Busy, busy!

 Hi, friends. It seems that spring is sprung (as they say), and now we are creeping into those warmer days ... not summer yet, but we can see it from here! Mowing, gardening, air conditioning, light cotton skirts and cool showers. Let me see if I can catch you up on some of our highlights lately.

I took Adam to Beaufort, NC, for his birthday. We stayed overnight at a nice Bed and Breakfast hotel with a view of the water. After a year of illness and staying at home so much, it was strange and wonderful to eat at restaurants (outside on their porch/decks, by the water). The weather was windy and cool, but we had a most delightful, restful time.

Adam's riding mower is broken right now, and we have awaited three (!!!) mower parts to repair it. So the buttercups and clover are abundant and high, and the yard and pasture smell amazing. I am nervous of snakes (haven't seen any though), so  wear my tall farm boots and WADE through the blooms. It's really rather magical.

Julia is finishing up her last year of college, just a bit more to go. That's an important milestone that I don't want to pass unmentioned. We've been educating children since about 1995. Is that 26 years or so? We're very proud of her; she's a very dedicated student. She's getting a Bachelors Degree in Psychology.

Adam is doing major work on our back deck! He's putting in a new flight of stairs, giving us easy access to the cars, but also plans to build a cooking area (grill, cooktop) out there too. I'm quite excited.

As usual, I'm spending much of my time painting, tending chickens, making wares for the market, and fiddling with yarn. I'm spinning again (sigh - that makes me happy!) It does feel that things are slowly returning to something that feels old and familiar. What a relief! I ate lunch (on the restaurant porch) with 3 friends yesterday, without masks. We are all fully vaccinated. Hooray! Tomorrow our church will gather at one family's creek-side home and have a big picnic on their lawn. We've done this twice during Covid, but it was so much fun, we're doing it again. In July, we hope to have a potluck dinner indoors at the church -- just about everyone in our church has been fully vaccinated for a while now. 

Some of you may wonder how Adam is doing and would like a health update. His steroid intake now is very low, and soon he will wean off it entirely. He has been able to lose a bit of weight, and his doctor is rather pleased with him. His attitude is good. He remains on extremely high dosage of immunosuppressant medication every day. This puts him at great risk for getting viruses especially (of all kinds), so he must be more careful than most people, probably for the rest of his life. He will continue to wear a mask. It's preferable to being in the hospital from catching a flu bug! He now has esophagitis and and gastritis rather badly. That is inflammation of the esophagus and of the stomach. Many foods now make him feel quite sick, and he must avoid them -- dairy, sugar/sweets, heavy meats like beef, and on and on. Cooking has become problematic, although he is perfecting his sourdough recipe.

But we are thankful for so much and are doing fine. The upcoming months should bring visits with family again, and we are thrilled about that. I'll end with a few photos of some cards I've painted, and maybe a few youtube videos for those who would like to watch.

Thank you for dropping by! Take care!

Making insect-repellent lotion bars:

Our vacation to Beaufort:

Spinning again .. and lots of other things:

Home Comforts

 Adam missed me when I was gone. He keeps telling me so. He makes me delicious brown bread for my breakfast toast.

For lunch he made tortellini and Kaiser buns.

I, in turn, mended his favorite mask by shortening the elastics.

I packaged some lavender soap today too.

We have daffodils blooming now -- hooray! I look forward to this each year, a true start of spring and all the new, fresh beginnings for all of us.

Adam is weeding out parts of our veggie garden, starting with the strawberry bed. There ARE strawberry plants in there, I promise! About ten of them. 

He's also working on the asparagus bed, and then will clear out my pea bed. Lettuce will go next to the strawberries. It's a struggle because he's been pretty inactive since last spring, while he was ill. He is still having some health issues -- medication and peripheral issues -- but he wants to get back outside.

I've started a long knitting project, a blanket. The pattern is called a "mitered square" blanket. I found it at a youtube channel that I like, and thought, "I can do that!" I'll share more about it in a youtube video soon, but here it is so far:

My sprained knee is much better, and life is stumbling along as usual -- I won't pretend that it's all easy sailing! But we are getting along, just like you are, I hope. 😀  Adam is a lobbyist/advocate volunteer for people with Rare Diseases in North Carolina right now, and he hears about the most harrowing illnesses that some people have, much worse than his own. It is a reminder to be thankful for each normal day, no matter how many things go wrong. 

Ah, pancakes. Those are strawberries from our garden last summer, frozen all through the pandemic. They slept peacefully in the deep freeze and came out for this delicious appearance, haha.

Tomorrow I go off for a day jaunt with two friends to a rural area renowned for good bird-watching. Mostly, it'll be a fun day out with two ladies I enjoy very much. I'll tell you about it next time!

I'll end with some cards I painted in recent days, and maybe a youtube link or two to my latest videos. Thanks for coming by for a chat, friend. Take care of yourself.

In which I admit to making a daunting To-Do List:

In which I tackle Item #1 on that list!

My Go-Home To-Do List:

Being away from home has put a bee in my bonnet to accomplish some long-overdue tasks when I do return home. To hold myself accountable, I'm making a list! Here it is, thus far:

Improve the silverware drawers

Refinish the little bathroom table

Paint the kitchen ceiling on the edges

Clean up the front porch -- this is several days' worth of work

New curtains for the dining room

Hem the dining room sheer

New blinds for the bedroom

Get rid of the bed frame

Clean off back porch near doorway

Price a new mini-dryer

Paint my studio

Paint the shutters (I'm scared of this one.)

Find a new headboard for our bed

I'll make a youtube video also, so I can tell myself, in no uncertain terms, to get after it! When I'm home, I sit around looking at the tasks to be done, and struggle to motivate myself. But away from home? I have all the motivation in the world! 

