Spring Time Gardening

I can hardly believe that yesterday it was almost 90 degrees and today it's only 60. Not that I'm complaining. It was a bit too hot, too soon. It's going to be a bit cooler this weekend which is a-okay with me because I'm going to be workin' in the garden and painting on the third floor.
I spent about 4 hours this afternoon outside - I feel like a barely made a dent. Everything is blooming beautifully. I have tulips, violets and a few daffodils left. Unfortunately I also have a ton of dandelions and the weeds are "blooming beautifully" too.
But I also spied my cardinal today! He was in the juniper tree piping away and didn't move. Unfortunately my camera kept focusing on the leaves in the way - but there he is! This juniper tree really has to go - but things like this really make it hard. The cardinals hide in there. Sigh.
I forgot I had put daffodil bulbs like this in the garden. They are a bit later than the bright yellow ones. Just as pretty though...
The violets are exploding everywhere! I moved a bunch last year in hopes that I wouldn't have to mow them when I needed to. It worked! I have violet clumps all over the garden in much more manageable places. I moved even more today. Unfortunately I also move some impostors last year. I had to yank them all out today before I could keep going. Those stinkers! The leaves look so similar to real violets and yet they have an absolute nothing flower. Boring. They all had to come out.
I decided to start at the front. I weeded, transplanted and generally cleaned. Raked under the hedge AND - the biggest deal.... I started the brick-replacement program.
See those two darker colored boarder bricks in the image above? They weren't there before. Put those back in. And then in the image below there are a ton of boarder bricks missing as well.
Fixed that up too.
It feels nice to have cleaned all of that up. There is a gutter spout right there as well. That corner of the bed was always flooded and nothing grew there. I'm interested to see if things can grow there now. Next task is to do the other side of the boarder. I just couldn't face it today.
Just a note that my raspberries are also doing very very well. There are little buds all over them!
How did I get on this gardening kick today? Well, Ann gave me a gift certificate to Home Depot. I was only going to buy more primer for upstairs, but then she said, "well, I was going to give you something for flowers" and I thought - maybe I should treat myself to some flowers. So I did buy painting supplies and then I also bought a TON of seeds. I'm super excited to start them and get them planted in the yard. I think I'll probably devote quite a bit of time to gardening this weekend. Okay - I'm off to paint and spackle on the third floor.

Lots to post about

I hope you were all able to celebrate Easter Sunday however you wished and with the warmth and peace a cat must feel lying in a sunbeam. I had a beautiful day. It was the first weekend that West River Drive is closed to traffic on weekend mornings for cyclists and runners and ??? All of the flowering trees were in full bloom. It was absolutely glorious. I'm a bit out of shape - that's to be expected, but it was worth the sore muscles to be out there that morning.
I spent the rest of the day takin' care of business:
Enjoying everything about my house. I have a "host of golden daffodils" (that would be Longfellow for all of you literary people) a line I always think of when I see a bunch of daffodils. I planted 50 bulbs last fall and it was worth it. They are so beautiful. I think if I just keep adding 50 each year? My yard will be exploding. I don't think it's possible to have too many daffodils.
The tulips are just about there as well. I sprayed them all with garlic water. Let's hope that keeps the darn squirrels away this year! In addition to enjoying the garden, I mowed the lawn and did about a dozen loads of laundry. What a luxury to have your laundry dried by the sun. I love it.
While things were drying, I decided it was time to tackle the blue room. Ugh. This is one of the rooms on the third floor, which I hope to rent eventually. So - WHO IN THEIR RIGHT MIND PAINTS A ROOM TWO DIFFERENT COLORS OF DARK AWFUL BLUE!!! Oh it's just hideous. Here's a panorama of a sort of image of the room:
It doesn't look so bad with the sunlight shining in, but when the sun goes down that room is like a dungeon. And then seriously, at least take the blasted tape off! I'm not kidding - I bought the house with this cruddy blue tape still up. It's been there for almost two years.
But I yanked that down and started painting. It looks so much better already! I painted some more today. I think one more layer of primer will do it. Then I can start painting the real color paint on it.
Before I do that though - I have to fix the hole in the ceiling where the old light fixture used to be. Shouldn't be a big deal. I'm a pro now. I also have to Spackle in the bathroom which is painted the same nightmarish shade of blue. That will be the next battle.
Going backwards in time:
Saturday was pretty exciting. The show of OUTLOUD was held at The Print Center. This was a show my friend Katie curated. It was a show of performances based on books by artists committed to the book as their main format. (Don't' you love that?) I think now I'm pleased with the result. It sure was a production, let me tell ya! Thank goodness Mary knew an Electrical and Computer Engineering Masters Candidate at Drexel and I was lucky enough to convince him to help me. I'm going to try to upload the film here, wish me luck.
So you have to imagine a dark gallery, with this projection on the floor in front of a pedestal with the actual book on it. The viewer is invited to look through the book during the performance.
I got some nice feed back and I'm really glad I participated. The other artists were fantastic, and it was a real privilege to be part of that group.
And further back in time - April 1st is the annual edible book party. If I am smart enough - I will be able to load all of the images up on Flickr and post a link here. These projects get better and better every year. Can't wait to show them to you all.
Okay - It's late and I still have to try to load this film.
Good night, sleep tight, don't let the bed-bugs bite!
PS - too tired to figure out how to upload the film. Will post within the week though.....

