i've got no less than four posts in "draft" mode.
but none of them quite ready to post yet due to something or other missing . . . 

i know that i've been away for over a month and feel the need to get back into the blog world but am wondering at just where to start.

i don't like my blog to be about complaints and dark days but the fact is sometimes that's what i've got. today is one of those days.

initially i was away from blog land due to some efforts needed within the garden. i love (make that LOVE~!!~) to be in the garden, however if i work in the garden, even for a short time, then the rest of my day is pretty much shot. due to MS i'm sometimes forced to make decisions about what i get done which really saddens me. i'm one of those gals that likes to "have her cake and eat it too" and back in the day i could do that. it came at a cost but i did it anyway. quite frequently i notice that i can do this less and less which leads to anger and depression.
so it's a dark day. or two.  please bear with me as i work through it.

i have actually accomplished a number of things (besides short but intense busy spells in the garden) while not blogging. none of them earth shattering but when i'm not taking extraordinarily long naps i do try to at least keep my hands busy. i'm happy to say that my 15 minutes of sewing project continues despite all of this  and i'm not too far behind on the TAST work. i even have some new prayer flags and atc's.
i do get bored easily and move from project to project which results in much done but not a lot necessarily crossed off of any lists. sometimes i really do think i have ADD . . . sure, why not add that to my list of ails.

lately, i can't seem to always muster up the steady hands (or time) needed to take a photo that i'm happy with which puts me even further behind in relation to what i want to post as well as disgusted by what MS continues to take away from my life.

this summer i've been on my own quite a bit (wonderful husband works long, hard, hot hours at 'stomping out' wild land fires). this results in a few more household responsibilities left to me to factor into my time/energy. it seems to take very little to upset the balance and create a pile-up of bits and pieces to attempt to get back into some sort of manageable routine . . . which leaves me running about stomping at my own 'fires'.

so what started out as a small break from posting has turned into a long dry spell. i apologize. i have had a few late night moments that i used to wander aimlessly around the internet and have to admit that i often don't even have the energy to make a comment. sporadic lurking has become my 'contribution' to the web. i'm ashamed but cannot seem to find the energy for more.

i have had some extremely thoughtful inquiries about my mysterious long absence and i want to thank those who have kept me in their thoughts while i've been 'off the radar'.
the fact is that i am (mostly) okay. i miss my semi regular routine of blogging and know that this will all sort itself out eventually.
i appreciate whatever patience anyone wishes to bestow upon me and hope that i will not continue to disappoint.


despite all of this i do find that i have much to be grateful for and some of my recent gifts include:

• the peace that i find watching my pond and it's residents
• a bountiful harvest of fresh tomatoes being gathered
• the incredibly good taste of those warm from the sun, freshly picked tomatoes
• a cottontail bunny that comes to steal peas in the evening . . . i happily share them with this sweet creature
• warm milky tea sipped in the cool early morning while watching the hummers start their day
• being able to somehow (!?! garden hose in one hand and dog on leash in the other!?!) separate two sizable very bad dogs from a fight without getting bit
• both dogs coming away from said fight with only minor injuries
• witnessing the drama of a fiery red sunrise
• potatoes and onions promising their own generous harvest
• spellcheck

i hope that you are finding many gifts to enjoy within your summer days as well.

i would also like to apologize for dropping the ball on my ongoing give-aways. i hope to get back to those sometime in the fall.

the soft light of a dawning day

early morning pleasures

home sweet home

this morning brought an unexpected visitor to my garden. i don't think i've ever had a pigeon here before . . .
he(?) stayed quite a while, hanging out by the bird feeders but never partaking, and then went on his way.

the sky was mostly blue this morning and the sun shone brightly for a while.

this is the first year that i've had any success with artichokes. they require a long growing season and so this year i started them in the cold frame and hope to erect it back around them this fall while they finish up. i actually really like the look of dried artichoke flowers so i'm not sure yet if i'm going to eat them or just dry the flowers and keep them around to look at . . . maybe i'll get enough of a harvest that i can do both.

i am beginning to wonder if they are going to grow too large to get back inside the frame . . . the plants are huge~! it might be a good thing that i only planted two of them.

the Japanese eggplants are beginning to show some fruits and are full of promising buds. these are one of my favorite summer time treats: grilled with a little olive oil and salt & pepper.

there's something about a pear shape that is just gorgeous ~ even when it's actually a tomato~! these will turn golden as they ripen. it's the first year that i've tried them so i'm quite interested in how well they do and how tasty they might be.

shortly after getting these morning shots it got quite dark and the thunder and lightening commenced and we had a downpour of a shower. very nice. since i was rained out of the garden i went into my studio.

i'm working on a postcard for my daughter. her birthday is in august and i thought i would "bake" up a celebratory cupcake for the front of the card.

still working on it but it's coming along nicely.

i've managed to get these broken dishes blocks all sewn into rows. tomorrow i will sew all of the rows together and the body of my next charity quilt will be done. then it's on to deciding on a fabric for a four inch border to go all the way around.
the blocks were made from scraps that i've both accumulated myself and traded with others over a 20 year period of time . . . some of them seem quite dated and as i look at them i realize that i really have to do more to get rid of all the scraps as they make me feel old. i have made a dent but only a small one. sometimes i wonder what it would be like if i just gave them all away and started over . . . would i suddenly feel like a spring chicken again~!?!~

after the thunderstorms were past i went back out into the garden and shot some more photo's. the light was much better and everything was all moist from the rain.

this very tiny tan grasshopper was enjoying the newly freshened and cooled garden too.

i think it thought that it was well hidden under that small leaf . . .

