Under a blue moon

Wine and chickens at the cottage

 

"Why don't you and Grandpa come up to the cottage for a glass of wine..."

I love getting those emails from Sara.   We went up yesterday afternoon to visit the chickens and see the bees and partake in Ryan's latest white wine offering, a Riesling.

The last time I saw the chickens they weren't chickens yet - they were just little handfuls of fluffy feathers. 

Not that they still aren't fluffy.  And I'm certainly not one to point fingers but would you take a look at those fluffy butts up there. 

 

They have nice digs, a pale yellow chicken coop with a cozy place to sleep and they have a grassy hill to wander on. 

The bees aren't quite as lively right now.  They are conserving their energy.

 

Ryan and Sara have provided them with food right at their hive so they don't have to go too far afield to find it.  If you click on the picture to see it bigger you can see a few dark spots on the lower right hand corner of the hive - those are a few bees just checking out the sunshine.

 

Here the girls are all looking through the fence towards the beehive.  That is Rosie up front, she has healed nicely from her accident.

They are really quite comical to watch.  When one runs to go look at something they ALL have to see what the fuss is about.

 

After we oohed and ahhed over the girls we went inside and had a glass of Ryan's new Riesling.  I'm a dyed in the wool Chardonnay drinker but the Riesling was exceptionally good.  It had a sparkly quality to it.  Very easy to sip.   The name, Firefly and the painting for the label perfectly capture this wine. 

Random shot, just because I thought it was so pretty hanging there in the arbor amongst the wisteria vines.

Hello Summer, farewell Tasha...

Anyone that is a fan of Victoria Magazine knows who Tasha Tudor is.  Or if, as a child, you read her beautifully illustrated books like "A is for Annabelle" or her illustrations in classics like "The Secret Garden" or "Night Before Christmas."  We lost a little bit of gentleness and loveliness this past week.

Tasha Tudor passed away on Wednesday, in her home in Vermont.  Tasha believed that she was married to a Sea Captain the early 1800's in a previous life and was set to go straight back on her passing in this life.  I hope you found your captain, Tasha.

And Summer just jumped out from behind the hydrangeas this weekend.  Man - has it been hot.  Where I live, in California, we get hot, dry weather in the Summer.  Today it was hot and bright and seemed like a typical day - in the 100's.  I finally succumbed to the air conditioning around 1:00pm and was sitting in the living room reading when I heard a strange sound.  I looked out on the deck and it was pouring!  We don't get rain in the Summer.  It was so strange I had to go outside where it was still blistering hot and the sky still blue except for one rogue rain cloud right over our house.  I guess it thought we needed a little cooling off.

Well I'm sure the hydrangeas appreciated it.

Bench revisited

Have you all caught on to my trick of talking about doing a project, then months down the road when I finally get tired of looking at it and actually finish it I blog about it again?  It's kind of like the practice of recycling term papers.  Not that I would ever do that or anything...

Anyway.  The bench.  I decided on the green using a faux robin's egg in a faux nest as my inspiration.  The eggs aren't robin's egg BLUE - they are more of a green with just a hint of turquoise to it.  Ever so subtle.  I wanted the color to pop out a bit when you drive up to our house. 

At first I had every intention of painting the entire thing - the cast iron sides, as well as the wooden slats.  Then I got a look at how crusty the cast iron was and decided, quite sensibly, that I like the peely, rusty black just fine.

I'm not a great painter.  I'm not even a good painter.  I think we all know that by now but paint is pretty forgiving especially in this particular application.   I try hard, I really do, but my efforts pretty much suck. 

FIrst I did my prep work.  I put on my painting yoga pants and an old radio promo t-shirt.  I pulled my hair back into a pony tail and tied a scarf around my head.  You know how some people look really fetching with a scarf tied in their hair?  I don't.  I look like I'm off to scrub toilets in a sanitorium or something.

As I started primering the slats of the bench I managed to slop primer all over the cast iron part so I went back to my original plan to paint the entire thing.  And honestly after seeing just the slats primered I didn't like the high contrast. 

Painting the whole thing makes it a little more whimsical looking.  The cast iron wasn't as hard to paint as I thought.  I just used a really nappy little paint roller and it got most of the crevices.  What it skipped over I just touched up with a sponge paint brush.

