting fruit this year. 

The Dream Weaver climbing rose has buds.  Woo hoo! 

They are a little ravaged, I have these little needle nose beetles that like to munch on them.  I need to start taking a cup of soapy water out with me in the morning and knock the beetles into it.  No mercy here if you damage my flowers!

Since my last post I have painted a few more signs (photos another day) and worked in my garden as much as I could fit in.  I have more tomatoes to plant, I need to replace my peppers that croaked in the cold spell we had at the beginning of the month and get my squash seeds planted.  We can hope for an Indian Summer so they have a chance to produce before cold weather strikes again but gardeners live in hope!

Yesterday we went to the Fathers Day Fly In at Columbia Airport.  My husband is a plane enthusiast and pilot so this was a treat for him.  I had my camera but accidentally left it in the car.  I wish I would’ve gotten it out but got lazy.  There were several vintage planes that were on display that were eye candy, the shape and colors of them cannot be matched by the sleeker modern versions, at least in my opinion. 

This afternoon we are to work together in the garden, getting the last of the veggies planted, maybe get my front porch bench put back together and some other chores accomplished. 

Enjoy your Sunday!

Garden Time!

You will find me here hit and miss during these toasty summer days!  I am so busy playing outside in the garden when I am not painting up signs or working that I find myself dropping in bed when darkness falls with nary a look at my computer. 
I am going to try to post a couple times a week at least so in the cold, dreary days of winter I can look back at my journal (blog) and remember the halcyon days of summer along with photos of what is blooming and when. 

My weekend was fun, I worked in a food booth at a Lumber Jubilee and had a grand time.  The weather was warm with a soft breeze that kept it comfy while we hustled around whipping up tantalizing goodies for folks to munch on as they enjoyed the various activities and events. I took my camera to photograph the booth and never even thought of doing it while there! 

The past couple days I have been getting back on track with painting special order signs.  Here are a couple I just finished..

I really like this strawberry one..  I may have to make one for my strawberry bed…(when I get it planted, right now the strawberries are still producing in there little pots in the greenhouse, we ate some last night with whipped cream, yum)



I have had several requests for signs with the ocean scene background..I have added the grass to the left corner since this photo was taken.



I never tire of painting roses…



I also whipped up another Potting Shed sign to post on my website….



Each morning I have sat on my front step with my coffee enjoying the bird’s morning song and smelling the sweet perfume of my wonderfully scented iris’ (reminds me of grape koolaid)





Despite the late freezes the lilac next door (empty house but I have spoken to the owner about taking cuttings from her lilac) has a few heavily scented blossoms on it, which I cut and brought in the house yesterday.  These few scent the entire downstairs and it smells wonderful.  This lilac is probably 50 years old, I am going to take cuttings this year and try to root them.

My neighbor said it was called a 49er lilac but she was not sure if that was a reference that it came to CA in the gold rush or if there is an actual lilac with that name.  In my internet search I have not found one named that so who knows. I just know it sure is perfumie!



Yesterday I planted about 18 Casablanca Lilies along my porch rails, once they are blooming the walk to my front and back doors will be sweet scented and the perfume will waft into the house thru the open windows.   The white of the lilies will be a fabulous contrast to the pink climbing roses planted beside them. 

Today I have more painting to do and I am going to plant my squash and cucumbers, it is finally warm enough!  We had a lovely 54 degrees at first light, that is warm for here at night.   It is to cool off some the next few days but not too much. 
Have a great warm sunny day! I know I will.


Parties I link to

My website...

I think we have SPRING! Finally.

What a fabulous couple of days we have enjoyed!  What a difference warmth and sunny skies can make in my demeanor! 

When the sun shines and the air is warm I have so much energy. Now channeling that energy efficiently is my challenge.  I want to get a bazillion things done at once so I have to make a list and prioritize or I end up going several different directions with little results by the end of the day. 

I started my morning with my coffee in the garden, it was the first morning it started at 50 degrees so it was quite pleasant.  I sit on these front steps facing into my garden.  That is my Burb parked there.

And this is the scene I face.

