I've been gone far too long. I shall return soon.

Far too long

I've been gone from here it seems forever. More to come soon.

My Not so Little Project

You know how sometimes you get a flash of an inspiration? Well this little project began with one of those flashes. I'm going to try and make a long and crazy story short. Two weeks and 3 days ago I traveled to this itty bitty town to drop off a table and some paintings for a show. The next thing you know I'm looking to buy a house in this little town. Three weeks and 3 days later I signed a contract on this little house and the closing is in a couple of weeks. Now I have moments when I doubt my sanity. Who, out of no where, decides to buy a house? Bare with me here. The house is intended to have a place where visiting artists can stay. The closest motel is a 22 mile drive from this small place. My intention is to rent it out by the weekend or week to people who want a place to stay when they come to enjoy the river and lake near by. I also intend to use the house as my own little retreat and studio space. I haven't even closed yet and there ar folks interested in renting the place. I think this is a good investment and I've made a good choice. The house is about 100 yards from the art center and is located well. But still, I'm a bit freaked out. You can learn more by going to this link

http://frogfirestudio.yolasite.com/

The Table

Finally finished the table.

OOPS! it's been way too long since my last post. Life has been busy. Anyway, here is my latest project. Its a dining room table I inherited. The surface was rather a mess so I figured I'd paint it. Kind of wild but I like it so far. I'll keep you posted on its progress. Don't be surprised if it looks nothing like this by the time I'm done.

Progress

Alas! My garden once again resembles a garden instead of a weed patch. Here is an after photo, after I cleaned up. It isn’t the most recent but my camera is on the fritz so it’s the best I can do right now. I’ve also included a photo of what is soon to be my tomato bed. I used 5 bails of straw shoved together. They’ve had roughly three weeks to cure with lots of rain to keep them soaked. As soon as my tomato seeds arrive I’ll sow them directly into the bails. I always have better results starting my tomatoes from seed directly in the garden.

Planted a lot of stuff yesterday;
Kale
Lettuce (green ice & lolla rossa)
Beets
Collards
Parsley
Cilantro
Dill
Spinach
Chinese cabbage
Tatsoi (Chinese greens)
Pak Choy
Broccoli

In another week or so I’ll plant beans, cucumbers, peppers and the rest of the warm weather veggies. Anyway, about two hours after I finished planting all those seeds we had a nice rain. How perfect is that for getting the garden off to a good start? Rain right after seeding or transplanting is always good news.

More later………………….

Garden Fever

My garden is a mess! A word of advice, if you mulch with straw, make sure its not oat straw. As you can see I now have large clumps of oat grass growing in my garden. It isn’t so hard to pull but what a pain. I’m terrible at cleaning up the garden in the fall. Usually manage to pull all the plants in the beds but never seem to get around to the walk ways.

It’s that time of the year again when I get, “garden fever.” I dream about gardening, no kidding. We’ve had rain all day for 4 days now. This makes garden fever unbearable. Can’t do a whole lot in the rain. This year’s garden experiment is going to be raised straw bale beds. I want to expand the vegetable garden but really don’t have the time to hall in compost and dig new beds. So this year I am going to line three sides of my existing garden space with straw bales and plant in those. Rest assured it won’t be oat straw. I’ve already built a straw bale bed outside of my kitchen window to grow tomatoes in this summer.

Allow me to digress a bit and fill you all in on what’s been happening. It’s been a while since I posted anything of substance. In September I switched back to full time at my job. I like the extra income but it cuts back on my time and energy a lot. I’ve been repairing and repainting my son’s old room. Yes, he finally moved out! I’ve been working on the room for two months now. I’ve written a couple of gardening articles for the local news paper. So I guess that officially makes me a writer. Go figure. I’ve also started teaching gardening classes. I’ve sold three paintings but haven’t managed to get much painting done. I’m kind of bummed about that. I don’t think I’ll be meeting my goal of 50 paintings this year. But who knows I might have a manic creative streak yet. I hope that streak comes soon because I have shows booked up for most of this year. All things considered, I’m doing quite well and for this I am truly grateful. I know a lot of people out there aren’t fairing so well.

2009 has been an exceptionally busy year for me so far and I’ve been enjoying the ride. Now if I could just find more energy.