Sleigh Bells

It's been a treat to spend this week in MI.  I enjoyed seeing a lot of familiar places, but the best part was meeting my niece and spending time with family and friends.  During the down-time, when I wasn't getting some Vitamin D, or watching Arrested Development, or napping, or eating delicious home-cooked meals, or playing dominoes, I managed to find a few favorite things.

Pizza pies made where they're grown.

This take on toddler talk.

The biggest flag around.

Have a great weekend!

Hometown Vantage

I spent a little time walking around my hometown today.  It's a cute village

Main Street doesn't seem to have changed much.  

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Crowning

My dad discovered a bit of wild asparagus at the cottage up north.  It's an exciting surprise and feels like a blessing. 

Memorial Weekend

Just pictures today.

Doorbells

Looking ahead... I will be taking a [mostly] unexpected trip to Michigan this next week.  Looking back... I've successfully kept myself amused this past week.  These are a few of my favorite diversions.

The wind has been on my mind.

Bicycles are the best.

A new spin on the classic g & t that involves clapping.

As I'll be on a vacation of sorts, see you Tuesday.  I hope that your three-day weekend is stupendous.

Whiskey Barrel

The Drunken Botanist is a testament to the importance of plants.  J. got me my very own Southern Belle Whiskey Garden.*

* Thank you.

Do Over

03 july 2011. sunday . (day five hundred forty-five)

To use up the rest of the rhubarb, I returned to Martha's Rhubarb-Strawberry Lattice Pie.  

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Using Protection

Most of the tomatoes (40+*) are planted in the backyard and hopefully safe from deer.  Even with that many out back, and after giving some tomato starts away to the neighbors, there were still more.  Due to space restraints, the leftovers needed to be planted in the unfenced side-yard.

As of yesterday, the tomatoes are safe within the confines of their chicken-wire cage.  I'll have to figure something else out once they reach heights above 2'.  This particular garden square will be a testing ground for what can be accomplished in the full-sun part of the yard that isn't fenced.

* Gasp... I am fully aware that I will be canning and dehydrating my brains out late this summer.

Suspended

Reclining in the hammock is pretty rad.  It's one of my favorite ways to unwind.

Crisp Apple Streudels

I woke up this morning thinking that it was Saturday.  It was a bit of a bummer to realize that it wasn't and that I have somewhere to be today.  On the bright side, everything feels so peaceful and quiet (like a Saturday), that I was up before six just to bask in the silence (like a Saturday).  

As for the real thing, I'm looking forward to both the buying and the selling aspects of the city-wide garage sale tomorrow.  It's nice to make money and get rid of some junk all at the same time.  It's also fun to find a treasure in someone else's castaways.  A win-win.  In the meantime, these are a few of my favorite things from this past week.

My brother takes a day off of work.

Rain Room interactive exhibit.

Daydreams of beekeeping.

The Office farewell.

Walk This Way

The food forest is establishing itself quite nicely, but the pathway needed (and still needs) a little work.  From the front path, I moved the grass to the chicken yard, added dirt to make a more level surface, rearranged the stones, and planted german chamomile along the edge.  I may level the stones out a little more and then I'd like to plant creeping thyme or something similar in the gaps.

In another section I dug up sod, added dirt, and planted a mix of herbs and some violas. 

Spring Fling

Along with asparagus and strawberries, rhubarb is a sure sign of Spring.  I was happy to find some at the market over the weekend.  I sifted through several rhubarb recipes and decided on Martha's Rhubarb Galette mostly because I already had all the main ingredients for it.

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A La Mister Rogers

I've heard it said that when buying a house you should pay attention to what the house(s) across the street look like, because that's what you'll be looking at day after day.  I had that in mind when J. and I had our first walk-through and remembered to take pictures of the view from each window.

I liked the view then and I like it now.

25 april 2013 . thursday .
(day one thousand two hundred seven) 

Coop with a View

I worked my tail off this weekend.  A lot of my effort was directed toward the ladies' section of the yard.