Special Delivery

this one's for you Diane~!
www.persnicketyquilts.blogspot.com

come sit a moment and watch my summer garden grow.

this is a new combination of plants i'm putting in: liatris (the purple) and coreopsis (the yellow). i'm finding them a wonderful pairing and really like their contrasts in color and form. the tags optimistically put their cold tolerance at -40 degrees. we'll see . . .

the daisies are happiness incarnate.






the peppers are going gangbusters which isn't usually the norm . . .

so far just a few tiny green tomatoes so i won't bother showing those off just yet.



but the snow peas are yummy and plentiful . . .

i love this rose. it's a climber called jacob's coat (i think) and is new to our garden this year. i hope it does well and survives the winter (aka: hardiness test) to come back next year. i figure if a plant comes back three years running it's here to stay. only the toughest make it.

i'm getting little else done.

other than watching the garden grow . . .

photos/practice from the morning garden

this morning i spent some time learning about and experimenting with aperture. taking the camera off of the "granny green" button is challenging me but i do like the range of creative possibilities that are opening up to me when not shooting in the manual mode . . .
this first shot is straight out of camera except for the square crop.


once again i'm behind schedule with the TAST (www.pintangle.com) project/challenge. the stitch was an Up and Down Feather Stitch and not one that i was familiar with. the first attempt was while i was away from the computer and i tried to do it from memory . . . it turned out fine but i did it wrong. i used a heavy cotton thread in green. if looked at upside down i thought it could be peas growing on a vine . . .


the second attempt was done correctly (i think) and does appear slightly different when looked at closely. i worked this one in a heavy variegated green thread.
i may go back in and add some bullion "flower buds" between the two prongy bits . . . maybe in red . . .

the third attempt was worked with a red hand dyed silk ribbon and i liked the way that turned out too.

i found this stitch charming and packed FULL of possibilities.

all of these stitches were worked into fabric postcard blanks; each attempt on a different card.

i've recently been feeling like life is a racehorse that has gotten away from me. i'm still hanging on but it's ugly: having rolled to the underbelly and now desperately clinging on as i try to decide if it would be better to just relax and let go . . . churned into dust . . . ashes to ashes. dust to dust. and all that. or should i continue to hang on within a tangle of furiously fast legs and attempt to regain my seat . . . is there even a choice really? as i said it's ugly.

i'm late for the TAST (www.pintangle.com) challenge. this weeks was the wave stitch and i was completely caught off guard with how challenging it was for me. it looks simple and yet i could NOT seem to get it to look like the sample on pintangle no matter how many times i started over and tried again (and it was quite a few)~! i tried turning it various ways to work it and i tried working it on various fabrics. nothing was working and i ended up feeling totally dyslexic so finally gave up. the sample that you see here was the most interesting of my failed attempts. i worked it in a heavy variegated cotton thread on a piece of hand dyed 14 count aida cloth. i still have no idea how to make a proper wave stitch . . . if there's help out there; i'm listening.

i try to send my daughter weekly mail but i'm even failing at that lately and have missed at least a week since my last letter/card. so this morning i had another art session out in the sunshine and made her this postcard.

i used a watercolor paper based card that i had previously prepared as a background.
some of the elements include a fortune from my last fortune cookie, an old tag off of i know not what, some metal (fruit and vegetable) charms that i painted with adirondack paints, various cutouts from a discarded magazine and other bits, stitch, gesso, etc.

my daughter is a vegetarian so i thought she might like this one. i even managed to find some postage stamps that had tropical fruits on them for the actual postage.

i'm feeling both photography starved and challenged. i want to be able to learn much faster than i seem to be able to and i think in part it's because i don't find enough time to practice. lately getting the camera out feels like quite the guilty pleasure. this is one of my most recent shots that i actually liked:

~Life's A Killer~

i love the way that rust and peeling paint look and happened see this safety pin lying on one of my outdoor cabinets which has been "peeled" by the elements. is it just me or does it look absolutely decadent~!?!~

within a past post i showed this quilt that i made for a local raffle/fundraising event. i found a set of Curious George board books and a sock monkey from Etsy and tied it all up in this neat little bundle. the fundraiser is now over but i have not heard how this item did.

