Almost Summer in the Garden

Well, I think I've been brain dead for the last couple of months! Odd what dealing with even a non-threatening bit of cancer will do. (Update: My DH has been through the surgery, and the first six treatments, and is doing fine. No more treatments now until mid-July. As you'll see from the photos, he's feeling a Lot better!)

Today marked the first real day of spring/summer here, and was it a wonder. We went from day after day of cold drizzle, to mid-sixty temperatures yesterday, with more drizzle, to brilliant sunshine and a high of 90 degrees today.

There was just one thing to do: Get out in the yard and garden!

Bob and I had been working for a couple of hours when I looked across the yard and realized, It's finally coming together. After all these years...look how beautiful! I had to get the camera, even though some of the photos are littered with spades, wheelbarrows, and other tools.

We've lived here now for eleven years. When we bought the place, our main thrust was to keep the weeds mowed. The "lawn" was up to our thighs the first time we mowed it. There were no arbors, no benches, no swings, no paths, no flower beds other than the ones along each of the houses, and they're only about 18" wide. (Unusual property alert: We actually bought five houses on half an acre. We live in one, and rent out the other four.) Now...Well, I'll let the photos do the talking.

Okay, so what have I been doing? I have a new passion, or an old passion with a new twist: For the first time in my life, I'm taking voice lessons, something I'd always dreamed of doing. The new twist is what I'm singing--opera! Coloratura, to be exact. What's coloratura? Usually soprano, I'm told, and rather acrobatic, with lots of movement and runs and jumps from one octave to another. I am having SO MUCH FUN! Our teacher's master class is having a get-together tomorrow, and we'll all sing for each other. This is one of the tunes I'll be singing:

FRIDAY FENCE POST #79--Child's Eye View

I'm two weeks past due for a Friday Fence Post. I do apologize for being away so long. I got kind of distracted with the DH's illness, and to tell the truth, kind of misplaced the big WHY of blogging, a bit of lame on my part.

But I'm here, with some cool fences, and even cooler, several of the shots were taken by my 7-year-old granddaughter, Meggie. She has a real eye, that one, and her own thoughts about framing. I was told, in no uncertain terms, that she did not want me rotating any of her pictures, that she had taken them the way she wanted them to be seen.

So now, here are some of the fences we shot on our walk today, hers interspersed with mine. I'll tell you which were hers at the end. I think it will not necessarily be obvious.

The fences are: Meg's, mine, mine, hers, hers, hers, mine, mine. Did you get them all right?

A word on the last two, also. The next to the last, if you look closely, especially at the right side of the sidewalk, is the shadow of a picket fence. The last is chain link, reflected in rain water on some corrugated sheeting.

Click on any photo to see it large.

Your turn! Has spring brought out the fences in your area? Post them on your blog, and drop the link here so I can come see them! And be sure to leave a comment. I love them anyway, but comments in my inbox let me know something's going on over here!

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SUNDAY RERUN: Brain Teasers

Brain Teaser: Balancing Four Nails by MadeContact

Time for a Sunday Favorite! If you want to join the party, click on the button in my left hand sidebar--it will take you to Chari's instructions on Happy to Design.

This is an entry from my old diary, dated April 17, 2003. Hope you enjoy the Brain Teasers!

These brain teasers were sent to me a few days ago by one of my readers. I say, "Thanks, Phil!" And I'm adding one to his, an old (1933) jigsaw that gave you the brain teaser on the back, and then you could put the puzzle together to read the solution on the picture, which they didn't put on the box. 

So, written teasers first, picture teaser next, and answers after that.

Brain teasers that will make you groan ...
1. A murderer is condemned to death. He has to choose between three rooms. The first is full of raging fires, the second is full of assassins with loaded guns, and the third is full of lions that haven't eaten in 3 years. Which room is safest for him?

2. A woman shoots her husband. Then she holds him under water for over
5 minutes. Finally, she hangs him. But 5 minutes later they both go out together and enjoy a wonderful dinner together. How can this be?

3. There are two plastic jugs filled with water. How could you put all of this water into a barrel, without using the jugs or any dividers, and still tell which water came from which jug?

4. What is black when you buy it, red when you use it, and gray when you throw it away?

5. Can you name three consecutive days without using the words Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, or Sunday?

6. This is an unusual paragraph. I'm curious how quickly you can find out what is so unusual about it. It looks so plain you would think nothing was wrong with it. In fact, nothing is wrong with it! It is unusual though. Study it, and think about it, but you still may not find anything odd. But if you work at it a bit, you might find out.
 
Here is the back of the box, with the captions to pictures below:

1. Rich princess want to marry a poor peasant. Her father objects.
2. King decrees on following day he will offer poor man two slips. One reads "marriage", the other "death". Peasant must abide by his choice. 
3.  Poor peasant is secretly told the night before that both slips will read "death".  
4. Peasant goes before court, and after making his choice, marries the princess. HOW DOES HE DO IT?

Answers to the brainteasers:

1. The third. Lions that haven't eaten in three years are dead.
2. The woman was a photographer. She shot a picture of her husband, developed it, and hung it up to dry.
3. Freeze them first. Take them out of the jugs and put the ice in the barrel. You will be able to tell which water came from which jug.
4. The answer is Charcoal.
5. Sure you can: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow!
6. The letter "e", which is the most common letter in the English language, does not appear once in the long paragraph...

Answer to the Jigsaw teaser:

Peasant swallows the slip he chooses. The King said one of them would read "marriage", and the "other" death, so the peasant must have chosen "marriage", as the one in his hand is "death".

