You can't cry over spilled milk

This has been a strange growing year.  

We have no pears, they froze and so did all of our other fruit trees.  Yes, even apples and plums. 

There was hope, our Interlaken grapes were ripening.

There would be enough Champagne Grape Jelly to share with friends and family. 

Not so.  In only 2 days,  flies, yes flies have destroyed our entire grape harvest.  

Have you heard of such a thing?  

Yellow Jackets and Wasps have had their way with our grapes in the past.  But NEVER flies.

So far the only fruit I have canned are Red Currants. 

Our root vegetables are doing well. 

And we have a fine crop of Sunflowers. 

So, all is not lost. 


Have a great remainder of the week my dear 
Friends, 

Gina 

I've been writing a book

And it's off to the Printer this morning.

Hurrah!

Now back to painting.

A few more ceramics to paint for the 

Artist Studio Tour 

this weekend. 

Have a great week my dear Blogging Friends.

Gina 

I have not abandoned you

As usual, this time of year

I am preparing for  

the Annual Artist Studio Tour. 

See that red Poppy with the black and green center?

That is an Opium Poppy,  (papaver somniferum).

When I was a very young girl I spent a lot of time out in the country side gathering food for our many rabbits. 

Sooner or later I would run into a Poppy field. 

Often the pods were almost ripe but not quite. 

I would open a pod, empty the many seeds into my hand and hold my hand up toward the sun. 

Within seconds the unripe and green seeds would turn into black poppy seeds, yes the kind you would sprinkle onto baked breads and cakes. 

As soon as the seeds turned black I would eat them, all of them, 

all at once. 

Was that Euphoria I felt?

Wishing you a euphoric week my dear 
Blogging Friends

Gina  

An ordinary day

Most of the time

I have the luxury to do as I please

I can pick flowers for my kitchen window.

I can bake a quiche for Lunch.

With greens from our garden.

And eggs from our chickens.

Prepare stuffed peppers for dinner.

Drop off a bucket of sunflowers at the local florist.  She will remember when I need a little 
pick me - up -rose - bouquet in the middle of  winter.  

I can paint a few more tiles.

(These are the last tiles of the phase 5 project)

And then I can sit back in the evening and do nothing.  

How about you?  

Can you take time out and enjoy the view?  

Hope so.  

Have a great week my dear friends.

Gina 

Take an ordinary door

And transform it 

into something not so ordinary.

And, by the way, the faux stone walls are my secret recipe of dry wall compound and sand.  Each block hand painted with acrylic paints.  

But first, let me tell you.  Our doors,  for our new house,  are very old doors.  In fact they are more than 100 years old.  

Deseret News


But they are not ordinary.  They were salvaged from the famous and very elegant Hotel Utah,  the Grande Dame of Hotels in the Intermountain West. 

Now not a Hotel anymore but the Joseph Smith Memorial Building.
  
I remember dining and dancing many beautiful evenings at the rooftop of this venerable hotel.  

But no more.  

The doors were painted white on one side and left natural on the other side, just as you see here, in our bathroom. 

They were the doors which opened the many doors to individual rooms of the hotel.  Some of the doors still had room numbers attached.  

I left the natural wood as is but painted the doors on the white side.  

 I painted right on the top of the old white paint.


What do you think? 


Plain white, natural wood or faux marble?  



Thank you for stopping by.  Have a great week ahead. 

Gina

http://betweennapsontheporch.net/

Don't peel the Beets

What's Summer without a Beet Salad? 

Instead of round beets grow cylindrical beets next year.  

They cook evenly and slice evenly and taste terrific. 

Bake them or boil them, but don't peel them. 

(Baking intensifies their flavor)

Also, leave the tops and roots intact, 
that way they won't bleed. 

When al dente let cool. While still warm twist beets in both directions.  Skin will come off in one piece.  

Season with coarse salt, add small amount of sugar and apple cider vinegar to taste. 

Chop medium sized onion and add to salad.

Have a lovely weekend my dear friends. 

Gina