I used to be a ballerina

I caved today. I met with my new accountant, who is FABULOUS, by the way… and she told me how much I was getting back! Unfortunately I immediately had to spend it on new brakes and state car inspection etc. but there was enough left over to indulge in a little. So, I bought a new pair of point shoes.
You must understand, I used to be a ballerina.
Yep, when I was four I started taking ballet lessons. Serious ones. With Miss McClure. Watch out! Miss McClure took things very seriously. If your turnout wasn't quite what is should be - she would come over, take hold of your leg and in a sudden movement - put it into the position she felt it should be in. Never mind if the rest of you crumpled under the pain - your leg was now where it should be. And woe-be-tide you if she had to make it happen again. You didn't mess with her. If she said, you may not be on point until you are 11 or 12, that was that. And of course that was all we wanted. We wanted to be real ballerinas with point shoes. And eventually of course we were. But it really wasn't all it was cracked up to be. Point shoes are PAINFUL! There is no other way to put it.
And I bought season tickets to the ballet this year. Cheap ones, but still...I get to go. And I love it.
We have a wonderful choreographer in Philadelphia - I love his ballets. Whenever I've seen one, I just want to prance around my house the way I used-ta-could. So I try.
On 11th and Chestnut is a huge dancer supply store with lots of point shoes. I pass it all the time. I'd been in before too close to closing time to make a real decision. But today when I was there around noon - I had plenty of time to spend getting a new pair.
So I did.
The first thing the sales lady asked was what kind of inserts I used. Wool, Gel, or Foam.
What did she mean inserts?! - there was no such thing in my day - NOTHING was put into the shoe - save maybe masking tape as the older girls did. But that was considered scandalous - or even cheating somehow. Those rebels! - But when I was about 17, Miss McClure finally said in her unique way, "well if it hurts so much, cut off the end of a sock and use that as a buffer." Who knew we were allowed too!
At any rate - I looked them all over and chose the gel inserts. And wow. I don't know if I should be thrilled or guilty. I don't know if Miss McClure would approve or not! She might even be rolling in her grave if she new about these things.
I bought the gel things and they really make a difference. The gel just molds to your feet and your feet don't slide around so much in the shoes - no blisters on the toes. And lets face it, those damn shoes still hurt your feet no matter what! I don't know how we did it!? I remember having bloody blisters by the time I was finished with my classes. But you didn't complain. You wanted to be on point - and that was the price you paid. You would get huge calluses eventually, but every September when we re-started, the pain was amazing. I can only image - but if child birth is anything like this... I'll be just fine.
But I digress…I bought the shoes, and tonight I spent the evening prepping. I sewed the ribbons and elastic on. And probably spent no more than 10 minutes with them actually on . Despite the gel-thingies they really hurt. But it was so wonderful to be wearing them! I still have to darn the points - but once that is finished I'll be able to prance around the house any time I wish! Yeah!
While I was trying them on and remembering how to teeter around on them, Jacques sat on the top of a chair and watched me - totally fascinated. Humans must be so weird to his little brain.
And of course - he had to inspect:

And I can still do it. Turn-out not quite what it used to be, balance not quite there yet either - but I can still do. And worth the pain - anytime. :)
(This post isn't finished. Check in again for the complete version. :) - Tara) Sorry about posting an incomplete post - I was so tired my eyelids were drooping and I couldn't for the life of me figure out where the save as a draft button was. That's pretty bad, huh? (it's right next the the publish post button) At any rate - I hope this post makes more sense. :)

More Working in the Garden

You can never have too many daffodils. They are all starting to bloom now. I think I put about 50 of them in the ground last fall. So far only a few of them have bloomed, but there are a lot of buds.
Tulips are coming up as well, they are slightly behind the daffodils, but that means that I have to start spraying them with the garlic water so that the squirrels don't eat them. Nasty little creeps.
The Southern Graphics Council meeting happened this past weekend and Melanie and I presented a demo on the Japanese stab binding. It went really well! We got lots of compliments, and I'm really pleased by the process.
After I got home on Saturday afternoon - I worked in the garden. I can't believe it but I actually had to mow the lawn already!
My goals for the outside are:
1. Keep the weeds and undesirable growth to a minimum. This will mean spending a lot of time out there managing it. It also means being vigilant about mowing the lawn so that dandelions don't take over. Grrr - those things are hard to get out of the ground.
2. Build a better fence in the way back and on the side. Right now they are just chain link fences and they are ugly and worse, I can look through them at everyone else's garbage, and they can see through as well, to spy on me. (But I'm not paranoid or anything.)
3. Start dealing with my porch. The snow storms we had in February finally did a number on the back end of the porch - it's super dangerous now. I don't think it will be that difficult to fix, I just need to plan ahead and use an electric saw. I'm not cutting all of the those boards by hand. I think I'm going to have to do things in stages.
I spent a lot of time yesterday cleaning up more "laub" - what is that word in English? Um, brush? debris? fallen-down-plant-stuff? There are also still a ton of branches lying around needing to be cleaned up as well as roots needing to be yanked out and on and on. Of course none of this counts all the trash hiding underneath everything. Yuck.
Along with lots of candy wrappers, cigarette holders, and unidentifiable stuff I also found the following treasures:
They are (top row l-r): broken shovel, fabulous twisted vine, broken rake.
(bottom row l-r): rear view mirror to ? moped? knife, a hoke-thingy that was used to put shutters up on my house back when my house had shutters on the outside, another strange metal thing I couldn't identify, a green marble, a peach pit that had rooted (I stuck it in a pot - I'd like a peach tree), half of a coconut shell, some other weird metal thing and chain. There is actually lots of chain all over the place. Unfortunately it's grown through plants and things and I can't get rid of it. All of these things really make me wonder about the story behind the object. How did this thing get here - was it a careless human? What were they doing/thinking? What on earth were they chaining up? I also found a ton of glass. It makes me wonder if people used to throw bottles and watch them shatter. It makes it dangerous for me ( did wear two pairs of gloves) because I'd like to dig up some soil, but it's full of glass. The soil by the way, is fantastic. I must have brought up about two dozen earthworms. Big fat ones.
Oh, since this is a blog about my house, I also replaced the bulbs on three of the porch lights. Oh! and! the insurance guy came last week and I'm gettin' some money to help fix the massive leak. Yay!

