Life With The Crew

This Moment - Puddle Play

*This Moment*

Joining the SouleMama club.  A Friday ritual.  A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week.

Strawberry Season

It is officially strawberry season!  Over the weekend, my mom and I attended a local strawberry festival with the little babe.  Homemade cakes, local ice cream, and local berries - plus live music - for $6.  A pretty good deal.  They also had pony rides, which the little babe was just a bit too young for.  However, she at least seemed interested in watching the ponies, which is a big improvement over the last encounter with a large equine.  Last week we received two pints of strawberries in our CSA share and this week I ordered a whole flat.  Because of the large amount of rain we've been having, the berries were fading fast, so I had to process them right away.  Of course the little babe decided to have an awful night, with a bedtime that lasted 2 1/2 hours, so I didn't get to them until the next day.  A couple had started to mold, so the chickens enjoyed those!

Strawberries on my granola, strawberry and banana smoothies, and just plain strawberries have been consumed.  I will be freezing these whole so that we have them for smoothies later in the year.  Since the season for fresh local berries is so short, I feel like I should be making fantastic desserts with them and then I get overwhelmed by the choices and end up not making anything.  Strawberry shortcake seems so basic, even though I have only ever made it once.  I don't want to make a whole pie, because my husband isn't really a fruit pie kind of guy, so I'll end up eating the whole thing.  It is on the to-do list to try and make my own cream cheese this weekend (for June's Cheese Made By Me post!), so perhaps a mini cheesecake with strawberry topping will be in the works.

Oh, and just for fun...

What is your favorite way to eat strawberries?

The Great Grape Demise

Several weeks ago I shared with you pictures of my grape vines.  I was so thrilled to see that the vines were full of teeny tiny little grape clusters!  I mean, they were just packed!  Because most of our old garden bed is now just an overgrown weed patch, it was exciting to see that nature was producing something on its own without human help.  Well, I got too greedy and spoke too soon - the grapes are gone.  Gone, gone, gone.

I spotted these insect galls in one spot, but that is not what destroyed the grapes.  They are pretty aren't they - like little jewels?

And I happened to see this tiny caterpillar, but he is not the culprit either.

My guess is that the weather has been too wet.  The grapes were getting bigger and looking beautiful and then two days later, they looked like this.  It happened so quickly!  So no grape jelly, jam, or pictures of great grape clusters.  I am hoping that the vines will survive and at least look pretty throughout the season.  I shouldn't be too upset because I didn't even plan on having any grapes in the first place, but it was such a tease!  

Do you have any grapes growing?  If you care to post a photo of them on my Life With The Crew FB page, I'd love to see them!  Don't worry, it won't rub salt in the wound.

Shared on The Self Sufficient HomeAcre for The HomeAcre Hop.

 

Reconnecting With Nature - 6.18.14

I am joining Chrisy at Living A Good North Coast Life for her "Reconnecting With Nature" series.  As we bloggers sit around connected to our computers, it is a great way to force us to step outside and maybe notice something new in the natural world or just appreciate something that we see every day.  Read more about the Reconnect with Nature - one photograph at a time idea here. 

This cool plant is the Pink Lady's Slipper.  It is in the orchid family.  I first learned about it in a natural history class in college.  Several years later, I discovered them in the gamelands near our home.  They only bloom for a short period and are endangered in some areas.  My husband thought that they bloomed in May, I thought it was later in June.  When we went for a hike in the first week of June, the flowers had just passed peak bloom with a few still lingering, so he was right.  (However, I remembered which trail to find them on!)  

Two interesting facts about Pink Lady's Slippers - they require bees for pollination and they are a food source for White-tailed deer.  Another interesting fact - it is really difficult to squat down so that your head is level with a plant only inches about the ground when you have a 20 pound babe attached to the front of your body.   

Shared on Mona's Picturesque for Floral Love.

Thankful Tuesday - 6.17.14

Today I am thankful for...

-the man who is a wonderful father to our little babe and who happens to make darn good homemade bagels too!

-for pretty flowers that keep coming back every year, no green thumb required!

-for little babes who are curious and busy!

-for morning adventures enjoying nature.

-for outings with the whole family.  Well, almost - 4 of the 6 dogs.

What are you thankful for today?

 

 

Pretty Pink Peonies

I always thought that peonies were difficult to grow.  They look so delicate and I thought they needed a lot of care in order to bloom.  However, I have been blessed with the peony that keeps coming back.  I have transplanted it 3 different times over 9 years and it is thriving in its current location, which is a rocky little patch of ground next to the garage.  It has over 10 blossoms on it this year and they are a fantastic magenta color.  The tight buds are wrapped up for what seems like such a long time and then once they open, time speeds up and they only last for a short period, especially if we get a heavy rain.  So I took a lot of photographs to last me through until next year!

I was amazed when I realized that I can actually see an image in the raindrop reflection - that is our fence lined with ferns next to our garage!

What is your favorite flower in bloom right now?

Shared on Mona's Picturesque for Floral Love.

Shared on Shine the Divine for I Heart Macro.

Warm Memories

When I was a child I collected trolls.  If you are unfamiliar with the plastic dolls with the bright hair that are so hideously ugly that they are kind of cute, you can check them out here.  (I had no idea they had such a history!  I thought they were just another toy made in China.)  Other than those, I have never really had a collection of anything.  Well, other than any magazine photo that I could find of Brad Pitt during his glory days of Legends of the Fall, but who can blame a teenage girl for that?

Since warm weather is officially here, I have been washing all of the blankets scattered around the house and I realized that I have quite the blanket collection.  I love blankets made of natural materials, wool is my favorite, and handmade blankets are the best.  Since our house is cold most of the year, I always have one or two blankets out on the sofas, even in summer.  A good blanket  makes me feel warm cozy, inside and out!  Here are some of my favorites.