 

Hope you enjoyed the Brain Teasers! Now I'm off to see what Chari's got for us today....

SWAP-BOT SATURDAY: Mail Art, Tag, ATC

Shhh. Don't tell anyone, but it's really Sunday. I didn't get the photos taken early enough to do this yesterday, so I'm pretending. And Blogger is so cooperative that way--you can tell it to post something on just any date you want, and it will do it. What will they think of next? Time machines! I know it!

I got several lovelies this week, beginning with a piece of mail art:

Mail Art Envie by MegaMar

 Don't you love it? Let me tell you, I went right out and got myself a unicyclist rubber stamp. Lucky me, too, 'cause Michaels had one for a dollar. Yes!

I also got this awesome chunky tag, created with a coffee theme because, well, you know me and coffee. That made me smile big.

"One Cup Is Never Enough!" by Tootheri

And then this darling ATC, with a fairy theme, in a perfectly wonderful holder. I need to figure out how she did that, but she glued it, and I don't want to destroy it in the figuring. Maybe steam? Hmmm...

Pink Fairy by BeverlyBling

And then, because my little collection of ATCs is growing, I picked up a funky old photo album at Goodwill. (Another $1 wonder!) The sleeves hold photos that are 3.5" X 5", perfect for two ATCs.

It's not beautiful, which makes me think there's a project lurking, and the sleeves, oddly enough, work much better if you put the ATCs at the back instead of the front, but I like it, because it let's me flip through and see them easily. A person could put four in each sleeve, but doing just two lets you see the back of each one, and who created it.

Also, the fact that the sleeves are double-sized means that ATCs with extras can be slipped in sideways so nothing gets smushed. (Would you believe Blogger thinks 'smushed' isn't a real word? Honestly, that's just silly. Of course, it is!)

Time ATC by Veronica

What about you? Did you send or receive art this week?

FRIDAY FENCE POST #78

I love this time of year, when Spring arrives and photographing fences becomes an excuse for taking pictures of what's in front of them! AND I got out of my car! My foul weather fence photography secret is I park across from the fence I've chosen, roll down the window, and shoot from there. What can I say? I have a strong distaste for being cold and wet!

Today's first fence:

At the left edge of the photo above, you can just make out the hellebore in these next three. Isn't it beautiful? I love the new varieties that have come out in the past several years!

Filters R Fun

How about bright yellow forsythia against a white picket fence? Is there a brighter harbinger of Spring?

Last one, an "owlish" fence on the next corner:

 

These photos are all much larger than they appear, sort of like things you see in your sideview mirror. Click on them to bring them up full-size.

Now it's your turn! Post your Friday Fence, and come back here with the URL, so I can come see it, too! (Make sure it's the permalink to the post itself, so I can find it.) You've got a whole week to bring back your link, so be sure you leave a comment, so I'll know to look. (By the way, I'd love it if you'd grab the button in my left sidebar for your own blog. Let's get more people, with more fences!)

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BLADDERS ON ETSY

No, this is not an entry about shopping 'til your bladder threatens to pop. It's about finding bladders on Etsy, proof enough for me that if it can be thought of, it will be created and sold on that most eclectic of websites.

Bladder Patch in Neither Sparky's Shop

I know what you're thinking. Why on earth would anyone be looking for bladders, on Etsy or anywhere else, for that matter? Well, in my case, it's because my DH had five, count 'em, five bladder tumors removed this Tuesday. There was supposed to be just one, but the CT scan lied. They're cancerous, but the doctor thinks they got all of it, and to make certain of that, they'll do some chemo of a rather strange (to me, at least) variety: A liquid infused with inactive tuberculosis germs will be put into the bladder, causing the DH's immune system to freak out and come rushing to destroy the germs, at which point the white cell minions will discover any cancer cells lurking and destroy them, too.That is the plan, and the doctor seems quite confident in it.

Three more finds:

 

Dr Kilmore's Swamp Root Bladder Cure (Mary's CrochetnMore)

Bladderwrack Pendant (CorryVrecken)

"I Laughed So Hard" Magnet (CrossEyedCatGifts)

Looking for bladders on Etsy taught me another thing: Bladders, unless they're the plant variety, seem to be inherently funny. I mean, honestly, can you even say, "bladders on Etsy" without smiling?

This Week's Project: Fabric Envies

I have a couple of envelopes to show off this week! I was really pleased with them, and they were easy to do, so there will be a tutorial, but it will show up on ThinkCrafts first; I'll post it here later.

Here they are:

 

 

I showed them to my DH, and told my Mom about them over the phone. Both of them said exactly the same thing: "Well, can you mail something like that?!"

"I'm pretty sure they'll be okay," I said. "Heck, you can wrap up a crowbar and put an address on it, and the post office will send it!"

Sure enough, when I laid them on the counter at the post office and asked if I could mail them, the guy didn't bat an eyelash, just said, "Sure. We get all kinds of stuff through here." He did say they were so pretty, didn't I want to put them in something so there wouldn't be any risk of their being damaged? but I told him no, as the object of them was to have something really pretty arrive in the mailbox of the recipient.

Have you heard about the 52 Weeks challenge over at Fabric Fascination? The idea is to finish a project a week for 2011, and post it. I'm a bit late arriving to the party, but it sounds like fun to me, so now I'm going to post this, and drop the link over there!

Oh. Forgot to mention: These are my creations for the Mail Art #2 Swap on Swap-bot.com!