Veggie Garden

Everything's planted and now we wait...

Front to back...

Back to front...

Zukes, cukes and tomahtoes...

'Taters...

Italian parsley, and bush & pole beans...

Strawberries - the most difficult wait of all...

Gardens are shaping up...

After a cold and very wet winter, and nearly four months of non-activity thanks to my broken hip, my gardens were all a total wreck. I have way too many gardens to care for in the first place, but when they're ignored for so long and get rampantly out of control, they scare me to death... oy...where to start??? where to start???

To put it into perspective - we technically have seven garden areas - a back yard and steep hill at each house, a side yard, container veggie garden, and front patio/yard at the main house; and a front yard of raised beds and rose garden at the studio house. Martin has been spending a huge amount of time whacking down the big weeds in the back yards (has filled ten 90-gallon waste wheelers and has barely scratched the surface), our gardener has been clearing out the raised beds and cleaning up the front patio space (five waste wheelers for him), and I've been dealing with the containers (a paltry two wheelers for me... and those mostly dead dirt!)

I have the container veggies all wrapped up, and am happy to say they're all growing well and making some serious progress. I've planted pole & bush beans, roma tomatoes, yellow pear tomatoes, Japanese and regular cucumbers, zucchini, strawberries, parsley, sage, chocolate mint, and lemon thyme. I'll take some pictures out there tomorrow and post them in a few days.

The front patio is about 50% done - a dozen containers have been "revived", and several others have been cleaned out, had their dirt "refreshed" and are awaiting plants, and several more are still waiting to be cleaned and refreshed. I bought some beautiful shade plants at Mid-City Nursery on Friday and requested their delivery today, hoping to spend the weekend getting a barrel planter ready for them. As it happened, this past weekend was one of the windiest in recent memory, and no way was I going to subject my asthmatic self to that environment, so nothing got done. As promised, everything showed up on my doorstep this morning, and now I'm scurrying about trying to get planters ready. As it further turns out, Monday is our go-out-to-lunch-and-do-the-weekly-shopping day, so I didn't get started with anything until an couple of hours ago. There's nothing on the schedule tomorrow, so everything's going to have to wait until then.

In the meantime, I took some pictures of some of the flowering plants on the front patio just to have something to post for all of my ardent readers!

Lily of the Incas...

Italian Heather...

Columbine...

A Hosta named "Francee" - a gift from good friend John Eater a few years ago...

An Amaryllis I found living in a paper bag in the garage for goddess knows how long... I decided to go ahead and plant it and see what happened, and THIS, amazingly enough, is what happened...

Petunia, the Patio Pig, sporting a lovely new royal and gold variety I've never seen before...

Stay tuned... lots more to come!

Latest quilt top completed!

I experienced an enormous surge of energy over the last couple of weeks, and got the new quilt top finished. I put a sizable dent in my stash of African fabrics, but there's still way too much left. Click on the picture to enlarge it and see how many different fabrics I used!

There's still a huge amount of work to be done before it's truly finished... making the backing, doing the quilting, binding it, and, lastly, embellishing it. I have some great ideas for embellishment, and can hardly wait to start playing around with some of my wonderful African beads!

Sarah

I've had several people ask me if I've run out of cats, since my Cat of the Week project fizzled out a few months ago. The answer is, "Far from it". So, I'm launching it again, but it'll more likely be a less ambitions Cat of the Month event from now on.

One day, at least a half dozen years ago, my Sistah, donnio, was sitting at a table outside of Mel's Roast, our favorite coffee house in downtown Vallejo, when a tiny little tortoise shell kitten ran up to her out of nowhere, and jumped into her lap. Like everyone else on the planet, my dear sistah "just couldn't have another cat," and so, like so many others before her, she called me to see if I could handle "just one more." Since I didn't have any Torties at the time, I said I'd give it a go. So she boxed the baby up in a wine box from the restaurant next door to Mel's, and brought her "home". As expected, she was totally adorable, and Martin and I were both hooked after one look at her. It became obvious from the start that this little girl had some serious personality, and when I mentioned that fact to the nurse at the vet's office, she claimed that tortoise shell cats definitely had what she called "Torti-tude", which put them very high on the list of "interesting" pets.

Things have gone splendidly ever since Sarah joined us - she fit in well, but soon let everyone know who was now in charge, and the others seemed to accept Her Bossy-ness without a fuss. The only problem over the years has been with her weight. Once we had her spayed... she splayed... and she's turned into a lard-bucket of massive proportions. We've made many attempts to "trim" her down, but she's resisted all of them, and remains our Queen of Bulk. Amazingly enough, she's very agile and performs maneuvers that belie her bulk, and, often, make us gasp in amazement. Still, she's a bit of an embarrassment to us. Of course, all we have to do is look in the mirror to realize from whence comes her predilection for pulchritude!

