Happy Almost New Year

 As always, it has been too long. Perhaps some of you should give me a nudge to re-start the conversation! Yes, I am nicely ensconced in California at Mom's house. Yes, it's good to be back but I'm running hard to keep up with Mom!

Yeah, I know I'm weird, but ... I found this pattern of tree bark interesting. This was on a walk with Elaine.

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We had great fun watching Carlo for five days. Here he is after a bath. Yes, he was as soft and fluffy as he looks! The first day, he had to get used to us all over again -- while we learned his routine. Mom (luckily) took him out in the morning since he got up at 6 a.m. I took him out at various times of the day with his last time out at about 8:30 or 9 p.m. The second night, we were watching tv in the den and he looked at me and looked at Mom and finally lay down on the rug. A bit later, I said, "Where's the dog?" He had put himself to bed in Mom's bed (where he sleeps) because we were up too late for him. I guess that's how he got to be 17 years old. Early to bed and early to rise and all that.

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While playing Mexican Train Dominoes, we admired Carole's solar Christmas trees. Santa on the right climbs up and down a golden rope!

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My darling Deb left us a cookie decorating kit! I discovered that I may be the worst cookie decorator ever, but they still tasted good.

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This Friday Frolic (lunch) was at the Waters Cafe at the Agua Caliente Casino in Cathedral City. We were so happy that Deb could join us. Paul was working.

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It actually does rain in the desert! This day, we got about 0.42 inch of rain and this beautiful double rainbow. It was more colorful in person. I did not take the time to edit it and make the photo more colorful. Sorry about that.

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And our excellent Emily came to visit! As with Deb, the week seemed to go by in a couple of minutes.

Emily had decided that she would rather visit The Living Desert during the day than at night. She fed the giraffes and I loved being so close to them. A helpful game keeper reminded me, "Don't touch!" The giraffes know the drill and one came right up to me before anyone had any lettuce and he was looking for his treat. The keeper also told me not to turn my back on him. "Why? Do they bite?" "No, but they might nudge you." I was glad for the instructions because you just want to pat the giant beasts!

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Our neighbor's yard. The trees 'in real life' are multicolored but my phone camera didn't think so.

Here's the tree during the day. You can't see that there are lights on it during the day, so it was a pleasant surprise at night.

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Thank you, Carole for giving us amaryllis which bloomed right on time for Christmas!

This is Mom's.

And this is mine. It's on the only Christmas table runner that I ever made. I'm amazed when I see it that I followed the pattern!

My Canadian friends graciously gave me a ride to the Wild Lights at the Living Desert this year. We met up with Eric and his friend Ron. Eric took our picture.

Left to right: Lorne, Tina, Elaine, Robert

I didn't take any pictures of the lights this year. So here's "file footage" from 2021!

There were more lights this year, particularly around the model railway. Oh, gosh, I have forgotten the exact name but it is 'garden size' as opposed to in-your-living room size.

Here is a daytime partial shot of the railroad. New renovations and expansion are planned for the 3/4 acre installation. $200,000 has been donated for the project.

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Sunset

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Lighting of the Palm Springs Christmas tree. Hot chocolate and cookies for all!

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A neighbor's rose. Everything is flourishing even though it gets down to the 40s at night.

Our neighbors' lemon tree hasn't escaped yet!

If you throw in some lunches (every Friday), a musical concert, a trip to the casino, two trips to the Living Desert, dinner at our place, dinner at a friend's place, The Lunch Bunch Quilters' holiday party, and going to the gym, I'm ready for the hot tub and a day of doing nothing! Oh, wait. I have to finish the Sassy Cowgirls quilt! More on that later.

Meanwhile (as Stephen Colbert says), I wish you all a very happy New Year with new beginnings and health. Of course, I wish us all peace.

August 2023 to October 4, 2023

 

 

Summertime, and the living is easy! Don't these squash at the Farmers' Market make beautiful geese?

 Meanwhile, the long legged flower box was humming along.

 I got to playing around with the blue squares I had started in PS. It takes me many iterations before I settle on something.

And, yes, this was the demise of the long legged flower box. The weight of the rainwater was too much for it.

So I put the flowers in pots. There are a bunch more pots on the stump of the former crab apple tree.

