one more, a task, and abundant blooms

I have to say I was very surprised by all the positive comments about the willow card, so, thank you all. I finished the red oak leaf and I think I’m done for now. 

I may do more in the future but I have cleaned off my small work table, put the watercolor pencils and crayons and paper and brushes away. I have some sewing things that need doing so that’s what I’m turning my attention to now.

I spent the day Friday doing house things. First I cleaned out the linen closet which hasn’t been done since we first moved into this house about 15 years ago. 

I emptied it…extra pillows, blankets, sheets and pillow cases, air mattresses…and spread it all out in the hall: five sets of sheets that we currently use ( two of which the bottom fitted sheet needs some repair), one set of flannel sheets that we haven’t used in 20 years probably, one extra top sheet, and 21 pillow cases not being currently used including 6 extra long ones from early in our marriage when we had extra long down pillows and five flannel ones; three blankets, one lap blanket, a bedspread, a tattered quilt, a hammock, 4 pillows, a heating pad, and an extra shower curtain. I weeded out 16 pillow cases, the lap blanket, the quilt, the flannel sheets, and the lone top sheet. I'm donating all that except the quilt and lap blanket to the Austin animal shelter where Jade works. She says they use it for bedding for the animals. Then I rearranged it putting the air mattresses on the top shelf getting them off the floor. 

And because that apparently wasn’t enough work for one day I vacuumed the whole house and mopped the kitchen, the hall, and the dining room area (well, I used a Swiffer).

I had to stop and pull into the driveway of the shop on my way to SHARE last Thursday to take a picture of the morning glory bush. I can see it over the fence and it was just magnificent. I’ve never had one bloom this profusely, like bouquets, so you're getting three pictures.

Speaking of blooming profusely, I noticed a couple of weeks ago that the night blooming cereus was putting on another round of blooms. Last week I stopped counting the buds at 30. Thursday afternoon I counted 35 that were on the verge of opening. I went out at 10 pm with the flashlight and no, not that night but def the next. 

So Friday evening I set my alarm for 11 pm but went out with the flashlight at half past 10 and whoa! All but two of the 35 had opened, some in clusters the buds were so close together. She certainly earns the name Queen of the Night.

Hard to pick just a few.

 

weekend activities and a rainbow bracelet

Fall blooming bindweed in the ditch in front of Pam’s house.

Saturday I finally got out there and trimmed the yard and my arms were sore for two days afterward. The trimmer is only about 9 1/2 pounds but holding up 9 1/2 pounds for 45 minutes, it gets heavy. I did that after breakfast and then dug the thorny dewberry vines out of the long daylily bed in the big backyard in the afternoon. They’ll all be back though as the roots go deep, too deep to really get them out and everywhere a vine lays on the ground long enough it sprouts roots. Last summer when I couldn’t work in the yard recovering from one procedure or another and when I did it was cleaning up all the damage from Hurricane Beryl, they colonized three of my flower beds. So now it’s a constant battle. Of course where they’re growing they don’t get enough sun to actually make berries so they are just a big pain in the ass for no reward.

Sunday I set the sprinkler out moving it every half hour and intended to only go around and pick up loose bricks laying around. When I had a wagon full I pulled it to the front and I thought instead of stacking them in the barn right away I’d shorten the arm of the big flower bed in the front yard because when Marc mows he knocks the bricks askew and add those bricks to the wagon. Except, after I dug up the society garlic and shortened the arm I thought why am I taking these to the barn when I can just finish lining this flower bed, something I had never finished. So that’s what I did, pulling grass and crabgrass out and I only had to scrounge up about 5 more bricks.

Now I’m inspired to finally do this one (these were already here when we bought the place).

Later in the day I collected Paisleigh and I taught her to play dominoes with the set of Disney princess dominoes I got from another donation at SHARE (we can buy donated stuff (garage sale prices) that’s not food). When she tired of that we colored with the sidewalk chalk and then painted with the watercolors. Then we went across the street and she helped feed the four boys and Momcat and then we walked Minnie and I delivered her back to her parents.

More watering yesterday, it is still so dry, and finished the willow card and abandoned the bamboo. All the trees I’ve done so far; the gingko, pecan, maple, are in my yard, the willow grows at the end of my street. No bamboo in the vicinity. I decided to do a leaf off the red oak tree by my driveway instead.

Yellow bells and rangoon creeper in full bloom over at the shop yard.

This morning I had a rainbow bracelet. 

cooler weather, impending yard work, fall blooms, and a great score

A cool front was supposed to come in on Wednesday and bring us some rain. It did bring rain but not on us. I swear there’s an invisible dome over Wharton. While the temperature did drop a bit Wednesday eveningish we didn’t get the full effects until Friday morning, cool enough to have the doors open in the mornings. And the sun is shifting into prism casting mode through the crystals hanging in the windows, little rainbows across my hand and keyboard. When the tallow finally loses all its leaves they will be cast all over the room.

The white Philippine violet has suddenly come into full bloom 

but the fall blooming orange cosmos have yet to be putting on buds. Very few oxblood lilies this year I suppose because it’s been so dry. My friend Cora says the same at her house. And the surprise lilies that gave me 14 blooms last year only put up one though I did get two in a different spot that didn’t bloom at all last year.

