Beautiful Bits

I know, I'm a worrier.  I'm a downer. I see the world through my doomer glasses, most all of the time.  That doesn't mean I don't have beauty in my life. It doesn't stop me from enjoying that beauty. And today, it won't stop me from sharing some with y'all.  Enjoy. (I'm sure the next post will be back to doom and gloom and atheism.)

Here are a few of my creations this spring/summer. The bits of beauty I try to fit into a hectic life.

I'm working on some sandwich board signs for my market stall. Here's the first one done. This is two quarter sheets of outdoor grade plywood. Sanded, primed, painted with 4 layers of chalkboard paint, and some exterior "patio paint."  I have screwed in hinges at the top, and a chain to keep it from sliding all the way open.  The chalkboard was a pain to paint, it was never going to get as smooth as I wanted it. But even so I think it turned out ok. Very pretty, and functional.

Here are some pretty garden shots. This is the view from my newest garden.  Peaceful, in an Iowa monocrop sort of way. :-)

 And the kitchen garden has a pretty new addition, thanks Mom!

Some of the garlic, looking fresh. This garlic has now been harvested, and is on my front porch curing.

Here are some cute kids, I helped make them, so it counts.

Of course I let him chalk on the new sign board. :-) He helped paint a couple parts.

Some of my recent Mixed Media work.  This one is an oil painting with fabric decoupage so far. May do a bit more painting on it. Some falling Matrix like symbols in gold? Some mehndi style swirls? Still trying to make up my mind.

 This medium sized square one is meant to pair with the larger one above. It too is an oil painting with fabric, but yo-yos this time. Still a WIP, but you can maybe see where I'm going with it.

The itty bitty one is going to pair with a painting I won in a silent auction this spring.  All four together should give us enough to shake up the art work in a couple of rooms.

I'll have to find a new place to get my art supplies, before I embark on the next round.  All of my canvases came from the local Hobby Lobby store a year or so ago. You can guess how often I'll be returning there.  Anybody got any good internet craft suppliers? 

How are you incorporating beauty into your life? Share in the comments if you like.
-Jennie

Spring Doings and Plannings

Some of y'all might be wondering what I'm up to. 
Some of y'all know what my plans are in general, and some are still in the dark because plans are still close to the vest.

So here are some general things that are going on. Some of you will know how these fit into my larger plan, and some of you will just have to be patient until I can reveal all.

I've got my spring garlic count! 90 made it through our harsh winter.  I lost some, in places where I didn't get enough mulch on top of them.  But 90 is still respectable. If I get 3 big cloves from all 90, planted this fall, that will be around 270 garlic plants up in 2015.  My crazy old lady co-gardener was surprised to see garlic in the plot this year. Most people around here are when I tell them what the plants are.  :-) It just means I'll have a monopoly on the market when the scapes are ready in June.  The scapes may be about all we eat or sell of this crop. Well, those and the smaller cloves I don't want to plant. This crop is meant to be the seed garlic for a larger cash crop next year.
My daddy asked me if there is a large market for Iowa garlic. I believe there is. My farmer friends at Coyote Run Farm, south of Des Moines plant something like a half acre of hardneck garlic every year. They have a picture of baby Rowen and I out for one of their garlic planting parties in 2009, so I know how much they plant. I know I will not be anywhere near that level. I also know they sell out every year.   The trick is nice big bulbs, and tasty varieties. Those two things are impossible to find in grocery store garlic. Get people hooked on the deliciousness that is locally grown hardneck garlic, and they'll never go back to the sad little grocery store garlic.

My cold frame performed well again this year, in all of its DIY glory.  The last frost date is this week, (and true to form for this spring, we have a frost chance for Friday) and my spinach has been producing like crazy since the beginning of May. Another week and we'll be buried in lettuce, some of which was also in the cold frame and is beginning to crowd out the last of the spinach.

My farmers market in town continues it's downward spiral.  This year the Chamber of "Commerce" has decided that it won't start until JULY 2nd!!  For fucks sake!  The other local markets are already starting, we went down to the opening weekend for Sioux City's market this past Saturday. And sure, it's no July market, but people were THERE! Vendors had greens, onions, eggs, meat, transplants and crafted goods. Customers were THERE! Why our Chamber thinks May and June don't deserve market times in our town, I don't know.  I strongly suspect it's because they are fucking morons.

Moving on. I've decided I will still register as a vendor and go in July-Oct.  I've also decided I'll start when I have the produce to start, and damn their official start date.  I'm making my own sandwich boards to offset the lack of city support for earlier selling dates. (Their limited support of the market includes signage along the main highway through town pointing motorists one block North to the market location.)  A big shout out to my dad, who brainstormed a bit with me on the sandwich boards. I got a start on them this past weekend, and my rusty woodworking skills came back to me. I even remembered to buy sandpaper and sand the boards before applying the primer. *high five* I'm making them really solid so they should last quite awhile. I'll be adding other things to my market stall this year. A scale is top of the list. I scored a big food-grade tray last year in a trade with a fellow market vendor, so that will find uses this summer. If I have enough of the chalkboard paint left when I'm done with my sandwich boards, I might make up some small boards for labeling prices/varieties of veggies.

