granny camp 4

When I told Autumn I was going to take four days between Jade's visit and hers so I wouldn't be all tired and cranky when she was here, I had no idea how important those four days would be.

This girl kept me busy.

Autumn, also 15 this year, does not stay up all night and sleep half the day.  She doesn't want her sleep patterns reversed so that when school starts she'll be sleepy all day.  Admirable and smart but it also meant she was usually up not long after me.

We had lots of fun though.

Her first full day here, I worked at the antique store so she busied herself practicing drawing from her new book and working on bracelets and flower headbands.

We shopped the antique stores.

Autumn gets pickled.

She played with fire.

She painted and then rummaged through all my dicroic scraps, jewels, and bits of colored glass to decorate an A.

We went to the movies and saw Monster U. (All three girls wanted to see animated films so I've seen Epic and Despicable Me 2 as well. The boys wanted to see WWZ.)

She talked me into taking her to the beach for the day.

She made strawberry ice cream.

She painted jars with glow in the dark paint but the glow only lasted a minute or two in the dark.

She painted clothespins to display photos of herself and her family.

I signed her up for 3 sessions with the local art teacher and she did two paintings...a watercolor and an acrylic. The teacher was so impressed with her that he sent her home with a watercolor pad, a set of drawing pencils, and a set of watercolor pencils.

And then it was time to take her home.

postcards from the country house

We are in the middle of our last week long grandkid visit so here's a few pics from the yard:

this big anole was hanging out in the arum lilies

along with these two little hatchlings.

I have seen far too few butterflies this year.

hairstreak on okra

monarch on zinnia

cicada

zinnia

emerging bromeliad flower

plumeria

plumeria

the Lee Littlefield comes home

You might remember the post I did several weeks ago about the passing of one of our local artists, Lee Littlefield. We bought one of his outdoor installations 7 years ago and at the time of the post, it was in for repairs.

Unfortunately, Lee's outdoor work is not permanent being made out of natural materials. Even though they are sealed and painted, the rain and the heat eventually get to them and they need repair.

When Lee called to tell us that it was repaired and ready to be delivered, we were in the middle of the mountain wall and were still undecided about where we wanted to put it out here at the country house so we put him off for a few months.

And then he died.

With the help of his gallery representative who facilitated the return of our sculpture, it was delivered and installed yesterday by another local artist who has helped Lee and worked with him in the past.

The pictures just don't do it justice.

granny camp 3

I picked Jade up on the Sunday before the Fourth, dropping off the boys and bringing her back. Jade is the eldest of the twins by about 15 minutes and she turned 15 last month.

Usually Jade arrives with a list of projects, a list of needed supplies, and a menu for the entire week. This year there was none of that. Monday, basically all we did was grocery shop while she worked on getting her sleep pattern adjusted.

While all the grandkids have liked to help me in the kitchen, and they still will make cookies or cupcakes or a pie if I direct one that way, Jade is the only one who has been interested in actually learning how to cook. So Tuesday night she made smothered chicken with just my supervision. She also made her usual key lime and blueberry pie on Wednesday. And she made a bacon wrapped water chestnut hors d'oeuvre for our Fourth of July dinner.

We went out Wednesday and bought some aerial fireworks and then found out Wednesday night that the county had instituted a burn ban and a ban of aerial fireworks. Thursday, however, two others in the neighborhood were shooting off their aerial fireworks so we joined in and for a short while the three of us had a little show going.

She did have one project that we had talked about doing during her week. She wanted to make a quilt she had designed on my tablet so Wednesday, we went to see Despicable Me 2 (very cute) and bought the material for her quilt.

After that, that was pretty much all we worked on. There were 80 8” squares of four pieces each. We both cut out the pieces. I did all the sewing, she did all the pressing of the seams and pinning the pieces together. She had a chart she made out that we followed and she caught all the mistakes.

Sunday was her day to return and she was up when I got up and we started on it right away. We had the top pieced, now we had to put it all together. Having never made a quilt before, it took me a while to figure out how to make the top and the bottom and the batting fit all together. We finished it about 4 PM, jumped in the truck and got her back home.

Our finished size was supposed to be 68” x 86” (the size the All Knowing Oracle told me a twin quilt was). It finished at 66” x 84” so I figure we did pretty good. We didn't get it quilted or tied because we just didn't have enough time but we used a 'fusible' batting that you set with the iron. It's temporary, intended to hold it in place while it was quilted, and washes out but I figured it would be OK til she came back for a weekend and we tied it or as I'm thinking now, maybe get someone to do some very basic machine stitching for us.

She did one other little embossed glass project. After I deconstructed the images, she cut the fiber paper and arranged it on the kiln shelf.

One more visit starting next Friday and then it looks like we will be getting back to work.

waiting

Not much time for reading and commenting when the grandkids are here. If they haven't commandeered my computer then they have commandeered my attention.

I've missed several of every blog's posts I'm sure. When my stream separates from the main channel, I tend to just join up downstream again although I have tried to catch up a bit the last two days.

I have a few minutes right now while we are waiting for the time to leave for the movie so I thought I'd post of few of the pictures that are piling up.

Yesterday we bought $75 worth of ariel fireworks. Last night we saw on the news that the county instituted a burn ban and banned all ariel fireworks. Great. They couldn't have done that on Monday?

Looks like this is the only fireworks we will have tomorrow. gomphrena 'fireworks'

Saw my first baby anole this morning. This little guy was about 2” tip to tail.

I dug up some of the red arum lilies from the Houston house about a month ago. Some for me and some to trade with a fellow gardener for some pink ones. I didn't know if they would bloom since I dug them up at the wrong time of year but this is the first of at least two bloom stalks.

My friend Phyllis who moved to New Orleans gave me a very small volunteer from her white orchid tree before she left. It was about 12” tall. It's now about 3' tall and 4' wide, still in a (progressively bigger) pot because I can't decide where to plant it.

One of the snails in my yard. This one is about 3/4” long.

The wrens built a nest in the ladder that hangs on the wall of the future shop. Three little babies in the nest.

Out of time, gotta go.