it's alive!

what can i say?
life just sort of steam-rolled over me and i took an unexpected sabbatical.
but i am SO ready to start finding time for art and my blog world again.

at the moment, northern california is taking her sweet time warming up to the idea of summer and everyone around here is a bit annoyed by the delay. poor us... we are SO spoiled. but the long growing season is threatened and my little seedlings look awfully pathetic in my garden window. they're all sideways and scrawny, just desperate for a little sunlight. the tomatoes i put out in the garden a month ago are simply cowering against the chilly breezes, waiting for summer's soft, warm kisses.

i kinda feel the same way.

besides the garden, i have taken on a few spring projects, like a mosaic top for a wine rack a neighbor was throwing out...

and i've been putting reminders of summer's treasures around the house to keep me :)

what makes YOU think of summer?

found on friday

winter passed by...

winter passed by last night

she must have only tiptoed

her finespun skirts left threads of lace on the lawn

her necklace scattered tiny diamonds on the road

and ghosts of her breath clung to the garden gate

promises, promises...

i went out to the garden to pick the last pumpkin off the vine on sunday afternoon so my sons and i could carve our jack o' lanterns...

lots of marigolds had finished their last business for the season:
making their promises of another summer.
these will air dry for a week or so and then i'll package them up in pretty handmade envelopes.
i'll show you those when i make them.
they're great in christmas or easter baskets.

my sons had other seeds that they were more interested in :)

cut and paste

just a little bit of cutting and pasting fun...
photoshop is brand new to me. i'll need lots of time to explore.

abundance

this week's prompt for the sunday creative is...

abundance:

from the word abundant, meaning more than enough: amply sufficient

every year at this time, i buy little mini pumpkins or gourds to decorate our home. being a gardener, it struck me last year that this was silly, i should grow my own. so... i did.

not everything in the garden has done well this year. i've heard a lot of people say that. it was a "cold" summer that got started late. but my garden is really just an excuse to grow tomatoes, of which i have had enough to enjoy caprese salad as often as we like, and even to share. so i just consider everything else that grows there a bonus.

but today the garden is a bit weary around the edges... there are more curled, brown leaves than i care to bother pulling, the zucchini plants look like they're struggling to eek one more blossom into a fruit, the birdhouse gourds seem to just be waiting for the vine to wither so that they can go about their business of turning brown in the autumn sun, and i am content, nay, relieved, to have less work to do out there.

i feel like my september garden, and despite the warm glow of the afternoon, the balmy breezes that keep most people outdoors, i am brown around the edges. i'd like to eek out some fruit, heck, even a blossom would be good. but i just don't have the energy. i feel very sad. i feel empty and tired. i feel very definitely not abundant.

garden gate

today i picked my first real tomato... as opposed to my sweet little grape tomatoes. actually, i picked three; two beefsteaks, nice and big, and one cherokee purple... also big, with a purple blush and sugary sweet. yum!

why did the tomatoes take SO long this year? everyone else seems to have been having the same problem, what about you?

sometimes my garden gets a bit sorry-looking and overgrown by this time of year, but i've been a good girl this summer and stayed on top of things. the cantaloupe are growing, cucs are coming around, jalapenos are abundant! now that i have tomatoes, it's salsa and margarita time!

fresh picked

the garden has been busy growing... without enough attention from me of late. i made time to get out there today to get my hands in the dirt and feel the warm sun on my back.

first, i realized that the reason my birdhouse gourds look like mini pumpkins is because they ARE the mini pumpkins... the birdhouse gourds are growing on the fence. what a bird brain! my second thought was, "zucchini are a lot like kids... you gotta keep your eye on them or they turn into monsters."

after much snipping and pulling, the garden looks less like the jungle. the best part i leave to last...besides the routine picking of summer squash, today i harvested one of my favorites... fresh GARLIC!!!!!!!!!!

i'm changing the dinner menu...