The many rainy days made me stay in and finally finish my playing with the blue squares.

Coming back home. This is Hadley about a quarter of a mile from the Amherst line; it's about 2 miles from my house. The clouds grabbed me.

My newly mown backyard -- which is too much for me to do. I'm vrey grateful for Jacob who is a very industrious young man who mows for me.

And behind me while I'm taking the above picture, is my falling down deck.

I contracted for a new deck, but had to wait almost 2 months ... so I began a new WIP (Work In Progress). It's a scrap quilt.

Traveling to North Amherst (to go to the Survival Center) I saw this. This is broadleaf tobacco drying and it will eventually make very fine cigars. At one time, there were many many tobacco barns in the area (I believe there are still some in Connecticut), but this is one of a few still in use.

When I came to UMass in the 60s, the local kids used to either work in the cucumber (for pickles) fields or on tobacco. The pickle factory is gone and so is much of the tobacco.

(By the way, they used to have "Cabbage Night" the night before Halloween when the local kids would promulgate hijinks. Perhaps uprooting cabbages was part of it, but I do know some tobacco barns were lit. I think that ended Cabbage Night, because it never happened when I was here.)

This field is right next to that tobacco barn.

Working a bit on the WIP, I just couldn't figure any way to integrate the green with the blues and purples.

Here we are up to August 26 and Emily and I had a wonderful stroll through the Tower Hill Botanic Garden in Boylston, MA. This is some of the featured sculpture.

And then it was August 29 and time to tear down the old deck. The guys were amazed that I hadn't fallen through because it was in such bad shape. They quickly disassembled it with their bare hands.

Below you can see the concrete footings that they dug and poured. The inspector had to examine them before the guys could put in the pressure treated structure. See the rust on the bottom of the door to the garage? Butch, the best handyman in the world sanded the metal door and painted it. Wait until you see it with the new deck!

We will take a short break here for an artsy fartsy shot taken at dusk.

Can you hear the hammers?

On September 1, Ann and I decided to motor up to the Bridge of Flowers in Shelburne, Massachusetts. It was a lovely almost-fall day: not too hot and not too cold.

And then a deck party!

Of course, you have to have starters to go with the pitcher of margaritas! That's steak with tomato. The won ton wrappers aren't baked yet, but that's feta cheese and spinach in them.

I think I made chicken cacciatore for supper, but I've forgotten. We had a good time.

The WIP (scrap quilt) continues to grow.

Sunset on September 15, looking west.

Saturday Farmers' Market: Flowers from Sunset Farm

New storm door on the garage installed by Butch.

Here's the newly painted metal door to the deck. I'm so happy to get rid of the rust!

Cathy V. and I decided to go to MassMOCA (Mass. Museum of Contemporary Art) on Sept. 28. It was a lovely fall drive of about 90 minutes.

Yes, those are living trees, upside down, outside of the entrance to Mass MOCA.

There's one born every minute -- and in this case, it was me.

September 30th brought John Lithgow to Johnson Chapel at Amherst College. He performed for free, exhorting the audience to donate to the Jones Library's renovation fund. The Trustees and Friends of the Library have already raised $9 Million for the cause.

No, I did not get a picture of Mr. Lithgow because I had shut my phone off before his introduction. He was very entertaining! The screen was taken down before he spoke. It was showing facts about the renovation. I performed a wedding here some years ago.

A visit to Cook Farm near my house at sunset was due to Sally's Coffee Grounds ice cream calling me. It was delicious.

You can see how all of the rain made the pasture almost impassible for the cows. There is always one brave soul, however.

And the WIP keeps growing slowly.

M & M Hardscapes came with three men on October 3rd. They spread black plastic and covered it with traprock. They poured a cement step for the bottom deck step. 

The next day they dug out the roots of the horrible weeds that had turned into trees poking up through the old deck. They graded the cement-like clay and spread loam and grass seed.

Remember the plants I rescued from the long legged flower box? They are still growing, luckily.

Here's my firebush that I love looking at except for the fact that I haven't been able to trim it due to the wasps nest in it. I've bought the Raid for wasps, just haven't got out there at sundown to spray them.

And this blog has brought us up to October 4th. The next post will bring you with Cathy V. and me to the Clark Museum in Williamstown. But that's for another day.