What has inspired me? Stephanie Jarvis, at Chateau de Lalande in France. She has a youtube channel (a sheer delight!) called Chateau Diaries. I'll put one video below for anyone who might be interested. If she can restore an entire chateau the size of a small village, I can certainly make a few needed improvements to my tiny house!

I'll be adding to my list ... I think ... as I remember other jobs that need doing. Y'all -- keep my nose to the grind stone!

A Limited Garden Tour

I am utterly put to shame by the gorgeous gardening I see on some of your blogs and online videos. I am no gardener. As soon as the temps get above about 80 degrees ... I'm inside in the AC. I spend the summer mostly sitting, waiting for autumn. 

But I decided to carefully photograph the few things blooming in my yard to show you, so you'll get the impression that the yard is amazing, haha! No ugly photos allowed! (Scroll past the plants if you want to see watercolors.😃)

I had no idea I had any gladiolas by my front steps, but there they were a couple of weeks ago. Here is the last bloom.

A fuzzy photo of the last yellow rose bud:

The fuzzy theme continues with the

 last of the gardenia blooms. I love them.

These darker elephant ears are 

flourishing this year! Hooray!

I worried about this clump of ears too, 

but they are doing well.

The bed of tiger lilies (doubles) is weeeeeedy,

 but they're still pretty.

Gazing across the dill heads into my herb bed.

I even weeded the grass out of my basil 

for about 5 minutes, so I was proud of me!

My creeping fig (not a fig) plant by the front steps is doing what I wanted: creeping and wandering.

These two hostas shaded by 

the Japanese magnolia tree are just huge.

The lantana is beginning to bloom. 

I'm always happy when the well-established plants get big in late June. They kill off the weeds underneath and make the beds look like they are kempt.

Little elderberry in a pot. I am too afraid to go visit the other elderberries in the veggie garden across the pasture. 

With Adam's illness and the summer heat, we have mutually agreed to give up on the veggie garden and leave it to its own devices.

My lone geranium is happy!

And this lovely hanging basket, a thirsty girl, is still alive! Yay for that!

Our latest addition is a new young rooster (AKA, a cockerel). He is a silkie, which means he should be very docile and not aggressive. He's been here nearly a week. For the first time ever, I have appeared to integrate a new bird into my flock without the hens killing the bird. So far, I'm calling him Roo-Roo:

He'll look better when he's older.

Lastly, here are a few watercolor cards. A friend asked for a bunch of oyster shells, and I did another rooster for another customer.

And I painted a couple of these large sunflowers. 

This is the card.

This is the 9x12 piece.

One is a card; the other is a 9"x12". It sold at the market. I'm painting another one tomorrow for a friend. The more I paint it, the better it will be :)

That's all, friends! Thanks for reading all this mess to the end! God bless and keep cool :)

Every Bloomin' Day!

 Are we still plugging along, my friends? Yes, we are. I've been painting a bit because folks have been ordering my cards, and I've been shipping them away. Here are a few favorites from last week.

 The lavender (above) is a fuzzy photo. I really like this type of painting (below):

 Geraniums:

 At last, I am biting the bullet and getting some of my watercolors made into packages of assorted cards. I'm in the process of working on that with the printers in New Bern.

I don't post about my chickens much anymore, but they are still a part of my daily life, and I enjoy them. Below are Clementine the Mean, Sheena the Assertive, and Sylvie the Loud Mouth.

 I think those two hens between them could run the world.

I did finish Adam's vest at last. Many adjustments need to be made in the next version, but he's enjoying this one. I bought lots of these buttons at the thrift store months ago. I knew they'd come in handy.

 I bought this stunning hanging basket at the nursery recently, among other plants that were a splurge and I probably should NOT have bought them ... but I couldn't resist. Isn't she beautiful? I sit on the back deck (which is now cleared of potting paraphernalia) and gaze at her.

 Adam and I were doing stuff at the church and checking in on a couple of folks this past week. We chatted at them outside in their yards, wearing our masks. We stopped at the local grocery store, the Piggly Wiggly. (Except this is a little store, not nearly so big as the Big Pig. So everybody calls it the Piglet.) We got two lunches to go, parked in front of the wide river, and had a little car date.

 Other people were there doing the same. We saw friends. A dog begged from car to car. People adjust and find new ways to enjoy life, even in a pandemic.

Adam is not well yet. His Mono still makes him tired. His eyes are much better but not quite well yet. But now he has thrush in his mouth -- yeast infection. It is painful and uncomfortable. It hurts to talk, to swallow, even to chew. I made nice, soft pancakes this past week for him. These are our strawberries from the garden.

 My dear mother-in-law sent me a wonderful "happy"! Now I can paint directly on watercolor cards, instead of gluing the watercolor paper onto separate cards. This is nice paper!

 My herb bed looks like a magical sea of airy cilantro blooms. I want to bury my face in it and breathe in.

 That wasn't much to tell! Maybe because we are kind of meandering through life right now as many people are. When all our tomorrows look quite unpredictable  and uncertain, it's sometimes easiest to turn to the points of beauty around us for calm and comfort. Blooms do that for me. I hope you are finding peace in your disrupted days. 

"Let not your hearts be troubled."

"Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace

whose mind is stayed on Thee."

"Lo, I will be with you."

"I will not leave your nor forsake you."

In the end, regardless of how we may all disagree about it, we will all pass through these Coronavirus days together, and emerge on the other side together.  And history will decide the details. We will remember how we felt, how we treated each other. Especially this year, I want to remember to stop and smell the flowers.