Pumpkin harvest 2011, homemade cranberry sauce with orange zest and spices, and my first pumpkin pie of the season.


( Read more... )

The Hooligan Hive is failing again, and at this point I'm starting to think it's location, location, location since the Rhubarb Hive is doing GREAT. Maybe the hooligans will always be hooligans, but just in case Donald Trump had it right, I moved them into the rhubarb patch, where their hive will warm up a little earlier in the morning, where there ( Read more... )

"In spite of everything I shall rise again: I will take up my pencil, which I have forsaken in my great discouragement, and I will go on with my drawing." --Vincent Van Gogh


keep drawing from studio shelter on Vimeo.
For my art class friends who keep me drawering. The ones who are there with me, with charcoal under our nails and paint in our hair ( Read more... )

I can't believe it's been 3 years since I made my last batch of wine. I think it took that long for the trauma of pressing without a real grape press to wear off. And for me to decide to try pressing without a real grape press again. Well, I did use a press intended for grapes, just not for 240 pounds of grapes all at once. Judging by the yield, it ( Read more... )

I'm becoming an increasingly ornery artist, and I'm totally ok with that. Can't say my poor teachers feel the same way, but I consider myself a good role model for all those 18 year-olds who need to learn how to question authority. Here's some recent work, with grumpy commentary ( Read more... )

The Fall semester is well underway, and I'm enrolled in Drawing 2 for the second time. I've taken this class before, but this instructor teaches it with pastels. My FAVORITE medium, that I never thought I'd get formal instruction in. And besides, it's good to repeat the foundation classes just for the exercise ( Read more... )

Canning is serious business. Pick up any canning manual, and chapter 1 is usually full of dire warnings about how you should NEVER deviate from the recipes and make sure you know your food pH and water-bath vs. pressure-canner before you ever put a jar of jam into a pot of boiling water. And they're right. Botulism doesn't mess around. It's ( Read more... )

I harvested and processed 38 pounds of tomatoes the other night, into 6 pints of pasta/pizza sauce. It was a job made easier by this little contraption that my mom bought for me at the last Tomato Festival, but which is also available on Amazon, of course. Before this gadget, there was a whole lot of boiling water, and blanching, and buckets of ( Read more... )

"Bee people don't want anything to do with trees" said the homeowner as we were contemplating the hive 15 feet off the ground in her sycamore. "And I bet tree people don't want anything to do with bees" I said to her. But wait, not so fast with the assumptions. Her tree people actually seem interested in working to save the bees and cooperating ( Read more... )

Still sewing all up in this place. I made this skirt which I'm totally in love with, and lookit how well it goes with that top I made like 2 years ago and never matched up with anything else in my closet.

( Read more... )