Please visit next week when I actually get out and weed the flower beds....

Edited to add:  I meant to add this funny little story.  After I finished painting it and Rick helped me move it back into its spot, we stood back about 20 feet to admire it.  Belle, the wonder cat, strolled on over to us and started rubbing up against Rick's legs.  I looked down at her and said "Now Belle, don't go hopping up on the bench just yet - I just painted it and it's not completely dry."  She just looked at me and then marched right up to it and hopped up on the seat!  Wicked cat.  I know she was just being defiant.

2nd edited to add:  I forgot I was tagged by Elizabeth of Gossamer Wings.  I'll play along but I never tag people - of course if you WANT to be tagged by all means, knock yourself out.

1.  What I was doing 10 years ago:  Hmmm - I was living in a cute little cottage of a house in Los Altos, California.  Interestingly enough that little house was almost exactly the color of the bench above.  We kept meaning to paint it a more conventional color but only got around to it when we were about to move.  I think the color grew on me.

2.  What are five things on your to do list for today?  I'm going to list tomorrow's to do list since today is almost over.  1. Buy my nephew a birthday present.  2.  Wrap Father's day and said birthday gifts.  3.  Come up with either an appetizer or a salad for dinner.  4.  Drive down to my Dad's house.  5.  Drink lots of wine (what rule says a to do list has to be productive??)

3.  Snacks I enjoy:  Edamame, raw almonds, hummus, cheetos and hot tamales (whoops - the truth kind of came out there towards the end, didn't it?)

4.  Places I've lived:  Oh this is a good one.  I've lived in some interesting places.  Ankara, Turkey.  Bariloche, Argentina.  Chevy Chase, MD (people always look at me like I just made the name up when I tell them that).  And the best of all - California.

5.  Things I would do if I were a billionaire.  I would buy Carmel, CA.

May Day

I think I am winning the aphid battle.  A few consecutive days of spraying down the bushes with a good blast of water and a couple of days of a light soapy spray (thanks Adrienne) and they seem to be gone for the most part.

This is an Abraham Darby.  I love the glowy centers.  Tournament of Roses has a similar color but not as many petals.  Both are work horses in the rose bed (Tournament of Roses has a better repeat throughout the season though).

The Abraham Darby gets so many huge, fat blooms on it I have to prop up the branches or it just wants to lay on the grass and take a nap.

Remember when that big old tree fell down and took out my green garden bench?  We have another bench that we brought up from the pond (the pond that is always empty except for the berry bushes and who wants to sit on a bench and gaze at that?) and I want to paint it but I'm not sure how. 

I mean I know how to paint I'm just not sure if I should paint the whole thing green or leave the iron bits black and just paint the slats.  Or should I just leave it alone.  I've never seen one of these benches painted.

What do you think?

!!Last day of my birthday month...

Wicker pet basket

I think Sara needs one of these for Remy, don't you?

I have been looking on-line for wicker bike baskets.  Now that the weather is getting lovely I want to ride my bike on my shorter errands - like to the library (which I go to every Thursday) or to the grocery store when I just need a few things. 

This, in an effort to be more green and to kind of trick myself into a little bit of exercise since it appears that willingly exercising just doesn't come naturally to me.

Of course those big, ugly, rear mounted bike baskets would probably be more practical but if this trickery is going to work the basket is going to have to be charming. 

In other happy news - the folks at Urban Outfitters, Inc. (Anthropologie) are opening a garden center type store called Terrain.  Go check out Oh Joy! for pictures.  We just have to hope it catches on and they open other centers around the country.  Like here.

(Note:  Picture above has nothing to do with Terrain.  I just needed something to liven up the post so I threw in a picture of my old planter.  But who knows - Terrain MIGHT carry stuff like this.)

Hope everyone is having a happy Wednesday.  I need to go find a party hat since it's the very last day of my birthday month.

Spring rain

We are a bit housebound today.  It's rainy and cool outside and the things that would normally occupy us on a Spring Saturday involve mucking about outside.

Even Belle feels restless and bored - although she has found a dry perch outside.

I did venture out during a lull in the sprinkles - the poppies are blooming like mad in the empty lot down the street.  I forgot that they don't like to open up unless it is sunny though.  So the poppies are being shy.

