I wasn't going to blog this week, being busy with family and Thanksgiving which entails housework and grocery lists and early mornings and late nights. And I had a birthday, I always do, and the birthday always begins the holiday season.
I could easily do without birthdays.
It's rained for what seems to be weeks, though actually the sun broke through a few times. And it's warm. The sun and the warm don't fit the month but my roses don't seem to mind. This one was blooming Sunday for my birthday.
It's a little bedraggled, wet, droopy, looking much like everything else around here. Including me.
My brother told me they were making molasses back in the mountains. And I'll bet if it's cold enough, there'll be some hog killins' going on. A hog killin' usually followed my birthday too. And turkeys. Hens.
Back in those days the kills were necessary for survival, but oh boy, growing up with them sure placed me on the side of the animals. I still much prefer beans on my dinner table.
Anyway, it was my birthday that always started all the holiday activity, and the memories, both good and bad, haunt me every single November. I sure am glad I had a birthday rose to get me started in the right mood this year.
My son and grandson will be here tomorrow evening, my daughter is already here. My son is bringing a turducken, whatever that is, and promises to cook it. He usually keeps his promises. The rest will be up to my daughter and me; we're a small family so it will be a small dinner. I'm thankful they are all home with me, this will be the first time in several years that we've been together.
It's a big contrast to what I grew up with, and even contrasts to what my children grew up with, but time and life change things so I just go with the flow.
No sweet potatoes in orange rind shells with roasted marshmallow topping; my Aunt Iva always made them. No shucky beans, Ninna made them. And no hot yeast rolls all baked together and browned to perfection in Gramma Ell's oven. None of her deviled eggs either. Aunt Ruby brought ham or a pork roast and usually chocolate pie. Mom made the best butterscotch pies. There will be none of them either. And Mom's sage dressing. Somebody always brought a jar of homemade pickles and Ninna and Gramma Ell made gingerbread.
Time. It sure has changed things.
I can still make sage dressing, we'll have lots of it to go with the turducken. I'll make my late husband's oyster casserole that's full of real butter and Ritz crackers and lots of coarse black pepper. And gravy to go with the strange turducken and over the mashed potatoes. My daughter is in charge of the broccoli and asparagus, and I'll enjoy doing something creative with the spinach, mandarin orange and black walnut salad. The deli in our grocery has nice fresh yeast rolls.
I might even bake a jam cake, or maybe try the one made from vanilla wafers, eggs, milk and coconut. My grandson and I might just bake gingerbread men with raisins for buttons and eyes.
I still have tomorrow to decide.
But first, I promised my son cheesy sausage balls. I guess I'd better get started.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Being an artist, being a visual, being older than most, I must have color in my world. Some days, like today, I have to search for it.
It's darkish, it's dreary, the sun peeped through for a few hours this morning. The time changed last night, but my days mostly are spent clock free anyway, so I only notice the difference in the light of day. Today's light is waning, but the shine of tonight's moon promises enough light to read by, if only the clouds drift away.
My friend in DC tells me it's the Beaver Moon. I used to know most moon names, Aunt Bett and Ninna referred to the moons by their Native American names; I should have remembered. At any rate, I have my friend to remind me.
• Full Beaver Moon – November This was the time to set beaver traps before the swamps froze, to ensure a supply of warm winter furs. Another interpretation suggests that the name Full Beaver Moon comes from the fact that the beavers are now actively preparing for winter. It is sometimes also referred to as the Frosty Moon.
So today I again went searching for color. I was also going to clean out another flower bed. I got a little side tracked. It happens quite often these days.
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For years I've been calling this early and late bloomer Sophy's Rose. That's the name on the metal tag, and I always leave metal tags attached. Sophy provides me with the first rose of summer and the last rose of autumn. But now I find that the name doesn't fit the rose. My friends who know all about roses tell me this rose is misnamed. How terrible to go through life with the wrong name. No matter what she proves to be, I think I'll always call her Sophy. She's answered to Sophy for years. Calling her Delores or Lydia might only serve to confuse, both the rose and me.
Sophy she will always be.
I walked up the hill to the daylily bed. It's the one I was thinking of cleaning. But I was met with the hot pink face of another bloom, and yet another.
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New blooms, new buds, new growth, all matching the changing colors of the bushes that belong to the neighbor behind me. I can't possibly clear out this bed. It still has color, and some of that color is wrapped in seeds that birds might need if it snows. I think this bed might need to wait till spring. I think I'll just continue to enjoy the color.
There's just something about red. It's necessary. In its various shades it yells, it shouts, it screams, 'Look at me, look at me, look at me!" And heads turn and faces smile to see that glorious color on a dreary day.
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I had a white garden for years. It's along the eastern end of my house. It got only the early morning light and was shaded by a huge oak that I planted 35 years ago when I owned the lot beside my house. The oak sat just on the far side of the lot line.
I sold that extra lot a few years ago and a house was built by new owners. It was a cute house, but for whatever reason it's had 4 owners in the past 10 years. Seems economic problems have created traffic even in my little neighborhood. The most recent owner, who has now sold and is moving away again, decided when he bought the house 2 years ago that he didn't like the oak tree. Idiot. So he had it removed last year, even though it was a wonderful tree. He said he was afraid it would lose branches if we ever had another ice storm like the one of '09. He was afraid the branches would smash his garage. So the magnificent oak tree was the loser. And that owner is now gone. That's probably a good thing since I harbored ill feelings over the oak tree.
So I lost, too. I lost the shade on my white garden. I lost that glorious oak.
