They were eating apples and the tender leaves off the trees in the orchard in the afternoon, trying to escape the heat. As they took their time, I was able to fit the 300 mm lens on to get a close up. I shot until the camera was full, as I don't often get them to hold still long enough to get a clear view. I think it paid off...
My flowers were absolutely lovely early in the week. The blossoms all bloomed out and I got photos of most of them. However, since we had unusually hot weather, by the end of the week, they had been burned. (Heat stroke for flowers too, I guess.)
The bees have continued to work faithfully, both good and naughtily.
Bumblebees are pollinating my blackberries and the yellow jackets are eating the cedar on our patio railing. I set out to capture a bee in flight, but it was so hard! Because they just lift off and are gone in a blur, I had a heck of a time. I must have taken 50 shots to get just one I liked! If I was still working with a film camera, I could never have justified the cost!
Dh grilled ribs out on the patio, though he thought it would probably work just to lay them directly on the concrete this week. I thought it must be a subliminal message of hope for cooler weather that the munchkins set the table with the snowmen tableware. It looked rather funny to me to see watermelon and ribs with the blue rimmed plates.
Here's a little exercise for you. I took a photo of this in order to use it for the play of light across the surface. I thought it would work in quite a few applications. Just what do you think it is?
I think I need a cupcake from Sprinkles right now. It needs to be the Dark Chocolate, the Lemon, Key Lime, or Raspberry. Are you coming over to bake with me?
This summer I've actually been working on the list of projects left in limbo on this blog. You may recall the fluffy white Frankendeer. She now has a head, all the pattern pieces have been created for her body and I finished up the colors for a leg today. I guess you'll be seeing her in stages. She's currently nameless.
Today the littlest munchkin wondered whether green eggshells tipped you off to trouble brewing inside the egg. I assured him that Araucana eggs were just pretty on the outside, normal on the inside. He made me think about the chick photos I took last year at this time.
We also chatted about making paper. I've made it before with 100% rag cotton and conversely with recycled scraps. A few of my girlfriends had talked about wanting to learn how to make paper and I ran across this post in Mushroommeadow's blog. Her hand made paper die cut tags are just adorable!
My trip to Goodwill (second hand store) was especially fruitful this week. Though you can see that I don't really do any light summer reading. (Nary a fiction romance among them, unless it happens to be Jane Austin.) I managed to clean out a good portion of the used books. (Not from my house, mind you, from the store.) We need new bookshelves. Again.
I decided to post all the party pics so you wouldn't suspect just how often we actually party around here. We started out our party season with robots and ended with treasure hunts. I took the robot party theme from one of my favorite mother/child magazines, Cookie. I rarely follow pre-planned parties to the "T", but they really thought this one out, and I give them kudos for it. The only crazy thing I tried was to follow the directions for painting metallic
silver dust on the robot with a paintbrush. NOT! (Especially at two in the morning, it was incredible...and not in a good way.) Sprinkle it on with a mini sieve. Believe me.
We progressed through their listed activities, a robot music version of musical chairs using laminated robot pictures, building two different types of robots and veggie robot heads for a snack.
Naturally, all of this activity makes the adults very hungry, so we had plenty of foods for acquired tastes on hand as well.
Our next round of parties followed a search theme. We had both a detective party and a treasure hunt and I wrote all of the clues on them. (I know, I'm a little nuts that way.) They both went off very well too. Some of the fun parts of writing the clues was that I used puzzles and mirrored writing to make it last a little longer. They didn't seem to mind, and actually enjoyed the camaraderie necessary to solve them. (We required that each child in the group have a turn to read a clue in order for the treasure to be uncovered.)
At the end of the hunt there was treasure, one of them booby trapped with water balloons. They loved it as it was an unexpected challenge and a hot day. The food for these parties were fish-n-chips for the "treasure hunters" and movie snacks for the detectives. (The treasure hunters made their own boats as a craft and then filled them with fries and halibut fishsticks.)
I'll post more tomorrow, but we're off tonight for our fifteenth wedding anniversary! We're eating at Caprial's.
I scoured the internet to find a recipe for you! Here is the cake we had at Caprial and John's kitchen. It's to die for!
The house will soon be quiet. The munchkins and dh are off camping, and I'm going to art camp right here. Three
days of just creating. I warned them not to expect a clean house when they came home. (I could easily spend all weekend cleaning, scrubbing, organizing.) But sometimes you have to put your foot down, and just work on your passion. My girlfriend Patty wrote about doing this same thing just a few weekends ago for her book. (I may call her if I need to escape tomorrow night.)
The weather is heating up around here and I'm having to water the flowers. I had a beautiful grass in the front planter, but it didn't survive the winter. (Hmm, maybe it needed to be brought indoors.) However, the succulents
have taken over and started throwing vines over the edge like I hoped they would.
Frankly, most of my interest in plants comes from my desire to cook or eat without cooking. My cousin understands this and sent me a terribly tempting site called Eat-It. I'd like one of everything that grows in zone 8, please.
We visited some friends for the fourth. They like to put on a big show, and I played with the camera to catch a few shots for you. All of the munchkins are finally old enough to light the fuses with punks. They were thrilled, we were watchful. A friend sent me a site that highlights artists every day called artist a day. I've been enjoying it lately and thought you might as well.
The house across the street has been abandoned and the cherry trees that line the street seem lonely. Littlest Munchkin and I picked them this week. (Munchkin held the bowl while I bent the saplings down to pluck the fruit.) We found that there are two kinds of pie cherries growing there. We shared the pie with a neighbor, and felt a little better about lonely house.
I'm SO excited! School is out for the summer and I already have one project whipped up! I visited a new shop close by and they had ruffles on their window curtains. A lot of ruffles. It inspired me to come home and make a ruffled pillowcase for my niece.
Of course, I had to add a ribbon pocket and a mini picture. Usually I clip the mini's on with a miniature metal clip. I thought it would be nicer to just tie this mini bunny on, as she might end up being laid on.
The littlest munchkin has a penchant for frozen blueberries. We stored all of ours away in the deep freeze in the
cellar, so I never noticed that they were being snitched. That is, until I went to get some ice cream and found it completely melted down the inside of the door. Aargh! Last weekend I got to cook up all of the thawed meat and fish. This week it was all of the berries.
I've seen two baby deer this week. We think that Apple, Plum's baby, had a fawn this spring. The munchkins have taken to calling him/her Cherry. The second baby was one I saw today, on the way to pick up the older munchkins from Challenge Camp. (They did a ropes course camp.) The deer were walking down the road in front of us. It startled me, and I really should have climbed out of the car to focus properly, but I just took shots out the window. Next time I'll think more clearly!
