Teaser or Warning

We had a glorious day on Wednesday, Tuesday wasn't bad either, but Wednesday was heavenly. 85°F in the shade. aaaaaahhhhhhhh. So nice to warm up the bones. I skipped yoga to sit under the pine tree which sweated sap all over me. Jacques thought this was a good plan as well. Thursday,  the temperature went backwards in that baffling east coast way. The morning was 68°F and we ended the day at 58°F with cold wind and finally rain. Today it's pouring. Yoga tonight - definitely.

But Wednesday....

 

The forsythia has been under threat of removal for several years now. This year it has given a few more flowers, but nothing worthy of keeping. In one last ditch effort to figure out how to make this thing the bright shock of yellow I want it to be, I did some more research. Turns out my first research was in correct. The forsythia has had a reprieve. I've made a note and will do the new recommendations next year.

 The one at the front of the garden did a little better. Hopefully with the new recommendations it will do even better next year. (Note to self, time to move that pile of bricks.)

Raspberries are starting again. I hope I get a better crop than last year, which was understandably a wash, due to the porch reconstruction.  


Other edibles are coming back as well. The ramps I brought back from Massachusetts last year have made a reappearance. These are wild garlic/onion plants. But as this clump is so little I think I will leave it alone again for another year. Maybe this year it will spread out and I can harvest some next year.



Melanie gave me two of her grandmother's heirloom garlic heads.  I planted them last fall and they have appeared beautifully.  The mustard greens I planted last year went to seed and I've been digging out the little plants all over the yard and putting them back into good soil. The big one is doing really well, the two little ones are struggling along. 

Then there are the others interesting things happening in the garden. Some are welcome, like this tiny moss:

Others are not! Like this nasty dandelion. It was removed seconds after this photo was taken. 

 

There is also sad news. My bees did not make it after all. In the middle of March they were buzzing around in a bit of sunshine which I dutifully reported to the BeeMan. Two weeks later there was nothing. I was about to report this when he stopped by personally, just to be sure and discovered that they had most likely starved to death. Not because there wasn't enough food in the hive. On the contrary, there was plenty of honey still in the combs! It just wasn't where they expected it to be, and since they aren't programed with strong intelligence - none of the 10,000 of them thought to look in the back of the hive where all of the honey was.  

I took the opportunity to take some photos of perfectly still bees, but it was still sad.
The crazy artist in me decided to collect a jar-full just in case I might need bees in the future for...goodness knows what.  He also scraped of some of the old combs which had been started in places they weren't supposed to be. They look like different kinds of bugs to me.

Later that same day, the BeeMan returned with a new hive of 12,000.   and a queen

 

He explained that the queen is always from a different hive. She lives in this little box for a week with a few of her attendants. The new hive feeds her through the screen while at the same time trying to kill her. !

After about a week the hive accepts the new queen, the BeeMan can release her, she can start laying eggs, and then there will be many many more bees. This will be an interesting experiment this year. We will find out if my honey was so good because of the bees, or because of what was available for them to make food. We will also need to monitor what will happen now that they will have so much more sun. Should be an interesting year.
Cleaning out the hive:

 Putting the new hive in front of the box so they can find their way inside:

And my handsome guy? 

 

Jacques is doing better. He is still itchy and cranky, and most concerning has lost a lot of weight, but at least he is not scratching himself raw anymore. He loves being out in the sun with me. His black fur warms up so nicely. He alternates between bright sun, and then a bit of shade. I hope we are really on the mend.

Update from the Homefront

sigh.
That's all I can say pretty much.
Jacques is still itchy like crazy.

 We've had three sulfur baths now. They are awful. He stinks, I stink, everything he sits on stinks, and he's miserable. He is so good about it though. To a certain degree he just tolerates it. Don't think he's meek and mild! He definitely wants the bath to end asap, but he does sit there and tolerate it. Poor guy. The vet gave me a different shampoo yesterday though, something not so stinky, and hopefully something that won't dry his skin out so much. That is on the agenda for today. I'd just like to know how in the heck he got this! It is really awful. So far, Swee'pea and I both seem fine. Let's hope it stays that way.

