A Visit to The Gray Lady

I am off, at an unseemly early hour, for my annual visit with my best friend on Nantucket.  Lucky me!  I will try to blog with my iPad, but I make no promises.  I've had little success before and may well not be able to figure it out this time.  But I will try.

I recently reread Mary Starbuck's slim volume of poetry Nantucket and Other Verses.   It has 1911 as the copywrite date.  I have a lovely little reprint, in a slipcase, by American Perspective, Ltd of Brighton, MI, 2004.  My favorite poem is the title one.

NANTUCKET

"Just a sandy wind-swept island!"

What more would you have it be,

With a turquoise sky above it,

Around it a sapphire sea?

When its dawns are pearl and opal, 

Its moons are crystals clear,

And its sunsets shower down gold dust

Till the diamond stars appear,----

When to those who are born on the island,

And to many from over the sea,

"Tis fairer than all its jewels,

What more does it need to be?

Well, for me, it needs to shelter my BFF----and it does!  I can't wait to see it in its September glory.  Bee says September is a fine month on Nantucket.

I'll let you know how I find it!

Orchids

My local grocery store has been selling little mini orchids for a very inexpensive price.  I love orchids and these little guys are easy to care for and easy to find a suitable window ledge to display them.

I love them all....

....and have a very hard time deciding which one is my most favorite.  I think it's really this one!

End of Summer

It's September already.  How did this happen?  That means that Christmas is just around the corner!  Yikes!

The new grandson requires his own stocking, so I am (now) hard at work on providing a suitable receptacle for his surprises from Santa.  His big sister got the one with the mouse.  Reid is getting the squirrel.  There will be much beading.  I'm having fun with this.

 Even if I didn't have a calendar, I'd know it was going on autumn.  The spiders give it all away.  I had one the other morning in my kitchen sink that was big enough to have set off the motion sensor light out back.  (Hmmmm, wonder if I slept through it's arrival?

 This morning I went to breakfast with a friend and we almost walked into this huge web (with busy resident, I might add) that was just at face level near the back gate.  That would not have been a good start to the morning.

I would be able to tell that autumn was fast approaching by just looking at the hydrangeas.  They have their faded colors on now, their beautiful "I'm almost ready to leave" colors.  I have been falling more in love with hydrangeas every year.  That makes me officially old, I guess, but oh, well!

My pots out on the deck are lush and full.  Quite lovely, this year, they are.  But soon...ah, soon I'll have to pull out all the summer plants and get them ready for winter.  I'll plant daffodils and tulips and other little bulbs, cover their tops with a sheet of moss (sourced from my own trees at the cabin) and bid them adieu until spring.

I'll miss my beautiful pots of glorious color.  And my little blue table and chairs that are in the shady part of the garden out back---I love to sit there and have an iced tea and enjoy the bird song and the peace.  And the summer heat.  Alas, that's fast disappearing, too.

 Better go sort out my sweaters and make sure I'm ready for the change in the weather.  I can smell autumn coming on.  Can you?

Saturday Market Revisited

I stayed in town last weekend so I could attend the Edmonds' Saturday Market and buy raspberries.  I needed to make more jam.  I am off in a couple of weeks to visit my friends on Nantucket.  If I don't bring jam I suspect that my friend's husband won't be nearly so happy to see me.

There were lots of flowers.

And all sorts of beautiful, locally grown vegetables.

I bought a lot of veggies and made a roasted vegetable salad---beets, tomatoes, carrots, Walla Walla Sweet onions, fresh corn, garlic and fingerling potatoes, all roasted with olive oil and salt and pepper.  Once the veggies had cooled off, I added a good splash of red wine vinegar, a couple of handfuls of chopped fresh basil and some croutons I made from a home baked baguette.

There was music, too, from several sources.  I like this fellow and his bluesy numbers.

I found plenty of fresh local raspberries, enough for two batches of jam.  I think my welcome will be insured!

To cap off an almost perfect food day, a friend dropped by with a Dungeness crab he had just pulled from the cold waters of Puget Sound.  My dinner was complete!

Thanks, Rune.  Your crab was delicious.

Prepping Journals

Next month I am off to visit my dear friend Bee again, the artist who lives on Nantucket.  I always keep a travel journal while I am there because I don't want to forget any little detail of my time with her.  We see each other so rarely that each moment is precious.

This time we are going to head down to Wilmington, North Carolina for a weekend retreat with our friend Judy Wise.  Judy is teaching a weekend, two day class in art journaling.  Bee certainly does not need to take a journaling class, but she loves Judy.  I can always use a class, any class, from Judy.  It will be fun to spend a couple of days in class, working together.  I will get to see a new place.

We are to bring a journal to work in and I decided that I would do one of my quirky portraits on the cover.  I finally got it finished this afternoon.  It's not my best work, but it was fun and the face that emerged makes me laugh, so it's all good.

I had paint from here to Sunday, gel medium, gesso and lots of paper towels scattered all around me.  The sun was shining brightly in the window, my chores were (mostly) done and it was a perfect afternoon to get some painting done.

Best of all, it was fun!

I also covered one of my favorite watercolor paper journals with some paisley fabric.  This journal will be my travel journal for my upcoming trip to India.

