Speaking of crafts...

...how about these babies?

I am slightly addicted to Pick Your Plum lately. 

Their daily offerings tempt the latent crafter in my soul.

In my younger mommy days I sewed and crafted up a storm, but I tend more to stalking old boyfriends on facebook in my spare time these days. However, PYP is inspiring me to indulge in a little creating of over-the-top frou-frou.

So how about these lovely little resin flowers?

I just realized that they're perched on a box of chocolates!

And these trendy and adorable ribbons?

And this assortment of buttons that are not plastic but made of some kind of nut?

I have earring backs that I think I'm going to use for some of the flowers and Bethany and I have been looking at hairclip ideas and such, but I'm open to suggestions.

Fire away, my friends.

P.S. You knew I was joking about the old boyfriends thing, right?

P.P.S. Well, kind-a.

Bin feelin' a little buggy lately...

Yes I have.

Thanks Lori.
You are the Queen of Crafts.
There would be no craftiness without you.

I think there's a song in there somewhere.

Ain't Nobody Here but Us Chickens: The Story of the Bad Egg

I recently joined a swap group on facebook and have been enjoying trading some garden goodies for homemade soap and homegrown chicken eggs. They are happy blue and brown eggs with deep yellow yolks and I love them. Jeff is very partial to a hard-boiled egg in his lunch. So partial, in fact, that I have to ration him to one a day. Not that he pays much attention to my rules!

I arrived home this afternoon after a busy day of leading music therapy groups, hanging with grandkids, and teaching piano lessons. I walked through the door and my nose was assaulted with a peculiar stench. I followed the afore-mentioned olfactory organ around the kitchen, searching for the source of the putridity. Neither the rubbish bin nor the compost bucket yielded any clues, so I hastened out to the music room to teach the last lesson of the day.

When all was done, I returned to the kitchen and immediately noticed a strange-looking egg sitting on the counter. I fear this egg may have been hiding in the chicken coop for a few days before it was found. 

I called out to Jeff, who was hiding in the back of the house, to ask why there was a half-peeled rotten egg sitting on my counter.

I wasn't sure if it was okay to eat, he replied.

Really?

I whisked it out to the compost bin before you could say sunny side up and there it sits.

So tell me.
Would you entertain, even for a second, the thought of eating this egg?

Circus of the Sun: Ovo!

While I have loved Cirque Du Soleil for decades (ever since first watching it on VHS tapes we rented from the library) I had almost decided not to attend another performance. Familiarity breeds...not contempt, perhaps, but lack of enthusiasm. Two years ago, we took my Mum and Annie to see Kooza. See the account   here. But I happened upon some seats to see Ovo for a ridiculously low price and had the brilliant idea of taking the two oldest grandkids to their first Cirque show.

They were a pain in the neck all the way to Portland, giggling and wrestling in the back seat, and I finally had to tell them to Cool it! 

Although Ovo wasn't as death-defying as some of Cirque's past shows, I thoroughly enjoyed it. We had pretty good seats, although they were towards the side so we missed a little bit of the action. I had my eye on the V.I.P. front-and-middle seats all through the first hour and as soon as half-time started we hopped on over and got some fantastic seats. My best strategy ever. You're welcome. 

Kenzie and Daniel were quite impressed with the stage and the performers who were roaming around the grande chapiteau as we sat and waited for the show to start, but my favourite moment was when the first acrobats made their moves. I heard Kenzie whisper Wow and both of their little faces were raptly intent on the stage. 

I loved the butterflies best of all. You can see a few seconds of their act in this trailer (the couple in white on the ropes) but it doesn't do justice to the beauty of their moves and the way it fitted the music so perfectly.

This video will give you a taste of the ants' juggling act. 

I like ants. 

I am an ant, as you know.

It was fantabulous.

This act with the trampolines and wall was the climax of the show and was very fun to watch. There were many performers involved and it was difficult to keep track of everything that was going on.

The show ended late and these two young souls slept all the way home.
It was heavenly.

Ovo is still in town for another week.

Here's what I think you should do.

Buy the cheapest seats you can find. Just make sure they're not behind a post.

Then make a move on the VIP seats at half-time.

You won't be sorry!

Happy Mother's Day

I did not do it perfectly, but it is, possibly, the best thing I ever did.

Jeff and I are spending the weekend in the lovely town of Tillamook, where the best cheese in the world is made. Only in Tillamook can you smell dairy farms through the open window of your slightly upscale hotel room!