Swee'pea doesn't really understand what's going on. He knows Jacques gets more treats than he does - pill pockets - thank goodness for those! - but he is still just sweet and follows me everywhere.
Sitting on feather blankets that sink so nicely when one is sitting on them is really the best...

 Andrew came and tried to tighten things up a bit. It's been cold for so long the squirrels are still trying to live in the house and insulation. Unfortunately I still heard one get in last night. So I must have missed a spot... I'll have to keep an eye when I'm outside to see if I can see where they are getting in.

And yes, it is still cold. 32°F out there. In two weeks West River Drive is closed again to traffic for the season and we can ride bikes on there! Yay!

And thank goodness, my class is still going well. I have 8 wonderful, enthusiastic, engaged students, who are working their behinds off and seem excited about what they are learning.  Those six hours a week are the best six hours. I hope I get to teach this class again. It was been a whirlwind, but also really fun. 

Cat Shaming

Not sure if Swee'pea is seeking negative attention since Jacques is getting most of mine right now. 

Here's how the morning started:

I left the ball of pink on the table... came home to find the same thing again.

Facelift

No, you are not seeing things... my blog has had a facelift. 

It was time, especially since I couldn't make the images as big as I wanted. Sorry if I'm rocking your world. Hopefully we will all get used to the new look. :)

Indignities

How much indignity can one little guy suffer?
We had to go to the vet this morning. Whatever is irritating Jacques' skin is making him scratch and itch all over. There were fresh, raw, wounds yesterday morning. So we had an appointment to see our favorite vet, who was baffled. It could be ringworm... it could be fungus... he just wasn't sure. So he prescribed an antibiotic, an antihistimine, and 6 weeks of sulpher bath. Two pills and a bath. For a cat. Terrific.
and yes, a sulpher bath.
Is that as bad as it sounds?
yes.
It stinks, it's bright yellow, stings like hell when it gets in your eye and then of course there is a cat who is wet who does not want to be wet who is struggling like mad to get out of that tub. 

He tried valiantly to escape as evidenced by all of the yellow stain all over the bathroom. He tried every corner of the tub. But I managed to hang onto him and get the stuff all over his fur.   

And what does my little guy think of this mess?

THBthbthbthbbbbbbbbbbbbt!
I sure hope it works. I'm not looking forward to the next bath.

I'm tired of being cold.

Yes really. I'm very tired of it. It's even to the point where I'm not dressing warmly enough. I think this is because when they say "high today will be 50°F" I think, whoohoo! skirt! and then there is the wind chill... 

And the thing is - all around it me it seems like it should be spring. My amaryllis are blooming. And they are gorgeous....

 

For some reason, amaryllis always remind me of the flowers Ozma of Oz wears in her hair

 even though I think she actually wears poppys. 

There are crocuses in the garden...

 

and orchids in the bathroom

  

couldn't resist the artsy-fartsy image

 

And because it was so darn cold over the weekend I didn't make it out for bike rides. I just couldn't do it. I did manage to hang the laundry up outside. There was a nice wind blowing, so everything dried quickly, but it was C-O-L-D cold. I guess the positive of that is that I hunkered down in the studio. I finally finished boxes for Katie - just in the nick of time... I've been asked to make more boxes for other artists.  

I also spent some time with my newly organized type. I need to get some sort of a title on my Persephone book. It's funny - when I saw this book structure I got it immediately.  But since then I've handed that book to other people and they don't get it. If I can at least help establish which way is UP! That would be very helpful, I think.

 

So I pulled out the drawer labeled 12 pt. Centaur (which is a beautiful serif font!) 

And set the title. 

 

Ahem - only to discover it is not very clean type...

And, with my newly available, or accessible type, I decided to try out my foil stamper.  

 

Jacques was no help this time. I forgot how heavy this thing is. This is as far as I got. I had hoped to get it up to the corner of the studio table. Nothin' doin'! I almost dropped the darn thing while realizing my back was not going to make it if I tried to lift it up there. So for the time being - there it sits, in the middle of everything.

  

Turns out the table is not level to the type... so only one side printed well.  

I had to find the socket wrench and level and go to town on the thing. But I think I got it. The bigger problem is - I think 12pt. is too small, and I think I only have Centaur as All Caps at 14pt. I may just have to have a magnesium cut made. 