DISCOVERY!!!

Yeehaw! Ah gots a forsythia bush in mah yard!!! Hot diggity!!!
Lookit:
I discovered this fact after wanting to go over and hack away at this bush to get it out of my yard. I tried last fall when I started clearing things away. But I gave up. I thought I'd have another go at yankin' things up from this portion of the yard, only to look up and see the yellow buds! Oooeee, this is so exciting! These bushes grow like crazy around here and they are spectacular! What a nice little surprise this morning.
Unfortunately, the rest of the yard looks like this at the moment.
Would you believe - that's progress? (the forsythia bush is on the left between the ugly blue tarp and the dark green drum).

Happy Spring!

Happy Spring Everyone! The crocuses are blooming! The daffodils have spears and the tulips are growing.


Even the raspberry bush is growing leaves. So far we've had a beautiful weekend in Philadelphia - thus the long wait between posting. I just wanted to be outside! I'm still cleaning up debris from the back yard - maybe a bit more today. I'm also prepping for the workshop I'm doing with Melanie this weekend for Southern Graphics Council and I'm working on a book performance. Mary put me in touch with a technical friend of hers (thank you Mary!!!) who is going to save my butt for this project. We spent the afternoon in the Wissahickon Creek washing paper. :) Once the performance happens I'll post it here, so that you can see what I'm talking about.
Hope you are all having a lovely day as well!

It's spring! It's spring! It's spring!

Ooh! Stuff is blooming in my yard! Things are budding. I took lots of pictures - will post soon!

Later that same day...

I had to go out and run errands, pick up my crop share, go to Chinatown, and stop at school to meet with a student and pick up stuff from my office. All in the pouring rain. I left the leaks with buckets, and when I came back, not only were the buckets almost full, but the leaking was more extensive. What to do??? I got a ladder and poked holes in the ceiling to see if there was a low point and to get the water to come out in one place. Then, out of desperation I called the phone number on the invoice from Wally figuring I'd get an answering machine so I could leave a sob story and hope to hear from him on Monday. It wouldn't solve the problem, but at least I would feel like I had done something to get going in the right direction. To my surprise, his wife answered the phone. She took a message and to even more of my surprise, half an hour later, Wally rang my door bell!
He looked at everything. Even poked a hole in wall. I didn't look but he said there is water just running down the back of the wall. Great. The water is coming into the wall below the third floor window. Obviously the water has been coming in there for a while. That's probably why the stones over the 2nd floor window were falling out. We took a shower curtain and blocked that space off.
Hopefully it will slow the drips down. I really hope so, because I'm running out of big buckets.
Things to do on Monday:
1. Call Jeff and cry him a river. See if I can persuade him to come sooner than May.
2. Call insurance company. See if this is covered by home owner's insurance.

As the pendulum swings...

It's pouring rain in Philadelphia today. sigh.
I woke up to find massive leaking over the window that Wally fixed in January. Thought to myself, must call him on Monday.
Came downstairs to the first floor, heard very suspicious dripping sounds. Yep, the leak is running down through my walls and leaking through to the studio. Ruined some of my rubbings from Korea. Now what?
I guess I can spend all that money I'm saving on my gas bill to fix this new problem.
AND - who do I call for this on a Saturday???

For the doubters....

As I was doing my bills today, I realized I was paying quite a bit less on my gas bill than I have been all last year. If you recall, my gas bill last February was in the neighborhood of $780. Thank goodness there is the option to average the gas bill out over the year, it sure makes it easier on the bank account. But since I noticed that my bill was about half the amount as usual, and not wanting to be caught off guard, I called PGW. It turns out that I'm using half the amount as last year. !!! My monthly bill was $300 and change. What is the lesson here? - Insulation works! It's the only thing I did differently. I've even kept the temperature the same, and kept the windows covered with plastic. I just plugged all the drafty holes in the basement. Hmmm, :), feels good to do something right.