No way could she fit in this box ever again...

One last look at "Svelte Sarah"...

Starting to "bulk out"...

She still tries to cram her bulk into unseemly small spaces...


She's a serious sun-worshiper...

She seems to delight in this pose, which never fails to alarm us...

This is the ultimate "Sarah as Blob" presentation:

The End.
Hope you enjoyed meeting Sarah!

Aeonium atropurpureum 'Schwartzkopf'

Also known as "Black Rose" or "Black Tree" this plant is native to the Canary Islands, Cape Verde Isles and Morocco. I'd had it for well over three years and it sat in its pot and grew 3-4" each year - didn't bloom or do anything interesting, but was merely content to sit in the back row of my succulent garden on the back patio and look benign and relatively pretty.

Then, one day, about five months ago, I noticed the stalk was suddenly many inches longer and a small protrusion was poking its way out of the center of the rosette, and starting to look like a tiny radar dish:


Within a week it had gotten larger and started sporting little nodules:


Which looked like this, up close:


And like this, head on:


The stalk continued to grow until it was over three feet long and the head was beginning to bow under the weight, when one day in late February, it looked like this:


It continued to offer this beautiful display for almost six weeks, until it finally started to fade a few days ago. I'm not a very conscientious gardener, but I have the greatest admiration for nature, and how She manages to work her way around me and produce such wonderful exhibitions in spite of me!

The Best Thing That Ever Happened To Me!

The Love of My Life... makes me wish I were a cat so I could have nine lives with this man!

Welcome, Winston Sanford!

There's a new baby in our lives... grand-nephew Winston Sanford, born yesterday at 1:17 pm. He was a few days late, and mom Kristen was totally ready for him to arrive. Kris and baby are doing great, though I imagine both of them are sleeping solidly at this point. Dad Alan and Gramma Hilary, who was in town for the event, are probably enjoying some down time as well. Today was Gramma Hilary and Grandpa Robert's 43rd wedding anniversary, so W. was a pretty cool anniversary present, I'd say! Winston will soon join his beautiful big sister, Zoe Alana, and super-dog Einstein, and the house will rock with new baby excitement and perhaps a taste of chaos as well. I've got to get my butt in gear this weekend and get a quilt made for the new arrival. The fabric is washed and ready to cut and sew, if I can just tear myself away from my current quilt in progress. I never got Zoe's quilt made when she was born, so I'll have to knock that one out as well... Hopefully, the baby shower won't be for at least a couple of weeks...!

Here's the man of the day... just a few minutes old... kicking, screaming and flailing his fists in rage at having been evicted from his nice, cozy "nest" inside mom... (can you blame him?)

And here's the formal, "all cleaned up" presentation photo!

Halfway there...

Nothing very exciting has been happening lately. Best thing... the rain has finally calmed down - none for almost a week now. The days have been warm and delicious! My one-man weed management squad showed up today and started digging the front yard of the studio house out from under a carpet of three-foot high weeds. I'm surprised we haven't had any complaints from the homeowners' association - perhaps they're still trying to dry out too. Thanks to my injury, absolutely no work has been done in the yards since the beginning of December, and everything's just an unbelievable mess. Speaking of my injury... I'm now walking without any assistance from walker, crutches or cane. I'm kind of stiff most of the time, and I walk very slowly and deliberately, but it'll get better with more practice. I'm driving again, and that's just soooooooo fine!!!

I've been spending a lot of time in the studio working on the strip quilt. Today I completed segment four of seven, and got a good running start on segment five... should be able to post a photo of that in a day or two.

Spicing up the good life...

Thanks, Cheryl, for your comment yesterday about red wine in a "healthy" diet. She's right, of course - there are a number of "sinful" foods which, when partaken in moderation, have healthy benefits...

Red Wine...

Among wine’s recently discovered benefits are: improved heart health, less plaque accumulation in arteries, better bone health, cataract prevention, decreased risk of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, possibly cancer prevention and more. Remember, though, more isn’t necessarily better... one 5-ounce glass of wine per day for women, and two for men is quite sufficient.

Chocolate...

For my money, the discovery that chocolate has health benefits is one of science's greatest miracles! While this lady is eating chocolate like most of us dream of eating chocolate, she's not doing it right. The key word is MODERATION! Also, dark chocolate is mo' betta than milk chocolate - the higher the percentage of cocoa, the better - 60 or 70% is my idea of perfection. Make sure it's good quality chocolate... Godiva, anyone?

Coffee...