the little monkey did not want to get tied up within the quilt . . .
the compromise was to leave his head and arms out . . . hopefully he didn't end up wiggling completely free and there is some child somewhere enjoying him, the books and the quilt.

i have started making scrappy broken dishes blocks for the next charity giveaway quilt but am not too very far along just yet. i better get busy with it though as it is due to be going to a children's hospital in november. seems like a long way off but i work so slowly and would like to have it done in time to give my long-arm quilter plenty of time to get her thing done too.

out in the garden today the moss rose are doing their version of the happy dance.

and within the same bed the very first cactus bloom is opening up to the warming summer weather. isn't it interesting how similar the blossoms from these two plants look?

i think they create a great pairing within the garden. the nice thing is that when the cactus have completed their riot of blooming, lasting roughly two weeks at most, the moss rose will continue on throughout the summer.

i have some moss rose flowering. there is a big variety of colors and they all look so happy. i've been picking them and putting them in this uber tiny vase and have been surprised to find that they will last a couple of days as a tiny cut statement of a flower.

!~Enjoy~!

the TAST (www.pintangle.com/) challenge this week was a Sword Stitch. i was completely uninspired by this one and kept putting it off and putting it off . . . finally i tried doing it on some tea stained 14 count aida cloth. i used a cotton thread and made very small stitches, placing the stitches as close to each other as i possibly could which resulted in an effect that i felt happier about. i could see this being used as the thorny stems of roses possibly. i have cropped the top photo a lot so that you can really see what is going on . . .

then i stitched a bit of it onto the postcard that i've been working on in basically the same way, although i have photographed the top one vertically and the lower one horizontally, and inserted a metal bead in the "top" spaces that were created. the stitch can't really be seen all that well as used with the beads but it does work i think.

now i must get myself out into the cool evening and do some potting of flowers.

i hope that your evening is full of cool breezes and fragrant flowers too.

i've been off course on the making of art (as well as everything else) for several weeks now due to many unexpected out of town trips (with no end in sight). i'm feeling frustrated and blocked and overwhelmed. so yesterday morning i sat myself down outside and spent hours working on an interactive mail art piece. i simply enjoyed the sound of the birds chattering and the fountain flowing and the feel of the sunshine on my skin and played . . . and played . . . and played . . . i actually set a timer for thirty minutes but by the time it went off i was feeling so deeply involved that i just ignored it and kept right on working/playing.

i'm glad i did. i feel so much better and actually was able to get some hum drum house and garden things marked off of my list later in the afternoon as well. am pondering the idea of committing every morning to art/creation but unfortunately don't feel that i really have the time.
maybe a compromise with just two mornings a week going towards nothing but art . . .

the loose eggs are reversible and have words that form a phrase (maybe more than one?) on one side with "wishes" on the other. the piece measures approximately 7 inches by 9 inches and is on watercolor paper. there is a letter written on the other side. i left part of the perforated edge as a decorative element and used stitch, watercolor pencils, oil pastels and a variety of pens as well as lots of bits and bobs found in the collage box.

i have not forgotten about TAST but hope to post on that later in the week.

there is a killdeer couple that have been hanging around the garden for the last couple of weeks. they tend to be pretty noisy and recently i've noticed them becoming even noisier and doing their "i'm injured and won't be able to get away from you" dance if i happened to be out in the yard and moving around much which was a clue that they had a nest close by.

this morning there was a LOT of dancing and screeching and when i investigated i discovered Cricket kitty on the front porch. i let her in and went back to watch the parent birds to see if i could see any chicks with them. sure enough there WAS one. running about on it's tiny stilt like legs in one of the cleared out planters. i ran for my camera.

i suspected that the closest parent bird would make a big fuss in an effort to lead me away from the chick and that the chick, rather than follow, would drop down and become almost invisible.
this is exactly what happened. i was able to walk right up to it and even touch it without it so much as blinking. meanwhile the parent bird was really putting on the dance and trying to pull my attention away from junior.

i didn't want to overly stress the birds so after i got a few shots of both of them i pulled back just enough for the parent bird to think that she could safely encourage the chick to get up and quickly and quietly run for the pine hedges while she continued to do the distraction jive, simultaneously inserting herself between the chick and i.

junior did just what he/she was told.

i thought it was so funny that the legs and feet of the chick were almost the same size as the adult birds while the rest of it was all fluff and tiny stuff~!!~

you can see that it still has it's downy feathers and not even much of a tail just yet . . .

later i found that the parent birds were watching over not just this one chick but at least two and very possibly more. it seems that the parent birds don't always keep them all herded up together in one group all of the time . . . possibly so that if a predator does find them it doesn't kill the whole nest full . ? .

the parent birds have led the little ones all over the place as they demonstrate the art of catching bugs and the "hide while i distract" behavior as necessary. it's been fabulously fun to see this new family out and about in the garden today.

i do worry that my cats will terminate any happy endings here but i'll keep them locked down as much as possible. and btw: the mowing will just have to wait a week or two.

:-)