Pumpkinfest

Well, these are not exactly pumpkins..but they are the contents of the box of gourds that I received via my UPS guy, Dave, from Welburn Gourd Farm. Aren't they great? All cleaned up and ready to paint. And the service was unreal with turn around time being only about 3 days from sunny CA to snowy WY. More about these gourds in a later post. About the pumpkinfest--a friend here asked me on a whim if I would like to go to Longmont, CO to an antique show, farmer's market and spend the night there. Antiques and food? Wow, don't ask me twice!!! We drove over the snowy range on Saturday a.m. but before that we stopped at a yard sale in the countryside here and scored some major stuff! Just the perfect way to start a gal weekend. And.....we saw a large bull moose just off the highway as we meandored through the foggy morning. We may very well have made our last trip over the snowies for the season as it closes with the onset of snowfall. It was misty, and we did have a blanket of snow along the side of the roadway among the pine and aspen trees. The event was held at the Boulder County Fairgrounds and what a wonderful display of antiques, crafts, junk and food. I even met some people from Pierce, CO which is where I grew up. A school teacher who began teaching there after I left, but knew my mother who worked in the cafeteria there. We took a break for lunch and for a five dollar bill we were served a bean soup, roll, drink and pumpkin pie with whipped cream. Yummy! We had so much fun and spent a little money on stuff...even stayed until they closed. We checked into a motel..got the last room and were stuck between a group of young people who were loud, and cooking their dinner outside on a small grill. No need for concern...they invited us to have a drink with them and to have a braut with them and promised not to make too much noise. We were tempted as it smelled to wonderful and they were having so much fun. Shopped some that night after dinner and hit more antique shops in the a.m. Did encounter a little moisture but no snow.

Kitty, kitty, kitty. Just can't resist taking a picture of Hojo whenever I see him like this. Look at his feet. He has the BIGGEST feet.
OK--this is my millet just before we harvested it last week. Look how tall it is. There is my shoe with the hens and chicks just below it in the earth.

I am headed for Washington this next week to spend a few days with Erica and am really anxious to see her. Will take some pictures and hopefully have some great experiences.

Garden

These candles are painted with acrylics and the pattern is by Charlene Barlow in the Special 2007 Holiday Issue of Create and Decorate magazine. My friends and I will be painting these next and we love the primitive-style pattern which will make nice gifts to give to friends. Below is my garden pest. His name is HOJO and that is short for Howard Johnson's I guess. Our grand child, Lexi, called him that when he was a kitten and it has just stuck. Notice that he is perched on my crowded art table under the warmth of the light and when he is not patrolling the garden for bugs and birds he pushes his way into my space. He is not very ambitious so the birds have nothing to fear, but it makes him feel like a hunter if he can stalk and pretend to hunt.

I have been trying to prepare my garden for winter. My garden guru "Bonnie" brought a wonderful new green coneflower and about 25 tulip bulbs. Soooo....they had to get planted before the really heavy stuff starts to fall. Working away in my favorite place and happily digging holes for the bulbs, I hit a buried black plastic tubing which is like those used in sprinkler systems. The Mr. happened to be out there and I brought it to his attention. When this home was built, it appears that an elaborate sprinkler system had been installed. I didn't discover it until I was digging for my pond last year and the rototiller chopped right through one of those black tubes. The previous year, in an attempt to terrace for a garden, I had already hauled in loads and loads of dirt and this buried the sprinkler system even deeper than mother nature had already done in the many years of neglect. We couldn't revive the system so just chucked it up to experience and disconnected everything out back. My Mr. told me to cut the black tube so that I could plant that precious bulb, but when I couldn't, he tried. He poked a small hole with a pocket knife and "ol' faithful" erupted. Water in a line no longer used and not for years? He took the pick and plunged it into the tube to relieve the pressure and more water appeared instantly. We now had a small puddle. While standing there scratching our heads, it occurred to us that our pond had quit pumping. We had punctured the water source to our pond and there is no end to the stupid things we do. A trip to the local hardware store and a few hours later, I was back to planting bulbs. I can hardly wait for spring now to see the beauty that arises from these little bulbs.

Teach us delight in SIMPLE things. - Rudyard Kipling

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow

Wow! This is what we woke up to a few days ago! Although it wasn't cold, it felt like winter and even though the picture is a little bit shaded, I was afraid that I would miss it if I waited for the sun. The lighthouse is nearly obliterated by the "white on white". We drove to Laramie and then on to Cheyenne today for groceries and a much needed trip to the big box craft store. Yeah!!! The trip is a little over 2 hours one way, but the ride over the Snowies was magnificent and me with no camera. Go figure!! The contrast of the aspen and their brilliant colors against the dark of the pine forest and the sprinkling of white snow is something you have to see to believe. Maybe I will venture with camera in a few days and still get something to post. My garden club met this week and the topic of discussion was "How do you winterize your garden?" Realizing that most of these ladies have lived for about 70 years, the majority have such a sense of humor when it comes to gardening in high altitudes. The general response for the younger crowd was to mulch, deadhead, clean up leaves, etc. The seasoned gardeners however, just leave everything the way it is and see what comes up in the spring. My kind of winter preparation!!!

My painting group met on Monday and we finished the Halloween pots and will start on the pumpkin jar next. Note that we get creative here in the isolated part of the U.S. of A. We meet and paint in a bar...well, not in the bar but in one of the rooms adjacent to the bar. When we arrived, we were met with an aerobic group who is now meeting just before we paint....yes in the same bar and they hung MIRRORS on one wall! Yuk! Old ladies in their grubbies staring back at old ladies in their grubbies. Debby what were you thinking!? I don't even know if I remember when I went faithfully to an aerobics class in my cute little skin-tight outfit...and ladies we all did.

Mirrors don't lie! Soooo...all kidding aside and I am just kidding, Debby more power to you for getting creative. I don't like rules and I always tell people that I think rules stifle creativity. So I think it is great that Debby has given us all, old ladies in grubbies and perky little gals in the aerobics class, a place to express ourselves. A bar, an exercise room, a painting studio, a banquet room-- the possibilities are limitless if you are not afraid to color outside the lines.