These are my plaid wool handwoven vintage blankets.  A little too scratchy for cuddling up in, but great for using as accents on the back of a sofa or bench.  The bottom two are antique store finds and the top one may have been my husband's from before we met.

The leaf patterned fleece blanket is the blanket that gets the most use in our home.  It sits on the back of the chair in the room with the TV and it is a staple when we watch movies.  Though that doesn't happen anymore because of the little babe, so it has been getting a bit dusty.  It was a wedding gift made by a woman who is a member of the church that I attended as a child.  The nature motif with the leaves was a perfect choice for two outdoorsy types who were going on a 3 month camping roadtrip.

The orange blanket is a gift that I picked out for myself last year in Maine and I convinced my Mom and Dad to give it to me as my Christmas gift.  It is a Brahms Mount blanket and is just beautiful.  Brahms Mount is a company based in Maine that makes blankets woven on antique shuttle looms.  They make amazing blankets and this is not a blanket for the dogs to lay on!  Orange is not normally a color that I gravitate to, but this design is so fun and happy.

The next set of blankets are all from my daughter's room and I have only acquired them in the past two years since her birth.  You'll notice the colors are quite different from the other blankets - that is because her room is a pretty pink princess room with lots of white painted wood.  The top two baby blankets are also Brahms Mount.  After admiring the top blanket for months during my pregnancy, I finally decided to splurge and buy it right after my daughter was born.  That same week, my husband's young cousin gave us her baby blanket - another Brahms Mount in the same colors, but in a slightly different design!  It was so sweet of her to pass along her baby blanket to the newest member of the family.  I love both of them and they hang on my daughter's crib.

The next blanket is one I bought on our most recent trip to Portland, Maine at Circa Home and Vintage.  I had actually seen the blanket in the store when we were there in October, but exhibited self control.  When I saw it was still there in April and it was on sale, my wonderful husband let me buy it.  I think it is acrylic, but it is handwoven and is super soft.

The last blanket was made by my wonderful "surrogate sister" and was given to me at my baby shower.  It is the same style as the leaf patterned blanket - two pieces of fleece tied together along the edges.  It has kept me warm these past two winters as I sit in the window seat in my little babe's room.  

So tell me, what do you collect?  

 

Playing With The Light

I've been doing some playing with light and shadows lately, just having a bit of fun.

I happened to spot this feather on the fence when I let the chickens out in the morning.  I loved the texture of the wood and the lichens.  I thought the contrast was really interesting.  But the best part is that the beautiful feather, waiting to be admired, was only there because it was stuck on a pile of bird poop.  I was trying to come up with a philosophical lesson for that (appearances are deceiving, etc), but couldn't think of any good ones.

And my shining light - the little babe.

Hope your day is filled with light!

Hump Day Give-A-Way 6.11.14

Hi Everybody, I was a slacker again and didn't line-up a really cool item for today, so you are stuck with me.  Society6, the on-line shop where I sell my photography prints, also makes tote bags with my photographs printed on them.  Pretty cool, right?  The tote bags are polyester (not my fabric of choice) and they are handsewn in the United States.  They are 13" square with a 1" wide cotton webbing strap.  The design is on the front and back of the bag, with a black inside. For today's contest, I am giving away one tote bag of your choice.  You have three designs to choose from, so hopefully one of them will strike your fancy.  I apologize for the positively awful pictures.  My brother tells me that presentation is everything (when it comes to food at least), but our house is so dark and I have no place to hang and display them properly.  They are much nicer than they look in my pictures.  You can see them at my Society6 shop here.

#1 Lilypads (photographed at the local university arboretum)

#2 Bee on Coneflower (photographed in my backyard)

#3 Orchid (photographed at Longwood Gardens)

To enter the contest, please leave a comment below telling me which tote bag you would like to win.  This contest is open to all of my readers, past winners included.  The contest is open from now until Friday, June 13, at 7am.  I really appreciate every one of you for taking the time to read my blog and hanging out in this space with me.  I really enjoy it!  And if you feel like giving any of the items in my Society6 shop a FB "Like" - it would make my day!

CONTEST CLOSED

Reconnecting With Nature - 6.11.14

I am joining Chrisy at Living A Good North Coast Life for her "Reconnecting With Nature" series.  As we bloggers sit around connected to our computers, it is a great way to force us to step outside and maybe notice something new in the natural world or just appreciate something that we see every day.  Read more about the Reconnect with Nature - one photograph at a time idea here. 

Last Friday we had a fantastic visit to the local arboretum.  The sky was beyond beautiful - vibrant blue with puffy pure white clouds.  

I was so glad that I had this time to just be outside, enjoying this place with the little babe, with no worries other than her falling in the fountain.  We were minding our own business, admiring the lotus flowers and looking at the koi, when out of the puffy cloud filled blue sky came a male duck who made a water landing on the pond right in front of us!  He was clearly "home" and was used to going about his business in front of onlookers, because he proceeded to preen and splash about, giving us quite the show!  Both the little babe and I loved it!  

And those lovely lotus flowers we were admiring...

This is the first that we have seen the fountain turned on this year and it was so much fun to watch.  The wind was blowing the mist onto the little babe, who was a bit entranced.  I then noticed that there was a rainbow in the bottom of the pool.

I just couldn't get enough of the sky and how big and vast it looked.

I'm glad that I had this opportunity to reconnect with nature.  Though the duck made it easy by almost connecting with me!

 

Shared on Mona's Picturesque for Floral Love.