Technical difficulties, please stand by

It was one of those weeks, and the current linocut sat neglected for way too many days. Between the too-dry inks on the page and struggles to get just the right ink consistency for the next pass things didn't go entirely as planned. I got some decent prints, but I also lost several to slipping and other annoying maladies. One more color to go, but unfortunately it's going to have to wait a few days again. Keep your fingers crossed.

In the meantime, I've been keeping up with my "100 Thumbnails" project. Let's see, it's October 11... I have 39 sketches at the moment, and there are still a few hours left in the day.

It's starting to get a little more challenging, as the weather is changing and the available daylight hours for sitting outside with a sketchbook (my preferred thumbnail-making routine) are waning. Thank goodness the DM had a gig last week at Adams Mountain Café, so I could sit in a corner with a pencil and a glass of scrumptious spiced tea for a couple of hours! I don't often draw interiors, so I tell myself it's "good for me" when some complicated view of a corner or furniture turns my 5- or 10-minute sketch to a 20- or 30-minute analysis. The point IS to learn something, after all!

Another challenge that comes with the season change is adjusting to the end of our farm share. We picked up our last bushel box of produce on Saturday.... (sigh).

Yeah, this is how every Saturday has looked in our kitchen since June.

We'll still be able to buy some fresh produce now that we have a little local food market in town, but our Saturday morning ritual will shift. No more rolling out of bed and wandering down the street for coffee, apple strudel, farm eggs, and our box o' veggies. This coming Saturday is our last farmers market day, and I'll be doing a brief hands-on printmaking adventure at the Shed Fest celebration in the afternoon. And then? We'll have to come up with some other routine. As long as it doesn't involve shoveling snow, I guess I'll adjust. Like the ink. And my prints. And my thumbnails. Eventually.

One more leafy testament

Fresh local produce AND clever bag design? Kale yeah! 

Our farmers are the best! (Even if Seth DOES ask to take my picture first thing on a Saturday morning.)

Have I rambled incessantly about mentioned how much we love our CSA and our farmers? When I picked up our vegetable share at the farmers market this morning I discovered these clever new market bags. Did I have to get one? Kale yeah! (Get it?) Check out The Weathervane Arrow, our source for farm news and fun, for the full story. Thanks, Caitlin and Seth!

Impatient

Spring is coming, but it's taking its sweet time about it.

I hate to use the word "typical," since weather patterns seem to be anything BUT typical these days, but true to spring-in-the-Rockies form we spent our entire weekend in glorious rain (and a little snow). We've been so desperately dry here that two cloudy, damp days were a blissful change. But STILL. Can't I put away at least one layer of fleece now?



Yesterday I took a long walk in the cold and gray and was rewarded with a pair of American avocets at Frantz Lake. Common elsewhere, avocets seem to only pass through our area, and getting a glimpse is a treat. A black phoebe is back, too... and suddenly I am twitchy to be out walking as often as possible.

Here at 7,000 feet altitude we have only the tiniest bits of green showing through the ochre and brown. I don't mind too much, until I start wandering around the blogosphere and see photos of lower altitude gardens in bloom. (sigh) Patience. Patience.

When we moved in to this house last spring we were faced with a yard that had been sadly neglected. We did what we could to clean it up last season (a particular challenge during the month-long roof replacement adventure), but there is still a lot to do. With the generous help of mad gardener friends we managed to put in a few new plantings, and several times a day I wander out to the yard to see what has survived my novice gardener stumblings.

Here come the daylilies! Friend Scott, from whose garden these were transplanted last year, assured me that even an inexperienced gardener like me couldn't kill daylilies... and he was right!

Discovering things that we didn't plant and which didn't show their faces last year is fun, too. There are hyacinth, and tulips, and one or two as-yet-unidentified mysteries poking out of beds that last year hosted... erm... less desirable... plant life. Yippee! Now, if I can just keep the deer from chomping on them.

The grass is starting to green up in the park down the street and this, of course, makes me long for the farmer's market. Last week the DM and I paid our deposit for our veggie share from Weathervane Farm, our local CSA. Do I really have to wait until June to spend Saturday mornings visiting with friends, eating fresh-baked strudel, and procuring the week's foodstuffs? (another sigh) Patience. Patience.

Oh, forget patience. I'm gonna go check the yard again. Maybe something new came up in the last three hours.