I sit, peruse my front garden and porch and plan on what I need to do to whip them into shape.  I need to power wash the front porch desperately, for some reason male cats have chosen it to mark their territory and it smells to high heaven. 

The flower bed to the left is my broccoli and the trees I need to find a good spot for.  I may pot them up into larger pots and put them on my back deck for now but we shall see.

The flower bed on the right is full of volunteer flowers and the ferns that grow wild here.  I have yet to decide what I wish to do there for a certainty, until then the volunteers reign supreme.

As I sat there, sipping my oh so delicious coffee I heard the oddest sound.  I thought one of my hens must be ill and wandered around back to check it out.  Lo and behold one of my young roosters is trying to crow and he sounds quite awful!

The moaning rooster.

I took the time while back there to fill their feeders and freshen the water, tossed in a flake of alfalfa hay and watched them start scratching and pecking thru it.  They love their alfalfa!  While in the greenhouse where I store their food I noted all the hanging flower pots waiting to be filled with trailing petunias, the windows boxes waiting for some cheery flowers to fill them as well. 

When it was wet and rainy I just had no desire to get out and get them all planted up but today was the day! But I had to fit it in with painting sign orders.  It is hard for me to paint when I want to be outside in the dirt!

But work prevailed so I made sure to run to the lumberyard, get the boards for the signs, cut them to size, sand them and got a good base paint slathered on.  Now I could play in the garden to my hearts content.  The signs have to dry so I leave them to it and go outside. 

Here is what I got done…

I potted up my planters and pots with petunias..I still need to scrub down the pots a bit.

I also messed around with my potting bench.

After I loaded this photo I noticed I missed painting the legs.  Funny how you spot things in photographs you totally miss seeing.  I am going to hang the rake head on the backboard and use it to hang tools.  I want to paint the yellow metal tub something different but am still debating on what color. 

The chalk paint held up very well on the potting bench, it had only maybe a day or two to dry before we were hit with a couple weeks worth of drenching rainstorms.  I am quite impressed.

I am off to work today…hope all are well and enjoy their weekend.

ta ta…

 

 

Building a Little House in 4 Days (or at least part of one)

Update time! 

The past week has been wild and wooly.  Today we are trying to recover after some long days working our sweet patooties off.  We are so tired we can barely see straight even after a good nights sleep.

Yesterday, the customers came and stayed about an hour looking, touching the little house and talking.  Now they wish to see another prototype of composite materials.  So we will do this again soon.

But here is this one in a nutshell.  We took this….


and turned it into this between Thursday and Monday…
actually this photo does not show all that was completed, I guess we were so busy we did not take a photo of what was done up to the minute the customers arrived but this is close.



All I can say is thank goodness Randy had space enough for us to do this indoors as it poured rain a good portion of the weekend, not light showers but pouring deluges that would’ve made it impossible to do this outdoors. 

Some more shots…


The inside..


This little baby is about 320 square feet, the requested size for this demo.  The bedrooms could barely hold a queen size bed and not a thing else.  This home is a model to house construction workers building housing in disaster areas.  Simple, bare bones but far more than what they currently have. 

The first day, Thursday, was spent cutting sheeting and lumber to size plus laying out and getting ready to start assembling.



Assembly started on Friday


And Saturday the first wall was lifted into place

First wall going up!

I was not much help until it came time to paint.  Saturday I was just a gopher but Sunday I dug in and started painting.



And painting..



And a little bit of goofing off..Randy never even knew I was behind him.



A middle wall going up…the walls are bolted together so we can dismantle it..

And we start dismantling tomorrow.  If all else fails we can always find somewhere to put this little house and move into it ourselves.  Quite a few of Randy’s employees liked it so well they want one. 

We have actually been enjoying some blessed sunshine today.  I even forced myself out the door before 6:30 am to enjoy a nice invigorating long walk this morning.  Thanks, Chris for the incentive!

The rest of this day has been a total tosser but we did accomplish much over the weekend so we are entitled to a day of rest.  I am still trying to figure out what day it is, I am lost after being so focused on the little house.

I need to get it together, I have a bunch of sign orders to get finished and shipped. 
I hope this post made sense, my brain is a noodle so getting this written today was quite a task!