In the fun news category, I'm signed up to run in another 5k this summer. The Color Run in Omaha in mid July.  I've been out jogging a few times this spring, in between the rains and storms. So far I'm running better than I did at the beginning of last year, much better. So, I didn't lose it all over the winter. Looks like this week might actually let me start the 3 times a week training that I did last year. If things go to plan I'll get to run with my younger brother, the ex-Marine. It sure would be nice to have a good time with him, it's been too long. And knowing that I'll be running with him will certainly keep the pressure on during my training.  Us two, competitive? ....yea.   :-D

So there's what's going on right now. We're keeping busy and holding on. How are things with all y'all?
-Jennie

Missouri Vacation!

Well, we made the journey to Hannibal MO over labor day weekend. All 4 of us strapped into the FestivaCivic. lol

And we drove.. and drove.. :-) We arrived so early at the campgrounds we couldn't even get into our cabin. So the boys played on the playground equipment and we had a pleasant picnic lunch.

 The meadow behind the playground had a couple of young deer in it when we showed up, Rowen got a kick out of watching them bound away.  We did eventually get into the cabin. It was a great cabin, I'm so glad we went that route. I didn't get any pictures while Dave's family was with us for swimming and dinner, his sister is a shutterbug, and I'm hoping she shares those pics soon. Here are the boys at breakfast time the next morning.

And here is an exterior shot of the cabin. Mark Twain Lake has GREAT cabins, I can't rave enough about how great it was.

We left the lake on Monday and went to Hannibal for the Mark Twain Caves. I love me some spelunking. I may have abandoned my geology dreams, but my love of rocks and caves and dirt remains. :-D We took the easy hour tour, what with the toddler and 4 year old lacking experience underground. They mostly enjoyed themselves. Logan got bored about 80% of the way through. :-D

 Logan stayed in the sling the whole time, this is one of those caves that's a maze of passages, and our little one is such a fast escape artist, that this was the ONLY way I was going to take him underground. It worked out really well.

 He's chewing on the top to the glow stick necklace, not the glow stick part, just the plastic bit where the stick attached to the necklace. The glow sticks were a good idea, but ruined one of the tour stops where the guide turned off all the lights. :-D Our little group was still glowing. Oh well.

 Logan was telling me something here... who knows what.

Isn't Rowen a cutie in that one. :-D
We had a lovely dinner at a park overlooking the Mississippi river. Again our camera went unused as Julie captured the time with her lens.

A parting shot here of Rowen as Tom Sawyer.

Yay for vacation trips. Hope you enjoyed the pics.

-Jennie

Excuses from the Farmer's Market

I would never say anything like this to someone at the farmers market. I still think it though. And to preserve my sanity I'm going to offload it here on my blog where we can all giggle about it. These are all actual comments, heard by me at my first farmer's market.

"I have to ask my wife first."  Yes, sir, I bet your wife is really going to get anxious about the 2$ you could have spent on some tasty green onions. I know I check with my hubby before I buy a head of lettuce. Every head of lettuce gets a green light before I proceed.

"I'm just here to snap a picture." Ah, I see, you "Support" the farmers market. We'll get a click-able petition to your email for next week. You can show your "Support" on your Facebook page and not even bother to come out.

"I live alone, can't seem to get through produce fast enough."  Sir, from the looks of your physique, I'm going to make a crazy assumption and guess you don't actually eat much produce. Regardless of who you are living with.  Taking your statement at face value, still bullshit. My lettuce heads were small and dainty, one would have been enough for you alone to have 2 salads. One today, one tomorrow. That's 1$ each day, for tasty local salad greens.  Yup, no way is that possible when you are living alone.

"I'm just looking for tomatoes today." (Variations heard include, potatoes and green beans; mostly shouted from car windows as they slowly cruised by in the parking lot.)  Ah yes. It's just barely July, we haven't once hit 90 yet, the rains were never-ending this spring, and oh yea, we live in NW Iowa!  Why don't you get out of your car and walk over and see what IS available? Are tomatoes the only thing you eat? Ew. Not healthy.

"3$ a pound is expensive, would you take 1$ for a pound?" This was said to Sue, in regards to her GORGEOUS basket of yellow wax beans. Flawless, evenly sized, beautifully colored wax beans, that she picked by hand the day before.  Needless to say she told him no politely, he drove off, (another cruise by shouter) and she sold out of her beans within the next hour. (And rightfully so, I was tempted by those beans.. Mmmmm)



Things I didn't hear but dream of hearing one day:
"I have 20$ this week for veggies for me and the kids. I see you only have 2 bunches of green onions today, any chance you have more at home? I'd love to buy another bunch or two, to go with the 3 heads of lettuce I bought."