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Cream Colored Ponies

We have been enjoying unseasonably warm and dry weather here.  I'm looking forward to another weekend of gardening with a brief break to check out a local car show and maybe another break to nap in the hammock.  This past week, when not planting seeds or watering, I diverted myself on the interweb and by sitting in front of the boob tube.  These are a few of my favorites.

Fantastic bathing suits of days gone by.

Grown-up (...not $8 Target) beach towels.

Seeing one of my radio crushes on tv blew my mind.

You Are Here

19 november 2011 . saturday . (day six hundred eighty-four)

During my usual Pinterest meandering, I took notice and repinned a feet-photos-as-self-portrait pin.  As it turns out, I have quite the collection of my own.  I'm not sure if they feel like self-portraits, but they certainly remind me of being in a particular place at a particular time.  

Michelle was here...

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Behind My Back

After spending so time and energy tending to soil and plants this past month or two, it's thrilling to find that a plant I pretty much forgot about is thriving.  

About two years ago, J. and I were given a bamboo plant from a friend.  Knowing that it would take over, I struggled to find a place to plant it.  It lived in a pot for a year and didn't get planted until last June.  In the end, I decided on a little area between the street, a sidewalk, and a gravel alley.

The little plant survived two years of neglect and has just recently put out several new shoots, one of which soars above my head.

Sharing Is Caring

Although I envision the possibility of one day making money and maybe even turning a profit from our small-scale agricultural endeavors, I'm currently enjoying giving away surplus to my neighbors.  We've already shared flower seeds, tomato starts, and eggs.  As anticipated, the simple act of sharing builds community and brings people together.  Since meeting one of my neighbors last week, I've already bumped into her around town twice.  I'm pretty sure that we ran into each other all the time before, but I had no idea that she was my neighbor.

Do you know your neighbors?

To Top It Off

J. and I took advantage of the lovely weather and spent the majority of the weekend gardening.  It wasn't long after we called it "good enough" yesterday, that the storm clouds rolled in and dumped Mother Earth's blessing on our plants.

05 may 2013 . sunday . (day one thousand two hundred seventeen)

Brown Paper Packages Tied Up with String

Happy Friday!  This week has been a bit of a whirlwind.  Here are a few of my favorite things.

This sweet sentiment.

Things taken apart, documented, and then displayed at Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry.

Geninne's May-addition desktop.

The She & Him "Volume 3" first listen.

Room[er]

When we bought the house, there was a pink room.  Its conversion was challenging to say the least.  The textured ceiling, pink wallpaper, and blue carpet had to go.*  I don't really know, but my guess is that this layer of wallpaper (yes, there were multiples) went up sometime in the 80s or maybe even the early 90s.  I remember making wallpaper angels with similar stock in 10th grade.  Also, as a side note, carpet freaks me out a little.  It can look clean but actually be ridden with dirt and dust.

Removing the wallpaper was a whole week endeavor.  Thank you Mom!  Removing the carpet wasn't too bad.  Removing the plywood below the carpet was not quite so easy.  Hiring someone else to do the work of repairing and refinishing the original flooring was simple.

Smoothing out the walls and ceiling was pretty damn awful.  ...torturous.  For me, there was no joy of D.I.Y. in this particular piece of the transformation.

Picking a paint color was fun.

Painting was rewarding.

* The conversion was completed just in time for a housemate to join us.  J. and I were finishing up the last coat of paint as D. started moving in.  He has lived with us (and the two cats, and three chickens) for a year now.  Happy anniversary D.!

Continuation

05 january 2013 . tuesday . (day one)

Just for the heck of it, I decided to post something each day Monday-Friday for the month of April.  Unsurprisingly, now that I've started this business of show-and-tell, it's hard to stop.  I suppose that I'll just keep going until it no longer seems like a valuable process of documenting, sharing, and remembering.

I started something similar (in a way) about 1213 days ago and just kept going.  If you're interested in that effort, a visual narrative of sorts, check out Three Shelled Walnuts.