My Russian sage finally looks lovely now that it's cooler, but it struggled most of the summer. It's still located in the white garden that I used to have. I need to move it, but I don't have another oak tree to give it shade.
I didn't get a thing done in the garden this morning. I did, however, find the color I needed.
And maybe tonight I'll wander outside again, finding color by the light of the Beaver Moon.
I promised my friends in the Garden Art forum to do a tutorial on making a Nutcracker for the holidays. I chose to write it here because the blog feature is a little easier for me to manipulate pictures and words than in a thread.
The nutcracker is made from throw away items you might find in your trash, and you can make it from most anything that provides the shape you need. The example I'm showing you is purely for indoor use because I used mostly food boxes and paper towel rolls and covered them with paper towels, but you'll see the process is adaptable to a lot of things.
You can use boxes, cans, paper towel rolls, bottles, butter tubs, lids and plastic or styrofoam cups. You'll need also a roll of paper, I used paper towels. If you are making this little guy for indoors then you can use any type of glue, paste or Mod Podge as the stiffening agent. If you prefer to make your guy for outdoors then I'll give you other materials at the end of these instructions.
So collect your boxes, they'll be the skeleton of the Nutcracker. Here's a sketchy example.
Start stacking them just to see what will work. If you notice I started with butter tubs to attach the legs, but the legs were bottles and were too heavy, so I had to omit the butter tubs.
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Next you'll need Mod Podge or even Elmer's white glue will work. Add about a half cup of glue or podge into a fairly large pan, then a little more than half cup of water to it. Mix till it's creamy.
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Tear strips of paper toweling or whatever kind of paper you use, newspaper works well too. Just tear lots of strips because you'll be working quickly.
Dip each strip into your liquid glue then begin to cover each individual box or bottle that you are using with the strip. This is very messy so cover your work surface. Smooth the strip as you go.
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When you've added at least two layers of paper strips over each object, set them aside to dry thoroughly. Once dry, they will be stiff and stronger than without the strips, particularly if they are boxes or core rolls.
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When they are completely dry, you can use either a glue gun or E6000 to attach your pieces to each other. Some people like to paint each individual piece before attaching the whole unit together and that's entirely up to you. If you notice in the picture on the right above, I used a rod that I pushed up through all the pieces simply to make sure I aligned them reasonably straight. I left the rod in it throughout the completion because painting it might also dislodge the pieces. The rod seemed to keep it secure.
The heaviest parts of this structure are the legs made from glass bottles. I didn't have pringles cans, so I made do with what I did have. Everything else is plastic or cardboard.
So now he's all glued together and you are ready to paint him. There are tons of Nutcracker images on the internet, all you need to do is Google Nutcracker images.
I just drew a simple design on his face and body, then painted in whatever colors I had. Oh, the epaulets (shoulder thingies) are the tops of the butter tubs that I didn't use.
You can embellish your guy with sparklies if you want, I added a few halogen paper pieces so mine catches the light on his hat and buttons. If you have gold buttons, gold braid, anything that might look like a soldier, because that's what nutcrackers really were, fierce protectors, use them. Here's a little history about nutcrackers:
Now if you want to make a nutcracker for outside then you'll need to use tin cans. You can use them as they are and simply paint them in the design you choose, or you can get a product called Pretex which will form a covering for them that is waterproof and then paint. I haven't used Pretex but I know others who have.
The directions I've given are a quick method of papier mache'. I thought you'd prefer quicker methods. But the problem is that if they get wet they'll disintegrate. I'll solve that by keeping mine inside or on my porch.
I painted this one with acrylics simply because I had them handy.
I'll start a thread on the Garden Art forum and will link it here. That way you can post pictures of your Nutcracker when he's all ready to stand guard beneath your tree.
Have fun!!
Here's the link to take you to the Garden Art Nutcracker thread.
You can ask questions here or there, I'll just bounce back and forth.
It's November.
When I was little I could hardly wait for November to get here. The mountains would be all ready to be cloaked in winter snows, clothes became warmer and heavier, hickory smoke was in the air, molasses was curing, soap was being stacked like white bricks on brown paper and it was almost time for gingerbread and jam cakes. It was also my birthday month and coming on the early edge of Thanksgiving, my birthday was the beginning of the holiday season.
My heart started tingling on the first day of November every single year, and I don't think it stopped tingling till after Valentine's Day when I started looking for early spring blooms, which always brought on a different kind of tingle, the kind that happened whenever I was on a plant journey up the mountain with Aunt Bett.
It still happens.
It's a gorgeous day, nearing 70 degrees. My clothes aren't yet heavier or warmer. I can't smell hickory smoke and my soap is in the wrapper it came in; it isn't stacked like white bricks and it isn't wrapped in brown. And my neighbor's knockout roses are still blooming.
But I went outside early this morning, still dressed in my long gown with ruffles on the bottom. Here I sit now with wet ruffles dangling around my ankles, but oh boy, I couldn't wait to get the photos on my screen.
It isn't the same as in the mountains. It isn't the same as it was 60 years ago. It's warmer and the trees are barely turning. I still have flowers blooming. But the tingles of my heart tell me it's November.
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Strawflowers that came all the way from LarryR's garden in Iowa are happy in November and so is Sophie's Rose, who might just continue to bloom when the snow falls. She usually does.
So here it is, a morning of dew dampened ruffles around my ankles, November 1, 2011, and my heart is still tingling. There is nobody else in my house except my cats, and here they sit looking at me, waiting to see whatever it is that makes me smile on a November morning.
Maybe those of us who love nature and living don't have to look very far to find things to be excited about. We just open our eyes and our hearts and there it is right in front of us.
Happy November!
