Summersgate - (Egg Shell)

Pictures from today - The Wonders of Rainy card/zine and a bunch of infrared pics from a hike at Two Mile this morning:( Read more... )

Chickens. Another little card/pamphlet/zine. Here're upright individual pages:( Read more... )

We had a change of menu for today's dinner. Dave says he would like to grill so now I am making potato salad. I loved my mother's potato salad so much but I can't seem to replicate it. Today will be one more attempt.

I made a zine today. It's kind of dumb (more like a card) but I thought I'd just get on with it and see what would happen if I started. I painted the four different background rectangles first. I didn't even know at the time that I was making something that would work as the four seasons. Very serendipitous. The words:

Seasons
WINTER
Even tho it is blazing
hot today (July 3,
2026) 93 degrees I'm still
thinking about how
fast time goes and it
will be the NEXT season
before we know it.
Winter with pearly
ice and fog, starflake
snowflakes will be
back again. I got

the idea to make a zine
while I was watching
"SHRILL" - a character
was talking about making
zines while they were in
school. And I thought,
yeah! I'll make a
ZINE! But what would
the theme be? Since I
was just watching Shrill
I wished I could express
something about bodies
and living in a heavy
SPRING

body and how I am so
sick of feeling like
I'm not good enough
because I have FAT
on my body. But
dammit, what's wrong
with some fat? Yes, I
know, a person
appears healthier if
they are trim and muscular
but that is not a TRUE
sign of health. Thin
people get diseases
too.
SUMMER
So just like loving

AUTUMN
all the seasons even
tho every season and
every DAY is different
I'm going to love my
body as it changes and
is different as I go
through the seasons
of life. Love this
season I am in right
now. BE KIND to
myself and others.

#12 Creek. I didn't say I was going to do 101 GOOD paintings for this project. Just do 101 small paintings outdoors.


#13 Opening. Maybe part of the excuse I will use for why this is not that great is because Rainy had already gone up to the house without me and I could hear her barking at the back door wanting to go in. I wanted to rush though the painting and rescue Princess Rainy. Though I'm not sure what I would do better if I had more time. That's something to think about for the future.


This is the scene that inspired me to try and paint the above pic. I love looking through these trees on this path and I've taken photos of it many times.


Here's a photo that shows the idea of "opening" to my satisfaction. I took this as the sun was going down last evening from the top of pet cemetery hill and did some filter adjustment to it.


The progress I've made so far with the mosaiced cups. The front two are finished as far as gluing on the stained glass pieces. I still need to grout them. It was hot out in the shed yesterday afternoon. When I first opened the door I felt cooler air coming out of it but because I left the door open while I was in there it got warmer and warmer till I had sweat running off my temples. I called Kathy and reminisced with her for a while about the old shed. It was her shed in the very beginning when Dad first set it up in the backyard. She had stenciled on the door, "E P FANS ONLY". Elvis Presley fans only. I guess I wasn't much of a fan because I don't remember being in there with her. I was very jealous that both John and Kathy had their own sheds and I as the youngest had no club house shed. Dad felt sorry for me and built me a little shed the size of a big dog house that was all mine. Of course because it was so small it had to be all mine, no one else could get in. I wanted some friends in there with me and collected slugs in a cottage cheese container and had them for pets. How pitiful! This will probably be one of those stories I'll be reciting and boring people with as I get older and older. I'm sure I probably already wrote about it here, though it might have been a while ago.

*****
Itchy! I have multiple bug bites now. A bad thing about summer - the stupid biting insects. I'm really trying to not scratch. I usually get much enjoyment from scratching itches but I've heard so many times now that itches go away faster if you don't scratch them that I'm finally willing to give it a try. Blaa.

A picture from yesterday morning. Dave caught a groundhog in his garden and we dropped it off at Two Mile. It looks like a big groundhog in this pic but really it was only medium sized. When Dave opened the door of the cage it ran off up the hill without a second look back.


This was when I was painting the picture of the windchime yesterday. I liked how Rainy was sitting directly under Dave's seat.

It's going to be another hot day today. I felt like I should have gotten out there early while it was relatively cool but I wasted the best part of this morning lying in bed watching the documentary about Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova. It was good, though all the tennis jargon went over my head.

Well, it's still early in the day. I could get out there to do something and still be comfortable, especially if what I do is go to the goat shed for mosaic. It's been a while since I was in there.

I thought today would be an ordinary stay at home day - get caught up on the clothes and dishes, sweep the floors and vacuum. Yesterday my bra got so itchy. So I also already declared I'd make today a no bra day and see if that would help. This morning after I fed the dogs and let them out and then back in Rainy was going crazy doing zoomies and yipping and crying. I looked her all over but couldn't find anything. Then I went to sit on the back porch to drink my coffee and I was assaulted by ants. There were a million of them all running around right in the spot where Rainy usually stands to wait to come inside. I imagine she must have got swarmed while she was there earlier. I gave her a bath with coolish water and oatmeal baking soda shampoo and that did seem to help her settle down. It's been a couple hours and I think she's better now. Poor little thing. But now the question is - should I wipe out that ant colony so they don't do this to her in the future, or to us? I was getting bit too when I sat in the chair near there. I'm a very much a live-and-let-live kind of person with most all insects. I will kill ants in the house but these ants are outside. Shall I consider the porch my "inside" and kill them there too? I'm leaning that way but I'm sad for the ants. I started looking up ant deterrents to see if I can just sprinkle the porch with something. I could use diatomaceous earth - that would kill them. I already have some of that and use it to good effect in the chicken coop to keep bugs out. Or I could spray with some essential oils - I also have a mix of that ready to go that I was using to spray my pant legs during tick season. The question is, "kill (diatomaceous earth) or just make them unhappy so they will leave (essential oil)"? Maybe I'll try the oils first.


Here's a picture of Johnny and Rowan that Alison sent me yesterday. I love it.

Soap Dish.


In this case I like the photo version better. That dark soap was a bar of soap that I had given Hazel many years ago for Christmas but she never used it. It was found when she was cleaning out her room last week and she gave it back to me. Patchouli. Makes the bathroom smell good.

Hiking with Candy today. I'm driving and I'd like to go to a place called Plum Dungeon Falls at Oil Creek park. It's not much of a waterfalls in the dry summertime and most of it will obscured by green leaves. But it's a nice walk. We're supposed to have a high of 88F today. This must be the beginning of the hot spell that we are expected. Thursday it's supposed to be 95. I had been leaving both the front and back door open for the last week and getting a nice cross breeze through the living room and kitchen but I closed things up yesterday and put on the AC in the kitchen for a while last night. It's getting muggier outside.

Dave working on some kind of leaf vacuum machine on the back porch just now, rainbow flags hanging from the ceiling.

Hazel moves into the apartment with her friends tomorrow. I can't wait to see some pics of it. I thought I might get more done today but at least I did something: worked on mosaic in the shed for a little while, made a dinner of lentil soup and baked cornbread, took Rainy for a walk before that, picked enough kale for the chickens for the next 6 days, and picked spinach leaves to put in the lentil soup. I feel like I should have cleaned house and vacuumed but I guess it really doesn't matter that I didn't. We aren't having Sunday dinner this week and I can do it later.

#4. At the Tsuga Trail at Erie Wildlife Refuge this morning. There is a bench at this spot. Candy and I sat for a while and I was showing her my paint set. Then we seemed to be sitting longer and I thought, why not try and real quick paint this spot. I didn't think Candy would mind. Sitting or walking in nature - both are very nice.


BnW photo view of it.

I was supposed to take Roswell to work this morning at 8 but by accident I didn't get the time right and I ended up driving into town an hour early. I was already in town by the time I looked at the clock in the car and saw the correct time. So I went to Rural King. Got some bird seed and chicken scratch grains and went to Giant Eagle and got a bunch of other stuff. Then it was time to pick up Ros. I feel good that I got that shopping out of the way. I was avoiding it.

The other paint set arrived and I've been busy painting a test grid of the colors. I'm really liking this set too.

#2. My challenge with this project will be to use only 2.5" x 3.5" size cards, a ball point pen, a water brush and a pocket sized set of watercolor paints; and to preferably always paint plein-air if the weather will cooperate. Looking forward to it.

Going to Berdella's for women's group today.