I don’t know what this plant is but it’s taller than I am and it freezes to the ground every winter. My sister planted it beside her shed. It blooms sparsely in the fall and has the most wicked thorns. Some of those are over 2” long.

I’ve spent the last several days sketching bamboo and willow leaves for two more cards, not well satisfied with either composition so far though I think maybe a second look at the first sketch of the willow may work if I shift it over to the right. When I get those two done, I think I’ll be done with the whole project. Here’s the most recent completed one. Wasn’t particularly happy with it at first but I think it’s ok.

More yard work planned for this weekend especially now that we are having a little break in the heat. Need to finish weeding that back flower bed and trim the yard, mow the little backyard. I’ve been picking up the bad fallen pecans still in their husks, the ones that got that fungus earlier in the year, so I won’t be fooled later on when the husks pop off and the mature good nuts start to fall. I’ve picked up almost a five gallon bucket’s worth so far. I think, hope, I’ll have an adequate crop from the looks of the nuts high up in the trees. 

Thursday at SHARE right before we were closing up for the day someone brought in two cast iron skillets, old, well seasoned and no crud built up like many old ones, bottom and sides milled smooth which they don’t do on new ones anymore, one large, one medium. I have two old large skillets, a small one, and a bigger but still small skillet. The medium was a nice intermediate size between my smallish and large skillets. I snatched that baby right up, put $5 in the can and brought it home.

Now I have to adjust the hooks to make room for the new one, shifting them over to the left and a little closer together. My large RevereWare skillet usually hangs on the right end hook. I know the new one on the far right doesn’t look much larger than the one on the far left but it has a much larger bottom surface area because the sides of the one on the left slant down instead of being straight up. (My smallest one is not in the picture.)

arting and sweating

Saturday morning I went out to find the dish of the birdbath on the ground again. I may just leave it there for now and filling it with water for whatever creature that keeps pulling it down in it’s effort to get water.

I finally got out and did some serious work in the yard. Beside moving the sprinkler around every 30 minutes (we need rain desperately) I started on the far back flower bed which I have basically ignored since spring and the poppies went to seed. Haven’t pulled a weed or watered it except for the two clumps of crinum lilies and the dirt is dry dry dry. The first thing I tackled was digging up the dead stump of the confederate rose on the end that didn’t come back this spring. There is something that attacks my confederate rose bushes. A new one will grow fine for the first few years and then one year a branch will start growing deformed and every year after more and more will be deformed until it doesn’t bloom and dies. I have no idea what is happening, everyone I’ve showed the deformed leaves to have no answers. I’ve planted them in different parts of the yard thinking maybe it’s something in the dirt but if it is it’s not just one spot. 

Before, the dead stump/root ball is hidden under the desiccated crabgrass (that’s how dry it is) on the left.

After an hour or so I got out about two thirds and was so hot and sweaty I had to go in and cool off.

Went out again once that area was in the shade and another hour later the rest of the stump/root ball is out and I’ve cleared about half of the weeds. 

The plan is to dig up the clump of pink crinum lilies, which did not bloom this year, there in the middle and put them on the end where the confederate rose was.

I didn’t work back there on Sunday, it was in full sun when I went out so I opted to work in the shade. Years ago I built two small flower beds at right angles to the oak tree by the driveway and planted six azaleas, three in each. Only one of the azaleas lived so I divided the red crinum lilies and replaced the dead azaleas with small clumps. Making those flower beds turned out not to be a great idea because I think they prevented water from draining from the side yard so I decided to take them out and spread the dirt to the low spot. I’ll leave the azalea and make it a small bed with the fringe flower tree next to it but dig up the crinum lilies which aren’t doing well there anyway. So Sunday I started on the arm from the oak to the preexisting bed of ferns at the base of the enormous white crepe myrtle pulling up the landscape blocks and stacking them in the barn. We finally got a little shower later, less than an inch but grateful for anything, and when I went out after to go feed the cats I was surprised to see this small arc of a rainbow since the sky overhead was mostly clear.

Yesterday I got out there, pulled up the rest of the blocks, dug up the crinum (spell check keeps wanting to change this to cranium) lilies

and used the shovel and hoe to spread out the dirt. Need to work on that some more but was hot and sweaty and came in.

I’m working on another card but the mad rush to sit down and get it done is over. Now it’s a few minutes here, a few minutes there, less invested, though walking the dog after yoga yesterday I broke a few willow leaf clusters off the tree at the end of the street and brought them home so maybe I’m not quite done. I’ve already prepared to be done, have transferred two drawings, one for a watercolor painting and one in my sketchbook for a colored pencil drawing. And I’m thinking more and more about a more ambitious watercolor painting. It’s a piece I sketched to do in the pate de verre cast glass but never got to it (that's supposed to be cotton at the bottom).  

the sublime and the absurd

Mainly pictures today. Yoga classes were gone to, a couple of dog walks happened, an uninspired dinner was made, a moderately busy day at SHARE was had, cats were fed. That about sums up the past week.  