Asparagus adventures

Three years ago, fulfilling a long-time hankering, I planted ten asparagus plants. It was a serendipitous trade with a friend for all the rhubarb she could eat that first summer.

I felt adventurous. Not many people grow asparagus and it was a bit of mystery to me. I did my usual in-depth Google session and instructed Jeff as he dug the trenches. 

I was very diligent about not picking too much for the first two years as the plants established themselves. This year, anything that pokes above ground before the middle of June is fair game.

Jeff raved about the perfectly cooked, green and tender shoots that were piled on his plate the first few times I served them.

Three weeks into the harvest, not so much.

Did I mention that I don't particularly care for asparagus?

But I sure do love messing around with it!

I discovered these a few days ago.

I left the ferns to winter over in the raised bed and, apparently, conditions were ideal for the sprouting of the seeds that nestled into those lovely red seed pods.

Being in a meddling mood yesterday, and also a sowing-of-seeds mood, I dug a bunch of them out of the ground and re-potted them in my milk-jug greenhouses.

Asparagus has interesting roots. They grow horizontally rather than vertically. Look closely at this tiny root and you can see the exact point at which it turns horizontal.

Isn't it adorable?

Not, like, grand-baby adorable, but cute in an asparagus-y kind of way.

There were more little ferny seedlings than I had the patience to dig, but I have about twenty of them in three milk jugs. We shall see how they fare.

I also planted some cosmos, marigold, and impatiens seeds in the remaining jugs, and carrots, parsnips, lettuce, radishes, New Zealand spinach, and cucumbers in the raised beds. And I re-potted the former residents of the milk jugs, tomato seedlings, into their own tiny pots.

Bring on summer, I say.

And if you want some asparagus plants in a few months, you know where they'll be.

You're welcome

When our street was widened and repaved a few years ago, we ended up with a couple of garden beds around the mailboxes. We live on a driveway that accesses five houses, two of which are rentals. I casually suggested to our friends, Jim and Carol (who live across the driveway from us and have an awesome garden) that we put down weed barrier and rocks. Jim opened his mouth in mock horror and countered with a proposal of planting flowers.

Fine, I conceded, let's do it.

By us, I guess I meant me, although I have cajoled the neighbours into contributing in ways that aren't painful to them. Jim ponied up a boatload of perennial starts that, combined with my own, have made enormous progress over these last few years in filling up the beds. My goal is for the plants to completely cover the area and this just might be the year that it happens.

Another neighbour, who lives next to the street, kindly lets me drag her water hose to the flowers so that I can water them in the heat of the summer. I try to be kind to her water bill by irrigating as minimally as possible.

Other than that, it's usually yours truly doing all the planting, weeding, watering, slug-baiting and soil amendment tasks throughout the year.

So, I figure I get to post as many political signs as I please.

And I do.

Vote for Angel, he's our man!

The beds are filled with a mixture of perennials that grow larger every year and annuals that consistently re-seed, such as cosmos and these pink bachelor's buttons. This clump sprouted in the late fall and somehow survived the cold of winter. It is almost ready to flower.

I love the different shades of huechera. This is one of my favourites.

Also known as coral bells, they attract humming birds and bees. The clumps in the back are shamrocks that will soon be covered in pink flowers.

Hardy pink geraniums are already in flower.

Daniel and I had weeded most of the two beds a few weeks ago. This one was more than our stamina could handle, so the seedy grass was in full reign by last weekend. Jeff kindly asked me what I wanted him to do in the garden on Saturday and I jumped at the chance to have help with this final bit of weeding. Notice that this flowerbed is not technically completely in our jurisdiction, but I take care of it anyway. The far end of it is in front of the next house on the street and houses their mailbox. The house is another rental.

Jeff and I were digging (him) and groaning (me) as we neared the end of the job, when out walked the lady of the rental house. We had never met her before. She kind of chuckled as she collected her mail and made a comment about how all the weeds had grown.

And then she went back into her house.

Wait.

Seriously, lady?

We are weeding your flowerbed, which we also planted, and you don't even have the grace to say Thank you?

Maybe she thought we were the hired help.
Whatever.
You're welcome, I said quietly, as she closed her door.

Last Christmas, Carol gave me some lovely chocolates and a thank you for taking care of the flowerbeds.

Saying thank you is more than good manners. It is good spirituality.

                   ~Alfred Painter

Silent gratitude isn't much good to anyone.

             ~G.B. Stern

There is no such thing as gratitude unexpressed. If it is unexpressed, it is plain, old-fashioned ingratitude.

                ~Robert Brault

Who have you thanked today?