"My mother is an invalid and home bound, I'd love to make sure she's getting enough fresh veg, do you do any delivery?"

"I love that I don't have to drive 45 minutes to Sioux City's farmers market. "

"Jr loves the sweet little carrots we got last week. He keeps asking to visit the farm, is there any way we can come watch you harvest next week?"



I'll keep hoping.  Thanks for letting me vent a little. :-D
Next week is bound to be better!
-Jennie

Gardening, and vacationing!

The gardens are coming along nicely. Even if I just planted part of the lower garden Sunday. That "lower" garden plot is called that for good reason, and it has been more creek-like than garden bed for most of this spring.  But, I got a couple of hills of squash planted yesterday and a hill of watermelon, and there should be sufficient garden season left to see those to maturity. I think I'll make one more hill this weekend in that plot and stick the Butternut squash there.

Radishes are in harvest mode, as are the green onions and lettuce.  Salad season! Mmmmm.
I have so many radishes I'm going to try to make a radish relish. :-D

We went on family vacation this past weekend. We all had a ton of fun.

I love sharing pictures, so here are some of my favorites from the trip.  Baby boy is 14 months old, and Big boy is 4 years now. 

 

Have a great summer y'all!

-Jennie

Homemade Toys

I love making toys for Rowen and Boy #2.  (No, we don't have a name chosen yet, and probably won't until he's actually breathing air, it's just the way we are.)  I love that I can use scraps and little bits of "trash" and come up with fun educational toys for them.
I'm not shy about my opinion that we're on the downside of Hubberts curve. As we progress down I think more and more of us are going to need to rediscover the lost art of making and crafting.
These toys were made from some trash cardboard, construction paper, left over yarn, and scraps of flannel left over from making crib sheets and butt wipes. The only things I really bought were the little plastic needles and the stuffing for the blocks, since I used up the last of what I had halfway through the big block.

I got the idea for the sewing cards from a blog I stumbled across.  I totally copied her design idea, but I just free-handed the 3 designs I liked onto the cardboard and cut them out. I traced the construction paper from those cardboard cutouts so they'd match, and the middles are the circumference of an oatmeal container.  Then I glued them together and drew some faces and details on.  I chose a thin cardboard, so my handheld hole punch was capable of punching through.  Then I threaded yarn through all the holes so I could guesstimate the length needed, and tied a bead on. The bead does double duty, it keeps the kids from having to knot anything, and it keeps the needle trapped on the yarn.  The yarn can be used for any of the 3 cards, without any rethreading of needles or picking apart knots. (Well, less picking apart of knots, I'm sure they'll manage to knot things somehow.)  The first evening of play went over well, Rowen's been begging to help with the sewing for a few weeks now.  He sees me quilting or sewing buttons or whatever, and he's sure he can help with that. Hopefully these will give him a way to channel that that doesn't slow me down as much.  He caught on to the holes and the needle and how those work, he didn't have a nice clean stitch when he ran out of yarn, but he got the gist and did 3 cards worth before I put things away for bed.   Not bad for a 2 year old.

The squishy stacking blocks came from an idea I had when Rowen was still gestating.  The large block got cut out but never sewn together, and was sitting in my WIP pile.  So, I finished it, stuffed it and made a second smaller block after I cut out a bunch of wipes this weekend.  One WIP finished, scraps used up, total win.

Of course,  doing-what-Daddy's-doing is still top of Rowen's list of fun.

And much fun is had.

Take that Angry Birds! I strike a blow for low-key entertainment.

Maize Maze!

So, I've lived in Iowa now for over 13 years and I have to admit that before yesterday I'd never been to a corn maze. (A maize maze, get it?) hahaha
Yesterday was a particularly pretty fall day and my little family took a break from our routine and went to visit one.
The farm we visited has 2 mazes, one small (free) and a bigger one that's 6$ to go through and requires at least 1 hour, sometimes 2. Needless to say, we stuck with the smaller one, and even then we only saw the first 3rd of it.
For those of you who are unfamiliar with the concept, the maze part is usually secondary to the cool picture that the maze forms when viewed from above. Even so, they are pretty easy to get turned around in, as the corn is well over 7 feet high.

To make things more fun, there are scavenger hunts inside the maze, and you can arrange to go through after dark.
This particular farm sold tons of pumpkins and squash to visitors and offered a petting zoo for kids, with goats and kittens and chickens and such. We got a pumpkin to carve and a pie pumpkin to eat and a giant Hubbard squash. I've never eaten a Hubbard, but some of my online buddies say it's pretty good. I'll report back.
Rowen ran around and had a great time.