There have been lots of them coming through, always in pairs. They hang out in our stream for a day or two and then move on to their next spot north.
It's an old wine barrel! They drilled some holes around the side for aeration.
And put a hinged door in the top where you load everything in. Instead of using a pitchfork to turn the pile, you just roll the barrel around once a week or so.
I thought "How clever!" and "What a wonderful way to recycle!" and "I'll have an old wine barrel outside my kitchen, that's so cool!" and "This is going to make it so easy to compost!"
They are Ranunculus. I've never known about Ranunculus, but they might just be my new favorite flower!
When the bud first opens they look a little like a poppy. When they are fully in bloom they look like a rose, but they last FOREVER! I've had this bunch for a week, and they look as fresh as they day I put them in the vase!
And I don't think I'll be growing peach trees in my yard anytime soon, but they do look pretty in the living room!
And I finally have something to put in that vase I picked up at Home Goods last month!
Another great find in the clearance aisle!
Yay yay yay!!
I found it at an antique store my mom and I ended up at when we drove down to Wrentham to check out a different- hugely overpriced and disappointing- antique store.
The whole set needed a good cleaning and touch-up.
That would be Murphy's Oil Soap, Old English Scratch Cover, and Johnson's Paste Wax (in that order.) Check out what a difference it made on these chairs!
The one on the right has had the full treatment, the one on the left is how I found them (minus the dust...)
I can seat 10 people! Without bringing in another table! Christmas is going to be so much more comfortable this year... (assuming I buy 4 more chairs by then...)
It says "Quality Lincoln Furniture" and has a picture of Lincoln on it, just like a penny. I haven't been able to find any information out about that, but it'll be something interesting to keep an eye out for! That's one of the things I love about antiques, the story!
A sunny spot on the porch (and the hat to protect my white, white nose from said sun), a nice cup of coffee, a magazine, and a borrowed dog (Nellie was with us for the week)... that's how a weekend should be!
(Hunting)
(Napping)
In the garage painting and polyurethaning the stairwell banister.
In the kitchen, testing out more new knobs. (This one was a no.)
On the other side of the kitchen finally getting the iron trivet up on the wall.
Lions, no less! I couldn't convince Hubby to let me put these on the cabinets, but he agreed to just these two on the wall.
The trivet weighs between 15 and 20 lbs, so I had to anchor those screws really well!
Which is a whole other very exciting story!
It's remarkable how difficult it is to get a good picture of that thing!
A screw in the empty pull on the door got the door open in a jiff. I popped on a little crystal knob, and now it's perfect!
It'll take a little sprucing up to make it just right, but I love the shape! And heck, that piece of beveled glass on top alone is worth the price I paid! The lower tier is a perfect place to stash the current round of magazines, too.
In between the rain showers today I (intrepidly) ventured out to do a little exploring and documentation. Despite the piles of remaining snow and the gravel and road salt that had been piled on top of the garden we planted around the mailbox last fall:
we actually had a few different kinds of plants coming up. I broke out the little shrub rake to clear the area out a little and found these:
As well as these:
Neither of which I can remember the name of. I mean, I know they are either crocus, or hyacinth, or tulip, or daffodil, or freesia...I just don't quite recall which we actually planted. It was 5 months ago!
And it was!
Mums!
The other transplant was an ENORMOUS mature plant that had irrationally been planted between two huge cypress trees and behind a giant phlox, which made the plant impossible to see. So I dug it up (my aunt said that fall was the time to move peonies) and moved it forward a few feet so that in the spring I can move the giant phlox back to where the peonies were, thereby allowing ALL the plants to be seen! The bed they were in was still a little frozen so I had to look a little harder, but my effort was rewarded!
And there was one more thing I found in the garden that I had forgotten would be there:
Skittles! He loves gardening, but he's a little camera shy!
- Mehendi: I buy prepared cones from the Indian store, which is easiest, but if you want more control over the quality of the paste (and depth of color) you can buy powder and mix it yourself.
Before you snip the top off the cone, squish the paste around a bit to make sure it's well mixed. You don't want all the liquid running out the tip leaving dry lumps somewhere in the middle! Start with a very very small opening- you can always make it bigger! Try making a few lines and dots on the paper towel to check the opening size. The practice is good, too!
If you're like me, you're slow at the application and the places you did first will start drying before you finish. Some people apply a mixture of lemon and sugar at this point to keep it damp and make it stay on the hand longer. Personally, doing that drives me crazy! I don't think it makes much of a difference in the result, but it makes it IMPOSSIBLE to do anything in the meantime because your hand is so darn sticky!
After a couple of hours I invariably get a little impatient with the bits that are still clinging, which I scrape off with a butter knife. The one thing you DON'T want to do is get your hand wet! For some reason that seems to halt the color development altogether. And let me tell you, when you've spent two hours painstakingly penning the design out on your hand, it's INCREDIBLY frustrating if the color doesn't take!
Depending on the paste you used the color may develop to a dark reddish brown over the next 24 hours. The color will start to fade in three or four days, and is usually completely gone in a couple of weeks. After about one week you can really only see it if you're looking, at which point Hubby insists it looks like a skin disease!
This ENORMOUS white iron trivet is one.
For the moment it is on the kitchen table, but once I find strong enough mounting hardware I would like to put it on the wall above the table (Jack the camel will move to the dining room) in a way that I can still take it down and use it as a trivet.
There's actually a window right in the middle of both of our doors, so I might end up mounting this guy decoratively on the door frame instead. But I figure that's fine since really, who ever uses a door knocker when there's a door bell anyway?
Looks like idly, right? Tasted like them, too!
Hence, the Anti-Idly... ha ha!
