Cats & baskets - a match made in heaven

Yesterday I was trying to set up an etsy shop for the jewelry and ran into so many problems  that were so frustrating that I quit  and now I try to get back to do more editing and can't access it. I have had the button shop for 10 years you would think setting up the new one would be a piece of cake.  Everything has changed so much and nothing seems to work..  It absolutely refuses my new logo,,, 

So I decided to give up and paint... One of my favorite things to paint is baskets and the one I have the most trouble with is cats.  On most animals and people if I get the eyes right everything is OK.....but with cats I have to get the nose right or it looks like a monkey. I have painted bunnies in baskets, chicks in baskets and flowers in baskets and now I want to paint kittens in baskets.

 Since I had wanted to paint some kittens in a basket on a pendant I went net surfing for inspiration  and found  many kittens in baskets.  These two in this painting are a bit scary and look as if they have had too much  caffeine.  This is a vintage oil painting by Hans Fenger and is available on line for $250/

At the bottom of each post are several thumbnails that link to previous posts.  Quite often I travel down memory lane with these,  Today the post was from 2009 and was about all the drama of lambing.... http://olderrose.blogspot.com/2009/03/lamb-photo-op.html.  I dearly loved my sheep.





 

There was fun in funky....

Remember the pile of "possible parts"? 

 

Well it ended up this necklace.   I usually wear a new one for a day to test for any problems and I do need to do some fine tuning on the hanging hearts.  I wore it on a red top and the yellow really popped.   This whimsical necklace received positive comments all day and even the waiter at the brunch liked it.  I'm glad because I do have an all-out whimsy idea that I want to start painting the pendant today.

Soup Search

 

 DH let me know that the supply of homemade soups in the freezer is running low so I went in search of recipes a little different than my usual standbys  and DH favorites.. Over the next 2-3 weeks I'll try these with the extra goal of adding more beans and grains to our diet.

1. An Italian sausage meatball   soup using a dried 15 bean mix and lots of veggies (and maybe a couple extra cans of black beans or kidney beans as well).



2.  A Moroccan chicken/sweet potato soup with chick peas and spiced with turmeric and cumin..









3. A cauliflower/cod chowder.  I don't  have cod but do have rockfish in the freezer which needs to be used.  This recipe uses lots of leeks and cherry tomatoes as well.  I will sneak some white beans into this as well..

4. With the garden in mind I am making a Pea/Pea/Pea soup.  To a base of dried peas and ham hocks I'll add fresh peas, pea pods and frozen peas.  Best of all I'll add lots of the abundance of fresh tender pea vines in the garden.

5.  And last but not least a Squash/Kale/Brown Rice soup to use up the  the squash from the fall harvest of spaghetti squash.  The recipe I found had apple added and was spiced with cinnamon and allspice. I will add some cooked wheat berries as well.  A big batch of each of these soups should carry us into the winter.

There are an abundance of squash blossoms now and one night next week we'll have squash blossoms stuffed with shrimp and ricotta cheese dipped in batter and deep fried... Yummy.

Some bold, some quirky but all OOAK!

So far so good with the jewelry venture and it has not only been fun using stash but also combining painting and jewelry. At the moment working on a piece for which I painted a hummingbird.. Not a clear vision on this one so it has been fun trying a lot of different approaches.


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On the other hand this project has a long history and a pretty clear vision. I have had these handmade beads for about 50 years.  A friend brought them back from Africa as a gift for me.  They were strung on a piece of hemp and for some time I wore them that way but then I restrung them and have never been too pleased with the result..  This time I'd like to combine them with the distressed beads in that bracelet, part of the yellow seed bead necklace I bought at a market in Germany and these precious red lacquered wood beads..plus maybe some yellow lampwork beads..  I definitely have a vision for this one and eager to start and hope to make two necklaces from this pile..

I have finished the bear necklace and am pleased with it.. It is a "statement" necklace and would need a very specific person to want it.

But all my jewelry is a little on the quirky side..





















And I finished the roses on the slice of purple agate.  It sort of chose its own beads... This one is large and bold but not too quirky..

This plant made my day,week,month etc.

I haven't been able to get down the path along the greenhouse because a large tree fell on it early spring.  Dh got the tree cut up and cleared away so I was able to spray the path this am  and see what was still surviving..  Seeing a mass of butterflies I knew one of my favorite plants had reappeared -  Eupatoriaum purpureum. I was sure I had lost it.  I have tried to move it by the house twice and failed.  I even bought a plant online and it too didn't survive. It's common name is Purple Joe Pye Weed and is a butterfly magnet.   I have marked it with a red ribbon and will hand water it through the up coming drought and will get it by the house this fall if it is the  very last thing I do..   Plus give a start to my best gardening friend.  A great cut flower also..

Another superb unusual cut flower surviving
 is "giant scabiosa" (Cephalaria Giantea) and it is indeed a giant at 7' tall and makes a huge clump.  I do not have space for it by the house... but it is happy in the wild garden.





A little self-seeder I never see in gardens (but should) is a delightful 18" perennial pincushion "Knautia Macedonia" It is not long-lived but seeds politely and is not the least invasive.  It is darker maroon than this photo... Love it. I once posted a bouquet of unusual perennials and this one stumped everybody.


I used to remember both botanical an common names of all my plants and now I'm lucky if I can remember either... But any name for this plant escapes me this morning.

Could see about a half dozen huge clumps of this salvia in the deepest weeds (where I seldom venture  often because these particular weeds which have nasty little burrs.) But it will be worth it to get a clump or two next spring.  The yellow flower you see is a small flowered verbascum which is spectacular in bouquets.  Again not long-lived but is a polite self seeder.

I speak from experience that if you venture into these weeds in sweat pants you might as well throw them away because you will NEVER get all the burrs out.. Definitely jean territory.

Last but not least the lavender everywhere is in full bloom.  I mentioned recently that years ago every time I planted a rose I surrounded it with lavender but most of the roses are long gone and mega clumps of lavender are throughout the wild part of the garden.  It is a super dark variety Hicote.  If it is a moist spring I can lift long branches  and find new plants growing underneath.  I haven't done that for 4 or 5 years so must mark the calendar and do it in the spring for plants to put by the  peony garden.  Some elderly ladies from a church used to come and pick carloads of it and dry it to sell at their bazaar. 

Our resident hummers are calliopes and black-chinned but this week we were treated to a visit by colorful rufous passing through.

And  large batches of baby quail are finally  emerging from the safety of the juniper and mahonia.  Here they are basking in a warm patch of sunlight.  It will be nonstop parade from now until fall.

Must let you know that Morris is not one be denied his creature comforts.  In fact I believe he invented the term "creature comfort"  Every dog deserves a pillow for his bum and two pillows for his head... so civilized...