June's Tune

Whether the day be sunny or gray, all grows green and lush.

The Christmas Coop Scoop

Count your chickens before they melt!

The lumber delivery...

Dogs inspect the wood...

It will do...

The deck gets assembled next door at our son Andy's place where he has a fully equipped tool trailor...

Transporting the deck to our yard...

Cory lays the deck while Cairn enjoys the winter sun...

Alec put in a bunch of solo building hours over New Year's...

It was Alec's idea to mount this old rooster on the chicken coop - it was part of the weather vane on the old barn - it survived that big fire!

The ghost of Christmas future...

Our son Andy donated some roofing shingles from his business...

Kaitlyn cutting the shingles...

She's one cute chick!

The Independent Man...

Last week our son-in-law Cory spearheaded the building of a chicken coop for Miller Mountain as a Christmas gift for my husband, Garry, (Garry had a coop started in our old barn that burned down in 2002...) and rallied the help of his wife, our daughter Kaitlyn, and our son Alec, who was home from California for the holidays. (I was the official documenter of the project... :^) We will be getting a dozen laying hens in March, and Garry plans to purchase some guineafowl, as well, and eventually some meat birds.

What a fabulous gift! We're all looking forward to an eggcellent New Year!!

In The Good Old Summertime

A new sun hat from Freckles California - love it!

We are having epic summer weather here in Maine this year. The gardens are booming, and all I've been doing is picking veggies and berries and canning. It's been blissfully beautiful, day, after day, after day, after day...

Some of you folks out there might be used to this sort of thing, but for us Mainers, it's like living a dream! I'm heading back to Little Cranberry Island tomorrow for a long weekend. The forecast is for more of the same. And I may actually get a little artmaking done out there while I'm away from my garden...

Have a fantastic weekend!

Glad Color

It's been awhile since I posted about early influences, the last times being here, here, and here.

But I had this early influence aha! moment in the garden yesterday...

I found some gladiola bulbs on sale in the spring, and the package color showed fuschia and lime green flowers. Ooooh, yes. I bought them, thankyou, and popped them into the ground on the edge of the vegetable garden.

But what has erupted are these bodacious YELLOW and PURPLE blooms. I was a bit disappointed at first, but then that purple looked so appealing, so friendly, so familiar, like the concord grape jelly that I used to help my grandmother make...(I can still see that particular shade of purple oozing through the bulbous bag of white cheesecloth hanging over her kitchen sink...)

Or like...

Like....

(Like what? What did that purple remind me of?? Then it came to me! Yes! Of course!!!)

Color Kitten Purple!

And I do believe that complimentary yellow glad is Color Kitten Yellow...

Ahhhhh, The Color Kittens!!! Yes, indeedy, one of my most beloved early influences.

What are some of yours?

Black Magic