I tried out all the Distress Stains by Tim Holtz that I have amassed, looking for colors that would work in the India journal.  I had never bothered to make a color sheet for myself before, so it was good that I finally did.  Now I can just look at the colors I own to see what works for any given project.  I like to pre-color my journal pages to go with the cover or some theme I have going.  White pages can stop me in my tracks, but color draws me in.  I find I have a much easier time of journaling if I add color to the pages before I leave home.

I am also getting ready to fax all my info for my Indian visa to the passport and visa service I use.  The Indian visa is a complicated one to apply for and I trust the service to do it correctly.  Me?  Not so much.  I'll let the professionals handle this one.

August is the Month for Peach Cobbler

Ah.  Peaches.

Juicy peaches.  Ripe, luscious peaches.  Peaches and August just go together for me---one always brings to mind the other.  I love peaches plain, eaten out of hand.  I love peach chutney.   I love grilled peaches.  And peach ice cream is a concoction worthy of heaven.  But my favorite is peach cobbler.

Cinnamon, powdered ginger, a little nutmeg....some grated lime rind. A tiny pinch of salt.  Not too much sugar....

Marry the peaches and spices together with a bit of thickener, so the juices are not runny but not set firmly.  Add a squirt of lime juice, for a bit of brightening of the flavors.  Be liberal with the struesel topping, with chopped pecans, of course.  Bake it (preferably in an Aga!) until it bubbles nicely and the topping is browned and crunchy.

Eat warm.

I'd show you the finished product...but we ate it.

The Great Garbage Truck Escapade

My younger daughter and her family were here recently for a visit.  My grandson, who is a BIG fan of all things garbage truck-ish, heard some commotion in the alley early one morning as he, his sister and I were getting ready to go out for an early assault on a stack of pancakes.  Well, when we emerged into the alley behind my house to discover that the garbage truck (a rear loader, I was told by the very informed grandson), was actually picking up the trash, well.....it was very exciting.

It turns out that the gentleman who was operating the garbage truck, and all it's levers and controls, is a most pleasant man.  He took a liking to my grandson (who was jumping up and down and shrieking, "Look, Gramma Gramma, it's the garbage collector!  Look at beautiful his truck!").

My granddaughter, the big sister of the garbage truck aficionado, was interested in the levers and such when the garbage man actually let them operate the mechanism that compacts the trash!  They both got a turn.  (I was rather envious as I would have liked a turn, but decided not to push it.)

Then they were invited to climb up into the cab and sit behind the wheel of the truck!

It was so cool.  Can you imagine the delight for a 4-year-old garbage truck lover to be able to operate a real garbage truck and to sit in the cab??!?  Let me tell you, judging by the the squealing and hand clapping, it was a most big deal.

I would very much like to thank the extremely nice Mr. Nicholson from Sound Disposal in Edmonds for giving my grandchildren a real thrill.  That man has a very big heart, bless him.

The Fair in Silvana

Recently Nonie and I went to the Silvana Fair.  Silvana is a little tiny place not far from my cabin and the fair is mostly about the 4H kids and their animals and projects.  It is only a one day fair, but very fun and friendly.

The focus is all about the cattle, swine, rabbits, cows, sheep and what have you that the kids raise.  There were all sorts of very well cared for animals and some very proud young people watching over theirs.

This bunny reminded me of when my daughter Annie had two gray mini lops while she was in high school.  She got them, Moose and Goose, when she was a freshman and they were her pride and....well, maybe not joy, but she loved them greatly.  Moose died sometime during Annie's high school years.  I can no longer remember exactly when.  Then Annie went off to Stanford.

And left me with Goose.  Goose the bunny.  The very animal I had never ever wanted to own....and that rabbit lived and lived and lived and then it lived some more.  I called the vet once and asked how long a mini lop might actually live and they told me that if we got 5 to 7 years out of one we were doing well.

Ahem.  That rabbit lived until Annie was in GRAD SCHOOL.  I think it was almost 12 when it finally went to the big carrot field in the sky.  I hate to say it was the rabbit that I wished dead, but there were times.....well, I did take good care of her and we did come to an understanding and we got on pretty well---mostly.  But, I really never, ever, wanted to have a rabbit as a pet.  Even a cute one like Goose.

This bunny brought that all back.  (I'm glad it's not mine!!!)

This young woman was gently petting her chicken.  I can't say I had ever seen anyone pet a chicken before, but she did.  For a long time.  Very gently.

There were lots of hens and some roosters, and some cockerels and a pigeon and (maybe) a love bird.

There was a greased pole and a long line of children waiting to try their luck at getting to the top and snatching one of the envelopes stapled to the very top.  I assumed there were prizes and that the envelope told you what  you had won.  We only saw one girl who actually made it all the way up to claim a prize, but all the children seemed to be really enjoying the greased pole climb.

It was quite a warm day and these cattle were enjoying a rest in the shade on a handy pile of straw.

This little piggy was so sound asleep it was snoring!

There were lots of exhibits inside the Viking Hall.  Prize winning jams and jellies, baked good, quilts, artwork (both children's and adults) and produce were all displayed.

I was quite taken with the eggs.  There were turkey, hen, duck and quail eggs, all displayed neatly in baskets.  The duck eggs were, truly, a lovely soft shade of duck egg blue.  For some reason that always surprises me.

It was a lovely fair.  I hope I can go again next year.