Oh, I did have a visit with the great grandson who is 8 months old and crawling if that’s what you call it. More like half walking, hands and feet.

Cotton ready to be harvested last Monday which it was a few days later. 

The sky about 5 PM on the way to yoga Wednesday (photo through the dirty windshield).

Two more of the watercolor cards, tried a few leaves. I like the ginkgo, the pecan is ok. Took me all week to lazily get the pecan done. I might get a few more done but I’ve worked through the flush of an idea being executed. I’ve done 14 and while a flight of fancy had me doing all 30 by a particular point in time, that was never realistic. I’ve done all that deadline stuff, the reality of creating art on a timeline.

There are things blooming like the purple Philippine violet, the pink trumpet flower just beginning…

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This was going to be my first paragraph because this is how it started, what got written down first. But I didn’t want to start with that.

Once again I have deleted about three days worth of emails with only cursory perusing. A lot of it is repetitive, different people reporting and talking about the same goings on. I just…can’t. And obviously I was incorrect in my assessment that the Kxxx thing would blow over just like every other ‘breaking’ thing. Txxxx has seized on it as an excuse to crack down on any and all dissent, even people who correctly quoted Kxxx because it goes contrary to the saint they’re making him out to be. A fucking Day of Remembrance? Monuments? A respectful moment of silence in the House? Presidential Medal of Freedom? Seriously? Is sainthood far behind? Most people had never even heard of the guy. Nevertheless people are getting fired, lawsuits are being filed, shows are being canceled, the Thought Police are in full form. One senator is even promoting a bill that limits the nicknames we can legally call Txxxx and I guarantee none of them will be the Orange Turd. And what the fuck King Charles? What was that disgusting display of fêting of the OT and his disrespectful behavior.

Since it seems the Thought Police are sending their bots to scour every printed word online looking for those to cancel and punish for having ‘unacceptable’ opinions, even unacceptable true statements, I will no longer, for the foreseeable future (unless I forget or I decide it’s being overly dramatic and paranoid which, you know, is a possibility) spell out certain names, hence the Xs. I’m sure you can fill in the missing letters. Thus ends my political commentary for today.

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…and the oxblood lilies are popping up.

the circle of life turned

Our world got a little smaller last Saturday morning. If you’ve been reading here since before covid you likely remember me talking about our glass blowing friends Kathy Poeppel and Dick Moiel and how every November was spent getting organized and working out my display for the open house they sponsored at their studio the first weekend of December. It is with great sadness that I report Dick passed away peacefully last Saturday morning at home. His health had been deteriorating for the past several years and his bout with aspirated pneumonia a few months ago depleted his already tenuous strength. 

We first met Dick and Kathy one year when they called the studio and asked if they could come visit. That was sometime in the mid 90s I think after we had started doing personal work in the pate de verre cast glass technique (the whole precise timeline is lost to the past). Dick, a neurosurgeon, and Kathy, his surgical assistant, had retired to reduce the stress in their lives and were looking for a new activity to fill their days. They were avid art collectors with a focus on glass art and were visiting the few art glass studios in town. They took their first glass blowing class in 1994 and built their glass blowing studio in 1995, Houston Studio Glass. We started getting a postcard in November about a glass blowing open house in December. Who the hell is this and tossed it aside. Maybe the third time we decided to check it out. When we walked in Kathy was demonstrating and Dick was explaining what she was doing to the crowd and when he saw us he stopped and introduced us to the audience as fellow glass artists. We stayed a short while and then left. In the year 2000, Dick called and invited us to participate in a hot glass casting workshop by an artist from New Orleans he and Kathy were sponsoring at their studio, inviting not just us but non glass artists whom they knew as well. It was a fun three days and that was really the beginning of our friendship with Dick and Kathy. As art collectors they participated in the Houston art scene, inviting visiting artists to stay with them, gave dinner parties, had visiting glass artists give demonstrations at their studio and included us in these events and so we started to become known locally; inviting us and other budding glass artists in Houston to participate in their open house every year. While we had a gallery in Houston and Oliver sold a lot of work for us, it was Dick and Kathy who, as Marc put it, made us popular. My joke was that they dragged us kicking and screaming out of our cave and into the light.

They were big promoters of glass art, took classes and workshops every summer at all the prestigious glass and craft schools; Pilchuck, Penland, the Corning Museum of Glass to name a few, and then worked in their studio in the fall and winter perfecting the skills they learned over the summer and were friends with many of the big names in glass art. On a state level Dick worked to arrange exhibitions showing their work and the work of the local glass community in which we were included.

The last open house was the first weekend in December 2019 and then covid shut everything down for two years. Dick started having health problems though not from covid and they worked in the studio less and less. We last saw Dick and Kathy in November. He was looking a bit frail but in good spirits. Dick went on hospice care Tuesday, September 9th at home and took his last breath the following Saturday in his 90th year. 

We owe Dick a lot, not only for his friendship but for his generous support and all the work he did to promote not only his and Kathy's work but our work and that of other local glass artists as well.

Fly high Dick. You will be missed.