Too bad I printed it upside down on the book.

 Thank goodness this was just a mock up.

Organized basement - somewhat...

Melanie came last weekend to help make sense of the mess in the basement:

 

One final look at the chaos.

We made a huge improvement in the situation down there: 

 

 

Look at that! Cabinets put together, 75 drawers of type in slots and a better handle on all of the rest that needs to be organized! There is a lot of spacing and loose type that needs to be sorted, not to mention drawers that need to be sorted. It's going to be a big job. But maybe I can get myself to tackle it slowly and deliberately.... maybe I can really get things organized in a year?  

Thank goodness for friends with brains because we sure needed them. That wooden cabinet back there was a bit of a puzzle, not to mention rickety. But Melanie suggested we use brackets and now that things isn't wiggling an millimeter.

 

There were also some unfortunate set backs. Somehow the floor of the basement got soaking wet. I don't think that much water comes up from the ground because there isn't evidence of that anywhere else. The bottom few drawers of each of those stacks got absolutely soaked. And of course that means a nice mold outbreak. One of the drawers I already tossed, type and all. It was just too disgusting, not to mention a health hazard. 

 

However, one of those moldy drawers had to be cleaned because it was unique. It was an entire drawer of spacing. A very expensive replacement. Melanie and I spent an afternoon washing all the spacing in a water/bleach solution and then after she left I sprayed the drawer with bleach and blasted it with a water gun. I think I need to go over it one more time and then put it in the sun on a sunny day. (UV rays kill mold.)  

The spacing sat on the porch for a few days, until the thread of a storm made me haul it inside. 

 

And the drawer looks pretty good in photos, but trust me there is still plenty of gunk on it. I'm thinking a good stiff brush, bleach and the power washer will help a lot. Today is a grey day though... this will have to wait. 

 

And the cats had a blast last weekend. So much fun when the humans are in that wonderful smelling basement. There is just so much to explore there. Unfortunately, mommy was behind on the flee medication and they somehow got an infestation. Jacques has licked giant patches of fur off and is generally going bonkers with his skin crawling.

 He finally found peace (sort of) on top of my taxes in the shoe box. But his skin kept twitching.

Swee'pea has chewed off all the fur on his tummy and at the base of his tail. Both kitties are sulking right now because their mean mommy put the nasty stinky stuff on their necks.

type type and more type

Type, as in lettering, fonts, lead type, and wood type, is permeating every facet of my life at the moment.

The class is going really well. Last week we visited two special collections and looked at beautiful old books. The assignment for this week is 1. cut out individual letters and 2. cut a linoleum block of lettering. I hope they all do it because we are going to print next week. If someone drops the ball that will be unfortunate. There is also no type at school so we have to improvise. There is a Vandercook which is a start. I knew I had some wood type with my big collection in the basement. Time to see if I could dig it out. 

  

That's 62 drawers of type. Plus a few other things all type and letter press related, including a rubber stamp making machine? No idea if it works or not.  I have been dreading organizing this for a long time. But it shouldn't just sit there moldering away. So Melanie has generously agreed to help tackle things with me. I went down stairs to get a handle on what we would need to do - and hopefully find that wood type.  I think I accomplished both. I have a new pile of trash, found the wood type, figured out how two of the three cabinets go together, and also got a reminder of how much cool stuff I have. I'm missing some important things like furniture, but still, all in all I did get some good stuff.
The wood type did appear: 

 

Some fancy lead type: 

 And goodness knows what Jacques discovered behind the other 15 drawers of type. 

I'm starting to get excited about all this stuff. We'll see. In the mean time, I still have some letters to cut out before class and a type lesson to organize. I started planning for that last week. I think I'm going to have them take their iPads out on the town and make them photograph fonts on anything they can find. Shops, buildings, official and otherwise, book covers, magazines, printed stuff for mass-distribution, ephemera and then even some online stuff. Then we can start organizing it by category. This has always been a really good lesson. Mostly just to get them to start looking at fonts and how they are used for different purposes. But also to give them the opportunity to discovered what kind of fonts they are attracted to. Should be interesting.

In the meantime I'll leave you with this cartoon my dad sent me: