Pecan Corner

At last, I found an easy, inexpensive, tidy way to store a few days' worth of firewood, just in time for cold weather. And I didn't even need to use any tools to make it, because the lumberyard made the cuts for me.

Our wood burning stove is our primary heat source, and I love it! I'm warmer in winter in this house than I've ever been in any home we've lived in. An old-fashioned box-type stove with no fans or windows or gadgets, needing no special kinds of fuel, it works perfectly to radiate warmth at an even temperature through our main living areas without drafts or cold/hot spots.

We store the cordwood we buy (or that my dad cuts for us) in the alley behind the fence, and I bring up enough for a few days at a time. This is where the problem has been - I've never found a good way to stack the wood I need near the carport door, to keep it off the ground, dry... and tidy.  The log holders sold in stores are either expensive, too small or else way too long for my space, or frankly, most look awfully flimsy.

Then I found this clever idea on Pinterest. Unlike so many of the elaborate projects on there, this looked like something I could actually make (LOL!).

I bought a couple of 8 foot long two by fours (they are actually about 1 1/2" by 3 1/2" because the mill measures before they are planed smooth), and two concrete cinder blocks. The ones I used are about 8"x8"x15".  Two by fours are stronger than one by fours, so they are best for this project.

The nice folks at Home Depot cut the lumber in half for me, so it fit into my Jeep Cherokee easily.

Stand the cinder block on their sides with the holes up, right against each other. They need to be touching in order to keep them stable. You'll need about 48" clearance width at the top.

Drop one four foot 2x4 into each hole and lean it out.  That's it!  Less than 5 minutes, not counting shopping time.  Total cost for everything - $13 and change.

I loaded several sizes of logs into it. You could also make two of them, and have one for large logs and one for smaller pieces and kindling.

Another new thing this year is twig bundles (see them on top?), which I made to see if they are more effective/efficient than just breaking small dead-falls as needed. With 3 full-grown pecan trees and one bur oak in our yard, we have a LOT of small limbs to dispose of over the course of a year. I just wrapped them up with twine. I've used them for my first fire and it certainly was simpler "at the time". My hope is that the twig bundles will work well for those warm Texas winter days we don't need an all-day fire but just need to knock the chill off.  

This little project is already getting our colder season off to a good start.  Thank you for stopping by, and I hope you stay toasty warm this winter! :-)

I was honored to be among those demonstrating how to make art at the "Stars of Texas" annual art show in Brownwood Texas. This is the third year I have been invited to do this and it is something I always enjoy. This year, I demonstrated Linoleum Block cutting and printmaking.

Yes, Virginia, there are still courageous American companies out there. People who are willing to risk their money for their faith. In a profoundly patriotic move, Hobby Lobby is standing up against President Obama's demand that this company pay for abortions & abortifacent drugs for its employees despite Hobby Lobby's stated mission of "Honoring the Lord in all we do by operating the company in a manner consistent with Biblical principles."

Hobby Lobby CEO David Green issued a letter that is printed on the LifeNews.com site, outlining the situation, and announcing his intent to stand up against oppression at the risk of millions of dollars in daily fines for refusing to comply with this unGodly and illegal administrative rule. That's right - it isn't even a part of the actual law, but a lousy bureaucratic directive that President Obama is happily supporting and specifically targeting religious people to try to force us all to bend to his will instead of God's. As Mr Green states in his letter "The government has exempted thousands of companies from this mandate, for reasons of convenience or cost. But it won’t exempt them for reasons of religious belief."

People of faith and those who understand abortion is murder are showing our support. Today has been Hobby Lobby Appreciation Day, and there are still a few hours left. I shopped at HobbyLobby.com because we do not have a local store.  I bought a nice set of Bombay calligraphy inks that I have been wanting. There's a $2 shipping special, and I found a coupon on the Online Shopping Home Page for 40% off the highest priced eligible item.

For whom will they come next?

Maybe next will be mandated birth control pills for teen girls - pills which increase the incidence of cancer and stroke, and can interfere with fertility in later life.  I have never taken the pill - effective, safe, cheap and easy birth control is available at every grocery store and in every convenience store on every corner in the country.  And condoms protect against venereal diseases (sexually transmitted diseases aka STDs) such as HPV (genital warts), Pelvic Inflammatory Disease, and gonorrhea.

Birth Control Pills and Abortion won't protect you against  these diseases or the permanent sterility they often cause, but condoms can help keep you from catching them (abstinence and monogamy are the two best methods of prevention).

Condoms CAN and DO prevent pregnancy, prevent VD, don't have side effects, are inexpensive and available to every woman and man in America - no prescription or insurance needed. Condoms are forbidden by some religions, including the Catholic Church, but they are so cheap that it would not be a hardship on anyone to buy their own.

Why don't President Obama, the Department of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius and Planned Parenthood tell you these truths about "birth control"?

For whom will they come next?



.

A couple of weeks ago, we went to Cross Plains, Texas, and toured the Robert E Howard home as part of their "Barbarian Days Festival".  Howard's father was Dr. Isaac M. Howard. This simple frame house served as the family home, and, also, sometimes, doubled as Dr Howard's office where patients were seen. The home was continually in use as a place to live for various families from the time Dr Howard sold it until Cross Plains' Operation Pride recovered it for preservation in 1989.


 Since that time, they have worked to furnish it with period furnishings and house those artifacts they can obtain (such as the camel inkwell that stood on Howard's desk - a gift from Cecil Lotief, local Cross Plains  dry goods merchant - and first Texas legislator who had been born in Lebanon. He was first elected in 1932). Other furnishings are close copies of items either known to have been there, or true to the period.  Below is a photo of Bob Howard in front of this house, circa 1925.



My main interest was that I enjoy touring simple historical homes: the kind of house in which ordinary citizens lived a hundred years ago. In this case, the home of an ordinary small-town family physician. During that epoch in American history, there were similarities among all Americans of frugality, economy of space and furnishings, and natural closeness of proximity to household members and neighbors, that is readily apparent when we walk through such a home and consider how life would be lived in it.

 By today's standards, the author's cell-like bedroom/study (below) is tiny, cramped, and simple. But by the standards of the day (continuing even up into the 1970s in most of the country), it was probably much like the rooms of Howard's own unmarried peers. The room offered simple comfort, privacy, a bright and airy place in which to write and attend to the voluminous correspondence an author would keep up in that era when postcards and letters would be mailed daily for the same purposes email and messaging would serve today. 

The bare bulb was a common feature of most homes until new homes built in the prosperous 1950s and 60s popularized inexpensive, built-in light fixtures. My grandmother's house had several while I was growing up.  Our current house still had bare bulbs in the mid-1940s during WWII, when Rita's family first moved here, and it was the first time they had electricity. This house at that time had 4 rooms - and her family rented one of them out to a soldier and his wife, who kept all their household goods in that one small bedroom, brought pots out to cook and went back into their room to eat their meals! This gives an idea of how economically indoor space was used during these earlier eras.



 Porches were converted into bedrooms more often than not - and existing windows and doors were just left intact. During pre-electric times, such windows and doors still had use for ventilation and light, just like the transoms found above interior doors in so many old homes. If not needed to carry daylight and breezes, these unused windows and doors were often covered permanently with a heavy curtain or drape to block light and drafts, and furniture would be placed in front of it as though it were a solid wall.

My mother's house, of similar or slightly earlier vintage as this one, has two such converted porches: one very similar to this one resulted in her kitchen having a window-to-nowhere (well, technically, a window-into-the-next-room). Her kitchen also has another window that faces into the remaining screened "sleeping porch" that could have been, if needed, similarly converted. The other converted porch left a door-to-nowhere behind the sofa in her living room (but alas, there is no "door into summer"!).

Not only were bedrooms added to accommodate growing families, but also young adults tended to live at home until they married, and were given their own space by adding a room or converting a porch. Our house has a converted porch that we now use as the laundry room. but which once turned a crowded 4-room house into a three-bedroom home  and housed a family's sons, who had previously slept in the living room.

From the back, it is each to see the flat roof of the addition - also very common for what is known as "lean-to" add-ons. Our house has a similar flat roof over the portion added in the 1970s.
 


 I was particularly interested to see the plate block for Dr. Howard's original bookplate (or Ex Libris as some call them). It is a linoleum cut and bears the doctor's own signature. A corresponding print from it is framed with it, but I couldn't tell whether the plate was designed to make prints onto gummed paper for application, or to print directly onto a book's fore-leaf.


 The docents at the museum, all members of Cross Plains' Project Pride, were wonderful, and I appreciated their friendly guidance through the tour. Here is one of these nice ladies with the Cross Plains Centennial Quilt, displayed in Mr and Mrs Howard's bedroom of the home, to which she had contributed a square. Each block was made by local women to celebrate the town's history, and its recovery from the devastating wild fires that burned 130 homes and killed two people in 2005.


 We wrapped up the day with the Barbarian Festival in a lovely, oak-shaded park, complete with live music, free watermelon (courtesy of AMA-Techtel), Conan the Barbarian artwork, and fabulous food. There was even a car show. This is an annual event and it was a lot of fun. I hope we will be able to go again from time to time!



Much more about Howard, his writing, his family, and life can be found at various places, including REH: Two-Gun Raconteur, REHupa (the Robert E Howard United Press Association), and the Robert E Howard Foundation.

7/4/12 Update: Thanks to OpiningOnline.com for the link! :-)

Well I had planned to blog about starting the garden, but Pat's latest antiquing "Take A Trip" got me thinking it has been a while since I shared some of my World War I & II "Home Front" collection. So let's do that first, then we'll talk gardening (maybe even Victory Gardening!) later.

I've blogged before about the shop-made toys of the WWI and WWII eras: how Germany and Japan had previously been the source of most playthings, trinkets and knicknacks found in the "5 & 10 Cent Stores", but when war started, those imports were cut short. In addition, local factories all converted to making necessities. So the wartime sources for toys were local small workshops, print shops and mom-and-pop side businesses all over America. 


Here's a cardboard playset called "Forward March". The many little soldiers are diecut standees, and the board opens out as a map on which to array the armies.

The little set of red and yellow ships, tanks, and "Big Bertha" type guns are molded composition, died with cochineal and yellow food coloring.

The carved and wood burned "Tank Bank" has little wheels on the bottom, a place to insert pennies for saving, and it is a souvenir of Victoria, Texas. Sometimes known as "poker work", by using a poker or soldering iron to decorate it, no paint was needed. Electric woodburning tools were a popular Christmas gift for kids & adults for many decades.

That little growling bomber plane is a pinback, probably a bit of sweetheart jewelry worn by a mother, sister, wife or girlfriend of a guy in the brand-new "Army Air Corps", which was the forerunner of today's Air Force.


Ever-popular Jigsaw puzzles reflected hopeful themes during the war, and this one titled "Welcome Home" probably gave a serviceman's family much comfort as they dreamed of the day their boy would return from where-ever  Uncle Sam had sent him. The box prominently features the "Buy Savings Bonds for Victory" advertisement.

The "Buy War Savings Bonds and Stamps NOW" notice is in a deck of Russell Artcraft Pinochle playing cards. Card games were a HUGE source of entertainment in those days, and nearly every family had a card table they could set up to play on. Couples got together and played rummy or bridge or pinochle or Canasta (Canasta was THE game in my family! Anybody wanna play?)whenever they had the opportunity.




The Victory theme was everywhere! These are two of my favorite little items: a spool of thread and a little box of bobby pins. The Victory Hair Pins' "Vicky victory - Hair Aid Warden" (playing on the "Air Raid Warden" who helped coordinate evacuation plans for each neighborhood), and a sewing thread company's mascot, "the Corticelli Kitten" in his own little kitty helmet, with weapon and bayonet, marching off to
serve his country. 


In both instances, the cute themes reflect serious rationing of raw materials as well as manufactured goods and food items: the hair pins were meant to be carried back to the beauty shop for reuse on your own hair, just as we carry our shopping bags today, because "Uncle Sam needs the Steel!", and the Belco thread was a substitute for unobtainable silk and nylon, both of which were being consumed as parachute material for our fighting men.







I keep running out of "blog space" before I get to the books, albums, and paper items in my collection. Oh well, there's always next time!  If you collect Home Front or World War memorabilia, please post and tell us about your favorite items in your collection, and why you appreciate them.

Our granddaughter (or "Grand angel" as Paul calls her) asked for a strawberry cake and filet mignon for her birthday. Oh boy! I got to set a pretty pink table and use my pretty "new" flea market dishes, along with my old family pieces!

The footed iced tea glasses, in the Mayfair pattern, are heirlooms: they belonged to Big Grandmother - my great-grandmother, Mema's mother. I inherited her pink depression glass, mostly in the Cherry Blossom pattern - the cake plate is one of those pieces.

The plates are a recent find, with hand-painted wild roses in pink with green leaves. They look very much like Franciscan's Desert Rose. They were made by Villeroy and Bach, a good brand, but they were quite dirty from having been packed in newspaper and so were priced very cheap. A good scrub with my glass cooktop cleaner (I use Ceramabrite - it's basically a polishing glass wax) took the stains right off.

 

My table is oval, and it is impossible to find tablecloths in that shape, so I end up using oblong ones. This vintage damask linen is one of the few oval table cloths I have. The pink is such a pretty shade.

Paul cooked a lovely meal: filet mignon, baked potato, our own asparagus with a saffron sauce. For starters, he made a hot chicken dip that she'd also requested - one of her mother's recipes. It was yummy, and I'll share the recipe for that another time.

Here's the recipe for the cake - it got raves all around and has a lovely fresh taste. Keeps so well in the refigerator. It is one I will make again: nice and cool for a summer barbeque, and it is best if made in advance. That's important for me: things I can make up the night before, to save time and fit my schedule.


Pretty & Pink Fresh Strawberry Cake

Ingredients

1 boxed yellow cake mix
3 tablespoons flour
1 small box strawberry gelatin
1/2 cup cold water
4 eggs
1 cup vegetable oil
3 1/2 cups of strawberries (a one pound carton)
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup butter
1/2 cup heavy whipping cream
1 8 ounce package cream cheese
3 to 4 cups powdered sugar

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Grease and flour three round cake pans.

Pour the water into a large mixing bowl and sprinkle gelatin on top. Let it sit to dissolve.

Wash the berries. Pick out 5 or 6 pretty strawberries for garnish and set them aside. Hull the rest of them. Take another cup full of whole, hulled berries and set them aside - they will be sliced for the layers later.

Take one cup of strawberries and chop finely. Add them to the mixing bowl with gelatin, and beat on high for a couple of minutes, then add the remaining ingredients: cake mix, flour, eggs, oil. Beat at medium speed for 5 minutes.

Divide the batter evenly between the prepared cake pans. Bake for 30 to 35 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool cakes in the pans 5 or 10 minutes, then turn out and complete cooling on wire racks.

Chop one cup of strawberries finely and sprinkle with sugar in a small bowl. Let them sit a few minutes to draw excess liquid out, then drain them.

Whip the cream and set aside. Cream the butter, cream cheese, sugar and the drained, chopped strawberries until light and fluffy then add the whipped cream. If necessary, add more powdered sugar until the frosting holds peaks. Refrigerate the frosting until you are ready to ice the cake.

Slice the rest of the strawberries (except the ones to be used for garnish - leave them aside for now) into very thin slices.

When layers are cool, place one on a cake plate. Spread frosting on top evenly to the edges. Arrange half of your thinly sliced strawberries all over the top of this layer, then put the next cake layer on top of that and repeat, using the rest of the thinly sliced berries on this layer.

Top with the 3rd layer and frost the top and sides thickly with the frosting.

Do not garnish until right before serving, as the juice from cut berries will drip down the sides of the cake. To avoid this, you could garnish with a single whole berry in the center.

When ready to serve, add the strawberries for garnish - in this photo, Paul showed me how to fan the center one by leaving the hull on, and slicing through from bottom to top, leaving the slices attached at the hull end, then twist slightly to fan it out. The other berries were simply cut in half and arranged around it.

Store this cake in the refrigerator and serve chilled. It keeps beautifully and is best made a day or two before.

Enjoy!

A lot of my collections are made of paper. Vintage advertising recipe booklets are one such, and I have a few I just couldn't part with. Colorful and witty, those cute little recipe folders are just too fun to leave in a drawer.



I mean, in our Tex-Mex kitchen, who could resist 1920s and 1930s "Tasty Tested Anglo Recipes", "Gebhardt's Mexican-Style Foods" and "Walker's Red Hot Chile Con Carne"? The Walker's one, red with a bright green sombrero, is actually from 1918, the WWI era.

The company was based in Austin, Texas. Gebhardt is also an old Texas company - I still use their chili powder today for general cooking (I use Morton's Chili Blend for actual chili). And Anglo not only made canned hams and corned beef, but also advertises Deviled Ham, Deviled Tongue and Liver Spread!




One of the little projects I've had on my list was to find a way to display them that didn't take space away from some other wonderful thing that needs a prominent home!

Inspired by my new cabinets, I finally got around to it last month.




This is a super-simple project. I used the hard clear cases that sports cards collectors use, and glued a piece of sheet magnet on the back. It's a good use for those magnetic business cards we keep long after the realtor pictured has moved on.


Voila! (which is how the word "Walla!" is spelled!)

Refrigerator magnets that can be changed out, and the keep the booklet available, just in case we suddenly decide to try that recipe for jellied liver tea sandwiches.

Aren't they cute? If you have other ideas for showing off vintage paper, please share! There's always something cute that needs just the perfect treatment....

For those of us in the Southwest, the fusion of cultures has always been evident in our lives, and a big part of the reason we are so passionate about the places we live.

Who are we? We're Texans. We aren't Swedish-Texans or Mexican-Texans or African-Texans or German-Texans or Vietnamese-Texans or Spanish-Texans or Californian-Texans or New Yorker-Texans. No matter where we're from or how we grew up, we aren't hyphenated: we're all one. The American Melting Pot is alive and well and still doing its good work in Texas.

This applies to our decorating styles as well as the way we live and go about our business every day. And Mexican pottery is a part of the exuberant style that characterizes Texas homes of all sorts.

Some of Pecan Corner's more popular posts, week in and week out, are about collecting vintage Mexican pottery. So I thought I'd show off some more of my collection, and add a little information about the styles and types.

The pieces that stay with me are special in their own right - my focus has always been simply whether I love the individual piece. As antiquers, though, we've sold a lot of it over the years, and I tend to sell things if the price shoots up - mainly so I don't have to worry about breaking something valuable! So while I never needed to learn about it in order to collect, I did learn some things in order to sell those pieces that don't need to stay in my house.




There was a time where Mexican pottery chicken casseroles were as common in Texas homes as Singer sewing machines. For years, we bought them weekly and sold them just as quickly. So many of them have moved in to larger collections now that they are harder to find. This one was a present from Paul a couple of years ago. We think the "come hither" look in her eyes is adorable.




This pottery skillet is done in a style called "Fantasia", for obvious reasons. Most commonly found in the blue decoration on cream colored background like this one, it can also be found in other colors, such as green
on terracotta ground. The all-over pattern of stylized florals and animals in a single color is the telltale characteristic. Paul loves this, and is partial to the blue-and-cream.




The urn-shaped vases in this group are my favorite type of ware, called "Petatillo". The detailed crosshatching filling all the space surrounding the main images make it immediately recognizable. Written in pencil on the bottom of the largest one is "Guadalahara Bought in Tampico 1939". The middle-sized one has the partial remains of its original paper label "La Casa Del _____ Monterrey".




This colorful wall plate is purely decorative, and made of "burnished ware", meaning the partially-dried clay was rubbed, or burnished, to a sheen with a stick. Probably made in Tonala, this technique was shared by pueblo Indian potters, including the famous San Ildefonso wares. It isn't as highly fired as the lead-glazed redware that is my favorite, so it didn't last as long, but it has a character all its own.


My bean pots are just that: bean pots. Made for households to cook in, utilitarian but still decorated to make the work a little more pleasant. we all love pretty dishes, no matter what culture we come from. And that may be almost instinctual - pottery making was one of mankind's earliest arts, and those early pieces are identifiable because they are decorated.

In our globally-uniform professionally-marketed designer-driven retail culture, everything is the same, no matter where it is from. Machine-made or hand-made doesn't change that, and we can find ourselves driven from novelty to novelty in a fruitless search for the authentic and original.

This old pottery is both of those things. Authentic and produced by people who sold it to make a living using the materials at hand and the techniques developed by their grandfathers, original in the work of each artist that painted it using his own ideas and natural talent to express himself that day.

It is what it is. There's very little we can truthfully say that about these days.

6/6/11 Update: Thanks to Pat @ SIGIS for the link! :-)

As I mentioned in the bathroom remodeling post, our choices with the worn-nearly-down-to-metal porcelain enamelled cast iron tub were to (a) bring in a cutting torch and cut it in half to enable two power-lifters to carry it out through the door or (b) tear out the entire exterior wall of the room including removing the weight-bearing framing in order to hoist it out that way.

We chose (c): give the ugly tub a make-over and restore its erstwhile beauty.

I had planned to have a professional come refinish the tub, but no one local does this. So, I bought a two-part spray epoxy kit called "Magic ReNew Tub and Tile Refinishing", and did it myself.

Some years ago, I used spray Appliance Epoxy to paint a built-in oven exterior with good and lasting results. So I figured, as bad as this tub was, I certainly couldn't make it worse by trying.

If we only had one bathroom, we'd have had to arrange to shower at a friend's and brush our teeth in the kitchen for the couple of weeks this project required. As it was, we have two so just kept the door shut on this one.

The hardest part was cleaning and prep. This took a long time (several repetitive hours over the course of a week), but the final result will not work if the preparation is not scrupulous. Any residue of soap or oil hidden in a scratch will prevent the epoxy from adhering and cause it to peel.  I was careful not to stay on my knees too much and did as much work as possible from a crouch or sitting position.

I removed the drain cover and overflow cover before starting. The I put on my goggles, my rubber gloves, and set to work. I scrubbed, cleaned with TSP (per directions on refinishing kit & using all precautions listed on the TSP package itself), sanded, steel wooled.. then scrubbed, cleaned with TSP, sanded, steel wooled... some more for at least three times. I'd work on it after work each evening until I gave out, then start over the next day.

After the final final rinse, I let it dry for several days. That's another essential - absolute dryness.  Then I  masked EVERYTHING.

Seriously, this job can't be done without covering everything from the floor to walls with sheets and paper, as the spray paint will drift and settle and is impossible to remove. I left it all masked until the whole job was finished.

I followed all instructions carefully, especially the safety instructions, and including the interesting chill one/heat one method for mixing the contents of the two cans.

This task requires an experienced hand with canned spray paint. It would be wise to practice by repainting a set of wicker lawn furniture or something until one gets comfortable with the on/off, back/forth motion that covers without drips. I applied the several coats of epoxy over a course of days in the evenings, and closed that bathroom off completely to allow the full length of time to cure undisturbed.

While I will not be volunteering to do this for anyone else, and I still would recommend a professional if you can possibly get one, I am VERY happy with the results for a "homemade" job of it.

This house is over a hundred years old, and when we bought it, we locked the door on the old smallest bathroom until we could get it redone. As it turned out, my eldest, Devin, took the bull by the horns and rebuilt it. What a wonderful thing a son is! :-)

Here's the finished product:


And here's the scary "before":


The old floor had rotted, except for that under the cast iron tub, so he took it down to earth and built a new subfloor for the main part of the room. While the floor was out, he also did some leveling and reinforcing.

Tearing into an old house is always an adventure. (Maybe I'll post pictures nexxt Halloween ;-) )The original wall is solid wood boards, and backs up on a bedroom. Not wanting to lose space in either room by messing with the wall, we made the choices to limit what we did there. Thus, the single high electrical outlet is still the only one; and the medicine cabinet hangs on the wall instead of being recessed.

The room is 3 feet wide by 8 feet long, not counting the tub enclosure/hot water heater closet. Replaced the toilet and added a small pedestal sink to free up as much space as possible, but removing half a ton of bathtub wasn't happening, so I refinished it (more on that later, in my next post).




The new window went into the same hole the old one came out of - again to avoid a cascade of consequences: the solid wood exterior wall, the exterior siding, and more important, the location of structural elements.

We did add a shower, which this bath had never had, and the window placement presented a clallenge there. The window extends into the shower enclosure past the edge of the tub, so there isn't a wall area to attach a curtain rod on that end.  We handled that by using a curved shower rod - worked like a charm!




Paul said "I can't believe you actually had a laundry bag with bluebirds on it!"  It has been in the laundry room for a while but it never really "fit" in there - this is a much nicer spot for it. It pays sometimes to be a packrat.




The pale baby blue and white are comforting in such a small room. The curtains are a pair of crisp cotton pillowcases with a rod pocket sewn into the top. The soft vintage embroidery at the wide hem is touched with blue.



These little sconce shelves are made of metal - iron, I think.




This little guy is from the 1960s heyday of ceramic and chalkware figural wall art. He's made of ceramic and I love his pretty googly eyes!



This glass Blue Bird of Happiness hides in the medicine cabinet, along with an antique Victorian Sunday School card and assorted pretty guest soaps,  ready to promote a smile from a visitor.





The bluebirds were a sort of accident - I didn't have to buy a single one. Who knew there were so many blue bird themed items lurking around my house?

The famed Bluebird of Happiness does live in one's own backyard... and kitchen cupboard... and desk drawer... and linen closet... and laundry room... Hee!





The entire project took Devin several days of hard work over the course of a couple of months  - rushing down here to work on his days off when he wasn't needed at home (he lives four hours away).  The demolition was the most difficult part. What an amazing rennovation once it was complete!

What an amazing son to do this for us. Thank you so much Honey!

The Redbud trees are blooming now. Their shocking magenta blossoms cover the branches, visible from far away in their little spots tucked in among the oak and mesquite. Later, after the leaves come on, these little understory trees will melt into the background until their pretty leaves turn yellow in the fall.

Unlike the mesquite trees, redbuds are native here. It's Oklahoma's state tree, and is plentiful in Texas as well, roughly following the "blackjack belt" through the state from east to west. The "blackjack belt" is named for the Blackjack Oak tree - very similar to the Post Oak, with slight differences. Both are small (as the name indicates) deciduous oaks that grow near each other.

The ferns in the vase with the redbud branches are asparagus that got away from me! Less than a week since I checked on the asparagus bed and the first shoots went from invisible to 3 foot tall ferns. This is the first year we can gather shoots since we planted the crowns three years ago so we are looking forward to our own homegrown asparagus.

Redbud blossoms are edible too, in small amounts,and make a pretty addition to salads (well, salad for luncheons. Don't feed it to the kids or they will grow up and tell stories about the weird food you forced on them). My copy of "Texas Trees" also says the young seed pods are also edible sauted in butter for a bit but I have not tried them before. Maybe this year I'll remember to gather some before they have matured, and we'll see if I live to tell the tale. ;-) That is a joke, but it is wise to remember that many wild plants with pea-like leaves and pods are poisonous (some deadly so - see last paragraph of opening article here: Pea Family) , so be certain to verify edibility and confirm identification with experts (& I am not an expert outside my own family) before experimenting with these things.

At any rate, Redbuds make a lovely specimen tree in town too, and are recommended by the Native Plant Society of Texas. With their small size and glossy, heart-shaped leaves all summer, they fit nicely into an ordinary sized yard and require little care. And of course, make very nice bouquets in the Spring: which encourages me to leave the peach blossoms on the tree so they can turn into fruit I KNOW we will eat!

Three years ago, I bought a "mixed bulb garden" assortment from one of the seed catalogs, and planted them in the fall.

The following spring, hyacinths became a part of my life. Oh my! Fragrance as rapturous as honeysuckle, and a single stalk will perfume an entire room for a week or longer.

Easy to buy: hyacinths are inexpensive, and available in most garden catalogs and at your local nurseries for fall planting.

Easy to plant: push a trowel into the ground in the autumn, drop in a hyacinth bulb and cover it over. Easy to care for: let them die back when they have finished blooming, then mow or water or fertilize whatever plants or grass cover the area the rest of the year.



Easy to enjoy: A superb cut flower, they will be beautiful and fragrant for seven to 14 days after cutting. Cheerful colors of red, white and beautiful blue are my favorites. Once a bloom stalk has opened most of its florets, cut the stalk, pop into a vase of water, and enjoy the heady perfume.

You can even force hyacinths, and stretch the season longer by chilling them in the fridge and putting the bulb in a container where the root end will sit on water - or a special "hyacinth vase". I haven't tried this yet but I think I will save a couple of bulbs this fall and try it. This website, www.kennemerend.nl/bollenglazen/ , has great photos of hyacinth vases, including antique ones. They remind me somewhat of a carafe: a sort of bottle shape, with a small neck and a top rim that widens to provide a reservoir in which the bulb sits. I've seen those odd shaped glass containers from time to time but never knew what they were for.







There's no need for any air freshener, potpourri or scented candles while you have hyacinths blooming. Because the fragrance is fully natural, the nose never ignores it, so the lovely scent catches my attention frequently each day.

I even carry the vase in & put it on the bedside table each evening, falling asleep to the fragrance of hyacinths. It joins the bird songs as one of the first things I become aware of when I wake in the morning.

Leah Muse, the photographer for Nick and Lani's wedding, has a wonderful blog post up at her blog "The Life You Love" about the event. Check it out for gorgeous photos from start to finish!

And now for something completely different: the Wedding of the Year gets closer by the minute. Erin Elizabeth has blogged about Lani's Bachelorette Party! They had cupcakes, natch, found a clever way to display her gifts as she unwrapped them, and all the girls look like princesses.

Lani says everything is done, just waiting on delivery of some things that were ordered. It will be a lovely wedding, and a happy marriage. She and Nick are well-suited for each other. They will have a good life.

Erin Elizabeth's blog "my heart belongs to me" is great - if you read here for the fun stuff, decorating, hometown travel, food and such, if you (heart) cupcakes, and if you love beautiful photos of home with sweet and sentimental notes to wrap up a day with a peaceful evening, you need to click over to her blog. Such a happy corner of the net - and superb photos of the family's lovely cats nearly always make their way into a post.

One recent post especially I've been meaning to point to is Erin's stroll along South Congress Avenue in Austin, or "SoCo" as she puts it. These pictures really do capture the feeling - it's such a witty and whimsical district to shop! I love the antique shops there - but there's also a store fully dedicated to monkeys! Not real monkeys - pretend monkeys :-)

Go visit, and have fun!


~


Title is a line from the old song " Try to Remember (the Kind of September)", written by - I was surprised to learn - Tom Jones!

If whereever you turn, you hear people blurting out Spanish Main kinds of things like "Avast!" and "Aaaaarrggggghh", can International Talk Like A Pirate Day be far away? Time to start drawing the map - it's already August & September 19th will be blowing in on a fair wind before we know it.

Mom in High Heels has some very cute ideas for a pirate themed party, with games for little ones and a whole menu that would be a hoot even if the pirates are getting a little long in the tooth! There's a fabulous cake, and my favorite was this watermelon shark (photo above, with Mrs HH's kind permission). See the whole thing on her blog (and don't miss their trip to LegoLand while you are there).

Only 48 days to go. Better start trying to find some of those nifty Skull goblets!

~

What else happened on September 19th? Oh yeah - the Continental Congress passed the first Budget of the United States. As they've done every year since. Oh. Wait.

If you like beautiful, dreamy, romantic blogs, here's one of the nicest: "my heart belongs to me". Erin is our newest daughter in love's sister.

Of the many "don't miss" posts, her wistful and loving paen to Sesame Street's film about a crayon factory is a treasure. If you never thought "How'd They Do That?" could make you teary eyed, Erin's gentle insight may stop you in your tracks.

But especially, she's blogged about Lani's bridal shower, given by her mother's friends, on Sunday. Lots of great pictures, and happy girls. :-)



It was a girly, dress-up brunch outdoors on a beautiful day overlooking the water at "The Grill at Rough Hollow" in Austin (technically nearest to Lakeway). The photo above is the three sisters: Lani, Erin and Neil.

The hostesses made gorgeous, simple arrangements using hydrangeas and limes and blueberries. Erin made yummmmmy cupcake towers. Both these ideas are definitely keepers: everyone oohed and ahhed. I know I'll be heading to the Produce Market the next time I need to create centerpieces for an event.


This is Janet, Lani's Mom. See how beautiful our new daughter in love is going to be when she is closer to my age?

Pretty as all the pictures, and we had the nicest time. Do go over and visit!

While it's everyone's hobby to complain about the government, most Americans at heart still trust our own representatives and tend not to communicate with them. Perhaps we assume they share our values and aspirations for our town, state and country. Perhaps we fear too much involvement would interfere with the peace of our lives. Perhaps we simply have too little time and have to prioritize for our own responsibilities first.

After all, that is why we elect people to lead our government: so that one of our peers does have the dedicated responsibility to tend to those matters and to devote time, attention and talent to good governance.


But something has changed just in the past 10 years. Technology now provides tools that enable very small groups to make such a loud noise that it can drown out the majority. Whereas previously, responsible newspapers would not even publish anonymous letters to the editor, now one person with an agenda can - anonymously or under false names - send out literally
thousands of emails, or post to dozens of websites. They can make 3 people look as though they speak for thousands.

Groupies used to follow bands around the country, driving to concert after concert. Now, in addition to the sincere person who attends a rally in their own town or travels a single time to the Capitol, political groupies may use their vacation days and make a hobby of flying everywhere one is scheduled to swell the numbers of protesters, picking up their signs and T-shirts du jour as they get off the plane.

Our representatives are smart people. They know that these things happen, and they should know to discount some of this frenzy.

But what they don't know, unless we politely tell them, is what the ordinary, normally quiet person thinks about all this. What the ordinary, minding-our-own-business, average person wants the representative to do about these issues.

And that is a new responsibility that we all bear. To quietly speak our piece, so that our representatives can go forth armed with a balanced understanding of who their constituants are and the different points of view we have.


There are simple ways to be sure your elected representatives know and respect your opinions, without turning into a crank or taking up too much time. We can just be ourselves, and write a short letter in our own words, and mail it at the post office: "Dear Sir, I hope you will (oppose)(support)_________. You should know that I believe ________ is ________. Thank you for your service and I appreciate your attention. Sincerely, [name], [address], [town]

Or we can make a single, brief phone call when there is an issue we have an opinion on, being cheerful and pleasant when we ask the person who answers if they can pleast let our representative know that we hope he will support or oppose __________. Thank the person for their work, wish them a good day, and that is it.

We don't have to be controversial. We don't have to be mean or rude or loud. We don't have to explain why we feel the way we do. All we have to do is send a polite, short note or brief message, and then go on about our business.

There are some non-partisan links in my sidebar under "Other Sites of Interest" that might be helpful, if you are interested in learning who your representatives are:

Write Your Elected Officials: Find Names and Addresses here

Who Represents Me? Find your Texas Legislators

Tracking the US Congress: Factual Non-Partisan Information

And you know what - I bet your representatives would also love to receive a thank you note every so often too. :-)

PS The vintage Liberty Bell Canister in the photo was made by House of Webster, a pottery in Eastland Texas that did all sorts of cute canisters and sold them filled with jams and preserves. It was my favorite find this week, and an inspiration piece for a new project I'll talk about later! The flowers are from one of our apricot trees. I sure hope the frost this week didn't bite all of them. The bees were having a field day gathering pollen from them yesterday!