Coffee is the number one source of antioxidants in the American diet. While we SHOULD be getting the good stuff primarily from produce, the good news is that coffee isn’t bad for you. As little as one to two cups per day may protect against certain types of cancer and diabetes, and could reduce the risk of Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases. Go easy on the sugar and cream, though...

Popcorn...

I've always felt that popcorn is proof that God has a sense of humor!
Fewer than 10 percent of Americans get the recommended three servings of whole-grain foods per day. People who eat popcorn (a whole-grain food) have a 250 percent higher intake of whole grains and 22 percent higher intake of fiber than people who don’t pop. One serving of plain popcorn (six cups!!) has only 100 calories and provides two servings of whole grains. Go easy on the butter, though - there are plenty of other ways to season popcorn... spray the popped corn with a little buttery cooking spray, then sprinkle on cinnamon, or red pepper, or curry powder, or taco seasoning, or another herb or spice you like. Saute some crushed garlic in a little olive oil and mix it in, then top with a little parmesan cheese. Try sprinkling on a little hot sauce or soy sauce... Remember... moderation, moderation, moderation!

Peanut Butter...

It tastes so good it must be bad for you, right? Eat the whole jar and it will be, but stick to one serving (about 2 tablespoons) and you’ll load up on heart-healthy monounsaturated fats, which can lower cholesterol and help keep heart disease at bay. Choose “natural” peanut butters, since they contain no added artificially hydrogenated oils (trans fats) like many of the standard versions. Check the ingredient list: The only two things on the list should be ground peanuts and maybe a little salt. Spread some on whole wheat toast and you’ll also be sneaking in some vitamin E, folic acid, potassium, protein, zinc, fiber and magnesium. What could be better?

The good life...

Here are some rock-bottom basic tips from Dr. Oz for living a healthy life... a good start for people who want to start, but don't know where to start. Do these five simple things every day...

Walk for 30 minutes...


Drink two cups of green tea (yummy with a little honey!)...


Take Vitamin D and calcium, and a little magnesium doesn't hurt...


Get 7-8 hours of sleep...


Meditate for 5 minutes...

Further work on the new quilt...

It was a dreary, damp, dark day today - perfect for hanging out in my studio and working on my latest quilt. I mostly played around and experimented today, and managed to put two blocks together, as well as starting work on the quilt back. I'm pleased with the way everything turned out, and really enjoyed the extra hour of light thanks to the time change. Andre Previn, Erroll Garner, Bill Evans and Mike Greensill supplied mellow piano jazz in the background, further blissing me out. Both of these blocks, along with some other chunks of strips will find their way into the fourth and center segment of the quilt.



I took a couple of breaks along the way, and sat at my desk, alternately staring out the window and reading my new issue of "Where Women Create". In spite of the rain, the view was calm and relaxing, as always!

Progress report...

Yesterday I finished the third segment (of seven) of my current work in progress. It's been slow going on this piece - while my mind races ahead, the actual work moves very slowly as I struggle to return to "creative" mode - both spiritually and physically. I spent much of today working on the fourth segment of the piece, and should have it completed in a couple of days. I'm excited by this piece, which is totally improvisatory and is constantly surprising me with it's color and construction. Hopefully, I can keep moving ahead and have the bulk of the design and construction done by the end of next week.

Going back in time...

I recently discovered a website for the now defunct Saint Louis Institute of Music, from which I graduated in 1963. Lots of fun information and some pictures that really "took me back..." The school was housed in an interesting building in Clayton, a 'burb of St. Louis. The building was old, un-air-conditioned, freezing in winter, broiling in summer, but was home to me for a couple of the best years of my life. I experienced a host of exceptional teachers (except for one, who shall remain nameless, because many people thought he was an excellent teacher/person/musician... maybe he was all of that, but from the start he took an almost paranoid dislike of me, and gave me quite a bit of grief until I, mercifully, didn't need his classes any longer.)

Here's the school in summer:

And in winter (brrrrrrr...!):

Mr. Lyndon Croxford, my elegant, gentlemanly, no-nonsense, excellent piano professor:

Ed Petsch, the polar opposite of Mr. Croxford - flamboyant, fun to a fault, and equally excellent piano professor:

I couldn't find a picture of my beloved organ professor, Manus Sasonkin, but he will always be my favorite!

This is "The Bunker", a building I hated with a passion. It was located behind the main building, and was a hideous hole - dark, dingy, suffocating and depressing - and contained the practice rooms, which were full of the most dreadful collection of pathetic pianos on the planet. I have no idea what eventually happened to the main building at the Institute after it closed, but I have lovely fantasies of The Bunker being reduced to rubble during military exercises!