The Garden Bites Back

The weather was so beautiful on Saturday I spent the afternoon attacking the garden. Too bad it attacked back. I pulled down a bunch of vines. I knew which ones I wanted to yank down and got quite a few of them. It felt pretty good until I tried to start cleaning up. Some of those vines have thorns. Nasty ones. I tried to bag up as much as I could. But those darn thorns kept scratching me. My wrists and ankles got all chewed up. And worst of all, it turns out I had a blister on the bottom of my foot. I didn't know about it - wouldn't have made much difference if I had - but it broke.
After deciding my foot was in enough pain and I should probably wash my hands, I assessed the damage. The worst on my hands were the three punctures to my left index finger.
Not only that but it began to swell up somethin' fierce. I tried to see if I could pull a thorn or something out - nothing doin'. My finger was completely puffed up yesterday. I put calendula on it over night and it was a bit better by morning. But what finally did the trick was washing the dishes. I can't believe it.
When I was younger - maybe 8 or 9, I had a some sort of a cut on my finger. It was probably just a paper cut, but I was moaning about it after dinner and my dad said, "Wash the dishes, that'll clear it up." And he was serious. My mom, sister and I scoffed at this - dirty water can't be good for a cut! Somehow, his mother was quoted because she was a nurse, and we of course didn't buy it - and on and on and on. I remember it being a little bit of an issue, and I've remembered this for what, 20 years? Well, Daddy, I owe you an apology. I washed the dishes this morning and promptly the swelling in my finger started to go down. It is almost back to normal now. Go figure.
Now my foot is an entirely different matter. It is a completely unprotected blister, open, located in a spot on my foot that gets too much movement to keep a band aid on it. Grrr. Talk about painful. Whew! At least it's nice enough weather to be able to ride my bike to work tomorrow. That will save my foot a little.

More Than Persephone Got

Ta-dah! Finally - the first batch of ten of the book for my dad is finished! And I'm rather pleased with how it turned out. I decided that the book I found at UPenn on Wednesday was the perfect binding. I stayed up until midnight making paste papers, and made a mock up.


It's very satisfying to look at the finished pile.

Of course, non of this would have been possible without the help of the inspector:

Lookit!

So I met my friend Mary tonight for a "beer". On our way home, we went through the UPenn Bookstore. I found the green journal. When I got home, I decided I needed to make it - and I think it's okay.
Actually I think it's pretty cool, I'm going to do a mock up tomorrow morning to see if this is the enclosure for my dad's book!

Quick post

Hello. Just a quick post to update you.
The snow is finally receding and we are finding interesting things beneath it all. For example this book. Which I must have taken umpteen images of. People thought I was a little weird. By the way - all of the snow you see here is completely gone. Took this last Saturday, and actually hung my sheets out in the sun yesterday.
However, we are supposed to get another inch this afternoon. So far nothing.

I took the week off so that I could get some art related stuff finished. It's been really great. I re-printed the book for my dad. Spent most of yesterday setting up gigs and backing fabric. I'm going to make some paste papers now and then get back to editioning. It's a good feeling, and I'm listening to Harry Potter - so it's all good.
That's the first 11 books there on top of the pile (no covers yet) I'm going to squeak by on my edition, I think I will just get 70. (70 because my dad turned 70 - get it? :)) It was your basic printing nightmare. Whatever could go wrong, went wrong. But it's done, moving on....

I'm also managing to move along on the silver sweater which is a source of a little jealousy from guess who. Here he is, ahem, guarding it. He's been incredibly funny and cute lately.
Yesterday while I was on the phone I looked up to find him sitting on top of the fridge on my shopping bags. Totally blasé. This actually kind of explains a lot. I keep hearing heavy thuds of him jumping when I'm downstairs. I think he sits up there so he has a better vantage point to watch the mice coming out of the stove.

I also bought some beautiful beaded silk which was 40% off. I wound it the other day, isn't it beautiful?
But that will have to wait for now.

Okidoki, that's enough.