I liked the vivid green of the poppies and the rusted swingset and tractor.  I've been fooling around with Photoshop Elements using the tutorials on the newly launched The Pioneer Woman site.  She has some great tuturials of her own and has a new contributor, Miz Booshay that also has some really easy to follow tips for taking and editing pictures.   They may make a photographer out of me yet.

The above is a saturated version of this orginal picture:

And the faded version:

I'm kind of liking the faded one. 

It is just the laziest day.  I should be doing something, anything, productive.  Or I could take a nap:

Evening light

There is a certain point in the late afternoon where the light in yard is just magical looking.  Long shadows across the lawn and a certain luminosity that makes everything look good.

Last weekend I dragged out all the patio furniture cushions and scrubbed them down and let them dry in the sun.  Then we were forcast to have seven days out of ten of rain.  So back into the garage they went.  Of course we haven't seen a drop.  If it doesn't rain tomorrow I'm bringing them back out.

Have a wonderful weekend, everyone.  Hopefully the next post will have pretty pictures of our newly tiled kitchen.

Weekends

I started a post on Friday about how it was my favorite day because of the delicious anticipation of the weekend and all but then I got distracted by chasing goats out of my yard.  Again.  It was kind of fun and charming the first time.  Not so much the second time when they showed up on my deck and started eating out of my pots. 

I shooed them away and they went around front and started eating the azaleas by the front door.  I got a pan of goat grain from our nicely behaved, stay put goats to try to lure them back over to their own people's potted plants and it was like a scene out of Willard.  They swarmed me and were hopping up trying to knock the pan out of my hand. 

I did manage to get them to hop over the fence again by tossing handfuls of grain into the neighbor's yard - they hopped over one by one, like counted sheep, except for the very last little one that bleated miserably as all his pals left and he couldn't quite make it over with his short legs.  We found another section of fence that I held down for him so he could join his herd. 

Of course they didn't come back all weekend when Rick was there.  They like to wait until I'm alone and they can overtake me.

We had gorgeously spectacular weather all weekend.  I managed to get out and prune the roses, finally.  I used to be very meticulous about this but now I basically just cut out the canes that are crowding the middle and trim the bush back by about half.  In California we don't have to do a hard prune - I figured this out the one year I forgot to prune all together and the bushes looked so much better than when I cut them down so short.

The candle above came from Target - only $4.99.  I thought it was pretty sweet looking.  Much better picture for a post than a goat infestation:

Extra goats

I looked out our kitchen window this afternoon and noticed we had a few extra goats.  A dozen of them to be exact. 

Our neighbors behind us have goats for the same reason we do - to help keep the weeds down (okay THEIR goats actually do the job - ours laze around and refuse to wander very far from the goat palace so we have to give them goat chow so they don't starve to death.  We're suckers.).  The neighbors had a tree come down and take out their electric fence so the goats feel free to wander around and eat our azaleas.

Just part of the charm of living in a semi-rural area. 

Oh - look what I spied when I was out taking goat pictures:

Our first daffodil of the year!

My poor bench

We've been having a bit of weather here in Northern California the past few days.   I was sitting in my nice, cozy kitchen cutting out felt flowers when I noticed a movement and light out of the corner of my eye.   I turned and looked out the window and a big oak tree was laying across our driveway. 

It spared my car (by about a foot and a half) but it took out my green garden bench.  At first it looked like the bench might be saved but when Rick was cutting the branches the trunk resting on the bench shifted and there it went.

We have a lot of big trees on our property and usually lose one each winter to a storm.  This was closer to the house than I like.  Why couldn't it be one of the ugly, scrubby pine trees?

Since I was essentially trapped at home (car was blocked) I spent the day cheerfully cutting out felt flowers for my runner.  I do love a project with a lot of hand work.

I don't know what genius discovered that you could use freezer paper for tracing and cutting out but I would like to meet you and give you a big hug.   You just trace out your design on the matte side and iron it to your fabric.  The shiny side sticks to your fabric and you just cut out the design and then peel off the paper.  And I discovered you can use the template more than once.  After about the third time you iron it the paper loses it's stick.

My flowers are all cut out and I need to go run over to Jo-Anns to see if they have light green wool felt and also pick up some embroidery floss.  I need to cut out the leaves and then I can start assembling.  I'm hoping to finish today or tomorrow.