Later all…



I will party here...

A comparison!

Today was constant rain until now, it is going on 7:45 pm and we have endured another entire day of pouring rain!  I had to go over to Sonora to be errand girl for my hard working husband and side kick (very helpful brother in law) Jasen who are working on the housing prototype.  I ran to the different stores for tools and deck screws, bottled water and some plants we will use to dress up the entrance for the demonstration on Monday. 

The rain made it miserable to shop, going in and out in the cold rain was just not fun as well as making visibility in the parking lots negligible thus dangerous.  I swear I nearly was run down by cars backing out of parking spots more than once, the driver’s vision obscured by the deluge.  I was jogging thru the parking lot hunkered under my umbrella so I had a hard time seeing them as well.  Thank goodness for bright back up lights. 

I don’t have the photos yet of the prototype but will post them as soon as I can.  I even videoed the lifting of the first wall.  We shall see how it turns out, I am not sure of the lighting. 

I thought I would share a photo of what June 3rd normally looks like here in my front garden.  Just to give you a better visual of how behind we are this year. This is from June 3, a couple years back.  (last year we were not living here in June, we got back in July)

And this is what it looks like June 3, 2011.  Roses are barely leafing out, not a bloom in sight, the iris are barely showing a bud.  Believe it or not this is the same spot in both photos. 

I have determined to just enjoy what is blooming while it is staying unusually cool and rainy for June. 

I have my creeping phlox..this is really lavender colored but for some reason it seems bleached out in this shot. 

I love the swirls on these tulips..

The blue of the Forget Me Nots is a bright spot in front of the porch. 

All of my different Clematis are reaching for the sky

And the strawberries I have still in pots in the greenhouse are putting out berries, nice sized ones! I have yet to get them in the ground.

Tomorrow looks to be merely cloudy most of the daylight hours.  That is a very good thing as we are painting the walls of the prototype.  It is being built inside a shop building so the weather has caused no hindrance that I know of, just annoyance. 

I need to get together my painting gear as that is something I can do and shall be on hand all day to paint away.  We can hope for some sunshine for the sheer pleasure of it. 

You most likely will not hear from me for a few days…I will be one tuckered out lady.  But I will enjoy it! 

See you soon…hopefully with progress pictures.

A cold June start!

Unbelievable as it may seem we are still freezing here in Northern California, even had tornadoes touch down up in Yuba county yesterday evening.  I have not watched or read any news programs today to see if there was any damage.  My garden is suffering despite my attempts at protecting the peppers and tomatoes.  I place large black pots over the plants at night and a jug of water to hold it down in case of a stiff breeze.  Not exactly pretty but effective.

I also used a tarp draped over pots for the peppers.

But the peppers are not  holding up well, thankfully I have more in the greenhouse to replace these poor things.  They will definitely not make it. These are the jalapenos, the habaneros are in slightly better shape but I don’t hold out any hope for them.

 

On a lighter note, I have finished painting the collection of special order wedding signs and they are ready to ship.  I just need to find a suitable box in order to get them sent off to the customer.  This is the finished signs for the bride commissioned by her mother.  I don’t normally do long text like this as I am not good at it, I prefer larger lettering and decorative painting, small text is a challenge for me. They had me add the flowers (which in this photo looks like blobs) to it, originally is was just the text but it needed something.

If you have wondered where I have been the past week I have been watching videos of face painting (in my hours off from painting signs) and practicing.  Here is a couple motifs for face painting I have been trying to learn. Can you guess what they are?  If so then I am getting better…

I have also been trying to learn butterflies and fairy princesses along with spiders, snakes, flower crowns.   You have to get the sequence of strokes for each complete design memorized to be able to do it swiftly, children do not like to stand still long.  I have yet to practice on squirming children, my nephews get to be my first victims.   I am just waiting for my face paints to come in, some were back ordered. 

The work on the housing prototype has begun.  We need to have it completed by Monday and a lot is riding on this being a success.  Let’s hope for smooth sailing the next 4 days.  I will see about posting photos here for you all to see.

Until we meet again…ta